Welsh Journals

rather than maintain them on the rates. For the most part, how- ever, till about 1850 the cost of getting here kept poorer folk away. Among the more well-to-do who did come was John Jones Peers*, of Welsh parentage. Small, fiery and red-headed, he was an accomplished organist and tenor, by trade a builder. Coming to Melbourne in 1837, he built a small Methodist chapel, then a bigger one in which he installed the organ that is now (enlarged) in Wesley Church. His great-grand-daughter married Governor- General Lord Casey. The settlers who flourished before the discovery of gold showed a wonderful diversity of achievement. Nicholas Bayley*, son of an MP for Anglesey and nephew of an earl, was a stormy petrel, siding with Macarthur against Bligh, then quarrelling with the former, and finally settling down as secretary and cashier of the Bank of NSW. Bishop H. C. Davis* (RC), from Usk, was an early and leading senator of Sydney University. Edward Dumaresque*, from Swansea, was a surveyor and landowner in Illawara and Victoria, and when he died in 1906 aged 104 he was the world's oldest magistrate. David Jones*, of Llandilo, had twenty-six years' experience of store-keeping before coming first to Hobart (1835) and then to Sydney to found his famous firm. He traded with vision, extending unheard-of credit to his customers and chartering, in both directions, the entire cargo space of passenger ships from Britain. When he retired in 1856 the business failed, so he came back, got things going again, and stayed for another twelve years. A devout Congregationalist, he had big banking, insurance, building society, civic and philanthropic interests. D. J. Thomas*, of Llangadock, was a ship's doctor who swam ashore at Port Phillip Bay in 1839. Though a wild colonial boy off duty, he was a first-class surgeon and played a leading role in early Melbourne medicine. Another ship's doctor, Thomas Richards*t, son of a Dolgellau lawyer, came to Hobart in 1832, switched to journalism and became 'the father of the Tasmanian press'. Robert Thomas* (Gwent) came to SA in 1837 after twenty years in Fleet Street and founded a newspaper dynasty in Adelaide. As chairman of the Imperial Press Conference his grandson was knighted in 1910. Two Chartists, condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered