This is the second in a series of articles written by Nicole Jenkins, on behalf of the Deniliquin & District Historical Society. Each will cover stories from our town’s history and its people.
Thomas Weaver Bayliss was born at Wanganella on October 19, 1891.
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He was the brother of Phil Bayliss, for the first article in this series (Wanganella’s own military man, Deniliquin Pastoral Times, Friday, Septmber 5, 2025).
Tom was the ninth child of Philip Bayliss and Matilda Symons.
By the age of 24, he was working as a station manager and stockman at Gilbert River in Queensland, about four hours southwest of Cairna, at the ‘Greenhills’ cattle station.
He enlisted in World War I on January 10, 1916 in Cairns, and sailed from Sydney on the SS Hawke’s Bay on April 20 the same year.
He had previous military service from when he was in the mounted rifles for 2.5 years in Echuca.
Tom arrived in Egypt on August 9, 1916 and joined the 12th Battalion in France.
He was transferred to the 1st ANZAC Cyclist Battalion on November 22.
His brother Phil had already been in this battalion for six months.
Tom also served in France and was diagnosed with trench fever on May 20, 1918.
He eventually returned to Australia on the ‘Ajana’ on August 19, 1919 and was discharged on December 2.
Tom returned to his job at ‘Greenhills’ the same month.
He married Mildrid Eggington Green, known as Midge, on April 28, 1920 at Georgetown, Queensland.
Mildred was eight years younger than Tom and was the daughter of a well known grazier in that district.
Mildred was from a large family as well – she was the eighth child of 13.
Tom and Mildred had two sons – Lenn in March 1921 and Collin in May 1922. Both births were registered in Cairns.
By 1924, Tom had acquired mining interests at Edie Creek in Papua New Guinea.
He was still in his manager’s position at Greenhills Station at this time.
Tom then secured mining rights at Bululo, north of Edie Creek, in 1925.
Lenn and Collin were the first white children at Bululo.
By 1931 the family were dividing their time between Bululo and Sydney.
Tom enlisted in World War II, and we later learned - when he requested a copy of his discharge papers from army records in 1962 - that his original papers “had been blown up by the Japanese in 1942”.
With the onset of the war, Mildred returned to her family at Georgetown.
By 1950, the couple had divorced.
Mildred continued to live at Bululo after the divorce, until 1954, when she sold up.
This included her share in the ‘Golden Hill Mine’ syndicate, and she moved to Sydney permanently.
Meanwhile, Tom married Anna Johanna Oehlig on June 16, 1952 at Mandang, Papua New Guinea. He was 60 and Anna 54.
Anna was German and had been married to Peter Carl Munster, known as Charlie, another German.
He was a plantation owner on Manus Island, and they had been the only Germans in PNG when they arrived after their marriage in 1922.
Charlie was a naturalised British subject and leased a plantation at Salesia on the Purdy Islands.
He sold copra (flesh of the coconut) and trocas shells (used for buttons and beads).
In December 1941, Anna and her two children left Manus Island with the onset of the war and lived in Moree, NSW.
Evidence suggests that Charlie was captured by the Japanese and executed, On or near March 18, 1943 at Lorengau on Manus Island.
After Tom and Anna’s marriage, they shared their time between Sydney and Bululo, where Tom was the director of Bululo Allevials.
In 1959 LJ Brass wrote in his journal of his visit to Tom and his son Collin in Bululo.
“A few miles on the road from Bulolo, we called in to see an old friend of mine named TW Bayliss,” the journal entry read.
“Tom has been in the goldfields area since 1926. He took up an extensive bit of auriferous ground early in the piece and held on to it.
“He and his son Collin are now profiting from gold sluicing.
“Tom presented to me a fine example of prehistoric stone ‘mortar’, larger than most I have seen, which was unearthed last year, 40 feet below the surface, in his sluicing operations.
“The mortar was in use as a bird bath at the foot of Tom's front steps. It will go to the museum.
“Tom was always a teller of tales. Finding an eager listener, he held forth about the old gold prospecting days, such as being shot at with Kukuku arrows.
“Also, his boys have told him, there is some mammal in the forests of their native mountains in the direction of Mt Missim - a fairly large mammal - which ate their garden crops, and seems unknown to white men (and perhaps even the natives).
“Tom has seen very large bones which were unearthed in the Bulolo area, but no small bones. Bulolo is in an area in which tertiary marsupials have been found.”
In the early 1970s, my father and grandmother called in to visit Tom and Anna in their home in Sydney, when my father was doing study for his greenkeeper’s certificate.
Tom gave my father one of the PNG fossils.
Tom died in November 1975, aged 84.
Tom’s two boys visited their uncle’s property ‘Robec’ at the Woodbury Soldier’s Settlement at Mayrung in 1938.
Lenn had just received his pilot’s licence and flew a light plan down from Sydney, and landed on their paddock.
Lenn enlisted as a pilot officer in World War II on August 19, 1940.
Three months later, on November 18, Lenn died in an aircraft accident in Sydney when he was instructing a learner pilot. He was only 19.
Tom’s other son Collin also was a pilot and enlisted in World War II, initially as a private in the Australian Imperial Force and then as a flying officer in the Royal Australian Air Force.
He was discharged in November 1945, and married Mary June Steel in January 1946 at Darlington Point, NSW.
They had three children - Lenn, Collin Jnr and Sue.
Lenn, who was named after his uncle, continued the flying tradition and became a pilot officer in the army at Tooowomba in 1983. He later became a squadron leader in 2005, and is also a solicitor.
Collin continued with his father’s mining interests in PNG up until 1980.
I was thrilled to make contact with June and Collin back in 2010, and my grandmother and Collin were able to reconnect after many years.
• For more details on Tom Bayliss, listen to Episode 11 of Nicole Jenkins’ podcast ‘Family History Mysteries’.