ID 2936 Surname SEALEY Given Name GEORGE Age 65Y Birth 00/00/1854 Death 04/07/1919 Burial 06/07/1919 Section 2 Row C Lot 51.5 Religion C of E Cause of Death Rupture Ref. No. 1750 Comment "Son of David SEALEY and Ellen REEVES. Born in Hundon, Suffolk, England and died in Bright, Victoria, Australia. Occupation: Carrier, Harrietville. George is the second cousin, three times removed of Neil Hamilton MANSFIELD. The following is an excerpt from the book ""Gold at Harrietville"" by Brian Lloyd. George Sealey, the teamster of Harrietville, died in July 1919, at the age of 65 years, following an accidental fall at the wedding of his son Charles. The whole district had depended upon his skill in getting heavy loads of mining machinery into the almost inaccessible places where they were needed in the ranges. He was buried at Bright, with a large number of mourners in attendance. His wife was Elizabeth Warren of Freeburgh, and they had twelve children: Margaret, Mary, George, Charlie, Matilda, Ivy, Maude, Dave, Bella, Jeanie, Eddie and John. The two eldest died young. George was only six weeks old when he arrived from Wales, and his father had died when he was quite young; he never learned to read or write. He began work at Peter Howman's butchery in Harrietville before setting up his own cartage business, and his skill and reliability in moving heavy loads soon earned him a high reputation. He had a regular run between Harrietville and Bright, making five trips a week with his hooded wagon drawn by four or five horses. To keep his horses roadworthy, he operated a blacksmith's shop in Harrietville, just below the school, with Bob Culph in charge. Contracts undertaken included sleighing loads of quartz from one of the mountain mines down to a battery using a 9 x 3 1/2 foot sleigh lined with tongue and groove boards, carrying 2 1/2 tons and drawn by four horses in single file. A typical day involved shovelling the quartz in, driving the load down to the battery, and shovelling it out again: four trips, twenty tons shovelled and six hours driving! No job was too big or too difficult to tackle, whether it was pulling heavy machinery up steep hillsides by block and tackle, or moving a dredge pontoon into place. Sometimes on the latter, he was assisted by ]agoe's team from Bright. George carried a cheque book, but since he could not write, he had to get people to fill in their own cheques, which he would then laboriously sign. Business dealings involved trust in those days."