John Cole is my great-great-great-grandfather. His daughter, Clara, married my great-great-grandfather, Daniel Anthony Madden.
This is what I know about John Cole.
John Cole was born in Boston, Lincolnshire on 27 September 1822. He was baptised the following day in St Botolph’s Church, locally known as ‘the Stump’ after its tall, distinctive spire. His parents, James Cole and Millicent Simpson, married on 28 March 1820 in the town.
The 1841 census finds John Cole, a teenager, living on Liquorpond Street (map) in Boston. His occupation is listed as gunmaker’s apprentice.
A few doors down lived Clara Usher, 17, with her sisters Mary and Eleanor. Their parents were William Parkinson Usher, a ship’s captain, and Mary Usher (nee Allaban).
The Register of Burials in the Unitarian Chapel Ground, Boston records the death of an infant on 7 September 1825. William Usher was just a day old when he died. 19 days later, on 26 September, the Register records the burial of, ‘Mary, the wife of William Usher, aged 33 years’.
Their headstone bears an additional inscription, ‘William Usher died suddenly in London in 1835 and lies buried in St John’s Church, Southwark’.
The Usher girls were orphaned at an early age which explains why the 1841 census finds them fending for themselves on Liquorpond Street. Mary, the eldest at 25, is recorded as living on independent means.
John Cole and Clara Usher may well have been childhood friends, in any case, they married on Christmas Day 1845. He was 23 and she was 22.
The Lincolnshire Chronicle and General Advertiser recorded their marriage on January 2 1846. (p 5)
At Boston, on Christmas day, (by the Rev F. Firman, curate) Mr John Cole, gunmaker, of Bridge Street, to Clara, youngest daughter of the late Captain Usher, of Liquorpond street.
The Chronicle records six other couples marrying that Christmas Day. They included an engineer, a coal merchant, a baker and a stonemason.
John Cole established himself as a gunsmith with a shop at 6 Bridge Street in Boston (map) where he made guns, weighing scales and locks. He even advertised his services as a bell hanger.
In 1847 Newton’s London Journal of Arts, Sciences and Manufactures, recorded a patent for an improved breech for firearms in the name of John Cole of 6 Bridge Street, Boston, Lincolnshire.
The register of patents for 1847 is a remarkable record of the inventions and innovations of an industrialising nation. As you read its pages, 170 years later, you can see how the Victorians were busy designing solutions to the problems they saw around them.
As hand production was replaced by machines, patents were filed for improvements to steam engines, locomotives, boilers, iron manufacturing, weaving, dyeing and the construction of the railways. All designed to improve a machine, tool or process of the industrial revolution.
One entry was for a ‘balanced valve gulley trap to prevent the ascent of noxious vapours from sewers and drains’. You can just imagine Mr James Davis of King Street, Frome, Somerset, the holder of the patent, dreaming up a clever solution to the terrible stink of the Victorian city.
How many of these patents made it to production, we may never know. Most would have progressed no further than the pages of the patent books.
However, the journal does give a glimpse of some of the more curious mid-Victorian inventions, including patents registered the same month as John Cole’s for, ‘a universal cravat fastener’, ‘a hat ventilator’, ‘ a waistcoat backstrap’, ‘a ventilating case for wet umbrellas inside railway carriages’ and ‘an elastic mourning band’, presumably for use at funerals.
John Cole was a skilled craftsman able to design an improvement to the breech mechanism of the guns he made. Guns, scales and locks are precision tools, requiring exact measurement, expert craftsmanship and careful balancing. John Cole must have had a patient, deliberate character with a steady hand and a sure eye. He would have spent many hours at his workbench perfecting the balance of a scale or the mechanism of a new lock.
Bridge Street is a short walk from the quays and moorings of the port of Boston. Vessels would make their way upriver to unload and resupply. Ships need security for their cargo, crew and passengers. Map chests, storage trunks and cabin doors all required locks and fastenings. Most ships would carry firearms for protection at sea. The captain might keep a revolver and rifles to defend against pirates or assault.
