James Edward Wright was the third child of Samuel Wright, an erudite Anglo-Irishman from County Cavan and the daughter of a gold miner born in America. His father had arrived with his cousin William in 1847 to live with their uncle Captain Samuel Wright. Captain Wright, late of the 3^rd regiment of the British Army was then a substantial landowner and magistrate. After arriving in 1822 he had served as commandant at a number of convict stations, including Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour, and led the expedition to Westernport to settle Victoria in November 1826. Samuel completed his education at a private school in Ashfield, Sydney, the Meads, run by Captain Wright’s uncle Rev. Frederick Wilkinson. The young men fell out with their uncle and left for the goldfields around Bathurst in mid 1851. A measure of the falling out is that neither of the cousins were mentioned in the Captain’s will that was discovered after he apparently committed suicide by jumping overboard from a ship travelling between Sydney and Newcastle in March 1852. Furthermore James knew virtually nothing of Captain Wright until his son, Stanley, did some research while stationed at Singleton in 1944.

After working in a number of goldfields in New South Wales and Victoria the cousins arrived in the Beechworth area of north east Victoria where William retired from mining and bought the Star Hotel in Stanley. In early 1869 Samuel married 19 year old Elizabeth Ogden Whitehead in Stanley. Elizabeth belonged to a mining family and was the eldest of four children. She was born in New York, U.S.A., during her family's journey to the Californian gold fields. Failing to make their fortune they moved off to the next big gold rush and arrived in Victoria in 1858 when Elizabeth was a child of eight. Her father, Joseph Whitehead registered his claim in Stanley in June 1859. When William died in 1875 Sam and Lizzie lived in a very modest house he had built at Milkman’s Flat just outside Stanley. She and Samuel had five children: Joseph born 24 November 1869, Samuel III born 12 September 1871, James Edward born 16 April 1876, Cecil born 17 October 1879 and Gertrude (Gerty) born 24 July 1883.

James Wright inherited much of his father's outlook and interest. He attended school with his brothers and sister at Granite Creek on the gold fields on the southern slope of the Great dividing Range above Gippsland and, after 1889, on the coastal plain at Stockdale. After finishing school he worked on his father’s farm and when the Boer War started he and his brother Sam attempted to enlist in the Army. He was now twenty five and had no trouble with the medical and riding tests but failed the marksmanship. He had 10 shots at 400 yards and scored a bull and an outer, but the sergeant ruled that the bull must have been a stray shot from someone else. Jim seemed to be closer to Sam and Gerty than to Joe and Cecil; he appeared to take a paternal interest in his ‘little sister’. However with his military ambitions thwarted Jim decided that to better himself he needed further education and left home to go to Melbourne for further qualifications. In 1901 Jim left ‘the bush’ for a better life ‘in town’ equipped with little more than a fierce determination to succeed.

It seems very likely that this move was a result of the influence of a young schoolteacher. Kate Sweetman had come to area in June 1899 to teach at nearby Fernbank. A student described her as ‘a prim little English lady’. Then twenty nine she had begun teaching in Melbourne in 1892 and was already considered a fine teacher. She was four years older than Jim, the second daughter of a solidly middle class family in Richmond, small and very pretty. (Her brother Ted was also a teacher in that area.) Two years later she was transferred to the school at Hillside, a few miles further west towards Bairnsdale. Despite Kate’s family not welcoming the idea of their clever and pretty daughter (and sister) falling in love with the son of an ex-miner with few obvious prospects, the pair became very close. Kate sent him off to Melbourne with love and a loan of £20. Perhaps she viewed this as a prudent investment for if he too became a teacher he would surely then be more acceptable to her parents and brother.

On arriving in Melbourne Jim studied with a university tutor, Rev. Dr. R Williams MA at Claremont 104 Lennox Street, Richmond. Then he joined classes in English Literature and the History of the British Empire with Herbert Hewitt in Stawell Chambers and did some teaching. Hewitt found an intelligent and painstaking worker and as well qualified as any Certified Teacher in Latin, Geography, Arithmetic and Physics. Perhaps it was Hewitt who suggested the Tasmanian Education Department as a possible employer. At that time there was no formal process for recruiting teachers and when Jim wrote to the Director in August 1902 he discovered that prospective teachers ‘need to be known personally to a member of the Service.’ Although he had no promise of a position with his Junior Public Examination Certificate and glowing endorsements from Hewitt and Williams he travelled to Tasmanian early in 1902 in search of a career. Someone referred him to Frank Solomon the headmaster of the East Devonport State School and there, in spite of his age he joined Mr Solomon’s Grade VI class.

He had begun his correspondence with the Education Department but was not given much encouragement. Undeterred he wrote again from Devonport in July 1902 repeating his request for a teaching position and enclosing references from Solomon and Rev S Chambers Flockhart, of the Devonport Methodist Church. Probably unknown to Rev. Flockhart Jim saw the Church as a social opportunity rather than a spiritual outlet. He had discovered that not ‘all the girls are milk & water Missys by any means’. ‘I got a great deal more fun than good out of my Sunday School connections at Devonport’ he told Gerty in a letter in May 1905. ‘Sunday School and Bible classes are so well patronised not because they teach people to be good- in fact it is often the other way — but they bring people together for a little social intercourse. Sometimes I believe other intercourse but that is by accident.’ Nevertheless he was discreet for he became Secretary to a Sunday school.

The University of Tasmania issued him a Junior Public Examination Certificate, with three credits and five passes from eight subjects, in January 1903. After 4 months he progressed from pupil to assisting Solomon in ‘routine duties’ at the school. He wrote to the Department again pointing out that his qualifications were accepted as ‘equal to a pass at the Licensed Teachers Examination. The best he got for all this writing was approval to sit for the Teachers Entrance examination in December. At the end of January 1903 he was informed that he was now qualified to enter Division B of Class IV of the teaching service — the bottom. In March he was considered for a post at Zeehan in but received a far from flattering report from Inspector A L Brockett who had examined the East Devonport School during the previous year.

‘He is a steady man but has no municipal knowledge whatsoever. He is countrified in appearance and scarcely the type of man we want to see in the service of the Department.’ Brockett reported to the Department when asked whether he should get the post at Zeehan. The next month Solomon wrote to Brockett reminding him of Jim’s presence in the school when he conducted the last examination and strongly recommending him for a teaching post. Brockett forwarded Solomon’s letter to Hobart without comment. Perhaps this intervention was conclusive for a month later an appointment as a teacher at an annual salary was £65, plus £10 house allowance, arrived in the mail.

When the young teacher arrived the Jessen household consisted of Jes Hansen Jessen, 55, his wife Ann Marie, 52, a daughter Clara, 27, and two sons Tas, 25 and Hilmer 22. The Jessen’s eldest child Victoria Margaret, known as Torie, had left home when she married Charles Christian Madsen in 1895. Families of Allens and Coopers were neighbours; John Cooper lived on the northern boundary having arrived in 1867 to manage the nearby mining operations of the Australian Coal and Kerosene Co. Later his widow Bridget and her sons Edmund, Frank and George worked the farm.

