PICTURE GALLERY

Ted sailing to the UK in 1926

With sister Florence in South Wales on his 1926 UK holiday

Ted came back to South Wales and the Forest of Dean for a 7 month holiday in April 1926. On the passenger list he gave his destination as his sister's home at Maindee, Newport. Mike Kohnstamm of Harriett Dance's family, recalls "my mother remembered a time when she lived with her parents at one end of Risca, and her grandparents John Roberts and Eleanor (nee Powell) ran a pub at the other end of the town.
Apparently there was a very great commotion one day, and the reason was that a Ted Dance had come visiting from Australia."



		Edward's son John Dance the stone mason from Scowles, Coleford 1838 - 1922 Photo taken at Abertillery around 1901			John Edward (Ted) Dance (1864) from Redbrook, son of John the stone-mason. He sailed to Melbourne, Australia in the 1880s.

Florence Griffiths (nee Dance) on the right. Daughter of John Dance and sister to Ted. Born 1865 at Redbrook. When as a teenager she was employed as a servant she stayed for some time with her father's sister, Mary Hodges at Bristol where this photograph was taken. Widowed in 1901 she remarried in 1905. Now Mrs Florence Preedy she died at Newport, Monmouthshire in 1955.

Their daughter Amy (Mrs S E Frederick) was still living here in 1932. Hampton is one of Melbourne's popular bay-side suburbs.

Mary Ann Hodges nee Dance 1849-1920 - Daughter of Edward Dance

Mary Hodges (nee Dance) daughter of Edward Dance, she was born at Scowles, Coleford in 1849.

She married joiner Edwin Hodges from Bristol in 1868 and moved there. They had 3 sons at Bristol, Edward 1870, Frederick 1871, and Frank 1873. Their Bristol home seems to have been very popular with the Dance family as both census shows one or two of them staying.

They migrated on an unassisted passage to Hampton, Victoria, Australia on the Orient Line "Garonne" arriving in March 1882. Amy Hodges was born there in 1888. She married S.E Frederick in 1911.


	Edwin and Mary Ann Hodges
Edwin Hodges 1845-1918		Mary Ann Hodges (nee Dance)

Two unidentified members of the Australian Hodges family and the headstone of her son Edward (1870-91) and husband Edwin (1845-1918)

The Western Australian family of Mary Ann's son Frank Hodges was who born at Bristol in 1873. We only know that his wife was named Annie. The one of the lady with the boys had "to Annie Xmas 1922" written on the back. Fay

Mary Ann's Hampton funeral notice says "grandma of Myrtle, Andrew, Ruby, Frank, June, and Pattie (Western Australia)".

	"In the early days, Dances had a spring cart and delivered the mail out to Yarri and the surrounding places. Eventually Mr. Dance bought a small red car and I remember when he'd lose control on rough ground he always grabbed for the cart hand brake and called out orders to his horses." Tom Lowe from Mt Remarkable station in 'Niagara - Kookynie - How it was' a book by Margaret E Pusey

			Three generations at Yarri, Western Australia. John (1838), his son Ted Dance (1864), with wife Jane McKenzie, Welsh grandson John (Jack) Griffiths and at the back Ted's children Annie, Jean and Norman.


	Ted and Norm Ted's trucks					Moving from Yarri

	When Ted returned from his UK holiday in late 1926 the Kookynie area was in decline. He decided to pull down the Yarri store and move to Kalamunda in the suburbs of Perth where he opened a store next to the post office.

	John Dance (1838) with his three children. Florence on the left, Ted on the right and young George (1878) next to his father. Probably taken at The Scowles, Coleford around 1881. "This is John Dance with his family, I'd say just before Ted left to come to Australia and Florence went to Bristol to work. She was 15 in the 1881 census in Bristol. Ted was 18 and visiting relatives in the same census." Ted's grand-daughter Fay Widdicombe.

		George Hamilton Dance born Scowles in 1878 with his father John. Taken after John returned to Coleford from Brazil. "We were told he went to America and married Margaret Hamilton who later had a son George." Fay

Photos show John Dance (1838) with a mate at Yarri, Western Australia and a reference written for Ted Dance in 1890 after working as a plasterer at Yarra Flats, Victoria for two years.

John was called Poddy Dance in Yarri. "A man called Stepini worked for Ted Dance at his goldmine. When the gold went too deep Ted walked away from it." .. Stepini could be the big man in the photo with John under the gum tree... Fay from her Aunt's memories.

I asked Fay whether old John worked after arriving at Yarri from England around 1911 when he would have been 73 years old. She believes he may have made a modest living from Ted's worked-out gold mine. (Tom)

John Dance died at Kookynie in 1921. He was 84 years old.

