Sholl has a thorough acquaintance, and he is now often called upon for advice. Mr. Sholl still has in his service a Western Australian native who came to him as a boy twenty-five years ago, when he was engaged in pearling operations.
A few years were spent by Mr. Sholl in supervising his squatting interests in Roeburne, but in December, 1890, he took up his residence in Perth. He was created a Justice of the Peace ten years ago. In the days prior to autonomy he was a member of the Legislative Council, being elected for the Ashburton Province. He paid full attention to his political duties, but eventually resigned so that the House might benefit by the services of the Hon. Mr. Burt, in whose interests he took the step. Mr. Sholl now remained in private life for some little time. When the first elections for the House of Assembly were held in December, 1890, he was candidate for the Roebourne constituency. He was elected, and was returned a second time at the general elections of 1894.
In recent years Mr. Sholl has participated in mining development. He has been associated with mines in the north-west and over the Coolgardie Goldfields. He was a member of the Menzies Syndicate—whose prospector founded the rich district bearing his name—and has officiated on the directory boards of several companies. Of the well-known Star of the East mine in the Murchison he was a director when it was sold to an English company. At present he is interested in a number of mining syndicates. In 1883 Mr. Sholl married Jessie, daughter of Mr. Henry Cave, London.
Taken altogether, Mr. H. W. Sholl, M.L.A., has had a wide experience of Western Australia and the peculiarities of life in this colony. In the early days of the Roebourne district he, with his father's family, was called upon to undergo many vicissitudes. At times, owing to the non-arrival of vessels, the food supplies gave out, and it was necessary to resort to strange means to satisfy the demands of hunger. Occasionally barley had to be ground in an old coffee mill, and often had Mr. Sholl to travel long distances under most disagreeable circumstances for necessaries of life. The years spent in pearl fishing brought him in contact with arduous toil, and on his station he passed through the trials always experienced in sparsely-settled districts. His Parliamentary career has been a quiet one, but he sedulously watches the course of debates, and is often in a position to give information to members.
WILLIAM THORLEY LOTON, M.L.A.
ALL the world over there are certain great commercial or manufacturing firms, whose names are as familiar in the mouths of the people as household words, whose style and title are indissolubly linked with the rise and progress of a country, if not with its foundation. They are monuments of the creative power of those who founded and skilfully raised them to the pinnacle of success, while hosts of competitors flounder in attempting to steer the same course. The secret of this successful seamanship—to use a metaphor—a chart and compass that would show the shoals and quicksands of commerce, would be an invaluable gift to the tyro who is entering upon his voyage on the ocean of life. But although "of the making of books there is no end," nothing has been written to show why one commander is able to make port with colors flying and drums beating, while other shallops, which have been launched under auspices as fair, and freighted with the good wishes of hosts of friends, have been thrown upon their beam ends.
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Photo by WILLIAM THORLEY LOTON, M.L.A. Greenham & Evans. |
The public, refraining from losing itself in the mazes of speculation as to the causes of success and failure, is only cognisant of the fact that it is better served by one trader than another, and bestows its patronage accordingly, until at last there is inscribed upon the mercantile annals of the time the enduring record of such a partnership as that of Padbury, Loton, and Co.
William Thorley Loton was in 1839 born at Dilhorn, Staffordshire, England, and is the descendant of an old farming family, whose taste for the cultivation of the soil he has shared and transmitted to his sons. His own career, however, has had a closer association with the counting-house than the cornfield. The future financier, merchant, and parliamentarian of Western Australia left school at the age of fourteen to enter a mercantile house in Staffordshire and afterwards joined the celebrated firm of Copestake, Moore, and Co., London, where he had twelve months' valuable experience. In 1862 he sailed for Western Australia, and arrived at Fremantle in March, 1863, and was engaged in commercial pursuits in Perth and Geraldton until 1867, when he entered into partnership with Mr. Walter Padbury. He assisted in building up the trade of the house in St. George's Terrace, a concern which was destined to become one of the great business corporations of the colony, not only in the buying and selling of goods, but also in supporting by advances of capital the development of the pastoral interests of Western Australia. For twenty-two years Messrs. Padbury, Loton
