Peter Dredge:

(Peter died in 1912 and may have married but this is not confirmed)

• (April 1888) “Peter became a Ward of the State, charged with larceny. Boy states that his father is a miller at present working at Sale. Father is addicted to drink, left home three weeks ago said he would go to Sale but has not since been heard of. There are a family of five children youngest 7 years oldest 21. The older boys keep the family. They are in very poor circumstances. Mother is dead.”
• (Nov 1888 Police News) “Pigeon Stealing. A lad named Peter Dredge, aged 15 years, was charged at the Carlton court yesterday with pigeon stealing. The evidence showed that on Monday night some person entered the yard of Mr. Bently, at Rathdown-street, North Carlton, and stole a number of valuable birds, which were securely locked in a strong cage with iron bars. On Wednesday afternoon the prisoner sold three of the stolen pigeons to Mr. Perry, a poulterer in Lygon-street, and the same night he was arrested by Constable Barry. It was elicited that Dredge was sent to the reformatory for larceny at Fitzroy some time ago, but had since been released. The bench took a very lenient view of the case, and sent the boy to gaol for six hours.”

(Peter was discharged from care, back to his father, in November 1888)

• (May 1890 Police Intelligence) “C. Ransome, H.Bredin, J. Hart, and Peter Dredge were charged with stealing a box of chocolate ice and a box of prepared ginger valued at 9s, the property of Charles Lewis, confectioner, Rathdown.street, North Carlton. On the morning of the 19^th inst. the four boys were seen running out of the prosecutor’s shop with the two boxes. Information was at once given to the police and the boys were subsequently arrested. Bredin and Ransoms were discharged, the other two ordered to enter into their own sureties of £10 each for their good behaviour for 12 months.”
• (Nov 1891) “BURGLARY AT A BOOT FACTORY. Peter Dredge and Frederick J. Stanley were before the Fitzroy police court yesterday, the former charged with store breaking and stealing, and the latter with receiving stolen goods. Stanley was represented by Mr. Neave, and the other prisoner was undefended. Some time between 12 and 1 a.m. of the 28th ult. the boot factory of Wm. Brookhouse, Johnston-street, was broken into, and £70 worth of boots were stolen. Dredge was arrested on the following day, and the other prisoner at his residence at Ascot Vale, where about 190 pairs of boots were found. These were recognised by the firm as their property. Caroline Mary Gemmell, wife of Thomas Gemmell, constable of police stationed at Ascot Yale, stated that she knew Stanley as a cab driver in the district where she resides. On the 28th October he called at her residence, and asked if Mr. Gemmell was at home. On being told that he was not he asked her what size boots she wore. She refused to tell him, and he observed, “Oh, I can fit you; 3’s will do.” He then left, and in a little while returned with two pairs of shoes and a pair of button up boots. The latter he told her would do for the old lady, her mother-in-law. When asked how he had obtained them he informed her that he had been driving an old man and an old woman about Brunswick on the previous evening. They were drunk, and had left the boots in his cab. She, suspecting something wrong, kept the boots, and on her husbands’ arrival home detailed the circumstances to him. Constable Gemmell gave evidence, and said that on the information which his wife gave him he went to Stanley’s place, and after inquiry was told that three men had engaged a room from him, and in that room the missing boots were found strewn about. Both prisoners were committed for trial.”

(Dec 1981) “Imprisoned at Melbourne gaol and then moved to Beechworth gaol on 24 Dec 1891. Sentence 18 months hard labour. Released on remission on 24 Mar 1893.”

• (28^th Dec 1898) “Imprisonment for no visible means of support.Melbourne, VIC, Aust. Imprisoned at Melbourne gaol and then transferred to Geelong gaol 20 Jan 1899. Released 5 Jun 1899 on remission.”
• (27^th Nov 1909) “SUNDAY TRADING. At the Fitzroy Court on Friday, Messrs. Wheeler and Chapman J P’s dealt with the following cases under the Licensing Act. Charles Davies, liicensee of the Fitzroy Club Hotel, Brunswick-street, pleaded guilty to a charge of Sunday trading Constable Boucher said that on Sunday, Novem- ber 14, he saw the wife of the defendant hand seven bottles of ale over the top of the back gate to two men The defendant was fined £2. Peter Dredge and Frank Brady, the two men who had been supplied with the seven bottles of beer, pleaded guilty to unlawfully carrying away liquor, and were each fined £2.”

