Stories Above the Street • Cue

J. S. Hince

Baker, businessman, Road Board member and Justice of the Peace — John Stockwell Hince spent decades supplying and serving communities of the Murchison.

The daily bread of a goldfields town

Before sunrise, someone had to fire the ovens.

Mining might have created Cue, but ordinary trades kept the town alive. Among the most essential was the baker — producing one of the basic foods required every day by families, workers, travellers and businesses.

The name above the restored Austin Street sign belongs to John Stockwell Hince, a baker whose connection with the Murchison stretched across decades and eventually extended well beyond the bakery itself into local civic life.

At a glance

Full name: John Stockwell Hince
Trade: Baker
On the Murchison: by 1905
Cue heritage sign: 1907
Cue Road Board: elected 1934
Justice of the Peace: appointed 1935
Later life: Retired baker, Mosman Park
Died: 1947

A Murchison baker

Hince was baking on the goldfields before his name appeared above Cue.

Records place John Stockwell Hince in the East Murchison at Lawlers by 1905, where his occupation was already recorded as baker.

1905

Lawlers

A surviving family record identifies John Stockwell Hince as a baker at Lawlers, showing that his trade was already well established on the goldfields.

1907

Cue

The restored Austin Street sign carries the date 1907, remembering the establishment of Hince's bakery in Cue.

DECADES

A lifelong trade

More than forty years later Hince's probate record still described him by the occupation that had defined much of his working life: baker.

An essential trade

Gold might bring people to town. Bread helped keep them there.

A baker occupied a very different place in the community from many of the specialist businesses remembered above Austin Street.

Bread was not a luxury purchase. It was part of the everyday food supply of the town, meaning the bakery had to operate reliably regardless of heat, distance or the difficulties involved in bringing ingredients and fuel into an isolated district.

The baker therefore belonged to the ordinary infrastructure of community life — as necessary in his own way as the storekeeper, butcher, hotelkeeper or carrier.

Cue • c.1930s

Decades later, his name was still painted above the shop.

The State Library of Western Australia preserves this photograph of the premises during the 1930s. Above the verandah, the words “J. S. Hince — Baker” remain clearly visible.

Belvedere Tea Rooms and J S Hince Baker premises in Cue during the 1930s

J. S. Hince's name remains above the premises in a photograph dated broadly to the 1930s.

A streetscape with layers

The bakery name survived a change of use.

In the same photograph, the Belvedere Tea Rooms are also operating from the shopfront.

The State Library notes that Hince may have occupied the premises before the Tea Rooms. If so, the photograph captured an older bakery name remaining above a building already beginning another commercial chapter.

Rather than being contradictory, the two signs reveal the way goldfields buildings evolved — one business replacing another while traces of the past remained visible overhead.

Beyond the bakery

The town trusted its baker with more than bread.

By the 1930s John Stockwell Hince had become more than a local businessman.

On 8 September 1934 he was elected unopposed to the Cue Road Board. The official government record still listed his occupation simply as Baker.

Only months later, in March 1935, Hince was appointed a Justice of the Peace for the Murchison Magisterial District — a position reflecting standing and trust within the wider community.

Businessman & community representative

The initials above the shop belonged to a man involved in running the district.

1934

Cue Road Board

Hince was elected to represent the Cue Ward following the death of F. E. Pead. He was returned unopposed, and the Government Gazette recorded his occupation as baker.

1935

Justice of the Peace

On 28 March 1935 the Western Australian Government announced Hince's appointment as a Justice of the Peace for the Murchison Magisterial District.

The next generation

Baking continued in the Hince family.

John and his wife Elizabeth's son Charles Henry Hince was born at Sandstone in 1913.

Charles later married in Cue and also worked as a baker while living in Austin Street, suggesting that the trade became part of a second generation of Hince family life in the district.

Later electoral information records Charles still working as a baker in Cue during the 1950s — decades after his father's name first became associated with the trade.

From bread to afternoon tea

One photograph links two different Austin Street stories.

The Hince bakery and the Belvedere Tea Rooms should be remembered as separate businesses, but their histories appear to meet in the same premises.

The old photograph preserves both names at once — J. S. Hince — Baker above and the Belvedere advertising below. It is a perfect example of how Austin Street changed without completely erasing what had come before.

Two pages, one building

J. S. Hince → Belvedere Tea Rooms

The bakery tells the earlier story. The Belvedere page continues the later one — afternoon teas, meals and ice cream in the same evolving streetscape.

LATER YEARS

From Cue to Mosman Park

By the end of his life Hince had left Cue and was living at 115 Monument Street, Mosman Park. His occupation in the probate record was given as Retired Baker.

1947

Remembered as a baker of Cue

His probate notice described him formally as “John Stockwell Hince, formerly of Cue … Baker” — preserving the association between his name, his trade and the town decades after the restored sign's 1907 date.

A life on the Murchison

John Stockwell Hince.

1905

Recorded as a baker at Lawlers in the East Murchison.

1907

Date remembered on the restored J. S. Hince bakery sign in Cue.

1934

Elected unopposed to the Cue Road Board.

1935

Appointed Justice of the Peace for the Murchison Magisterial District.

c.1930s

His bakery sign remains visible above premises associated with the Belvedere Tea Rooms.

1947

Dies after a working life still formally remembered as that of a Cue baker.

Modern J S Hince Baker heritage sign above Austin Street Cue

Stories Above the Street

The baker's name is above Cue once again.

The restored sign carries the simple wording “1907 — J. S. Hince — Baker.”

What those few words do not reveal is that the baker behind them became a member of the Cue Road Board, a Justice of the Peace and part of a family whose connection with baking in Cue continued into another generation.

Now down the road from the Belvedere Tea Rooms sign today, the Hince sign also recreates the layering visible in the historic photograph — two different chapters of Austin Street history remembered side by side.

Historical note

Official Western Australian records identify J. S. Hince as John Stockwell Hince. Government Gazette records confirm his election to the Cue Road Board in 1934, with his occupation recorded as baker, and his appointment as a Justice of the Peace in 1935. His 1947 probate notice describes him as formerly of Cue, baker, and later a retired baker of Mosman Park. The restored sign carries the date 1907; this page preserves that date as part of the heritage signage while distinguishing it from independently verified government records. The State Library of Western Australia notes that Hince may have occupied the photographed premises before the Belvedere Tea Rooms.