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| Elizabeth Mary Connor |
| 1849, Cornwall, England 21 September 1872, Perth, WA 6 October 1935 Subiaco, WA Catholic Housewife John Rowland Jones |
| Humphrey Rowland Wriothesley Jones Arthur Augustine Llewellyn Jones Avonia Agnus Jones Ambrose Connor Jones Eva Amy Margaret Jones Bowen Bourke Mathew Jones John Ambrose Jones Frederick Aloysius Jones Francis Herbert Jones |
| Born: Married: Died: Religion: Occupation: Husband: Children: |
| On April 28, 1853, the barque Palestine dropped anchor in Gage Roads, Fremantle. The vessel had taken six months to make the voyage from England to Fremantle. Among the passengers who went ashore was Elizabeth Mary Connor, then barely three years of age, a native of Cornwall who made the trip with her parents. The child grew up in the colony and later married Mr. J. Rowland Jones, shorthand reporter and journalist, and went to live in the first house built in Subiaco, now 365 Roberts Road, Subiaco. She lives there still. In the sitting room of this house yesterday, Mrs Jones recalled her long life in Western Australia. Often the corners of her mouth would wrinkle in a smile, and her keen eyes would twinkle, as she wove a humorous thread into the fabric of her story. There was enough and to spare of work, sorrow and fun in the life of the early settlers. Elizabeth Mary Connor first lived with her parents in a little cottage in front of the Perth railway station. The Globe Hotel now probably stands on the site of the old cottage. From that house they shifted to a cottage at the bottom of Mill Street, near Lefroy's garden, on which Winterbottom's Garage now stands. Later the Connor family went to live in Mount's Bay Road. Mrs Jones's father went to Victoria in the gold rush. He sent her mother sums of money, and expressed his intention of making a home for his family, but he was never heard of again. Mrs Jones's mother married a second time. Elizabeth Mary's stepfather was in charge of one of the "Puffing Billies" on the river. "Puffing Billies" This "Puffing Billy" was used to take stores up and down the river. When the Fremantle bridge was being built, timber was taken from the upper reaches of the Swan River at Guildford to the port. Comparatively small lengths of timber were stacked on the deck of the small craft and one or two piles, according to size, were chained on each side of the vessel. The old bridge, later superseded by the present Causeway, was frequently under water in the winter months. Mrs Jones and her sisters often went down to see the new Causeway being built. A barge was provided for taking horses and carts across the river during the winter. After being educated at the Convent of Mercy, in what is now Victoria Square, Mrs Jones undertook dressmaking. She made dresses for the ladies of many of the old families. The Misses Leake were among her clients. When the third daughter of the Leake's became Lady Parker, the wedding dress was the work of Miss Elizabeth Mary Connor. The wife of Bishop Parry, who before her marriage was a Miss Leake, was another of Miss Connor's clients, among whom were the Burts and the Roes, and many other families. When she was 23 years of age Miss Connor was married in St Mary's Cathedral to Mr J. Rowland Jones. Father O'Reilly, who later became Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, celebrated the marriage, and Mr John Whitely, who was subsequently Commissioner of Taxation in Western Australia, was the best man. In the early days of the colony, Mr Jones was employed as a shorthand writer to the Legislative Council. With the establishment of Responsible Government he became shorthand writer to the Legislative Assembly. For a time Mr Jones was editor of the "Western Australian Times," which was later merged with the "Perth Gazette" and became "The West Australian." There was little money in the colony in the early days and the workmen had to take orders upon storekeepers as wages. The storekeeper supplied the man's needs and gave him cash to pay his butcher and other tradesmen. About 1886 Mr and Mrs Jones decided to build a residence about three miles west of Perth on a spot on the opposite side of the railway line to the Benedictine monastery. Before the house could be constructed, water was essential. Steps were taken to sink a well. The "experts" said water would be found at 18 feet. Bricks were scarce and orders had to be placed with the brick makers at Guildford a long time ahead. Bricks sufficient to line a well to a depth of 24 feet were obtained. At 24 ft. There was no sign of water. Another order for bricks was given, again on the advice of the "experts." But again water was not located. It was only when the well had been sunk to a depth of about 60 feet that water was obtained, and the construction of the house could be begun. The well took nine months to sink. Camel trains from Fremantle A railway platform had been constructed almost immediately in front of the house, which now stands in Roberts Road, Subiaco. The