The youngest Jessen daughter, Clara Eugenie, was twenty-seven when James Wright took up residence at The Douglas in 1903. By then the Jessens were well established at Seymour. Jes had been elected to the Glamorgan Council in 1889 and appointed a justice of the peace in 1900. The owner of the land they leased, Amy Allen, had died intestate around 1899 but Jes remained the leaseholder. In July 1906 Jes purchased over 170 acres of crown land that fronted the sea roughly half way between Long Point (Seymour) and the Douglas River. This land was on the north eastern corner of the original Allen Grove. In September 1914 he purchased another parcel of almost 300 acres of second class crown land adjacent to the southern boundary. At the same time Ann Marie bought a similar block on the north west corner of the original Allen Grove. The title to this land was issued to her in August 1929.

The school at Seymour was located in a timber cottage built in 1861 by the Wardlaws as their first house on Chain of Lagoons. It was about an hour’s walk from the Douglas and also served as the Presbyterian Church. Ann Marie was a keen church goer and a regular host for the curate Charles Keays. His diary records weekly visits and occasional over night stays and the enjoyment of the odd ‘lively musical evening’. In 1895 there were schools at both Bicheno and Seymour but by 1901 the former had been closed for lack of students.

On leaving Melbourne James promised to write every week to a Kate and to his sister Gerty. He kept his promise to Kate but his letters to his sister Gertrude were more spasmodic. By the time Jim arrived in Seymour his weekly letters to Kate had already become 'an institution'. Towards the end of 1904 the 21 year old Gerty left home to work in Melbourne and the next May his youngest brother Cecil, then 25, eloped to marry Eva Hempel. Gerty boarded with her Aunt Sarah (Mrs Jack Russell) at 78 Park St. South Melbourne. James settled in to Seymour society well and was soon playing cricket, breaking horses and organising concerts. At the end of 1904 he tried for a transfer to Cornwall without success but at the end of the year passed the exam to progress to top Division of Class II. It seems that Jim was coached in his academic studies by a Launceston lawyer and law lecturer, A. E Solomon, ever since he arrived in Tasmania. Albert Solomon, who was the same age as Jim, was brilliant man with a precocious intellect; he matriculated at 13 and quickly accumulated four degrees at the University of Tasmania. Solomon 'is very kind and he has a practical and sympathetic interest in my work and welfare'. In 1909 his friend entered politics topping the poll for the anti-socialist ticket in Bass. Within two months he was Attorney-General and Minister for Education. He became Premier from 1912 to 1915 and died the next year after a long illness while only 39. He was the brother of Frank Solomon the head teacher at East Devonport when Jim arrived there.

In May 1905 Clara Jessen, described by James to his mother as 'a jolly good sort', spoke to him about 'striking out on her own'. He suggested she might go to Melbourne and team up with Gerty. In the end she just went as far as Launceston for a couple of months. James spent his free time with cricket matches in the surrounding district including a three-day trip to Swansea. He spent Easter at St. Mary’s playing both cricket and football, the latter against the visiting Hawthorn team from Melbourne! In letters to his sister, James reveals some early despondency with his new role and considers leaving the Education Department when public service salary increments were suspended in July 1905. Unable to see any prospect of being able to afford to marry he decided to break his ties with Kate. ‘She is a noble girl and I suppose I am a fool but it will be better for her in the long run’.

He continued studying for his senior certificate and enjoyed some success with the local cricket team but was rather unhappy with life. This was somewhat self inflicted for apart from his cricket he avoided other social occasions. ’Do not be too ready to make intimate friends’ he counselled Gerty. ‘I accept no invitation to tea etc. from people around the district until I find who are worth making friends with.’ However in this district I have been rather too exclusive and this leaves you dependent on one family’ he reflected to his sister in February. Within that family plans were in hand to change his status.

He had now lived with the Jessens for nearly two years and Ann Marie clearly favoured the young school teacher as a suitable husband for her unmarried daughter who was now nearly 30. On his birthday at Easter she came into my room with a pair of gold and petrified wood cuff links and in the evening put on a lavish dinner. She was also anxious to get Gerty to come across and make friends with Clara. Ann Marie had also discovered that Jim’s school inspector Arthur W Garrett was pleased with his performance. She did not pass this on to Jim immediately but it probably reassured her that his despite his present low spirits his teaching career would not be stillborn. Garrett’s assessment was major endorsement for he was both eminently qualified (the winner of the Tasmanian Scholarship to Balliol College Oxford in 1862) and with years of experience in the Indian Civil Service before returning to Tasmania in 1899.

James may have been unaware that some of the aspects of the education system that he objected to had been reviewed by William L Neale. Neale proposed that a philosophy called New Education be introduced in Tasmania. The Premier had taught with Neale in South Australia and appointed his old head teacher as Director in January 1905. Garrett’s inspection of James in 1905 was based on Neale’s new objective measures. What Garrett observed resulted in a change of fortune for James. In August 1905 he was invited to see Neale in Hobart and appointed headmaster of the school at Forcett, some miles east of Sorell. At his new school he would have the help of a young woman as assistant teacher and receive an increase in salary of £20 and a six-room schoolhouse. Now that he was in a position to marry he regretted breaking up with Kate. At the end of the 1906 she had obtained a transfer to Melbourne and taught at the Prahran State School until her retirement in 1933. She never married.

A month later he wrote to Gerty saying he intended to get married ‘in a month or so when I can afford a double bed’ and would she get him a cheap translation of all of Cicero’s works. Clara was his choice 'she will make me a good wife. She can cook wash and sew that's about all I need'. It seems a decidedly second best choice. He admits that Clara has always 'had a liking for me' and although 'she can not assist me in my school work or studies, she is an excellent cook and housekeeper and good tempered and sensible'. Their differences — he was a voracious reader, deeply interested in sport, politics and world affairs who liked a drink and smoke — whilst she shared none of these interests, proved irrelevant to their union.

His future mother-in-law came down to stay with him bringing furniture and helping him settle in. Forcett was also conveniently close to Wattle Hill and Torie’s family. After further consideration (perhaps with her father) James and Clara decided to wait until after Easter when his finances would improve and he returned to The Douglas for the holidays. His cricket improved greatly and he made a century. In November 1905 James sent Gerty advertisements from the Education Department seeking teachers. The Director (Neale) wanted to place female teachers in all country schools. The pay was £60 a year and Jim judged that board should not exceed 10 shillings a week. He urged her to apply and she took the opportunity.

At the beginning of March 1906 James received a long letter from the Whiteheads giving news of home including a recent trip to ‘their old haunts at Grant and Crooked River’. They had seen Gerty before her departure for Tasmania and heard he was getting married. They wished him well.

