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.

Agnes Mickle - Pioneer woman

Alexander and Agnes Mickle (nee Johnston) arrived in Victoria in October 1857 on the ship, Blackwall. Agnes was 28 and Alexander was 27. They had tried to come to Australia the year before but their boat, the Mull of Kintyre, was shipwrecked just after it had left Scotland. They both came from Berwickshire, on the Scottish border.  Alexander was the third of the Mickle brothers to arrive in Melbourne, with John having arrived in 1838 and Thomas in 1841. John Mickle, who along with his partners, William Lyall and John Bakewell, had amassed a large amount of land which they divided up in 1856. John Mickle’s share included parts of the Yallock Run, which he renamed Monomeith and Alexander and Agnes came out to manage this property.

Alexander and Agnes took a bullock dray from Melbourne to Tooradin, then went by boat to the mouth of the Yallock Creek. They lived in the original homestead until 1860 when a new house was built. In November 1861, Alexander died suddenly from appendicitis and peritonitis and Agnes was at Monomeith, eight months pregnant and with her two children David, aged 3 and Isabella Margaret, nearly 2. The only other person on the property was “the lad” John Payne, who had to ride into Cranbourne for the Police to make arrangements for the burial. Their third child, John Alexander, was born four weeks later on Boxing Day, 1861. [Much of the information in these first two paragraphs comes from Dr Niel Gunson's book The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire (Cheshire, 1968).]

Agnes Mickle

Their son, David, was the grandfather of the local historian Dave Mickle. He has written various books and was instrumental in establishing the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp Historical Society. Dave Mickle has written about Agnes, but no where does he write about what must have been the sheer horror (or so it seems to me) of the situation that Agnes was in - alone on the farm at the Monomeith; no close neighbours; about 30 kilometres from the nearest town which was Cranbourne, which at the time was a small town with a population of 115; and two little children and a baby on the way.

The management of the Monomeith property was taken over by Andrew Hudson, who was a cousin of the Mickles. Andrew planted wheat and operated a dairy farm. Agnes married Andrew on May 17, 1865 and had two more children, Agnes Lilly, who was born in 1866 and in 1868, when Agnes was 40, she gave birth to James Johnston.  Andrew and Agnes and family moved from the Monomeith property to Protectors Flats near Lang Lang, where along with the dairy farm, they also grew tobacco. In 1879, they moved to the Warook property on the Yallock Creek and built a house (not the existing Warook house) and a dairy. They leased this, on a ten year lease, from William Lyall. Towards the end of this lease they started building The Grange, in Koo-Wee-Rup. Sadly, before they moved, Andrew Hudson died suddenly at the age of 55 on August 3, 1888. Agnes, a widow once more, moved into The Grange a few months later on October 1.

After Andrew died it seems that her sons, John Mickle and James Hudson, took over the farm and they operated Koo-Wee-Rup Dairies, where they purchased milk from local farmers and made cheese, then later (after 1899) James worked on his own and milked  cows and produced cheese.

Agnes also faced the death of her two daughters, who both died within a year. Isabella Margaret had married Richard Scott of Poowong in 1886 and had six children. She died in February 1902. Her other daughter, Agnes Lilly, had a more tragic life. She married George Hook in 1899 and their first child, Isaac, died in 1905, aged 5. Their second child, George was born on February 2, 1903 and sadly Agnes Lilly passed away six days later on February 8. Dave Mickle, in Mickle Memories of Koo Wee Rup writes that little George, was adopted by his uncle, John Mickle and his wife Laura (John Mickle being the child Agnes gave birth to, four weeks after Alexander died)

Agnes Hudson died on December 10, 1913 aged 86. Her obituary (which is transcribed below) in the Lang Lang Guardian of December 17, 1913 describes her as having had a long, useful and honourable life …the deceased lady who was loved and respected by those who had the privilege of knowing her, possessed the sterling attributes of the great Scottish race whose early pioneering enterprises left such as impress on the early land settlement in the colonies…. her mind was bright and active to the close.. and her health was remarkably good.  This is a tribute to a remarkable pioneer woman, Agnes Hudson, who survived a ship wreck, the birth of five children, the death of two husbands and that of her two daughters.

Obituary - Death of Mrs Hudson

From the Lang Lang Guardian December 17, 1913.

On the 10th inst., there passed away one of the oldest, if not actually the oldest, resident in the district, Mrs Hudson, who, after a long, useful and honorable life, has gone to join “the choir invisible.” The connection of the deceased lady with this State, embraces a period of time antecedent to the history of the ordinary pioneer. Born in Berwickshire, Scotland, Mrs Hudson, then Mrs Mickle, came out to Victoria with her husband, and shortly afterward arrived at Tooradin in a bullock dray. Leaving Tooradin, they passed up the mouth of the Yallock Creek in a boat, but were unfortunate in being stranded on a mud bank. 

She lived on the Yallock Estate for a time and in 1858 settled at Monomeith, where she lived for a number of years on the property upon Mr H, Glasscock now resides. Here her husband died, and some years after she married Mr Hudson. Mrs and Mrs Hudson lived for a time at Lang Lang, on the property lately occupied by Mr Jos. Doyle on the Lang Lang River. After that they took a long lease of the property known as “Worrock”, now owned by Mr C. Greaves. Afterwards they purchased a part of the Yallock estate, known as the “Home run,” and here the late Mr Hudson died, just about the time of the expiration of the lease. 

The deceased lady then came to Koo Wee Rup, some 24 years ago, where she resided to the time of her death. By her first marriage she had three children, Messrs John and David Mickle, who are well known residents of the district, and the late Mrs Scott. By her second marriage she had two children: the late Mrs Hook and Mr Jas. Hudson, now occupying and carrying on the property. The deceased lady, who was loved and respected by those who had the privilege of knowing her, possessed the sterling attributes of the great Scottish race whose early pioneering enterprises left such an impress on early land settlement in the colonies. Though she lived to the ripe age of 86 years, she did not outlive her sympathies with the affairs of the world around her. Her memory was wonderfully retentive, and her mind bright and active to the close. She was a devoted member of the Presbyterian Church, which she attended until deafness prevented her following the services and her health was remarkably good.

The funeral took place at the Cranbourne Cemetery on Friday, and was attended by a large number of mourners.