George Lewis Becke
| George Lewis Becke | |
|---|---|
| Born |
June 18, 1855 Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | February 18, 1913 (aged 57) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Known for | short-story writer and novelist |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Becke, (née Maunsell) |
| Parents |
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George Lewis Becke (or Louis Becke; 18 June 1855 – 18 February 1913) was an Australian Pacific trader, short-story writer and novelist.
Becke was born at Port Macquarie, New South Wales, son of Frederick Becke, Clerk of Petty Sessions and his wife Caroline Matilda, née Beilby. Both parents were born in England. Becke was the ninth of twelve children and had a tendency to wander; he has stated that before he was 10 he had twice run away from home. The family moved to Hunters Hill, Sydney in 1867 and Becke was educated at Fort Street High School.
In 1869, Becke travelled to San Francisco with his brother William Vernon and was away for nineteen months. At 16 years of age, Becke was a stowaway on a ship bound for Samoa. In Apia he took a job as a book-keeper in the store of Mrs Mary Mcfarlane which he held until some time after December 1872. Under orders of Mrs Mcfarlane, Becke sailed a ketch, the E.A. Williams to Mili Atoll to deliver it to William "Bully" Hayes, the notorious blackbirder. Beck arrived at Mili Atoll on 17 January 1874. Becke remained as a passenger on the Leonora, until the ship was wrecked on 15 March 1874 during a storm while in Lele harbour at Kosrae. It was seven months until HMS Rosario rescued Becke and the others. Becke was later arrested for piracy, but was acquitted in Brisbane at age 19. Then he tried his luck at the Palmer River goldrush, was employed at Ravenswood station and from 1878–79 worked as a bank clerk in Townsville, Queensland. The story Nell of Mulliner's Camp is set in a mining camp in North Queensland.
From about April 1880 Becke was in the Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) working with the Liverpool firm of John S. de Wolf and Co. on Nanumanga until the trading-station was destroyed later that year in a cyclone. In February 1881 he opened his own store in Nukufetau, where he married Nelea Tikena. The stories that Louis Becke set in the Ellice Islands are: The Fisher Folk of Nukufetau that describes a fishing expedition, The Rangers of the Tia Kau that describes a shark attack at the Tia Kau reef between Nanumea and Nanumanga, and Kennedy the Boatsteere that describes an attempt by a trader on Niutao to escape with a woman betrothed to a Niutaon chief, which ends in tragedy.
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