Joseph William Belcher
1784-1865
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Joseph William Belcher by
Vivian Hill
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Copyright
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Joseph Belcher was a solicitor in Dublin, Ireland before he emigrated
to the District of Port Phillip in 1842. Other members of his family
had arrived earlier. He had received reports of commercial opportunities
for betterment from his son-in-law Charles Williams but by the time he
arrived there was an economic depression and Williams was bankrupt.
Joseph Belcher was admitted to practice in Port Phillip District in 1842
and then practised as a solicitor, first in Melbourne and from 1846 in
Geelong with an office in Yarra Street. In 1850 he built the property
"Sunville" in Newtown, Geelong. He returned to Ireland in 1852.
"Sunville" was sold to the Catholic Church and became part of the Convent
established by Sisters of Mercy, also from Dublin. According to his
daughter Marcella von Stieglitz "father did very well in practice in Geelong".
In April 1914 Joseph's grandson Charles Belcher visited his aunt and recorded
her memories of her time in Victoria. That record, along with other
accounts of this interesting pioneering family, is held in this collection.
It includes J.W. Belcher's account of his life as a midshipman at sea 1804-5
and Marcella's description of the period her father spent in Debtor's Prison
in Dublin as the result of going guarantor for a "respectable" man who
welshed on him.
Arrangement of material
The list below describes material held in the Joseph William Belcher
archive box, which is located at 340.099452 Belche Hil/Jwb on the shelves in the
Geelong Lawyers' Collection within the Special Collection at the Waterfront
campus. The material has been arranged in date order.
| Date |
Title |
Item no. |
|
Newspaper cutting from Geelong Advertiser re. extract from Brownhill's
'History of Geelong and Corio Bay' |
JB1 |
|
Extract from 'Belcher family history' including J. Belcher's account
as a midshipman at sea and his daughter Marcella's account of his life
in Victoria. |
JB2 |
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