Weatherhead, Frederick Horatio (Fred)   (1881 - 1955)

Born on 22 Apr 1881 at Lyonville, Victoria; died on 29 Aug 1955 in Victoria.

The eldest son of Horatio Weatherhead, sawmiller in Daylesford and North Tynong in Gippsland Victoria.

He worked at the mill when young, planning and laying railway lines from the hills down to the mill to facilitate getting out logs.

Fred then worked in the mines in Kalgoorlie, WA, and at Mount Strahan in Tasmania.

He later joined Victorian Forestry Department, working out of Bendigo where he met Ellen Wesley, whom he married in 1910.

In 1915, they moved to Queensland where his brother, George Weatherhead had a prosperous timber and hardware business.

At first, they lived in Brisbane, and then Fred went to Imbil in December 1917 as the forester-in-charge of Imbil while his wife remained in Brisbane for a time. Then in order to join him she took quarters in what she referred to as the 'bunkhouse' in Imbil; these were constructions for the men working there.

In April 1919, Fred was given the job of seting up the forestry station at Benarkin and they lived st first in the Government house down near the creek. It was about half a mile for the two children to walk to school but the bush was so dense that Fred blazed a trail with his axe on the trees and strictly warned the children about leaving the path by even one step.

As soon as he could, Fred built his own house up in the town on the far side of the railway station from the forestry station. It was on a corner with the side road leading from the bush, down which the bullockies came with their loads of logs to be put on the train to Brisbane.

The purpose of the nursery/forestry station was to propagate hoop pine that, until after the invention of the planting tube, had a failure rate of 80 per cent. This was converted to a success rate of between 80 and 90 per cent by the use of the planting-tube he invented. Shade houses were built and a pumping station installed to pump water from the creek. About 60 to 70 men worked there at that time.

There seems to have been considerable interest in the 'Weatherhead tube' project. There was quite a tussle between Fred and the Queensland Forestry Department over this matter. Fred had patented the tube in 1924 but the Forestry Dept considered it was part of his work and the patent belonged to them. In the end they settled for a £50 for his invention. This helped him pay for his first car, a Hupmobile.

Fred left Queensland in 1925 and never returned. He established an arboretum on his property near Bendigo and rallied against farmers who denuded their properties of trees for crops.

He died in 1955.

Source: Extracted from:
https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/WEATHERHEAD
Dulcie Dent in: Huth, J. (ed) (2022) 'As We Were - prose, poetry and people, from Queensland's Forest History', p.195-196.
Portrait Photo: c.1924, self portrait, via Dulcie Dent (daughter) (in above publication)

Collecting localities for 'Weatherhead, F.H.' from AVH (2024)

Data from 47 specimens