The Mickle Family

John Mickle (1814-1885) arrived in Melbourne in 1838. He came from Berwickshire in Scotland, where his family were farmers, and not especially wealthy, but John was ambitious and an astute businessman. He set up as a Stock and Station agent and was later joined by John Bakewell.  In 1848, they sold out to Richard Goldsborough who later established the Goldsborough Mort Company which merged with Elders Smith in 1962.

In 1851, Mickle and Bakewell joined with William Lyall and formed the partnership of Mickle, Bakewell and Lyall.  Previous to this, John had built a house in Collingwood, and owned seven acres of land adjoining Chapel Street in Prahran, which was valued at £100 per acre. Mickle and John Bakewell then purchased 159 aces in Kew  - the 75 acres facing Studley Park Road cost them £20 per acre and the rest £13 per acre. The pair then held various large properties in Victoria and in 1851 Mickle and Bakewell with William Lyall took up the Tobin Yallock (also called Yallock) run of 1,920 acres – this run was located on the Yallock Creek. In the same year they acquired Red Bluff (south of Lang Lang) and then the Tooradin Run in 1852 and the Great Swamp Run in 1854. The partnership was dissolved in 1857 and Mickle ended up with the Upper Yallock Run, renamed Monomeith.

By 1854, the trio were seriously wealthy. Mickle had married Margaret Lyall (William’s sister) in 1851 and in 1854 they all returned to Great Britain for a holiday - John and Margaret Mickle, her mother and her brother, William Lyall, and his wife Annabelle and their three children; John Bakewell and his brother also went plus about seven others. The group embarked on February 25, and did not clear the Heads at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay until March 1; they arrived in London on May 22. The party toured London and other parts of England.  John and Margaret Mickle returned to Melbourne in 1857 and had a house at the top end of Collins Street. However in 1861 they left again and sailed to the port of Suez in Egypt and then overlanded to London and then onto Scotland. They purchased a house in Scotland and John died there in 1885 at the age of 71.  Two personal facts about John Mickle - he was  a man who strictly celebrated the Sabbath and he was described as a  ‘huge man’, well over six foot tall, taller than his wife Margaret who at six foot tall was extraordinarily tall for  a woman in those days. They must have been an imposing looking couple.

Other members of the Mickle family also came to Australia including John’s brother, Alexander, in 1855 and his cousin Andrew Hudson. It was Alexander, Andrew and William Lyall who managed the Mickle property on behalf of John and Margaret whilst they were overseas. Alexander and his wife, Agnes, settled on the Yallock property, having come by bullock dray to Tooradin, and then by boat to the Yallock Creek. They later moved onto a new house on the Monomeith property. Sadly, in November 1861, at the age of 33, Alexander died from appendicitis and peritonitis leaving Agnes a widow, with two young children, David (b. 1858) and Margaret Isobel (b.1860) and eight months pregnant with their third child. On the day Alexander died, the only other person on the property was “the lad” John Payne, who had to ride into Cranbourne for the Police and to arrange the funeral. Four weeks after the death of his father, John Alexander Mickle, was born on Boxing Day.

Right - John Mickle (1814 - 1885) 

Image: Gunson, Niel The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire (Cheshire, 1968)

Agnes married Andrew Hudson in 1865 and she had two more children. They lived at Monomeith where Andrew operated a dairy and made cheeses, and later lived on the Warook property (the existing Warook homestead was built by the Greaves family in 1906). Again sadly, Andrew Hudson died in 1888, aged 55, shortly before the family were to move into the newly built The Grange, in Koo Wee Rup. Agnes remained at The Grange until she died in 1913, aged 86.  The Grange was sold out of the family by her son, James Hudson, in 1920; some of the land was sub-divided and Sybella Avenue was laid out in 1921. The Grange homestead is still standing and was also used for the first Presbyterian Church services in Koo Wee Rup, until the existing church opened in 1896.

Back to Alexander and Agnes - their son, David, married Alice Atyeo and they were the parents of Alexander; David, the local historian, and Fred.  They lived at Wellfield a property on the south side of The Grange, consisting of 300 acres. It was named because of the good supply of underground water.  Isabel married Richard Scott of Poowong and they had seven children.  John, the baby born after his father died, married Laura Leggo of Ballarat and they had two children. John owned the 300 acre Lauriston Park in Koo Wee Rup. The part of his land with a frontage to Rossiter Road was subdivided in the 1920s and later, around 1926, John and Alexander and Mickle Streets were created.

Mickle, Bakewell and Lyall

Mickle, Bakewell and Lyall were business partners and were prominent land owners in this area  from the 1850s. They controlled over 20,000 acres (about 8,000 hectares) which they called their Western Port Runs and the properties covered the area from around Clyde to Lang Lang.

The information in this post comes from The Good Country: Crambourne Shire by Niel Gunson (Cheshire, 1968); Many a Mickle by Alan D. Mickle (Cheshire, 1953) and the Yallambie blog by Ian McLachlan https://yallambie.wordpress.com/

John Mickle (1814-1885) arrived in Melbourne in 1838. He came from Berwickshire in Scotland, where his family were farmers, and not especially wealthy, but John was ambitious and an astute businessman. He set up as a Stock and Station agent and was later joined by John Bakewell (1807-1888).  Bakewell, from Nottingham in England, had arrived in Victoria in 1840, along with his brother Robert, his sister Phoebe and her husband, Dr Godfrey Howitt, who was a botanist and entomologist.  In 1848, Mickle and Bakewell sold out to Richard Goldsborough who later established the Goldsborough Mort Company which merged with Elders Smith in 1962.

