Australia’s ABC National Radio recently (23rd Feb 2014) broadcast an episode of the history documentary series “Hindsight” that you may well enjoy: entitled The Somerton Man: A mystery in four acts, it was written and produced by Ruth Balint, a senior lecturer at the UNSW School of Humanities and Languages. (A tip of the Somerton Man’s missing hat to Shane M and Furphy for emailing me about this, much appreciated!)
Cipher Mysteries regulars may well remember Balint’s name from her piece on the Somerton Man that was published in Cultural Studies Review in 2010, though its mentions of Carlo Ginzburg (who I’ve blogged about many times) may well have gone over many readers’ heads… nobody (apart from a certain imaginative kind of hardcore historian) seems much taken by him, which is a bit odd. Ah well!
However, it has to be said that – as you’d broadly expect, extrapolating forward from Balint’s CSR article – the Hindsight episode didn’t really break any new ground. In fact, most of it is comprised of her mooching good-naturedly around Somerton Man-related sites with Gerry Feltus, pretty much everybody’s favourite retired Aussie cold case copper. But all the same, I think it’s more than entertaining enough to be worth a listen if you have 40-odd minutes to spare.
As for whether we will ever move this forward, I have to say that I really don’t know. While I was guardedly optimistic about the Somerton Man at the beginning of this year (2014), the whole “Jestyn” angle has now gone particularly cold: so unless someone has a splendidly good idea about how to find out if a Mr “Styn” or “Stijn” was admitted to RNSH in about 1943, I suspect my bucket of leads is currently pretty much empty.
I also had some information from a reliable historical source recently that “when Robin and Kate were born, both Prosper and Jessica put their details on the official birth certificates and signed it as mother and father”. Of course, any self-respecting conspiracy theorist will respond to this by saying “well they would, wouldn’t they?“, which would probably just go to show that Somerton Man theorists love facts so much that they can’t resist also believing the 180-degree opposite of any given fact. And in such a dialectically neutral-balanced world, what chance do we stand of making any real progress?
Nick: Dr Balint mentioned in her cultural studies review: page 170 / volume 16 / number 2 / sept 2010 –
I can quote “Trying on the dead man’s trousers for size, the forensic pathologist discovered a carefully folded scrap of paper in the fob pocket … etc”
I’m doing a little forensic work on the inquest papers and cannot find any mention of Cleland trying on the trousers. He tried on both coats, Cowan tried on shoes and slippers.
Pete: sounds like a typo on Balint’s part. But wouldn’t it be good if we could get access to all the original notes, rather than just the Coronial Inquest reports?
– which leads to another question, where we’re Cowan and Cleland when they were trying on the wardrobe?
The morgue?
– or did they have a private and unwitnessed session with the evidence?
…. which leads to another question, who put the slip of paper into the fob pocket?
additionally: Colonel van Rensberg, the station commander at the time of the current Pistorius incident in SA, resigned when it was learnt that the bathroom door was kept in his office and not in the evidence room.
He was not accused of tampering with the evidence, but the evidence was available and could be handled and examined in his office without any official record being made. This standard of security existed in 1948, evidence was locked up and anybody who wished to examine it would have been booked in and out.
Did Sir John Cleland and Mr Cowan take the evidence from the security of the Adelaide police station lock up, and try on the clothes elsewhere, or was it done in the station.
Remembering that these men were highly respected and highly qualified, almost untouchable.
Can anyone suggest an answer as to why they felt they had to do this, the body had been available for viewing for so long it had begun to decompose.
………..
Incidentally, at age eighty, Sir John Cleland had to forego plans to travel to New Guinea because of ill health; he intended to enquire as to the nature of the recipes used by some of the Highland tribes used to cook and eat human flesh.
Pete, the old school Holmes & Watson types always were a bit dotty, but we couldn’t make background like that up if we tried!
Logically speaking, in a case like this, if (big if) anyone planted evidence in a fob pocket, it would have to be in small window of time around SM’s death — the later the “planter” left it, the greater the risk that the pocket had been searched and found empty? I’m inclined to think that the pocket just wasn’t noticed.
That’s why we are looking at the source Furph, if there was any manipulation of the truth, that is the only place it can be found.
Everything I wrote about Jestyn was a lie, I have no evidence for any of those claims and I made them up in the QANTAS Club, hence my nom de plum. I am committed to destroying Jestyn’s reputation as I personally believe she was a murderess.
Shame that the author refers to him as “Prof. Thomas Cleland”… Kind of puts things off.
She also claims that the suitcase was found two weeks later (after the body was found). The suitcase, according to DA’s timeline, was found on January 14, 1949.
Misca: the suitcase was found by railway staff on the 14th, and left at the luggage office until the 19th.
The suitcase was given to Det Sgt Leane on the 19th.
The suitcase remained, unsecured, in the luggage office for 6 days.
Thanks Pete! It’s incredible, isn’t it? Coroner’s trying on clothes for size, stuff left out in the open, crime scenes unprotected and un-photographed, evidence that goes “poof”! the investigative files look like a grade three report! It’s a wonder they solved anything back then!
misca: we still have the coroner’s report, that’s where the gold is
Nick: the jestyn inscription, given that were many different fonts in 1948 – could that suspect ‘e’ be a G?
CSI came latter, Police work at the time was to round up the usual suspects. There was still a distrust of science.
Pete – Robert Cowan was the one who determined that poisons were not present in SM’s body. Everyone else seems to have relied on his findings. Could he have been wrong? He is referred to as a “Dr.” in the coroner’s report but seems to have been an “analyst”. (Maybe he had a PHD but it doesn’t seem so…) He’s in the Encyclopedia of Australian Science…
Robert James Cowan was Director of Chemistry, Government Analyst, Chief Inspector of Explosives, and Chief Gas Examiner in South Australia. He was also Deputy Government Analyst from 1947 and Government Analyst from 1950 for the South Australian Government Department of Chemistry. Cowan was educated University of Melbourne (BSc).
1923 – 1926 Career position – Biochemist at the Commonwealth Department of Health in Port Pirie (South Australia) and Rockhampton (Queensland)
1927 – 1937 Career position – Biochemist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital
1937 – 1947 Career position – Biochemist at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science
1947 – 1950 Career position – Deputy Government Analyst for the South Australian Government Department of Chemistry
View the full record at Encyclopedia of Australian Science
“I was astounded that he found nothing, as I thought he would.”
misca: Cowan looked for common poisons in the stomach contents, blood and urine. Dwyer sent the stomach contents, blood and urine for testing.
The inquest papers are not presented in chain of evidence order.
This work I’m doing at the moment has a few more surprises as well.
Pete – I’m looking forward to seeing the work that yore doing and the resulting surprises!
Pete, there is a cover-up of sorts, or at least obfuscation, involved with Deputy Government Analyst Cowan’s evidence. In the absence of his notes and other records we will never be sure about some of the details, but his evidence, and the slightly strange statements of support for Cowan’s finding by Sir Stanton Hicks and Dr. Dwyer, sound like “merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.” (W. S. Gilbert.)
I will try to keep the following as brief and concise as possible, but the matter is very technical and would take a small book to fully describe, so I will have to side-step a lot of detail.
First, and most importantly, the chemical analytical methods available to the South Australia Government Analyst (and everyone else) in 1948/49 were not capable of detecting many poisons, including digitalis, in autopsy samples. Yes, there are cases where it appears that chemical analysis was used to detect digitalis, but you will find that this was only possible where some undigested portions of tablets were recovered from the stomach contents.
Second, it is by no means certain that Cowan had in fact performed any of the analyses that he reported to the coroner. I seem to remember that it was stated somewhere that Cowan was on holidays at the time. In any case, it is quite likely that the analyses were performed under Cowan’s (or his delegate’s) supervision. At the time the SOP was that analyses would have been carried out as soon as possible because of the potential degradation of some poisons in stored samples. SM was just another anonymous corpse at the time, and the Government Analysts were expecting an ordinary case and carried out the routine battery of tests for the common poisons. It was only later that the possibility of digitalis poisoning was raised. I note that Cowan did not mention testing for digitalis and seems to dance around the matter. In any case Cowan would have known that testing for digitalis in the autopsy samples was pointless because toxic levels were not high enough to be detected by the methods available (but why didn’t he say so?).
Third, the chemical assay methods available at the time required large samples, and were destructive tests. That is, a significant portion of the original sample had to be used for each test, and each sub-sample was essentially destroyed during each test. So, this limited the number of tests that could be carried out. Today the various instrumental analytical methods such as mass spectrometry use very little of the sample.
So, I think that the Government analysts had used up all the samples before digitalis was suggested, and before the case became “important”. I doubt if personages such as Sir Stanton Hicks or Professor Cleland appeared, or took an interest in, most coronial inquiries involving poisonings. For me, this indicates that the SM case was thought by the illustrious to involve more that a possible murder or suicide.
The possibility of atropine poisoning was mentioned but it is significant that no test for atropine was made. At the time there was a sensitive biological test for atropine (using a frog’s heart). I suspect that this test was not performed because all of the samples had been used up in previous testing.
BD: I’ve got two retired policeman and an acting Court Registrar as my table of knowledge – and the thought of having a witness asking additional questions of other witnesses ‘astounded ‘them.
Prof Cleland was both.
– and you will not have to look far for issues of ….. ambiguity, as the hearing goes on on tomsbytwo.
Then we will put it all back together again in chain of event order, after including certain relevant events in both Lawson’s and Brown’s notes.
I hope you are enjoying it, and thanks for the background on Mr Cowan.
My theory is that Somerton man was Jestyns biological father
B Deveson: I asked the SA Coroner several months ago if all these secondary notes can be released, but have so far had no reply. I guess this is pretty far down everyone’s lists of things to be concerned with. 🙁
Smerdon: great theory… errr, why?
Nick: remember the “E” in J styn … could that be a “G”?
font-wise,
Pete: I don’t think so… but I’ll freely admit that I’ve yet to be convinced by any other account of the “Jestyn” signature I’ve heard.
Hi Misca,
I think that Cowan’s evidence was very flimsy and very poorly presented. There was nothing solid at all; the evidence is all too vague to be useful. And yet Cowan got away with it, and this begs the question – just what was really going on?
You queried if Cowan could have been wrong in his tests. I don’t think he would have been wrong in the sense of making errors in the testing, and in the interpretation of the tests that he did (or were done for him by underlings). But, he didn’t not tell the court of all the limitations of the tests and the limitations of the results. In particular, he should have known that it was not possible to detect lethal levels of digitalis in autopsy samples, unless some undigested table was recovered. This all begs a lot of questions.
