By Rob Wuchatsch
William Eustace Heathcote was born on 18 April 1845 at St Johns, Newfoundland, Canada. His parents, Hampshire born Royal Navy Lieutenant Edmund Heathcote (1814-81) and Elizabeth Lucy Law, daughter of Colonel Robert Law, had married at St Johns in July 1844. Eustace was a great grandson of Sir William Heathcote, Baronet. A brother named Robert Walker Heathcote was born in England in 1847.
Edmund Heathcote served at sea for most of the time between his marriage and his return to England in November 1849 as a newly promoted Commander. He soon discovered that during his absence his wife had been involved in an incestuous relationship with her brother George Law which resulted in the birth of a child in 1850. In 1851 Edmund divorced Lucy and in 1852 he married Jessie Hill, who bore him a further son, Arthur Cleveland Heathcote, in 1854. As well as these three sons, Edmund Heathcote is said to have had an illegitimate son named Edmund, baptized in Corfu in 1840.
Eustace Heathcote was raised at Fritham Lodge, a small farm in the New Forest, in Hampshire. In 1852 his father was promoted to Captain and continued to spend much of his time at sea. On 5 March 1859, Eustace followed his father into the Royal Navy, being appointed to the training ship HMS Britannia at Portsmouth as a Naval Cadet. Shortly before he had graduated from Thomas Eastman’s Royal Naval Establishment at nearby Southsea.
After a year on HMS Britannia, Eustace spent two weeks aboard HMS Victory, before being appointed to HMS Nile on 13 April 1860. Soon after HMS Nile left for North America and the West Indies, where it remained for four years.
photograph by Matthew B Brady – American Photographer (1822-1896)
On 28 September 1861, Eustace was promoted to Midshipman and remained on HMS Nile until 4 February 1863, when he briefly served on HMS Spiteful, before transferring to HMS Esk on 1 March 1863.
HMS Esk, along with HMS Curacoa, was commissioned for the Australian Station in May 1863. HMS Esk arrived in Melbourne in October that year, bound for New Zealand. Both ships served in the New Zealand Wars of 1863-64 and Captain Hamilton of HMS Esk was killed during the battle of Gate Pa in April 1864. Eustace Heathcote served on HMS Esk until 8 August 1865, when he was transferred to HMS Curacoa at Aneityum, in the New Hebrides.
Two days later, HMS Curacoa sailed for Resolution Bay at Tanna, accompanied by several missionaries in their schooner. The Presbyterian missionaries, led by Rev. John Paton, had previously been ejected by the Tannese chiefs, so as retribution Commodore Sir William Wiseman, Captain of HMS Curacoa, decided to shell Tanna, then land a force of small arms men and marines to destroy their villages, canoes and plantations. Paton is said to have had a deliberate policy of using the threat of naval power to achieve his spiritual objectives.
Eustace Heathcote was a member of the 170 strong landing party. During a brief skirmish, in which a popular able seaman named Holland was shot and later died, Heathcote badly wounded one of the Tannese chiefs with his sword. A colleague later wrote:
Reports vary as to whether Quatangan survived or died of his wounds. On 13 November 1865, Heathcote was promoted to Acting Sub-Lieutenant, presumably in part for his role in the raid at Tanna. The next year saw HMS Curacoa visit several Australian ports. Eustace was a good cricketer and his name appears in a navy team which played charity matches in Tasmania in March 1866. Following a cricket match at Richmond, the Hobart Mercury reported
Eustace was a good cricketer and his name appears in a navy team which played charity matches in Tasmania in March 1866. Following a cricket match at Richmond, the Hobart Mercury reported:
In May 1866 Heathcote’s wicket keeping was praised in a match against an Adelaide team. In October 1866, HMS Curacoa left Australia for England, but at Cape Town on 15 December 1866, Eustace faced a court-martial for offences as follows:
The court-martial found:
Eustace Heathcote’s career in the Royal Navy was effectively over and he resigned on 15 May 1867 aged 22. What his father thought of his behaviour can only be surmised. For financial reasons his father, not promoted to Rear-Admiral until 1869, had reduced Eustace’s annual allowance from £60 in 1866 to £40 in 1867, a considerable reduction. Eustace’s solution to his problems was to emigrate to Australia.
