The Kidd Family A Family History
The Cadden Family · William & Christina Cadden

The Hotelier

William Mitchell Cadden

1858–1924

A Sydney hotel-keeper who held at least nine licences across three decades and survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake by stepping out for an early walk — then enlisted for Home Service in 1916 swearing he was single, and died in Dublin in 1924 leaving an estate his previously unknown daughter helped settle.

Born
4 September 1858 · Princes Street, Sydney
Died
21 June 1924 · Dublin, Ireland
Married
Alison Eadie (m. 1892, div. 1906)
Lived
65 years

William Mitchell Cadden was born on 4 September 1858 at Princes Street, Sydney, his father’s occupation given on the birth certificate as ‘mariner.’ By August 1869 the family had reached Rockhampton, Queensland, where the ten-year-old William was enrolled at the Central Boys’ State School; as a boy of about twelve he and his brother John found two large gold nuggets, of eleven and twenty-two pounds, on the nearby Mount Wheeler field in 1870 — the same field their father had just begun working. By 1892 the three of them, and their father, held a joint gold-mining lease at Dalmorton.123

He married Alison Eadie at Emerald, Queensland, on 25 April 1892, by Methodist rites, when she was nineteen.4 He was mining, and kept a store at Dalmorton, where the couple lived for the marriage’s first five months; a month after they moved on to Glen Innes he left her with his family and went to Western Australia. Family memory has always had this down as simply the Coolgardie gold rush, but he had in fact joined the West Australian police force: by his own account, given to a Sydney reporter in 1897, he was stationed as a constable at Newcastle (since renamed Toodyay), about sixty-three miles from Perth, where in 1894 he tracked a horse thief calling himself Richard Ashe on foot, alone, for the last fifty-one miles, and arrested him at Guildford — a case that made the papers again three years later, when Ashe’s description surfaced in connection with the notorious international swindler ‘Butler.’56 Alison joined him at Newcastle, where their daughter Alma May was born in 1893 — almost certainly the ‘Alma May Cadden’ he would name as his next of kin a quarter-century later.7

He was promoted sergeant and posted to Perth, then transferred to Coolgardie — the goldfields town the family had originally set out for — on 1 July 1896.6 By then Alison had returned to New South Wales; a second daughter, Irene Lilian, was born at Glen Innes in 1896.8 William left the West Australian police soon after the Coolgardie transfer: by February 1897 he was ‘an ex-Sergeant in the West Australian police,’ proprietor of Bowden’s Club Hotel, Elizabeth Street, Sydney — his first known Sydney licence.6 A son, also William, was born to the couple in Sydney later that year, but did not survive infancy.8 Alison’s own 1906 divorce testimony, condensed as court reporting often is, fills in the years after that: he sold Bowden’s to make a trip to America, five months later returning to take the Surry Hotel for about two and a half years. This American trip is very likely the same journey immortalised, a little differently, in his own father’s obituary: an attempt at the Klondike gold rush abandoned partway to Canada, replaced by a sixteen-week trip almost around the world that saw him arrive home from London only just in time to be chief mourner at his father’s funeral, in June 1898.910 After selling the Surry he toured the state, then took the White Hart, at King and Clarence streets — managing it, newspaper evidence shows, for his brother Frank, who held the licence. In July 1902 he shot and wounded an intruder there, a drunken sailor named John Tiernan who had broken in ‘for a lark’ after William found the hotel’s doors and cellar disturbed in the small hours.911 He then left Alison again to go to South Africa ‘to see what the war was like’ — genuine service, his own later war record confirms, in the Australian Medical Staff Corps.912 Home again, he took the Commercial Hotel, travelled to Japan, and on his return took the Gosford, in Castlereagh Street, where Alison discovered his affair with a servant, Julia Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Guernsey. She left him, and a decree nisi was granted in September 1906 — by which time William had already left again, this time for San Francisco.9

He was staying at San Francisco’s Metropolitan Hotel when the great earthquake struck on 18 April 1906, and survived only because he had stepped out for a walk shortly before five that morning. Of the four hundred guests at the hotel, he told the Glen Innes press on his return that July, no fewer than two hundred and fifty were killed.13 He seems to have stayed only briefly before travelling on again: Alison’s divorce testimony has his next letter arriving from Vancouver that August.

