Crawford – Keady Family in Victoria

Our Grandparents, Thomas Patrick KEADY (1874-1946) and Lillian Catherine CRAWFORD (1881-1962) were married in Wodonga and moved to the new Coalfields at the Powlett River Coalfields in 1909.

Tent City at Powlett River Coalfields (Wonthaggi)

Thomas and Lillian married on the 10 June 1907 at St Augustine’s Catholic Church, Wodonga. It is not exactly clear where they were living at the time, but we do know from Electoral rolls that Thomas had been living at Koetong with his family in 1903 and Lillian had been been living at Corryong, just down the road with her family. It was probably a fair bet that they met at one of the pubs or staging posts at Koetong because the only road from Corryong back to civilisation at Albury/Wodonga was the road through Koetong and Tallangatta heading west.

In the period after their marriage, Thomas and Lillian must have stayed in the local district because their first child, John Dennis Keady was born in Albury on 30 December, 1907. Their second and third children, Thomas Patrick KEADY and Frances Keady were both born at Powlett River. Thomas on 2 June, 1909 and Frances on 13 July 1910.

In the early years of the 1900s Victoria relied heavily on coal from the Hunter Valley in NSW to supply its railways. After a strike at the NSW coalfields, the Victorian Government was determined to secure its own supply, which led to the development of the State Coal Mine and establishment of the town of Wonthaggi on 1 August 1910. The area known as the Powlett River Coalfields had already been operating in a limited way for a number of years, but the coal had to be carted by bullock wagons to Inverloch and then shipped to Melbourne.

A tent city sprung up in no time to accomodate the workers who flocked from around Australia and overseas.

The following extract from an article published in “The Age” in January, 1910 provides a fantastic description of the tent city that Thomas and Lillian initially called home.