Lethal concentrations of digitalin in blood, urine etc are only in the range of 10 nanograms per millilitre. To put that in perspective, 10 nanograms per mL is 10 parts in a billions, or a distance of one millimetre in 100 kilometres. The analytical methods available in 1948/49 were not capable of detecting these very low levels. I can say this because I was once a Commonwealth Government Official Analyst (similar to a State Government Analyst) in the area of pharmaceutical materials. I have analysed digitalin tablets many times and I have given evidence as an expert witness in the area of pharmaceutical analysis.
I would be more likely to doubt Cowan’s findings if he did have a PhD! The reasons why I say this are because to have a PhD in Australia at the time often meant that you were an idiot son from a wealthy family. Too dumb to be let loose in the family business. Australian Universities did not offer PhD courses until 1956 so it was open to the wealthy to send their sons overseas to gain a higher degree. There were next to no scholarships available, so the poor had to make do with technical diplomas from night school at Technical Colleges.
Fabian socialists captured the Australian Universities in the early 1920s and one result was that applied sciences such as analytical chemistry were pushed out of the Universities into the Technical Colleges. Australian Universities did not have a single chair in analytical chemistry until the 1980s although many of the University chemistry graduates usually ended up in the area of analytical chemistry.
I do note that Cowan’s career up until the time he became Deputy Government Analyst (1947) was in the area of biochemistry. Certainly, biochemistry at the time involved many of the techniques used in forensic analyses. But, having been a chemical analyst in the era before instrumental methods of analysis really started to dominate (from about 1970) I think there is a possibility that Cowan may not have been fully up to speed with all aspects of the analysis for poisons.
My father started out as a chemical analyst in the 1920s in a State (Victoria) Government Department and he eventually changed careers because promotion was based on social standing, not ability. The idiot sons of the Bunyip aristocracy who were too dumb to be let loose in the family business tended to get the better Government jobs. In my case I once worked for such an idiot son of the Adelaide squatocracy, so I know from first hand.
I think it would be worth while to establish the social standing of Robert Cowan to see if he might have been an “idiot son” promoted beyond his competence. Maybe, maybe not.
I get the impression that Prof. Cleland and Dr Dwyer were falling over themselves to save Cowan from embarrassment (or was there something else involved?). Whether this was a reflection of Cowan’s social standing, or not, I don’t know, but we should be able to find out.
If it turns out that Cowan did not have high social standing in Adelaide then that would raise even more questions.
BD: Mr Cowan was not able to tell what the substance was that came out of the brush that was found in the suitcase.
Chalk? Powdered chemical colour? Powdered paint?
How many substances would be on a brush like that?
Would a pathologist use a brush like that … in an autopsy?
– was Cowan disinclined to search too hard, again.
BD/Pete – It’s a little tricky to find information on him. He was born in Waaia, Victoria in 1900. Died in May of 1959. Appointed as a Bio-Chemist in 1938. Via Trove, he appears in a flurry of about 12 articles (starting with SM in 1949) until 1953. After that, nothing. The articles are generally cases of interest where he is “director of chemistry”, “chief inspector of explosives”, “Deputy Gov. Analyst”, etc…TE Cleland and Dwyer are also involved in some of these. (Not particularly unusual; but interesting.) In many of the articles he is listed as “Robert James Cowan of Kintore Ave” and once “of Fisher Street”. Rarely does his testimony appear to be key to a case. In one he is quoted as stating that the victim was “probably not intoxicated”…That’s about all I’ve found for now.
Wally Clayton, the Sydney based communist party chieftain at the time, recruited people from all sorts of Govt Depts for their information – Gerry Feltus said there were ‘spies’ everywhere.
Communist, Russian, American, Australian, the Cambridge 5.
Was Cowan our mole?
Pete – Well, he took one trip in 1940. He travelled from Australia to the U.S. via British Columbia arriving in B.C. on 4 August, 1940. He listed his occupation as “Bio-Chemist” and he was travelling as a “Government Official”. I haven’t found when he returned as yet. There were two other Australians listed on the same manifest but I have no idea if they were travelling with him or not. They were Anna Marie Fitzgerald (home domestic) and Leander Edmund Fitzgerald (Journalist, University).
misca – He was involved in explosives, they blew things up in woomera – that’s as raw as the link is – pretty desperate I know – but I have his photo, and wouldn’t you know, he’s wearing a hat.
misca: This is what an enquiring mind does at 2am. Cowan was not able to tell what the substance was that came out of the brush. A pretty basic exercise in determination for a chemist, don’t you think?
Without the complexities of poison, yet he still came up with a negative. Leane asked him to carry out the test, maybe that was the problem, Raymond Leane saw it another way, he said that despite everything he knew, murder was not abolished.
Pete, the subjects of espionage and counterintelligence in Australia the Cold War are a foggy and dimly lit byway, in which few facts stand out clearly, leading to a lot of supposition. If recent books, articles and documentaries (e.g. the SBS TV series _Persons of Interest_) are to be believed, the CPA was used by as a political football by all concerned. That included the Soviets, who – judging by evidence from other countries as well – generally used the western communist parties as decoys, and preferred to do their recruiting among people who had not already attracted the attention of organisations like the FBI, MI5 or ASIO. While the likes of Clayton have attracted the most attention, the really important Soviet agents in Australia are probably unknown, in part because they stayed under the radar: i.e. they were either recruited offshore, or from Australians acting out of other motives (e.g. financial gain). I don’t know if Cowan or anyone else was was in the second group, but I suspect that SM was in the first group. (For instance, there is some evidence that Czechoslovakian agents were the Soviets’ preferred surrogates in Australia during the ’50s, although SM could easily have originated from any other English speaking country or anywhere in eastern/northern Europe.)
A good find Misca! Cowan, travelling to B.C. and the USA on SA Government business. There is a very strong chance his business was all about organising supplies of uranium from Mt Painter.
The ship he was on was the Aorangi:
“In October, 1940 with the war already raging in Europe the Aorangi still a passenger liner departed New Zealand filled with troops for Fiji. Then up to the end of May 1941 the ship was transporting troops and airmen from Australia to Canada. But in June 1941 she was requisitioned by the British Ministry of War Transport and the Aorangi sailed from Sydney to the United Kingdom in order to be converted for war duty.”
BD – It’s really difficult to read the manifest but under reason for his visit he states something to the effect that he is there to meet with a Professor “P.I” or “F.I” “Kirk” at the University of California at Berkeley. So…Could be!
I found a Paul L Kirk
“Paul Kirk was a pharmacist, forensic scientist and participant in the Manhattan Project.” He was also a “professor of biochemistry at UC Berkeley”.
MANHATTAN PROJECT ……. misca!
That is the Holy Grail!
thanks very much
pete
Dr. Paul Kirk was a forensic scientist.
Paul Leland Kirk (1902- 1970)
From the University of California Memorial:
“The death of Paul Leland Kirk, Emeritus Professor of Criminalistics, June 5, 1970, brought an end to the brilliant and innovative career of one of Berkeley’s most unusual and productive men of science. From a position of distinction and renown in biochemistry, his interest in applying scientific knowledge and techniques to the field of criminal investigation brought him ultimately to international recognition and made him the dominant figure in the emerging discipline of criminalistics.
Dr. Kirk was associated with Berkeley from the conclusion of his graduate studies in 1927 to his death. The only exception was his involvement with the Manhattan Project during the war years. He first received recognition as a microchemist, bringing to this discipline a talent and artistry that soon made him a leader in the field.”
He was a bio-chemist, he worked on the Manhatten Project, and he later spent the last two decades (1950-1970) of his life specializing in his interest in “criminalistics”.
He was all of these things…And he met with Robert James Cowan in August of 1940.
(C)Leland Kirk… How is the irony .. and for the 1st time the Tamam Shud mystery can be linked to the Atomic Bomb, the Venona Project and Woomera / Maralinga.
Marvellous!
Pingback: Eureka! The Tamam Shud Mystery linked to the Atomic Bomb | the somerton man. the tamam shud mystery
Just to confirm some other information that can be found on the manifest. In answering with name of nearest relative or friend in country whence alien came, RJC listed:
“Mrs. A G. Cowan, 128 Fisher Street, Fullarton, S.A.”
(His wife was Alice Grace Reece – b.1895 – 1983 and they are buried together at Centennial Park Cemetery)
In answering whether going to join a relative or friend, he stated:
“Trip to USA 8 days ℅ Professor P.L. Kirk, University of California Berkeley (illegible word) return Aust.”
Also listed on the manifest is that he purchased his ticket on 9 July, 1940. The Aorangi had a sister ship (the RMS Niagara). That ship was struck by a mine laid by auxiliary cruiser Orion and sank with no casualties on 19 June, 1940. The Niagara had a secret consignment of gold in it’s stronghold when it went down (595 gold bars; most of which was later recovered)…
Lots of interesting stuff but, it must have been quite an important trip for him to take for him to leave so shortly after this event!
Wonder if Joy Denbigh-Russell was known to these men?
Dwyer was “confounded” Now we know how…. and who. You want to come over and watch Nick? ….. see the pieces all get slotted in.
Well…Something was definitely going on…It sounds like perhaps a request for examination of unusual/uncommon poisons had been made and that, for some reason, it wasn’t carried out. Why no submission of the analysis request in the files? (There was one in the Magnoson case and it’s in the files accordingly.) Why was Robert J Cowan addressed directly through Sutherland? Cowan seemingly only signs off the paperwork in other investigations and yet here, he’s personally involved? Perhaps Dwyer was “astounded” because he had asked for more sophisticated testing and it was not forthcoming?
John B Cleland also requested a cast of the SM’s unusually large hands and of his skull. Lawson’s work on this was hurriedly interrupted and he was not able to carry it out.
Clive – I’ve wondered the same and I’ll go back to have a look there again.
The NSA released its information on Australia in 1995. The Russians some time latter. The only country still not forthcoming is Great Brittan. Somewhere in the files of the GC&CS , Eastcote and GCHQ lies the answer.
I agree Clive. I wonder the same thing.
[Swearword] [Swearword] JESTYN
Qantessa.: seems like you have a few anger issues to work through.
So much pent up anger and bitterness . You should let go of these feelings in order for yourself to heal. The truth is powerful 🙂
Nick – Nothing from you on all of this? What do you think? You’re so graciously hosting our discussions; it would be nice to have your thoughts???
Is it possible to find a list of passengers for the Niagara when it sunk? (Without casualties)? Can gold be used to Could RJCowan have been on that boat? Was there anything else in the Niagara’s stronghold other than gold? Is it possible that there was a shipment of Uranium on that boat? Is there any way to find this information? Can gold be used to store Uranium?
Coincidence always has a friend handy with experience – ex Detc and Ex Court Constable John told me today that all evidence ‘movement’ is logged onto a Running Sheet. Always.
A quick gander at that would prove at what date Cowan and Cleland took the case and clothing away, or perhaps didn’t.
