Name: David Blair Reid

Date of Birth: 29th  October 1875

Birth Location: Brisbane Queensland

Also Known As: Dave

Age at Burial: 85 years

Date of Death: 12th November 1960

Death Location: Bunbury, Western Australia

Date of Burial: 15th November 1960

Denomination: Anglican B section

Row/Grave: Row 3 Grave #37

Grave Transcription:

Also their beloved husband and father

David Blair Reid

Died 12th Nov 1960

Aged 85 Years

Father:

David Reid – born 1851 Scotland. Died 30th October 1938, Lidcombe Sydney, New South Wales. Buried Rookwood General Cemetery – Plot: Presbyterian 5B Zone A/#/6797

Marriage – 18th June1874 – Brisbane Queensland

Mother: Elizabeth Brown – born 1851 Glasgow Scotland.  Died 18th September 1888 – (Train Accident) Marrickville, Sydney, New South Wales. Buried Rookwood General Cemetery – Plot: Presbyterian 5B Zone A/#/6797

Grandparents (father): David Reid, born 1823 and  Agnes Ferney, born 1824.  Married 1848

Grandparents (mother): James Brown and Elizabeth Blair

Siblings:

Elizabeth Reid – born 1877 Sydney, New South Wales. Died 12th November 1890. Buried Rookwood General Cemetery – Plot: Presbyterian 5B Zone A/#/6797

James Brown Reid – born 1879 Sydney, New South Wales. Died 1960, Claremont, Western Australia

Norman Alexander Reid – born 1882 Pyrmont, Sydney, New South Wales. Died 26th July 1916, Somme France. Buried Suzanne Military Cemetery No.3 Plot 2, Row “D” grave 14.

The AIF Project – Norman Alexander Reid

Stella Wilson Reid – born 1884, Pyrmont, Sydney, New South Wales. Died 24th October 1890. Buried Rookwood General Cemetery – Plot: Presbyterian 5B Zone A/#/6797

Spouse: Lilly Tucker (married 1899 – North Fremantle)

Children:

Dorothy Thelma Elizabeth Reid – born 22 September 1900 Midland Junction. Died 3rd March 1930, Greenmount, Western Australia. Memorial Capel Cemetery on parents’ grave. Buried Karrakatta Cemetery, Anglican Section OA Grave 0182.  Married Alexander Stephen George Watt on November 18th, 1922-Bunbury.

David Robert Alexander Reid (Dave)– born 20th February 1903 – West Leederville. Died 20th October 1977. Buried Capel Cemetery – Anglican A section Row 6 Grave #51.  Married Paulina Dorothy King in 1923 – Bunbury – Divorced 1932. Second Marriage to  Jean Monica Maloney

James William Henry Reid (Jim)– born 16th January 1910 – Elgin, SW Railway. Died 20th November 2006.  Buried Capel Cemetery – Anglican B section Row 3 Grave #35. Married Jessie Reading in 1933 – West Perth.

Clive Warren Mcleod Reid (Mack) – born 20th April 1915 – Elgin. Died 14th March 2007. Buried Boyanup Cemetery.  Married Gladys May Smith in 1941.

Douglas Murray Blair Reid (Doug) – born 6th April 1917 Elgin. Died 26th March 2005. Buried Bunbury Cemetery – Lawn Section B, Grave 253.  Married Ella Margaret Smith in 1944.

Occupation:  Boilermaker and Farmer

Their Story

“The story of David Blair Reid, as recounted by his son Jim Read in August 1994. This copy was sourced from the Ron Maidment Archive at Capel Library.”

David worked in Sydney as a boiler-maker and during that time knew as was keeping company with Lilly Tucker.  During the gold rush in W.A he came to this State about 1897-98 to prospect for gold.  Not being successful in this venture David renewed his work as a boiler-maker at the Midland Workshops.  He procured a house in Midland and sent for Lilly Tucker.

Lilly with her young brother Frederick Tucker and their parents William and Rachel Tucker came to W.A by boat, and lived in the home David had procured.

David Blair Reid and Lilly Tucker were married in Midland and Thelma Reid was born there in 1900, and a son David Alexander was born there in 1904.

David Blair decided to go farming and purchasing a horse and cart set off with his father-in-law William Tucker and brother-in-law Frederick Tucker, aged 12 years for Bunbury.  The trio camped in a tent on very poor ground next to the Bussell Highway about 6 mile from and South of Bunbury.  They only stayed there about two weeks and acting on advice, selected about five hundred acres of land adjacent to the railway line at Elgin.

