Name: James McKenzie Yates

Date of Birth: 11 August 1868

Birth Location: Chimney Gully, Angaston,  South Australia

Also Known As: Jim or Mack

Age: 90 Years and 11 Months

Date of Death: 18 July 1959

Death Location: Donnybrook Hospital, Donnybrook, Western Australia

Date of Burial: 20 July 1959

Denomination: Anglican

Row/Grave: Anglican D Section. Row 3 Grave # 16

Grave Transcription:

In Loving Memory Of

ETHEL ADELINE YATES

Died 8 TH July 1950

And her beloved husband

JAMES MCKENZIE

Died 18 TH July 1959

Aged 90 Years

Fond Parents of

Les & Reg

Father: William Yates. Born 9 November 1837 at Winterbourne, Dauntsey, Wiltshire, England. Died 5 September 1892 at Gladstone, South Australia.

Mother: Mary Brydie McKenzie. Born 10 October 1840 at Lochlane, Monzievaird, Perthshire, Scotland. Died 1 March 1924 at ‘Wingillie’, Cal Lal, New South Wales, Australia.

Grandparents (father):

William Yates. Born 1 July 1810 at Winterbourne Earls, Wiltshire, England. Died 7 May 1881 at Angaston, South Australia,  and Jane London, born 18 April 1813 at Winterbourne Dauntsey, Wiltshire, England. Died 8 August 1895 at Lyndoch, South Australia.

Grandparents (mother):

Duncan McKenzie. Born 25 January 1820 at Ardchattan, Argyll, Scotland. Died 18 January 1892 at Norwood, South Australia, and Annie Brydie, born 8 June 1821 at Dunning, Perthshire, Scotland. Died 21 May 1864 at Flaxman Valley, Angaston, South Australia.

Siblings:

William Yates. Born 20 March 1859. Died 11 December 1935

Annie Brydie Yates. Born 1 December 1860. Died 19 January 1934

Duncan Yates. Born 16 January 1862. Died 7 March 1902

Jane (Jean) Yates. Born 18 February 1866. Died 30 July 1959

Edgar Charles Yates. Born 15 November 1871. Died 19 December 1934

John Yates. Born 15 August 1875. Died 31 July 1954

Mary Yates. Born 18 September 1877. Died 25 September 1964

Catherine Yates. Born 31 January 1880. Died 7 January 1964

Richard Waters Yates. Born 23 January 1883. Died 18 June 1919. (Adopted. Biological mother Mary Waters)

Spouse: Ethel Adeline Bleby Born 4 December 1874 at Halloway, London, England. Died 9 July 1950 at Stirling Hospital, Bunbury, Western Australia.

Children:

Doris Edith Ethel Yates, born 1896 – died 1896.  Aged 3 Months

Henry Lesley McKenzie Yates, born 26 October 1898 at Guilford, Western Australia.  Died 1979.

Reginald Bleby Yates, born 29 March 1901 at Kirup, Western Australia, Australia. Died 27 April 1973 at Bunbury Regional Hospital, Bunbury, Western Australia.

Occupation: Farmer

Military Service:

Their Story

Jim was born at Chimney Gully near Angaston in the Barossa Valley, South Australia on 11 August 1868. His name was James, but he was known interchangeably as both Jim or Mack. He was one of 10 children. He grew up in Angaston. Angaston is a town on the eastern side of the Barossa Valley in South Australia, 77 km north east of Adelaide. The Barossa Valley is a famous wine producing region in South Australia. It boasts very old vines, suitable soil and a good climate for wine cultivation. The Barossa region includes the towns of Tanunda, Nuriootpa and Angaston. Its wines are known around the world.

Jim’s family, the Yates family, were pioneers of South Australia and the Barossa Valley. Jim’s grandparents, William Yates b.1810 and Jane London b.1813 arrived from England in 1839. They were from Winterbourne Earls, a village in Wiltshire in the south of England near Salisbury. It is set in a picturesque landscape and has a traditional English countryside feel. They were part of the historic pioneering settlement of the Barossa Valley. The history of that settlement is well known but the involvement of English settlers like the Yates family is overshadowed by the story of a group of German Lutherans who came out under the same settlement scheme in the late 1830’s, a little before the Yates family’s arrival which was in late 1839.