PCC Sutherland looks an experienced chap: court cops, my old mate told me, are usually picked for their interest in law, and lawful procedures.
Pete – If all evidence “movement” was actually logged, then wouldn’t we know where the “tamam shud” paper was, and the book and countless other pieces of evidence that weren’t destroyed? What happened to everything? No “movement” logs seem to exist…
Nick – Any luck with the SA Coroner and secondary reports???
So, somebody sent Robert Cowan to the US on “Government” business in 1940. Who was his boss/superior/manager at that time? THAT would be very good to know.
misca: the evidence ‘log’ for the suitcase (A) would have only commenced when Det. Leane took custody of it on January 19th, six days after it was found.
The clothes found on the body (B) were in custody as soon as the morgue was finished with them, probably about the 2nd or 3rd of December.
The day Cowan and Cleland tried on the shoes and coats they had both A and B in their possession. Only one of them would have been logged out – if the case had been taken from the luggage office.
Pete – Unfortunately, your friend might be wrong. We have no logs. If there are logs, they’re not available. Everything seems to have gone lost/missing or was destroyed. No logs tell us this. Brown thought that Leane had the book. The fob pocket and it’s contents were discovered in April (just prior to the inquest)….That’s all we know.
: (
The entire investigation is a lesson on how to botch an investigation! Ridiculous. Laughable. What happened to the guy who was with Moss when the body was found? Did he disappear into the nether? Strangway or something like that? Why nothing from him? From beginning to end this whole case was mishandled. Maybe they should re-open the whole thing as an example of “what not to do when carrying out a criminal investigation” ….for University Students.
misca: The case was handled well, the ruling was of suspected suicide, the evidence supported it, the witnesses were respected … The only person who remained unconvinced was Leane, he didn’t dismiss murder. The coroner’s ruling is final. The scheme worked, the conspiracy worked. There’s only the odd blog out there who proposes differently.
I’m not sure but there are no more tha 12 or 15 listings that pop up on Trove for “Robert James Cowan”. The only one that appears before the SM case is one to state that he has been appointed a “Bio-Chemist”. His very first “write up” in the papers as an expert witness appears to be the SM case.
What would it prove if the inquests immediately before, and right after the SM inquest, had all the secondary records available?
I don’t really know what it would prove Pete. The Magnoson case had all the secondary records and everything went toward barbiturate poisoning…The coroner ruled otherwise. It seems like a lot of “stuff” might have been handled “with respect” for those involved, for expediency, for incompetency. Maybe for something else? All I know is that the SM “investigative” files seem lacking and the coroner’s inquest even more so…
misca: I meant in calendar time, not relevance.
Jct can u contact jrl. Cheers. I have some gold.
T.E. Cleland was interested enough in SM to ask Lawson to also make a replica of the man’s hands but there are no pictures of said hands? The photographer was not asked to take any pictures of the hands? Or, did those pictures, disappear along with everything else?
Pete – Sorry, “calendar time”? I don’t follow.
smerdon: cn u contakt brane, needs an oil change
misca: the inquest immediately before SM, and the one immediately after – regardless of the matter being ruled upon. Perhaps Cleland was coroner of all three.
Pete – It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he was coroner of all three. What does that have to do with “calendar time”?
Raymond Lionel Laybourne Leane appears to be none other than Brigadere Gen. Sir Raymond Leane and Lady Leane’s son. Brigadere General Leane can be found on the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Quite a family!
Oddly, the biography ends as follows:
“The family was known during the war and for long afterwards as ‘the Fighting Leanes of Prospect’. Raymond’s wife Edith typified the devotion, courage and skill of the Leane womenfolk. His portrait by George Bell is in the Australian War Memorial. The Leane brothers and their sons provide a remarkable example of family enlistment—every male member of military age offered himself for active service and was accepted.”
An article in the “News” Adelaide, dated Oct. 10, 1945 states:
“…Detective Geoff Leane was discharged from the Army some months ago…Another brother, Ken, a lieutenant in the 20/10 is awaiting discharge. Brothers Alan and detective Lionel are both rejected volunteers.”
For what reason would a volunteer be rejected?
Has any of this already been discussed?
Clive – I too thought it strange that Errol Canney went by the wayside but, it’s not so strange, if one considers that his interview with “Mrs. Thomson” seems to be the only part he played in the investigation. I can’t remember where I read it, (perhaps in the “Littlemore” notes), but I did read that the reason he was chosen to interview her is because he knew her!
I highly doubt that he did a written report of his interview. If he did, it’s most likely long gone…just as most of the case files are..
Saturday, May 7, 1949
The Mail
“In a lace frock made from the wedding gown of his maternal grandmother, the infant son of Det. and Mrs. Len Brown was christened Richard Dutton this afternoon at St. Aiden’s church of England, Payneham.
Godparents were Mrs. F Higginson, from Port Augusta, Det. Sgt. Lionel Leane, and Mr. Reg Brown of Hawker.”
Det. Lionel Leane was Godfather to Len Brown’s son.
I’m not sure that it has anything to do with SM but it’s there … A little “google” away…
Well, whatever Alan had, so did Lionel. Twins? Congenital disease? Protected trades?
Unless there are two people of the same age with the same name, it appears that Len’s first son, Richard Dutton, became a magistrate.
misca, you are always the generous one with detail here. I was told by an impeccable source, two days ago, that the folder upon which the evidence was laid out and photographed, the one that looked like it may belong to a Freemason – did belong to a Freemason. He was the “owner / occupier” of the desk.
It seems Adelaide was a city of deep and lasting connections.
Hi Misca, Thanks for the info about Errol Canney. So, Errol was chosen to interview Jessie because he knew her? I wonder in what capacity he knew her, was it because of Prosper’s various court visits? Was Errol chosen because it was considered he might be able to “dig” further than anyone else given the job, or, was Errol given the job simply because he wouldn’t “dig” too far, just ask a couple of questions, not too awkward then say goodbye and thank you for your time? If the latter, then it seems an all too “cosy” result.
Misca,
I Googled as you suggested, and it emerged that magistrate Richard Dutton Brown, first son of Len Brown, was arrested on charges of paedophilia but the case never came to court. Adelaide always had, and still has, very good fire doors to protect the Establishment.
Pete – I don’t know about the whole fm angle…I know they’re in the mix because they almost always are. If you’re thinking of throwing them into the book, think twice as they’re already a bit “done”. I find freemasonry fascinating but as with all organized groups, there seems to be plenty for the “few” and lots of little guys who just want to belong (and love to have their book at their desk).
Clive – I don’t know if he was explicitly chosen to interview her because he knew her but, it certainly seems so. They definitely didn’t “dig” at all or would probably at least have a little more to work with today.
BD – That’s the sense I get with many of the key players in this case…Lots of protection. Have you managed to find out anything about Len’s father?
Freemasons… mmm… always surprisingly tasty as low-hanging fruit goes. 😉
BD-Adelaide still has it’s own fire doors in place-the recent Eugene McGhee an example.
I have found a marvellous exposition of the reasons why Adelaide is like it is. The following extracts come from Sean Fewester’s book “City of Evil”, a very well written book describing bizarre goings on in Adelaide. A note to those readers not overly familiar with Australia; Adelaide is widely known in Australia as the “City of Churches”. In typical Australian fashion, this name is not meant to evoke favourable connotations.
“According to the state’s top judge, he and his peers are not personally accountable to the public. In 2007 , Supreme Court Chief Justice John Doyle said those behind the bench are above such concerns. “A lack of personal accountability is the price you pay for a fair and impartial judicial system.” he said. “We must be independent of the community’s views. If you want a system where judges are personally accountable, you might say: “go to China”.”
“Cliches persist because they contain some truth: evil will flourish whenever good men do nothing. When no one asks questions, or when those in power do not listen, shadows form in the City of Churches. Within those shadows breeds more perversions, more monstrous thought. Adelaide is stripped of its progressive, welcoming veneer and revealed for what it is – a City of Evil. The vicious cycle that started with Edward Gibbon Wakefield spins around again.”
“The evidence is clear: Adelaide is far worse than a mere ”murder town” could ever be. …..What is it about Adelaide that creates such monsters? When considering the history of the place, it becomes apparent South Australia has always been a fertile breeding ground for disordered minds. One of the driving forces behind the creation of Adelaide was British politician Edward Gibbon Wakefield. His revolutionary idea was to settle the colony not with convicts, but with free men. His much-publicised belief was that Britain’s social problems had been caused by overcrowding, making emigration an essential “safety valve” for Mother England. By 1831, Wakefield had fine-tuned his colonisation plan and was the toast of London. To this day, his influence is remembered in Adelaide through the streets, statues and institutions that bear his name.
Wakefield was a visionary – a man who had clearly given a great deal of thought to devising the best method of colonisation. What history forgets is that he was afforded this time not in smoking rooms, university lectures or libraries, but in the depths of London’s prisons. Months before grabbing the headlines with his colonisation ideas, Wakefield finished a three-year sentence for kidnapping a 15-year old girl. In 1826, he had conspired with his brother to abduct Ellen Turner, a rich manufacturer’s daughter who caught his eye. Wakefield lured the girl into his trap by way of a false letter, warning Miss Turner her mother was gravely ill. Once the teenager was in his clutches, Wakefield took her to Scotland and demanded she marry him, saying it was the only way to spare her family financial ruin.
Obsessed with power and influence, an utterly shameless Wakefield wrote to his new father-in-law demanding his financial support. He was sure the man would acquiesce to his demands rather than risk a public scandal. Imagine his surprise when constables caught up to the newly-weds at Calais and clapped him in irons. His trial – the biggest sensation of 1827 – ended with Wakefield and his brother jailed and the marriage annulled by a special act of Parliament.
A driving force behind the creation of Adelaide, then was a duplicitous, power hungry, greedy kidnapper. With a guiding hand like that, it’s not hard to see where the darker side of Adelaide sprung. Wakefield’s choice of free settlers only worsened matters. He tirelessly hawked his new colony to two groups: religious dissenters and social progressives. The first, burned by their dealings with the Catholic and Protestant faiths, wanted a place to pursue their beliefs in privacy and without persecution. They brought with them a natural inclination towards secrecy, and the unwillingness to judge others. The progressives, meanwhile, believed that the basic concepts of human nature and morality were not fixed and should be reviewed on scientific advances. In other words, they carried a certain permissiveness and willingness to experiment with them to the new shores.
Once combined, these vastly disparate values did great good in South Australia. It became a land of tolerance, the first place in the world to grant women the right to vote, and a bastion o religious thought. But every light cast by the City of Churches created a shadow – within which darker, more pervasive thoughts festered. In a land where experimentation was encouraged, where secrets were to be kept, where judgement was slow to pass, deviant mindsets developed unhindered and spread without condemnation.