Onshore, millers, provision dealers and shop keepers relied on scales to weigh stock and goods for sale.
All might call on the services of John Cole in his shop at 6 Bridge Street.
In 1846 John and Clara Cole started a family. Their first child was born at Bridge Street, Boston on 12 October 1846. They named her Clara after her mother.
Their second child, John Thomas Cole, was born on 6 June 1850 and their third, James William Cole, was born in April 1852.
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The town of Boston has a long association with the sea. In 1204/5 King John levied a ‘fifteenth tax’ on the goods of merchants in the ports of England. Boston paid £780, the highest in the kingdom after London’s £836. For centuries the town traded with the Netherlands and the ports of the medieval Hanseatic League.
In 1607 a group of pilgrims from Nottinghamshire attempted to sail from Boston to Holland. Unauthorised emigration was illegal at the time and the group was arrested and tried at the Boston Guildhall. Led by William Brewster and William Bradford, they eventually settled in the Dutch city of Leiden, before sailing to the new world on the Mayflower.
In 1631 colonists from the Massachusetts Bay Company arrived at what was then the Shawmut peninsula. Thomas Dudley, a one time resident of Boston, Lincolnshire, proposed they make it the capital of their new American colony and put forward the name Boston. He would go on to found Harvard University in 1642.
Over the following two centuries, the surrounding fens were drained and Boston thrived as a centre of maritime trade and commerce. The 1841 and 1851 censuses reveal numerous mariners, sea captains, and sailors living in the town. John Cole’s older brother, James Simpson Cole, was a master mariner and Clara’s father, WIlliam Parkinson Usher, was a sea captain.
Ships carry more than just cargo. They carry stories. Stories told by sailors of far-away lands, strange customs and unheard-of riches. The residents of Boston would have been among the first to hear of the great cities of China, the exotic wealth of India and the wide, open plains of the Americas.
In the autumn of 1851, one story, above all others, made its way to the ports and towns of England:
On 20 July 1851, over 10,000 miles from Bridge Street in Boston, a hut keeper named Peters found specks of gold on the Mount Alexander station, 75 miles north of Melbourne, Australia. He may not have know it at the time but Christopher John Peters had just stumbled across the richest shallow alluvial goldfield in the world.
John Worley was working the Mount Alexander diggings with Peters that day. Worried that they might ‘get into trouble’ with the authorities for being out on the ground, he wrote a short letter to the Melbourne Argus which they published on Monday 8 September 1851.
This is what he wrote:
NEW GOLD FIELD - we have received the following letter announcing the discovery of a new gold field at Western Port:- Dear Sir - I wish you to publish these few lines in your valuable paper, that the public may know that there is gold found in these ranges, about four miles from Doctor Barker's home station, and about a mile from the Melbourne Road; at the southernmost point of Mount Alexander, with three men and myself are working. I do this to prevent parties from getting us into trouble, as we have been threatened to have the Constable fetched for being on the ground. If you will have the kindness to insert this in your paper, that we are prepared to pay anything that is just when the Commissioner in the name of the party comes. John Worley Mount Alexander Ranges. September 1st, 1851
This short letter, innocently written to keep them out of trouble, sparked a rush to the gold fields. Some reports even claimed that nuggets could be picked up from the ground without the need for digging.
In the words of the 1854 Report of the Committee on the Claims to Original Discovery of the Gold Fields of Victoria, “… the honour of first finding gold there is claimed by Christopher Thomas Peters, then a hut keeper at Barker’s Creek…. on the 20th of July, at Specimen Gully. John Worley, George Robinson and Robert Keen. All in the same employment, were immediately associated with him in working the deposits, which they continued to do, with more or less privacy, during the whole of the following month. On the 1st of September, having become alarmed at their unauthorised appropriation of their produce, Worley, on behalf of the party, “to prevent them getting into trouble” published in one of the Melbourne journals an announcement of the precise situation of their workings. With this obscure notice, rendered still more so by the locality being described by the journalist as “at Western Port”, were ushered to the world the inexhaustible treasures of Mount Alexander.“
Gold fever seized the colony. Wild stories soon ciculated of the great riches that could be dug from the ground.
