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songs. At the end she was given an illuminated address and a diamond tiara. She retired from
singing at her peak, in 1903, and died in Dublin in July 1945.
Something about this concert the Honeycombe brothers must have written in their monthly
letters to their wives in Melbourne - in which some part of their wages would usually be
enclosed. But not one of all the letters they must have written has survived.
In 1897 Jack's wife, Jane, was living with their four surviving children in Darling St, Footscray -
Lilla Florence had died of convulsions, aged five months, in 1891. Tom's wife, Catherine, and
her three children, were in Fergie St, North Fitzroy; and Fanny, Dick's wife, was with their four
children in Suffolk St, Footscray.
As Fanny's fourth child, Richard Thomas, was not born until 29 September 1896, we may,
according to Aunt Lil, fix his father's departure for South Africa until after that date. And as
Jack's fifth and last child was born in March 1892, and as they had all arrived regularly up to
then, we may assume that there was no sixth child because he was elsewhere.
Perhaps the timing of the three brothers' alleged arrival in South Africa should be: Tom-1892;
Jack-1894; and Dick-1896. We can be fairly sure that all three were in Johannesburg in 1897,
and that all three may have heard Fanny Moody-Manners sing.
Why all three stayed as long as they did in South Africa (particularly Tom) we do not know.
Presumably they were earning good money - as well as having a good time in their spare time.
Some of that money was sent to their wives in Melbourne. But for several years not enough was
made, apparently, to pay for their families to join them in South Africa. Or perhaps the wives
were reluctant to make the sea-journey with their children. There is a possibility that Tom
returned on a visit. But the likelihood is that the three brothers were apart from their families for
five years at least, and in Tom's case as long as eight.
Ernie Lawless said of Jack: 'He sent some money home. But he used to like his beer. His wife
and children waited and waited. She wrote letters. But it was six years before he sent for them,
and enough money for the voyage.'
Whatever plans Jack and Tom and Dick had for a return to Australia or a reunion with their
families were, however, altered perforce in 1899 by the Boer War.
There had always been dissension, hostilities or war in southern Africa, since the Dutch
established a permanent settlement at Cape Town in 1652. Assisted emigration swelled their
numbers until what was basically a refreshment and refuelling port of call for passing ships
became a genuine
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colony, peopled by the Dutch and German ancestors of the Afrikaners of today, and by French
Huguenots, who from 1688 were given free passage to the Cape provided the cost was repaid
and their stay lasted for at least five years. By 1740 there were some 4,000 so-called free
burghers at the Cape and 1,500 Company servants and officials.
The first British occupation of the Cape, for military reasons, occurred in 1795. Ejected, they
returned in 1806 and the Cape Colony was assigned to Britain by the Congress of Vienna in
1814. British settlers now invaded the Cape, and this and the abolition of slavery in the British
Empire in 1833 and other matters moved many of the Dutch and German community, the
Boers, who were mainly farmers, to seek a homeland of their own elsewhere. Evicted in 1843
from Natal, which was annexed by the British that year, the Boers then concentrated in the
1850's in the territories that would eventually become the republics of the Orange Free State
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