Council Rate Books of offer glimpses of the Tunaleys' life in Australia. The 1928 rate book for the Victoria Ward of Collingwood, names the Head of the Household at 57 Nicholson Street as "Tunaley, Tom", with his Occupation listed as "Carpenter ". Eight Tunaleys lived in that modest two-bedroom house: Tom, his wife Maggie and their six younger children, Bill, Pauline, Tom Mary, Geoffrey and baby Margaret.
The house was second from the corner with Langridge Street at the Victoria Street end of Nicholson street, opposite Dentons' Hat Mills. Their landlord was H.L Carnegie of Elizabeth Street, Melbourne.
On 17th September 1928, as Mayor of Collingwood, Tom Tunaley signed all the Council's Rate Books "for the Period ending the Thirtieth day of September, 1928", in the presence of the Town Clerk. Tom's small, neat signature is in contrast with the flourishing scrawl of the Town Clerk's. But both are outshone by the Official Seal of Collingwood Council in bright red wax, below.
By the time the next year's rate books were printed, Tom Tunaley was dead. When Tom died on 15th May 1929, age 47, the Tunaleys were still living in the rented timber house at 57 Nicholson Street Abbotsford.
The rate book for 1929 has the Tunaley family details typed in (see above). But Tom's first name is crossed out and "Margaret" is handwritten in pencil next to it. The occupation "Carpenter" is amended to "Home Duties". On the adjacent page (not shown), the total number of inhabitants is recorded as seven.
After Tom died, his widow Maggie and the six children stayed on at 57 Nicholson for a few years until 1932, when the family moved around the corner to a smaller house in Langridge Sreet.
Although smaller than the "timber shack" on Nicholson Street (Maggie's words, not mine), the two-bedroom cottage at 243 Langridge Street was built of brick and had a front verandah. Here's a picture of the house today, with my sister Janet and my daughter Gillian taking its measurements - it is exactly five metres wide.
Maggie stayed in the house at 243 Langridge Street for 27 years, her details in the annual rate books never changing. Only the total number of occupants recorded at 243 Langridge Street declined, as her six children grew up and moved out.
Maggie's grandchildren knew 243 Langridge Street as "Nanna Tun's House".
When the Tunaleys lived there, the house wasn't as pretty as it looks today. Built in 1888, and always rented out, it would have been quite rundown by 1932. The iron trims and lacework may have been rusty or removed. And the external brick walls weren't painted, as shown in the photo below (the only picture I have of the house in Maggie's day).
In this photo, Maggie's youngest child Margaret (b.1927) about 5 years old, is standing in the front yard of what is probably her new home at 243 Langridge Street. Behind her, the bare bricks of the wall next to the front door are shabby with age and seem to be blackened with soot. There is a faint pattern in the brickwork, suggesting a simple "Hawthorn Brick" design, popular during Melbourne's land boom of the 1880s when the house was built.
The three Tunaley boys - (William (Bill), Thomas (Tom) and Geoffrey - all slept on the front verandah, due to lack of space inside. A canvas blind provided them a modicum of privacy and shelter from the weather (Maggie's eldest grandchild, June Naylor - Pauline's daughter - provided this detail).
During her 27 years of residence, Maggie's landlord never changed. According to the rate books, both the house at 243 Langridge Street and the house next door at 241, were owned by a Mr Charles J Martin of 11 Myrtle Street, Clifton Hill.
In 1958, Mr Martin sold both houses and Maggie's tenure as a 'Head of Household' ended. She went to live with some of her married children and had disappeared from the Collingwood rate books by 1959. In 1960, the new owner, a Mrs Margaret Lunny, was living at 243 Langridge Street.
Maggie Tunaley died on 14th December 1963.