Walter Spring Beach was born on 8th May 1883 in Auckland New Zealand. He would have been just some 4-5 years old when his parents moved to Melbourne in the late 1880s and around 9 years old when they moved to Zeehan, Tasmania in 1892.  Walter's parents were living in Zeehan and running the Beach Villa boarding house from 1898-1901 so he would have been in his late teens in that period. On the 6th May 1903 he was fined in the Zeehan Court for using indecent langauge at Williamsford. This might explain him wanting to get away from the West Coast of Tasmania and work elsewhere. We can assume it was around this time he moved to work in Beaconsfield as gold mining was booming there at the time and his uncle Albert Lionel Beach and family had moved from Strahan to live and work in the mine in the 1901 to 1905 period. He would have met Nanna (Blanche Jillett) in that town at that time. Walter then spent a few years back in NZ before he married Blanche in 1914. The New Zealand electoral record of 1911 has him living in Ohinemuri, Waikato, NZ and working as a miner. The gold mine at Beaconsfield closed in 1914 due to floooding problems so was struggling and laying off workers in the years leading up to the closure. So a decision was made to move to work and live in Queenstown where the Mt Lyell copper mine had been declared an essential industry to support the World War 1 effort and may explain why he never participated in that war.
Walter & Blanche (nee Jillett) Beach

The Children of Walter & Blanche

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