Lilly Reid and two children, Thelma and David Alexander together with Rachel came to join David Blair, William and Frederick Tucker at Elgin about 1904-1905.  David had built a first home of split jarrah slabs, sealed with pug and wattle.  The wattle branches nailed to the slabs and sealed with wet clay, smoothed to a plaster like surface.

The only transport the family had was a horse and cart, and my father purchased a few sheep and eventually a few cows.  David and Lilly decided to build a home nearer the railway siding, Elgin and moved there about 1906.  The home was built in a similar manner to their previous home.

Did they have any money, and did they employ anyone?

My mother told me that for some years she wanted to write to relatives in Sydney, but could not do no because she could not afford a one penny postage stamp.  To exist they sold a little wool, and also established a delivery to some households in Bunbury, selling home grown fruit, berries, home made butter, meat, milk and fruit.  The proceeds paid for flour to make bread, and other necessities for living.

In the first home built on the property another son James, was born, and in the next home named “The Bridge” Clive (Mac) and Douglas were born.

The farmers could not afford and so did not employ labour.  They with the help of family did all the work.  To supplement their income they often worked on roads, went potato digging, went shearing sheep, splitting posts and fencing, and any work to pay for living necessities in their homes.

My mother Lilly Reid, was instrumental in getting the first school in Elgin.  This was opened in 1908 and Thelma Reid was one of the first pupils there.  Later on in 1920 to become a teacher at this school for four years to 1924. My mother board all the early teachers at Elgin school.  

The Reid property was named “The Bridge” by my father and Mother, and I was always told this name was selected because the then “Roads Board” had the wooden bridge built over the brook running through the district, and the Reid and other properties.  The bridge was necessary because of being the only route for farmers to receive and deliver goods by rail.  

David Blair was a good cricket player and once was a member of East Fremantle Cricket Team.  He was interested in all sport and often, when not playing cricket, would play tennis at Capel.  He decided on a lawn court and encouraged a good couch court.  Mechanical fuel mowers were unknown then in the area, and after trying cutting the court with shearing shears, David invested in a hand pushing (exhausting) lawn mower.  He encouraged and taught all his children to play, and I have no hesitation in saying that we all played well and I eventually formed an eight member family team which played against surrounding districts, such as Boyanup, Dardanup, Capel, Capel River, Busselton and Ludlow.

When my father made his first tennis court we marked lines with lime water.  This caused prolific growth and sheep lived eating the sweet grass along the lines.  Only the racket used by David Blair was afforded.  He made several wood bats similar to ping-pong bats for our children’s use and we became good.  My parents often had tennis parties here with our friends and we had quite a few years of enjoyment until grown up.  All this would have been between about 1918 to 1930.

When David Blair had built the second home called “The Bridge” he cleared about 20 acres of land between house and the Elgin road at the “Bridge” and established many varieties of fruit trees.  He sold most of the fruit and vegetables such as potatoes, pumpkins, melons etc in Bunbury.

As the property developed David Blair decided to build a bigger and nicer home.  The second home was gradually demolished and he hand mixed and made large cement bricks and gradually built this third and final home.  This was indeed a great achievement and is being lived in by new owners.

After making his tennis court my father organised the Elgin school childrens’s fathers and supervised the building of an ant-hill tennis court at the Elgin school and another at the Stratham school.

William and Rachel Tucker bought some property on the Capel River and being a stone mason from Cornwall in England, William built a home of limestone some of which is a part of the home in which their great granddaughter Alison Dunkley owns and lives.  Frederick Tucker, son of William and Rachel became the owner after the death of his parents.  He later sold the property to the Dunkleys.

In 1933 David Blair and son James (Jim) built a cement brick home for James and Jessie Reid (nee Reading) on two hundred acres of the Reid Property and only about sixty yards from the original first home built.  David’s grandson Neil (James’ son) and his wife Barbara live and farm there.  In this home James and Jessie reared two daughters and a son, and Neil and Barbara reared two sons and a daughter.

None of the Reids have ever had independent means.  What any of the have has always been achieved by hard work.  Lilly Reid died in 1955 and David Blair died in 1960.  They achieved much from almost nothing and left much as monuments to the life they lived in very harsh circumstances

Jim Reid

—————————————————————————————————————————-

Newspaper Obituary – South Western Times, Thursday, November 24, 1960.

ELGIN PIONEER PASSES

An early settler of the Elgin district Mr. David Blair Reid passed away on November 12 at the Bunbury District Hospital.  He was 85 years of age.

Born in Brisbane in 1875, the late Mr. Reid moved to Sydney with his parents when he was three years old.

