At 03:46 PM 29/04/00 +1000, Dow, Coral (DPL) wrote: >Does anyone have a death date for Uriah Hoddinott? He was buried at >Bairnsdale in 1885. I would like to check his obituary in the Bairnsdale >Advertiser. >I am trying to ascertain if he worked as a protector of Aborigines before >coming to Gippsland in 1845. Peck (memoirs of a stockman) said he came from >Goulburn NSW (where he had been protector of Aborigines) accompanied by two >Aborigines. I suspect it is more likely the Victorian Goulburn River >protectorate, there was a rations depot at Murchison on the Goulburn, but >the protectors there were Dredge and then LeSoeuf. >Any assistance much appreciated. > > Following information is provided from my copy of Monumental Memories - Bairnsdale Cemetery, by Tim Gibson, Kapana Press Bairnsdale 1996 -- Page 25 No. 93 "Uriah Hoddinott (1819-1885) was born in Somerset, England and married Martha Child in 1841, before sailing for Melbourne. Their first child was born there a month after their arrival and Hoddinott left the family to work as an overseer at Murchison. In 1845 he bought cattle and drove them around the coast to a run on Merriman's Creek which he named "Sunville", where his family joined him. The Hoddinotts were known for their pro-Aboriginal sympathies. After financial problems in 1868 they moved to East Gippsland and eventually settled at Raymond Island, leasing it for grazing from 1874 to 1881. In October 1885 Hoddinott was found dead after having drunk from a mustard pot. The doctor gave the cause of death as 'heart disease and dropsy' based on an examination eighteen months earlier. A grandson, William, serving with the 13th Light Horse in World War 1, thirty years later, was told by a soldier in France that Uriah had been poisoned. The cause of his death remains a mystery to this day." I suggest you look in the Addy for October and November 1885 and you should find something. Perhaps the Gippsland Times may have something also. Laurie.