The scheme was promoted and backed by George Fife Angas an English businessman.  Angas’s business interests included ships, banking and philanthropy. In 1832 he joined the committee of the South Australian Land Company, expressing a keen interest in the establishment of a free colony where people could enjoy both civil and religious liberty.

Throughout the 1840s Angas devoted himself to promoting the Barossa Valley by giving lectures, publishing pamphlets and recruiting emigrants. He despatched several ships to South Australia. These included a large group of German Lutherans under Pastor August Kavel and he also provided the colony with many Nonconformist ministers.

Even though Angas was the founding father of the whole migration/settlement scheme he had arranged everything from England and didn’t come out to it himself until 1851. Once on the ground in SA however he worked hard and effectively even representing the Barossa Valley in the SA parliament.

Under Angas’s control, the South Australian Land Company became a vigorous, money-making enterprise.  This is an important part of the story because it contrasts with so many other pioneering migration or group-settlement schemes to Australia that failed or caused great hardship for their migrant participants.

The Barossa Valley settlement scheme was a success. That was good for the Yates family.

Most Australians know the story of the German Lutherans who settled in the Barossa Valley.  They know it either from school or from the region’s self-promotions and marketing. The story of the Germans overshadows; actually, blankets out the story of the English who settled there at the same time. Presumably the German story is considered sexier than the story of the English by promoters who market the area for wine, tourism etc. so they prefer to tell that story. Even today several of the towns feature shops, barns and buildings built using traditional German architectural styles. Old German style signwriting, lots of old-world German character oddments, German place names, beer halls, beer steins and so on add to the character of the area. It has all been done to appeal to tourists and it does that very successfully.

Despite the predominance of the Germans’ side of the story, and despite being English, the Yates family were contemporaries of that German community and were an integral part of that settlement. As a child Jim’s father William Jnr had attended a German speaking school. The English settlers deserve as much credit as the Germans. But they are never going to get it. C’est la vie.

Initially Angaston was called alternately Salem Valley and German Pass by its German settlers. It is in what was then the German speaking part of the Barossa Valley. The name Angaston comes from the words ‘Angas Town’. It is named after George Fife Angas.

Jim’s grandparents

Jim’s grandparents, William and Jane Yates who had arrived in 1839 had sailed on the Anna Robertson . They were accompanied by several other families who were part of this pioneering settlement scheme.

William was listed on the ship’s record as a vine grower so he may have been invited or recruited into the scheme because he had a skill that would be valuable to the enterprise.

All those families from the Anna Robertson settled in and around Angaston. Initially Jim’s grandfather William worked for the Angas family. Later he established his own property, Angas Park.

Two pioneering families of particular importance to the Yates’ included the Smith and McKenzie families; The Smiths arrived 9 years after the Yates and the McKenzie’s 15 years after. The McKenzie’s were Scottish highland crofters and the Smiths, English.

All three families; the Yates, Smith and McKenzie families settled in Angaston and made up a significant component of the English speaking community.

Samuel Smith is perhaps the most famous of that group having founded the well known Yalumba Winery after making money on the Victorian goldfields. His descendants still own and operate it today. Some Yates involvement in that winery continued into the twentieth century.

Jim’s parents

Jim’s father, William Yates Jnr b.1837 was the son of William Yates Snr and Jane London, who have been described above.

Jim’s mother, Mary Brydie McKenzie b.1840 had come out from Scotland as a child with her parents, Anne and Duncan McKenzie. Mary’s mother Anne (Annie) had been born in Dunning, Scotland. Annie married Duncan McKenzie. They moved to nearby Crief, Scotland. They had seven or eight daughters, one of whom was Mary.

In 1854 the McKenzie family migrated to the Barossa Valley on a government immigrant ship, the Standard. Like them, most of the passengers were Scots. Presumably Mount McKenzie and Mount McKenzie Road which are in the area were named after the McKenzie family.

Jim’s father, William Yates Jnr married Mary Brydie McKenzie in 1858. At first William and Mary continued to live in the Angaston area.

Jim’s middle name was McKenzie. It comes from his mother’s family. The McKenzie name or nickname ‘Mack’ was part of the Yates family for the next three generations.

