The writer acknowledges with gratitude the generous assistance of Emeritus Professor Edwin G Westaway PhD, DSc in researching the material that follows. Apart from a few editorial modifications, the text is substantially his. In view of his grandfather’s distinguished war service in the Far East in the 1850s, it is interesting to note that Dr Westaway was commissioned in the RAAF in World War Two and survived while serving as Navigator-cum-Bomb-Aimer in 49 Lancaster Squadron, RAF Bomber Command.

Edwin Westaway was born on 7 November 1839 at Tiverton 18 miles north of Exeter, Devon, and baptised there at St Peter’s Anglican Church, the second son of a ‘tailor and draper’, William Garbett Westaway (bap. 3 February 1808 in St Kerrian’s Church, North Street, Exeter). His father was a third generation member in a Devon family business of ‘tailors and habit makers’ that flourished in Exeter for over 40 years. William Garbett Westaway married Ellen Worthy Chaplin (bap. 21 November 1811 in Tiverton), the daughter of John and Mary Chaplin, at her parish church, St James’s, Westminster, on 1 March 1836. The family lived in Tiverton until Edwin’s mother died on 3 May 1845, followed by his father’s death on 1 October 1847. With both parents deceased Edwin was raised by his aunt Charlotte Westaway and her husband Edwin Force, ‘attorney and procter’ living at 3 Deanery Close, Exeter (there is a plaque inside Exeter Cathedral commemorating his church support). His older brother William (b. about 1837) was recorded in the 1851 Census as living with his mother’s brother Jonathan Chaplin (a picture dealer and restorer) at Westminster. William, an artist, while still a minor, married Sarah Ann Crease on 22 June 1856. He was never mentioned in Australia by his brother Edwin, probably because they were separated when so young.

Edwin Westaway was accepted for training at the Royal Naval College as a Master’s Assistant, probably at age 14. Subsequently he was examined and certified on 13 August 1855 as a qualified Master’s Assistant to serve in Her Majesty’s Navy with the basic navigation skills. He served as a Master’s Assistant (the ship’s Navigating Lieutenant) from 13 December 1855 to 6 November 1862 on six ships: HM Steam Frigate Seahorse, HMS Impregnable, HM Steam Sloop Inflexible, HMS Calcutta as ‘an active promising young officer’, HM Sloop Acorn (3 November 1857 to 24 March 1860), HMS Simoom, and HMS Royal Adelaide. Additional qualifications were mentioned when his Three Yearly Certificate was granted on 13 March 1859 whilst he was on board the sloop Acorn at Amoy (China). Most of his active duty was in the Far East where he served on HM Sloop Acorn during the Second Chinese War 1857-1860. He was awarded a medal commemorating the Battle of Taku Forts (near Tientsin, China) in 1859. After serving on HMS Royal Adelaide (8 February to 6 November 1862) he was discharged at his own request while docked at Devonport (near Plymouth), Devon, on 6 November 1862.

On 3 February 1863, at the age of 23 after only three months back in England, Edwin Westaway left Gravesend on the Light Brigade (Captain Evans) bound for Australia. Records indicate that there were 18 cabin passengers and 411 immigrants on board (‘mostly from the depressed area of Lancashire and Coventry’). Sadly, a young midshipman named Lewis Lucas Dyer was lost overboard en route and attempts to save him failed. The ship dropped anchor at Brisbane Roads on the afternoon of 18 May 1863; and two days later the immigrants and other passengers were brought up to the South Brisbane wharf on the steamer Ipswich.

Edwin settled in Brisbane working as a solicitor’s clerk, and on 11 December 1865 in St John’s Cathedral was married by Reverend James Matthews to Margaret James (b. 16 September 1846 at Wilson’s Promontory) whom he had met during a Royal Navy visit to Melbourne. She was the eldest child of John James (a painter) and Isabella McMaster who arrived in Melbourne from Greenock, Scotland, as teenagers with their respective parents on the first two immigrant ships that arrived in Port Philip. Isabella was aboard the SS David Clarke (arrived 27 October 1839) and John on the SS Westminster (arrived 13 December 1839).

John James (b. 1819 in County Carlow, Ireland) married Isabella McMaster (b. 1826 in Dumfries, Scotland) in the Scots Church, Melbourne, on 20 January 1846, and they produced 10 children who lived for a mean age of 83 years (range 61 to 102 years). John and Isabella died in Brisbane on 10 April 1899 and 1 September 1900 respectively and lie buried in Toowong Cemetery (Portion 11 Section 17 Grave 3) near the Blackall Memorial. A headstone was erected in 1993 ‘by their descendants to the sixth generation’.

The witnesses at Edwin Westaway’s marriage in 1865 were Thomas and Emma Addenbrooke who had been fellow passengers of Edwin on his voyage to Australia. Thomas, as he states in an advertisement in the Brisbane Courier giving notice of his intention to be admitted as an attorney, solicitor and proctor of the Supreme Court of Queensland, was ‘an Attorney of Her Majesty’s Court of Queen’s Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, at Westminster; and a Solicitor in the High Court of Chancery in England’. He may have assisted Edwin in obtaining employment as a solicitor’s clerk.

