1859-1938
Father
Mother
Siblings
John (Mother, Susannah Merrick), Hugh James, Ellen Belle Waterford/Davis
Married
Children
William Ernest, Hugh Arthur, Mary(Wilson), Leo Cecil, Zita Kathleen, Eileen Agnes(Macpherson), Roy Laurence, Rupert Joseph
William’s Life
William Waterford II was born at Rathcormack near Cork in Ireland in 1859, the first child of William Waterford I and Eliza Doherty, second son for William I.
William I, his father, arrived in Australia on the Minerva in 1821 and then travelled to Ireland in 1857, he met Eliza on board the ship to Ireland. They married in Rathcommon, Ireland in 1858.
William I, Eliza and William II returned to Australia on the ‘Saldanha’ in 1860.
William I was working for Bowman on his property, ‘Merotherie’, at Dunnedoo when he took up land for himself ‘Morton Bay’, in the Leadville area near Dunedoo.
The ownership of ‘Morton Bay’ was one quarter to himself William I, one quarter to his son, William Waterford II, one quarter to his son Hugh James Waterford and one quarter to his daughter Ellen Belle Waterford (children at that time).
At the time, the law stated you had to live on your property and women could not own property. (Ellen Belle, a child ???) The four blocks were in a square and one hut was built covering a corner of each block. To prove they lived there, the children, including William II, had to spend time, without their parents, with shepherds in the hut.
William II and his brother Hugh went to St Stanislaus College, Bathurst as boarders in 1874. They were two of the first students at this College but sadly after only two years, Will, aged 17, had to leave school to manage the family property ‘Moreton Bay’, with his mother. His father had been killed in a fall from a horse during a hunt.
When William II was 21 years old, the property ‘Morton Bay’ was transferred to him. Six years later in 1886 he met and married Katy (Catherine) Carney.
In 1897 they sold ‘Morton Bay’ to Leslie Bowman and moved to Mudgee to manage the Town Hall Hotel. This was not successful due to Will’s generosity and Katy sending the customers home to their wives.
In 1907 Catherine Malone, Katy Waterford/Carney’s mother sold the Town Hall Hotel. They sold this hotel to buy ‘Ellerslie’, a property of 3000 acres at Tooraweenah. Disaster struck when the house burned down but with the help of their sons, Rupert and Roy, they built a new home.
They cleared and burnt the land, preparing it for cropping and after three years of drought farmed 1300 acres of wheat. With a bountiful crop William II purchased new plough seeding equipment and a Massey Ferguson header.
The wheat had been harvested into bags and the fat wheat bags were all sewn up and were standing in the paddock waiting for the trucks to come and take them to wheat yards when the rains came. The bags rotted in the paddock, there was no wheat left to be sold. William II and Katy Waterford were bankrupt.
In 1920 after selling “Ellerslie’ William II and Katy moved to Mosman. However, city life was not for them, and they moved to Quirindi, where their son, Will had set up his own Solicitor’s office in 1918.
William II returned to his great love of horse training with his son Will. This love of racing, both gallopers and trotters was passed down to all his sons and their children.
He was known as “bread and butter Bill” because that was his diet. He was a diabetic but as insulin wasn’t discovered until 1923 perhaps, he was not using it and protected himself by this diet.
In 1926 his sons, William Ernest and Hugh Arthur, both lost their wives in childbirth within a year of each other. This left Will with seven motherless children aged from 15 months to 12 years of age and his brother Hugh living on their property ‘Yarramin’ with his six children.
Katy and William II took over the care of both families of children. After William Ernest married again, they moved to Hugh’s at “Yarramin” where Kate taught home schooling to his six children while William II, helped his son working the property.
From the late 1930s, Kate and William lived next door to the Catholic Church in Quirindi so Kate could go to Mass every day. William’s life was then spent with horses and family.
William died in 1945 at Quirindi. His son Will, living in Coonamble, could not go to his funeral because the war was still on and with the rationing, there was no petrol for cars.
Authored by Paula O’Connor