Isaiah Wauhop (Blacksmith and Australian Navy)
John (Jack) Wauhop (Australian Imperial Forces)
Isaiah Wauhop (Farrier and Australian Imperial Forces)
William Gerald Wauhop (Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force)
Jack Wauhop (Australian Army)
Isaiah Wauhop (b 1862 - d 1955)
Blacksmith and the Australian Navy (Service Number 1368)
118 Duke Street East Fremantle
Isaiah Wauhop was born in Bendigo in Victoria in 1862. Isaiah’s occupation when he enlisted in the Australia Naval Force was stated as blacksmith. In 1900 the family moved to Western Australia and settled in East Fremantle.
Isaiah married Grace Denis In 1886 and together they had five children, John (Jack) Wauhop (1888-1966), Ellen (Nell) Wauhop, William Wauhop (1887-1971), Hugh (1896-1961) and Isaiah Wauhop (1889-1959).
At 20 years of age Isaiah enlisted in the Australian Naval Forces on 27th September, 1909 for five years. The enlistment document stated “....He is a well-grown, stout, intelligent lad; of perfectly sound and healthy constitution, and free from all physical malformation, and we consider him in all respects fit for His Majesty’s Service…” Isaiah achieved the rank Stoker 2nd Class.
At the time of Isaiah’s enrolment in the Australian Imperial Forces in 1909 he lived at 118 Duke Street, East Fremantle.
Isaiah died at the age of 94 years on 24 July, 1955. His wife Grace died aged 71 years on 10 August, 1934. She was interned in the Methodist portion of the Fremantle cemetery.
The funeral notice in the local paper described Grace Wauhop as “The late Mrs. Wauhop was born at Bendigo, Victoria, and had lived at Fremantle for the for the past 34 years. In her younger days she was enthusiastic Church worker, and was anxious to do whatever she could in the interests of others. She was of bright and genial disposition, very charitable, and won the affection of all with whom she came in contact.” She was survived by a husband, four sons and 17 grandchildren.
References
Original Navy Records
https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/awm-media/collection/RCDIG1071662/bundled/RCDIG1071662.pdf
Naval Record Australian War Memorial
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/R1427327
Family History Record Details
Death
https://www2.mcb.wa.gov.au/NameSearch/details.php?id=FB00019357
https://www2.mcb.wa.gov.au/NameSearch/details.php?id=FB00011707
Funeral of Grace Wauhop
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/32950254
William Wauhop was born in Bendigo, Victoria in 1887. He was one of five children born to Isaiah Wauhop (1862-1955) and Grace Wauhop (Denis) (1863-1934) from East Fremantle and John (Jack) Wauhop (1888-1966), Ellen (Nell) Wauhop, Hugh Wauhop (1896-1961) and Isaiah Wauhop (1889-1959).
In 1900 when William was 14 the family moved to Western Australia. He served his apprenticeship to engineering blacksmiths at the Fremantle Foundry and then joined the Fremantle branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. For about 10 years he represented the society on the A.L.P (Australian Labor Party) Council (reference ).
Once his apprenticeship was completed in 1907 Wauhop travelled to Carnarvon. In 1910 along with Mick Sawtell he was involved in establishing a branch of the A.L.P., where they nominated a candidate Mr W.J. Butcher who later won the election in the firmly established Gascoyne Liberal seat (reference ).
At the time there was very little union activity in Carnarvon outside the Shearer’s Union. Wauhop established a union to take in all workers in Carnarvon that included the municipal employees, shop assistant and general workers. Wauhop was elected as their first president (reference ).
On 25 October, 1911, William married Edith Willliambury Wheelock from Carnarvon. Edith was the daughter of Charles Thomas Wheelock and Jessie Wheelock (Nevin). The couple were married in the Congregational Church in Carnarvon in front of family and friends (reference).
Together they had three children, Edith May (1921-1973), Grace Nevin (1912-2001) and William Gerald (1914-1976). In 1961 William and Edith celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. In a newspaper article Edith talked about how the couple first met. “... Mrs Wauhop was in charge of Carnarvon’s post office and telephone exchange. I used to spend evening after evening talking to each other over the wires. So when we were officially introduced some months later at a party we already knew each other well… ” (reference )
In 1914 William and Edith moved to Duke Street in East Fremantle close to William’s parents Isaiah and Grace.
