By Carol Campbell (nee Soall)
This article was originally published in August 2025 in Soul Search, the Journal of The Sole Society
I was born Carol Ann Soall in a town called Traralgon, about 2 hours drive east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. I was the youngest of three children born to Elaine Pattle (b 1929) and Frederick Edgar Soall (b 1927). I grew up not knowing any other ‘Soall’ relatives existed.
In 1984 an Aunt (mother’s sisters) alerted to me an obituary in a Melbourne newspaper she claimed was for my Grandfather Thomas Frederick Soall. Up until that day I had never heard mention of him in all of my 24 years. I phoned my Dad and he told me it couldn’t be his father as his father’s name was Frederick Thomas Soall. End of discussion, his manner let me know it was not something we talked about.
This was the start of my curiosity and interest in family history and genealogy. The driving question I had at the time was who was my grandfather and why hadn’t I ever met him when he apparently lived only two hours away. The next question was what made people pack up and leave their home town. My father was born in Fremantle, Western Australia 3,500 kilometres (approx. 2200 miles) away. As I learnt along the way his father had been born in England and moved over the seas to Fremantle as a young boy with his sisters and parents. (Thomas Joseph Soall b. 1881 and Mary Grogan b. 1880)
It was difficult getting any information from my Dad, he just didn’t seem to know anything. After purchasing the wedding certificate of his parents, Thomas Frederick Soall (b.1903) and Rita Mavis Luxton (b. 1910), I had clues from the witness list and Dad said he had vague recollections of an Aunt Lil (Lillian Soall) and an Aunt Dol (Dorothy Soall). These were sisters of Thomas Frederick Soall who also arrived in Australia on the Osterley with another sister Mary. Those names eventually opened doors to information.
Contact with the Sole Society in 1999 confirmed we are descendants of William Soall and Clementina Benson, who married in Shoreditch, Middlesex in 1775.
Dad’s grandfather Thomas Joseph Soall was the son of Thomas Soall (b. 1857) and Harriett Poole (b. 1857), Thomas Joseph had 14 siblings.
Thomas and Mary arrived in Fremantle on the Osterley in January 1915 where the weather was averaging about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, having left England on the 18th of December where it would have been a much cooler 42 degrees. The weather was not the only challenge the family would have to face.
The next story is a partly fiction piece written by Alberta (Ruby) Lane based on facts, as told to her, by her mother Mary Elizabeth Alice Soall (b.1904).
Some of the dates might be slightly incorrect but I believe the stories give an accurate representation of what it would have been like for this English family arriving on the west coast of Australia in 1915.
Ruby turned 90 in November 2024 she has a quick sharp mind and memory and has been a wonderful source of photographs and Australian Soall history for me.
Ruby is also a source of local social history having lived at the same address her whole life.
Her story can be found here: The Early Life and Times of Mary Elizabeth Alice Lane nee Soall Part One