Perhaps the answer to Eustace’s behaviour was a member of ‘the fair sex’ named Alicia Grace Page. Shortly after he arrived in Melbourne aboard the Lady Melville in December 1867, he travelled on to Hobart, where he arrived on 1 January 1868. On 26 March 1868, he married Alicia at St John’s Church at New Town, suggesting they had met during his previous visit to Hobart.
Born 18 December 1850, she was the daughter of Samuel and Grace (née Harris) Page. Samuel, the father of fifteen children, twelve of whom survived to adulthood, including seven daughters, was a very wealthy man. Among the properties he owned was a large pastoral estate named Anstey Barton near Oatlands. He also owned a coach line, which ran between Hobart and Launceston, along with many hotels along the highway where the horses were changed and passengers fed. When he died in 1878 his estate was valued at £200,000.
Following their marriage, Eustace and Alicia lived at Anstey Barton, where he was described as a farmer. In his leisure time he was involved in hunting and horse racing. The Heathcotes’ first child, Arthur Eustace, was born on 22 May 1870 but died on 7 March 1872 and is buried in the Oatlands Cemetery. Their second child, Lucy Maude, was born on 30 August 1871. Eustace appears to have experienced financial problems in 1871/72, as he was twice sued for non-payment of debts and in April 1872, was lucky to be fined only £2 for assaulting a creditor who sued him and called him a sponger. The Hobart Mercury commented that the court’s leniency occasioned general surprise and much indignant comment given the severity of the assault. In August 1873, however, Heathcote successfully sued the Oatlands publican Robert Barwick and his son for assault, but received only £2 damages and not the £300 he sought. Heathcote had been drunk and a ‘pot-house’ brawl ensued when he would not leave the hotel.
By late 1873, Eustace and Alicia Heathcote had moved to Melbourne, where in October she gave birth to a son, Arthur Edmund Samuel, at Collingwood. On 12 December 1873, Eustace joined the Victorian Navy as a Sub-Lieutenant on HMVS Nelson, an old 1814 wooden three-deck battleship which had been converted in 1860 into a two-gun deck ship and brought to Victoria for training boys in 1868. The Naval Reserve force also exercised using the guns on board the ship. Heathcote served on HMVS Nelson until promoted to Lieutenant on HMVS Cerberus on 9 July 1877. While in the Victorian Navy, Eustace was a regular attendee at Government ceremonial and social functions, as well as playing in naval cricket matches and hunting with the Melbourne Hounds.
HMVS Cerberus was the Victorian Navy’s flagship, a steam driven ironclad monitor, with four 10-inch cannons mounted on twin revolving turrets. It could adjust its buoyancy by flooding ballast tanks and partially submerging the main deck to present a difficult target for enemy cannon fire. HMVS Cerberus was purpose built in Britain to guard Port Phillip Bay against foreign invasion and had been in service since 1871. When Eustace served on HMVS Cerberus she was under the command of Captain C.T.Mandeville.
From 1875-79, the Heathcote family lived at Bronte, a substantial home on the Strand at Williamstown. An unnamed son was born at Williamstown in 1875 but died when only one day old. In England, Eustace’s father Edmund Heathcote was promoted to Vice Admiral in 1874, then retired in 1879 and died in 1881 aged 67. Eustace’s brothers Major Robert Walker Heathcote (1847-1918) served with the Royal Marines and Commander Arthur Cleveland Heathcote (1854-1933) in the Royal Navy. His mother Lucy is believed to have emigrated to Australia, remarried and died in Sydney in 1902, aged 82. It is not known whether Eustace had contact with his mother in Australia.
Early in 1878, when war between Britain and Russia appeared likely, moves were made to boost Victoria’s defences. Additional guns were placed at Queenscliff to support HMVS Cerberus to defend Port Phillip Bay. HMVS Nelson was cut down to a frigate to enable it to cruise outside the Heads and HMVS Victoria, an 1855 seven-gun steam sloop previously used mainly for marine survey work, was strengthened to support a 64-pound pivot gun and assigned to port defence purposes with Lieutenant Heathcote in command.