The wedding of James Edward Wright and Clara Eugenie Jessen took place on 20 April 1906 at the Jessen home on the Douglas River. We don’t who was present. Clara’s uncle Peter Jessen and Aunt Elizabeth were living at Sandy Bay with their three grown up daughters and her Aunt Bonde was at North Motton with five children. At this time Clara’s sister Torie was living at Harefield and already had seven children but both her brothers were still single and living at home. Jacob and Anna Madsen would have been there for they had not yet moved to Wattle Hill. Gerty was the only member of Jim’s family present and she later stayed for some time with the newly weds at Forcett. She had had a difficult few years trying to make a go of life in Melbourne and seemed very pleased to join Jim and Clara. It appears that as Ann Marie had predicted she and Clara became close friends and Gerty gave her daughter Clara’s second name. By the beginning of 1907 she had been appointed as a teaching assistant at Franklin in the Huon. By 1909 she was a full teacher running a one person school at Crabtree and later in the year at Lucaston and earning £66 a year. At the beginning of 1911 she was moved to Upper Mountain River and ran that school until August 1915.

When James moved to Forcett he found another small school but had the help of a young woman as assistant teacher. The community responded to the new teacher and numbers at the school steadily grew. The family's success got another boost when the first child, Greta Jessen Wright, was born in Hobart on 4 February 1907. Given his success James might have expected to stay in Forcett for some time but after just two years he was transferred to Pontville. The circumstances of this move were closely examined by the 1909 Royal Commission that studied Neale's tenure as Director. Neale had become unpopular with elements of the teaching service largely due to the importation of 28 teachers from his home State of South Australia. It was claimed that Neale paid the immigrants higher salaries on the allegedly spurious grounds that he could find no locals of equal ability. Evidence was presented that James' transfer to Pontville was to create a vacancy for one of the South Australians.

Neale apparently told James his move was a reward for his good work and increased his salary to £110 a year. As this was almost twice the amount he was receiving at Seymour three years ago it is unlikely that James objected too strongly. However Neale's opponents claimed that the woman who was moved into the Forcett position was paid more than James had enjoyed. At a time when female salaries were usually half that for males this was said to be proof of the Director's bias. The Director's personal responsibility for the transfer was confirmed by the Inspector who was surprised not to find James at his post when he arrived to conduct his annual assessment at Forcett. This case was strengthened by parents complaints about the new teacher and a consequent decline in numbers of students. The young lady resigned her position and the Royal Commission recommended that Neale also resign.

Promotion continued and in June 1909 he moved to the Huon valley and took charge of the Upper Huon (Glen Huon) School on a salary of £130.10s a year. He succeeded an English trained teacher, Mrs Emma Humphries who had been at the school since 1906.A diary covering some months in 1910 reveals much of his life style. Greta was a toddler and the centre of the family and Gerty, who then at nearby Mountain River would ride her bicycle to spend weekends with them. Amongst their friends were the Voss family; Goerge Voss had married Jim's predecessor Emma Humphries. Other friends included Mr and Mrs E A Wright, Miss Pearsall, W Dean, Mr and Mrs E R Shield, G Bester, Mr and Mrs Phil Young and W Young. Wright and Shield were leading orchardists and the former chaired the school's equivalent of a Parent's & Friends Association. Shield had recently arrived from New South Wales and Mrs Shield engaged Jim to tutor their son Leslie. Mrs Shield helped with the schools music activities and Leslie would later marry Clara's niece Gladys Madsen. (The two first met at one of the occasions when Greta invited her cousins to stay in the Huon.)

His duties extended well beyond the classroom including minor carpentry, cutting wood for the fires, digging a drain. To clear the recreation ground of stumps he organised a Committee and ran a working bee to get the job done along with running a social, dance and concert to raise funds for the school. He encouraged children to develop gardens in the school grounds but he had trouble getting approval for netting to protect them from rabbits. He religiously supported Arbor Day. During his time at Glen Huon the area changed its name from 'Upper Huon' to 'Wybalerma' but after a vigorous local campaign it became Glen Huon. Jim chaired the meeting in March 1910 that recommended the change. He was a Freemason and keen follower of both cricket and football; in June 1910 he was elected to the foundation committee of the Upper Huon Football Club, Ernest Wrght was the President. In his early life he probably subscribed to the small scale capitalism of the gold miners promoted by his father and tutor but he was expressing strong sympathies for socialism by 1905.

His keen interest in current affairs is reflected in diary entries relating to a court case relating to lawyers and politicians and H. Jones & Co. plans to export apples to Asia. He also praised the purchase of a mechanical apple grader by the Shields. Gerty would regularly send him his favourite magazine The Bulletin for he could not afford to subscribe himself. He keenly recorded the work of the Fisher Labor Government, mockingly referring to it as the ‘Socialist Party’. He was critical of them for not being more reformist, as in declining to take over the Northern Territory and failing to more strongly support protectionism, -‘to carry out the Party’s industrial ideals, a system of high protection is absolutely essential’. But optimistically hoped ‘The people will at last get a chance of testing the practicability and usefulness of Socialist legislation and I feel confident that they will be well satisfied with the results.’ He was critical of the conservatism of the apple growers. But some of his social views were still deeply embedded in the philosophy of the gold fields. In July Johnston and Jeffries fought for the world heavyweight boxing crown ‘The nigger is the favourite here. I think he will win, but I should like to see the white man on top - there my interest in the matter ends.’ On July 4 he wrote ‘I guess mother will make some remarks about the greatness of America today. I suppose I have inherited some of her American sympathies with her blood. I look upon America in many ways as an example of what Australia one day may be.’ In the same month Clara and Greta took a trip ‘to town’ - first by mail cart and overnight in Huonville and then by steamer. Clara seemed to be a keen churchgoer but James was reluctant. Apart from reading (the public library was very well patronised) and cricket, cards, particularly euchre, was a popular pastime along with occasional visits to the cinema.

In December 1911 he passed three subjects of the Senior Public Examination and the remaining two the next year. A second daughter, Jean Ogden, was born at Huonville on 21 December 1911. Jim’s older brother Joe, who had married Annie Cummins at Dargo in 1907, was the first to produce a ‘male heir to the classic name of Wright’. They now had four children, Mildred, Margaret, Joseph and Mary but Annie was afflicted with post-natal depression. Despite Joe’s valiant efforts to care for her she never recovered and spent the last fifty years off her life in a sanatorium visited only by her daughter. Sam had recently married Mrs. Katherine Hamilton (nee Field). At 56 she was 16 years older than Sam, widowed the previous year and with two children. His other brother Cecil was still struggling to come to terms with the tragic death of Eva three years before. Gerty was teaching at nearby Mountain River and spending weekends at Glen Huon.

In 1913 James Wright took charge of the bigger school at Huonville, then called Southbridge. The new school was very convenient for Greta for her schoolroom door opened onto the verandah where she slept.

On leaving Glen Huon he and Clara were presented with a laudatory letter of thanks signed by seventeen local residents.

James found being a headmaster during adverse economic conditions very difficult and his humanity brought him into conflict with the Department's inspectors. His reluctance to strongly discipline children ran counter to contemporary policy. Criticism of his attitude in 1913 led him to consider giving up teaching. He decided to continue and life was sweetened when a son, Stanley Jessen, was born on 12 July 1914. When hearing the news his father remarked -

Stan appears in the 1916 photo of those at Southbridge State School sitting on Greta’s knee.

But dark times loomed as World War I began. Jim wrote to his father in early February 1916 and revealed something of his attitude to the War.

