Death Certificates
William Samuel Hill
This page will bring together in one place some family death certificates. I'll show here reduced images and also type out some of the details, as my copy might be more legible than the one you see. You can click on the small image to see a larger one. And then click Back to come back to this page.
William Samuel Hill died 2 November 1924 in the Old Men's Home, Claremont [later known as Sunset Hospital, Nedlands] and his death was reported by the Master of the Home, whose name I can't quite decipher. He was 69 years old and his profession is said here to be that of bootmaker, tho we know of course that he was a miner for many years in the Yundamindra region, and mainly at Linden.
His father, Thomas Hill, is said to be a stonemason, and his mother was Sarah Fox, and was born in Tasmania, having lived in Western Australia for twenty years [which of course means that he arrived here about 1904 - tho in the family it is believed he came here in 1899]. He was interred 5 November 1924 in the Anglican Cemetery [that is, that section of it] Karrakatta. He married Margaret Roberts [see the next certificate] in [Emerald Hill] Melbourne Victoria when he was 32 years of age [in fact they were 22, having been born 1855 and married 1877].
According to the certificate, he had two children still living: Leslie Lewis and Mary Elizabeth, and there had also been 'Deceased 2 Females'. One of these was Ethel May Hill, whose married surnames were Gillard and then Hogarth, and who had died in 1919. The other woman deceased must be Beatrice Harriet (or Harriett) Mary Hill, who married Robert Raftis. I don't have a date for her death, but her descendant Adrian Spall will, and I'm sure he'll let me know when he reads this.
There are another two mysteries. One concerns the woman named here as Mary Elizabeth. As you'll see on her mother's death certificate, the only equivalent woman is named there as Elsie Margaret. I'll take this up again in a moment.
The second mystery concerns the fact that no other dead offspring are named here. As you'll see in a moment, there were more.
Margaret Roberts Hill
Margaret Roberts, who married W.S. Hill, as above, died 14 October 1901, at the age of 46, on the WA goldfields, at Yundamindera (Granites). [The area generally is called Yundamindra, as is the Station, but the township was spelt 'Yundamindera' when it was gazetted, so that's where Margaret is buried.] Her occupation is given as House-wife. The cause of her death was the same as that her sister Ethel (and Ethel's first husband, W.S. Gillard) here shown to have been Consumption (Phthisis) from which she had suffered for 6 months. [This is now of course called tuberculosis.]
Margaret's father was Welsh 'Sea Captain' Hugh Roberts, and her mother was Harriett Boyce (also with the TT spelling used for Margaret's eldest daughter, Beatrice Harriett). The informant was Margaret's husband William (who is thought to have marked her grave with large stones) whose place is residence is said to be Linden (where he had a mine and battery for many years).
She was interred the day after her death, 15 October 1901, in Yundamindera Cemetery. There was no minister of religion present - just the witnesses named: C.B. Webb, and Robert Raftis, the latter being Margaret's son-in-law, husband of the aforesaid Beatrice.
Margaret was born in South Melbourne, and spent the last two of her forty-six years in WA. She was also married in South Melbourne, aged 22. Her children are shown to be Beatrice Harriett, 19, Ethel May, 16, Leslie Lewis, 13 and Elsie Margaret, 10 - plus '5 males deceased'. The script here is unambiguous: it clearly shows 5 (five) dead boys.
So we return to our two mysteries. We have names for only three dead boys: Hugh, Lionel Hugh, and Leonard William (two born before and one after Beatrice, in that order). The father of all these children is said to be the informant, but note that the information was not given until 18 November 1901 and miles away in Menzies. Not being a graphologist, I can't say for sure if the hand that has written W.S. Hill's 'signature' is not the same as that of the registrar - tho the capital S is different. For the moment, we must, I suppose, take the Registry's document to be stating as fact that poor Margaret had no fewer than five boys die in infancy.
Finally: are Mary Elizabeth and Elsie Margaret the same person? To complicate the matter even further, the 'grantee' of the grave in which Ethel May Hill is buried is said on the Cemetery records to be Elizabeth Mary Lynch (she married Thomas M. Lynch). I personally remember an 'Auntie Elsie', so we're assuming that Elsie was the name by which she was known in the family, but whether that was her registered name, or whether it included Elizabeth and/or Mary and/or Margaret we may never know for sure.
Ethel May Hill
Ethel May was the daughter of Ethel Margaret and William Samuel Hill. She came with her father (and two sisters and one brother) to the WA goldfields, where she met her first husband William Edgar Gillard. They were married in Kookynie in 1903, but he died only three years later, leaving her with two very young sons. She then married Fletcher Hogarth and bore him twins: Keith Bernard and Ethel Margaret. William Edgar had died of pulmonary tuberculosis and exhaustion, as can be seen in his death certificate, also on this page. Sadly, so did Ethel May, thirteen years later.
You might want to note that the addition is wrong on the certificate. I think it should say that Ethel May lived in WA for twenty years, not thirty - which brings her to this state in about 1899,which we believe is correct, tho her father's death certificate is slightly at variance with that. Also, I believe Keith's name is spelt wrongly.
William Edgar Gillard
William Edgar Gillard was the first husband of Ethel May Hill, mentioned above. He died at Murrin Murrin in the general area of Yundamindra, between Lakes Raeburn and Carey on the WA goldfields, 24 November 1906, aged 33, and said to be a Plumber. [Murrin Murrin is the name of a modern mine currently in production, but I believe it's not near the older workings, being to the north of the Leonora-Laverton road, while Murrin Murrin was south of that road in my grandfather's time.] The certificate is signed by T.A. (?) Rodway MB (Bachelor of Medicine) who last saw him on 13 November, and the causes of death are Pulmonary Phthisis [tuberculosis] Diarrhoea and Exhaustion. It is very sad that his wife, Ethel May, is also said on her death certificate to have died of tuberculosis and exhaustion. Times were indeed tough.
Wm Edgar's father was Robert [Dyer] Gillard and his mother Margaret McGrath. The informant is Robert Raftis, inscribed as 'Friend' but actually his wife's brother-in-law, and RR's place of residence is Yundamindera, which someone has been kind enough to write out in capitals: YUNDAMINDERA. This is also where WEG was interred, according to the certificate, and on the same day as his death. (I think it says J.F. Moore was the undertaker.) Where Murrin Murrin used to be is about thirty kilometres from the townsite and cemetery of Yundamindera - but I suppose it's not impossible that those details are all accurate. There was no minister of religion at the burial, but J. O'Connor and the aforesaid Robert Raftis were witnesses.
According to the certificate, William Edgar was born in Richmond Victoria where he lived for his first twenty-two years followed by his last eleven in WA, which brings him to this state in 1895, earlier than I had thought. He married Ethel May in Kookynie when he was 30, so about 1903. And she had given birth to two sons before he died: William Robert, born 1904, and David Michael Gillard, my father, born 23 May 1905 - who was therefore not yet one year old when his father died - and then his mother died when was only thirteen.
New: 8 February, 2011 | Now: 10 February, 2011 | garrygillard[at]gmail.com