Caught in the cross fire

A victim of the 1787 Black Wednesday retrenchments

My third great grandfather Philip Lamothe Snell Chauncy (1816-1880), a surveyor, in 1839 emigrated from England to the colony of South Australia and worked there for two years. In 1841 he was appointed Assistant-Surveyor in the Colony of Western Australia. In 1853 he resigned this post and moved east to the goldfields of Victoria, where he was appointed Surveyor-in-Charge of the McIvor District (present-day Heathcote).

In 1861 he was in charge of the Dunolly Survey District, and in May 1867 of the Castlemaine Survey District. He was later stationed at Ararat and Camperdown. In 1872 he took charge of the District Survey Office at Ballarat but, he said, “with other Government officials I lost the position on ‘Black Thursday‘, during the Premiership of Sir Graham Berry during the 70’s.”*

Philip Chauncy 1878

The west wing or Lydiard Street frontage of the Ballarat post office was completed in 1871. It accommodated the treasury, telegraph office and crown lands office. Photographed 2017.

I have written more about the retrenchment of Philip Chauncy and about 400 public servants in 1878 at https://anneyoungau.wordpress.com/2025/06/26/caught-in-the-cross-fire/ He retired with a pension and his colleagues presented him with an illuminated address and a diamond ring.