Over time, this underbelly became attractive to more people with monstrous thoughts, and a new group of emigres arrived. …….
Secrecy is a defining aspect of South Australia. Those who resist the flow are smacked down harshly ……”
Can we derive from that BD, that Professor Abbott is not amongst the ones smacked down, so harshly?
Otherwise, how would he be allowed to persist ..
I very much doubt that Derek has any traction with the Adelaide establishment beyond the fact that that he is a great asset for Adelaide University. If Derek had any traction then SM would have been quietly exhumed fifteen years ago. The Establishment need him, but that does not mean they will offer him any help. That’s how Establishments work; that’s their mind set.
You only have to look at Derek’s CV, and his list of books and publications to realise that he is a very highly regarded scientist. Sir Roger Penrose wrote the foreword to one of Derek’s books:
Derek Abbott, Paul C. W. Davies, and Arun K. Pati (Eds.), with Foreword by Sir Roger Penrose, Quantum Aspects of Life, Imperial College Press, 2008.
The name Roger Penrose may be familiar to some of you in relation to Steven Hawking’s black hole cosmology and other things. And the other co-authors are no scientific lightweights either.
I find the following statement by Professor Cleland at the 1949 Inquest extremely odd. (see Inquest page 15).
“If a man had access to diphtheria toxin, that certainly could be a possible explanation, but it would be very unusual. He would have to have access to a place where a diphtheria toxin were being manufactured. A very small amount of that would cause the haemorrhages.”
It seems that Cleland was entertaining the possibility that SM, or somebody else, had access to diphtheria toxin (DT). The LD50 (the amount that will cause death in 50% of human subjects) is 100 nanograms per kilogram of body weight when administered by injection or by inhalation. DT is inactivated by acidic conditions and is said to have no effect if taken orally. Accidental needle sticks can be fatal and it is recommended to avoid working with dried DT because of the inhalation risk. Diphtheria toxin has been investigated as a possible chemical warfare agent and a murder case involving DT occurred as early as 1911 (in Russia).
Another of Cleland’s statements,“I do not think there was any injection of curare or tubariu, which cause death from asphyxia” (page 15) is similarly odd, and I think it is relevant that in 1947 Archbishop Theodore Romzha of the Ukrainian Catholic Church was murdered by a NKGB agent with an injection of curare. I think Cleland must have been entertaining the idea that SM’s may have been murdered by the NKGB. Similarly, Cleland’s remark about the abrasions on SM’s right hand is consistent with a suspicion that a poison might have been administered through a slight wound.
I can’t remember SM’s weight, but I would guess – about 90 Kg? So, 9 micrograms of DT could have killed him. 9 micrograms is 0.009 milligrams (a barely visible speck), or nine millionths of a gram. Put another way, one gram of DT contains about 110,000 SM size lethal doses.
So, where might Diphtheria Toxin have been manufactured in Australia in 1948? DT had been made by the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories at Royal Park in Melbourne since at least 1920 (see Kalgoorlie Miner (W.A.) 17th February 1920 Page 3). And I would expect that during WW2 the resources for producing DT would have been duplicated at several other scientific institutions for safety reasons. Maybe the Adelaide Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science was one of these institutions?
Mr Robert James Cowan was essentially a biochemist and he was at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science at the time, August 1940, when he was sent on official Government business to meet Paul Leland Kirk.
•1923 – 1926 Career position – Biochemist at the Commonwealth Department of Health in Port Pirie (South Australia) and Rockhampton (Queensland)
•1927 – 1937 Career position – Biochemist at the Royal Adelaide Hospital
•1937 – 1947 Career position – Biochemist at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science
•1947 – 1950 Career position – Deputy Government Analyst for the South Australian Government Department of Chemistry
So, Cowan could have been involved in defensive biochemical and biological research during WW2. The Australian Government would have been fully aware of the use of biochemical and biological weapons in China by the Japanese and would have been taking precautions as war with Japan became even more certain.
In March 1940 Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls calculated that an atomic bomb might only require as little as 0.45 Kg of of enriched uranium. This information was given to Mark Oliphant, who in turn handed it over to Sir Henry Tizard, and this lead ultimately to the Manhattan Project. Note that Mark (later Sir Mark) Oliphant was a South Australian, and he would have been fully aware that two of the few uranium deposits known at the time were in South Australia (Radium Hill and Mt Painter). Radium had been produced from the uranium ore from both these mines, and radium was required for the early work on the atomic bomb.
Cowan was still a relatively junior Government officer at the time of his visit to the USA, and I suspect he was a courier, probably carrying uranium samples and possibly radium from South Australia to the USA, and carrying biological agents and perhaps scientific information back to Australia on the return trip. This would explain his relatively junior status, and the short time he spent in the USA.
J B Cleland and J M Dwyer had several disagreements (some of it very public) shortly after the SM inquiry. Of note – A 1951 inquiry into the death of a man, John Gregory Neill, who drowned in the Torrens River. Regarding J B Cleland’s findings on the case, Dwyer states “I find that rather embarassing sir. I do not agree with that view.” Given the times and the public interest in the case, this was quite a bold statement. Case details can be found on trove. It is sometimes referred to as the “Ducking Rag Trial.”
Old John B. Cleland was a pheasant plucker as was Paul F. Lawson ie. both were very much into ornowhatsit and stuffing of our feathered friends, in Adelaide zoo and for much of the same time frame; so it was likely no accident, their coming together as expert witnesses for SM’s day in court. It seems that Paul, now in his centenary year, is still clear headed enough to recount most details of the Police investigation and all other aspects of the case according to Clive Turner’s recent interviews with the grand old chap. I guess at the end of the day, all of our own accumulated information, would not add up to a proverbial hill of Casablanca beans compared to a snippet of his own. If he knows so damned much, why hasn’t the old bastard come clean on everything that he has stored away; we can only hope he remains healthy wealthy and uncommonly wise in the interim.
…..; and of course for ‘proper’ interloper bastards like Flash, we should clarify that old Aussie terms of endearment are jake between us native born blokes and sheilas, whether we be crow eaters like Paul or the rest of us shackle marked denizens from sister sovereign settlements; black, white or brindle…Speaking of sheilas, it seems that the one on this threadline more or less asserts that Sister Thomson worked at Alvington polio afflicted kids home, which has only been theorised so far as I’m aware. Further more, concerning related comments of Chief Porter Harry North, it seems that his evidence of the suitcase check-in time between eleven and midday doesn’t fit with either the 10.45am Henley Beach train, and/or, in all probability, the 11.15am St. Leonards bus times that witness Holderness attested to for that matter. There was an additional unclaimed item that North said was lodged on 30/11/48, but with no furher elaboration; though we might be allowed to contemplate the possible involvement with another unidentified connected party.
Kate: …And he dreamt on the night that mosquitos cannot bite if the heart doesn’t pump good and strong; so he rolled on his side and that’s when he died. Does that sound fair to you?; I could be wrong!…….Perhaps it is all to do with capillary skin pore openings or some such, anyway whilst the buzzing little bloodsuckers might still be drawn towards attractant moisture or fumes and residual body warmth from a corps, they are not able to gain physical entry to said pores for extraction. Whether he was alive or not when young Olive or Gordon made the mosquito comment is really the key to your interesting query. Our old friend Mr. Wiki can provide any further information you might seek in the subject.
I can recall asking once if SM had one or two pairs of shoes, excluding the pair of size seven slippers, and unsurprisingly not drawing any interest; so we’ll have another crack a little further along the track. All good folk deserve to be dressed in their Sunday best for special occasions, one being their last day above sea level, and one might assume that a nice shiney pair of shoes would be included in the marching out attire. This should have comprised the Stamina trousers, Pelaco shirt, knitted sweater & socks, tailored jacket, Jockey briefs (slightly soiled), singlet plus Tootal tie & hanky, which subject was wearing when found. So where did the brown six eyelet Oxfords spring from, the ones in the TV show (which I’ve yet to see); don’t tell me!, there must have been another pair, the ones that Len Brown described in his own typed notes as being ‘stockmans shoes’ and which I don’t believe we have discussed to date. Perhaps we might consider high heeled dress riding boots which folks of yesteryear termed shoes rather than boots which were a heavier duty type. I do recall one of our old posters making inquiries with some bespoke makers and being told that; yes, the personal customer number 204 was known to them, but alas it must not have been one of their orders, for their own records referred to a boot and not a dress shoe. Perhaps we should get back to the maker and see what old records they have and we might not be so surprised that many old family high quality concerns go back generations e.g. Blocks ballet shoes, Sydney who’s customer records go back to when Pavlova last toured in ’29.
Seems that our man didn’t get a send off in his Sunday best afterall, so just maybe he went to the otherside wearing hand-me-downs from Elliotts the undertakers. As for the ‘stockmans boots’ as described by Gerry or ‘stockmans shoes’ as alluded to by Len Brown, we can only assume that someone, put them to good use. Of course it seems that his second pair of Oxfords may also have found a good home, along with things like the little Turner insulated screw driver and perhaps even the halter lead and other little goodies that were’nt with the kit in ’77/78 for Stuart.
Nothing wrong with us crow-eaters 🙂
I take some of the stuff from the old man interviews with a pinch of salt. While I don’t think there’s any deliberate effort to befuddle or mislead, ultimately most of the ‘information’ is at best opinion and speculation, and while it is from someone very closely related to the case I’m sure everyone who worked on the case had different interpretations and ideas of what different aspects of the evidence meant. Additionally, the mind does funny things as we age, and something we read or thought about can start to manifest itself as absolute accurate recollection as we age. I also think (sort of related to confirmation bias) we have a tendancy to try to tell people things in ways they want to hear them, so you tend to tell stories from the angles that people are asking from and things can easily get confused. It’s also worth remembering that it is not the interviewee who posts on line – nor even the interviewer, but rather a third party who is subsequently fed the interview. Again, I don’t mean to imply any deliberate or malicious attempt to bend the truth, but anyone who’s played Chinese Whispers would know how quickly ideas can get garbled (Purple Monkey Dishwasher). (Incidentally, there’s an interesting show on ‘Netflix’ called ‘Brain Games’ or something similar that has an episode about communication…)
I think there’s plenty time for the suitcase to have happened between 11 and 11:15 (when the bus left) – it would take less than 2 minutes to get from the luggage clerk to the other side of North Tce – but as you’d be well aware I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the whole Railway Station scenarios (nor, for that matter, the ‘certainty’ of times related to evidence, because from what I’ve seen of the public service, when somebody is pushing for an answer then you give them an answer (even if you have to make it up), justify it, and stick to your guns even if you realise a mistake has been made (fabricating/fudging as you go). In these sort of situations where Government analysts and pen pushers are being asked to find certain evidence I see a massive potential for confirmation bias – essentially creating a story and then finding facts to support the story, rather than viewing hte facts and considering the story. Not sure if it were here or elsewhere that somebody recently talked about the luggage tag not showing a time, for instance). I think we also have to remember that evidence wasn’t necessarily collected (or assessed) immediately after the body was found – and the longer a time between the event and the recollection, the more you rely on assumption based on your habits rather than actual memory,…
While ranting about the railway station, things like the suitcase are linked to SM (‘definitively’) based on thread that ‘looks like it was uncommon at the time’, and we simply trust people who say “it is so improbable that this thread could appear in two different places” (oh the irony). In fact, a lot of what we ‘know’ seems to be founded on “it is so unlikely that this is a coincidence that we can dismiss it” – but to me statements like that suggest we haven’t bothered to look into it rather than we’ve actually demonstrated that this is the only – or even most likely – scenario.