The prime purpose of the letter was to report the recovery of Stanley from a serious illness that had sent the baby to hospital. Jim had been in Hobart attending lectures when the illness hit and for a time it seemed that Stanley would die. As the letter was written four days before his father died it is doubtful whether it arrived in time. We have no knowledge of how Jim coped with the loss of his father. The existing correspondence between them shows how much value he placed on his father’s views and how diligently he attempted to follow in his footsteps. (In September 1919 Jim was inducted into the Grand Lodge of Freemasons, the same Lodge that his father joined in Beechworth in 1876, when a branch was opened in the Huon.) Sam was unable to fulfil his plan to come to Tasmania before he left for France. They exchanged letters and Jim wished him good luck and told him he was working to bring in conscription.

Gerty had had to return to Melbourne. She had greatly enjoyed her years in Tasmania and found no shortage of social interest. When this combined with her adventurous spirit trouble ensued in the form of an unplanned pregnancy apparently from an extended relationship with a married man from Crabtree. She had continued teaching at Mountain River until August 1915 when she was suddenly transferred to Alberton, another very small place in the mountains, but this time in the northeast 9 miles south of Ringarooma. Founded when gold was discovered at Mt Victoria in 1890 it may well have been the Department’s most isolated school and about as far from Mountain River as it possible to go. When she arrived there the village had 8 farmers, 12 miners a mine manager and a saw miller. The transfer left the Mountain River children without a teacher for the remainder of the year. It seems more than likely that Gerty’s private life had got to the ears of the Education Department and exile was the prescribed punishment. She resigned two months later. In July 1916 Sam told Jim that he had a couple of letters from Gerty —

In April 1916 Gerty had registered the birth of her daughter Nellie Eugenie Parsons Wright in Prahran. She did not record the fathers name but he was clearly the Parsons referred to by her brother Sam. There were two families of Parsons living in the area where Gerty taught. I suspect that the father was one of the sons of Charles James Parsons of Crabtree- either Alexander Charles b. 1885, Frederick James b 1888, George Silas b 1883 or Oscar Edward b 1879. Gerty’s mother had moved to Melbourne after their father’s death to stay with her brother; her ‘trouble’ was finally resolved by a marriage to Arthur Joseph Shipperlee in 1919. Arthur was 27 when they married and nine years younger than Gerty. He was born in London where his father was an engraver and emigrated around 1924 with his brother John. John settled in Burnie Tasmania and married there in December 1914. How Gerty and Arthur met is unknown but it is not inconceivable that she met John Shipperlee when she was visiting the northwest coast. Their son William (Bill) was born on their first anniversary of their wedding. Arthur and Gerty lived at 28 Town Hall Avenue, Preston in Melbourne for the remainder of their lives. She died in November 1971 and he a few months later.

Jim attempted to maintain with his mother the same exchange of letters that he had enjoyed with his father but Elizabeth was not much of a correspondent. A letter at Christmas became the norm. Jim received another letter from Sam after he arrived in France to join a tunnelling battalion but the next was from the Anglo-American Hospital in Boulogne. Around midnight he had been caught in a combined artillery and gas attack without a respirator. Fortunately he was on the surface and not in the tunnel but was badly affected. He survived and returned safely.

Jim and all the family spent Christmas in 1916 at The Douglas with the Jessens except for Jean, even though she was only five years old -

In 1920 as the headmaster of a class V school Jim Wright was paid £250 a year, £34 a year above the minimum wage in Tasmania and less than pastry-cooks and bricklayers. However in that year Clara purchased 122 acres of land on the Denison River just south of The Douglas courtesy of a loan of £286 from her father. Four years later Jim and Clara planned a trip to Melbourne at Christmas so he could see a Test match. Although not being able to get to Gippsland he hoped his mother and brothers could all meet in Melbourne. Despite a very rough passage back across Bass Strait, the trip was a big success. Money was short and Jim wanted to do all he could for his children. Both Greta and Jean were having music lessons —‘both are better at music than their school work’ he told his mother in December 1925. Greta was heading off mountaineering in the Hartz Mountains. He hoped to get her an assistant’s position at his school — ‘it is time she began to earn something’.

That letter may have been the last Jim wrote to his mother for she had a stroke soon after and, after a period in Sale Hospital, was moved to a nursing home in Ballarat. She died there in May 1928 aged 80 and was buried at Fawkner Cemetery. When Elizabeth entered the nursing home Cecil also left Stockdale for Melbourne and died in Preston Melbourne six months before his mother. Cecil was buried with his mother.

James was an active supporter of teachers and was elected President of the Tasmanian State School Teachers Union for the first time in 1914. Eventually he held every position in the Tasmanian Teachers Union and was President of the Country Teachers Association in 1924. Jean had been an average student, at age 12 she was awarded second prize for apple packing in an export packing competition run by the Department of Agriculture. In 1924 she passed the Qualifying Certificate at Huonville State School and gained entry to Hobart High School. She enrolled in 1925 and the high point of her three years there was as a prominent member of the senior hockey team in 1926 and 1927. She gained her intermediate certificate with six passes and a credit in December 1927 and was appointed a probationary student by the Education Department from the beginning of the following year. The studentship paid £40 a year and allowed her to complete her leaving certificate in English Geography French and Economics in 1930 at Hobart Teachers College, then located at the Phillip Smith Hall adjacent to the University on the Domain. During this time she boarded with Miss Weymouth in Forest Road and then at Melbourne Lodge on the corner of Warwick and Elizabeth Streets.

After 20 years in the Huon Jim became headmaster of the class IV school at East Devonport at the beginning of 1929. Greta was then 21, Jean 17 and Stan 14. In Devonport Jim formed a long lasting friendship with Roy Harvey based on shared political beliefs. Stan attended Devonport High School and made friends with Cecil Bessell and Jack Parker both of whom later married into the extended family. A number of Cecil’s family worked on the Tasmanian railways and his father was then station-master at Devonport. Greta had also taken up her father’s calling beginning as a monitor in the East Devonport School.

Whilst the girls joined the Education Department with high hopes Jim’s problems with it continued. The Inspection in 1931 found him to be 'a good sort of fellow and apparently gains greater measures of respect from his fellow teachers than from his pupils. His control is not strong, his manner and movements slow and despite his general interest in education and his ideals thereon his work is lacking system force and finish.' The Inspector found the 'children uncouth in appearance and brusque in manner. There is much lethargy and indifference indicated in their attitude.' James responded that in times of such poverty it was not surprising that children with virtually no clothes to wear and little food to eat should have such an appearance and this was not something to warrant criticism of the school. The next year Inspector Jones found him 'an earnest, thoughtful man with high ideals. He is a teacher of the old type. He does not understand the management of children and fails to secure their cooperation. Consequently he teaches with considerable mental strain.' In 1934 he was adjudged to 'possess some splendid notions of his work as a teacher without either the power or the capacity to transfer them to action and reality'.