Eustace Heathcote remained in charge of HMVS Victoria until September 1880 when he was retrenched, along with several other naval officers, as part of Premier Berry’s cost-cutting measures. Heathcote’s time in the Victorian Navy had been controversial. In 1874, while in charge of HMVS Nelson, he had failed to fire the customary salute to a ship carrying Victoria’s Governor Bowen, who was farewelling the departing late Governor of Tasmania. When he finally did so, the salute of 17 guns was said to have been carried out in a slovenly manner and not a credit to the officer in command. In 1878, he was involved in a slanging match with Admiralty Surveyor Lt H.J.Stanley, who he accused of having returned HMVS Victoria in a disgraceful condition, claiming he ‘found the bilges in a beastly state’. In April 1880, acting in place of Captain Mandeville who was ill, Heathcote reported Engineer James Hiddle for insubordination. A board appointed to investigate the charge censured Hiddle for not reporting a defect in the machinery of his vessel and fined him £20 for ‘gross insubordination in speaking and acting in a disrespectful manner to Lieutenant Heathcote.’
Despite Eustace’s £400 salary as a Lieutenant and his wife’s substantial inheritance, they were forced to put their house at Williamstown up for auction in December 1879. In January 1880, Bronte was re-advertised and sold, this time by order of the mortgagees.
In July 1883, Alicia and Eustace, along with her sisters Virginia and Amy and their husbands, were involved in a legal dispute over the legacies left to them by their late father. Owing to a shortfall in funds, the legacies had not been paid in full, but on the death of their mother in 1882, her £21,000 annuity fund became available for distribution. The other Page children sought to share in the total £21,000, but the Tasmanian Supreme Court ruled that Alicia, Virginia and Amy were entitled to have their legacies paid in full before other Page children could receive a share of the fund.
As well as financial problems, Eustace and Alicia also experienced considerable personal problems. On 11 October 1882 Alicia was admitted to Kew Asylum and remained there until 9 March 1883. Eustace’s address was then Roslyn House, Elsternwick. On 16 February 1883 Eustace and Alicia signed a Deed of Separation in which she agreed to pay him £200 maintenance per year for life. By July 1884, however, Eustace had resorted to legal action, claiming she owed him £170. During the court case Alicia stated she ‘was not right in her mind when she signed the agreement’ and would not continue to pay the £200 per year if she could help it. The case was adjourned for a month to allow the parties to settle their differences, part of which related to setoffs relating to joint debts, but the outcome is not recorded.
From early 1884, Eustace lived at the Stony Rises Homestead at Pirron Yallock, between Colac and Camperdown. The rabbit infested 6,147 acre Stony Rises Estate was purchased in March 1884 by a syndicate of Melbourne businessmen and Eustace was appointed resident manager. The syndicate, led by Robert Inglis of Toorak, planned to eradicate the rabbits by trapping, canning and exporting them to Britain. Eustace, who had some experience in dealing with rabbits at Anstey Barton, probably met members of the syndicate through his social connections in Melbourne.
On Sunday 30 November 1884, Eustace had breakfast, then went outside to attend to tasks around the homestead. When he did not return for lunch, his servant Thomas Haxton went looking for him and found him dead, about 200 yards from the house. He was aged 39.
A magisterial inquiry held at the Stony Rises Homestead on 2 December found Eustace Heathcote died from a ruptured aorta or aneurism. His body was taken to Melbourne by train and he was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery on 3 December. His estate, valued for probate at £37 in Victoria and £102 in England, passed to Alicia.
Alicia Heathcote remarried on 25 August 1885 to Frenchman Eugene Duturbure, an artist and soon after they moved to Gippsland. She died at Windsor in Melbourne in 1903 aged 52. Lucy Maude Heathcote (1871-1938) married Joseph Alfred Pruden at Longford in 1889 and Arthur Edmund Samuel Heathcote (1873-1917) married Lela Madeline Johnson at Echuca in 1896.
About the Author: Robert Wuchatsch is an award winning writer of nonfiction books. For several years he has been researching the history and people who lived in the Stony Rises area and has kindly shared this extensive history of William Eustace Heathcote.