He came to this State during the gold rush in 1894 and celebrated his nineteenth birthday on the fields.  Joining a party of about twenty he walked from Southern Cross to Coolgardie a distance of more than 100 miles beside a camel-drawn water carrier conveying supplies to the dry inland to be sold to the gold seekers at 7/6 per gallon.

At the end of each day’s march the teamster would measure one gallon of the precious liquid into a bucket and after washing himself would allow each of the others to take his turn for a wash according to the amount of help he’d received from the travellers during the day’s arduous journey.

The late Mr. Reid’s willingness to help others won him the privilege of heading the line on most days.  After each had washed himself the teamster would items of clothing such as his socks.

Returning to the metropolitan area, the late Mr. Reid was married at North Fremantle in 1899 to Miss Lily Tucker who had come from Sydney for her wedding.  A boiler maker by trade Mr. Reid was engaged at the Midland Junction workshops and later followed his trade by servicing boats at Fremantle and the ferry flying between Perth and Fremantle.

He decided to follow his urge to settle on the land and tossed a coin to see whether he should go to South Africa or the South West of this state.  The South West won.  Packing their goods and chattels into a horse-drawn cart the young couple drove from Fremantle to a block near Reuben Dean’s Hill, about six miles south of Bunbury where Mrs Reid’s parents, who had followed their daughter to the state, lived for sometime.

As the land was poor in that locality, Mr. Reid selected land at Elgin where he built his first home from wattle and pung.  At the time only six pioneering families were in the Stratham-Elgin district.  Cream was 8d. 1b, wool 10d. 1b. and eggs 6d. a dozen.

When sufficient land was cleared to run sheep, Mr. Reid supplied meat each week to customers at Bunbury.  Later he was joined in the enterprise by his neighbour, Mr S. R. Clapp, in supplying other items of farm produce.  They drove the 20 miles to Bunbury each Saturday morning.

With the help of his sons as they left school he developed the property into the now well established farm known as “The Bridge”.

SCHOOL

Mr. and Mrs Reid were instrumental in getting a school at Elgin in 1910, and when numbers attending were so reduced that the school was likely to close, Mr Reid drove each morning and afternoon to transport children from as far as Stratham to keep the required average attendance.  Later, their only daughter Thelma, taught at the school.

A cricketer, footballer and tennis player, Mr. Reid fostered these sports in the district.  It was due mainly to his efforts that tennis courts were laid down at both Elgin and Stratham, and cricket pitches-constructed at the school and the Stratham sports ground.  He followed his love of cricket until well into his sixties playing first with Capel and later with the Elgin-Stratham team, coaching and encouraging the younger ones, many of whom later became successful followers of the game.

When the bowling club was formed at Boyanup in recent years, Mr. Reid found much enjoyment in his game of bowls.

HOSPITALITY

Well-known for their hospitality, this couple always had young people at their home at weekends and when Mr. Reid completed their new home about 1930 a spacious room was included so that parties and dances could be held there.  Mr. Reid built the lovely cement brick house between routine work on his dairy.

The funeral of the kindly disposed and loved citizen took place in the Capel Cemetery last Tuesday after a service at All Saints Church, Stratham, The Rev Canon Davies officating at both services.  Pall-bearers were all members of families long associated with the district.  They included Messrs. C.M Scott snr. A. R. Murnane. G. W. Scott, Erle Scott, V. G Roberts, W.W. Hutton, D. B Forrest, E. Wass, E. J. Summers and J Cross.  Casket-bearers were Messrs. W. Jilley, A.V. Scott, M. Bell and H. Lovelle.

Predeceased by his wife in 1955, the deceased is survived by four sons who are all farming on properties in the Elgin district passed to them by their parents.

 Newspaper Obituary provided by the Ron Maidment Archives – Capel

——————————————————————————————————————————

Additional Information – Trove Newspaper Articles (click the link to read article)

Bunbury Herald – 28th December 1912 – Elgin School

Bunbury Herald – 23rd December 1913 – Elgin School

South Western Tribune – 13th February 1930 – Elgin Party

South Western Times – 6th May 1933 – Stratham Party (Birthday)

South Western Times – 23rd June 1939 – Motor Truck Accident 

South Western Times – 25th April 1941 – Smith – Reid Wedding

 South Western Times – 6th February 1942 – MR. D. B Reid – Truck Accident

The West Australian – 30th August 1946 – Fishing Accident – Busselton

The Daily News – 22nd July 1955 – Slow to Mend – Broken Thigh

 

Information Compiled by Researcher PP  (CDCP Team Member)

If you are visiting this page and have further information that pertains to David Blair Reid that you would like to add, can you please contact the Capel District Cemeteries Project via the CONTACT US section at the bottom of the main page.

© Capel District Cemeteries Project 22/11/2024