In an appeal against this unfavourable assessment after 31 years of teaching and to 'be spared the pain of degradation and heavy pecuniary loss' of a demotion he set out his teaching principles

His appeals were unsuccessful and he finally accepted demotion and move back to Pontville but retained the same salary he had received at East Devonport. On leaving Devonport the local branch of the WEA expressed their thanks for his ‘staunch’ support. Jim had been a founding member of the Association and served as its State Secretary for many years. The move to Pontville gave the Director, G V Brooks a chance to experiment with the creation of rural schools with classes in agriculture. A year later the first formal Area School opened at Hagley and later the Pontville School became the Brighton Area School. He spent two years at Pontville between 1935 and 1937; around this time he was first diagnosed as having a cancer on his lip.

Jean’s first teaching post was at Railton and then at Westbury where she gained her Infant Teachers certificate at the end of 1938. At Westbury she stayed at a hotel run by the Mackie family. But romance soon brought her career to a halt. Whilst staying at Melbourne Lodge she had been strongly attracted to a dark haired young man called Keith Harrison. Keith’s father had been killed at the Somme leaving his mother with three very young boys. After leaving school he followed his uncles' vocation and began a printing apprenticeship. He quickly discovered that this was not for him and at the beginning of 1926 he took up an apprenticeship as a motor car body builder with Nettlefolds and then with Arcadia Motor Body Works. He received 12s. and 6d. a week wage. His technical education was supervised and assisted through the Samuel McCaughey Bequest. As part of the apprenticeship he studied Motor Body Building at the Hobart Technical College for three years, 1926-28, obtaining eight credits and two passes. In July 1931 he qualified as a tradesman. From early 1936 to the beginning of 1939 he worked in the motor assembly plant of H C Heathorn & Co. in Bathurst St. Hobart. After Jean was posted to the north-west their romance must have been largely confined to vacations.

Notwithstanding their strong physical bonds Jean and Keith were a very unlikely pair. The sexual bond between them was strong enough to over-ride substantial differences. The death of his father and uncle in the War deprived Keith of a male role model and his youth was scarred by the Depression. All his forebears were descended from convicts and of very modest means. On the other hand Jean idolised her schoolteacher father and grew up in a highly educated household only lightly affected by the Depression. Her forebears were free Danish immigrants and goldminers stretching back to a minor branch of the Anglo-Irish ascendancy. Where he had little contact with his wider family she was deeply embedded in a wide family circle of country based relatives. She was gregarious and sought social acceptance, he was shy and avoided social contacts. With difficulty she accepted his personality but the tensions became apparent quite soon and continued to be a problem. Nevertheless the stresses were not enough for them to separate.

For the first time in his more than 30 years in Tasmania James and Clara moved to Hobart. Initially he rented a house in Gregory St. Sandy Bay before purchasing a house at 7 Albuera St. in mid 1939. For the next 60 years it would be the home of the extended family. Greta gradually assumed control of the home. Her future husband, Cecil Bessell, had already been drafted as chief handyman. Greta continued to work as a teacher and was now running her own school at Ridgeway in the foothills of Mount Wellington. Stan had given up his job with Cadbury’s and was working with an insurance company CFP.Pty Ltd. They transferred him to Sydney and he left Hobart on the Zealandia on Saturday 18 March 1939. As his only son sailed off to Sydney Jim absorbed a second loss. Gerty had written to say that their brother Sam had succumbed to a lengthy illness. He was sixty seven.

Whilst Jim found the move to Hobart professionally disappointing it gave him the opportunity to do other things but shock news created a new situation. In the summer of 1938-9 Jean became pregnant and on 10 March 1939 she and Keith were married at Queenstown. After the marriage she had to resign from teaching. She returned to Hobart for her mother's birthday and Keith explained to her father that they had married and expected a child in September.

While Jean settled back into her parents’ new house Keith returned to the West Coast and rented a house in Gormanston but with war approaching he was anxious to join the air force. As a reservist and the holder of a pilot's licence he was confident that he would be selected. Jean moved to Gormanston in June 1939 but on 27 August she and Keith turned up at Albuera Street just a week after Greta had finished moving the family into their new home. He returned to Queenstown on 29 August and war was declared five days later. In between, Jean eight months pregnant, set off alone by bus for the west coast in mid winter over snow covered roads. Hopefully the bus driver was unaware of her condition. The birth of Anthony James, his first grandson, on 13 September brought inordinate pleasure. When mother and son returned to Albuera St. early in 1940 it also provided a welcome diversion from the worrying tumour developing on his lip.

When, aged 60 and in failing health, James Wright retired from classroom teaching he joined the Correspondence School and pioneered the use of radio broadcasting in teaching isolated children. Now his relatives in Victoria would occasionally hear their brother on the radio. His first radio talk was broadcast on March 23 1941 and in typical fashion he celebrated with a beer at the Dr Syntax Hotel. The talks and the visits to the ‘Dr.’ continued throughout the war years. The hotel was owned by one of Keith’s uncles George O’Neill and Jim also formed a friendship with George’s eldest brother Jack O’Neill. Jim and the formidable trade unionist shared some political views and he became another of those calling at Albuera St. for tea and a chat.

Clara and Jim were diligent in maintaining close links with her extended family and weddings were a wonderful opportunity to gather. The highlight of the year was Greta’s wedding. Greta and Cecil Bessell were married by the family’s parson, Mr Wooley at Pontville, on 13 April 1940. It was a grand family gathering for along with all the groom’s relations were Jim and Clara’s friends and lots of relatives. Jim’s sister Gerty and Clara’s sister Torie and sister-in-law Flo. Charlie Madsen, Viv and Dora Hean , Les and Gladys Shield and Hilmer Madsen who was best man. A week later Jim and Clara celebrated 34 years of marriage. The apparently warm and serene marriage between them was in marked contrast to his modest expectations and the experiences of his siblings. The wife of his eldest brother Joe suffered post natal depression after the birth of their fourth child in 1912 and spent the rest of her life in an institution. The next brother Sam took until he was forty to find a wife - a widow much older than himself. His younger brother Cecil married at 27 and was traumatically widowed three years later and Gerty had the inauspicious start referred to earlier and later a troubled partnership with Arthur Shipperlee. Greta and Cecil Bessell were physically very different but formed a very close partnership. He was big and volatile whilst she small, calmorganised and seemingly never flustered.

No sooner had the honeymooners returned than Jean wrote to say Keith would be called up in a few weeks. She was relieved to learn that she could return home while he was away. On 12 May she and Tony arrived and the Albuera St. house assumed what would be its normal crowded state for the next 30 years. Greta had resigned from the Education Department after her marriage and she was free to act as surrogate mother to Tony. Stan flew home for Christmas and the whole family, except for Keith, was at Albuera St. for the celebrations. After Stan went back the household prepared for the arrival of the second grandchild. Jennifer Anne arrived on February 6 1941 and her father Keith, some days later. It was a rushed visit for he would soon be on the Queen Elizabeth bound for Europe and an uncertain future as a tail gunner in bombing campaign against Germany. The War came closer when Stan enlisted in the army in May and George Dalco from next door, who travelled as far as Egypt with Keith’s party, was killed over Greece. It appeared the worst had happened when Jean received a telegram in January 1942. Fortunately, although badly injured Keith survived a fiery crash near Gibraltar that killed all others in his Wellington. The news arrived the day after Greta’s first son Michael was born. Cecil and Jim dug an air raid shelter in the back yard and pasted brown paper on the windows as the night time blackout came into effect.

