[Index]
George Alexander HOBLER (1864 - 1935)
Children Self + Spouses Parents Grandparents Greatgrandparents
Cyril Moore HOBLER (1891 - 1916)
Enid Moore HOBLER (1894 - 1959)
Nea Moore HOBLER (1901 - )
George Alexander HOBLER (1864 - 1935)

+

Antoinette Gertrude van HEUCKELUM (1865 - 1951)
Francis Helvetius HOBLER (1825 - 1889) George HOBLER (1800 - 1882) James Francis Helvetius HOBLER (1765 - 1844)
Mary FURBY (1765 - 1846)
Ann TURNER (1801 - 1867) John A TURNER (1759 - )
Mary TREMLETT (1763 - )
Jessie Ann LEARMONTH (1838 - 1910) Alexander LEARMONTH (1809 - 1874) John Livingston LEARMONTH (1783 - 1863)
Margaret WATSON (1788 - 1872)
Mary Ann HORNCASTLE (1820 - 1838)




b. 18 Jan 1864 at Queensland, Australia
m. 16 Dec 1890 Antoinette Gertrude van HEUCKELUM (1865 - 1951) at Cairns, Queensland, Australia
d. 06 Oct 1935 at Mosman, New South Wales, Australia aged 71
Parents:
Francis Helvetius HOBLER (1825 - 1889)
Jessie Ann LEARMONTH (1838 - 1910)
Siblings (10):
Francis Helvetius (Frank) HOBLER (1860 - 1921)
Mary Louisa HOBLER (1861 - 1863)
Frederic Byerley HOBLER (1865 - 1902)
William Learmonth HOBLER (1867 - 1936)
Louis Edward HOBLER (1870 - 1946)
Walter Bucknall HOBLER (1870 - 1953)
Emily Jessie HOBLER (1871 - 1874)
Minnie HOBLER (1875 - 1962)
Ada May (Mary) HOBLER (1876 - 1877)
Agnes HOBLER (1878 - 1950)
Children (3):
Cyril Moore HOBLER (1891 - 1916)
Enid Moore HOBLER (1894 - 1959)
Nea Moore HOBLER (1901 - )
Events in George Alexander HOBLER (1864 - 1935)'s life
Date Age Event Place Notes Src
18 Jan 1864 George Alexander HOBLER was born Queensland, Australia 1864/C001358A
25 Jan 1889 25 Death of father Francis Helvetius HOBLER (aged 63) Queensland, Australia 1889/C004916
16 Dec 1890 26 Married Antoinette Gertrude van HEUCKELUM (aged 25) Cairns, Queensland, Australia 1890/C337
01 Nov 1891 27 Birth of son Cyril Moore HOBLER Queensland, Australia 1891/C002137
17 Jan 1894 29 Birth of daughter Enid Moore HOBLER Queensland, Australia 1894/C001585
02 May 1901 37 Birth of daughter Nea Moore HOBLER Queensland, Australia 1901/C011047
28 Apr 1910 46 Death of mother Jessie Ann LEARMONTH (aged 72) Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia 1910/C002965
29 Jul 1916 52 Death of son Cyril Moore HOBLER (aged 24) Pozieres, France
06 Oct 1935 71 George Alexander HOBLER died Mosman, New South Wales, Australia 22971/1935
Personal Notes:
Australian Dictionary of Biography
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090323b.htm

HOBLER, GEORGE ALEXANDER (1864-1935), railway engineer and administrator, was born on 18 January 1864 at Coorada, Upper Dawson district, Queensland, third child of English-born Francis Helvetius Hobler, squatter, and his Scottish wife Jessie Ann, née Learmonth, and grandson of George Hobler. After a state school education Hobler entered the Queensland Railways in January 1879 as a civil engineering cadet. In 1885 he was promoted from junior draughtsman to second-class assistant surveyor and in 1888 became assistant engineer on the Cairns line. He married Antoinette Gertrude van Heucklelum at St John's Church of England, Cairns, on 16 December 1890.