Regarding his Sunday dud’s (and still tying in with the rant above) I think the assumption that the railway station happened pretty close to the way Wiki has it means that we don’t look at every possibility. The shiny shoes etc suggest he wasn’t walking around Glenelg all day (And so we speculate may have been put on post-mortem) but what if we wasn’t walking around Glenelg at all? What if he was staying somewhere locally (the carnival is an interesting speculation in that vein – although I think it was a semi-permanent fixture) and only left the house at 5PM? What if he had shaved (hence no stubble) and put on nice clothes in the afternoon/evening to meet someone for a movie, or dinner, or some other appointment? Granted, this opens a can of worms because somebody must’ve realised he was missing – but any theory on SM opens worm cans.
Milonga: Thanks Christ we do have a can of worms to open, for if not for that and our own initiative to speculate on the possibilities, we don’t have too many tools left at our disposal. Even if the worms, at the end of the day seem to be nothing more than a a wriggling mass without obvious purpose, it only needs one to break away from the pack and the rest may be inclined to go forward in a determined, more orderly fashion torwards a wormly goal. I know that it’s not a proper analogy to make but when things seem not to be panning out in an investigation and when facts are wanting; I always liked the B.K. adage about ‘dreaming (up) things that never were and inquiring as to why not?’….Between 11.00 and 11.15 is fine if we can put aside the 10.45 train to Henley and also consider that the cloak room ticket was more likely to have been issued after 11.15 than before which fact is quite unarguable it seems. I’ve had a little experience with preparing dead mates for burial and so can appreciate that presentation of the departing is one thing that always seems to have been an essential consideration, even to the extent of having to dislocate frozen joints to fit shoes and other troublesome apparell. So I’m sure that SM’s funeral attire would have been tastefully adequate, despite the likekihood that he had on some other person’s clobber, which is initself seems more than a little unusual to me. Perhaps we can still make inquiries with the undertaker Elliot’s successors; or even old Paul Lawson who Clive Turner seems to be communicating with re other aspects of the case quite regularly.
Certainly there’s no shame in being labelled a ‘Crow Eater’, just put it down luck of the draw, and beyond your means to intervene for a better life in NSW for instance. Just be satisfied with your occasional Balfours pasty, Amscol hi-octane ice cream and Coopers; of course you’ll be consolled by the knowledge that into each life some rain must fall… For that matter, does anyone know for absolute certain where that ‘murderous’ derived; of course not and although many of you quaint folk have your own particular theories, none appear to be worth anymore than a cup full of ‘cool water’ (S.A. col.). Something similar could well be said for who was it said that the TS slip was found in SM’s trouser fob pocket? It most certainly was not the man who claims to have found it, nor the Detective who was witness to said discovery; and yet it’s veracity is more or less undisputed by all abd sundry it seems. My contention is that a three inch by one inch piece of flimsy paper, would fit much more secretively and protectedly in an inside fob jacket pocket. More so than being rolled up into a cylinder form, then folded and stuffed into a tiny, though visible two by two inch pants fob with it’s quite obvious limited usefulness. Leon Leane may have been getting to be a little ancient by 1987 when he made his outragious disclosure about discovery of the slip, though he need not have worried, as no body but me seemingly paid the slightest attention. Well he was considered worth the drive to Port Elliott for his reflective input, and so being a little on the ancient side myself, I’d rather trust the old detective’s memory than that of Mr. Nobody. And by the by; who was it that also insisted that SM had been seen sitting in the park seat to the left of the ‘under repair’ stairway during the afternoon? once again, just a wiley old crow eating detective, not Mr. Nobody that’s for sure!…
Corrections: Milongal..Murderous (pertaining to crows) expression..down to luck… Are you aware that apart from Brighton and Glenelg, sometime before 1940 there used to be a Jetty Road at Henley Beach; what’s more there was also a Jetty Road railway station which, I guess to a cornstalk impostor from the east, might have created some cause for disorientation when contemplating Adelaide suburban travel plans, not to mention ticket purchases for a pre-arranged beachside suburb liason…I think I have an Hypothesis coming on, though it can wait Mr. moderator.
Like all well healed Adelaide Catholic lads of yesteryear, including our esteemed, though extremely shy SM expert Gerry Feltus, Dr. John Dwyer was also a student boarder at Sacred Heart College in Glenelg, albeit some years prior. During the ’40s, he lived at 24 Moseley Street between Pier St. & Jetty Road and was also a wellknown local sportsman in the district before the war. As a youth he may have explored old Gerry’s dune tunnels near the Bickford mansion with it’s then sturdy timber stairway descending to Somerton Beach. He may have run with his pals along the foreshore, all the way to South Glenelg, thereby emerging a rather distant nine blocks further along by the old Broadway pub, perhaps for a well earned squash. On the evening 30 November, 1948 a man was reported as having been seen carrying another at at this very same location, a long hike indeed from the Crippled Children’s Home at Somerton. Yet some hours before, another chap was seen to be lying in a somewhat unusual position right beside the delapidated Bickford stairs (under repair) with its broken railing hanging just above him. It appeared that he may have had an accident, for the following morning when he was found dead, he displayed superficial injuries to his right hand finger webbing, as well as what could well be termed as extensive bruising to his upper back and neck. Two days later, on a Wednesday (golf day), Dr. John Dwyer, assistant Pathologist, noted very heavy ‘lividity’ to the upper back and cranial extension on the body undergoing an autopsy proceedure. He made numerous professional conclusions in his post mortem findings, but nothing to do with possible other significant injury to lumbar or cervical spine. Had the attending police been a little more descriptive of the death location, the good doctor might well have seen fit to explore the possibilities. As it was, he had another autopsy to perform (a Mr. Cohen from memory), and ‘hit off’ was at nine sharp. It might be noted that Dr. Dwyer came under notice (see Misca above),for his inability to distinguish between bruising and lividity on another celebrated death case in the fifties, about the time he was put forward as a nominee for his eventual well earned O.B.E. award. Dr. Dwyer passed on in 1987 which proceeded that of another fine Catholic gentleman in the form of our ellusuve Ron Francis which is most unfortunate, as he would have been a great candidate; having lived down the way from the Thomson’s at 90a and just up from Jetty Rd. One might also offer that he was the first advocate for a suicide verdict at SM’s inquest and did his utmost to convince his toni medical professional mates to acquiess. Only poor mostly belittled and frequently berated, mere chemical analyst Bob Cowan stood his ground for discent and his courage for non complience in possible conivance to pervert judicial proceedure, may one day (most unlikely) be lauded…..By the way, the so called masonic divider symbol on the folder used as background for the Keane pics, might well prove to be merely an appropriately fielded railway kiosk tea tray, with a similar centre gold diamond pattern, partly obscured; which incidently seemed to have stirred the fertile imaginations of an un-named former contributor to the point of sensual discharge.
Senior Detective Sgt.Harold Strangways, first suit at the death scene, was likely tohave been a non blood relative of Colonel Geoffrey Leane, (Det. Inspector) Sgt. Lionel Leane’s younger brother and boss at Sapol. During the war Harry was based at a highly sensitive experimental munitions plant in an investigative intel capacity. Isn’t it somewhat intriguing, that neither he nor the higher ranked Leane are ever mentioned thereafter; both seem to have gone into thin air at the time, in much the same manner as Dr. (Colonel) Dwyer’s most enlightening pro suicide autopsy report. Of course Geoffrey resurfaced much later as Acting Police Commissioner and Harry was still about during the fifties. His original SM partner Moss was demoted from his position as O.I.C of Brighton soon after the inquest and shunted off to a lesser posting at Henley Beach of all places and he likely remained there until eventual retirement…I wonder if it is at all possible that collectively, we might have missed certain much simpler, though more critical elements pertaining to this investigation and dare I suggest, any unpopular disassociation with car stealing, espionage, or even suicide by substance for that matter?. I for one am prepared to bite the bullet and submit to that alternative though I’m certain others with a more intelligence based understanding of evidentiary proceedure will go with ever reliable Dr. J. Dwyer’s infallibility and thus stick to their rusty guns and faulty ammo!….
I’m not quite sure I understood the relevance of Sacred Heart, however it is probably one of 5 Adelaide schools that I could believe having an elite ‘club’ of alma mater/alumni that stick together thick as thieves (the other 4 being St Peters, PAC, Rostrevor and Pultney – which I only add to the list because I’m aware of someone who claims they didn’t get a job because they wore what the interviewer thought was a Pultney tie, despite never having attended there). Sacred Heart is probably best known in SA (along with Rostrevor) as a fiercely strong footy (AFL) school, and (again, along with Rostrevor) as a (relatively elite) Catholic, metropolitan boarding school (although not sure whether they still take boarders). Certainly I remember being absolutely flogged by them in footy (when I was in the twos and we played there D’s), and I think we might have encountered them in the Samboy Cup (or equivalent) on a Tuesday night at Norwood Oval….
So ignoring my setnitmental digression multiple connections to Sacred Heart would (to my mind, at least) add some plausibility to coverups and conspiracies…..
You know what, those damned stairs are still a worry. A much clearer shot suggests that my broken railing is infact an angled brace for the upper stairway end post; although there is still a missing rail from the bottom stairway on the off-site. I’m also now wondering, whether the angled step slats may not have been deliberately seated in that manner, so as to prevent the polio afflicted kids at Alvington, from getting down to the beach unsupervised. Notwithstanding, the risk of a fall to an otherwise unfamiliar stranger, with or without physical impairment, would have been just the same, more especially as dusk was encroaching.
