Pearl Beatrice Cadden

1891–1989

A Victoria Park dressmaker who trained as a nurse, kept her soldier-brother’s will, married the Western Australian boy who became managing director of one of South Africa’s great motor firms — and, in her nineties, bought back her Johannesburg mansion from her husband’s estate rather than leave it.

Newspaper photograph of an older woman in a dark suit with a white blouse and a young woman in a knitted jumper standing together outdoors. — ‘Mrs. Bert Oates and Miss Mary Oates, who arrived from Johannesburg on the Corinthic last week’ — Pearl, fifty-five, with her younger daughter in Perth, May 1947.

Born: 30 November 1891 · Glen Innes, New South Wales
Died: August 1989 · South Africa
Married: Hedley Gilbert ‘Bert’ Oates (m. Perth, 1922)
Trade: Dressmaker; nurse, Perth Public Hospital
Lived: 97 years

Pearl Beatrice Cadden was born at Glen Innes on 30 November 1891, the eldest daughter of John Mitchell and Annie Cadden.¹ She was a toddler when the family went north to the Kimberley, and grew up at Victoria Park, where in 1916 and 1917 she was on the electoral roll at 29 Oswald Street as a dressmaker.²

Then she trained as a nurse. By 1921 she was on the staff of the Perth Public Hospital, and in Perth she was still remembered fifteen years later as ‘Nurse Pearl Cadden, of the Perth Hospital staff’.³⁴ In 1918 and 1919, while her brother Jack’s papers came home from the war, it was Pearl who held his will and handled the army’s letters.⁵

Perth, 1921 – 1922

Engaged to a man from South Africa

Hedley Gilbert Oates — Bert — was born on 4 June 1892 at Farrell Flat, near the copper town of Burra in South Australia, a son of Phillip Oates and Mary Nichols, and grew up at Victoria Park, the Caddens’ own suburb. In 1917 he went to South Africa as accountant to Atkinson and Oates, the motor firm founded at Bloemfontein by William Atkinson of Northam with Bert’s brother Leonard. He enlisted for the war there and could not get back; his younger brother Clifford was killed with the 32nd Battalion at Fleurbaix in July 1916.⁶⁷

Late in 1921 Bert sailed back to Western Australia, a single ‘secretary’ of twenty-nine, to marry. The engagement was announced in mid-December, with a February wedding planned, but the date came forward: on 18 January 1922 Pearl’s fellow nurses gave her a farewell afternoon in Thomas Street, and she married Bert at Perth on about Saturday 28 January. On 22 February Mr and Mrs H. G. Oates sailed from Fremantle for South Africa on the Themistocles — the ship that had carried Jack to war — with Bert’s brother Lewis, a Mount Lawley headmaster, going out to join the firm.³⁸

Page from Australia’s Fighting Sons of the Empire with three portrait photographs and biographies of Captain Percival John Rillstone, Private Hedlay Gilbert Oates in civilian dress, and Lance-Corporal Clifford Nicholls Oates. — Bert Oates (centre) in Australia’s Fighting Sons of the Empire, beside his brother Clifford (right), killed at Fleurbaix, and his brother-in-law Percy Rillstone — ‘He enlisted in South Africa and was unable to get back to Australia.’

Bloemfontein & Johannesburg, 1922 – 1947

Atkinson-Oates

The Oates home at Bloemfontein was already named Burra-Burra, after Bert’s birthplace, and it was there that Pearl’s son was born on 8 January 1923 — the news cabled to the Perth papers.⁹ Two daughters followed, Merlyn and Mary. The firm grew into a Western Australian ‘clan’ in Africa — Atkinsons, Oateses and Rillstones running branches from Cape Town to Nairobi — and by 1947 the accountant of 1917 was managing director of Atkinson-Oates Motors Ltd, distributors of a long list of British and American cars, which that year paid its shareholders a dividend of 100 per cent.⁷¹⁰

In 1933 Bert bought a house on 5th Street, Houghton, in Johannesburg — a porticoed villa designed by a partner of Sir Herbert Baker — and named it Burra-Burra too. ‘The beautiful and strong-willed Pearl’ laid out its formal garden; there were tennis parties and Christmas on the stoep, and a portrait of Merlyn on the staircase.¹¹ Pearl entertained the Western Australian women’s hockey team on its South African tour of about 1935.⁴

Oval studio photograph of a heavy-set older man seated in a wooden chair and a younger man in a light three-piece suit and bow tie standing beside him with a hand on the chair back. — William Atkinson of Northam, founder of Atkinson and Oates, seated, with Bert Oates — probably in the 1920s.

