Information for this article was provided by the Milton Ulladulla Family History Society. The Fitch family land on the northern side of Wason Street, on the corner of the Princes Highway and overlooking the harbour, has been listed for sale.
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The Fitch family first arrived in Ulladulla in the late 1850s, when Charles Fitch began working on David Warden’s property ‘Wandaree’.
Charles and his wife Harriet Fitch arrived in Hobart, Australia from England on December 13, 1842 with their young son Thomas Henry Fitch, who is said to have been aged “two or three”.
Several years later, they settled in Ullladulla, opening a small store near the harbour and then a shop at the site where the Marlin Hotel now stands.
Charles drowned in a boating accident off Mollymook in 1864.
Their son Thomas married 19-year-old Dinah Pattemore in Milton in 1866 when he was 25 years old. Dinah had arrived from England with her parents, and the couple went on to have 10 children. Thomas was the Ulladulla agent for the Illawarra South Coast Steam Navigation company.
One of the couple’s sons, Frederick William Fitch, born on December 7, 1886, worked at Howards, now Millards Cottage, as a youth.
In 1991, he married Ida Veitch from Mogo. When the pair met, Ida was the relieving post mistress at Ulladulla.
After the two were married, they purchased the house at 23 Wason Street, which still stands today. Ida then became the permanent post mistress, operating the service from the residence from 1912.
Frederick would ride a horse to work at Blackburns Store in Milton until 1923, when the couple started their own newsagent from their Wason Street address.
Ida retired from the post after 52 years of service, 42 of them as post mistress, in September 1954.
The pair had three children, Colin Fitch born in 1914, Zella Fitch in 1916 and Kevin Fitch in 1926.
Zella married Richard Sydney Pritchard in 1946 and had two children. They moved to Parkes where Richard was deputy shire engineer, before returning to Nowra where he joined the Shoalhaven Shire Council and then the department of main roads in Wollongong.
Kevin married Joyce Howes and had two children, William and Marilyn.
Colin married Rona Rodda, who came from Wollongong to teach at Ulladulla Public School, in 1950 and they had two children. Their daughter Angel, who married Pat Keegan, also went on to teach at the school.
After a lifetime of service to the district, Colin passed away in 1973. During his life, he was a councillor, the founding treasurer of the Milton Ulladulla Bowling Club, president of the Milton-Ulladulla Hospital Board, and president of the Ulladulla Public School parents and citizens association for 25 years.