Frederick Bailey Deeming - Australia in The 1880s

Australia in The 1880s

Police investigations after his arrest in 1892 revealed that Deeming had moved to Australia in 1882, chiefly working in Sydney, but also working for John Danks, a Melbourne importer of plumbing and gasfitting supplies. His Melbourne employers regarded him as an excellent worker and extended him 200 pounds credit, supposedly to open a business in Rockhampton, Queensland. The money was never repaid. Deeming is known to have worked for a Sydney gasfitter, where he was charged with theft of brass fittings from his employer. Deeming indignantly denied the theft, but the items were found at his home and he was sentenced to six weeks imprisonment. Deeming pretended to faint when the sentence was pronounced. After his release he continued to work in Sydney as a gasfitter until, in December 1887, he was again committed for trial, now on a charge of fraudulent insolvency. He disappeared from New South Wales while on bail.

Deeming was accompanied by his wife while in Australia, “a typical welsh lass,” Marie, née James. Deeming had married her in Lower Tranmere, England in February 1881 and they had lived briefly at Birkenhead before leaving for Melbourne. His brother Alfred, had married Marie’s sister, Martha. By 1886 Deeming and Marie had two Australian born daughters, Bertha and Marie. In 1888 his brothers Alfred and Walter learned that Deeming and his family were returning to England “with a considerable fortune”.