He started working in the Post Office in 1881 at fourteen years of age. His career took the family to numerous postings around NSW including Lismore (1881-90), Collarenabri (1890-92, where he was Posts and Telegraphs Master), Broke (near Singleton, 1892-96), Broke (P&T Master, 1898-99), Grafton, Upper Copmanhurst (1901-07), 1910 Grafton?, Katoomba (c.1913), Candelo (1914-24)
Harry married Martha Emma Stanborough at Petersham in 1888. They had eight children. Henry retired from the PMG Department in and lived at Parramatta
| Parents |
Family of Harry and Martha Best
- Clyde Edwin was born in 1888. When he was 19 years old he went to Fiji, where he married Viti Thomas of Lautoka in 1914 They lived first at Lautoka and moved to Suva in 1946. In 1964 they lived in Macgregor Road, Suva.
Clyde worked first in the Shipping Department of the Fiji firm, Morris Hedstrom, later moving to the Union Steamship Company as their Lautoka Agent.
He was a keen rifle shot, cricketer and tennis player until 1947 when he became handicapped in the leg from the results of a slight stroke.
Viti, too, enjoyed an active life, spending at least one morning each week when she was 70 giving voluntary assistance at the Bayly Clinic; she was also a regular visitor to the Pearce Home, and had a visiting list of several lonely old people on whom she would often call taking cakes and small gifts.
Clyde (and Viti?) visited Australia in 1939 and in the mid-60s and therefore had little contact with his immediate family. However he kept in regular touch with brothers Ossie and Les and sister, Lil.
Clyde and Viti had two children:
- Lily Isabel was born at Collarenabri in 1880.
She married Herbert Fowler at Katoomba NSW in 1913 and they had two daughters, Eileen and Dorothy.
- Eileen
- Dorothy married Bob Lewis (divorced?), then William Brown. Dorothy had one daughter Merle
- Eileen
- Oswald Henry was born in 1892 at Broke, NSW. He married Jane Ager in 1915 and they lived at Croydon. They had one son, Jack, born 1916.
- Beatrice was born at Singleton, NSW, in 1894. She married Alfred Acland in 1917 at Katoomba.
- Leslie Arthur was born at Broke, NSW, in May 1896. After war service he married Constance May Stoker in 1920. They lived at Belmore and had two sons and one daughter. Leslie died in 1970 at Belmore.
- Florence Gertrude was born at Upper Copmanhurst near Grafton, NSW, in 1900. She married John Arthur Thomas Hadley (a Postal Officer) at Katoomba in 1922. They had two sons, Bill and Henry (Harry) .
- Bill has a business at Blackheath, NSW.
- Henry (Harry) married Marjorie Daw and they live at Guildford, a Sydney suburb and had three children.
- Bill has a business at Blackheath, NSW.
- Emily May was born at Copmanhurst, NSW, in 1903. In 1925 she married Charles Baldwin
- Mary Gwendoline (Molly) was born at Grafton NSW in 1907. She married Kenneth Bradford in 1931 at Canterbury, NSW. Kenneth was a Postal Officer.