Stan had been assigned to 11^th Anti Tank Regiment based at Ingleburn in western Sydney. Initially he expected that he might only be required for a few months. He got a brief home leave in September and told Jim that he would now serve ‘for the duration’ but would be promoted. His commercial skills were in demand and October he was Quarter Master Sergeant; his father was pleased. ‘A good, safe, and profitable position’, although he was sure Stan would not avail himself of the latter opportunities. As War with Japan loomed Stan expected to go with his unit to Darwin. He got his commission in January 1942 but his friends went north without him. It seems that an earlier bout of pneumonia ruled him out and in February he was sent to an artillery course at Puckapunyal in Victoria. Back in Sydney with the daughter of a French family who lived on the North Shore. Although Stan and Margaret Tusan had much in common Jim had doubts as to whether his son would fit in with a family with very different social and political views. The regular weekly letters between father and son showed how central politics was to their lives. Personal and social matters were squeezed in to pages largely devoted to the doings of local politicians and the political consequences of the War.

On 15 June 1942 Clara’s mother died. Ann Marie (always known as Granny Jessen) lived to 91 possibly due to her nightly tonic of a brandy laced egg nog. Although she had quite quickly settled into the Australian way of life she retained her Danish accent and a Germanic way of constructing sentences. Blow flies were one feature of life that continued to annoy her and in later life she spent some time catching them and collecting their heads. On 1 June she and Flo planned to come up from Orielton with Viv Hean to stay with Clara and when he could not take them she insisted on taking the bus. By the time Greta could be sent to pick them up Granny had spent some time in a very cold wind. By the next morning she was quite ill and remained so for nearly a fortnight. On 14 June she seemed better and got up for a few hours but she quietly died the next day and was buried at Sorell the following day. Her death meant that Jes’ estate must now be wound up, in particular the £4250 mortgage on Bona Vista at Orielton and Aunty Flo would need to find somewhere else to live.. There could scarcely have been a worse time to try to resolve the matter. Some money was raised from the sale of furniture but there were no immediate bidders for the main property and it was decided that Lance should rent it for another year. Tasman’s youngest child, Nan, boarded with Jim and Clara whilst she attended business college.

By the middle of 1942 the impact of war was everywhere. Max Jessen had returned from the Middle East but he and others were soon moving north towards the front with Japan. Jim agreed to write some propaganda and a few months later Kath and Molly Jessen were working in the munitions factory at Derwent Park. Stan had been kept busy attending a series of courses one on bomb disposal took him to Bonegilla near Albury. He and some friends went into the town for a weekend but on finding no spare beds they set off for Beechworth. Here at a local dance in typical style he asked around for relatives and found Arthur Whitehead. A fortnight later he found himself with Jack Whitehead ‘walking the ground trod by his father, grandfather and great grandfather.’ They visited the schoolyard, the Chinese camp site and Jack explained the finer points of alluvial mining.

Stan’s visit seemed to trigger a reawakening of family ties. Not only were there letters from his cousin Jack but a very pleasant surprise in the form of two letters from his brother Joe. ‘These after so many years of silence.’ When Samuel died in February 1916 Joe’s children were still very young — Alice was 10, Marj 8, Joe Jnr. 6 and Mary only 4. Mary recalls that they did not go to school but were taught at home by Elizabeth. A further tragedy occurred in 1925 when his son Joe Jnr was killed when his horse and cart was hit by a train. Elizabeth was ill and, although Mary was persuaded to not let on about her grandmother’s ‘turns’, she had go to live with her aunt Gerty at Preston.

After his wife died Joe, who had been mining with his father as a very young man, returned to the search for gold around Dargo.

In 1922 he also became postmaster at Black Snake Creek, (described in a newspaper article, Melbourne Sun 9/12/1950 by Ronald Ingleby, as ‘the World's smallest post office’) which he operated until his death. The article describes Joe’s residence-Ten feet high at the roof peak, six feet wide and twelve feet long.. Made of logs with a sloping bark roof held down by wires held down by logs and rocks. Inside at the far end was a pitched tent. This was his original shelter and the hut had been built over it; it now served as bedroom. In the living area was a sideboard of planks that held eating and cooking utensils. Cups swung from nails in the wall. A fireplace built of rocks completed the residence. It was probably styled on his father’s original house in Stanley. Joe told the reporter he had been a miner, contractor, farmer and sheep grazier. ‘I once made £6000 in a few months. That’s the fascination of gold you can be a millionaire today, broke tomorrow.’

When Stan had home leave for New Year in 1943 he and his father took a trip to the East Coast. The journey was composed of a series of family reunions first at Orielton then on to Banwell to stay with Stanley Madsen and see the Mitchelmores. The only disappointment was their discovery that the Triabunna pub was out of beer. Tuesday night with the Allen’s at Bicheno a quick check on their tenants at Ferny Grove and morning tea at the Douglas. Wednesday night with Edmund Wardlaw at Seymour reminiscing and drinking Edmund’s notable fruit wines. Of course similar stops peppered the return journey. In later years when Stan sold life insurance for the AMP he regularly repeated this journey and reinforcing the ties between country and city relatives.

Jim and Stan were both heartened by the encouraging progress of the War and ‘had hopes of victory’. Jim was very proud of Stan’s progress in the Army and also that his son-in-law Keith was now an ‘officer and a gentleman’ in England and his first grandson went to school at Lady Gowrie kindergarten. His son’s visit home brought great pleasure to his Jim and their talks seemed to prompt Stan to plan for the future. Nevertheless he was unprepared for ‘the bombshell’ that he found in the letterbox’ on 12 June. Stan was to marry.

His friendship with Margaret appears to have faded and earlier in the year he met Jean Marie Jasprizza, a WAAF, on a Sydney railway station after a dance and romance quickly blossomed. She was the youngest daughter of a large family from Young in New South Wales. Her grandfather, Nicole Jasprizza had emigrated from Austria, married a wealthy widow and pioneered cherry growing in the area. As both Jean and Stanley had siblings with the same name she always called him Tony and she was known to Stan’s family as Jane. Jim thought marriage was ‘ a bit of a rush’ and was a bit sceptical about her religion. The comment in his must have been based on letters. He was much more impressed when she wrote a fine letter to him a month later and entered in his diary — ‘she has intelligence and physical charm’. While Stan and Jane and five friends were at St Andrews in Sydney the family gathered in the sunroom at Albuera St and drank a bottle of wine to toast them. Neither family was exactly pleased to miss out on the ceremony and the newly weds were a little apprehensive of Mrs Jasprizza’s reaction to her daughters wedding in an Anglican church. After a small celebration at Ushers Hotel and a very short honeymoon at the Hotel Lapstone in the Blue Mountains, the newly weds took the train to Young so Stan could meet the family. Their apprehension was misplaced and the new son-in-law was warmly welcomed into the family. Stan was pleased to tell his father that Jane’s brother also saw that ‘Labor was the best bet for the farmer’.