A month after Worley’s letter, Governor Latrobe wrote to Lord Grey, the Secretary of State, describing the hysteria spreading across the colony:
10 October 1851. Within the last three weeks the towns of Melbourne and Geelong and their large suburbs have been in appearance almost emptied of many classes of their male inhabitants; the streets which for a week or ten days were crowded by drays loading with the outfit for the workings are now seemingly deserted. Not only have the idlers to be found in every community, and day labourers in town and the adjacent country, shopmen, artisans, and mechanics of every description thrown up their employments, and in most cases, leaving their employers and their wives and families to take care of themselves, run off to the workings, but responsible tradesmen, farmers, clerks of every grade, and not a few of the superior classes have followed; some, unable to withstand the mania and force of the stream, or because they were really disposed to venture time and money on the chance, but others, because they were, as employers of labour, left in the lurch and had no other alternative. Cottages are deserted, houses to let, business is at a stand-still, and even schools are closed. In some of the suburbs not a man is left, and the women are known for self-protection to forget neighbours jars, and to group together to keep house. The ships in the harbour are, in a great measure, deserted; and we hear of instances, where not only farmers and respectable agriculturists have found that the only way, as those employed by them deserted, was to leave their farms, join them, and form a band, and go shares, but even masters of vessels, foreseeing the impossibility of maintaining any control over their men otherwise, have made up parties among them to do the same. Fortunate the family, whatever its position, which retains its servants at any sacrifice, and can further secure the wonted supplies for their households from the few tradesmen who remain, and retain the means of supplying their customers at any augmentation of price. Drained of its labouring population, the price of provisions in the towns is naturally on the increase, for although there may be an abundant supply within reach, there are not sufficient hands to turn it to account. Both here and at Geelong all buildings and contract works, public and private, almost without exception, are at a standstill. No contract can be insisted upon under the circumstances In the country your Lordship will easily conceive that, viewing the season at which these circumstances have occurred, and the agricultural and particularly the pastoral interests at stake, that this is the commencement of the shearing season, and that shortly the harvest will call for labour, great embarrassment and anxiety prevails. Convinced as I am that a reaction must very shortly take place, I cannot but be alive to the difficulty and anxiety under which all are labouring, and should have been glad if it had been in any measure in the power of the Government to alleviate it ...
The inns, taverns and streets of Boston would have been full of stories of gold and the great riches being dug out of the ground in far-away Australia.
How these stories reached John Cole in his gunsmith’s shop on Bridge Street we may never know, but in the summer of 1852 he decided to take his chances and emigrate to the new colony of Victoria.
Gold needs guns for protection, scales for weighing and locks for security. John Cole made all three. He must have known that his skills as a locksmith, gun and scale maker would be in high demand.
In September 1852, just a year after John Worley’s letter to the Argus, John Cole advertised his gunsmith business and belongings for sale.
The Stamford Mercury carried the notice on Friday, 17 September 1852.
No 6 Bridge Street, Boston To GUNSMITHS, SPORTSMEN, BELL-HANGERS, and others - IMPORTANT SALE. MR BURKITT, has received instructions to sell by auction without Reserve, on the premises of MR JOHN COLE, Gunsmith, Bridge Street, Boston, on Monday and Tuesday the 20th and 21st days of September 1852, the remaining part of his very valuable and well chosen STOCK in TRADE, Shop Fixtures, Benches and Tools; comprising double and single guns, 6 and 4 barrelled revolving pistols, powder shot, wadding, caps, gunstocks, levers, cranks, copper wire, locks, keys, knives, counter, glass cases, desks, scales and weights, etc; also the valuable HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE - including four post, camp, and crib bedsteads and hangings, feather beds, carpets, tables and chairs, excellent eight-day clock, sets of drawers, mahogany desk, with a general selection of housekeeping requisites; full particulars of which, as well as of the Stock in trade, in handbills, to be obtained of the Auctioneer, or of C Bontoft and Sons, printers, High Street. The Stock in Trade will be SOLD on Monday 20th, and the Furniture on Tuesday 21st. The Sale to commence each day at 11 o'clock precisely. Market Place (Three Doors from the Peacock Inn). Boston. 14 September 1852.
