Who was Harry Thomas Hockley?
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100 years have passed and inquiring minds want to know.
At this stage all Gang-gang can tell you is he was a cook who lived in Queanbeyan in 1915 and a very brave man.
On the night of August 26, 1915, Mr Hockley changed the destiny of 18-month-old Eunice Monica Freebody forever when he discovered her home in Morrissett Street was ablaze.
Smashing his way into her room, he seized the sleeping child and threw her out the window into the arms of a waiting policeman.
A second man, Peter Long, entered the room at the same time as Mr Hockley and tried to search the adjoining bedrooms. He was driven back by the smoke and flames.
Eunice, the daughter of a prominent business couple, survived unscathed to live for another 91 years.
She married Harry Read at St Christopher's in Manuka in 1940 and died in about 2006.
Mr Hockley had been walking down the street at about 9.30pm when he saw the fire.
The Queanbeyan Age reported what happened next: "The constable on duty at the railway station was approaching Morrissett Street when he noticed the outburst of flames.
"Rushing to the spot where others had also began to gather, he saw a young man named Harry Hockley break through a back window and hand out to him a young child.
"There was no one else in the room but, in the next room, it was believed the other occupants of the burning house were abed and asleep.
"So rapidly did the flames spread that the entire building seemed ablaze from end-to-end, and from floor to ceiling."
Once the house had burnt down to its foundations and the embers began to cool "the head of a child was to be plainly seen in a cot covered by smouldering bedclothes".
The two other bodies were soon found.
I first touched on this story a couple of weeks back.
Carole Barry, Eunice Read (nee Freebody's) niece who lives in Canberra, has asked for help in finding out more about Harry Hockley and, in return, filled in some of the blanks in the century-old narrative.
The fire's three victims were Ellen Freebody (nee McEvoy) and two of her grandsons, Keith Joseph Freebody, aged about three, and his younger brother, Archibald William Freebody, who was two.
They were the sons of Amy Freebody, a widow, who had lost her husband, Percy, a year earlier. She had a third son, Milton, who had been staying with an aunt in Yarralumla on the night of the fire.
The Morrissett Street household was a large one.
It was headed by William Burn Freebody, an early motorbike enthusiast who, with his wife Ena, owned a motor garage and petrol station and the Triumph Picture Theatre.
Ellen Freebody was William's Freebody's mother and Amy Freebody was his younger brother, Percy's, widow.
William, or WB as he was known, served at least four terms as the mayor of Queanbeyan in the 1920s and 1930s and, according to Mrs Barry, was a keen tennis player. He and his wife used to play in Country Week at White City.
"I remember Aunt Eunice as a very feisty woman," she said. "She loved film [picture theatres were a family business] and one of her cousins played the piano for the silent movies.
"She couldn't have children and I remember she'd love having us around to her place. She had Glenn, my cousin, and I there the most. I was the only girl."
Mrs Barry is keen to discover the other half of the story; the tale of what happened to Harry Hockley and whether he was ever officially recognised for his courage.
The inquest, reported in the August 31 edition of The Queanbeyan Age, found the victims had died of suffocation by a fire.
Mr Hockley, Mr Long and Constable Corbett were all commended for their actions.
The victims were buried, in a single casket at the Queanbeyan Cemetery on Saturday, August 28, 1915.
The cortege "was nearly a mile [1.6km] in length" The Age reported.
If you can help with any information on Harry Hockley, at that time a cook at Ryan's Hotel, or Peter Long please contact me at david.ellery@canberratimes.com.au