April 2 Lecture Report
The Baird Family
Dr Roz Otzen provided an engaging talk into the Baird family who migrated to Geelong from Glasgow during the Gold Rush Period. Originally from the area of Rutherglen, outside of Glasgow, by 1853 five of the nine children of the family patriarch, Robert Baird (born 1772), had settled in Geelong.
Robert Baird had been a calico printer but his children had a more mechanical and entrepreneurial bent. The eldest son, Alexander, had become an engineer but another son John was a blacksmith. John Baird was the first to arrive and he set up shop as a smithy in James Street, Geelong. However, as for many, it was the discovery of gold at Ballarat that changed the family’s destiny. He sent 100 pounds back to Glasgow which sparked his siblings interest in emigration.
No doubt armed with this seed money the siblings in Glasgow purchased a steam engine and had that transported to the colony. Without railways in Geelong they stripped the engine down and converted into use as a wood saw. This act provided the siblings with an astounding profit of 648 pounds!
However, there is nothing like a pot of money to stir family resentment and the siblings fought over the ownership of this money. Unfortunately the trajectory for the family was downhill after this auspicious start. The next twenty or so years were blighted by alcoholism and indebtedness.
One sibling, Thomas Baird, became prominent in Presbyterian church affairs whilst his brother John became better known for his appearances before the magistrates. Their complex history is well known today as their situation was recorded in the pages of the Geelong Advertiser.
1864 Thomas got a court order to prevent anyone selling alcohol to his brother John who had become a hopeless alcohol. He invoked an obscure clause of the Publicans Act to prevent people wasting money on drink. Yet his good intentions backfired with this brother ending up incarcerated in Geelong gaol. Instead of granting the ban on the sale of Alcohol the brother was fined and eventually jailed because he could not afford to pay.
The brothers never reconciled and ended up living parallel lives in the city. It was indeed a cautionary tale about the perils of migration and how good intentions do not always achieve the desired outcomes.
