Surname: WHISKIN
Given Name(s): James Mark

Occupation(s): Baker

Birth Details
Birth Town: Dartford
Birth County, Region, Province: Kent
Birth Country: England, UK
Birth Date: 1859

Death Details
Death Town: Claremont
Death State/Territory: Western Australia
Death Country: Australia
Death Date: 1931

Immigration Details
Year Arrived: c1891

Surname: MATTHEWS
Given Name(s): Elizabeth Mary

Birth Details
Birth Town: Greenponds
Birth County, Region, Province: Tasmania
Birth Country: Australia
Birth Date: 1873

Death Details
Death Town: Embleton
Death State/Territory: Western Australia
Death Country: Australia
Death Date: 1962

Family Stories

Life in Australia:

Young James Mark (known as Mark) learned the bakery trade. The 1881 census shows him as a baker, aged 21, boarding at 20 Queens Road, Battersea, Surrey. He emigrated to Melbourne about 1891 and told his children that the ship on which he came was shipwrecked and broke in two. The 1894 Post Office Directory of Melbourne shows Mark in partnership in a bakery, Wheelan and Miller, at 113 Balaclava Road, Balaclava and he lived at Prahran, a nearby suburb. In 1894, aged 31, he married 21 year old Elizabeth, a shopwoman at the English Church, Oban St, Hawksburn, St Kilda. Presumably to disguise his illegitimacy, he referred to Mark Whiskin, baker as his father, and Mary Blackham as his mother. Mark and Elizabeth Whiskin were caught in the great bank crashes in Victoria and following a brief stint in Kalgoorlie, W.A. operated Whiskin's Bakeries in North Perth. The first store was at 5 Kadina Street. Mark was approximately 5'6", of slight build, meticulous in his dress and by all accounts a smooth and charming man when sober. Unfortunately, he was an alcoholic and became aggressive and abusive to his family when drunk. Some time in the 1920's the Whiskin family moved from Kadina Street to Charles Street and set up another bakery. The shop, located at 332 Charles Street, is still standing. Mark would not sell the Kadina Street property to Brownes Dairy and his daughter, Alma purchased it for £270 in 1927. Mark died in the Claremont Asylum for the Insane and was buried at the Wesleyan Cemetery, Karrakatta. Elizabeth was the daughter of convict, Walter "Thomas" Matthews and grand-daughter of Irish convicts, Elizabeth and Martin Keogh. Her father registered her birth as "Mary", born 18th November, 1872, though she celebrated the 13th October as her birthday and her baptismal entry denotes "Elizabeth Mary". Her father officially registred three of his girls as Mary! Until about 1820 most observers expected and feared that the rising generation of native-born Australians, mainly sprung from convict parents, would reproduce the vicious characteristics of most of their parents, perhaps in a heightened form. After that time nearly all chroniclers agreed, with mingled surprise and relief, that no such thing had occurred. Cunningham's characterisation of the 'Currency lads and lasses' exemplifies the general contemporary view.(1)"Our Colonial-born brethren are best known here by the name of Currency, in contradistinction to Sterling, or those born in the mother country. The name was originally given by a facetious paymaster of the seventy-third regiment quartered here, the pound currency being at that time inferior to the pound sterling. Our Currency lads and lasses are a fine interesting race, and do honour to the country whence they originated. The name is a sufficient passport to esteem with all the well-informed and right-feeling portion of our population.....The Currencies grow up tall and slender, like the Americans, and are generally remarkable for that Gothic peculiarity of fair hair and blue eyes which has been noticed by other writers. Their complexions, when young, are of reddish sallow, and they are for the most part easily distinguishable - even in more advanced years - from those born in England. Cherry cheeks are not accompaniments of our climate.....The young females generally lose their teeth early, like the Americans and West Indians, this calamity always commencing about the period of puberty: it may possibly be ascribed to the climatising process, as we see nearly all plants and animals suffer considerable change in appearance on transplantation to a different latitude: we may therefore hope this defect will subside when a few generations have passed away. 'The Currency lads' is now a popular standing toast, since it was given by Major Goulburn at the Agricultural dinner, while 'The Currency lasses' gives name to one of our most favourite tunes. The young men of low rank are fonder of binding themselves to trades, or going to sea, than passing into the employ of the settlers, as regular farm-servants. This no doubt arises partly from their unwillingness to mix with the convicts so universally employed on farms, partly from a sense of pride; for, owing to convicts being hitherto almost the sole agricultural labourers, they naturally look upon that vocation as degrading in the same manner as white men in slave colonies regard work of any kind, seeing that none but slaves do work. It is partly this same pride, as much as the hostile sentiments instilled into them by their parents, that makes them so utterly averse to fill the situation of petty constables, or to enlist as soldiers".(2) (1) - "Such Was Life: Select Documents in Australian Social History 1788-1850" compiled by Russel Ward and John Robertson. Ure Smith, 1969. (2) - "Two Years in New South Wales" etc. P. Cunningham. 3rd Ed., Henry Colburn, London 1828; Vol. 2, pp. 46 - 52. Elizabeth's father committed suicide a few months before she turned 7, and the family moved to Melbourne. She was 21 years old when she married Mark but she didn't have an easy marriage with him. She had ten children in 22 years and suffered from painful ulcers on her leg (from bad circulation). She lost two children, Margaret and Leslie, in infancy and tragically her eldest son, Mark died aged 31 years. The year before his death, Mark's wife had died from child birth complications. Elizabeth raised their orphaned son, Lloyd. Because of Mark's alcoholic rages, Elizabeth left him for some time in the mid 1920s and moved to Woodville Street, North Perth (the first of three homes). As there were no alcoholic rehabilitation facilities in Western Australia in those days, Mark was later admitted to Claremont Insane Asylum. When the Charles Street shop was sold in 1938, the couple's three sons were given £100 each. The youngest, George was remembered as a lovable dandy; a colourful, outgoing character who wore brilliant checked suits. He was persuaded by a friend to set up a hairdressing salon in London Court and was told "there's nothing to it". The saga ended ingloriously with a near law suit when George burnt the hair off a lady having a perm. The chemicals and electrodes were in and George nipped down to the Metropol Hotel for three quick beers. His apprentice came running in saying "the woman's hair is on fire!" George raced back and switched off the power. As he pulled off the cap which held the wires coming down from the roof, the poor lady's scalp was just bare flesh and black roots. George gave her £5 to keep quiet, but she was determined to sue. The suit was droped after George's solicitor told the lady that venereal disease also causes hair to fall out and advised that he knew she had been playing up with the Yanks! George was cautioned to make himself scarce and enlisted in the army. According to his nephew, he was later spotted in Hay Street shaking a tin, raising funds for soldiers going overseas (himself of course). After her husband's death, Elizabeth lived and worked with her sons in their bakeries at Albany, Norseman and Wundowie. She worked hard all her life, without any modern conveniences. Her final years were spent with her daughter, Nona and husband Tom Hinchliffe at Cannington. Elizabeth loved a bet on the races, placing one shilling and three pence each way. She was also very keen to purchase the two shilling and sixpence lottery tickets and won small amounts occasionally. Always impeccably dressed, usually in a tailored skirt, blouse and jacket, Elizabeth was never without a carefully starched linen handkerchief and a dab of Eau-de-Cologne. Elizabeth had a quick and at times caustic wit. She had very definite ideas on what were considered good manners and what was "correct". She demanded and received respect from all her children. Elizabeth died aged 89 years at Embleton Hospital and is buried at Karrakatta.

