William Milham
In 1838, William Milham, eighteen years old, emigrated from Sussex with his father Uriah and nine brothers and sisters. By 1849 he was a tenant farmer of A.W. Scott on Ash Island, where he built a two-room slab hut.
In 1864 he bought 26 acres with money he is said to have made at the gold diggings, becoming one of the first freehold farmers on the island. Two years later he built a two-storey house of sandstone and seashell mortar, all its cedar and rosewood felled on the island itself.
His son William junior imported the Northern District's first cream separator (our source says “In 1864… imported from Sweden”; we carry the record as written). By 1890 the farm totalled 103 acres; by 1893 the herd was more than a hundred Alderney cows, supplying Newcastle, Plattsburg and Wallsend by boat via Ironbark Creek.
1893. The flood covers Ash Island six feet deep and drowns all but fourteen cows. “Many Ash Island farmers were ruined but William Milham jnr, his wife Ruby and children, Ethel and Walter stayed on.”
The Milham farm stood where Kooragang City Farm now stands. And if you look at the trail map, Milham Road still crosses the island the family farmed. The house they held onto through the flood is part of why this island's story is a story of staying.
- From the Ash Island history archive; carried here as published. The 1893 flood sits in context on the timeline.
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