John Vontom (1839-1887)

John Vontom drowned in an appalling workplace incident on the Yarra river. His death was widely reported in the newspapers – by The Age under the ballad-like leader of ‘The Wool Washer’s Tragedy’ and the Leader under the more apt ‘Wilful Murder’. John had worked for Nettleton’s wool washing works in Collingwood for 15 years and was at his job with several other men on a landing stage on the Yarra river one Monday afternoon. A fellow worker, the worse for drink and under no provocation, grabbed John unawares from behind (‘taking hold of him in a habit peculiar to roughs’) and threw him into the river, it seemed, for a joke. The perpetrator was sentenced to only three years hard labour for manslaughter (‘the jury commended him to mercy on the ground of his intoxication at the time’), serving barely more than two. Such little value put on a life and the consequences of its loss. Ellen, his wife, would have read all about her husband’s last moments in the newspapers, even while his body was still unrecovered: ‘Vontom disappeared beneath the surface of the dirty stream at once, but rose again a couple of seconds after, some yards away. A life-buoy was thrown to him, but he failed to reach it, and immediately sank, and was not seen any more.’ John’s children ranged in age from four to twelve years old. The poem his wife Ellen inserted in his memory the following year in The Age spoke to a deep and abiding loss.