Lucy Yule and the Octagonal Church at Middle Swan

 

Researched and written by Kevin Anderson, April 2025- Guest writer

It was the initiative and drive of Thomas Newte Yule and Dr Joseph Harris that resulted in the construction of the first church building at Middle Swan which held its first service on Sunday, 29 November 1840.

Described as the Octagon Church or Chapel, it sadly no longer exists but we have a painting and a sketch of what it looked like.  We also have the remarkable stories of those two early Swan River Colony settlers who were responsible for what the “The Western Australian Journal” on 5 December 1940 described as a “really pretty building”.  We also know what prompted their drive to build it!

Erected on the Mission Grant in Middle Swan its immediate neighbours to the north were Yule and Harris.  Closest was the Dr Harris’ “Strelley” property designated Swan Location 11A which was granted in 1833.  Also in 1833 Yule, with silent partners Lowis and Houghton, was granted Swan Location 11 called “Houghton” in deference to him being the most senior of the three former Indian Army officers.

Without family Thomas Newte Yule (1803-1868) arrived in the Colony in May 1830.  On his 

“Houghton” land he established one of the very first, if not the first, vineyards in the Colony and participated in several of the early inland exploration parties.  Thomas, in 1832, was a second in the only duel fought in Western Australia.  A merchant George French and a solicitor William Clarke had a misunderstanding that resulted in Johnston’s death.  Yule, the other second and Clarke were charged with murder but all three were acquitted.  Despite that blemish he accepted 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 then eleven years later returned to England.  Thomas was the son of Lieutenant John Yule who served with distinction with Admiral Horatio Nelson on HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, then was a pallbearer at Nelson’s funeral..

Dr Joseph Harris (1789-1846) arrived in the Colony in 1833 with his wife Lucy (nee Strelley b.1788-1886) with six children and four servants.  He had been an army surgeon serving in the Peninsular War in Spain in 1809 and followed by working as a doctor in Bakewell, Derbyshire, England.  However, in England, he had ambitions beyond medicine delving into mining ventures and was keen to invest in sheep farming especially for wool for the burgeoning textile industry.  He saw opportunity in the Swan River Colony for his pastoral interests with medicine as his backup.  Similar to Yule he participated in early exploration parties and was especially concerned about toxic plants that affected sheep.  Following Acting Colonial Surgeon appointments in 1835 and again in 1843, he became permanent Colonial Surgeon in 1845 but died the following year.  His wife Lucy then fell on difficult financial times and returned to England in 1860 taking two daughters and the youngest son Herbert, who later graduated as a doctor.  Two sons, Joseph (jnr) and William remained.  Both were explorers and pastoralists with Joseph becoming, first, Resident Magistrate for Toodyay and then for Sussex (Busselton).

Dr Harris was on excellent terms with his immediate neighbour Thomas Yule as he was with his over the river neighbour Joshua Gregory, father to five boys all of whom were notable explorers – the most famous of whom were Sir Augustus Gregory and his almost as famous brother Frank.  Yule courted Harris’s daughter Lucy (1813-1838).  They married on 12 July 1837 and had a child John Strelley Carslake Yule on 26 July 1838 but tragically Lucy died of childbirth complications four months later.  The child John was brought up by his father Thomas presumably with the assistance of the Harris family and probably a servant.  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 child John went with his father back to England in 1862 and where he too became a doctor.

Lucy Yule, nee Harris, was the very first to be buried in the Middle Swan graveyard with her grave overlooking the family’s “Strelley” property.  Built two years after Lucy’s death, the Octagonal Church was located to be close to her gravesite.

The inspiration to design, construct and finance the Octagonal Church at Middle Swan in 1840 was in the memory of Lucy Yule by her loving husband Thomas Newte Yule and her father Dr Joseph Harris.

 

The Octagon Church was an octagonal rammed earth mud brick construction . The porch faced north and a gum tree on the east side of the church was used as a belfry. The roof was brush and was large enough to hold 80 people. It was officially opened on the 29th of November 1840 in the presence of His Excellency the Governor, John Hutt Esquire (who laid the foundation stone in 1839). Evidently there was a similar Octagonal Church, in much the same time frame, at Albany, WA, but also long since gone.

Newspaper Report on Opening of Octagonal Church at Middle Swan

The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal (WA : 1833 - 1847), Saturday 5 December 1840, page 2

 

 

The Harris family and Yule are not blood ancestors but I hold much of the memorabilia and have researched their fascinating family histories.  They are very remarkable early West Australian settlers  So you might say that I’m the custodian of their stories.

Kevin Anderson