Jim’s siblings

Jim had 10 siblings. They included William, Annie, Duncan, Edgar, Jane (Jean), John, Mary, Catherine and Richard. His sister Jane married one of the Smiths (2nd wife) and lived on the Murray River. There were several marriages between the Smith, McKenzie and Yates families. A good number of family descendants still live in South Australia. Jim was musical. He played the piano and founded Angaston’s first band. I am not sure of Jim’s movements as a young man in his early twenties. His parents moved from Angaston to Gladstone in South Australia at about that time. It is most likely that became his base too. Gladstone is in the country about 200 km north east of Adelaide.

Jim’s wife, Ethel Bleby

Jim married his wife Ethel Bleby in Port Germaine in 1895. Port Germaine is not far from Gladstone. He was 27 and she was 21. They must have looked an unusual couple. Jim was unusually tall, and she was unusually short. He was 6’2” tall. That would have been very tall in his day and Ethel was just under 5’ tall. They may have met through Ethel’s father because her father was a solicitor from London and a lecturer in law at Adelaide University where it appears Jim may have been studying law. Or Ethel may have encouraged Jim to study law after they met. Either way Jim became a lawyer.

In the same year, 1895, Ethel began a teaching career. In that year she was described by the Education Department of South Australia as a ‘provisional teacher on probation’. She was appointed to a school at Caltowie, a small town about 30 kms inland from Port Pirie, South Australia. Caltowie is close to Gladstone in South Australia. Ethel may have applied to teach at Caltowie to be close to Jim and the Yates family.

Jim moved to Western Australia the next year in 1896 during WA’s 1890s gold rush. He came to Western Australia without Ethel at first. Ethel had probably remained behind in South Australia to complete her first full year of teaching. Perhaps her teaching degree required that she complete 12 months of practical work before her qualification could be recognised.

Jim travelled with a group of gold seeking hopefuls to Coolgardie. He was 28 years old. Most prospectors who came from the eastern states of Australia during the 1890s gold rush in Western Australia had come from the Victorian goldfields. Like Jim, they travelled first to Albany by ship, then caught the train north to Broomehill, then walked along the historically famous ‘Holland Track’ to Coolgardie or beyond to Kalgoorlie.

The Holland Track was pioneered by John Holland in 1893. Holland cut out and documented the track. It followed a line of water sources to Coolgardie that were known to the aborigines. The Track was 450 kms long. Jim and his group followed this track. The group included women and children. They had only one horse and a dray between them and carried very little equipment. They made it a rule that only the women and children could ride on the dray. The men were not allowed that luxury and had to walk. A few years later the new train line from Perth reached Coolgardie so the Holland Track was no longer needed.

Jim did not go prospecting in Coolgardie, instead he worked on a water distilling machine for several months. His job in the distilleries was to provide water for sale to the gold prospectors and miners. All ground water around Coolgardie was very salty. This was distilled in large boilers fuelled by firewood gathered from the surrounding bush area. The price of the water was 6 pence (5 cents) per pint (~ 0.5 L). 4 to 5 litres per person per day would be reasonable in hot Coolgardie. So it was a good business. 6 pence was a very good price to receive because, as Jim explained to his grandson Kevin Yates, the price of a pair of the cheapest, rough working trousers (dungarees) was 1 shilling and six pence (15 cents) at the time. Jim also pointed out that these pants were never washed! Water was too expensive to waste on washing clothes. Jim explained that the high cost of water quickly weeded out the unsuccessful prospectors as they could not afford to stay.

It is hard to understand why Jim went to the goldfields. Perhaps it was to kill time; a brief adventure, before starting a new job in Perth. He only stayed in Coolgardie for a few months. He began work at a law office at Mundaring near Perth soon afterwards. At the end of 1896 Ethel came to Perth and joined Jim there.

I have often wondered why Jim and Ethel moved to Western Australia. Perhaps Jim’s job in Mundaring had been pre-arranged before leaving SA and the starting date had not been for those few months. There are a number of questions I’d like to have been able to ask them.

Their first child Doris was born in Perth in 1896. This was about one year after their marriage. Unfortunately, Doris died while still less than one year old. Both Ethel and the baby had contracted scarlet fever. When Ethel’s fever eventually broke and she recovered her senses, she was devastated to learn that her baby had died. Ethel took the death of her baby very badly and never recovered from the loss. She kept a set of Doris’s baby clothes for the rest of her life. Their second child Les (Henry Lesley McKenzie Yates) was born in Guildford near Mundaring, in 1898, two years later. Jim’s occupation is stated as lawyer on Les’s birth certificate. So he was still working as a lawyer at that time. They appear to have remained in Mundaring for two or three years.

