One thing that has long bothered me about the contents of the Somerton Man’s suitcase is the white tie (the one with the “T Keane” name on it). As the always-entertaining Pete Bowes asks in a recent tomsbytwo blog post,
What manner of man carries a white tie in his luggage?
To which I’d add: what manner of man wears a white tie at all? And indeed, up until just now I had no sensible answer at all to either question (unless you count American white-tie gangster chic as a possibility). However, I just found a curious line from history, that suggests how wearing a white tie might very possibly get you killed in post-WW2 Australia…
It turns out that one of the most famous (long) white tie-wearers of the 20th century was French lawyer and fascist politician Pierre Laval (the 101st French President), one of only three men executed by the post-WW2 French High Court for political war crimes.
(“Pierre Laval a Meurisse 1931” by Agence de presse Meurisse – Bibliothèque nationale de France. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.)
The book “Nazi Dreamtime: Australian Enthusiasts for Hitler’s Germany” by David Bird mentions (pp. 214-216) that well-known Australian Professor Kelver Hayward Hartley (1909-1998) for a while wore a white shirt and white tie in some kind of emulation of Pierre Laval, openly signalling his Nazi-aligned anti-democratic views: and so in 1939 he inevitably came to the attention of the NSW Special Branch. Though Sergeant Simons and Constable Jones wrote a report damning his politics, they concluded that he was essentially harmless, and so he survived WW2 unscathed.
So… might the white tie in the Somerton Man’s suitcase actually be a sign of his far-right political allegiance? Right now, I can’t conceive why anyone in 1948 would consciously want to place themselves under Laval’s long shadow, unless they were themselves a fascist.
Unless anyone knows better… 🙂
That guy looks a little like “George” Joseph Saul Haim Marshall .. are you onto something and holding it back, brother?
If you are going to follow Swedish traditions, then close relatives (sons, brothers, father, husband…) shourd wear a white tie to a dark suit at funerals.
I don’t know better, but having recently re-read Wodehouse, I find that a tie of any other colour was frowned upon when men wore formal dinner dress. Perhaps the good Somerton man attended dinners or dances.
PS It occurs to me that the ensemble in the picture could represent the things needed to make a tie of leather – that is the model (J.Keane’s) – and the waxed thread, sharp knife and scissors. I can’t recall whether there were needles of any sort in the kit, but saddler’s leather needles typically had a long eye and fairly long shank. I understand that the true craftsman often used none, though an awl was essential.
bark: a Swedish funeral, eh? I guess it’s possible… 🙂
He lost his top hat and tails 🙂 He was a dancer wasn’t he? Tap maybe…
Was there makeup on the brush?
Again, Nick: If Somerton Man happened to be a visitor from another country (say the US) he might not have known about the political, or formal interpretations of wearing a white tie while visiting Australia or British territories — especially during the opening of hostilities of WWII.
If he had been visiting British Columbia (Canada) for instance, would there be the same negative reaction to his wearing a white tie?
🙂
Enough of all this white tie malarkey .. the holy grail is a copy of Biochemist Cowan’s analysis of the black powder that was shaken out of the particle brush.
I think you’ll find it’s not a white tie but a light fawn colour, similar to those issued to US Army officers and enlisted men. There are some brief images of the tie in colour in the TV interviews.
A short description can be found on the tamamshud.blogspot.com.au site and in the post dated 13th October:
Somerton Man: Keane Tie, Trousers & Laundry Marks
Elllie, wouldn’t it be great to know whether that white tie was worn with tails, or with a pin-striped suit. It would mark the class to which “J Keane” belonged – pretty well. All we can reasonably suppose is that a white tie was (probably) being worn still in those days, and in Australia. It might conceivably be an op-shop relic from decades earlier, of course.
Or even J. Keane’s communion tie. Oh, the possibilities…
I put the odds right up there with his being a serial killer that used only white ties to strangle his victims. If a white tie would have been such an uncommon and/or symbolic item at the time more would have been made of it. With my two cents out there I’d also like to applaud the effort to keep the somerton man posts coming without any new leads/information to follow.