By September 1909 he had spent twenty months as licensee of the National Hotel, 392 George Street, Sydney, and was seeking to transfer into the Mondure Hotel at Wondai, Queensland — describing himself on the transfer papers as ‘of Brisbane, Gentleman’ and, in his own words, ‘unmarried.’14 That December he and a Jacob Neustadt dissolved a Brisbane manufacturing partnership trading as the Conqueror Manufacturing Company, his brother Frank signing on his behalf as attorney.15 By mid-1910 he was licensee of the Pier Hotel at Coffs Harbour, where in February 1911 he was charged on three counts of allowing persons on his premises at unlawful hours; the case was withdrawn on a technicality, the informations having been laid two days outside the statutory month.16 He took the Park View Hotel at Alexandria that November.17

He enlisted for Home Service with the Australian Imperial Force on 25 May 1916 at Rutherford, giving his occupation as hotel keeper, his age as fifty-seven years six months, and his previous service as the Australian Medical Staff Corps in South Africa, ‘discharged at end of war.’ He declared himself single — ‘married’ and ‘widower’ are both struck from his attestation papers — and named his next of kin as Alma May Cadden, of 17 Lower Avenue Road, Mosman: his own daughter from the 1892 marriage, not a second wife, as family memory has sometimes had it.18 His service was brief: posted as a private, he was discharged only five weeks later, on 1 July 1916, the unit being ‘over establishment.’19

He kept hotel-keeping into his sixties — the Cambridge Hotel, at Oxford and Wallis streets, Woollahra, for two months in 1918; the Pottery Hotel, at Riley and Lansdowne streets, Sydney, from September 1920 to July 1921; and the Bellbird Hotel, near Cessnock, from March 1923, his last known licence.20

A wire report reaching the Melbourne Herald from London gives his death as 21 June 1924, in Dublin, describing him as ‘a Melbourne and Sydney hotelkeeper’ who ‘was formerly a mounted constable, and took part in the pursuit of the Kelly gang’; he was buried at Glasnevin Cemetery.21 The Kelly gang detail cannot be right — the gang was run to ground in Victoria in 1878–80, when William was a boy on the Queensland goldfields — but it very likely garbles a true story: his own genuine years as a West Australian police sergeant on the Coolgardie fields in the 1890s, related above, which a London cable or a grieving family member may have dressed up into a more famous manhunt. Probate was granted in Sydney that October on an estate of £7730 — a considerable sum for a man whose occupation was recorded simply as ‘gentleman,’ of Darlinghurst — administered by ‘A. M. Rabbidge’ and ‘I. L. Cadden,’ both of Lindfield: his son-in-law, Martin Edward Rabbidge, a Lindfield merchant who had married Alma May Cadden in Sydney in 1921, and his still-unmarried daughter Irene Lilian.2223 Martin died in 1941; Alma May, by then a widow, was still travelling — to London — as late as 1960.23

Irene married Charles Fox, a master mariner, at Paddington, London, in October 1926; the marriage register names her father as ‘William Mitchell Cadden (dec.), Broker,’ and among those signing as witnesses was Alison Cadden. Mother and newly married daughter sailed for Sydney together within a fortnight of the wedding, Irene still travelling under her maiden name.24 Charles and Irene made their home in London’s northern and southern suburbs over the following years — Temple Fortune, then Golders Green, then further out at Welling — and returned to Sydney at least once more, in 1939, when Irene and a daughter, Greta Alexandra, arrived at Fremantle bound for ‘Roslyn,’ the Lindfield home of Irene’s sister Alma May and her husband.25 Irene outlived nearly everyone in this story: she died at Colwall, Worcestershire, on 16 May 1989, leaving an estate of £123,304. William’s first wife did not live to see any of this: Alison died at St Leonards on 27 January 1932 and was buried at Gore Hill Cemetery, her own death record giving her mother’s name as Caroline Eadie.26

The Record

Sources & References

  1. 1

    Birth, 1858

    NSW BDM birth registration 1706/1858: William Cadden, born 4 September 1858, Princes Street, Sydney; father William Cadden, mariner, 30, Lancashire; mother Christina Mitchell, 25, Glasgow.

  2. 2

    School enrolment, Rockhampton, 1869

    Rockhampton Central Boys’ State School Admission Register: William Cadden, enrolled 23 August 1869, Rockhampton, Queensland.

  3. 3

    Mount Wheeler nuggets and the 1892 lease

    Glen Innes Examiner and General Advertiser, 7 June 1898 (obituary of William Thomas Cadden): sons William and John found two nuggets, 11lb and 22lb, at Mount Wheeler, 1870. NSW Department of Mines, Register of Gold-Mining Leases: Gold Lease 18, Dalmorton, delivered 22 February 1892, to John M., William Thomas, William and Frank Cadden.

  4. 4

    Marriage, 1892

    Queensland BDM marriage registration 397/1892 (page 7314): William Cadden married Ellison (Alison) Eadie, 25 April 1892, Emerald, Queensland.

  5. 5

    The Richard Ashe arrest, 1894

    National Advocate (Bathurst), 12 February 1897, ‘A Horse Stealer Named Ashe. Was He Butler?’, and Queensland Times, 16 February 1897, ‘Butler’s Aliases’ (from the Sydney Evening News): William Cadden, proprietor of Bowden’s Club Hotel, Elizabeth Street, Sydney, and an ex-sergeant in the West Australian police, gave a first-hand account of arresting Richard Ashe for illegally using a horse while stationed at Newcastle, WA, in 1894 — later cited when Ashe’s name and description surfaced in the press in connection with the international swindler ‘Butler.’

