The Melksham's First & Last | Stories from Custom House

Story: Ian Brown, The Maryborough Storyteller. Photos: Courtesy of Ian Brown.

My mother was a Melksham, a name well known here. They originated in the ancient village of Melksham on the River Avon in Wiltshire. The first Melksham was reputedly an orphan, left on the doorstep of the local manor house, and named George for the King, and Melksham for his birthplace. 

The first Melksham in Maryborough was George’s grandson, Frank, eldest son of Edwin Melksham. Nineteen on arrival aboard the Scottish Wizard in January 1882, Frank was the family’s advance scout and immediately set to work, securing a little cottage in Sydney Street, off Saltwater Creek Road. 

Edwin & Mary Melksham - Photo courtesy of Ian Brown

His parents and eight siblings arrived six months later aboard the Silver Eagle. It’s unknown what father Edwin said when he saw the lowland he now owned, the proximity to the creek, but I sense that something came between father and son at that time. The 1893 flood would certainly show up Frank’s disastrous choice of real estate. 

Later, Edwin would move the cottage by bullock dray around to the corner of Pallas and Arbury Streets, and raise it up six feet. It served the large Melksham clan in Maryborough for many years. The property was later owned by my mother’s cousin, Sid Melksham, who demonstrated much better judgement for property than his great Uncle Frank, since his development of the Eurong resort on Fraser Island, or K’gari, from the late 1950s, yielded many millions when he finally sold it. Sid died just last year, aged 84. 

Melksham House Raised - Photo Courtesy Ian Brown