James Fleming
FLEMING, James Coates MSocE, AMSTE (1834 – 1885)
Born in England at Wickford in Sussex in 1834, J C Fleming was a shipbroker merchant when he was convicted of forgery in Glasgow in 1862 involving a sum of £40. He was transported to Western Australia as a convict, number 7688, on board the “Clara” in 1864. Soon released, he worked as a schoolmaster in 1867, and built the first telegraph in Western Australia between Perth and Fremantle in 1869 for Edmund Stirling and Alexander Cumming.
Fleming’s wife, Emma Fleming (nee Salmon), followed him to Western Australia with their young son John, and two further sons, Arthur and Oswald, were born in Western Australia.
He joined the Electro Magnetic Telegraph Company in 1870, which purchased the original Perth Fremantle line and built additional lines, including one to Albany which improved communications with the mail boats. The Government operated these lines through its Post Office from 1871 onwards and acquired the whole system in 1873, with Fleming appointed as Superintendent of Telegraphs. Fleming designed and specified the equipment for the telegraph line to Eucla and supervised its construction in 1877. He recommended the establishment of a telephone system in 1882 but died before it was constructed.
Elected an associate member of the Society of Telegraph Engineers in 1877 and a full member of the London Society of Engineers in 1878, his published reports include: • ‘Memorandum upon Electric Telegraph Department by Superintendent of Telegraphs', V&P WA 1874, 6; • ‘Report upon Eucla Telegraph Line by … Superintendent of Telegraphs' V&P WA 1876, A10; • ’Claims of officers employed on construction of Eucla Telegraph Line’, V&P WA 1878, 23; • ‘Correspondence re Central Telephone Exchange , . . Perth and Fremantle‘ V&P 1882, A12.
J C Fleming died June 21, 1885 only a few months after the death of his wife Emma. He is buried in the East Perth Cemetery.
References:
G.P. ’The East West Telegraph’ WAHS 2, 1933, XIII, pp16‐35
Moyal, A. Clear across Australia; a history of telecommunications, Nelson Australia, Melbourne, 1984, pp25 39
LPG pp101 2, 161
DWAE 2, p189
BDWA 2, p1073
G‐SM 1, p231
Sunday Times, 28,5,1911, p9
http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/graves/bio 30.htm accessed November 26, 2019