  6. 6

    West Australian police service, 1893–1897

    Corroborated across three sources: his own account (see reference 5) of being stationed as a constable at Newcastle, WA, by 1894; Northern Public Opinion and Mining and Pastoral News (Roebourne), 11 July 1896, and other WA papers of the same week: ‘Sergeant William Cadden, of Perth, has been transferred to Coolgardie,’ effective 1 July 1896; and the February 1897 Sydney press reports (reference 5) describing him by then as ‘an ex-Sergeant in the West Australian police,’ proprietor of Bowden’s Club Hotel, Elizabeth Street, Sydney.

  7. 7

    Alma May Cadden, birth, 1893

    Western Australia BDM birth registration 913/1893: Alma May Cadden, born about 1893 at Newcastle, WA; father William Cadden, mother Ellston (Alison) Eadie.

  8. 8

    Irene Lilian and William Cadden, births, 1896–97

    NSW BDM birth registration, vol. V189601179 161: Irene L. Cadden, born 1896, registered Glen Innes, NSW; father William Cadden, mother Ellison (Alison) Cadden. NSW BDM birth registration 28392/1897 and death registration 10503/1897: William Cadden, born and died 1897, Sydney; father William, mother Ellison — an infant son who did not survive the year.

  9. 9

    Divorce testimony, 1906

    Evening News, 19 September 1906, ‘Divorce Court: Wedded at Emerald’ — Alison Cadden’s full testimony before Mr Justice Simpson, on which this account of the marriage, separation and hotels chiefly rests.

    • Married Emerald, Queensland, April 1892; five months at Dalmorton, then Glen Innes
    • Left for Western Australia; she followed four months later to Newcastle, near Perth
    • A time apart, he at Coolgardie and she at Perth, before she returned to New South Wales
    • Hotels, in order: Bowden’s Hotel — America — the Surry — a tour of the state — the White Hart — South Africa — the Commercial — Japan — the Gosford
    • Affair discovered with a servant, Julia Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Guernsey, at the Gosford Hotel
    • Decree nisi granted 19 September 1906, returnable in four months; last letter received from Vancouver, 8 August 1906
  10. 10

    The Klondike trip and his father’s funeral, 1898

    Glen Innes Examiner and General Advertiser, 7 June 1898 (obituary of William Thomas Cadden): his son William had set out that year for the Klondike gold rush, turned back partway to Canada, and spent sixteen weeks travelling almost round the world, arriving home from London only just in time to be chief mourner at his father’s funeral.

  11. 11

    The White Hart Hotel shooting, 1902

    Australian Star, 14 July 1902, ‘Shot in the Vest’: William Cadden, manager of the White Hart Hotel, King and Clarence streets, for his brother Frank Cadden, fired on an intruder who had broken into the hotel in the small hours; the intruder, sailor John Tiernan (24), claimed he was ‘having a lark’ and was committed for trial after being grazed by the second shot.

  12. 12

    AMSC service, South Africa

    Confirmed by his own 1916 AIF attestation papers (see reference 18), which record previous service in the Australian Medical Staff Corps, South Africa, discharged at end of war.

  13. 13

    The San Francisco earthquake

    Glen Innes Examiner and General Advertiser, 13 July 1906, ‘The ’Frisco Earthquake’: Mr W. Cadden, lodging at the Metropolitan Hotel, left his room about 5am shortly before the quake struck; 250 of 400 guests at the hotel killed.

  14. 14

    National Hotel and the Mondure Hotel transfer, 1909

    Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette, 25 September 1909: notice of application to transfer the licence of the Mondure Hotel, Wondai, from Robert Samuel Hodge to William Mitchell Cadden, of Brisbane, Gentleman; Cadden’s own notice states he is unmarried and has held licences before, the last being the National Hotel, 392 George-street, Sydney, for twenty months.

  15. 15

    Conqueror Manufacturing Company, dissolved 1909

    Queensland Government Gazette, 1 January 1910: notice of dissolution, by mutual consent, of the partnership of Jacob Neustadt and William Mitchell Cadden, manufacturers, Brisbane, trading as the Conqueror Manufacturing Company; dated 22 December 1909, signed for Cadden by his attorney, Frank Cadden.

  16. 16

    Pier Hotel, Coffs Harbour, 1910–11

    Coffs Harbour Advocate, 29 July 1910: a patron jailed for refusing to pay for meals supplied ‘on demand by the licensee, William Mitchell Cadden,’ at the Pier Hotel. Raleigh Sun, 17 February 1911, and Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 14 February 1911: William Mitchell Cadden charged on three counts of allowing persons on his licensed premises at unlawful hours; cases withdrawn, the statutory time for laying the informations having been exceeded by two days.

