Sons of Temperance: association for non drinkers

After Many Days

The Ashton Safety Division has recently received an interesting letter, from which we give a few extracts below, from one of the members who left this country for “the Colonies” over thirty years ago.
The brother (James Wirrall) says, “I am now, and always have been a thorough teetotaller, have just passed my 63rd birthday, have travelled thousands of miles by land and sea, lived at times in nearly every colony of Australia, have been in heat and cold, worked eighteen hours a day as an Engine Driver at a Flour Mill, have enjoyed the best of health, and on no occasion have I ever been induced to break my pledge or prove untrue as a Son of Temperance. I am now, if anything, a firmer believer than ever in the truths of Total Abstinence, than in the days when I used to hear Old George Lomax in the Church Street Temperance Hall ... I was deeply interested is reading, in a recent copy of the old Stalybridge Reporter which was sent me, an account of the presentation to Bro and Mrs Parkinson, and in rejoicing at the great progress made by the Ashton District ... I am still a member of the Order – of the Goulburn Division, No 44. My residence (Cargo, near Orange, N.S.W.) is about 126 miles from Sydney. I and my family have built a Temperance Hall, formed Divisions, helped temperance work whenever we could since landing in Freemantle, West Australia, in 1862. I have filled the Chair of W.P. in my Division many times, am a member of our Grand Division, and on several occasions have attended National Division.”
An exceedingly interesting letter concludes with kind greetings to all who may have known the writer during his life in England.

(The Son of Temperance, May 1896)