Jim and Clara were disappointed that they were not invited to the wedding of their child for a second time but soon after they were cheered when Clara received the first instalment from her mother’s personal estate. Ann Marie owned some blocks at the Douglas in her own right, perhaps from a family inheritance. After lengthy negotiations these were added to Colin Madsens holdings. Later the family agreed to a proposal whereby Roberts Ltd would finance Tas’ son Lance and his wife Joan (Lovell) to buy the farm for £3800. (Because the purchase price was less than the mortgaged value the final settlement was prolonged generating considerable family tension.) Clara and Hilmer had to pay interest on their debts for the period between Granny Jessen’s death and the sale. Finally Clara received her share that amounted to £1240. The executors also owned another substantial parcel of land south of the Douglas River: these 400 acres were auctioned and eventually bought by Charlie Madsen for Colin. In October 1943 Jim leased a block of crown land at Coles Bay for 14 years at £3/15/- a year with ‘a fairly good sea going proposition’. It appears that he never got to see it nor to complete the sale.

Jim and Clara decided to revisit their earlier haunts for Christmas 1943; Jean, Tony and Jenny tagged along. As they set out they were very proud to be on the bus that made the first crossing of the new floating bridge across the Derwent. They stayed with Edith Allen at the ‘Shack’ for a couple of nights before going to The Douglas. Colin Madsen had moved into the old house when his father bought the property in 1938. In 1942 he married Beatrice Keefer. Her grandfather had arrived in Swansea in 1855 with his wife and children. (Her brother Walter was married to Jessica Gemmel, sister of Mrs Tas Jessen.) They, like the Rapps, came from Wurtermburg in Germany. Around 1950 the Madsens bought the adjoining property on the southern side of the River. Colin and Bea chose the more modern house there as their home. The old home, now showing its more than 100 years age became a Youth Hostel. It gradually deteriorated and in the 1960 was demolished and the sandstone blocks were recycled into another house at Coles Bay. When Jim and Clara arrived Bea was still in hospital at Swansea recovering from the birth of their first son Ian. Torie was there to look after them and Jim spent much of the time walking around The Douglas with Colin Madsen, helping around the farm and fishing and shooting.. They also visited Fern Grove and spent time with the Coopers. Mrs Cooper’s niece, Ada, talked of working at The Douglas as a maid more than 30 years before. Despite heavy rain and floods the fortnight seemed to have been a very happy nostalgic time.

Jim and Clara returned home by bus through St Mary’s, stopping at Chain of Lagoons long enough to greet the Wardlaws, and caught the train at Conara. The railway stations all seemed to be manned by Cecil’s relatives. Shortly after their return two more figures from the old days at the Douglas appeared. Ada, a maid of the Jessens visited them at Albuera Street and later the same day Sam Champ who had worked for Jess as a boy turned up. Jim had a soft spot for Sam who after leaving the Douglas went to Canberra and worked as gardener at the Lodge. He was also an ardent socialist and was as proud of knowing John Curtin a s of his ability to quote large tracts of his speeches. Sam was in difficult straits having saved up enough money he was ineligible for a pension. The money was to care for his mentally retarded son Joe when Sam died.

In the May school holidays of 1944 Jim and Clara spent a week with the Mitchelmores; another opportunity to rekindle the warmth of the extended family. This time Greta and Michael accompanied them. When they got home Jean greeted them with the news that Keith had returned to Australia, Stan had seen his name in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald and broke the news to his sister. Albuera St was in turmoil as the family arranged to accommodate Jim, Clara and Stan (back on leave), three Bessells and four Harrisons! Jim got much pleasure from Stan’s brief visit but the Harrison reunion was problematic for the children.

Life was still dominated by the War and Jim’s diary carefully recorded the better prospects for victory; the landings in Normandy were gleefully recorded in red ink. Stan had now spent three years in the Army in or near to Sydney and for almost a year had the luxury of regular weekends with his new wife. However with Jane now expecting their first child in a month or so this fortunate military life came to an end. After a month in Brisbane he was moved to Darwin and missed the birth of his first son. Jane wrote to Jim graphically recording ‘her first attempt at reproduction’. Her regular letters were much appreciated. By now her standing with her father-in-law was greatly enhanced and she was warmly welcomed as a good match for his pride and joy. Jim was proud that Kim’s birth ‘will give the line a fresh chance of perpetuation’. Stan said ‘I feel I have started life on a higher and better plane’; and fatherhood seemed to change his life for ever. Life was difficult for Jane left alone with a new baby in a flat in Edgecliff at the top of up three flights of steep stairs.

With family responsibilities and the war apparently drawing to a close Stan was impatient to leave the Army. Keith was not happy with having to be re-trained and injury was piled on the insult when he was involved in another crash and wound up in Sale Hospital with a smashed knee. Gerty’s son Bill had not been home for more than a year and her son-in-law Clyde Sankey was in New Britain. Jim accepted some prisoners from the gaol in his correspondence classes and provided materials so that the Italian prisoners of war working at Harefield could learn English. Jean resumed her teaching career, now both mother and son were at Lady Gowrie School. As Christmas arrived Jim was again in hospital for more radium treatment and whilst there he heard that Thora Bonde, Clara’s aunt had died. After the radium treatment he grew a goatee beard ‘like General Smuts’ and was amused when many of his acquaintances failed to recognise him in the street.

Joe wrote again and the brothers exchanged views about their recent spells in hospital. He hoped to ‘be able to take a run down to see you all shortly but so far I cant get anybody to take over here. I don’t want to lose it by shutting it up.’ In Dargo too the War affected everything. In February 1945 he told Gerty -

Despite his illness he returned to work at the Correspondence School in 1945 and was pleased to enrol three members of the RAAF in Darwin and Victoria in his courses. He was now being treated by Dr Muir and the radio-therapy pioneer Dr Holman and had grown a beard to ease the irritation to his lip. Holman’s view was that there was now no sign of the growth but there was bad scarring. Jim was cheered to be told to come back for a check in six months. He and Clara took Tony and Jenny to Harefield for Easter and a couple of weeks later returned for Torie and Charlie Madsen’s Golden Wedding anniversary. The whole family arrived en masse; Viv and Dora were escorted by two daughters with their husbands and two grandchildren. Ev and Stuart had their two daughters, and Clara and Bob were accompanied by two of their three. For the second generation in a row female offspring vastly outnumbered the males. Stanley and Erica had their two boys, Linda was with Ross and Colin and Beattie with their son Ian. Hilmer Jessen, and Betty, both ill, were the only absentees. A more modest party was held to celebrate Jim’s birthday three weeks later. It opened with a bottle of burgundy ‘damn sour stuff’ and finished with champagne donated by Minnie Jessen. ‘It was very disappointing too, I had never tasted it before and now I would just as soon drink cider. The port was better.’