When William and Edith moved to Fremantle they again joined the Australian Labor Party. During this time the political and industrial sections of the Australian Labor movement were separate. He was a member of the committee that drew up the amalgamation scheme that combined the two divisions and was elected President two years later. He was prominent in the Fremantle wharf disputes of 1917 and 1919. Wauhop wrote an article published in the Westralian Worker on the 3 May 1940 titled ‘Fremantle Labor Consolidation in 1917’ about the history of the amalgamation (reference).
Wauhop was a delegate to the State Executive in 1915 and served for seven years. He was secretary of the East Fremantle A. L. P from 1915-1922, a founder and President of the Fremantle and District Road Boards of the A.L.P, and President of the Fremantle District Council and represented that council at numerous State Labor conferences.
Although Edith was busy raising children and a family as many women at the time were, she was also an active member of the Australian Labor Party. In 1942 Edith was nominated to the Fremantle Labor Party roll of honor for her work in the community.
In an article published in the Westralian Worker for 5 October 1943, describes how Edith joined the East Fremantle Australian Labor Party and later she joined the Fremantle Women’s Labor Organisation and the Red Cross at the outbreak of the war in 1914. The article goes on to describe how “...Mrs Wauhop has always taken an interest in the Labor Women’s Central Executive and has represented Labor organisations at the Annual conference of Labor Women…Mrs Wauhop is an amiable person of a retiring disposition who does not court publicity but has always been a good helpmate to her husband in labor matters and interested in the movement for its own sake…” (reference).
In 1942 Wauhop attempted to go into State Parliament. In October, he was nominated to fill the Federal Senate vacancy caused by the death of Senator E. B. Johnston. He lost the vote to Mr Charles George Latham (reference).
In 1922 Wauhop then moved into local government and became a member of East Fremantle Municipal Council. In September 1944 Wauhop was elected mayor to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr H. J. Locke. He served as a councillor and mayor of East Fremantle for 21 years from 1944 to 1964. William Wauhop along with Vic Ulrich served a total of 44 years as a councillor and mayor. They were both honoured with the title of Freeman of the Town (reference).
Wauhop was a member of and worked with ‘The Fremantle Uglymen’s Association’. The organisation was originally established to help those in need and suffering the effects of World War 1 and then expanded to include charitable causes such as an infant health clinic and underprivileged children (reference).
Wauhop was secretary of Alpine Taxis, a Justice of the Peace, member of the Fremantle Hospital Board and Chairman of the Licensing Court. In 1965 William was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire for his community work. Throughout his lifetime William had a street and park named after him in East Fremantle. In 1960 a wing at the Fremantle Hospital was also named after him.
Wauhop as a labor member of East Fremantle council was instrumental in establishing a 40 hour working week for the council’s employees. The East Fremantle council was one of the first councils to do this (reference ).
William died on the 17 September, 1971, aged 84. Edith died several years later on the 12 March 1974, aged 82. They were both cremated and memorialised at the Fremantle cemetery.(reference ) (reference )
John (Jack) Wauhop (b 1888 - d 1966)
Tip Tray Driver and Australian Imperial Forces (Service Number 24444)
John was born in Eaglehawk, Victoria in 1888. John (Jack) was one of five children Ellen (Nell) Wauhop, William Wauhop (1887-1971), Hugh (1896-1961) and Isaiah Wauhop (1889-1959) to Isaiah and Grace Wauhop. The family moved to Western Australia in 1900. Prior to enrolling in the Australian Imperial Forces he was employed as a tip tray driver.
At the age of 27, Wauhop enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 29 November, 1915. Wauhop’s Australian Imperial Forces archives describe as being 27 years and 3 months, weighed 142 pounds, of ‘fresh’ complexion with blue eyes and dark hair when he enlisted. His religious denomination was listed as Church of Christ.
