Community
11 September, 2025
On the pages of history
A DESCENDENT of one of Mortlake’s pioneering families was taken by surprise to see his family history captured in print – almost 45 years after it happened.
Western District Newspapers had last month begun publishing a series of photographs which were discovered during renovations.
Camperdown’s Ron Absalom was flicking through the pages of the Camperdown Chronicle in August when he noticed a familiar face.
Among the images found was from a Mortlake Dispatch story covering the release of the Absalom family book, penned by William Absalom III.
“I saw Billy and knew who it was straight away because he was dad’s second uncle,” Mr Absalom said.
“To see him, I straight away went looking for all the information on the family.”
Mr Absalom III had written the book, ‘In the shadow of the mount’, after attending a family reunion in the early 1980s – a family reunion which Ron Absalom himself attended.
“There was 396 people who were there, all of whom were descendants,” he said.
“It’s the only reunion we’ve had, which had to be held out at the Mortlake racecourse.
“I remember going to work at the factory the next week and a bloke said to me, ‘imagine there being 396 of you people’.
“It’s interesting to have a bit of family history like that and to see how quickly it got going.”
Members of the Absalom family had been among Mortlake’s prominent early residents after the town formed in 1853.
The family had humble origins after William Absalom, born in 1829 in Newberry, Berkshire, England, made the trip over to what would become Australia.
He had sailed the three-month journey from London to Port Phillip on March 26, 1849, aboard the Larpent with 250 other passengers.
“On the way through Darlington he’d taken a liking to the blacksmith’s (John Rose) daughter, who he eventually married after moving into Mortlake to start his own blacksmith business,” Mr Absalom said.
William Absalom and his wife, Mary Anne Rose, would go on to have 16 children between 1856 and 1878.
This included Charles Absalom, born in 1857. He would go on to marry Catherine McKenna in 1882.
Among their children was Rupert, the grandfather of Ron Absalom.
“Grandad Rupe had married Ada Chaffey,” he said.
“There was even more history there because the Chaffey brothers had come out from America and they had got the irrigation going up at the Mildura Irrigation Colony.
“Grandad Rupe and my uncle, Selwyn, had built the road across the lake at the salt lake outside Mortlake.
“They built that with a horse and a wagon, bringing wagon loads of stones back and forth.”
Mr Absalom said it was interesting to consider what life was like back when his forbears had originally made their way to the region.
“You look back and a lot of them early on were named William or Charles, but as the years went on it seemed to be names we broke from,” he said.
“It’s interesting to think now that a family of six has a battle to live, but he’s a family of sixteen.
“You sit back and wonder how you have a table to feed 18 people – they would have been sleeping top-to-toe.”
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