Within weeks of selling up, John and Clara Cole left Boston for the very last time. Their daughter Clara was 6, son, John, 2, and little James just six months old. Travelling with them to London were John Girdham and William Vessey, two young lads from the town.
The 1851 census finds John Girdham as a 17-year-old gunsmith’s apprentice living on White Horse Lane, in Boston, with his mother, Hannah, a cook, and sister, Betty, a dressmaker.
White Horse Lane is a stone’s throw from Bridge Street where John Cole had his shop and we can only assume that John Girdham was his young apprentice.
The census records William Vessey, a miller and baker, living at 20 London Road, Skirbeck Quarter. London Road runs alongside the river Whitham and forms part of the historic port of Boston. William lived with his parents, George, a butcher, and Hannah Vessey. They shared the house with their daughters Zellah, 23, and Louisa, 21. William also had a younger brother, Charles, who was just 8 years old in 1851.
In September 1852 the gunsmiths at 6 Bridge Street, Boston must have been alive with talk of gold, riches and Australia.
The party boarded the Sir Fowell Buxton in the Port of London and set sail on 22 October 1852, bound for Melbourne, Australia. George Woodcock was the captain.
Woodcock made course for Plymouth where they picked up more passengers, many of whom were Cornish tin miners, eager to apply their subterranean skills in the pursuit of gold.
The Sir Fowell Buxton weighed anchor on the evening of 9 November 1852 and departed Plymouth for the open ocean.
‘The Lincolnshire Chronicle and Northampton, Rutland and Nottingham Advertiser’ takes up the story, writing on 4 March 1853:
Loss of the Emigrant ship "The Sir Fowell Buxton" - In October last, our readers may recollect that Mr John Cole, gunsmith, his wife and family, John Girdham, an apprentice, and a son of Mr Vessey, butcher, Skirbeck Quarter, left this town, to seek their fortunes in Australia. We regret to have to announce, that intelligence has just been received of the total wreck of the vessel in which they were passengers. The information is conveyed in the following terms: 'The Sir Fowell Buxton', (English barque) from London, bound to Port Phillip, Australia, with 240 emigrants, was, on or about the 10th of December last, totally wrecked at Point Turbarao, in the province of Rio Granda de Norte, in lat. 5. 2. S., long. 36. 28. W,. all hands and part of the stores saved. The Brazilian brig-of-war Calliope, and a Custom-house ketch, have been sent to their assistance by Her Majesty's Consul at Pernambuco. The British brig Richard, Captain White, now lying at Pernambuco, is chartered by the order of the British consul (P. M. Power Esq), for the sum of 3200l,. to go to the northward to embark the emigrants, and carry them to Port Phillip. It is expected to brig Richard will be ready to leave Pernambuco for that purpose in about three or four weeks.
The London Illustrated News carried the story of the wreck and printed a letter from one of the passengers:
26 March 1853 Wreck of the Sir Fowell Buxton – The following particulars relative to the wreck, on the coast of South America, of this vessel, while on her voyage to Port Philip with emigrants, are contained in a letter from one of the sufferers:- “Paraiba, February 12th 1853 – You have no doubt heard of the wreck of our ill-fated ship, the Sir Fowell Buxton. On 16th December all the passengers were in bed, when, about 2 o’clock in the morning, we were dreadfully alarmed by the ship running aground. The alarm and confusion you may better imagine than I can describe to you. In a short time we found we had run upon a sandbank, about 3 miles from the shore, and it was fortunate for us it was a sandbank, for had we been a few miles further down the coast, the probability is you would never have had these lines from me. At length morning came, and our anxieties were in some measure allayed by assurances that we were not in danger. When, at last, we were landed, we encamped for several days (200 in number), and the natives collected bushes to shield us from the heat of the sun. I had collected 2 or 3 boxes together that we might have a few things to wear, but they were sodden with salt water, as the water had risen up to my cabin before we left the ship. My other necessaries were in the hold, and are all lost. We were put on board a small craft, and sent round the coast, casting anchor every night, and one time for a whole day. Here we are 300 miles from the place we were wrecked. The inhabitants are about 500, and they behave kindly to us. Many of us are living in an old convent. We expect a ship from Pernambuco to take us away in about 3 weeks. Providentially no lives were lost.”