Wauhop joined the 6th Field Artillery Brigade and embarked from Melbourne on 29 July, 1916 and travelled to France. He returned to Australia on 12 December, 1918 and discharged with an injured knee. For his service Wauhop was awarded the 1914/1915 Star, the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
Wauhop married Ellen Matilda Hitchock and together they had two children Allan Roy (1924-1977) and Ailisa Helen (1930-2010).
John died on 11 June 1966, aged 77. Ellen Matilda died on 24 April, 1975. They were both cremated and memorialised at the Fremantle cemetery in Western Australia.
References
Australian Imperial Forces
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8376734
Death
http://www2.mcb.wa.gov.au/NameSearch/details.php?id=FC00001214
http://www2.mcb.wa.gov.au/NameSearch/details.php?id=FC00004711
Isaiah Wauhop (b 1889 - d 1959)
Farrier and Australian Imperial Forces (Service Number 3478)
55 Glyde Street East
Fremantle
Isaiah Wauhop (service number 3478) was born in Bendigo in Victoria in 1889. Isaiah was one of five children to Grace and Isaiah Wauhop including John (Jack) Wauhop (1888-1966), Ellen (Nell) Wauhop, William Wauhop (1887-1971) and Hugh (1896-1961) who moved to Perth, Western Australia in 1900.
At the time of his enrolment in the AIF Isaiah was married to Elsie H. Wauhop and lived at 101 Glyde Street, East Fremantle. Together, they had three children Gracie (1913-1963), Hughie (1915-1994) or Isobel May (1912-1984). Together they lived at 55 Glyde Street, East Fremantle from 1918-1920.
Isaiah enlisted on the 9 November 1916 at the age of 27 years old and 4 months. He was described as being ‘5’ 5” tall with a fair complexion, grey eyes and brown hair and belonging to the Church of England. Prior to enlisting he worked as a farrier who specialised in the care of horses feet including placing shoes on their feet (The difference between a blacksmith and a farrier is a farrier needs training to make the shoes properly. Some blacksmiths may never come into contact with horses).
Isaiah joined the 51st Battalion, 9th Reinforcement and trained at Blackboy Hill east of Perth at the foot of the Darling Ranges in March 1917. The camp was the base for the training of the Australian Imperial Forces in which over 32 000 men passed through. The soldiers engaged in a variety of training including marching, drilling, mustetry practice, bomb fighting and sham fights before going onto further training in England or Egypt. There is a photograph of the 9/51 st Battalion leaving Blackboy Hill for embarkation on 29 January, 1917.
Isaiah’s Australian Imperial Forces record show he embarked from Fremantle, Western Australia on 29 January, 1917 aboard the HMAT A28 Miltiades and arrived in Devonport England 23 March, 1917. During his time as a serviceman he was admitted to the military hospital with a variety of illnesses. After he arrived in England he was admitted to hospital with mumps and discharged six days later. On several occasions after he was deployed to France to join his unit and was hospitalised and returned to England with a recurring injury synovitis of the right and left knee. He was hospitalised for several bouts of venereal disease usually after going Absent Without Leave or AWL.
On several occasions Isaiah was Absent Without Leave or AWL in England and France and was apprehended by the civil police and returned to the AIF. He was found guilty of the offences and received a number of punishments that ranged from imprisonment and detention with hard labour with sentences from several months to years, which were later commuted and remitted and replaced with detention and the deduction of a number of days pay that would have impacted on his wife and three children under five years of age.
Isaiah returned to Australia on 3 May, 1919 and was discharged on 11 July 1919. Throughout his time in the AIF Isaiah achieved the rank of private. He applied for and was awarded two medals in May 1919, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal for his service.
Elsie Ellen Wauhop died on the 23 October, 1949 aged 59. Isaiah Wauhop died on the 14 November, 1959 aged 70. They were both buried at Karrakatta cemetery.
References
Australian Imperial Forces Roll
https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=316628
AIF Training Blackboy Hill (photo of 9/51Battilion)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-19/blackboy-hill-perth-ww1-army-camp/5678794
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-19/blackboy-hill-perth-ww1-army-camp/5678794
National Archives of Australia
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8376733
Deaths
http://www2.mcb.wa.gov.au/NameSearch/details.php?id=KB00088389
http://www2.mcb.wa.gov.au/NameSearch/details.php?id=KB00113171
Hugh Wauhop (b 1896 - d 1961)
Australian Army (Service Number W5884)
58 King Street East Fremantle
Hugh Wauhop was born on 11 July 1896 in Bendigo. He was the son of Isaiah Wauhop (1862-1955) and Grace Denis (1863-1934).
