Rather than settling in Melbourne, initially, Thomas Hobbs Clutterbuck and his older brother, John, travelled to Avon Plains in the Central Goldfields area of Victoria where they became business partners at a hotel and store in Traynors Lagoon near St Arnaud. Their younger brother, Frederick, became an owner taxi driver in Collingwood, Melbourne. During this time - around 1881 - their mother, Elizabeth Hobbs Clutterbuck, came out from Gloucestershire to visit.
The countryside around Traynors Lagoon was typical of the Goldfields area, littered with an assortment of abandoned digging devices and disused mine-shafts. While out walking in the area, Elizabeth fell down one of these abandoned mine-shafts and was badly injured with a broken leg. As she was on her own at the time, there was no one to raise the alarm. She was missing for two days, cold, hungry and in considerable pain before finally being found and rescued. Being in her mid 50’s, she was extremely lucky to have survived at all.
Abandoned mineshaft entrance Looking up from inside an old mineshaft
Following her ordeal, Elizabeth returned to England. This was to be the last time that Thomas Hobbs would see either of his parents. Three years later, his father, deeply depressed over a failed business investment in South Africa, sadly hung himself.
Elizabeth Hobbs Clutterbuck
(photo taken in St Arnaud, Victoria)
While Thomas was living at Avon Plains, he met Alice Barnes, a “highly spirited” Stawell girl, who was the eldest of 10 children to Hiram and Caroline Barnes. The couple had a baby out of wedlock, Walter Edgar, who was born in August, 1882, but sadly perished eight months later. Thomas had fallen on hard times, financially, and due to ill health, some poor speculation in horses and sustained losses in the Traynors Lagoon business, he was declared insolvent just one month after their baby died. With nothing left for him in Traynors Lagoon, Thomas decided to move back to Melbourne.