Sarah Bazely, a 13 year old girl from Cornwall, was on board the Sir Fowell Buxton. She was travelling to Australia with her parents William and Harriet.
She wrote a diary of the voyage, ten pages of which survive:
Name of Ship Sir Fowell Buxton. Bound for Melbourne. Left Pl "Name of Ship Sir Fowell Buxton. Bound for Melbourne. Left Plymouth Tuesday eve Nov 9 1852. Wednesday wet, not fair wind. Thursday, wet part of the day, fair. Friday dirty weather, wind not fair. Saturday wet foul wind. Sunday, wet, service once, not able to attend. Mother had the Scarlet Fever. William ill. Passed one vessel in the morning, spoke to her, the "Maderia". bound to St Luchy (?) for fruit. Saw several porpoises. Monday wet, Mother and William still ill. Monday night a storm. Tuesday wet, a storm. The waves came in on the deck and continued so all night. Mother and William still ill. Wednesday wet, Mother ill, William better. Wind not fair. Thursday wet, wind not fare. Friday one shower, wind not fair. Saturday wet, very stormy. Saturday night water washed in on the deck. Wind against. Sunday wet, very stormy. Sunday night lost all of the bulwarks. The water came in our cabin and drenched us where we were in bed. It came in on the deck and came down the over stairs and washed into our cabin. Wind against. Monday the same. Monday night worse! Wind against. Tuesday wet, not quite so stormy. Wind against. We did not go through the Bay of Biscay, we went outside. Saw the "Thesoluke" or the "Corinore". Twice passed one ship. Thursday wet, wind not fair. Friday, one shower, wind fair. Went seven knots an hour, the first days sail since they left London. Saturday dry, wind fair but light. Between Lisbon and St.Vincent (Cape). Sunday, wind fair, service once. Struck at Capenethe, Thursday Dec 16. Three days after crossing the line. Several natives came on board in catamarans. We were all landed on the sands the following Tuesday. We had only a few boughs of trees to cover us from the sun. There we had some biscuits and some fish that the natives gave us. We had Cocoa nuts and melonseeds. On the following Friday, all the masts were cut away and she took a great deal of water for her bottom was nearly out. With great difficulty, the luggage was got out. Some greatly injured and a great many boxes were cut open in the hold by the natives. We remained there a week and three days. We were then removed to a place called Macau in canoes. Several houses in a row. There we had some beef, hard as scorn and not fat enough in a bullock to grease the end of a gimlet. They wrote to the English Consul and we were all waiting anxiously to hear from him. The natives were very kind to us but you must not displease them or they would as soon kill you as look. There was not one of them that could speak English. Theirs was the Portuguese language. After remaining at Macau for some time, the Consul came from Pernambuco and he said we should all go there. Several of us went into a vessel and went as far as the mouth of the river and there met another Consul from Paraiba. He ordered the vessel back and when he came he said that we were wrecked in the Paraiban district and that we must go under his care so we were sent to Paraiba. After remaining at Macau for more than two months, we went on board a small vessel and was a week going to Paraiba. We arrived there 1st March. When we came there, the "Richard" had just come in, a small miserable little brig the Consul chartered for to take us on to