W. R. Cave
William Rendall Cave was a grain merchant and shipowner in the early days of South Australia.
He was a son of Charles Cave of Stoke-sub-Hamdon, South Somerset, and Susannah who came to Adelaide in 1848 or 1849 and settled at Gumeracha. William found employment with John McKinlay at his cattle station at Lake Victoria, New South Wales. Next the Chambers brothers gave him a job at their northernmost cattle property, Beltana Station, and he remained there for several years, becoming an expert bushman.
He broke in most of the horses used by John McDouall Stuart's 1861 expedition across the continent to Port Darwin. He and John Chambers shod all their horses, and Cave made duplicate sets of horseshoes, possibly at Chambers' Bobmoonie Station where the explorers made their final base before pushing into the unknown. Despite his peripheral association with the Stuart expedition, he was prominent in the many jubilees held between 1883 and 1914.
Early on he went to Port Adelaide and took up stevedoring work for William Younghusband, loading the Solway with the first full cargo of wheat from South Australia for London, and the Thomas Brown for Acraman, Main, Lindsay, & Co. But after six months on the wharfs he secured a position as overseer of "Thursk", a cattle station near Overland Corner belonging to John White, where he was associated with Sir Jenkin Coles.
In business
After a year at "Thursk" he returned to the Port, working as a shipping and customs clerk with his brother-in-law, James Rawlings. From July 1867 they were trading as Rawlings & Cave, general shipping merchants.In September 1873 Rawlings left the business, which continued to trade under that name until July 1874, but in October 1873 Cave founded W. R. Cave & Co., with offices at Port Adelaide and Grenfell Street, Adelaide. The business steadily expanded especially in the grain trade, with agencies throughout South Australia and branches in the other States. His partners were his son, John R. Cave, his nephew, Charles H. Warren and for a time Frederick Charles Howard. They became South Australian agents for Howard Smith and Co from ?? to 1893 and McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co. Around 1914 the city offices moved to Flinders Street. Rawlings went on to found the very successful shipping agents J. Rawlings & Son.
Shipping
W. R. Cave & Co. owned or chartered a large number of undistinguished coasting vessels, and from 1889 to 1893 shared a wharf with the Howard Smith Company. Three vessels made the news: Gwydir, Ellen, and Simplon.On 18 June 1901 the barge Gwydir sunk with the loss of three seamen while being towed, lightly loaded with wheat, from Port Pirie to Port Adelaide by the tug Eleanor. Both Gwydir and Eleanor belonged to W. R. Cave & Co., so William absented himself from the Board for its hearings. The Court of Enquiry found Captain William Tulloch of the Eleanor not guilty of neglect. Cave was criticised under parliamentary privilege, to which answered in the newspapers.
The Ellen was a coastal freighter and trawler, which was wrecked in Gulf St Vincent at Morgan's Beach near Cape Jervis South Australia on Saturday, 12 December 1908.
He imported the trawler Simplon from England in 1909 with the intention of starting a trawl fishing industry in South Australian waters. In 1914 he lent her to the South Australian government for the relief of people suffering the effects of the economic depression which was underway at the time.
Other activities
During the Boer War he was, with Sir Jenkin Coles and N. W. Stirling, involved in the selection and purchase of South Australian horses for the Bushmen's Corps and 4th Contingent in 1900. and with William Robertson. for the Fifth Contingent of 1901.He discovered several fossils on the banks of the Warburton River, which he presented to the Port Adelaide Museum.
He was appointed a governor of St Peter's College in 1888.
He was a warden of the Marine Board from 1896 to 1901.
He was for many years a director of various marine insurance companies: Commercial Marine Insurance Company Pty., South British Fire and Marine Insurance Company of New Zealand and Imperial Fire Insurance Company, including periods as chairman and vice chairman.
He was appointed South Australian Consul for Chile from 1903 to 1916.
Cave was a major sponsor of Joshua Ives' appointment as the University of Adelaide's first lecturer in music in 1885.
It is also possible that he was a composer, as sheet music by a composer called W. R. Cave was published early in the 20th century. The National Library of Australia identifies the composer as William Rendell Cave .
Counter-evidence is the report in The Musical Times of of the performance of Mendelssohn's "Hymn of Praise" at the People's Palace, conducted by one W. R. Cave, and in the same journal of 1 September 1894, a book New Violin and Violoncello Music, with pieces by Gilbert R. Betjemann, J. W. Ivimey, W. R. Cave,...,..., etc.
Family
William had a brother and six sisters who migrated to South Australia:- John D Cave who married Helen James of Gumeracha on 28 November 1853 and was a prominent citizen of Greenock then Burra.
- Lucy Cave married George Warren of Gawler on 4 April 1855. George was brother of John Warren MLC.
- Sarah Cave married James Rawlings on 31 May 1854 James was head of J. Rawlings & Son, shipping agents.
- Mary Cave married David Thomas in 1849. She married again, to John Beaton Terrell on 20 January 1855.
- Martha Cave married Joseph Howard on 30 October 1851. They lived at Glenelg then Gawler on 4 November 1851.
- Annie Cave married John Beavis Randell, brother of Captain Randell.
- Susan Cave married William Clark of Angaston on 19 November 1856.
- May Cave married Charles William Brebner on 10 April 1897. The solicitor Charles Cave Brebner was their son.
- Lucy Grierson Cave married cousin Frederic Charles Howard on 3 February 1891. She was the owner of "Frimley", a mansion on Belair Road, Lower Mitcham.
- Thomas Grierson "Tom" Cave. Tom and his friend Alfred Muecke were drowned while holidaying at Chowilla, the station of a friend William Robertson.
- Annie Alma Cave never married.
- Emily Marie Cave married horse racing identity Charles Loftus Moorhouse on 14 December 1901. Their son Thomas Kilner "Tom" Moorhouse was also well known in racing circles.
- Hugo Charles Cave married Ada May Bowman on 10 October 1904, lived at "Waverley", South Terrace. Their daughter Mary Cave was a prominent socialite.
- John Rendall Cave John was jailed for a year on a charge of murder, for helping procure an abortion for Antonie Helvig "Tony" Klemich, who died on 26 March 1908 of peritonitis. Mrs Lundberg, in whose care the infection occurred, refused to testify and was not charged. A similar death in 1904 was not mentioned in court. He married Elsie May Bissett, living at St Peters and had a son on 2 May 1923. He later came to the attention of the police for failing to maintain his family and for not complying with a maintenance order. Her death notice mentions her parents but not husband.
- Edmund Howard Cave married Ada Georgina Clare on 16 August 1911, lived at Stirling West.