  17. 17

    Park View Hotel, Alexandria, 1911

    Sydney Morning Herald, 17 November 1911: licence of the Park View Hotel, Mitchell-street, Alexandria, transferred from James Thomas Egan to William Mitchell Cadden.

  18. 18

    AIF Home Service, 1916

    Australian Imperial Force attestation and application papers (NAA: MT1486/1, CADDEN WILLIAM MITCHELL): enlisted 25 May 1916 at Rutherford, NSW, having applied 3 April 1916 from 9 Castlereagh-street, Sydney; born Parish of St George, near Sydney; age 57 years 6 months; trade hotel keeper; marital status single; next of kin Alma May Cadden, 17 Lower Avenue Road, Mosman; previous service, Australian Medical Staff Corps, South Africa, discharged at end of war.

  19. 19

    Discharge, 1 July 1916

    Statement of Service, same file: Home Service, private, from 25 May 1916 to discharge on 1 July 1916; remarks, ‘over establishment.’

  20. 20

    Later hotels, 1918–1923

    Sydney Morning Herald hotel-transfer notices: Cambridge Hotel, Oxford and Wallis streets, Woollahra, to Cadden 14 March 1918 and from him 6 May 1918; Pottery Hotel, Riley and Lansdowne streets, Sydney, to Cadden 29 September 1920 (Evening News) and from him 21 July 1921. Maitland Weekly Mercury and Newcastle Morning Herald, 29–30 March 1923: licence of the Bellbird Hotel transferred from Charles T. Hansen to William Mitchell Cadden.

  21. 21

    Death, Dublin, 1924

    Herald (Melbourne), 25 June 1924, ‘Took Part in Kelly Hunt’ (London cable, 23 June): ‘Mr William Cadden, a Melbourne and Sydney hotelkeeper, has died in Dublin. He was formerly a mounted constable, and took part in the pursuit of the Kelly gang. The funeral took place at Glasnevin, Dublin.’

  22. 22

    Probate, 1924

    NSW deceased estate (death duty) index card no. 7949: Cadden, Wm. M., of Darlinghurst, gentleman; date of death 21 June 1924; date of grant 13 October 1924; administrators A. M. Rabbidge and I. L. Cadden, both of Lindfield; duty paid on an estate of £7730.

  23. 23

    Alma May Cadden’s marriage and later life

    NSW BDM marriage registration 14456/1921: Martin E. Rabbidge married Alma M. Cadden, Sydney, 1921. Martin Edward Rabbidge, born NSW 1892 (father Parnell, mother Florence Agnes); 1930 NSW electoral roll, Roseville subdivision: Martin Edward and Alma May Rabbidge, ‘Roslyn,’ 7 Llewellyn Street, Lindfield, merchant. Martin died Chatswood, NSW, 1941. Incoming UK passenger list, s.s. Orion, arrived London 22 April 1960: A. M. Rabbidge, born 30 May 1893, widowed, of Australia, visiting for six months.

  24. 24

    Irene Lilian Cadden’s marriage, 1926

    Marriage register, Christ Church, Paddington, London, 15 October 1926: Charles Fox, master mariner, married Irene Lilian Cadden, of 92 Lancaster Gate W.; her father given as William Mitchell Cadden (deceased), broker; witnesses included Alison Cadden. General Register Office marriage index, Oct–Dec 1926: Cadden, Irene L. — Fox, Paddington, vol. 1a, p. 35. Outgoing UK passenger list, s.s. Osterley, departed London 30 October 1926, bound Sydney: Miss I. L. Cadden and Mrs A. Cadden, both of the Whitehall Hotel, 52 Lancaster Gate.

  25. 25

    Charles and Irene Fox, England and a return to Sydney

    UK electoral registers, Hendon (Middlesex): Charles and Irene Lilian Fox at 38A Temple Fortune Mansions, Finchley Road; later at 149 Wentworth Road, Golders Green; later at 30 The Manorway, Welling. Commonwealth of Australia Quarantine Service passenger report, s.s. Anchises, arrived Fremantle 12 June 1939 from Liverpool via Cape Town: Mrs Irene Lilian Fox and Miss Greta Alexandra Fox, bound Sydney, address ‘Roslyn,’ Llewellyn Street, Lindfield. England & Wales probate calendar, 1989: Fox, Irene Lilian, of Cotswold Gate, Walwyn Road, Colwall, Malvern, Worcestershire, died 16 May 1989, probate London 23 August, estate £123,304.

  26. 26

    Alison Cadden’s death, 1932

    Find A Grave, Gore Hill Cemetery, St Leonards: Alison Cadden, born 1873, died 27 January 1932; mother Caroline Eadie.