Life Before Australia:

Mark was born at Dartford, Kent to Mary Ann Whiskin of South Darenth, Horton Kirby. No father's details were recorded, however Mark Atkins, a baker was at the same address as Mary Ann at the time of her mother's death in 1870. Three of Mary Ann's children had either Mark or Atkins as second Christian names. The areas of Kent settled by our Whiskin ancestors are within an eight mile radius of Northfleet on the Thames River. Although all records have not survived, it seems our line can be traced back to Richard and Mary Whiskin (nee Nat) who married in 1700 at Northfleet. Mark Whiskin lived in extraordinary times. Born in 1859 in the reign of Queen Victoria, some of the events which occurred in his lifetime included China's war and the Boxer Rebellion; David Livingstone's explorations; the Crimean War; Florence Nightingale and the birth of modern nursing; Victoria crowned as Empress of India; Mahatma Ghandi's passive protests against British rule; the reign of George V; the outbreak of World War I; the writing of "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; the election of Abraham Lincoln; the succession of the southern states and the American Civil War; modern olympics; the Australian cricket team bringing home the ashes; pasteurisation and penicillin; the overthrow of the Russian Csar and the introduction of the Communist Manifesto; Charles Darwin; the Gettysburg Address; the sinking of the Titanic and the US and Japan becoming world powers. He would have marvelled at the invention of the gramaphone; phonograph; the first automobile; the box camera; the first aeroplanes; the typewriter; electric light; the wireless and radio; the kinetoscope (the first machine to produce motion pictures) and the telegraph repeating instrument. Murderer Jack the Ripper, Poet Rudyard Kipling and entertainers including Nellie Melba and Charlie Chaplin lived in Mark's era. He was 9 years old when the last shipment of convicts from England to Australia occurred in 1868. The 1896 bank crashes and the 1920s depression would have had their effect on Mark and Elizabeth's lives. In Western Australia, they would have seen "gold fever" in Kalgoorlie in the 1890's, the opening of Fremantle Harbour and the first water pipeline to Kalgoorlie; and nationally, the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia, votes for women and the birth of the union movement.

Descendants

Children
WHISKIN, Nona Mary 1 WHISKIN, George Verdun 10 WHISKIN, Mark 2
WHISKIN, Margaret Ada Polo 3 WHISKIN, Alma Bona 4 WHISKIN, Dorothy Nena 5
WHISKIN, Muriel Jessie 6 WHISKIN, Harold James 7 WHISKIN, Leslie Arthur 8
WHISKIN, Alan John 9

Grandchildren
DODD, Alan Jabe Bona 4 DODD, Joyce Bona 4

Great Grandchildren
DODD, David Gilmore 4 DODD, Diane Elizabeth 4 DODD, Keith Hugh 4

Great Great Grandchildren
DODD, Hayley Sharon 4 DODD, Kane Michael 4

NB: Superscript behind each descendant name represents the lineage number of that descendant.
This family information was last updated by GAIL DODD on the 24 January, 1999.