Winifred Corkling Postcard Album

This stunning album contains over 60 postcards sent by Clyde - a merchant seaman - to his fiancée Winnie in Brisbane, between 1915 & 1916.

During the Japanese Meiji period (1869-1912) albums were popular souvenirs, for tourists visting the recently opened exotic land.

The front cover is black lacquerware inlaid with mother of pearl, depicting a bird in a blossoming tree. The inner pages are silk lined and hand painted with images of foliage and birds. The pages have threaded corners to take postcards.

Winifred Thorn Corkling, born in 1885, was one of six girls born to Frank and Annie Corkling in Highgate Hill, Brisbane. Her fiancée Richard 'Clyde' Beech – was a merchant seaman who served with his brother Cyril on the SS Echunga. He sent postcards from ports around the world including: Suez Canal, Hull, Rouen, Durban, St Vincent, New York, Hong Kong, Nagasaki, and Vladivostok.

SS Echunga was chartered in April 1915 and left for Calcutta via Port Kembla, Albany and Colombo. Loaded with rice, she sailed for Buenos Aires, then with a cargo of maize, made her way via Rio de Janeiro, St Vincent and Madeira to Hull. This was followed by a voyage to New York and Savannah for a cargo of war-material, which was then taken to Vladivostok via The Cape. After docking at Nagasaki, she returned to Melbourne, loaded flour for Bordeaux and eventually in February 1917, was taken over by the Admiralty at Middleborough and converted to an oil tanker. Her Australian officers and crew (except 27 who joined the British forces) returned to Australia.

Clyde's postcards cease in 1916 (or they weren't retained). On 5 September 1917,  SS Echunga was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk in the English Channel, nine lives were lost.

What lies behind the postcards, are windows into the lives of Clyde and Winnie. One card in particular tell us about their long distance relationship - written from Rouen, France in November 1915 -

“I say dear, I shall be glad when my seafaring days are over, as soon as this war is finished then good by to the sea & settle down in Hull (You & I) “Eh” little girl. Ta Ta for the present & long sweet kisses from your dearest boy - Clyde.”

Before he joined the merchant navy, Clyde Beech had worked as a warder at the Diamantina Hospital, South Brisbane, where Winifred had spent much time as a patient.  Sadly Winifred Corkling died in 1921, probably as a result of influenza, she never married. 

Shipping records show Clyde travelling to Hamburg, Germany in 1921. Richard Clyde Beech married Moira Connolly in May 1940, they had three children; he died in May 1955.

We are so thankful to the family of Winifred who thought to donate this marvelous legacy. We are able to relate to those, who although they did not serve with the armed forces during the First World War, their lives were changed irrevocably because of it.

View the collection

7344 Winifred Corkling postcard album

View the individual postcards

Read more ...

A W Jose, The Royal Australian Navy, 1914–1918, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, Volume IX (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1941) Appendix 6. Merchant Ships in government war-service