Horace Summers ^{1 2}

  General Notes:

HORACE SUMMERS (1862-1932)

Horace came out from England to Melbourne on the SS "Oroya" ( 6184 tons, Capt. James Park) arriving December 1887 (Port B, Fiche 491, Page 4 in Victorian Public Office Records of unassisted passengers arriving from British ports 1851-1889) to work with import agent Alexander Cowan & Sons wholesale stationers, printers' furnishers and papermakers, of Edinburgh at 395 Little Collins Street . No occupation was shown for Horace in the ship's passenger list. Cannot find Horace Summers in the Melbourne Sands & McDougalls' directories of the 1885-93 period. He moved across to Perth to set up his own agency business about 1895 (37 years in W.A. - no reference on his death certificate to time in another colony). The Post Office Directories in the Battye Library (Perth) list him as a manufacturers' agent at 71 Barrack Street, Perth in 1897 (first appearance), 1899 & 1900. By 1907, through to at least 1930, he was listed as a wholesale stationer and importer at 9 Howard Street, Perth, where he had an office and warehouse. The business was an agency for imported paper and pens (including Waterman), leather for saddles and blind straps, leather belting for machinery, etc. His brother Digby worked with him as a clerk, also his son Philip, who took over the business just one week before his (Philip's) untimely death in 1930. The buildings were demolished for redevelopment about 1970.

Horace met and courted Effie Shaw in Melbourne before he went to Perth and married her in Perth on 25th May 1897. Horace's address was 71 Barrack Street, Perth at the time of his marriage. They moved into "Southampton" built at the corner of Stirling Street and Melville Parade, South Perth for his new bride. "Southampton" was sold by Horace's widow about 1938.

Horace took his wife and children "home" to England for visits in 1901 and 1909.

[Bob Summers Nov 2003]

Horace married Effie Shaw, daughter of Alfred Henry Shaw and Hannah Heywood, on 25 May 1897 in Trinity Church, Australia. (Effie Shaw was born on 9 Mar 1868 in Balaclava Rd, Caulfield ^{4 5 6} and died on 13 Jun 1969 in Applecross, Western Australia ⁷.)