This a real Jeffrey Archer ‘twist in the tail, lest we forget. On Anzac Day just gone, I was reading a piece on Taman Shud and its similarities with the Stephen King novel Colorado Kid; written by an Adelaide writer/film producer of the very same Ruth Balint academic mould, with a doctorate from Flinders University S.A. rather than NSWU. His name Michael Xavier (?) Savvas immediately struck a chord with me; infact I had commented quite recently on a fish ‘n’ Chip proprietor from Hindley St. Adelaide named Tom Savvas who may have been hooked up with Con Polites, the Greek developer from Glenelg. Some of you may recall back in ’34 when old Tom Savvas was a pal of Xavier Herbert and both were former employees of Darwin Hospital. Tom had worked as an orderly/cook and happened to bare witness to a very suspicious death, later deemed “accidental”, by self injection of narcotics, the victim being the hospital dispenser Percy Williams. Both Tom and another witness cleared out shortly after the inquest, whilst Xavier remained in Darwin and just so happened to pick up the now vacant position of dispenser; only fair because Percy had only acquired it in ’31 after the great man took extended leave of absence, to obtain treatment for some unspecified problem with his plumbing. Of course, all will be well familiar with my thoughts on Mr. Herbert and his psychopathic traits, so too his strong connections with Adelaide press, not to mention his nomadic lifestyle during the early post war years….So I’d be very interested to know a little more about Dr. Savvas’ antecedents and if by chance his middle name Xavier (?) was given to him in memory of the dangerous old dispenser from Darwin Hospital circa. 1934. Also I wonder what may have sparked his interest in the Tamam Shud case in the first place; could it be something to do with scratching an old family itch…Give us a hoy over this way if you need any solid facts on the case Doctor; We’re all full bottle and right up to date.
Milongal: Just dawned on me that your Ron Francis candidate, old Con Polites was said to have worked in some sort of supervisory role at Finsbury munitions testing facility from ’41 to ’44. It’s certainly mere coincidence of course, but so did our first on-the-scene detective, Harry Strangways, who was presented with a pipe and tobacco when he left to resume police duties. Perhaps Con, being a non smoker and of a more intellectual bent, received a fine little W & T first edition, pocket volume of Persian influenced, classic verse, as a going away present; what do you reckon?…
To the best of my knowledge, I don’t recall any mention of a direct face to face interview between the police and the ubiquitous Rubaiyat wielding Glenelg businessman. If there was such a person, I rather think that he would have been inclined to use the services of an equally anonymous surrogate mule, acting at his behest to deliver the important piece of evidence to a nominated drop site, ie. the Adelaide railway cloak room, and then only called in for collection after the drop. In that manner nobody would ever be the wiser and security from unwanted questioning might be assured indefinately. Of course Detective Leane would report the transaction differently so as to infer that he was on top of things and fully acquiescent to the informant’s desire for privacy. I’d say that Mr. Francis was more likely to have been a slyly concocted reference to the delivery mule, so named after a popular equine book character of that era, a name which was to be later given the common prefix of Ron by some, perhaps well meaning third party identity from Adelaide’s finest.
For those still interested, have a look at Walter Bartsche, executive officer (XO) of the Australian Nazi Party from the mid thirties. A long time resident of Adelaide’s inner suburbs and toolmaker by trade, he did his full five in Camp 1A Tatura, before attaining citizenship in ’46, and then nothing. I recalled the name from one of those Pier Pharmacy false prescription prosecutions, that we have previously commented upon and you will note from the 1935 photo that Wally, the tallish fellow in the dark suit with correctly striped Tootal tie, does have features not at all dissimilar to those of SM in one of Derek’s composits; he also seems to have a slightly squinted right eye and from his file, he may also have a small scar on his right cheek….See annefrankguide..Nazi sympathisers Aust.
Every time I see Xavier, I’m think St Francis Xavier (as in the Adelaide Catholic Cathedral), and can’t help but think Francis might be a cryptic pseudonym for a Xavier….
That said, while this site was having issues something you said (unfortunately I forget what) had me stumble across someone who had a name that somehow struck me “Ronald Francis”-like (It was Donald something or something Donald – which to me seemed to fit the same sort of Jess P => Tess P anonymization in Feltus’ book). Wish I could remember who it was, or what (other than name similarity) had me thinking that way….
A slightly ‘out there’ thought has also occured to me in the past that “Francis” might be a woman – on the one hand I think it’s a little unlikely given the papers talk about a man handing in the Rubaiyat, but GF almost seems to go out of his way to include that possibility: “But did it really matter if the discoverer was…..or a male or female?” (of course, not adding that in might have better masked the idea if it were true). That could mean we’re looking for a Frances rather than Francis – although the name could still be obfuscated as well.
Meanwhile what do you think of GC’s thread on the laundry marks? An anonymous there suggested the numbers could be 3digit sequence + date in the later pictures you can almost notice separation between 305 and 3/1, and the leading 3 in 3/3 appears on a different angle to 439 suggesting they might be 2 separate sequences. Not quite sure on 717 rather than 117, though….
Yes I did just happen to spot the anonymous reference to laundry marks and surprised that it got through the fire wall undetected. My thoughts on the subject as presented might best be described as twaddle, however I might be inclined to revise my cynical assessment should some closer scrutiny reveal miniture coded and meaningful dialalogue beneath the overwriting. The name Donald has me beat just for the moment; it might have something to do with the rich family living at 27 Pier Street I was attempting to suss, during the brownout interlude.
It was actually 29 pier St. but not to worry, I guess the occupiers are well known to us from past association and are probably quite innocent it seems. The address was used for wartime transmission of letters which were directed to an accoplice German employee of the household from a top camp Nazi, L. P. Jensch, inmate of the main German internment facility at Tatura in 1944. As it so happens, one of the head internment camp honchos from Loveday, Wally Bridgeland, a Jew, lived across the road at No.8, though I can’t see anything that might connect him with the Somerton man sanction, if thats what it was. Our man Jensch was a merchant seaman deserter; dyed in the wool patriot to be sure and was an unrelenting camp lawyer cum rebelrouser until his release in ’46. He remained resolutely faithfull to Hitler’s cause, (throughout his life) and Bill Simpson, Bob Wake’s big boss respected his resolve, for some unknown reason. At war’s end, some of the old Nazi non reformists were deported and a few others, such as Wally Bartsch accepted the option offer of Australian citizenship, which really riled others like our friend intensely, the main culprit being a Glenelg based Pastor A.F. Zinnbauer (Aust. Bio), the seaman’s benefactor. I might add that it was well known that a ‘deep throat’ dwelt within the 1A camp from its onset and all attempts to suss him out were never effective. Why am I telling this yarn; I have no flaming idea..Night all!…
Having read up on Herr Zinnbauer and his Huss/Moravian, otherwise nondenominational charitable mission amongst sick or underprivilaged seamen in particular. Set up to also include recently demobbed army veterans, newly arrived Baltic refugees and recently released belligerent internees like himself, I doubt that our SM would have come from within this grouping. The good Pastor, along with his multi lingual, equally benevolent spouse, would have known the post war Adelaide scene, likely better than anyone else and his outreach program would most certainly have included outer regional centres where new arrivals were now congregating. In this capacity, any rumours concerning the Tamam Shud mystery would surely have come to their notice and they would have felt it their Christian duty to report same to the authorities. I therefore withdraw contentions that Walter Bartsch or any of his pre war Nazi confederates, would likely have ended up dead on Somerton beach circa. 1/12/48.
Following a very interesting little jog around Glenelg, we’re now back to earth at ground Zero with nothing more than a really good beach tan and a newfound respect for ordinary working class folk found elsewhere. Now speaking of tans, everyone would be familiar with the modern spray crap used by dancers, exotic stage performers and the like to give that look. Well are you aware that artists of yesteryear, especially those accustomed to be togged up in cotton tights during demanding hours of very sweaty training schedules, were usually treated to a more or less toe to crotch even tan. This can be put down to the combination of salty sweat and unfast vegetable dyes used at the time; the resultant skin transfer being quite realistic, common and hard to remove. We know of course that Dr. Dwyer noted on the slab that his patient seemed to have such a tan, although he suggested it being very natural to his eyes, as he might be excused for doing. Might this new light, confirm long held beliefs that SM was into something like ballet or trapeze and that his usual habit of wearing stage make-up with non street attire could thereby prevent identification of his post mortem features. Perhaps he was a travelling performer used to adhoc stage setting arrangements and concerts performed in such locations as military convalescent establishments, of which there seem to have been any amount after the war…..Keep plugging; we’re still in there with a realistic chance of further discovery before my proposed seventy year SM deadline; first day of antipodies summer.
Sure John. I think you’re onto something here…
Some more resolute than I, might wish to look into the actual family relationship of two Somerton pre war local studs, Ron Bickford and Francis Cudmore-Bickford (sired by Sirs Reg and Harry respectively) If we can show that our lads wed a pair of suitable thoroughbred sisters, we might find that Flying officer Ron B. and Lieutenant Francis C.B., are our missing brothers-in-law; so, not Ron Francis singular but Ron & Francis collective, which makes just as much sense; does it not Gerry?…..
For the life of me, I can’t see that the name Ron Francis would have worked in Australia in the time frame that we would be talking about, ie. late 19th or early 20th century. In those days we had Tykes and Anglos of about equal proportions and no integration was tolerated. Thereby it would have been most irregular for a family named Francis to make the grave error of naming their little tyke Ron and risk a lifetime of ridicule for the poor kid. OK so you’ve got your star Canadian hockey player by that name, but that’s now, and besides there was always something a little offish about the Canucks and their quaint ways. Nah, definately no peeler snitch with such an incongruous handle ever came forward to Sapol..NB: Maple Leaf Cafe, 21 Rundle St. Adelaide, owned by the Ellis family, Pier St. Glenelg; shucks!….
I can’t really imagine either Ron or cousin Francis being picks of their respective upper crust litters; neither having advanced from their paid commission, junior subaltan posts. Of course we all recall well the Millicent tragedy, where two gentlemen had succumbed to a deadly sulphide carbonate brew prepared by Francis, who was by then (1949) responsible for packaging and delivery of Bickford pharmaceuticals. Incidently the man himself lived to be a ton and so certainly would have been around when Gerry Feltus was rumoured to have been socializing with his Ron-Francis, the Glenelg businessman… As a post script, our subject and his much brighter brother, Dr. Reginald Nevil Cudmore Bickford MID, took over the family business on SM day, 1st December, 1948 following the passing of their dad, Sir Reginald, just the week before; so comes time for the Millicent inquest in the following October, they were pretty well lawered up with old army cronies, Dave Cleland and Sam Jacobs K/QC (Prosper’s attorney), all together on the management board of a most lucrative venture with the Alvington Crippled Kiddies home trust…..and we could go on with directorships of the South Australian Turf Club, Adelaide Yachting and Hunt clubs etc. ad infinitum.
O.K., we’re a little further along now with young Francis Cudmore-Bickford. Obviously we’re looking at a coupling of names and religions, with his dad, the rich young Bickford heir, Reginald tieing the knot with the daughter of stupendously wealthy James Cudmore, the probable Papist of Somerton Park. At about the time of his birth, part of the old family home Parings Hall, was handed over to the Marist brothers and it became, what it remains to-day, the Sacred Heart College, which both young Masters Francis Cudmore-Bickford, John Matthew Dwyer and our very own Gerry Feltus, fortuously attended.