Previous to this, Mickle had built a house in Collingwood, and owned seven acres of land adjoining Chapel Street in Prahran, which was valued at £100 per acre. Mickle and John Bakewell then purchased 159 aces in Kew  - the 75 acres facing Studley Park Road cost them £20 per acre and the rest £13 per acre. According to Ian McLachlan's interesting blog Yallambie Bakewell and his brother Robert purchased land in the north of Melbourne in 1842, which they called Yallambie - the area is now partly occupied by the Yallambie Army barracks. Mickle and Bakewell also held various large properties around Victoria such as the Numeralla run on the Snowy River, near Orbost and the Brenanah run near Wedderburn.

In 1851, Mickle and Bakewell joined with William Lyall and formed the partnership of Mickle, Bakewell and Lyall. William Lyall (1821-1888) had arrived in Hobart in 1836 with his mother, Helen, his two sisters and two of his brothers. William’s father, John, was already in Tasmania, having left Scotland in 1833. William was ambitious and realised that to purchase land he needed to amass capital and so began trading sheep and cattle. By the time he was twenty, William was making frequent trips to the markets in Melbourne with cattle. William settled in Melbourne and was later joined by his widowed mother and other family members.

Mickle, Bakewell and Lyall started their partnership by acquiring, in 1851, the Tobin Yallock (also called Yallock or Torbinurruck) run of 1,920 acres - this run was located on the Yallock Creek. In the same year they acquired Red Bluff (south of Lang Lang) and then the Tooradin Run in 1852 and the Great Swamp Run in 1854.

By 1854, the trio were very wealthy. Mickle had married Margaret Lyall (William’s sister) in 1851 and in 1854 they all returned to Great Britain for a holiday - John and Margaret Mickle, her mother and her brother, William Lyall, and his wife Annabelle (nee Brown) and their three children; John Bakewell and his brother also went plus about seven others. The group embarked on February 25, and did not clear the Heads at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay until March 1; they arrived in London on May 22. The party toured London and other parts of England.  John and Margaret Mickle returned to Melbourne in 1857 and had a house at the top end of Collins Street. However in 1861 they left again and sailed to the port of Suez in Egypt and then overlanded to London and then onto Scotland. They purchased a house in Scotland and John died there in 1885 at the age of 71.  Two personal facts about John Mickle - he was  a man who strictly celebrated the Sabbath and he was described as a  ‘huge man’, well over six foot tall, taller than his wife Margaret who at six foot tall was extraordinarily tall for  a woman in those days. They must have been an imposing looking couple.

In December of 1856 the trio divided their jointly owned land. Bakewell’s portion included Tooradin, the Tobin Yallock pre-emptive right (renamed Turkeith), Red Bluff pre-emptive right and Warrook on the Yallock Creek.  Warrook was sold to W.C. Greaves in 1904, who built the existing homestead in 1906. Bakewell, like Mickle, did not actually live on his properties, he divided his land into a number of properties amongst which were Ballarto, Sherwood Forest, Tooradin Swamp and Yallambie - clearly a name that resonated with Bakewell and the source of the name Yallambie Road in Clyde - and they were leased out. Bakewell sold his land gradually in the 1870s and 1880s. These properties provided him with an income to return to England where he lived at Old Hall in Balderton, Nottingham. The 1881 English Census shows that the family had five servants and a teacher living with them, so it was a comfortable lifestyle.  In 1859, John had married Emily Howitt (a niece of his brother in law) and they had four children. He died at Balderton in 1888.

Mickle received the Upper Yallock blocks which he renamed Monomeith. John’s brother Alexander Mickle and his wife Agnes managed the Yallock and Monomeith properties for John Mickle.  Their son David was the grandfather of the local historian, Dave Mickle, who has written various books about the local area.

William Lyall received the Yallock pre-emptive right and it was on this land that William and Annabelle commenced the construction of Harewood house in about 1857.  The Lyall family moved into the completed building in 1868, from Frogmore, their house on 93 acres in Carnegie.   Lyall was an energetic farmer, who had cattle, sheep, grew potatoes, wheat and oats and also tried oyster cultivation. He was a Shire of Cranbourne Councillor, first President of the Mornington Pastoral and Agricultural Society, a founder of the Victorian Agricultural Society, the Zoological Society, the Acclimatisation Society and the Victorian Racing Club. During this time Annabelle ran the household and bore twelve children between December 1849 and April 1869. Three children died before they turned three and one as a teenager. Of the remaining eight, six married with Helen and Florence remaining single. The last Lyall at Harewood was Florence who died in 1951, at home. The property was sold out of the family in 1967.

Mickle, Bakewell and Lyall have streets named after them or family members in Koo Wee Rup, Tooradin and Cranbourne.

William Lyall (on the left) with John Mickle, 1853

Image: Gunson, Niel The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire (Cheshire, 1968)