In 1892 Hobler was engaged to prepare the evidence for the Queensland government in the John Robb case. After the Supreme Court verdict of mid-1893 against Robb, who had claimed over £250,000 additional payment as contractor on the difficult second section (Redlynch to Myola) of the Cairns-Herberton railway, Hobler was promoted to district engineer. He was given charge of the construction of the mountain section of the line as far as Mareeba, and was subsequently appointed by the London trustees of the Chillagoe Railway and Mines Co. Ltd to supervise the continuation of the line to Chillagoe. He also supervised the building of the Chillagoe smelters (completed in 1901) and a wharf at Cairns. In 1909 he became inspecting engineer and in 1911 constructing engineer for lines throughout the State, including those built by local authorities under special Acts of parliament.

On 31 August 1912 Hobler joined the newly formed Commonwealth Railways in Melbourne as deputy-engineer-in-chief under Henry Deane for the construction of the transcontinental railway. Under an administrative rearrangement in April 1914 he was given charge of the civil engineering branch and in February 1918 he was appointed engineer (later chief engineer) of the way and works branch, Port Augusta, South Australia. Throughout World War I he held the appointment of honorary lieutenant-colonel, Railway Staff Corps.

Hobler was regarded as an expert on northern Australia. In November 1914 he travelled from Pine Creek to Bitter Springs (Mataranka), Northern Territory, along the proposed extension of the Pine Creek-Katherine River railway and next year reported to the Standing Committee on Public Works. In May-June 1920 he represented the Federal government on an expedition to the North-West and Kimberley district of Western Australia, organized by the Western Australian government and the North Australian Railway and Development League, to report on the country from Meekatharra to Wyndham. Hobler concluded that 'with proper development the country could carry a great population, and support numbers of wealth producing industries'; he advocated construction of a railway from Meekatharra across the desert to Newcastle Waters, Northern Territory, with branch lines to Wyndham, Derby, Port Hedland and Carnarvon. His exploring earned him a fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society (London).

Hobler retired from the Commonwealth Railways in 1926 when he joined the advisory North Australian Commission in Darwin. When the commission disbanded in 1931, Hobler moved to Mosman, Sydney, whence he travelled the world as an observer of railway systems. He died at Mosman on 6 October 1935 and was cremated; his ashes were scattered from an aircraft over Darwin. He was survived by his wife and two daughters; his son, Cyril, had been killed in the battle of the Somme in 1916.

Select Bibliography
Parliamentary Papers (Commonwealth), 1914-17, 4 (323, 344), 1920-21, 5 (58); Capricornian, 6 Nov 1926; Sydney Morning Herald, 8 Oct 1935; Hobler papers (MSS 1861, State Library of New South Wales); private information.

Author: A. E. Creelman

Print Publication Details: A. E. Creelman, 'Hobler, George Alexander (1864 - 1935)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 9, Melbourne University Press, 1983, pp 317-318.

This public tree has about 60,100 people. Every person in the tree is related by birth or marriage to at least one other person in the tree - no strays. The people in the tree come mainly from four projects.
  1. My family tree. The original project begun about 1998. ID numbers less than about 6,000
  2. Canberra and Queanbeyan Pioneers. The next 30,000 begun about 2004. Sourced almost entirely from HAGSOC's excellent 'Biographical Register of Canberra and Queanbeyan'. The project began when I decided to add siblings, spouses and parents for a relation with an entry in the Register. 12 years work.
  3. Wagga Pioneers. I moved to Wagga and thought I would extend the Queanbeyan project by adding people from Wagga Wagga & District Family History Society's 'Pioneers of Wagga Wagga and District'. About 10,300 people added over about a year.
  4. Tumut Valley Pioneers. During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, I decided to extend the above projects by adding pioneers of the Tumut Valley. Initial sources were Snowden's 'Pioneers of the Tumut Valley' and 'Relict of ... Lives of Pioneering Women of Tumut and District'. Excellent references published by Tumut Family History Group. I've also added material from newspapers of the time - especially, death records, obituaries and weddings from 'Tumut and Adelong Times'. This project is in its early stage and might take a few years. I plan to extend to the upper Monaro (Adaminaby, Kiandra, Cooma, Jindabyne).
I upload new information to this website about every 3 months. My motivation for these projects is to provide public information for people seeking to trace ancestors and what became of them. Much of the information I provide can be difficult to find.
If you find errors - anything incorrect (dates, places, wrong parents, wrong children), and you have evidence, I would love to fix them. Or, if you have information that would extend my projects, do not hestiate to contact me on the email link below. I do not publish information on living people - which means I'm not much interested in people born after about 1920, and I usually distrust material from before about 1770 without extremely good sources.
g.bell@bigpond.net.au
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