Sacred Heart stands proud and tall, It once was called Paringa Hall. Now all its students have a ball, fun loving Catholics one and all.
Now, these connections are most definitely more interesting!
Misca: I can’t tell anyone who SM was either; I can tell folks who follow this site, that in my estimation SM may not have been quite within a neat thousand Kms from Sydney, as the crow flies in October, 1946.
There is no evidence that Bickford’s director Reginald Bickford Sr. was a registered chemist prior to his demise, then interment a day prior to Somerton Man being seen on the beach a short walk from his home at 17 Tarlton Street. We know that the deceased had two sons, Reg Jr., a doctor and head of Alvington Crippled kid’s home, and brother Francis, the chemist dispenser involved in the Milicent Barium chloride/suphate mix up of 1949. I’ve now found evidence indicating that their cousin Ronald F. Bickford, was likely the R. Bickford chemist, listed as occupant of that address in 1948 however, his employent at the time and thereafter is a total mystery. Something about his service record also seems odd.
PS: Jack Lyons who first reported seeing SM and said to be living in nearby Whyat St., seems not to be on the 1948 S & M register that I can see.
John Sanders: p.19 of the second inquest report (i.e. the pdf on Derek Abbott’s evidence site) lists John Bain Lyons’ address as 52 Whyte Street, Somerton.
Trove is a little quiet (or perhaps Lyons himself was quiet): the only definite mention I found of him was this piece:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43486779
Nick: Trouble I have in taking accepted facts for granted vis., your reference, is that many just don’t tally when cross checked e.g, ’47/’48 S & M directories. A good example would be 52 Whyte St. which should be located near the beach at the south end of Tarlton St.,doesn’t rate a mention, nor the name Lyons anywhere nearby for that matter. A similar example re ‘evidence of absence’ would seem to include an unlisted 24a Jetty Rd. where Freeman’s chemist was said to be located in ’47/’48. As for 31 High Street which we understand to have been the family’s main domicile around that time, was instead listed in the name of Verco prior to 1949. I’m not saying these details are necessarily wrong, but it is a caution for us to be doubly sure on matters of significance before posting them as a given….
As an addendum to my last advice, it does seem that whoever comiled Derek’s Jetty Rd. Glenelg layout of shops & professional premises, claimed to be taken from the 1948 S & M, may have taken more than a few liberties in pushing a particular investigative barrow. For instance there is no listing for Freeman’s Chemist, nor any number 24A and in fact Nos. 24 to 30 is clearly in occupancy of St. Vincents Hotel (varified by numerous on line pics). So no doubling up on Jasmine Beauty Salon (22 & 26) and the Abbott listed Returned Services club at 36a is clearly a billiard hall etc.,etc. One glaring omission from their not so helpful chart is Jetty Street before Gordon which does not display any 24A on today’s directory, was also missed by both the S & M compilers and the ’48 street directory mob…It’ s no wonder this whole shebang is so screwed up!
There is no 52 Whyte St in 1948 or 1949 (it looks like the houses between Walkers Rd (then Walker St) are still being built….
There is an E Lyons at 33 Walker St (which doesn’t seem to exist today…..Walkers Rd skips 31 to 35).
There is an F Lyon in Novar Gardens (Next to St Leonards)
There is also a J Lyons in Da Costa Park (these days that would be Glenelg East) at 6a Hawkes Avenue (interestingly alongside a Wyatt St).
But by 1952 52 Whyte St has apperared and JB Lyons is there (and the DaCosta Park one is no longer there)
While it’s possible that SM is simply slow at recording the new areas, perhaps it’s also possible that the inquest has a “current” address, but that’s not the address he was living at at the time? Might revisit his statement and see what we can work out from it
milongal: it therefore seems likely to me that because John Bain Lyons’ deposition was made for the 1949 inquest, 52 Whyte Street was indeed his address at the time, but that he had only just moved there (because it had only just been built).
JB’s statement certainly sounds more consistent with him already living in Whyte St (he talks about returning from the Broadway, as well as swimming with people “further up the beach towards Glenelg”).
So it seems likely that S&M is a bit slow catching up on new housing developments. I’m sort of interested how they would gather their information, TBH. Whether someone would go out door-knocking, or whether hey’d be using records of house sales and/or postal records. Sort of ties in with earlier efforts (around Main St) and whether the records listed are landlords or tenants (that said, it is intereting that sometimes a place is listed as “vacant” – which tends to suggest they have some knowledge beyond land sales).
Diverging to stuff that probably has minimal consequence….
If anyone is interested in missing watch advertisements, Lyons’ neighbour FA Weir has one in 1950 (but not a gold watch 🙁 )
LOST gent’s s.s. dust-proof wristlet watch with brown leather band, Somerton. Reward. F. A. Weir. 64 Whyte St.. Somerton. X3202
NB: He actually lives at 50 Whyte – there doesn’t even seem to be a 64…..
The same number is an afterhours number for FJ/PJ/SJ/SL Weir (of Dunorlan Rd Edwardstown (St Mary’s West would be more accurate), LF2854 and Gordon Rd Blackforest Estate (I think the latter is the home address, the former a business address)) looking for builders (bricklayers, plasterers, plumberrs, Painters and carpenters) for “the rocket range” through late 1948 and early 1949.
There is a good number of Weir’s and not sure how many of the initials above are simply mistakes.
SJ resolves to the 2 addresses in St Marys and Blackforest
FA is Whyte St
there is an F at Maria St, Thebarton
there is no obvious SL
PJ (painter) at Somerset Ave, Hilton
There is also:
J (engineer) Mary St, Largs Bay (and a handful of others on the Lefevre peninsuala)
The closest ads to SM are:
+++++++++
27th Nov
PAINTERS for work in S.E., good conds. P. J. Weir, LF2BS4 or X3202
+++++++++
4th Dec
Truck driver, mechanic, for rocket range, common. Jan. 10. Ring LF2854 or after hrs. X3202.
+++++++++
PAINTERS for work in S.E, good conds. P. J. Weir. LF2854 or X3202
Probably means nothing, but a bit interesting to get a Woomera connection so close to JB Lyons….
NB: Do we know who Lyons went swimming with (“further up the beach toward Glenelg”)?
milongal: an “Arthur Lee” was mentioned, if I remember correctly.
For what it’s worth (0 imo) J. B. Lyons and wife Helen Josephine were living in Unley in the pre WW2 and Jack was a leading Adelaide diamond trader with connections to the big Antwerp firms. During the forties he had his business in the city (a bank bld. from memory) and lived at Millswood Estate. He died in 1975 and Nell a year or so later. I’m not sure what to make of suggestions that he built at Somerton after the S & M 1948 omission; perhaps he fell on hard times and left town or else had a weekender at the beach. Guess I’ll do a bit more digging, though I’d say that the Freeman chemist and 24A Jetty Rd. address deal is more of a priority.
I think FA Weir is Forbes Andrew WEIR originally a builder of Balallarat and later part of RAAF 200SQDN (there’s a 30 page military history on NAA)
john sanders: “Verco”, you say, eh? Hmmm…
Re Arthur Lee
There’s A Weir at Croydon (Henry st, I think that’s come up before) and Semaphore (Robin Rd). There’s AA in the city and at Largs.
L A at John St Woodville, and LAF at Galway Gardens. There’s also an L (trvlr “traveller”?) at Malvern (Marlborough St – but Eastern suburbs, not beach side).
SJ is presumably his farther Sydney John WEIR (I’d been assuming brother, TBH)
Couple of other phone numbers that occasionally appear in SJ Weir job ads:
M1591 which also seems arount the time to link to “Neill and Shelton Ltd” – 1st class memorials
U4844 – Christianson and Rogers furniture removals
The “Neill” is of passing interest…..
Nick: No big deal, Whyat street was developing post war and the numbers may have altered ostensibly to fit the changing landscape vis. No 52 had become 66 by 1958, notwithstanding there is only a 66A these days. John and Nel ran a business at Landmark Bld. 50 King William St. City called Herbert’s Jewellery, Tel. LA 4741 and were agents for Omega Watches of Geneve, with pretty heavy Ad placements plus at least one front page feature story on diamonds in the sky from memory which I mentioned to no acclaim back in 2016….Verco was a pretty common name throughout SA from early days and it was mostly associated with monied doctors, land holders, graziers and administrators, so Chuck Freeman would have known one or two, as would his (brother-in-law-less, Hillman Minx-less) lads Colin and John I’d hazard to guess.
Digging up old bones but no mind. Yes Authur James Lee was JBL’s beach buddy and fellow witness who had no reason to get himself involved. He lived at 9 Wilkinson St., one street north of Whyat which I always thought somewhat at odds with our deponent’s testimony as to how the neighbours had come together from opposite ends of the beach that memorable day. Arthur was in the hotel business pre war and I recall he moved away not long after the SM business to a quieter life in the country. I do have a more extensive line on the man who it seems was quite well connected and a dual MC winner to boot.
Nick: I’m sort of glad that you brought up the name of Jack Lyon’s old swimming companion Arthur James Lee and not at all surprised that you had also retained knowledge of the man who might only have rated as a minor distraction to those bungling lesser lights in the overall chain of relevant SM events. Now might the time, based on what I’m about to propose to satisfactorily explain why the fellow did not rate equal value to his much older chum, not forgetting after all that he was also likely present the previous evening when SM was last seen alive, if not so well.
Colonel Sir Arthur James Lee KBE MC and bar, happened to have the distinguished honour of commanding the last infantry battalion to engage Japanese field units in WW2. He went on to become head of the Australian Returned Services League and a leading figure in convincing an ungreatful government to fullfil it’s promised obligations to wounded and disabled veterans like Keith Mangnoson (2/48th). In 1939 he and fellow St. Peter’s school old boy, Geoffrey Malcolm Leane signed up with the 2/48th (9th Div.) as baggy arse privates and headed off to the Middle East to fight the Afrika Corps. After giving Erwin von Rommel a thrashing, they both posted to New Guinea with the 2/9th (7th Div.) to take on Tojo’s boys with a similar outcone. By that time both had become indispencable field commanders and their individual gallantry awards attest to this.
Now getting back to the case, perhaps you’ll recall that on day one after the beach body’s discovery, a communication was directed from Glenelg Police to a Sgt. Leane at CIB concerning a likely SM identity candidate in Edgar Charles Johnston from Payneham which subsequently proved to be unfounded. Of course the Sgt. in question could realistically only have been Arthur Lee’s old army buddy Geoffrey Leane who was by then acting supervisory Inspector of Adelaide CIB’s General Crime Squad, allbeit under overall command of Supt. W. O. Sheridan. Of course at that time older brother and his subordinant Det. Snr. Const. R. L. Leane was still seven long weeks away from being delegated to take over the field inquiries from Det. Sgt. Harry Strangway who had been working under strict orders from the Adelaide Coroner…Make sense to you?