platform was about 20 chains east of the present railway station. There were three or four trains a day between Perth and Fremantle when Mr and Mrs Jones went to Subiaco to live. After leaving Perth, the only other buildings near the railway line were a few houses in Colin Street, and a house and a wood-yard near the Leederville station. Camel teams journeying from Fremantle to the goldfields frequently passed the lone house at Subiaco. Before Broome Road (Hay Street) was extended to Subiaco it was not unusual for Mr and Mrs Jones in their cart to take the wrong track and become temporarily lost in the bush. When Mr Jones was working on the "Western Australian Times" and on Hansard, a light was left burning behind a window of the Jones's homestead to guide him home. At night the train stopped at the little platform when a match was struck or a lighted lamp was held aloft. Mr Jones died in 1895. Mrs Jones has many treasures. They include old documents, a copy of the jubilee issue of the "Western Australian Times", edited by her husband, and other papers, an old prayer book which belonged to her father, and which is over 200 years old. She sets great store by two needle-work pictures which were brought to the colony by her mother. The pictures exquisitely worked, are claimed to be over 300 years old. On the voyage to Australia the captain of the barque offered Mrs Connor 5 pound each for the pictures. "If they are worth 5 pound to you," she replied, "they are worth 5 pound to me." On Wednesday Mrs Jones journeyed to Fremantle to welcome a son home from Singapore. She has nine children, 19 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. On May 31st last she celebrated her 83rd birthday. Time does not had heavily on her hands. "A little sewing and reading," was how the "mother" of Subiaco described her interests. |
| Published references to Elizabeth (aka "Mrs Jones"): |
| Pioneer of Subiaco: Mrs Jones' Memories First house in the Suburb The West Australian, 24 September 1932 |
| Jones' perseverance [in building the first house in Subiaco], however, was not rewarded with respect: the considerable time and enormous effort spent constructing the house earned it the popular name 'Jones' Folly', a title reflecting the attitude of many people to the isolation of the area. Keeping up with the Joneses had little appeal. Few trains ran between Perth and Fremantle and in 1886 the time of a populous Subiaco was still several years away, the area being widely regarded as the province of speculators, Aborigines, orphans and itinerants. A frequently related tale of this period involves the necessity of Mrs {Elizabeth} Jones setting a kerosine lamp in one of the house's eastern windows to guide her husband along the bush track from Thomas Street after a night spent recording the arguments of the colony's leading men during lengthy sittings of Parliament. The house - and the well, which in the nineties would serve several nearby properties - would retain local prominence long into the next century, after the track Jones had negotiated on those late evenings had become a surfaced road, lost its original name and been renamed 'Roberts Road'. [A Shilling's Worth] Whereas in the perception of the Aborigines the entire Swan River and coastal lakes region was particularly blessed with water facilities, the view of the Europeans had not changed in nearly seventy years of white settlement: most areas, like Subiaco, were as dry as Deuteronomy, and in their natural state rather less edifying. Not only did their lifestyle demand more water than that of the Aborigines, it required that it be closer at hand. The Benedictines had sunk a well in the fifties, Jones had spent much time and money following suit in the eighties, and now, in the nineties, there were hundreds queuing for the use of the very few such facilities available. Jones had died in 1895 but his well remained a frequently visited memorial to his pioneering spirit, a fact which over the next few years would bring some considerable material comfort to his widow Elizabeth, who shrewdly asked a shilling for each kerosene tin of water taken. A number of old residents who were children in the nineties would later recall that many of the men who travelled to work by train would leave a hurricane lamp at the station and an empty kerosine tin at Jones', and when they returned in the evening would pick up their lamps and walk across Mueller Road to collect their water before wending their weary way home. Said one woman: 'Father used to leave the tin at Jones', pick it up after work, and bring the shilling's worth home.' Growth of Subiaco: Thirty Years of Progress The West Australian, 29 January 1929 A Lone Resident The sole house which Subiaco then possessed was the property of a Hansard reporter named Jones, and this house, situated in Roberts Road, near the railway station, is still occupied by Mr Jones' widow. |
| Identity Prized : A History of Subiaco by Ken Spillman, 1985 |
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