Australia. When we came to Paraiba, the Yellow Fever was there, but there had only been one or two cases then. We went on board the Richard the 1st of April and went as far as the mouth of the river that night, after remaining in Paraiba for a month. When we left the Yellow Fever was bad, but not one of us had it. There was one death at Paraiba, a child of 8 years which died of Scarlet Fever. Monday, the following morning we sailed. The first night we were much frightened. There was pumping every half hour. They did not pump so often after they pumped every two hours when the vessel was on one tack and every hour when on the other, all through the voyage. A week after we left Capedillia (Cabedelo), we arrived at Pernambuco. Passed the Cape 8 May. Spoke to the "Maypole Leaf" and sent a letter home. Saw St Pauls 4 June. Becalmed at night. Lost sight of it the following evening. Calms and storms all through the voyage. Saw Cape Otway 3 July. 2 days going up the channel. Arrived at Port Philip Tuesday 5 July 1853 after a long and tedious voyage of three months. Remained on board until the Saturday following. All went to the Emigration Depot. Remained there 11 days and then removed to the Institution for the Homeless Emigrants Home, Princes Bridge. Had one room and paid £1-3-6 a week for it. July 17, Father went to break stones on the roads for 8s a yard. Wrote to Uncle twice. Wrote twice more, received no answer. Saturday 24 Father went up the country with Mr Rostrams men to find out Uncle. October 22 received a letter from England. Father returned November 7, found Uncle and Aunt very well. Uncle married June5 1853. Thirteen of our passengers that went ashore at Capadila (Cabedelo) died with the Yellow Fever. Uncle arrived Jan 3 to say that Robert would not come down. A letter from home December 18 /53. Another Jan 20 /54. Uncle John gave me one from home Jan 21 /54. Jan 19, father bought four bullocks. Mr Radman died December Thursday 29 /53 at 11 o'clock after two months illness. Wrong. I was weighed on 29 September 1855 108 lbs. 7 st 10lbs."
You can read more about the ill-fated voyage of the Sir Fowell Buxton, the emigrants’ time in Brazil and what happened to the little girl who wrote the diary here.
On 5 July 1853, 8½ months after the Sir Fowell Buxton left London, John and Clara Cole finally sailed into Port Philip Bay. From the crowded deck of the old brig the Richard, the Cole family would have had their first sight of Melbourne, Australia, their new home.
The newspapers record the ship’s arrival:
The Argus, Wednesday 6 July 1853 The brig Richard, from Pernambuco, with emigrants wrecked on that coast in the Sir Fowell Buxton, was working up the Bay yesterday afternoon, together with the Randall barque, and Bernard brig, from Adelaide. The Argus Thursday 7 July 1853 July 6 - Richard, brig, 290 tons W White, from Paraiba, Pernambuco, April 3rd. Passengers - cabin: Mr and Mrs Derbyshire, Mr and Mrs Rastron, Messrs Cole, Keely, J Little Esq., surgeon and one hundred and forty in the intermediate. Captain White, agent. The Sydney Morning Herald Wednesday 13 July 1853 Melbourne - Arrivals July 5 Richard, from Pernambuco: cargo 26 pipes brandy, 32 hogshead porter, 2500 coconuts, 71/2 tons galvanised iron.
The Public Record Office of Victoria provides an online catalogue of all inward passengers to the colony from 1852 onwards. One of the earliest entries records the arrival of the Richard. You can see the original pages from the passenger ledger here.
