Harry Page

by Jenny Trigwell
Updated: 24 June 2023

Henry Shaw Page aka Harry Page

Henry Shaw Page was better known around Dardanup as “Harry Page.”  He had a long association with the Dardanup area.

Born at Euroa in Victoria, in September 1878, Henry Shaw Page was one of eight children born to William Christmas Page and Matilda Page (nee Shaw). William and Matilda were married in St Kilda on 1st September 1870.  The family lived in several places in Victoria including Hawthorn, Euroa and Violet Town, before moving to Boyanup WA about 1892.

Harry was single, of average build, 5 feet 9inches tall, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a dark complexion. 

Harry worked as a teamster until he joined the Commonwealth Contingent for Service in South Africa, joining the Eighth Battalion Australian Commonwealth Horse Squad.  His Attestation confirmed he joined in Bunbury on the 18 April 1902.  Harry’s signature was witnessed by Captain N J Moore.

Harry (Service No 489) was assigned to D Squadron, and left Fremantle on 2 June 1902. The 120 men were accompanied by 120 horses.  There is no record of Harry selling a horse, for which owners were paid up to twenty pounds for a good size and type, but he may well have done.  The St Andrew docked in Durban on 19 June 1902.  The Boer War had finished on 31 May 1902, so Harry most likely never saw any action. He was part of the Commonwealth Horse squad for 4 months and then joined the 10 reinforcements, 10th Light Horse for 6 weeks, before being declared medically unfit. How and when he got back to WA is unknown.

By 1908 Harry was back in the Dardanup area.  The Bunbury Herald 10 December 1908 Page 3 reported:

On the last day of November, Henry Page rode a horse into the schoolroom at Ferguson, and as a result on Saturday last, he appeared in the Bunbury Police Court when Mr Owen, R.M., fined him £4 and ordered him to pay costs 15s. 6d., or in default, undergo one month’s imprisonment with hard labour. 

Bunbury Herald – 10 December 1908

School student Dorothy Parkin recounted her memory of Harry yelling that he ‘was going to kill Newton Moore.’  It was Captain Newton Moore who had signed Harry up for the Boer War in 1902. 

Harry’s father relinquished agricultural work and when he died in September 1911, was living with his wife Matilda in Bolver Street, Perth. Harry did not attend the funeral.

The Southern Times, 25 February 1913 page 5, included a Dardanup Roads Board report:

Applications for working foreman were received, and the Board decided to appoint A. E. Skipworth for the West Ward, Henry Page for the East Ward, Arthur Simpson for the North Ward, subject to the members for each ward – having the power of dismissal.

The Southern Times, 25 February 1913

On 7 September 1916, Harry once again filled in an Attestation Paper of Persons for Service Abroad. His Service No. 6386, he joined 83 Depot Unit.

After training at Roleystone, Harry left for France on 7 July 1917.  He joined the 28th Battalion AIF in Belgium.

On 20 September 1917 he was wounded in action with a severe gunshot wound to his left hand.  His thumb was amputated.  Harry was taken back to London, returned to Australia 21 December 1917, and discharged on 29 March 1918.

Harry made his way back to Dardanup with a war pension. He lived for a while in an old railway humpy near the station, until it blew down.  For a time, Harry took up residence in the small kiosk, part of the Goldsborough Mort sale yards along Cleary Road, where food was prepared and sold on livestock sale days. This caused some dissent in the community.

The South West Times 20 Mar 1937 contained an advertisement calling for tenders for the erection of a pig selling shed with concrete floor and additional 17 new cattle pens for Dalgetys at their yards on the corner of Charlotte Street and Cleary Road.

Harry took up residence in the pig selling shed.  He had to remove himself and his belongings on pig sale days.

Sadly, The West Australian May 1953, reported –

BUNBURY, Fri – Henry Shaw Page (74), pensioner, of Dardanup died in the district hospital today after he had been found in a state of collapse, in the Dardanup saleyard last night. Death was due to pneumonia.
Mr. Page was well known in the Dardanup District.

The West Australian May 1953

Harry’s family inserted a Death Notice in the West Australian 27 May 1953:

PAGE: On May 14 at Bunbury, Henry Shaw Page, son of late William and Matilda Page. Brother of Will (dec), Nita (dec), Ettie (dec), Bert, Ernie (dec), Arthur, Frank, Blanche, Pearl.

West Australian 27 May 1953

Verna de Silva (nee Strachan) remembered Harry Page.  He  had a very old walking stick and had some difficulty walking. Everybody knew him. He would say hello though kept to himself mostly. 

Verna’s brother got into trouble from his parents and the teacher for throwing stones on the roof of Harry’s humpy which was directly across the road from the old Primary school.

Alan Mountford remembered Harry lived in a shed along the railway line until it blew down.  There had been two ‘permanent pay’ railway workers stationed in Dardanup so this may have once been their abode.

References:

  • Wiki Tree family tree – William Christmas Page
  • National Archives of Australia War Records
  • Trove Newspaper Reports as per text
  • Alan Mountford
  • Margaret Davey

Newspapers:

  • Bunbury Herald, 10 December 1908, Page 3
  • The Southern Times, 25 February 1913, page 5
  • The South West Times, 20 Mar 1937
  • The West Australian, May 1953