Homeward, 1933 – 1947

Visits to Victoria Park

Pearl came home more than once. In October 1933 she landed at Fremantle from Cape Town on the Anchises, travelling first class with Merlyn, six, and Mary, four.¹² In March 1936 she and Bert sailed to England on the Stirling Castle; her mother died in Perth that June.¹³ That October a Kalgoorlie paper reported that her widowed father, after forty years in Victoria Park, was ‘journeying to South Africa to join his daughter, Mrs. Bert Oates, of Johannesburg’ — a plan that seems never to have come off.⁴

In May 1947 she came again, on the Corinthic, with eighteen-year-old Mary, fresh from Roedean in Johannesburg and wanting to be a journalist, to see her eighty-six-year-old father, ‘whom she had not seen for 11 years’. They stayed with her youngest sister, May Meatchem, in Victoria Park; Bert’s brother Les flew over from Brisbane to meet them; and Merlyn was in England, studying dramatic art.¹⁴

Italy, 28 November 1943

John

Pearl’s only son, Leonard John — always John — left school at Bishops in Cape Town to join the South African Air Force when the war came. He was turned down at first as underweight, built himself up with a Charles Atlas course, and became a Spitfire pilot with No. 1 Squadron SAAF in Italy.¹¹¹⁵

On the afternoon of 28 November 1943, the first day of the Eighth Army’s assault across the Sangro River, his section of four Spitfires met a large formation of Focke-Wulf 190s. Pilots of No. 2 Squadron saw his aircraft, JF346, go down in flames east of Castel Frentano. He was twenty, and is buried in the Moro River Canadian War Cemetery near Ortona. His headstone carries the springbok of the Union and a line his parents chose from Binyon: ‘He shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.’ His sister Mary marked the anniversary for the rest of her life.¹¹¹⁵

John was a poet as well as a pilot. Nearly eighty years after his death his verse — poems about youth, life and death in a time of war — was read aloud by members of his family at the Foxwood Arts Festival in October 2022, in the theatre that now stands in the grounds of Burra-Burra, his old home, under the auspices of the Bishops old boys’ union.¹⁷

Commonwealth war grave headstone with the South African springbok badge reading Lieutenant L. J. Oates, S.A.A.F., 28th November 1943, age 20, with a cross and the inscription He shall not grow old as we that are left grow old, behind a bed of grey shrubs. — John Oates’s grave at Moro River Canadian War Cemetery, Ortona, Italy.

Houghton, 1980s

‘She simply bought the house herself’

Bert died in the 1980s, leaving a will that directed Burra-Burra be sold and a smaller place bought for Pearl. She was in her nineties and would not be parted from it: she bought the house herself, for R200,000. Mary would go looking for her around five in the afternoon and find her somewhere in the grounds, putting chemicals in the pool. Pearl died in August 1989, a few months before her ninety-eighth birthday.¹¹¹ The house is now Foxwood House, a theatre and small hotel; its owners kept her garden.¹¹

It was owned by the Oates family from 1933 to 1989. Originally from Australia, Bert Oates and his brother Len were pioneers in the automotive retail and manufacture industry in South Africa. The cloistered, secret garden is a memorial to Pearl Oates’ horticultural talents.

