Wikibooks: History of wireless telegraphy and broadcasting in Australia/Topical/Biographies/William Philip Bechervaise/Wikipedia

• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Eureka
• Online Access: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/History_of_wireless_telegraphy_and_broadcasting_in_Australia/Topical/Biographies/William_Philip_Bechervaise/Wikipedia

Incomplete William Philip Béchervaise (b. 28 October 1831 d. 20 November 1907) was born in Hampshire and was amongst the tens of thousands who travelled to Victoria in the 1850s in search of gold but then decided to remain. He was the first of that surname to arrive in Australia. He was was nearby to the Eureka Stockade and professed to having been bunted by a trooper. Appointed to the Victorian Posts and Telegraphs Department in 1856 he was soon promoted as Telegraph Master at in 1858 later combining the role as Postmaster. He remained with the Department in Ballarat till retirement in 1892 excepting for two years when he was transferred to Melbourne to reorganise that office. One of Australia s earliest telephone and telephony experimenters in 1878. As a member of the Telegraph Electrical Society of Victoria from inception in 1874 he was a contemporary of Peter Robert Challen and . Famously exposed in parliamentary enquiry the nepotism within Victorian Posts and Telegraphs in the 1880s. =Parents and siblings= The Bechervaise surname (spelling is Béchervaise in French) derives from the island of in the and continues there to this day. His father was John Béchervaise (b. 1790 d. 1867) was born in Jersey but migrated early to England married twice and raised his children there to the extent that was possible for a sailor. His first wife was Sarah Price (b. 1793 d. 1846) and they had 8 children together with William Philip Bechervaise being the seventh child and fifth son. Following Sarah s passing he married Charlotte Frisby (b. 1811 d. 1891) and they had one son. His voyages included time in arctic waters and as a result he was one of of a large group awarded the first British of 1818–1855. He published an anonymous memoir Thirty Six Years of a Seafaring life by An old Quartermaster in 1839 which was widely distributed and well received. cite book url=https //archive.org/details/thirtysixyearsa00mastgoog title=Thirty six Years of Seafaring Life year=1839 place=Portsea Hampshire publisher=Printed and ...