Straight after clicking “submit” I realised I had one of those numbers wrong. Turns out I made a mistake with both of them…..the numbers should be U4544 and M1591…..but Neill and Shelton are M1951. My bad. No connection (pun sort of intended)
Oops – my bad, totally missed that’s what Arthur Lee was about.
NB: At inquest Lyons talks about “three of us” in terms of swimming
“…I had my swim first, and then went along to meet a friend (3 of us swim together) He was further along tds Glenelg.”
As you point out, Wilkinson is the next over from Whyte, but it is toward Glenelg, so if Lee went straight down to the beach at the end of Wilkinson, and Lyons did at Whyte, then Lee is still “toward Glenelg” from Lyons (and the men on horseback would be near the next intersection, and probably very noticeable).
While his testimony sort of sounds like there was considerable beach with them, to me there’s no suggestion that he passed SM on the way to meet Lee (rather that they saw a gathering as they caught up – which to me seems consistent with SM still being further up the beach again).
I guess the point is that the statement doesn’t necessarily suggest they came from “opposite ends of the beach”, simply that one was further up the beach than another (sort of reminds me of “Two men walked into a bar; one was shorter than the other – a common failing in that part of the world”).
(Not sure if related to AJ, but there was also a Lee (RA Lee) in Whyte St, 1 house in from the beach.) They also have AJ both at 5 and 9 Wilkinson in 1950 (and only at 5 in 1955)
The renumbering is really strange (and may tie in with the Lee stuff above). It seems like S&M got it TOTALLY wrong – because the location of the streets in terms of the names changes too. It almost looks like there was some confusion between Lot numbers and Street numbers. Something like S&M recorded the lot number, but aligned them to how the street number would have been (in a lot of new estates there is often some confusion between lot and street numbers). If you compare 1950 to 1955, you see that Weir and Lyons appear to be next door neighbours on the inland side of Tarlton, but in 1955 Tarlton Rd is between them. To me this suggests that S&M had a map of how the street numbering should be, but had the wrong numbers mapping to residents (which is why I *think* it’s probably lot numbers). FWIW, this explains my confusion earlier aviyt why Weir had an ad at 64 Whyte even though S&M showed him at 50…..
I Couldn’t help but to notice, strange it was never mentioned, that the latest beach map shows our X marks the spot sight as being adjacent to Ferris St. which by my rough estimation is the best part of four chains north of the Alvington steps. Is it at all likely that the famous panorama pic was taken at wrong steps which does make for a most interesting scenario. Strapps spoke of street lights which were missing and whilst his description of the general scene conforms, who’s to say there wasn’t a similar set-up at the next (conventional) stairway. Such a pity that Feltus didn’t see the need to reconstruct the crime scene nor to interview a single sole who had been present on the beach in 1948.
Anyway we can put that aside and come back to the important issue of Sir Arthur who gave his residential address as 7-9 Wilkinson in 1945 upon his triumphant return from Morotai before de-mobbing. The property seems to have been quite extensive, unlike the adjoining? No. 5 and befitting that of his very well heeled dad, Arthur James Lee, head honcho of the S.A. Hotel’s Association. It should be noted that by 1957 Arthur Jnr. had married and was living at Toorak Gardens, though at some time before he may have been managing a pub near Hamley Bridge. In the 50s and 60’s he travelled extensively all over (RSL & Govt.) to Hawaii, NZ, Europe, PNG and he even showed up in Saigon to pay his respects to future members (many sensibly declined).
I managed to find old notes on Sir Arthur’s Lady which I’d fortunately kept for any contingency. She had travelled with him to places like Zurich and Hawaii in their mid life. Apart from being a screen starlet in the thirties and playing alongside very well known heart throbs of that era, she chose to remain aware from the glitter in later life and living to 95, fifteen years longer than her gallant knight. After checking out her genealogy and finding not trace of Keane’s genes in her family I think we can safely allow the good Lady to Rest In Peace.
@JS what photo/map? You mean on google? I assume someone just dropped a pin in the wrong spot – I don’t think there’s access to the beach from there.
I know this is old ground, but…., while we’re pointing people to google, get onto streetmap near Bickford Tce and change the date to:
Aug 2016
Mar 2017
Mar 2018
Aug 2019
While the street is at a height from the beach so it’s a little deceptive, convince yourselves that a King Tide at this location would probably come up to the rocks (or at least get very close). I know JS points out that in the inquest Moss describes the body as cold and damp (which most people dispute on the basis of “…had not been in the water”. Not sure where this comes from, whether it was one of the detective’s assertions in a statement elsewhere, or whether it appeared in newspapers somewhere. In any event, I read this as an inference – that the man had not been swimming, and/or the body was not recovered from the water.
Advertiser (trove)
30 Nov 1948:
Sun Rises 4:56AM; sets: 7:14PM
Port Adelaide Tides:
High Water: 4:11am (8.4ft); 4:52PM (6.0ft)
Low water: 10:48am (1.1ft); 10:10pm (2.4ft)
1Dec 1948 :
Sun rises 4:56AM; Sets 7:15PM
Port Adelaide Tides:
High Water: 4:34am (9.0ft); 5:12PM (6.0ft)
Low water: 11:11am (1.0ft); 10:28pm (2.3ft)
Temperatures (I’ve always had a bugbear about “it had been an unseasonably warm day):
29/11: 56.2-67.4 (13.44, 19.67)
30/11: 52.1-76.3 (11.17 – 24.61)
1/12: 65.7-96 (18.72 – 35.56)
I think the “unseasonably warm” is peoples recollection of evidence collecting on the beach, not people talking about the 30/11. Although I think Gordon Strapps makes some comment about “we went to the beach because it had been a hot day” – but that’s not until later, I think (possibly at the 1959 inquest?). Moss talks about it “being a warm night” – and with a low the following day of almost 19 degrees it might have been). offtopic NOTE: I don’t know how the temperature was measured in 1948 and while a lot of online resources talk about highs and lows being “between midnights” I have a funny idea that BOM has a wierd obsession with 9AM (possibly a High can’t be before 9AM and a low can’t be after, or something).
TBH to me the temperatures above reinforce many views about SM not being dressed for the conditions. 19C IS a warm night, and you wouldn’t be dressed up for it normally – but that’s because normally it comes preceded by a warm day. In this case, a 19C night after a 25C day might mean that people seem to be dressed for cooler weather (you remember the 19C night and the 36C day after, but forget that the day before was only 25C).
Indecently, I notice that the assertion the ticket had been “punched, but not used” (which I think comes up in a newspaper summary somewhere, and later in Feltus, I think) is at odds with the inquest summary which talks about “a single uncancelled railway ticket from Adelaide to Henley Beach”. But I don’t know how much of that summary is full of assumption itself.
In re Arthur Lee’s reluctance to come forward and provide investigators with his statement outling involvement on the day, as was his lawful duty, it might be seen somewhat out of character. Apart from his exemplary war record, he was by that time also a member of the RSL hierarchy in both the Glenelg and State Branches, though he had not yet been knighted. I had considered the Colonel’s possible connections to the ‘Association’, an anti communist infiltration scare run by AIF senior military officers from 1948 but as he didn’t seem a likely candidate for such plottings, didn’t follow up. I did not know then that the man had taken on some role with the then Labour Government on certain undisclosed anti immigration matters. One must wonder why Arthur didn’t volunteer to call in the beach death from his own home which was very near the scene, or failing that, remain insitu while old Jack Lyons went to ring Brighton Police from his place. Maybe there now needs to be more thorough analysis as to thoughts outlined above and follow-up as deemed appropriate.
milongal: Just your standard Google Maps affair with the blue tear drop marker and ‘Somerton Man Site’ beneath, right across from Ferris where beach access steps for convenience of street residents eg. Nunns and Kohlers were located. Three streets south in 1948 was Collin Tce. which then had no direct beach access due to high dunes at the sea end. As for Whyte St. which ran back from there, easiest way to the beach could well have been via Wilkinson, Bickford or even Ferris if one wanted to bypass the Alvington (Bickford) stairway. It had peculiar foot pads, set below the risers to facilitate crutch use, thereby a caution for able bodied folk to use.
A dead rubber turns up on uncle Authur’s anti commie capers; turns out he was a member of the Immigration Advisory Board as the RSL delegate and his role dealt mainly with the assimilation and additional needs of migrant children. It was a Liberal government incentive and not during Labour’s time as first mentioned.
There doesn’t appear to be any close relationship between the inquest big names, Tom and John Cleland as DA suggests. Thomas Erskine of the respected Cleland family of lawyers, qualified in England and managed to tour France during WW1 as an artillery officer with the likes of a trench medical orderly named John Bain Lyons. I can’t help wondering whether the pair of similar age got to have a chat before the inquest, pertaining to ‘fronts & flanks’ then Jack’s intended evidence in chief and what might be best left to the police to cover. We recall that the old digger related how after taking a morning dip, he had met up with his unamed pal down the beach a bit, at about which time the pair noticed the body. He went on to describe getting involved by inspecting the body for signs of life and giving some instruction to those gathering at the scene while he left to ring the law; but with no mention of what became of his mate at all. We must therefore assume that the pal, a highly decorated Colonel and president of the Glenelg RSL just simply picked up his towel and headed off home without saying anything to the attending local police. Legal process should not enable such high value eye witness evidence to be overlooked, but in this case both the investigators and the Coroner seem to have allowed Sir Arthur James Lee Esq. a free pass; though for what reason and by what higher authority, only Jessie Thomson knew, so we are told!
I’m still far from satisfied about John Lyons residency status at Whyte St. in late 1948, whilst noting his own “…I live at Somerton…” deposition to the effect at an SM death inquest six months later. It might then be reasonably argued that as of late 1945 he gave Millwood Estate as his address of notice and another in King William St. City which was his business premises.
J.B. Lyons was born at Nth. Adelaide in 1891 according to his WW1 record and strangely for such a well heeled fellow and and respected city businessman only managed to score one entry in the Sth. Aust. Geni. lists that being his marriage to Helen in 1922. At that time he was giving Unley as his placec of usual abode which remained constant up until his inlistment with the VDC in ’41.
First mention of him being a Somerton Beach local was in a single Broken Hill? press release in early December ’48, followed a full six months later by his given testimony on 21/6/49 and finally, to the best of our knowledge, when Ruffles spoke to him in ’73 well into retirement at age 81. This has me asking for one, why a city shopkeeper would want live so far from work and if so, how would he find all the time for swimming. That he was listed in the ’52 S & M at Whyte St. bares noting.