Australia

In 1902 Collingwood travelled east with  a friend Harold Cobb, from a Margate brewing and banking family.

28 March 1902, on board ship

I left today, accompanied by Harold Cobb, on the P&O steamer Himalaya, departing from Marseilles punctually at noon. There was a brisk wind blowing, but as it was abaft we did not suffer much from the sea’s motion.

          As yet we are not certain of our destination; we think of either changing at Colombo for Japan or of going right on to Australia. This depends on circumstances.

 2 April 1902, the Suez Canal

In one of the lakes, I think that of Ismallia, we passed the Nord Deutscher liner Bremen, and this vast vessel (11,600 tons) looked really fine lit up in the dark. As we passed her stern and stopped close by, an English voice came across the water and, answering it, a conversation was soon started between unknown speakers. Presently a song, feeble at first, commenced upon our ship and it was soon followed by others, some from us and some from the German boat and the whole intercourse finally ended by cheers for the King and the Kaiser.

25^th April 1902. Arrival at Fremantle

Spending perhaps half an hour in this semi-English town, we decided to go and see Perth, a larger city some 12 miles in shore. Stopping at all stations, it took about 30 minutes for the train to accomplish this distance, but the time was sufficient for me to become chatty with a dark, bearded colonial; a handsome man with some knowledge of the world. In an unobtrusive manner he was affable and communicative, and took my stream of questions with a good nature, even ending by requesting us to take a lubricator with him. At first, I did not quite catch his meaning, but at the second request it suddenly came to me and in my weakness (for I did not like to offend this man) I accepted and with Harold and another entered the bar of the Imperial Hotel, Perth. Here, after some innocent chaff with the barmaid, who had newly come down from the gold fields, he left in company with us and most kindly set us on our way to see what the town offered. I am sorry I could not know this man better – he has come and gone in my life like a warm gleam of winter sunshine.

They went on to Adelaide and stayed with Collingwood’s uncles, first with Edward Charles Stirling, the university professor, at Mount Lofty near Adelaide and secondly with Lancelot at Strathalbyn.

Adelaide, 27 April 1902

The Bight of Australia has a bad reputation to all voyagers and, although the weather was pretty fair, we experienced the usual swell that rolls up from the South Pole. But it did not seem to affect the passengers much, and we all stood it without feeling very bad – I suppose the long, deliberate swaying of the vessel has not the ill results of the quicker movements a consequent to a smaller sea, as in the Channel.

We arrived at Adelaide, or rather Largs Bay, this morning soon after breakfast and landed about ten, reaching the city itself at one o’clock. Here two of my cousins were awaiting me at the South Australia Hotel and after our lunch we went up to Mount Lofty – about an hour out – which, I suppose, for a short while will be our future home.[1]

Scarcely had I gone a hundred yards from the station before I recognised an old friend in the guise of a Blackbird – he flew across the road and into a blackberry bush with the old familiar chuckle, and presently the cheery twitter of a Goldfinch caught my ear and I saw a little party of them pass across between two trees.

Strathalbyn, 23 May 1902

Leaving Mount Lofty at half past eight we arrived two hours later at the township of Strathalbyn, the home of my Uncle Lance.[2] It was near his house that my grandfather first colonised in Australia and I saw the site of the old place lying in the pit of a valley. There is nothing left of it but a few ancient fruit trees that were now golden with autumn hues. My grandfather had taste to select a nice position for his farm, for it was built by the bank of a narrow creek in the boulder-strewn valley of Hamden, surrounded by green grass and tall gums, a truly happy choice!

……. Before I left, I visited the old woman from Dumfriesshire who had come as the wife to my grandfather’s shepherd years and years ago. The poor lady was greatly enfeebled by years, but spoke sensibly from a retentive mind of many of my relations, but always, seemingly, referring to them as children – my mother and aunts as girls, my uncles as boys. Mrs Wylie, for that was her name, retained the broad brogue of Dumfriesshire, so it was not always easy to comprehend her. She told us of how, when she first came out, her ship called the Pernambuco, where they spoke the Portee language and then at Cape Town, in those days a small place. From Cape Town she turned to the South African war and said The British flag will no be danced on, no! it will no be danced on, which I hope is true enough. She is a great, great grandmother as she told us, five generations living. Her age is 87.