Guest writer Kevin is a research buddy of mine. Together we have pooled our family knowledge on the Strelley and Harris family, their Western Australian pioneer history and their Derbyshire background.
Researched and written by Kevin Anderson, May 2025
In the graveyard at St Mary’s Church in Middle Swan there are numerous memorial stones bearing the name Harris. Most of them are descendants of William Harris, who was transported to Western Australia as a convict, and his wife Mary Madelaine Mattlan. The two memorials (pictured below) these stories focuss on are located on the north-western boundary of the graveyard overlooking what used to be called “Strelley”, then Houghton’s Vineyard and now known as Nikola Estate. These two grave sites belong to descendants of Dr Joseph Harris and his wife Lucy Strelley who were among the earliest settlers to arrive in the fledgling Swan River Colony.
The Harris family landed in the Swan River Colony on the sailing ship “Cygnet” at the beginning of 1833 with six children two of whom are buried in the graves pictured above. Dr Joseph Harris (1789-1846) who had been a surgeon in the Peninsular War (1809, part of the Napoleonic Wars) with his wife Lucy (b. Strelley 1788-1886) from a landed gentry family in Derbyshire, took up Swan Location 11A. This land, which they called “Strelley”, was the closest neighbour to St Mary’s which is located on the Mission Grant purchased by the WA Missionary Society in 1838. Dr Harris and the two eldest boys, Joseph Strelley Harris (1811-1889) and William Edward Strelley Harris (1818-1901) were very involved in the pastoral industry and all three participated in exploration expeditions, mostly with the objective of finding well-watered land for sheep. Dr Harris was at one time resident doctor at Australind (1842) then Acting Colonial Surgeon before becoming permanent in that role in 1844 but died two years later. His eldest son Joseph pioneered the droving of sheep from Albany to the Avon/Swan districts. He was Acting Resident Magistrate at Williams in 1840 and Magistrate at Toodyay 1850-1860 and then in the Vasse District.
The eldest Harris daughter was Lucy (1813-1838). Living on the “Houghton” estate, her neighbour to the north-west of the Harris’s, was Thomas Newte Yule (1803-1868) who had arrived in the Colony in May 1830. Yule, eleven years her senior, courted Lucy marrying on 12 July 1837. To complete his happiness his wife bore him a healthy son, who they named John Strelley Carslake Yule (1838-1886). However the young mother had serious childbirth complications and we learn from Mrs Mitchell's diary how for four months she lingered. When her end was near, Dr Harris called their clergyman, the Revd. W. Mitchell, to her bedside. Lucy was only 24 years old when she died on 6 November 1838. A great assembly of Yule’s friends came to mourn with him as she was laid to rest, the first to be buried in the new churchyard at Middle Swan with her grave overlooking the Harris family’s “Strelley” property.
Yule was deeply affected by the loss of this his second wife, and the publication of her death was delayed for some weeks. He and his infant son went to live at “Strelley”, where the baby was cared for by his grandmother and aunts. Yule’s daughter Elizabeth (1826-1909), from a previous marriage, arrived in the Colony in 1841 (age 15) to help. She later married Sampson Sewell in 1850 who was on the same ship “Mary and Jane” that landed them in Fremantle.
The inspiration to design, construct and finance the Octagonal Church at Middle Swan in 1840 was the memory of Lucy Yule by her devoted husband Thomas Newte Yule and her father Dr Joseph Harris.
Thomas Yule never married again but had an illustrious career accepting a series of significant government office appointments. He was the Resident Magistrate from 1838 to 1843 and was appointed to the Colony’s Legislative Council in 1841 as well as Protector of Natives in 1843. After Middle Swan he settled first in Toodyay but was burnt out in 1845, then on to Maddington. In 1851 he became Police Magistrate. The child John went with his father back to England in 1862 and where he later became a doctor.
William Edward Strelley Harris is also interred in the St Mary graveyard.. Initially he worked on his father’s land grant “Strelley” then for his brother Joseph at Williams. After six months at the Victorian Goldfields he returned eager to set up a vineyard. In 1859 he leased 15 acres (6 hectares) at Rainworth - directly opposite on the Swan to St Mary’s – where he established a vineyard and set up a successful winery. He purchased “Rainworth” outright in 1863 from Henry Churchman Gregory who was his brother-in-law. Presumably he was living the Gregory three room cottage but he also had a residence in St George’s Terrace, Perth directly opposite Government House. He was widely known as “Squire” - a man of high social standing who owns and lives on an estate in a rural area, especially the chief landowner in such an area.
In the mid 1890s William aged in his seventies went to England and Wales where he charmed a young Emily Ann Jones, (1863-1926) 45 years his junior, and married her in London in 1896. William met Emily through her cousin who had married a Strelley cousin of William’s. They took up residence at “Rainsworth’ in the Gregory cottage with one child, Frances Gwendoline Alice “Queenie” Strelley Harris born in 1897 and a second, William Herbert Robey Strelley Harris born in 1899.
William “Squire” Harris died aged 83 on 22 March 1901.
Then a year later on 17 February 1902, tragically, the 26 month old William died of scalding when he somehow tumbled into a tub of boiling water that contained caustic soda at the Gregory cottage. One could understand the trauma Emily Ann was going through at the turn of the 20th Century. The child William was the third Harris to be buried at St Mary’s.
Following her husband William’s death in 1901 then by son William’s death soon after in 1902, Emily continued to live at the Gregory cottage with her four year old daughter “Queenie”. Now a widow she put the Rainsworth property up for sale. Along came Arthur Henry Anderson (1862-1937) who was searching for a vineyard property. Arthur and the widow Emily quickly struck up a loving relationship travelling to Hay in the Riverina of New South Wales to get married on 6 December 1902 with Arthur’s elder brother, Bishop Ernest Augustus Anderson (1859-1945), officiating. Technically the Rainsworth property was never sold as they were now a married couple. After their wedding they returned to Rainsworth with plans for a new two storey Federation style home (now heritage listed) with construction commencing in 1904, finance largely coming from inheritance from Arthur’s wealthy mother who had died in in London in 1899.
Together they had three boys Arthur Ernest Strelley (1904), Frank Mason Anderson (1905-1978) and , Robey Lister “Peter” (1907-1967). Arthur and Frank were both born at Rainsworth.
Emily Ann Anderson (nee Jones, formerly Harris) died on 11 April 1926
It is apparent that Emily Ann’s love for her first husband William Harris was greater than for Arthur Anderson because it was her wish that she be buried in the St Mary’s graveyard with him and her little boy William. Understandably, the grieving for and the heartbreaking loss of the child never subsided with Emily Ann blaming herself for his sad death.
Emily Ann Anderson is the Grandmother to the writer of this article. She died 17 years before I was born but her daughter, my Aunt “Queenie” Harris, was close family until she died in 1973. The Harris family are not blood ancestors but I hold much of the memorabilia and have researched the fascinating family histories of the Harris’s and of Thomas Newte Yule. They are very significant early West Australian settlers. Only us Andersons and maybe some Sewells remain the Western Australia to tell their stories.
Kevin Anderson
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