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In 1856, if not before, John would have been apprenticed to some trade -as a stonemason
perhaps like his older brothers, Richard and Henry. But in 1856 a William Honeycombe
appears on an Electoral Roll as a miner, holding a miner's right at Kangaroo Flat, near Bendigo.
This William is virtually certain to have been John's father. So is it possible that John went with
him to Bendigo, and thus began his working life, not as an apprentice stonemason, but as gold-
miner when he was 14 years old?
His married sister Elizabeth Franklin gave birth to her first child in Bendigo in 1856. Perhaps
William (and John) lodged with the Franklins for a while. The Franklins were still in Bendigo at
Golden Gully, in 1859, the year in which Martha Honeycombe, then aged 19, gave birth at
Mulgrave near Melbourne to an illegitimate baby boy. She later married the baby's father. The
next family event that would have some significance for John was the death of his brother Henry,
aged 24, in July 1860 in Geelong.
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But where was John? We do not know. If he was ever in Geelong about this time he
presumably lived, like his father, with the Mountjoys on their farm at Roslyn on the edge of the
Barrabool Hills. If he was gold-mining, he could have stayed with his sister Elizabeth in Bendigo
or lodged with a group of chums in any of the booming gold towns north of Geelong. On the
other hand, he might have travelled further afield, to Tasmania or to Adelaide. We do not know.
However, a J or James Honeycomb is recorded in the Victorian Post Office directories as
having lived in Ballarat between 1865 and 1867. He is said to have been a miner living in Sturt
Street, at Mrs Davis' lodging house, with three other miners called Thomas, Emerson and
Calcott.
I think this James (and there was no one with that forename in Australia then) is an error for
John. For that photo of John was taken in Ballarat about this time. And at the bottom of the
original photograph is the photographers' name and address. It says - 'Milletts Photo, 19 Sturt
Street, Ballarat'. Sturt Street was where the miner J Honeycomb is registered as having lodged
for two years. It has to be John. So at least we may surmise where he was then, where he lived
and how he was employed.
But then he disappears again for eleven years, only reappearing on the Queensland Electoral
Roll at Charters Towers in 1878.
Eleven years is a long time in anyone's life, especially when it spans a man's most active years.
But those years of John's life, between the ages of 25 and 36, are lost to us, unless some long
buried record may one day be discovered and tell us more. What adventures he had, what
successes and failures, what women he bedded, perhaps even loved, remained locked in his
memory while he lived - for he apparently never spoke much of his early life to his sons - and
vanished when he died.
John's qualification for appearing on the electoral roll for Charters Towers in 1878 was that he
had lived there for six months. So we can probably place him there the year before. But why
Charters Towers?
His father William, aged 79, had died at Wharparilla near Echuca in June 1876 and had left his
two surviving sons, Richard and John, £5 each. Perhaps his father's death and the little legacy
prompted John to sever all his ties with the towns and goldmines of Victoria and to seek his
fortune up north. Perhaps some unhappy personal or professional association preceded his
decision to break away. On the other hand, his disappearance from Ballarat in or after 1867
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