John Edward (Ted) Dance in the Ballarat goldfields area 1880s

Ted in Victoria with workmates in the 1880s

This was taken ouside the Watch works. Ted is the one in the white shirt behind and to right of the dog. Fay

Jane Anderson McKenzie (1863-1932) from Dunedin, New Zealand.

Ted & Jane 1920s

John Edward (Ted) Dance (1864) in Melbourne 1890s

This is Jane Anderson McKenzie who married Ted. I inherited the brooch she is wearing at her throat. (photo on left) The catch was broken but I kept it for years without knowing where it came from. It wasn't until I did these photos that I realised whose it was. I had the catch fixed and I wear it with a safety chain. It is silver marked souvenir and very nicely engraved. Fay

			This is the shop at Yarri. Ted is holding Norman's hand and Jane is on the other side of Norman. My Mum Annie Frances is in the middle of the 3 children and her sister Jean Florence is next to her. Lardi is the man on right in front with dark pants and white shirt. I have never ever heard him mentioned before but he could have been a silent partner. You will notice the stone wall to the left of the shop. In 1991 when my sister and I and our husband's went to Kalgoorlie. we hired a car and went to Yarri. The wall was only 4' high so I took two rocks off the top and bought the next one home 90 years after Ted had put it there. It was an eerie feeling. There isn't much left these days. The State Battery was up a hill away and still working but mainly for the part time prospectors. We went to the Kookynie Hotel and had a beer. My brother in law was fascinated. The road to Yarri was gravel and as straight and as flat as the eye could see. We let him drive and he still talks about it. We saw kangaroos in the bush and even a mother emu with 6 little chicks walking in a row behind. They loved it. Fay.

	Ted and Jane with their two youngest children This is Jane holding Jean Florence and Ted holding Annie Frances outside the door to the house. The stone wall is to the right of the photo. The Police Constable up there Mr Dodd, (Yarri) used to take photos so I think they took this opportunity because their first born John Andrew died at a very early age.

Jane (Jenny) Dance applied for and was granted a boarding house license at Yarri in 1907. A boarder in later years who was to become a family friend was local Yarri school teacher John Trezise Tonkin. Born at Boulder City in 1902, Yarri was his first teaching assignment after attending Claremont Teachers College. A staunch Labor supporter he set up a branch of the Australian Labor Party at Forest Grove in 1923 and was one of the youngest delegates elected to the ALP's State Executive.

He had two unsuccessful attempts at entering Parliament before winning the seat of North-East Fremantle in 1933. During his time in Parliament he served as Minister for Education, Social Services, Agriculture and Works, and Water Supplies.

John Tonkin at Yarri.


	He became Deputy Premier in 1955 under Bert Hawke. In 1967, he was elected leader of the Opposition and became the first person from a metropolitan electorate to hold that position since Daglish's year in office.
	He was the only Labor Premier born in WA up until 1981 and was popularly known as "Honest John". After his first wife and daughter died of cancer, John Tonkin crusaded for many years for radio-wave therapy treatments for cancer sufferers and set up a treatment clinic run by cancer surgeon Dr John Holt in the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. At the time he married his second wife in the early 1970s, he was already renowned for his tireless support of the Tronado anti-cancer machine. On the right is a reference written by John Tonkin for Norman Dance when John was the ME for North East Fremantle in 1938.

Jack Griffiths son of Florence 1891-1918

see Life & Death of an Anzac

A soldier from the Dance family (possibly George 1878?) From Fay's West Australian collection.


		Frank Dance MBE, baptised at Bishopswood in 1884. Son of Edward's son George Dance. Mentioned in dispatches World War I. Managing Director of Curacho at Lydbrook in 1920s. Padre at RAF Locking, Weston Super Mare in World War 2. Vicar at Hereford 1960s.				Ann's grandmother Mary Ridgers (nee Dance) born Welsh Bicknor 1882. Daughter of George and sister to Frank. She married Ernest Ridgers from Windlesham, Surrey and spent the remainder of her life there. She died in the early 1930s.

Ted's sister Florence's Newport family at the time of her daughter Florence Elizabeth Griffiths's wedding to Ben Sefton in 1918. Florence (born 1865) is seated and the married couple are in the centre.

William Dance from Cheltenham (left). Born Welsh Bicknor 1880, son of George Dance. His sister Maria born 1873 at Redbrook.

Maria Frankish nee Dance and her husband Anderson on the right. Will Dance and his housekeeper. (She (Maria) looks so much like my mother's sister in later life it's not funny) From Fay Widdicombe

Newland Village today. On the right is a view of the Jones Almshouses where Edward died in 1882, taken from Newland churchyard.

Thomas & Catherine's grave at Ganarew

Upper Redbrook today

Ansley's Mill at Redbrook