Person Page - 153

Dean, William Boswell (1817–1891)

Widespread regret will be expressed at the announcement of the death of another old colonist, and one whose name is closely connected with the early history of the North West Coast, Mr William Boswell Dean, who passed away yesterday afternoon at his residence, Pinkie, East Tamar, at the age of 74.

Mr W. B. Dean was born in West Kent, England, and was the tenth of the remarkable family of twenty children, the youngest of the family being Mrs R. Winspear, of East Devonport. His father was a miller, and subsequently sold his property and removed to London, his son William being apprenticed as a ship biscuit baker at the Royal Arsenal Works, Deptford. Before his apprenticeship was completed, however, Mr W. B. Dean, who was of an adventurous disposition, throw up his position in order to emigrate to New Zealand, which was then attracting considerable attention at home. Two vessels were despatched by the New Zealand Land Company from England in 1837 for Port Nicholson (where the town of Wellington was afterwards laid out), one laden with emigrants and the other with stores and wooden houses in frame. The vessel with the emigrants, of whom Mr W. B. Dean was one, arrived a month before the vessel with the stores, which had left London first but had called at the Cape of Good Hope. The emigrants were therefore in somewhat of a fix, but Mr Dean turned the matter to account by getting some bricks from the ship to build an oven, buying five barrels of flour from the captain, and starting business as a master baker. It was a successful venture, as the demand exceeded the supply, and there was no competition to cut down prices. After the arrival of the storeship matters became more settled, and Mr Dean continued and enlarged the business he had commenced, and did very well at it. Shortly after the town of Wellington was founded Lady Franklin visited the new settlement, and was tendered a banquet by the settlers, the management being entrusted to Mr Dean, who received much praise for the creditable display he managed to make under very disadvantageous circumstances. In the same year as Lady Franklin's visit Mr Dean decided to leave Wellington, where matters were still very rough, for Tasmania, of which he had heard good accounts, and he took the first opportunity of coming to Launceston, where he opened business as a baker in a small place in St. John street, a few doors above York-street, and not far from the Phoenix Bakery, and subsequently owned by him. He was of an energetic and speculative turn of mind, and soon engaged in many ventures, some of which proved highly profitable, others the reverse. In 1850 he and Mr Cocker had gone along the N.W. Coast in a sailing craft to Circular Head with a goodly store of sovereigns to purchase paling and produce for the Melbourne market, and the vessel being driven into the Forth through stress of weather they started overland for the Mersey, lost their way, and after nightfall came on a splitter's hut not far from the Mersey, where they remained all night. Mr Dean wore a belt stuffed with sovereigns, the weight of which had been an encumbrance and source of vexation in travelling through the bush, but he feared no man, and flung it into a corner as soon as they were settled in the hut, but the two occupants though rough were honest. Next morning Mr Dean was struck by the strange appearance of the fire, and found it was made up with coal, of which an outcrop occurred close by. On arrival in Launceston he directed the attention of moneyed men to the Mersey coal field, and a period of speculation and excitement ensued, but though some £50,000 was spent by various companies in working the coal seams not one proved remunerative. Mr Dean removed to the Mersey and started a saw mill, but an accident through a log rolling on him cost months of illness, and would have proved to a less robust constitution. It was, however, partly the cause of the mill venture proving unprofitable. As chairman of the Mersey Settlement Association he was a prime mover in attracting settlement to the extensive agricultural area of Kentishbury of which Sheffield is now the centre, but his labours and investments on the Coast benefitted others more than himself, and he returned to Launceston to resume his old trade. In 1886 he sustained a paralytic stroke, and in the following year removed to Pinkie, some three miles out of Launceston, where, he has since resided. He has been falling in health for some time past, suffering from diabetes, which in the end proved fatal.

Mr Dean took a warm interest in public affairs, and was a fearless partisan. He was the oldest total abstainer in Launceston, and supported the temperance cause liberally with his purse as well as by his example and precept. Shortly after his arrival in Launceston he contributed £50 towards the establishment of the Temperance Advocate, long since defunct, and he bought the allotment in York-street on which the Temperance Hall was subsequently erected. When Good Templarism was at its height he gave £25 in prizes for essays upon the aims and objects of the Order, which were given away at a Good Templar celebration in the old Pavilion in the City Park, and he also gave £50 towards the Juvenile Industrial Exhibition so successfully held in the old Oddfellows' Hall in St. John street. It is no breach of confidence now to state that it was his hand that initiated the movement for an Industrial Exhibition, which was so vigorously taken up by Alderman Button, and has developed into the Tasmanian Exhibition we hope to successfully open in Launceston in October next. Mr Dean was a valued contributor to the press. A series of ten articles over his well-known signature, "B," " Tasmania as a Field for Immigration," were republished in a home paper, and did much to bring the colony into notice, and amongst other contributions were an interesting series on "Bushranging in Tasmania," and "Brady and His Associates," besides innumerable old reminiscences, and vigorous letters.

