George Butterworth: tailor, trooper, reporter, auctioneer, agent, advocate and pound-keeper

By Ian Beissel - April 24, 2024

This history of one of Hay’s founding fathers was penned by Ian Beissel.

A former Hay student, Ian entered this tale in The Riverine Grazier’s 150th anniversary writing competition, taking out the major prize in the open category.

Nowadays there are few reminders of the name Butterworth at Hay, though older residents may remember the building contractor William G. Butterworth and Butterworth Hostel run by his sister Kate.

What follows is the story of George Butterworth, the father of W.G. and Kate, as well as Anne who married a local butcher, James Donohoe.

Butterworth was involved with Hay township from its earliest days and, for more than forty years, was an active participant in the progress of the township and district.

George Butterworth was born in 1829 in county Cheshire in north-west England, the son of Benjamin and Anne Butterworth, from a family with business and non-conformist religious connections. George began his working life as a tailor’s apprentice.

He emigrated to Australia in December 1852, aged 23, arriving in the colony of Victoria, where he lived for several years at Geelong.

In December 1854 Butterworth married Caroline Moore, a recent emigrant from London. Soon after their marriage the couple travelled to Deniliquin where George joined the New South Wales police force as a mounted trooper.

Caroline Butterworth gave birth to three children at Deniliquin: Anne (born in 1856), Catherine (born in January 1858) and William (born in 1860). By the birth of his second daughter in early 1858, George had resigned from the police force and returned to the tailoring profession.

In the meantime, north of Deniliquin, the location on the Murrumbidgee River known as Lang’s Crossing-place had attracted the colonial government’s attention as a likely site for a township to serve the surrounding pastoral runs and as a key location on a well-travelled stock-route leading to the markets of Victoria.

By mid-year 1859 reserves on either side of the Murrumbidgee had been proclaimed, a Police Magistrate appointed to the district and ‘Hay’ was selected as the name of the new township.

In October 1859 Butterworth travelled from Deniliquin to Hay to attend the first land-sale at the locality, at which he purchased a block of land for six pounds and five shillings.

By late 1861 George Butterworth and his family had settled at Hay, establishing a tailoring business there. In March the following year Caroline gave birth to her fourth child, a boy named Alexander.

Two days after giving birth Caroline died from a hemorrhage. Her baby also suffered from the birth and died eight months later.

Butterworth began writing about events in the new township for the Deniliquin newspaper, the Pastoral Times.

His reports as the Hay correspondent provide valuable information about the early years of Hay and district during the period before Hay’s first newspaper, The Hay Standard, began in August 1871.

In December 1862 Butterworth obtained a district auctioneer’s license, an event that set the course of the remainder of his working life. His first public auction was said to be the sale of Disher’s punt. William Disher had established a public house, punt and yards about two kilometres upstream of the township (near the present Hay cemetery), in opposition to Henry Leonard’s punt at Bushy Bend. The enterprise stalled when Disher ran out of money and was forced to sell up.

At the auction sale Leonard purchased Disher’s punt for £350 and relocated it to Bushy Bend, where he placed it end-to-end with his original punt to form a bridge across the Murrumbidgee.

As Hay township and the district pastoral runs developed Butterworth worked as an auctioneer and commission agent. He was responsible for the sale of a great variety of merchandise and property, including livestock, land and buildings, station equipment and household goods.

In August 1866 Butterworth married a school-teacher named Louisa Wickes. His second marriage lasted little more than a year and was argumentative and tempestuous in nature.

In May 1867 Louisa gave birth to a son named George. About three months later a man named Henry Turner was employed by Butterworth and lived with the family as a boarder.

In September 1867 Butterworth was absent overnight and returned home the following day to find that his wife had departed, in company with Turner and her young child. They had taken a horse and cart and a quantity of goods from the household.

On the road the pair encountered Thomas Clay, the district court bailiff. Turner told Clay: “I may as well make a clean breast of it… I have bolted with Butterworth’s wife.”

Henry Turner and Louisa Butterworth ended up in Corowa, living as man and wife.

Butterworth later prosecuted Turner for stealing his horse. He was tried at Deniliquin, found guilty and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in Parramatta gaol.

In 1868 Butterworth took on the role of pound-keeper at Hay, a position he held for the next thirty years. The pound served as an enclosure for straying livestock in the district, to be released to their owners on payment of a fee.

George Butterworth was an energetic supporter of local institutions. He was a strong advocate for a public school and his children attended the school from its beginning. Butterworth served for many years on the committee of the Hay Hospital.

He was a stalwart of the local Wesleyan community and contributed towards construction of the Wesleyan Church at Hay, completed in 1872.

As an auctioneer and public speaker, Butterworth was well-known for his eloquence and attention to detail. He was considered to be honest and upright in his business dealings and painstaking in his preparations for a sale.

Butterworth’s last important sale was in conjunction with another local auctioneer, Charles Hidgcock, in the sale of properties in the estate of James Tyson, who died in December 1898.

In his later years, Butterworth was unable to take an active interest in local affairs as had formerly been the case.

George Butterworth died of heart failure on 2 July 1902 at his residence in Lachlan Street, aged 73 (shortly after an operation to remove bladder stones).

The large funeral included the local Freemasons in full regalia. He was buried in the Methodist section of Hay cemetery.

Originally published in The Riverine Grazier on November 1, 2023.