William and Maria stuck to storekeeping. It was more reliable than digging but had its own challenges. Customers generally paid in gold, and storekeepers provided credit for a few weeks while diggers found enough gold to clear their account; some moved on without paying.
Of necessity, storekeepers, were also gold dealers which came with the risk of being “stuck up”.
Newspapers sometimes spell names incorrectly so it’s possible that our William was the William Hodges reported as having been twice accosted by Thomas McDermott with a pistol at Bendigo in August 1855.
The first time William took the gun from McDermott, and the second time “he levelled a gun at him and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t drop it.”
There were several men on the goldfields named William Hodges but none can be placed at Bendigo at this time.
| Dates | 1825-1888 |
| Lived at | Kent, Birmingham, Goldfields, Landsborough |
| Baptised | 29 May 1825 Brasted, Kent |
| Occupation | Doctor/Miner/Storekeeper |
| Father | Booth Hodgetts II |
| Mother | Elizabeth Hope |
| Spouse | Maria Breeden (1829-1872 m 1852 Aston, Warwickshire |
| Children | William Booth Hodgetts 1854-1927 Frederick Cazimar Hodgetts 1856-1900 Mary Elizabeth Hodgetts 1858-1927 Albert Henry Hodgetts 1860-1926 Walter Joseph Hodgetts 1863-1937 Francis Ernest Hodgetts 1866-1950 |
By May, William and Maria were at Alma, one of many rushes they followed.
Apart from William, James Hodgetts is the only known storekeeper with the Hodgetts or Hodges surname, and all the evidence on James places him around Bendigo. This makes it highly likely William was the storekeeper “Hodges” at Pleasant Creek (Stawell) who was plundered three times in early 1858.* This involved a night raid or having the tent cut and robbed from the rear while a diversion was created out front.
By mid-1858, William and Maria had a store at Ararat and remained in the area following various rushes e.g. they were at the Port Fairy Road rush in September that year, Donkey Hill near Percydale (1863), Moonambel (1864), Peter’s Diggings near St Arnaud (1866) and no doubt many other diggings in between. Wooden stores soon replaced tents and provided more security but required regular dismantling and rebuilding. At each rush the storekeepers set up together to form a street, each proprietor erecting a flag to advertise their store. As each rush waned, “the sound of hammers rang … stores and shanties were taken down for removal to the new rush. Chapels, schools, hotels, and stores were relocated, and carts loaded with tents, stores, wives, and children, passed … almost every quarter of an hour during the day.”
Maria bore five children on the goldfields where childbirth was a hazardous business and 7% of full-term babies died due to “the unsanitary squalor and inadequate colonial laws that permitted unqualified charlatans and drunken illiterates to attend confinements.” While there was sometimes no official medical attendant for Maria, she had the security of William’s medical training.
Although William never officially practiced medicine in Australia, he helped neighbours in emergencies. In September 1858, at the Port Fairy Road Rush just outside Ararat, a doctor named Ridley bungled the care of a woman in childbirth and Ann Miller’s baby. As the situation worsened, a cry went up, “Run for Hodge, he is a medical man”. Arriving on the scene, William found Ridley drunk and Ann in horrific pain with a pierced bladder. William himself takes up the tale:
I told him be was not in a fit state to attend on any patient. He began to abuse me, and called me a d—-d liar. Miller took Ridley away. I examined deceased, and found her face was very much blotched, and her tongue brown and dry. Deceased told me she had a considerable quantity of gin and water given her within the last few hours. After that I made an examination. I found a portion of the placenta broken up, and the remaining portion of the placenta still in the uterus. There was about three-fourths of the placenta in tbe uterus, which I withdrew. On enquiry I found that she had not passed water for five days. I saw it was a dangerous case, and advised that Dr. Girdlestone should be sent for.
Dr Girdlestone could not save Ann Miller and she died a long painful death. William gave evidence in a negligence trial, but Ridley was acquitted.
Maloney’s Rush & Landsborough
By the end of 1866, William and Maria had a family of six children and set up a store/hotel at Maloney’s Rush 3km north of Landsborough. They were still there in 1870 when William inherited £9,000 (in mines and shares) from his aunt Elizabeth in England. Maria died of dropsy (oedema) and jaundice two years later and was buried in Landsborough.
William continued in business at Maloney’s Rush, took up land, and was also involved in a flour mill and Kara Kara Mining Company as well as twice running for council. Meanwhile, he was the victim of two deliberately lit fires in 1876. On the second occasion, he and the children were awoken by a neighbour to find their home had been set alight with kerosene. After this escape, he opened a store in Landsborough proper before retiring in favour of his sons.
William died of cancer of the jaw in 1888. Whilst he had little cash to leave his children, his store, land, and considerable English income were divided amongst them. William’s mother had disapproved of his marriage. Nevertheless, he and Maria had travelled halfway round the world, built a life together and have many descendants. Hodgetts Lane in Landsborough bears their name.
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Sources & Notes
Bendigo Store
- William Hodges testified in the Sandhurst Court that Thomas McDermott came to his tent twice and presented a pistol at him, Bendigo Advertiser Aug 25 1855 (accessed via Bendigo library, not on Trove).
- “William Hodgetts” appears in the Bendigo rates record 1856 replaced by James Hodgetts, VPRS 16267/P0001, 1856 img14.
Various Rushes: taken from children’s birth certificates and from newspaper articles (see William Hodgetts Trove list)