Johannesburg Heritage Foundation blue plaque, Foxwood, 13 5th Street, Houghton Estate

The Record

Sources & References

1
Birth and death

NSW BDM birth index, reg. 14012/1891, Glen Innes: Pearl B. Cadden, father John M., mother Annie. Family tree: born 30 November 1891, Glen Innes; died August 1989 (place given as Cape Town; the Houghton article implies Johannesburg — not yet confirmed).
2
Electoral rolls, 1916–17

Commonwealth electoral rolls, Division of Fremantle, Subdivision of Canning, 1916 (p. 12) and 1917 (p. 13): Cadden, Pearl Beatrice, 29 Oswald street, Victoria Park, dressmaker; with Annie, John Mitchell (cab proprietor) and William Thomas (civil servant).
3
Engagement and farewell, 1921–22

Perth newspapers:
- Daily News, 15 December 1921, p. 7, and Sunday Times, 25 December 1921, p. 23: engagement of Miss Pearl Cadden, daughter of Mr and Mrs John Mitchell Cadden, to Mr Hedley G. Oates of South Africa; wedding arranged for February.
- Sunday Times, 1 January 1922, p. 22 (reprinted Sun, Kalgoorlie, 8 January 1922): wedding to take place next month, the couple then to leave for South Africa.
- Daily News, 23 January 1922, p. 6: farewell to ‘Nurse Pearl Cadden, formerly of the Perth Public Hospital nursing staff’, at Mrs H. L. Dakin’s, Thomas Street, ‘last Wednesday’; ‘Miss Cadden is to be married on Saturday next to Mr. Hedley Oates, of South Africa’.
4
‘A Lady’s Letter’, 1936

Western Argus (Kalgoorlie), 6 October 1936, p. 14: Mrs E. Bryant’s two months with her uncle Mr J. Cadden of Victoria Park, ‘who on the loss of his wife, and after 40 years’ residence in the Park, is journeying to South Africa to join his daughter, Mrs. Bert Oates, of Johannesburg’; Mrs Oates entertained the visiting hockey team and ‘is also known to many as Nurse Pearl Cadden, of the Perth Hospital staff’.
5
Jack’s will

NAA: B2455, CADDEN J J — field will, 30 September 1917 (earlier will ‘lodged with Miss Pearl B. Cadden’); correspondence with Miss P. B. Cadden, May–July 1919. See Jack’s page.
6
Bert Oates

South Australian birth index, vol. 502, p. 333: Edley [sic] Gilbert Oates, born 4 June 1892, Farrell Flat (reg. Clare), father Phillip Oates, mother Mary Nichols. Australia’s Fighting Sons of the Empire (WA edition), p. 95: ‘Private Hedlay Gilbert Oates was born at Burra, South Australia and educated at Victoria Park. He enlisted in South Africa and was unable to get back to Australia’; Lance-Corporal Clifford Nicholls Oates, 32nd Battalion, killed in action at Fleurbaix, 19 July 1916.
7
‘W.A. “Clan” Wealth in Africa’, 1947

The West Australian, 7 June 1947, p. 5: William Atkinson of Northam and the founding of Atkinson and Oates at Bloemfontein; Leonard Oates; ‘Herbert’ [Bert] Oates to South Africa in 1917 as accountant; Percy Rillstone and Lewis Oates; photograph of ‘Mrs. H. G. Oates, of Johannesburg, with her daughter Mary, her 86-year-old father, Mr. J. M. Cadden’.
8
Marriage and departure, 1922

WA BDM marriage index, reg. 103/1922, Perth: Pearl B. Cadden; Hedley G. Oates. Inward passenger list, Fremantle (c. 1921), p. 2: Oates, Hedley G., single, 29, secretary, 99 Woolwich St, West Leederville. Sunday Times (Perth), 26 February 1922, p. 22: Mr and Mrs H. G. Oates (née Miss Pearl Cadden, of Victoria Park) passengers for South Africa by the Themistocles, ‘which left Fremantle on Wednesday’, with Mr L. B. Oates, headmaster of the Norwood State School, Mt Lawley.
9
A son, 1923

