Arthur Saxon

Arthur Victor Saxon, known as Arty, was born on 26 March 1919 in Gowrock, Scotland. His parents and six siblings left London on 12 November 1927 on the passenger ship Orama. Mr Arthur Saxon senior was listed as a “general farmer”. The children ranged in age from 13 years to four months. Arty was a nine-year-old school aged lad.

Arty joined the workforce after school. He was a plasterer when World War 2 broke out. Arty enlisted in the 2nd Australian Imperial Force in 1939. He trained to be a boxer and fought in army competitions. Later he achieved considerable success in professional bouts.

Arthur Saxon married Dorothy Jean in 1940. Together they raised several children.

Arty left the army in 1948. He worked in one or two different jobs before joining a crew on a fishing boat. He lived with his family in Perth and fished out of Fremantle. In the crayfishing season he went to Geraldton to catch the whites [migrating] crayfish and onto the Abrolhos Islands for the season there.

In 1952 Arty was based on Basile Island in the southern group of the Abrolhos Islands. Dorothy joined him with their son Joe. Arty worked the shallow water in a scooter [a small catcher boat] called Pix G51, working for Clyde Gregory. The crayfish went onto a carrier boat that carted the catch for the other boats into Geraldton. Arty received a share of the proceeds of his catch.

In 1957 Arty worked on Benghazi with Laurie Akerstrom. They worked the whites season at Seven Mile Beach, Dongara, dropping their pots in the breakers. One morning Benghazi got caught in a series of breakers that pounded against the boat in rapid succession. She was destroyed in a matter of minutes, and the men were left clinging to pieces of the wreckage. They spent an hour and a half struggling against the tide to reach the beach. They had a two mile [3.2 km] walk before they managed to catch a lift back to Dongara, exhausted but none the worse for their close shave.

That was not Arty’s only brush with danger. In 1958 he worked aboard the Aisla Craig G176 with James Litchen-Burger. They fished the crays at Geraldton and then moved their operation to Big Pigeon Island in the Wallabi group. On 3 August Aisla Craig went aground on the reef at Point Moore. The men spent a miserable night on the reef before being rescued by Phil Miragliotta on Carmen Marie. Again, Arty was unhurt.

In 1960 Arty was at the Wallabi group for the island season, skippering the 32-foot Victory, with D Cooper as his deckhand. On 6 March the Victory suddenly started taking on water. She sank almost immediately. The deckhand managed to get the dinghy in the water, and the men escaped the sinking crayboat. They were in deep water, and 19 miles [30.6 kms] from shore. The two men rowed for 12 hours before they reached shore, near Horrocks. They managed to get a lift to Geraldton. Both men were unhurt.

Arty’s final island season was in 1964 at Rat Island. That was the year his luck ran out. On Friday 12 June he left his boat on its moorings in his dinghy. Other islanders saw him between 5 and 6 pm as he started pulling for the shore. Then he disappeared. The next day Arty’s dinghy was found about three miles [4.8 kms] away at Eagles Nest. There was no sign of Arty anywhere. The islanders started a search. One of his sons was crayfishing at the islands and was involved in the search for him.

Police were contacted by radio. At 4am on 14 June Police Constable P Harwood set out for Rat Island on the fishing vessel Maria to lead the search being carried out by the fishermen.

There was no trace of Arthur Saxon, and he was not seen again. He was 44 years old. He left his wife Dorothy and his children behind.

Further sadness struck the family two months later when Arthur and Dorothy’s youngest daughter Ellen passed away suddenly on 2 August at the children’s hospital in Perth at the age of 11 years. Ellen was buried in Karrakatta Cemetery in the Wesleyan section with others of the Saxon family.