James Dredge:

(James died in 1918 whilst serving during WWI. There is no record of a wife or children.)

• (Feb 1888) “YOUTHFUL LARCENISTS At the Fitzroy Court this forenoon four boys named Frederick De Kuyper. William Mawby, James Dredge, and Harold Breden, all under the age of 11 years, were charged with breaking into a house and stealing there from carpenters tools to the value of L2 3s, tho property of Thomas Walton. Thomas Walton stated that he left his tools at the house he was working at in Nicholson Street on Saturday, and when he returned on Monday morning he found the place broken into and the tools gone. He re-ported the matter to the police, and, in com pany with Constable Conway, traced them to a secondhand dealer’s shop in Johnston street, where they had been sold for a few shillings. Messrs Westley and McKean at this juncture appeared as amicus curae , and pointed out that all the boys were respectably connected, and that they could, under the 66th section of the Criminal Law and Practice Statute, impose a small penalty on the parents, who would bind themselves to keep the children from committing in the future a like offence. This the Bench agreed to, and after giving the boys a sound lecture, ordered that the parents enter into a recognisance of L10 each and take the boys home. This was done, the little fellows going away apparently ignorant of the humiliation they had subjected their parents to.
• (2^nd Jan 1918) “Defence Force Details: 2 Jan 1918, Haut Allaines, France James enlisted on 27 Jan 1916 and proceeded to Alexandria, Egypt and then Plymouth, England arriving 16 June 1916 with the 46th Battalion. He was serving at Haut Allaines, in France, and after having playing cards and having a drinking session with other men in their dug-out, he went to sleep and died through the night on 2 Jan 1918. An Enquiry was held and witnesses were called. An inquest did not establish any cause for death. Death was declared due to natural circumstances.”

(Date of embarkation 4^th April 1916)

• “World War 1 Casualty : James Radford Dredge (Preston) James Radford Dredge was from Wallace-street, Preston and appears to have been an uncomplicated soul who just got on with his job – until one night when the daily horrors of war may have become too much for him. The forty-year old Dredge was a cousin of other servicemen from the inter-related families that paid the ultimate sacrifice (Alfred William Gluyas, Thomas Daniel Donovan, Walter Donovan Glanfield). His father, Joseph, was the secretary of the Preston Methodist Sunday School at the first meeting in 1856 at a time when the family operated a steam-powered flour mill in the district.* An uncle, Peter, was the teacher at a Wesleyan School established in the church around the same time. Undoubtedly the horrors of the war affected many men in many different ways, and perhaps Dredge was no exception. Dredge is shown on the Australian War Memorial as having died of illness, but perhaps that is a little flattering as to all intents and purposes, he died on 2 January, 1918 at Peronne, France as a result of a late-night drinking session which appears to have involved large quantities of rum of a dubious quality. He was interred at the Tincourt New British Cemetery, France.”

(*note: Joseph Dredge would only have been aged 15 at this time – a position of responsibility for a child/young adult? Does this make the flour mill, his father’s business?)

• “DREDGE. – On the 2nd January, on active service, somewhere in France, James Radford, second youngest son of the late Joseph and Mary Dredge, and loved brother of Ethel (Mrs. W, Edwards), Frank, Will, Ern., Peter and Oll. -(on active service).

Sleeping in a soldiers grave

His duty nobly done.”