The West Australian, 11 January 1923, p. 1 (and Western Mail, 18 January 1923): ‘OATS [sic] (nee Pearl Cadden). — On January 8 at Bloemfontein, South Africa, to Mr. and Mrs. H. G. Oates — a son. (By cable).’ The family tree gives his birth as 30 November 1922 at Letaba; the contemporary notice is preferred here. Burra newspaper, n.d.: the wedding of Lewis B. Oates at ‘his brother Mr. Bert Oate’s home, “Burra-Burra,” Bloemfontein’.
10
100 per cent dividend, 1947

‘100 P.C. Dividend: W.A. Men’s Firm in Africa’, Perth press, 1947: Atkinson-Oates Motors Ltd, year to 30 June 1947; total available profit £A1,633,482; chairman William Atkinson, formerly of Northam; managing director Mr H. G. Oates, formerly of Victoria Park.
11
Burra-Burra, Houghton

‘Haunting haven: Foxwood House’, The Property Magazine (South Africa), ‘Places with a past’ (thepropertymag.co.za): bought by Bert Oates in 1933; Pearl’s garden; son John, Bishops and the SAAF, missing 28 November 1943; Mary Park’s recollections; Pearl’s purchase of the house for R200,000 after Bert’s death; her death in August 1989, ‘a few months before her 98th birthday’.
12
The Anchises, 1933

Inward passenger list, Anchises (Blue Funnel Line), Fremantle, 27 October 1933, embarked Cape Town, first class: Oates, Pearl B., 40, married; Merlyn, 6; Mary, 4.
13
The Stirling Castle, 1936

UK inward passenger list, Stirling Castle (Union-Castle Line), Southampton, 30 March 1936, from Port Natal and Cape ports, first class: Oates, Hedley Gilbert, 43, company director; Oates, Pearl Beatrice, wife.
14
The Corinthic, 1947

Quarantine Service report, Corinthic, Fremantle, 13 May 1947: Oates, Mrs Pearl B., and Miss Mary E., of 29 King George St, Victoria Park. ‘These People’ by Rosa Lynd, Perth press, May 1947: ‘After 25 years in South Africa, Mrs. Bert Oates arrived back in Perth last week on the Corinthic … to visit her father who is 86, and whom she had not seen for 11 years’; staying with her sister Mrs H. Meatchem; Merlyn studying dramatic art in England.
15
Lieutenant L. J. Oates, SAAF

Service summary (South African war-dead record): Lieutenant Leonard John Oates, 209155V, No. 1 Squadron SAAF, Spitfire Mk VIII JF346, lost 28 November 1943 over the Sangro; claimed by Fw. Georg Rischbucher, 6./SG 4, east of Castel Frentano at 15.36 hrs; son of Mr and Mrs H. G. Oates of Johannesburg. Moro River Canadian War Cemetery, Ortona; headstone photograph: ‘Lieutenant L. J. Oates, S.A.A.F., 28th November 1943, age 20.’
16
The blue plaque

Johannesburg Heritage Foundation blue plaque, ‘Lower Houghton Heritage — Foxwood’, 13 5th Street, Houghton Estate: designed by F. L. H. Fleming in 1926; owned by the Oates family 1933–1989; Bert and Len Oates ‘pioneers in the automative [sic] retail and manufacture industry’; ‘the cloistered, secret garden is a memorial to Pearl Oates’ horticultural talents’. Transcribed and photographed at artefacts.co.za (Foxwood House, bldgid 16738) and The Heritage Portal (plaque: Foxwood); photographs by the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation.
17
John Oates’s poetry

OD Union (Bishops / Diocesan College alumni), event notice, ‘Reading of Poetry Written by OD, John Oates’, Foxwood Arts Festival, The Theatre at Foxwood House, Tuesday 25 October 2022: ‘John Oates (OD): Poetry about youth, life & death in a time of war’ — a reading of his poetry and reflections on his life by family members, ‘in the setting of John’s family home, known as Burra-Burra, 11 Fifth Street, Houghton’. The notice gives his dates as 1923–1945 (the year of death a slip for 1943), supporting the January 1923 birth.