Hugh married Logan Augusta Martin (1891-1971) and together they had six children Jack Wauhop (1920-2003), Glenis Jean (1932-1995), Dorothy Ellen (1917-1918), William (1929-2015), Hugh (1896-1961) and Maureen (1926-2017).
Hugh joined the Australian Army on 30 June 1941. He was a sapper and worked as part of the engineer corps building bridges, repairing roads and bridges and laying and clearing mines. Hugh was discharged on 2 April 1942.
References
Nominal Roll
http://nominal-rolls.dva.gov.au/veteran?id=806943&c=WW2
William Gerald Wauhop (b 1914 - d 1976)
Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force (W24390)
William Gerald Wauhop was born 9 April, 1914, in Fremantle and was the son of Willam Wauhop and Edith Williambury Wauhop.
William Gerald originally enlisted in the Australian Army on 4 March, 1941 in East Fremantle. He joined the 11th Battalion, achieved the rank of private and was discharged on 4 May 1942. He immediately enlisted in the Royal Australian Airforce in East Fremantle. He achieved the rank of Leading Aircraftman and was discharged on 14 March, 1946.
In 1952 the Mirror newspaper reported an affair between a married woman Rita Walker and several men including William in considerable detail.
In 1964 William married Norah Eileen Flinn in Fremantle, Western Australia.
William died on 2 October, 1976 aged 62. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at the Fremantle Cemetery in Western Australia.
References
Army
http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/Veteran.aspx?serviceId=A&veteranId=810869
Airforce
http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/Veteran.aspx?serviceId=R&veteranId=925776
Affair with a married woman
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/75998811?searchTerm=wauhop%20women&searchLimits=
Death
http://www2.mcb.wa.gov.au/NameSearch/details.php?id=FC00005505
Jack Wauhop (b 1920 - d 2003)
Australian Army (WX9723)
55 King Street East Fremantle.
Jack Wauhop is the son of Hugh Wauhop and Login Augusta and grandson of Isaiah Wauhop and Grace Denis. He was born in the Fremantle district on the 31 March 1920.
Wauhop enlisted in WW2 on the 6 December 1940 in the Australian Army. He was allocated to the unit of 9/32 Australian Infantry Battalion and the rank of private.
Wauhop was captured at the battle of El Alamein, taken to an Italian prisoner of war camp and held in Campo 57 and then Campo 106. He escaped with another soldier Donovan from NSW and took over 40 days to travel to Switzerland. He was discharged on 21 April 1945.
In 2003 Wauhop was interviewed by Brian Wall for Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia about his life and time during the second World War. As a consequence I have decided to let Jack speak for himself and have copied some of the paragraphs from the transcript available on the Australian War Memorial site. No copyright infringement intended.
“...Then we shifted to East Fremantle where my grandfather was a teacher of night school at the Fremantle Technical College. Well, at East Fremantle I was a bit of a – at East Fremantle Primary School – I was a keen sportsman, I excelled in football as captain of the school team and in cricket, vice captain of the cricket. I used to win swimming races and even pushbike races on the old Richmond Race Track, now Richmond Raceway, Fremantle Trotting Track in those days, and on Sundays, early in the mornings, I used to sell newspapers – Sunday Times, The Truth and the Mirror – every Sunday morning. That was thruppence a dozen before I went compulsory to Sunday School – eleven o'clock in the morning till midday was my hour at church. My brother and sisters, they had that coming to them and they didn't know it because I was the eldest of the family and I never told them what it was like – shame on me…”
“...Now, I don't know how that happened and I have never repeated the performance (laughs), I am sorry. The rest of the training, no. We were training with Lewis guns from world war one plus the old 303, a trustworthy weapon if ever there was one, but that was about it, and route marches, all over the Northam, Toodyay, Bakers Hill, you name it – we were like mountain goats. Up and down rocks and an occasional swim in [Bullong?] pool near Northam itself, the Avon River there. Learning how to make a raft with your groundsheet; stuffing it with grass, tying it up and getting on it and slowly sinking if you couldn't swim. We were a failure at that and, as far as obstacles go, we were better swimmers than raftsmen – I tell you – but, as far as obstacles courses, the parade ground itself is an obstacle course. They had a mania for painting all of the rocks white around the huts and around the driveways and footpaths or whatever and all of these rocks used to be gotten from round the area and dumped in unsuspecting places and around the parade ground and that became an obstacle course in itself because you were tripping over these rocks...”.
