James Kitts married Emily Leighton Powling in Port Fairy, Victoria on 21 September 1904. James at that time was living in Perth.

Emily Leighton Powling, known as Minna, was born in Belfast, Victoria in 1870.  Her mother was Maria Lucretia Ardlie (1845-1930).  It is Maria’s mother’s (Mary Ann Leighton) whose maiden name of Leighton appears often hereunder.  Her father was William Powling (1842-1903) a solicitor.  He died of a heart failure in November 1903 whilst living in Port Fairy, Victoria in his 61st year. They were married in 1868.

The Kitts settled in Perth and eventually bought 236 Walcott Street. 

Their daughter, Ilma Leighton, was born at ‘Leighton’ Alma Road, Mount Lawley on 1 July 1905.  Presumably, she went to Perth College as she was married in the Perth College Chapel on 20 September 1944 to Private Thomas Brown Leslie, elder son of Mr and Mrs A Leslie (Melbourne). Thomas is listed as a bootmaker.

In October 1937 Ilma and her mother are reported to have just returned to their home in Mt Lawley after spending a holiday at The Peddars Way, Darlington, UK (presumably this is the walk along the Roman Road in Norfolk in England). Earlier in 1937 there is an entry in The West Australian on 25 January:
Miss I Kitts, who recently brought a number of children out from England to the Fairbridge Farm School, Pinjarra, will join the ‘Larga Bay’ at Fremantle today on her return to London.

It is assumed that the Kitts family continued to live at 236 Walcott Street until Emily’s death in September 1947. After that, James, his daughter and son-in-law moved back to Victoria. James died in Brighton, Melbourne on 7 May 1953.  His daughter Ilma and husband Thomas were living in East Brighton, Melbourne up until at least 1977.

For the next five years No 236 was rented out until the property was sold to the Elphick family in 1952.

The Elphick Family

Geoffrey Edward Elphick was born in Subiaco in 1922.  His father Arthur Vincent Elphick (1882-1964) was born in Moonta, South Australia.  The Elphick family were a well-established South Australian family as the original William Kennard Elphick (1815-1869) arrived on board the vessel Planter with his wife Susanna in Port Adelaide in 1839. They hailed originally from the county of Sussex, England. Arthur’s father (one of ten Elphick children) was Edward Elphick (1847-1907) a doctor who, with his wife Emily (1852-1911) left South Australia for the Goldfields before settling in Collie.  

Arthur was a farmer and farmed in Konnongorring and Collie before settling on Glenalbyn Farm in Bridgetown. Arthur and his wife Jessie Sarah (nee Godschall-Johnson) (1886-1985) had eight children, all boys except the second born Doreen Margaret (1914-1982). Geoffrey Edward was the second youngest.

Geoffrey was born into a large family and his parents found it difficult to cope. Thus, when he was nine months old he went to live with his mother’s sister, Aunt Nellie, and her three sons who lived in Alma Road Mt Lawley. He was about five years old when he rejoined his family in Bridgetown but returned to his aunt again when he was about twelve years old.

Shirley MacKinnon Moore (the future Mrs Elphick) remembers meeting Geoff Elphick for the first time in about 1940. She was in the same class as his brother Colin. Colin and Geoff were walking down the street in Bridgetown. She hadn't known him before.  Then, at a dance later on, a boy who had been drinking asked her for a dance. Her dress buttons on the back of her dress were coming down and Geoff stepped into the middle of the dance floor and did them up. The rest is history as they say!!!

Shirley MacKinnon Moore was born in 1925 in Bridgetown – one of seven children.  Her father was Henry ‘Harry’ Owen Moore (1899-1956) who was the youngest son of John Wylie Moore (1867-1944) – who arrived on the Chalgrove in Fremantle in 1881 – and Maude Mary (nee Travis) (1863-1927). 

Her mother was Gladys Marion Margaret McKinnon (1900-1980), only daughter of Charles Mackinnon (-1926) and Catherine Ann Macpherson (1874-) of Hester (near Bridgetown).  The Mackinnon family came from Mallee Victoria and moved to WA after seven years of drought.

Shirley’s father Harry Moore was Bridgetown's largest orchardist.  He started work at the age of 14 with his brothers Lou, Herb and Len.  They worked with the railways to cut sleepers.  Harry was in charge of the bullock train and had trained the bullocks to obey commands by his whistling.  The four brothers worked here for a few years, each earning 20 pounds a week.  Louis was 12 years older than Harry and went to WWI in 1915. 

