Obituary - Mr. Thomas K. Beaver

23 March 1949 The Canberra Times

The death at the Community Hospital on March 9 of Mr. Thomas K. Beaver, removed an old employee of the Department of the Interior.    

He had served the Department for more than 30 years, and was at the time of his retirement, supervisor of the field employees of the Lands, Agricultural and Stock Section of the Department.

He was born at Goulburn near where the present Cathedral now stands and, after the death of his parents at an early age, went to live at Yabtree Station near Gundagai.    

When the first mail service was introduced from Humula on the present Wagga-Tumbarumba line, to outback stations and wayside post offices, he ran the mail on horseback.  Leaving Yabtree, he went to live at Adelong, where he mar- ried Alice Cupitt, daughter of one of Adelongs first farmers, who had taken up land in that   district about 1860.

Following the occupation of a carpenter, he built many buildings around Adelong and Tumut, and constructed barges; one of these was still working recently on the alluvial flats at Grahamstown.

He also worked in the Gibraltar Mines and for a number of years he was constructional officer in the NS.W, railways.

Being a prominent member of the M.U.I.O.O.F., he was presented with a sash before leaving Adelong. This sash draped the coffin.    

After a short service at St. John's Church of England, Canberra, by the Rev G. F. Pyke, the remains were interred in the Canberra cemetery.

Four of his grandsons, Messrs K. and D. Beaver and M. and N. Short acted as pallbearers.      

Besides his widow; he leaves four children, Ernest (Queanbeyan), Jinnie (Mrs, W. Blair of Kew, Vic), Olive (Mrs. F. Short of Wentworthville) and Thomas (Canberra).