The Reverend Thomas Raston and his wife were fellow passengers on the Sir Fowell Buxton and also arrived in Australia on the Richard. He recorded his first impressions of Melbourne in a letter home:
The Hull Packet and East Riding Times. November 4 1853 A letter, of which the following is an extract, has been received by the last mail, from the Reverend Thomas Raston, a Wesleyan missionary, who has connections in the neighbourhood of Hull. He went out last November in the Sir Fowell Buxton, which ship, while on her voyage, was wrecked on the coral reefs of the Brazilian coast. The crew and passengers were saved in a remarkable manner. The letter was written partly at sea, after the wreck, and partly since the writer's arrival in Melbourne. The events and the state of Melbourne are very graphically described:- ...Melbourne is a large city; in wet weather dirty beyond description; labour and provisions enormously dear; no person ought to come here unless he has plenty of money or can work; wages are most extravagantly high; but such is the amazing influx of people that there are many thousands who can obtain no employment. Journeymen grocers, drapers, clerks, and others used to light employment, can get nothing at all to do. They are the very worst class of persons to come here. There are some thousands of disappointed gold seekers, many of whom have taken the bush and are public robbers. The gold escort, from Fryar's Creek, was robbed this week 4000 pounds weight of gold stolen, and four guards shot. Robberies in all parts of the province are very frequent. The most serious thing to newcomers is lodging and houses, £3 a week for two small rooms in a wooden house. Thousands live in tents. Furniture can scarcely be had, and that at fearful rates. firewood cost about £80 a year for a small family. Water is eight shillings for 120 gallons. Washing eight shillings to twelve shillings per day. There is no such thing as comfort in the place; all is hurry, bustle, confusion, mud and misery. Summer is drawing on, and we hope to have better weather. From the privations and sufferings we have endured in consequence of our shipwreck, we have both been very unwell, but I'm thankful to say that we are recovering."
Within a few months of arrival, John Cole joined Henry Footner’s gunsmiths at 26 Little Collins Street west offering his services as a locksmith, gunmaker and bellhanger.
Henry Footner had worked as a foreman at the prestigious John Manton Gunsmiths of 6 Dover Street, Piccadilly. He sailed to Melbourne on the Caroline Chisholm arriving in May 1853.
By October of that year, he had established himself as a gunsmith on Little Collins Street.
The Argus, Melbourne. Wednesday 5 October 1853 HENRY FOOTNER, Gunmaker, 26 Little Collins Street west, (late Foreman to John Manton, 6 Dover Street, Piccadilly). Repairs done on London principle; guns etc bought and sold.
In early 1854 John Cole joined the business
The Argus, Melbourne. Tuesday 14 February 1854 FOOTNER and COLE, Bellhanger and locksmiths, 26 Little Collins street west. Every description of work done in the best London style. References given to work done in Melbourne. HENRY FOOTNER, Gunmaker. Repairs done on the shortest notice; materials and ammunition of the best quality supplied. Guns and pistols bought, sold, or exchanged.
Henry Footner died on 8 April 1854 and is buried in Melbourne General Cemetery.
John Cole took on the business and advertised his services in the local papers:
The Argus, Melbourne. Saturday 15 July 1854 JOHN COLE, Bellhanger, in the real English style, 26 Little Collins Street west. References given. GUNS, rifles and pistols repaired at J Cole's, 26 Little Collins Street west, by experienced workmen. The Argus, Melbourne. Wednesday 2 August 1854 DUCK GUNS for sale. Hoskins and Cole, gunsmiths, locksmiths, bellhangers, 26 Little Collins Street west.
In 1861, John Cole moved his business to new premises
The Argus, Melbourne. Saturday 1 June 1861 JOHN COLE, Locksmith and Bellhanger has removed to his new premises, 21 Little Collins Street east.
I will write more about John Cole, but, in the meantime, here is his description in Victoria and Its Metropolis, Past and Present. Volume II. (Alexander Sutherland. 1888. p. 597)
Cole, John, South Melbourne, was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, England, in 1822, and arrived in Melbourne in 1853, after having been shipwrecked on the Brazilian coast. Mr Cole has for many years carried on the business of lock and gun smith, and in the former capacity has had numerous business transactions with the banking and commercial community, while in the latter he was favourably regarded by sportsmen.
For many years Mr Cole was looked upon as one of the most reliable rifle shots in Victoria – his score of nine bull’s eyes and a centre out of ten shots at 900 yards, Hythe position, from knee, in 1863 stamping him as the best long range shot of the colonies. He won the champion cup against all comers in 1864, and took part in all the intercolonial contests from 1860 to 1872. Mr Cole resides in Cecil Street, South Melbourne. In 1870 he was elected assessor for the Albert Ward, Melbourne, and resigned in 1872.
The Story of a Family 