After their time in Mundaring they then moved to Kirup, Western Australia in around 1901. Kirup is about 300km SE of Perth, Western Australia. Their names appear on the electoral role in Kirup in 1903. But what were they doing there? Kirup was “in the sticks.” It was extremely remote in those days. Ethel was from London. The greatest city in the world back then and could easily have gone back there; Her father still had a house in the London CBD. Clearly there were no great career opportunities for teachers and lawyers in Kirup. Qualified teachers were highly regarded in those days. Both Jim and Ethel had the world at their feet.

Kirup didn’t even have a town. That suggests they lived some kind of pioneering existence. An odd place for Ethel, well educated, a teacher and descendant of the Bleby and Waddy families who were published, intellectual, civically minded etc. Her background had prepared her for a place in a developed society of prominent social, elite artistic and intellectual circles. Instead, she and Jim chose a pioneering location in Kirup which, as noted, was then an extremely remote place.

Why Kirup? Ethel was said to be very bright. She never recovered from the death of her daughter Doris. Perhaps she decided to ‘drop-out’ of the rat race. Her granddaughter Vi referred to Ethel as a vegetarian, sandshoe-wearing (no leather) Rosicrucian. So dropping out, or more correctly, seeking an alternative lifestyle is a real possible explanation. But then another of her granddaughters Beryl, said that Ethel had strongly held ‘Victorian style’ values. So who knows? Neither should be ruled out; The two philosophical approaches may seem at odds but she seems to have reconciled the two in her way. A quick look at her biography is enough to confirm that she was nobody’s fool and that she was ‘complicated’. There’s nothing wrong with that. Perhaps they chose remote Kirup because Ethel was seeking an alternative; A lifestyle that she felt allowed her to be true to herself as she saw it. Jim and Ethel had a second son Reg, born in 1901 in Kirup, Western Australia.

Family names

Jim and Ethel’s first son Les’s full name was Henry Lesley McKenzie Yates. The Henry had been taken from both Ethel’s father the solicitor, and her grandfather a famous Jamaican missionary’s names; both were named Henry. And the McKenzie name of course recalls Jim’s mother, Mary Brydie McKenzie and her Scottish ancestors. Reg’s full name was Reginald Bleby Yates. The Bleby middle name being from Ethel’s side of the family.

Jim and Ethel stayed in Kirup for two or three years. After leaving Kirup in around 1903 Ethel and Jim acquired a farm in Capel, WA and moved there to live. The property, Wellington location 1003, is about 11 kms up the Capel River from the town of Capel. It was purchased under the Lend Lease scheme. That meant they leased the property at little or no cost. Then after a period of several years they were offered the opportunity to purchase it at an attractively low price. The state government promoted the scheme widely throughout the state because it wanted to encourage settlers into the area and to open up the land. The farm was virgin land. No house, no fences and no clearing. An immense task faced them. It was however well located on the banks of the Capel River, called the ‘home farm’ by the family, it was a dairy and mixed orchard farm. It was a pretty little farm. They planted orchards along the river flats. They also grew potatoes for their own consumption and for the market to bridge the gap until the orchard trees matured.

Ethel’s skill as a teacher came in handy. She set up a classroom on the farm and taught the local neighbour’s children. Jim and Ethel’s Capel farmhouse was a two-bedroom weatherboard home. This kind of house was common in the area at the time. Ethel’s school room was about 20 metres to the south of the house. Jim worked on the farm until his retirement in 1933. His oldest son Les purchased the farm from him at that time.

Jim had a good and long retirement in Bunbury. Fishing was his main hobby. Catching King George Whiting at Leschenault Inlet which is on the northwest beachfront area of Koombana Bay, Bunbury, was his greatest pleasure.

Ethel passed away on 9 July 1950.

Jim passed away on 18 July 1959 at the Donnybrook Hospital in WA. The boy from the Barossa Valley, SA was 90 years and 11 months old.

Story written by Phil King, great grandson of Jim. Photos from Phil King photo collection.
With assistance from Jennifer Scott CDCP member.

© Capel District Cemeteries Project 14.02.2022 (basic bio)  Updated 14.07.2025 (family story added) Updated 14.12.2.2025 (family story revised)