HOCKING [4401]

  General Notes:

The People of Perth by C.T Stannage published 1979
This Hocking family came to lived in East Perth because they couldn't afford to go anywhere else. Hocking was a Cornishman who had done well enough in Melbourne in the booming 1880s to own a house in the great bank crash of 1893. In East Perth he found small small business. But he lost his small business and his house in the great bank crash of 1893. In East Perth he found employment as a carter with the large timber merchants. Coombe Wood and Coy. He rented a five-room cottage in Royal Street in one of the swampiest parts of the suburb. This done he sent to Victoria for his wife and their eight children. In time Mrs Hocking found part-time employment as a midwife (usually for Dr Kenny). The oldest girl cleaned offices in the city from 5 a.m. to mid-morning, thus supplementing the family income. In time two of the girls would become tailoresses. The weatherboard house did not have piped water, so the girls had to cart water from a well. There was no gas, so cooking was done on a wood stove, and candles were generally used for lighting, as they were cheaper than kerosene.

The Hocking family had embraced the new Salvation Army faith, and with a Bible reading every Sunday evening, before dinner, they could be said to be a religious family. One of the daughters became a full-time worker for the Salvation Army, which from the 1890s held considerable appeal to working class families. Adherents of the Salvation Army increased from 0.5% of Perth's population in 1891 to 5% by 1901. The church, or rather fortress, was also the centre of the social life, including a New Year's Day excursion to Cottesloe Beach and picnics at Armadale or Swanview.

In time Mr Hocking struggled his way out of Royal Street into Wellington Street close to the old recreation ground still called 'the Rec',even though it was now graced by the title Wellington Squar. The urge to be independent was still strong within Hocking, and in the early 1900s he moved again, this time to a house in Lord Street with a bakehouse attached to the back of the premises. There he became a part-time confectionery-maker. But across the city in West Perth the firm of Plaistowe was mass producing sweets, and the age of the backyard manufacturers was starting to wane. Hocking would never keep his family on the proceeds of his confectionery-making. But carting offered him steady employment and he managed to keep out of 'poorly regarded' Kensington and Brown Streets. Even in Royal Street they had got by. Most of the family's foodstuffs requirements were bought at the front door: vegetables from the Chinaman (probably Ah Sue, whose garden was off Hill Street); milk from either Dan Keane's dairy in Summers Street or Murphy's at the bottom of Adelaide Terrace; bread and meat were delivered as well; the rabbit seller called; and there was a general store nearby. Eggs, however, came from the backyard fowl run.

As with most families of their social-economic status the Hockings only called in the Doctor for very serious illnesses. Until 1909 Perth did not have a Children's Hospital, so children suffering from infectious diseases were treated at home. When one of the Hocking children contracted that terrible child killer, Diphtheria, Mrs Hocking nursed her son in a room of their own house. During her 14 day vigil Mrs Hocking did not leave the room. Her older sisters passed food and drink into her, these being the only times when the big carbolic-impregnated sheet covering the door was drawn aside. When one of the other children had his adenoids and tonsils removed, Dr Kenny operated with the child lying on the kitchen table.

Life was hard for the Hockings, but they stuck it out in Perth and eventually broke out of East Perth and rented a house in Vincent Street, Mt Lawley. Mrs Hocking even had a holiday - a week's stay under tent on the Como foreshore. For the Hockings the gamble of moving West had proved worthwhile. Perhaps their standard of living had been improved only marginally; but that was enough. Hocking's son fought at Gallipoli and Flanders. The father died in 1918, too soon to see his gain secure employment with the Government.