'...Went in there early the next morning having got within the vicinity of El Alamein and the Germans were in full strength plus the Italian division in front of them and a dawn attack going on in the distance, a bit inland, was the biggest tank battle of the war. This was a Friday, 17th July – everything happened on a Friday, good or bad, it always happened on a Friday in the army; I don't know why – and suddenly I was cut off. It wasn't nice to see one of my mates running past me without a head. I will never remember anything in my life with such nightmarish feelings as seeing that. My mate ran at least twenty yards without a head. It was cut clean off by a shell that didn't explode and he was running with the blood spurting out every heartbeat until he flopped in front of me. I lay low in my fox-hole. The rest of the battalion was rounded up and suddenly an armoured car came racing towards me…’
“...I remembered everything in one second flat. I left him with a pitchfork in him and took off. There was no barbed wire around the farm – nothing – and I took off. I headed for the safety of a clump of trees I could see in the distance. My first thought ... I didn't stop behind to get the rifle off him, I had chances for that sort of thing later on. I took off. Now, incidentally, the Italians hadn't capitulated yet, they were still at war. It was two or three weeks, I found out later, and nobody told me on my run from there, at that point, past Milan, up through around Aosta, over the foothills and over those Alps into the grand Saint Bernard area. No-one had told me that the Italians had surrendered. The countryside was lousy with them – soldiers – night and day and at least 10,000 German troops watching everybody and always on the move and you had to get through them as well. But my first concern then was that I had escaped, I was a free man and I had to change my prisoner of war clothes...”
“...I pilfered all of my clothing and then food was a major concern of course and I was starving for the first few days. I became more adept at finding where food was stored. I managed to get a full roll of goats cheese, bad on the nose but beautiful in taste and a string of salami and day by day I got stronger, I got cheeky. I was hiding things, I was letting down tyres in tractors and trucks on the farm. I found a valve remover on one – a little bit of sabotage creeping in – removing the valves, throwing them away. It would be nice for them when they woke up in the morning and found four flat tyres on a tractor or truck…”
“...We were told by the Captain, 'Now in good Australian military fashion, line up, alphabetical order, put your kit bags on your shoulder' – we had been reequipped as I said by the Australian army way back in Alexandria and we were now back in the army, no fooling around, and we had our kit bag again, a brand new one – he says, the Captain said, 'You will all disembark alphabetically. All those names Adam, whatever, to the front. Line up'. And I said, 'You know what you can do, mate, my name starts with W', I wasn't going to be last off there when there is Australia, the boat is tied up to an Australian bit of soil and down there, it wasn't kissable ground. But I only had one idea, one thought, was to get over that rail of that ship down on the wharf and press my mouth to that bitumen that was down there and that was it. I was over there; I didn't wait to go down that gangplank alphabetically because my name, as you know, is not conducive to that sort of thing and I was over the rail, jumped down there, hit the tarmac, kissed that and said, 'Australia, I'm home'.”
Jack Wauhop died in 2003 aged 83 years old and was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery..
References
Link to oral history at the Australian War
Memorial.
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C87860
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/78762866?searchTerm=wauhop%20jack&searchLimits=
Nominal Roll
http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/Veteran.aspx?ServiceId=A&VeteranId=745988
http://nominal-rolls.dva.gov.au/veteran?id=745988&c=WW2#R
Poem ‘Anzac’ written by Jack Wauhop while in a prisoner of war camp
https://www.robinvalewarmemorial.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/remembering-our-heros.jpg
Death
