"that Peak Hill RODDA mob"

This page is a tribute to dad's cousin Hilda Mary Vardy (nee Rodda) who celebrated her 100th Birthday on 08-Oct-2018. It will be updated from time to time to correct errors and/or omissions and to make additions as they come to hand from family members and friends as well as from further research.

The following background is as told by Henry Rodda (generation #4) and his uncle Herb Rodda (generation #3) and is from notes taken at the time by my mother Betty Rodda nee Barnes.

Richard Rodda #1 came from a family of Cornish tin miners. He left Cornwall (England) and went to America in the Gold Rush days. His family did not hear any more from him until he sent for his wife and family to come to Australia. He met them in Sydney and they travelled to Adelong by coach and bullock-dray. He had 40 acres of land and a stone house on the Tumut Road a couple of miles out of Adelong.

After some years of mining around Adelong, Richard Rodda #2 married Mary Anne Heather. They left Adelong by spring-dray takimg the family with them except for Jane who was left behind as company for her grandmother as her granfather had died.

My grandfather Edward Charles (Ted) Rodda was only a few months old when the Rodda family first arrived in Peak Hill in 1889 to find that the gold mining had just about finisehd. After a while they followed the gold mining and moved to McPhail (near the site of the current huge Tomingley mining operation on the Newell Highway just north of Peak Hill).

As Richard Rodda #2's boys grew up they also went to work in the mines. My grandfather's older brother Thomas Henry Rodda was killed at the McPhail mine in 1904. A short time after, due to a Court verdict finding it as an Accidental Death and the family claimiing it was carelessness on the Company's part, Richard Rodda #2 lost his job at the mine as he had tried to get compensation for Tom's wife who was qabout tpo give birth (when the child was born he too was called Thomas). They packed up a spring-cart and a buggy to set off back to Adelong (Herbert Rundle Rodda was about 7 years old so this would have been around 1904). Herb drove the buggy and Ted drove the cart.

They made the trip OK but things were bad for a few years and they had a lean time. When the management of the mines changed they returned to Peak Hill to work in the mines again (as the mining at McPhail had finished).

Richard Rodda #2 retired from mining and moved to Parkes where he and his wife subsequently died (both are buried in the Peak Hill Cemtery).

Kevin Rodda - Brisbane 2018