Albert Edmund Good

Biography

Albert Edmund Good, also recorded as Alfred Edmund Good, was a coach driver whose working life spanned the change from horse-drawn coaches to motor services in South Australia, the Australian state whose capital is Adelaide. In a 1949 newspaper interview, he recalled driving routes through Victor Harbor, Goolwa, Willunga and Mount Pleasant. He described taking the last five-horse coach from Adelaide to Mount Pleasant in 1919, with 25 passengers aboard.

In 1920 he began a motor service to Mannum. Looking back over 23 years, he estimated that he had travelled nearly a million miles. After losing the mail contract, he operated an Eden Valley service. These details come from his own recollections as reported by the Chronicle. He also recalled Light Horse service and guard duty at the Frome Road camp during the South African War; that account does not establish overseas service.

Good said he had been born at Dalby, inland from Brisbane in Queensland, and named his father as Thomas Charles Good. His brother-in-law Harry Alexander had encouraged the Goods to settle at Renmark, on the Murray River in South Australia, before they moved to Payneham, a suburb of Adelaide. By 1949 he had lived in Ackland Street, Adelaide, for about thirty years.

The family research identifies him with the Alfred Edmund Good registered in Queensland in 1879 and with the Albert Edmund Good in South Australian marriage and death indexes for 1908 and 1956. Kathleen Hammont Good’s 1912 birth index names Albert Edmund as her father. The connection to Elizabeth Mary, or May, Anderson as his wife remains a supported probable identification.

He also recalled that his grandfather had served as a Royal Navy chaplain. His account included routes through Hindmarsh Valley and Oakbank and described the Eden Valley run as ninety miles, seven days a week, with a double journey on Saturdays. He recalled a £550 mail contract and a competing government tender of £350.