Maud Voller Affleck
2 June 1874 — 26 September 1965
Maud Voller Affleck (8‑49‑14)
Maud Voller Lade was born on the 2nd of June 1874 in Brisbane, the third of the eight children of Joseph John Lade and Mary nee Bridges, both English-born. Joseph's parents, Thomas Lade and his wife Harriet left the farms that he had managed in Kent and sailed with their three children to Moreton Bay in 1851. Their passage to Sydney on the sailing ship Windsor cost $120 in today's money. The Lades settled at Upper Kedron Brook on land Thomas bought for $124 in the suburb now known as Enoggera. They called their new farm and homestead Surrenden after the property they had lived on in Kent.
The hard-working Lades prospered as farmers and fruitgrowers and Thomas Lade won prizes in the first Moreton Bay Horticultural Society's show in 1853. He, with the assistance of his son Joseph, were to distinguish themselves by becoming Queensland's first commercial wine producers and in 1862 Thomas Lade won a medal and certificate of honourable mention at the London International Exhibition. The Lades were considered to be the best authorities on wine culture in the colony.
The Lades were devout Baptists. They had been closely involved with their church in Kent and in Brisbane they were foundation members of the Wharf Street Baptist Church.
When Joseph married in 1869 he and his wife Mary moved further out on Sanford Road to a farm they called Glen Retreat. Joseph Lade late in life wrote that his family had bought this land in 1851 when Surrenden was purchased but there is evidence to support this date of purchase. Here Joseph planted fruit trees and grapevines while Mary managed a boot and shoe shop on the corner of George and Queen Streets. Mary appears to have been the one with the business head while Joseph was somewhat of a dreamer. As well as managing the city shop Mary bought houses, did them up and sold them.
In the year or two before Joseph and Mary Lade's third child was born in 1874, Joseph wanted to increase the number of his citrus trees so he purchased and then planted seeds of oranges and mandarins. One of the latter seedlings had a distinct foliage and went on to produce a high quality fruit that became known as the Beauty of Glen Retreat mandarin, later shortened to Glen Retreat mandarin. However, its commercial success did not come until Lade had sold the Glen Retreat farm to a Mr W. H. Parker around the turn of the century. Parker actively marketed the fruit and by 1927 this mandarin had world-wide distribution.
Little is known of Maud's childhood but she did attend the Normal School in Brisbane. She had a lively intelligence and was quick witted and humorous. Six weeks after her nineteenth birthday Maud married William James Affleck on the 13th of July 1893. Some of the manchester in her trousseau she bought at reduced prices as it was flood damaged. This was an aftermath of the great flood that had occurred earlier that year.
William and Maud had three children, two daughters Alice Vera and Marjory, and a son Kenneth George, and four grandchildren. The marriage was a happy one.
William died in 1932. He had been manager for Queensland of the National Mutual Life Association of Australia, but these were the days before life insurance offices paid generous pensions to the widows of staff officers. Maud endured some financial difficulties during her 33 years of widowhood.
She lived in the large house called Ayethorne at Vulture Street, West End from the time the family returned to Brisbane from Townsville in 1902 until her death more than 60 years later. In her widowhood she let the downstairs area as a self-contained flat, and upstairs took in two paying guests to supplement her income.
Maud professed to know little of her forebears, though the Lades had lived in Kent for many centuries. Some of the family had lived at Eyethorne, Kent, the name of the West End house apparently being a mis-spelling of the Kentish village. Like her husband, Maud lived her whole life in Queensland always retaining her love of the countryside and interest in rural matters.
Maud and William are buried side by side in Toowong Cemetery.
Acknowledgement
This story was contributed by Shirley Lahey.
The contributor, grand-daughter Shirley Lahey, wishes to acknowledge her debt to John Moran, whose book In the Grip of the Grape gives details of the Lade family's wine growing.