Pete: could it have been fingerprinting powder on the brush ?
I agree with you about the colour of the tie Gordon .
T Anderson, Ando: whoever finds the biochemist James Cowan’s report may find a lead, and if it’s missing – ?
Lady Ruth: Cowan would have picked that in an instant – he was a highly qualified analyst.
Lady Ruth,
black powders such as graphite and lamp black were used for visualising fingerprints, but the bristles of a stencilling brush would be far too inflexible to satisfactorily apply a fingerprint powder. The print would be damaged by the abrasion of hard bristles.
Cheers B deveson
Thanks Pete.
Somewhere there is a tux at the dry cleaners waiting to be picked up.
DA has made it quite clear that his spouse/daughter’s dna indicates UK (including Irish or Scottish) markers only. So…If SM had anything to do with Jessica regarding Robin’s paternity, he was of British ancestry only. (Assuming, of course, that Rachel is Robin’s biological daughter.)
If she (Jessica) knew him through other means and he is not genetically related to her or her children…It’s all open.
Somerton Man was British. Not that hard. And died on the beach of radiation poisoning. Something the British wished to keep very, very secret. Unfortunately the South Australian Police discovered him before the Commonwealth Police did, since unknown to them he was AWOL from a military establishment near Woomera. Jessica told me that he was Captain John Sinclair. Hence, like all Gentiles, uncircumcised.
He was British. But he was working for the CIS.
No. Working for MI6
Diane, Ellie, xplor .. it’s the wrong kind of tie for “white tie” formal wear (tailcoat).
Also, are we sure its white, not just pale-coloured? As far as I remember it is listed in the possesions list as just “tie marked Keane”. A pale coloured tie could look white in a B&W photograph, but wouldn’t be out of place with a normal civilian suit – or indeed some WW2 uniforms.
Greg: nobody seems to know enough to be sure either way. But I just thought it was an interesting story to tell. 🙂
SM was found wearing an American pattern striped tie (stripes run from top left, the opposite of the British pattern which is “heart to sword”) with large red and blue stripes separated with thinner white stripes. Quite by accident I noted two members of Opus Dei in Australia wearing ties with this pattern (but with heart to sword slanting of the stripes). It is probably nothing but, given that we have very little to work on, I think it is worth checking. Does this tie pattern and colouring have any meaning? This tie is shown in the photographs of SM taken the day after the autopsy (see Feltus page 153), and also shown in amongst the jumble of clothing in the 1978 TV documentary.
When SM was re-photographed “shortly before the cast was made” (see Feltus page 153) I note that he was dressed with a tartan pattern tie. Was this tie found in the suitcase? If it was not found in the suitcase why was he dressed with a tartan tie, and an obvious “in your face”, tartan tie at that? A message? A clue? Does anyone recognise the tartan?
Sir Elton John about Mr. Kevin Spacey:
Speaking about the ball in 2001, Sir Elton said:
“Yes, he came in white tie, and he came straight from a private jet. Yes, I don’t think he’d wear white tie otherwise.”
Bryon – but doesn’t “heart to sword” imply upper left to lower right. Unless you’re having a sly dig at the old, and of course utterly false legend entertained about the upper class English. 🙂
Bryon – no – stupid of me. You were thinking of the sword still in its scabbard, hanging by the the left hip.
Opus Dei. From what we know now Keane was a devote catholic. Could he have been a member?
Em – I don’t think so. It began in 1928 but in Spain and Italy which were both moving down the fascist road. Australian Catholicity was from Ireland. I was there through the sixties -to-eighties and among anyone over school-age it was considered a massive social gaffe and suspiciously like fanaticism to so much as speak of religion at all, let alone ask what a person’s religion was or parade your own. It was as bad as asking who a person voted for. It was a very anti-fanatical society, with a habit of deflating the pompous and self-satisfied. So I’m not sure, but I’d doubt if you’d even find many ordinary Australians, including Catholics, who’d ever heard of that group by the 1950s. PS – I’ve never been clear about what is signified by adding the word ‘devout’ to the word ‘Catholic’.