However, Edwin’s navy training was put to better use when he later joined the Port Office, Brisbane, and subsequently retired as Chief Clerk, having done quite extensive work in mapping the Queensland coastline. He resided at a waterfront property in Lechmere Street, New Farm, where he and his wife brought up a family of three sons and five daughters, two other children having died in infancy. During the 1893 flood the family observed whole houses floating down the Brisbane River. They later lived at Sherwood and the youngest children attended the Rocklea Primary School.

After his retirement Edwin decided to enjoy the country atmosphere of Sunnybank; he rented a residence on the Beenleigh Road not far from the railway station, and subsequently purchased the Bushy Park property with frontages to Jackson Road and Hellawell Road covering 118 acres. There were then only six other residents in the locality. He later sold an area of 56 acres fronting Hellawell Road to the Bale family. The Bushy Park homestead was located at the end of a long winding driveway from Jackson Road, shaded by the flanking Moreton Bay fig trees, and was a delightful lowset colonial home surrounded by an extensive garden. Edwin gifted most (48 acres) of the land to family members and subsequently three more residences were erected for son Harold, widowed daughter Ellen, and grandson HM (Merlin) Henderson who farmed his area of 17 acres. The original Bushy Park homestead was occupied within the Westaway family for well over 50 years; but, after numerous subdivisions to housing blocks in recent years, it remains heritage listed but neglected on only a small plot, with nearby Westaway Street and the Westaway Park strips beside the original Westaway Waterholes on the eastern boundary as the only reminders of the earlier era. The Bushy Park area is now part of the suburb of Sunnybank Hills.
 

Like Margaret Westaway’s parents, she and Edwin Westaway produced a mainly long-lived family. Apart from two infant deaths, William₁ and Alfred, buried in Toowong Cemetery (Portion 13 Section 32 Grave 8) and that of Margaret aged 51 years, the mean life span of the 7 surviving children was 86 years. Their details are as follows:

Edwin (Ted) James Westaway—b. 8 October 1866; m. Minnie Sophia Penfold 2 April 1889 (5 children); d. 22 May 1954. Prominent in local government, he was Chairman of the very large Shire of Yeerongpilly in 1914 and was recorded as Shire Clerk in 1924. Also in 1924 he was the ‘able President’ of the Rocklea Agricultural and Industrial Association which purchased 15 acres of freehold land in Ipswich Road about 5 years earlier and developed there the Rocklea Showgrounds, ‘considered the most up-to-date showgrounds (outside the Royal National) in Queensland’.

Ellen Westaway—b. 3 February 1869; m. Charles Clewley Martindale 17 May 1902 (no issue); d. 17 August 1953; buried from the Bushy Park homestead.

Charlotte Isabel Westaway—b. 27 February 1871; m. Harry Sawyer 8 November 1892 (7 children); d. 21 August 1941.

Annie Force Westaway—b. 18 June 1873; m. James Henderson (b. 3 May 1856), the son of Andrew Inglis and Emma Pamela (née Collins) Henderson, 13 April 1898 (4 children); d. aged 94 20 August 1967. James died on 16 April 1936 aged 79 and was buried in Toowong Cemetery in the grave (11 62 9) that would later receive his wife’s remains. Their family home, ‘Penola’, was at 12 Blackett Street, Annerley.

Edith Mary Westaway—b. 18 September 1875; m. Norman Leopold Zillman, the son of Andrew Henry and Emma Jane (née Baker) Zillman, 8 November 1915 (1 child); d. 26 March 1968 aged 92.

William₁ Westaway—b.17 May 1878; d. 7 October 1878; bur. Toowong with Alfred (13 32 8).

Margaret Westaway (affectionately known as ‘Tot’)—b. 27 October 1881; spinster; d. 16 January 1933 and was buried in her parents’ plot at Cooper’s Plains Cemetery on the same day. Those with official roles at the burial were: John W Hislop (undertaker), the Reverend RB Massey of the Church of England, and G Dibble and J Dunstan (witnesses). Like all her married sisters and typical of her era, she was occupied with home duties at Bushy Park, but for some years bred exotic rabbits for the fur trade.

William₂ (Will) Westaway—b. 5 February 1884; m. May Victoria Arnell 10 August 1916; (4 children); d. 17 September 1973. Will Westaway worked for close on 50 years in administration in the Queensland Railways Commissioner’s Office, Brisbane, and was an avid train traveller.

Harold Westaway—b. 6 April 1887; m. Edith (Edna) Emily Weller 12 May 1917 (1 child); d. 17 June 1974. He established his own motor vehicle service station at Salisbury in the early days of car transport. His hobby was constructing radio sets in the pioneering days of short wave radio transmission/reception

Alfred Westaway—b. 9 February 1891; d. 4 May 1891; bur. Toowong (13 32 8).