The diary recorded Hitler’s death and Jean’s appointment to a school in Victoria; the former was underlined. The surrender of Germany a week later warranted large writing in red ink! Jim was excited and impressed to make his first flight, going to Melbourne with Jean on 11 May. ‘Plane looks like some mythical monster but efficiency everywhere’. Gerty took them home. Jim was happily surprised by a visit from his aunt Sarah Whitehead — ‘hale and hearty at 79’. This short visit gave him the opportunity to see old friends and lost relations. He spent an evening with Ralph and Dorothy Gibson, visited Bob and Mary Stephenson and Beat Linton. ‘Pat wants to leave the Police and they are expecting to move to Tasmania’. Hilda Holmes called on them and he went to see the ailing Walter Whitehead. Later Aunt Sarah, Alice and her family welcomed him. On his first Saturday he went to the Western Oval to see his team play Footscray. It was so exciting he had to leave before the end and heard on the railway station that North had won. The next Saturday Nell took him to see North Melbourne and Fitzroy. Before leaving for the ground he got a telegram from the Club Secretary inviting him to the dressing rooms before the game. There he met all the players and was royally treated. North beat the reigning premiers to complete his day. As he and Jean were at the Melbourne airways office to fly home Keith appeared.

Jean had finally confided her marital problems with her father and this was a further source of worry. She decided to follow Keith to Melbourne in an attempt to save the marriage. She was offered a teaching post at Camberwell Grammar until the War was over so she and the two children moved to Melbourne. By June Jim’s health deteriorated again, he needed pain-killers for the ache in his jaw and in July was admitted to hospital with heart problems. This time he spent six weeks there and during this time Hilmer Jessen died after an operation in Launceston; although his family knew the doctors were apparently unaware that he had a blood clotting problem. Dr Holman saw Jim in the RHH and told him that whilst there was some continuing problem any further radium treatment would be dangerous. ‘Doctors know the case is hopeless but don’t want to tell me straight’. Stan was now Balikpapan in Borneo and although ‘the war I am fighting isn’t exactly dangerous .. fighting goes on men are killed.’ Fortunately the conflict was now really ending.

Jim came home from hospital on the same day that Japan sought terms to end the War The celebrations for the end of the war were muted by Jim’s poor health. After his release from hospital his jaw deteriorated further and when Dr Muir saw it a month later he sent him back to hospital for some surgery. Now the family was really worried. Greta was pregnant and Jean flew back from Melbourne but Stan was not able to leave Borneo until the end of September. Due to his father’s condition he was able to fly home and arrived back in Sydney on 10 October. For the next few days there were concerted efforts to get Jane a seat on a plane to Hobart but to no avail and Stan arrived in Hobart alone ten days after his father was discharged. Nevertheless his stay of three weeks was an emotional reunion. Neither realised that would not meet again. The day after Stan left Jim returned to work after four months away. At the end of the year he was pleasantly surprised to receive a note from the Director of Education —‘well done good and faithful servant’.

On Easter Saturday 1946 Jim remembered 40 years of marriage ‘the last we shall spend together. They have been 40 very happy years. Clara has been a good wife and a good mother and a loving companion.’ Jim died in the Royal Hobart Hospital just after Easter in 1946. He reached ‘his allotted span, three score years and ten’ there and on Easter Saturday had a visit from two nuns.

He wrote the last entry in his diary the night he died.

[He declined a shave by the male nurse with a razor ‘used by everyone for everything’ and elected to see the barber in the morning.]

James followed his father's interests in community affairs and was a leading figure in the Teachers Association, Workers Education Association and country cricket. In his youth he was a very keen cricketer making 100 for Forcett against Cherry Tree in 1905 another century for Forcett the next year in the semi final against Sorell and 127 for Huonville against Franklin in 1925. Whilst in the Huon he established WEA classes. He was Secretary of the Huon Cricket Association from 1914 to 1929, sole selector for the Huon representative teams and the first Secretary of the Country Week Cricket Association. He was President of the Tasmanian Teachers Federation in 1931 and an active member of the New Education Fellowship and it was appropriate that the NEF Conference of 1937 led to the end of the dictatorial powers of the Teaching Inspectors. A fortnight before he died he learnt that the Tasmanian Teachers Union were to make him a life member. Living in Hobart for his last years gave him the opportunity to resume his interest in football and he initiated a family outing on Saturdays that continued for many years after his death.

Jim took an interest in all sports and he was a lifetime supporter of North Melbourne in the VFL. On one weekend in the summer of 1945 he watched cricket at the TCA Ground and stayed on to see the greyhound races and went to the horse races at Elwick the next. Tatts tickets and occasional bets on the Melbourne Cup etc. were the usual extent of his gambling. On one occasion he bet on every race on course and also in Melbourne. It was typical of his methodical approach to life that he placed a place bet on the third pick of ‘the professional prophets in the Argus’. He was very pleased to wind up with a profit of 13/6 from an investment of £3.5.0, and to have had much greater success than Jean, Greta or Cecil. He was an avid bridge player but his prime pastimes were politics, civic affairs, conversation and letter writing and despite his illness, most were accompanied by a smoke.

Jim was an avid reader and keen student of politics; his diaries covering the years from 1939 to his death in 1946 reveal a deep understanding of the world scene. He was a Fabian socialist — ‘socialism is the only cure for all our economic troubles and economic troubles are at the root of all our social inequalities and most of our social evils’. By the end of his life he was sorely disappointed by the failure of Labor to carry out social reform. ‘The communists are the only progressive Laborites’. He numbered amongst his close friends men such as Ken Dallas, Ray Harvey and Ralph Gibson who would later fall under suspicion during the anti communist fever that sprang up with the Cold War in the late 1940s. The politician Sir Henry Baker, the fellow teacher Ben Whitham and the eminent economist Prof. Lyndhurst Giblin were others with whom he maintained a close friendship. Giblin and Wright were both great supporters of the Workers Educational Association (WEA) and Giblin would stay with Jim when he came to the Huon to lecture. Giblin took a particular interest in Stan Wright and the young boy stayed with the Giblins for holidays after 1926 before the Professor went to Melbourne University in 1928. In the later years of his life he subscribed to the Left Book Club with volumes arriving monthly in discreet brown paper wrapping. Clara and Greta were so alarmed they burnt most of his library soon after his death. He contracted cancer of the lip in 1937 and although he suffered through a painful progression of the disease he maintained his interest in civic affairs. When he visited Dr Sprent in 1943 he was told that only 5% of people with his condition survived for 3 years but here he was still alive six and a half years later. As well as his diary he was a prolific letter writer and this correspondence did much to keep the house in Albuera St. at the centre of family life.

Stan returned to Hobart in 1950 to a permanent position with AMP. Jane and the three children arrived soon after and settled in to Albuera St. His work brought him into contact with Dickie Baker as the Lenah Valley milkman was becoming a major financial figure. Stan was able to buy a house Baker had built next to the dairy in Lenah Valley Rd. and was soon on the way to a successful carrer in the insurance world. Clara continued to live at Albuera St. with Greta and Cecil Bessell and the two boys Michael and David until her death in 1959 aged 82. The house was always busy for Greta had not only three large and boisterous men to care for but she also took in bed and breakfast tourists for a few years and later boarded a succession of university students. She would conjure meals for six or seven without a moments hesitation. Tragically Cecil died suddenly five years later but Greta continued to live there until 1998 when she needed to move to Mary’s Grange. The house was sold in 2001.