The brothers started Moore Bros which consisted of orchards, properties and a butcher shop. When Harry was around 23, he married Gladys.

By this time he had bought property in Bridgetown and Boyup Brook with his brother Lou.  He built a house called ‘Canberra’ on Doust Street in Bridgetown from stones gathered off the property. It is still there though the land has been subdivided and sold off into farmlets.  The house has a large kitchen, large vestibule, bathroom, laundry, large dining room, two bedrooms and two large sleep outs on the verandahs.

Shirley slept in one of the bedrooms with three sisters, another sister slept in one sleepout whilst the boys slept in the other one.

During WWII the whole family worked on the land.  Shirley says the family were lucky foodwise as they got meat from the butcher’s shop owned by their father and the Lynam family worked on the property and had a huge vegetable garden.

Most of the Elphick boys went off to war and all came home.  Geoff went to New Guinea and had the rank of sergeant when he was discharged in March 1946.  He and Shirley were married in January 1947 by Geoff’s uncle Canon Ken Elphick in Leederville.  They didn’t return to Bridgetown to live but settled in Albany Highway, Cannington. 

Geoff started work for the then GPO not long after he was discharged from the army. He held various positions ending up in the telecommunications section.  When he retired, he was customer services manager with Telecom.

Upon his retirement he and Shirley bought a caravan and took off around Australia for an extended trip.  They later travelled to England and parts of Europe and Asia.  Geoff was a meticulous person and always took great pride in, and care of, his motor vehicles, garden and house.

Geoff and Shirley had six children; a son Milton and a daughter Sonya were born before moving into 236 Walcott Street and the other four sons Rex, Daryl, Grant and Brett were all born there. Geoffrey passed away in 2013 aged 90 and had been married to Shirley for 66 years.

Recollections of Life at No 236

Shirley Elphick’s earliest memory of moving into 236 in 1952 was ‘mess’, ‘terrible’.  The property, having been rented for five years, and the owners living in Victoria, resulted in it being uncared for. 

The house itself was solid – there were no cracks.  However, the gas heater resulted in a scalding or freezing shower!  The sleepout was enclosed with canvas sides.  There were no carpets, just hessian mats.

A credit to the Elphick family as the overall character of the home is untouched.  It still has the high ceilings, Jarrah floorboards together with the feature ceiling cornices, skirting boards, leadlight windows and front door and feature fireplaces.

Gradually things improved.  The kitchen with its wooden sink was remodelled, the verandah/sleepout was enclosed.  But it wasn’t until the 1970s that there was a toilet under the main roof.  If you wanted to go then it was down the path to the dunny at the bottom of the garden, come rain or shine!

The house also came with a tennis court – where No 238 is today.  However, it was difficult to play tennis properly as the land sloped down from Walcott Street, flattened out, then sloped again to the back fence.  The tennis court was present in 1966 but by the 1970s the block was sold to an Italian family who erected a ‘single’ dwelling.  Today it consists of four units.

Undoubtedly the sale of the adjacent block released funds to be spent on building in the sleepouts, renewing the bathroom and incorporating the toilet, construction of a car port on the downside of the house and upgrading the back verandah area.

The six children enjoyed life at No 236.  They all went to North Perth Primary School then to Mt Lawley High School.  The fences between Nos 236/234/232/230 had a gate in it so that the children could play in other backyards – the Bennett kids from No 234 and the Grocer kids from No 230.

In the early days the garage for the house was down the left hand side of the house, then across the backyard and finally into the garage adjacent to No 234.  As noted above, the back verandah was extended and the carport built on the left hand side of the house.

With the backyard no longer a thoroughfare the Elphicks had a chook yard in the bottom left hand corner with Geoff’s vegie garden also down the back.  Shirley’s pride were the azaleas she nurtured in the tiled front garden. Walcott Street during the 1960s and 1970s was not as busy as it is today.  The days of the trams and trolley buses have long since passed being replaced by ever increasing traffic. 

Shirley Elphick has now moved into a retirement home.  The Elphick children now have families of their own and are dispersed across Perth and environs beyond. 

I thank the family for giving their time and information to preserve this part of Mt Lawley history.
Roger Elmitt, May 2021