Oliver Dredge:

(Oliver was married with children; he died in 1945 in a Repatriation Hospital in Victoria, Australia)

• (Nov 1901) “Thomas Hallows19, and Oliver Dredge, 20, pleaded guilty to receiving stolen goods. They were sentenced each to six months’ imprisonment, concurrent with a sentence (of twelve months) they are now undergoing.” “The November sittings of the Melbourne General Sessions were continued yesterday, before Judge Hamilton, Mr. Finlayson, K.C., prosecuting on behalf of the Crown. Thomas Hallows and Oliver Dredge were presented on a charge of stealing two bedsteads, a mattress, a sellzogcne* and other articles, the property of Charles Crook, of Brunswick. They pleaded guilty to receiving the goods knowing them to have been stolen, and were remanded for sentence.
• A large dose of opportunism and an even larger dose of Christmas cheer comes in this report of the Christmas geese:

“Trespassing Geese Stolen. THE MISTAKE THEY MADE. MEN FINED FOR LARCENY. AT the Williamstown police court on. Tuesday, before Messrs. G. A. Andrew and Duncan, J’s P., John Knight and Oliver Dennis Dredge were charged with the larceny of two geese, valued at 30s, the property of Mrs Blair, on the 24 ult. Sub-Inspector Love prosecuted. The accused were defended by Mr James Hall, who practically pleaded guilty for his clients under extenuating circumstances. Proceedings were taken under the Crimes Act. Sub.Inspector Love briefly sketched the surroundings. Knight had admitted killing the geese, and giving one to Dredge. Mr Hall offered technical objection later, whether “a goose dead was meat.” Before evidence was taken he entered on his defence, and the chairman playfully sought to be advised of some evidence.”. Kate Blair, married woman, resident of Douglas Parade, Newport, testified that the geese produced were her property. They were not Christmas geese. She had bred from these geese, as they were prize stock. She valued one at 20s., the other at 10s. ….. screaming in Neal’s yard, where accused were said to be employed. She knew neither of the accused. Going towards this yard on the date mentioned on the 24th inst., suddenly blood spirted through the fence. She saw a quantity of feathers, but no dead geese about. She did not desire to press the charge against these two men. Constable J. H. Black stated that on Christmas Eve, in consequence of something told to him, he went to the yard of H. Neal, contractor, Douglas parade, and saw where there had been geese killed.  There was blood about the fence. Witness recovered one of the geese at Dredge’s. Mrs

Dredge had brought it from behind the kitchen door. It was subsequently identified by Mrs Blair. Later on a warrant was obtained, and Knight was arrested. At his home, two and half miles from the yard of Neal, in Wyndham, witness found the other goose. No one was in the house at the time. Knight admitted killing the geese and giving one to Dredge. The defence

was that the geese were trespassing in the yard of the men’s master, and were a great nuisance, devouring considerable quantities of feed. According to the Act (Mr Hall went on to argue). they could have been killed, but must be retained for twelve hours; then buried. Where his clients had committed an error was in carrying off the carcases. The accused were

respectable married men and had not been into any difficulty of the kind previously. As a matter of fact he (Mr Hall) had in his pockets 30s to make good Mrs Blair’s loss, and trusted as it was Christmas time the Bench would be lenient. A fine of 10s. each, Mrs Blair to be recompensed her loss to 30s, was imposed against each accused.”

• (March 1915) Oliver enlisted in the ADF (Driver 872) on 29 Mar 1915 at 33 years of age. Occupation was driver. He embarked on 7 Mar 1916 for overseas as a driver on the Euripides. He was attached to various Battalions, mainly 59th and 60th Battalions. He first went to Marseilles, France and then onto Egypt with some leave in England. He was treated for ‘gon’ from Jul 1915. Oliver returned to Australia on the ‘Kashmir’ troop ship departing Southampton on March 9 1919.

Sellzogcne*:

• There is also an intriguing reference to what something called ‘sellzogcne’ might be (bizarrely, a first internet search went straight to a dyslexia forum which seemed a little pointed …). Kristyn followed it up with her family history class mates without any success and then she followed it back to the newspaper items that it appears in. By zooming right in, she found that that the spelling should be seltzogene; “a device from the late Victorian times for making carbonated water. Also called: gazogene.” (Collins English Dictionary).