Frederick John Shirtliff was born in 1903 in Sussex England to Frederick Edward Dickenson Shirtliff (1863-1920) and Gertrude Heathcote Jeeves (1865-1959). In November 1912, the family migrated to Sydney on the Beltana arriving on 18 January 1913. The family’s movements from that period are unknown until John married Dulcie Alice White in 1942 at Granville. Born in 1909, Dulcie was 33 years old at the time of her marriage. John and Dulcie went to Tahmoor in around 1945 and opened a butcher’s shop on the main road attached to acres. They raised pigs and cattle and lived on the property with their family. John delivered meat to customers in a red van that kept going for years. In September 1954, he advertised three blocks of land for sale near Tahmoor station with an asking price of £155 for three. Today, those three blocks would likely fetch close to three quarters of a million dollars, not to mention his acreage on the main road. John Shirtliff died in 1979 and was buried at Thirlmere. Dulcie later remarried and retired to McLean in 1990.