Mr Dean was married to a daughter of the late Mr Best, of West Devonport, who survives him, and has left five sons, of whom Alderman H. J. Dean is the eldest, and three daughters, one of whom is married. The funeral will take place tomorrow, the cortege arriving at Tamar-street bridge at 4 p.m. (Examiner (Launceston), 20 January 1891)

William Boswell Dean, whose father had been both a miller in Kent and a manufacturer of ships biscuits at the Royal Arsenal Works, Deptford, came to Launceston in 1839, having baked briefly in Port Nicholson (Wellington) New Zealand and manufactured biscuits by contract for Backer and Sons in Sydney. He erected the Phoenix Bakery, St John Street in 1840 and was one of the first Launceston bakers to import biscuit-making machinery from London. In 1847 he was selling kiln dried ships' bread 16/- per 100 lbs (45kg) first quality and at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 his biscuits were highly praised by the Lords of the Admiralty although recognition was otherwise hard to come by.

In the 1850s Dean became interested in coal mining on the North West Coast. By 1855 he had signed a contract to supply the Adelaide Smelting Company with 20,000 tons of coal per year, and had built a tramway covering the 2 miles (3.2km) between his mine and the Mersey River. During this time Richard Pescodd operated Dean's bakery, advertising it in 1858 as The Tasmanian Steam Bakery. Pescodd had previously been in partnership with F.B. Sim, who was now a crumpet and muffin maker, and they had received a second class medal for biscuits at The Paris Exhibition of 1855. In 1862 W.B. Dean returned to his bakery and by 1879 he was offering the public not only meal, brown and lime bread, real country or chalk farmhouse bread, French cottage and fancy bread, French and English rolls, batch and breakfast cakes, Scotch cookies, London cobs and oatmeal bannocks and Parisian curly rolls all made from sea water with its healing qualities, jellies and ice creams, but also hot and cold baths. He provided customers visiting either the special room for ladies or the Lunch and Smoking Rooms with all the Australian papers as well as San Francisco, New York and British papers.

In 1890 his son Thomas B. Dean opened the 'Star Bakery' in York Street, and by the turn of the century this had become one of the most automated bakeries in the colony. A 4 h.p. engine worked the kneader, a large revolving cylinder with iron arms which mixed three sacks of flour in 3½ minutes. The ovens each had a capacity of 500 loaves. Following in his father's footsteps he won a gold medal at the Launceston Exhibition of 1891. Thomas Dean's son, William B. junior opened his own business in 1903 naming the premises at 72 Charles Street the Federal Bakery, where it remained passing from father to son until the 1950s when the wood fuel led bakehouse was abandoned for Cameron Street.⁵

OBITUARY

Mr. W. B. DEAN.

One of the best and most favourably known sporting and mining men in the city, Mr. William Boswell Dean, 69, died peacefully at his home, Charles-street; early yesterday morning, after an illness extending over several weeks. Deceased was fourth son of the late Mr. W.B. Dean.

The late Mr. Dean had not been actively associated with the turf in recent years but 20 years ago be was one of the keenest followers of racing in Tasmania. In the early history of the Newnham Racing Club he acted as honorary judge, and was later an owner of some good horses. Whalebone was owned by deceased, and will be remembered by old followers of racing as the winner of three hurdle races during a Launceston Cup meeting. When showing promise of becoming a great racehorse, Sobieski was killed at Carrick. Another horse in which the late Mr. Dean was interested was Tepookana. He was half-owner with the late Mr. R.G. Talbot. Tepookana won the Deloraine Handicap, now run as the Deloraine Cup.

Although always interested in mining in Tasmania, the late Mr. Dean devoted most of his attention to it in recent years. He was a member of the Stock Exchange, and a shareholder in many mines. He was a director of the Volunteer mine in its early history. For 21 years the late Mr. Dean had carried on a bakery business in Charles street, and had installed there one of the most modern plants to meet the demands of one of the most extensive businesses of its kind in the state.

His widow, two daughters (Mrs. T. R. J. Affleck, Longford; and Mrs, J. C. McPhee, Hobart), and three sons (Messrs. Herbert, Roger, and J. S.) survive deceased. A son (Roy) made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War. The funeral will leave the residence, Charles-street, at 3 o'clock this afternoon for Carr Villa Cemetery. Examiner (Launceston), 1 June 1925.