NAME Joseph Henry Whitton
BORN c1878 Tenterfield, NSW
DIED Tenterfield, 14 September 1931
MILITARY SERIAL NO. 891
UNIT 5th Light Horse
ENLISTED Goondiwindi, 26 December 1914
DISCHARGED Brisbane – Medically unfit 23 June 1919

 On 23 October 1921, Joseph Whitton took up a block of land of 304 acres within the Dyrabba Soldier Settlement – Settlement Purchase 1923/30.  Whitton applied for his £625 Advance on 25 October 1921, when he was living at Doubtful Creek, Via Casino. Prior to taking up the land however, he had no experience as a dairy farmer which was his original intention when he took up the block.  He had been employed as a shearer for twenty years before he went overseas.

In December 1925, it was reported that even though Whitton had been in occupation on the land for four years, he had done little to develop the property. Whitton thought the block was too poor to cultivate and badly needed manure to improve it.  He didn’t think he would be able to handle the high cost of this.  He gave evidence to the Land Board stating, ‘I am not very interested in this farm … I suppose I would be better off if I were out of the place altogether’.[1]

The Under-Secretary believed that the main reason he was not successful on the land, was because of his intemperate habits.[2] When Whitton left the block in 1928, he was single, unemployed and without assets.  He was drawing a military pension of 8/9d per week and had two dependants, his mother and sister. In April 1928, an amount of £259.7.11 was written off.[3]

Footnotes

[1] State Records NSW:  Lands Department;  NRS 8058, Returned Soldiers loan files,  [12/72934 No. 8246] Joseph Henry Whitton,  Local Land Board Memorandum,  15 October 1915.

[2] Ibid, Under-Secretary for Lands, Department of Lands Memorandum, 22 March 1928.

[3] Ibid, Department of Lands Memorandum, Writing off amount, 12 April 1928.

Sources used to compile this entry:

State Records NSW:  Lands Department;  NRS 8058, Returned Soldiers loan files,  [12/72934 No. 8246] Joseph Henry Whitton.

National Archives of Australia: B2455, First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers (Joseph Henry Whitton) online:  http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=8388063