samuel hatty's sister's husband william fraser livingstone

2 Eades Place in 2021

So you may remember last December I mentioned Samuel Hatty and his turning the red bit of a union jack into a red flag and getting put in prison for a month for that. Well, when Samuel Hatty went to war in 1915 he gave his sister's address, 2 Eades Place, West Melbourne as his residence which presumably it wasn't (it might have been - he was orphaned when his mother died in 1906 when he was 15-16, but he was 25 in 1915) but it was the closest thing he had to one. 

I don't know anything more about this sister, Margaret, except that she died in Geelong in 1975 but I tell you who I wouldn't want to be and that's William Fraser Livingstone, who was Margaret's husband. Three awful things at least happened to him, which you probably want to hear about. 

On 9 am on the 7 February 1913 (yes that's right, exactly 109 years ago - look, be fair, all anniversaries are tenuous/meaningless) William Livingstone and two other labourers in his 'stacking gang' were instructed to stack cargo from the Australind at No. 19 shed at Victoria Dock and, while he was lifting a girder, it slipped and fell on his feet. One of them was crushed and the other fractured. He was in hospital until the 15 March and was permanently disabled. He sued the Victorian Stevedoring and General Contracting Co., and received £351 compensation (Age 20 August 1913, p. 12). 

I'm guessing this is the Australind in question, but can't be certain

On 19 November 1916 he was sufficiently recovered to undertake a public service almost no-one on earth would have wanted to do, which was retrieve the bodies of two brothers who drowned in West Melbourne Swamp. There's been a little fad lately for romanticising the West Melbourne Swamp but like most things that's a little simplistic, at least, we like to think if we had the beautiful West Melbourne Swamp AKA Blue Lake still today we'd treat it right and wouldn't let young boys drown in it, but then, we also like our creature comforts etc - you know the argument. In 1916 apparently there was still 8 ft of water somewhere there, more than enough for Frederick (14) and Edmund (11) to drown in (along with their two other brothers, they'd been looking for bullfrogs). Livingstone was described in the Weekly Times' account of the coroner hearing as a 'labourer'. ('Coroner's Inquests: Brothers Die in Swamp' Weekly Times 2 December 1916 p. 34). 

One of the many famed Oswald Barnett images from the 1930s. I am not sure in what sense the swamp was 'made from [a] rubbish tip' but I bet it was often used as one. It was all very close to North Melbourne.

He then had bad luck around 3pm on the 24 April 1926 when he was on a tram turning from Elizabeth St into Lonsdale St when the grip 'suddenly flew back' hitting the tramway grip man, William Jones, in the chest and knocked him to the floor. Jones had fractured ribs; Conrad Bates, 72, of Abbotsford St North Melbourne received facial abrasions and William Livingston bruised his leg, which incidentally (so the newspaper says) he had broken a year earlier. ('Cable Tram Jolted', Melbourne Argus 26 April 1926 p. 10). 

Cable tram in Lonsdale St near Elizabeth in the mid-1930s. 

WFL died just after the second world war and is buried in St Arnaud. He didn't make 60.