While yet again raking through Trove for bookmakers’ clerk John Joseph Keane, I found another Keane: Jack Gordon Keane of Broken Hill. Back in 1916, this J. G. Keane was prosecuted by Mr B. J. Kearney, who (more than a decade later) represented John Joseph Keane in court (which may be a coincidence).
Jack Gordon Kean was ordered two months’ imprisonment, the warrant not to issue for 10 days, for non-compliance with an order for the payment of 5/ a week towards the maintenance of his child.
The Trove links I found are:
In Broken Hill’s Barrier Miner, I also found a report of a 1917 case relating to a saddle (stolen from the Southern Cross Hotel), where a John Gordon Kean (“barman employed at the Commercial Hotel”) gave evidence (he advised the recipient of the purloined saddle to go to the police).
Similarly, a “J. G. Keane” was selected for relief work on “Crystal and Kaolin Streets, near Miners Arm Hotel” in Broken Hill in July 1919.
Now, please understand that I don’t for a moment think that this is the same person as the (name-changing) John Joseph Keane I was looking for. What I’m actually wondering is whether, given that the child maintenance orders were issued in an Adelaide court, this might in fact be John Joseph Keane’s father.
Can anyone please do better than I did and track down John Gordon Keane (his surname appears with and without the final ‘e’ in different reports), plus the name of his unsupported child?
Possibly (but, as always, not necessarily) connected is that there was a Mrs J. Keane and Dorothy Keane of “78 Piper-street”, Broken Hill on a broken-down train in March 1919. Similarly, a “J Keane” of “78 Piper-street” objected to a mining concession in February 1926, and to other proposals here and here. But that might be no more than a (different) coincidence.
Short version: 2 John Joseph’s, one KEANE the other KEANE in SA 1871 and 1896.
Some other Keane’s who may be of interest….
I don’t think these are necessarily of interest, but NSW BDM has…..
Reginald J G KEANE b1894 to William H and Susan S in Kogarah
John J KEANE b1882 to John and Frances in Sydney
Joseph G KEANE 1898 to Peter P and Hattie F, Sydney
The only KEANE I can find born in Broken Hill after 1850 are…..
Cyril J KEANE (1931), no dather’s name, mother Mary T (curiously, the search wouldn’t let me include results after 1919, so not sure how this appeared).
John A KEANE (1907) to James E and Beatrice M
Dorothy E KEANE (1912) to James P and Elizabeth P
Do you remember the Keane whose mother lived on West Terrace (and was her name Sarah?)…..
There’s a Thomas J KEANE b1887 to James and Sarah J in Sydney….
Adelaide records are a touch harder to search, but there’s
Joseph James KEEN 1852 to Joseph James KEEN and elizabeth ROGERS
1857 John KEAN to Francis KEAN and Mary WILSON
1866 John Thomas KEAN to Michael KEAN and Mary FLINN
1871 John Joseph KEAN to John KEAN and Mary KELLY (sibling Johanna KEAN 1879)
1896 John Joseph KEANE born to John Joseph KEANE and Nora MCKAGUE
1904 John Lawrence KEAN to Michael KEAN and Flora Margaret MACDONALD
NB: Wouldn’t recommend the ABC podcast. Doesn’t seem to bring too much new to the table, is quite speculative (and I think often inaccurate). Only hint of interesting stuff is that SA’s current Attorney General seems to be happy for an exhumation – as long as the cost isn’t borne by the taxpayer….
Milongal, hoping that bygones be bygones, what do you think of the S.A. Major Crimes taking possession of the DNA hair samples from analyst Blackie seventeen months ago?
To be honest, I wasn’t aware of it (I’ve had limited time to read too much SM stuff)….but it certainly sounds interesting.
That said, it sounds like it would have happened very shortly (a couple months) after the SA State election (and the new Marshall Government) – which of course is when Vicki Chapman became Attorney General (see the above sidenote about she’d be ok with an exhumation provided all expenses were covered privately).
It would also coincide with the handover of the lease on SM’s plot from the bookies to the SA Government (I’m not sure whether it was a 70 year lease that lapsed – I had always assumed the default lease on West Tce plots in those days was 99 years, but it might be something to look into – certainly these days they say “50-99 years with options to extend by 5 years at a time” (or equivalent)).
So the typically cynical side of me could imagine this be a mundane machination of Gorvernment (consolidating cold case data or something like that). In fact it sort of seems peculiar that evidence like that would still be held with an analyst rather than an evidentiary store in the first place….
I have a vague recollection that some time ago on here there was a post about a national archive file whose suppression keeps getting extended (which I keep meaning to look into too).
So I guess short version: It certainly seems an interesting development, but I could imagine fairly mundane explanations for it.
Would it be likely they would run a DNA test themselves?
I find that unlikely given the AG’s stance on “This musn’t cost the public purse anything” (although that is based on the podcasts (the final one) – which for mine were full of speculation, inaccuracy and misinterpretation (and an apparent agenda that aligns with DA and his family tree, which for mine isn’t necessarily the best angle).
Digression ahead…..
Something that really bothers me (and it’s come up before) is the weather. The 1977 documentary begins something like “….it had been unseasonably warm”. Similarly, the podcast begins something like “It was an unseasonably warm November day in Adelaide”.
Neither of these seem particularly true (it had been 24.6C on November 30th, there had been several 30C days much earlier in the month, and the average temperature for that November was 23.2C. All time averages for November are 24.4C (with yearly variation from about 20.2C to 28.4C). I’ll grant that increasing temperatures may skew some of those figures, but I think ‘Unseasonably Warm’ would still be clutching at straws. The podcast also talks about Dec 1 being “Calm and Mild” – it was 35.6C – I’d hardly call that mild, especially if the day before was “Unseasonably Warm” – still we’ll write that off as journalistic filler (i.e. just words with no meaning)
For me it’s quite easy to dismiss these ‘latter day’ assertions – Littlemore was a Sydneysider who didn’t necessarily understand Adelaide weather patterns, and the podcast people may simply have taken artistic license from his assertions.
The problem, though, is Gordon Strapps (who I didn’t realise only died last October) and Olive Neill had gone to the beach ‘because it had been warm’ (maybe I’m mixing up Littlemore with the inquest – I’ll have to double check). If we look at the weather in the fortnight (ie from the 16th) leading up to the 30th:
21.9, 19.3, 19.9, 23.1, 26.3, 30.2, 23.9, 26.6, 33.2, 21.1, 21.2, 26.1, 20.6, 19.7, 24.6
So how do we describe warm? My memories of Adelaide was that until there’s been a temperature mid-30’s most people consider 27-28 “warm”, and once there has been a higher temperature 30 is sort of the yardstick – and in any event, a 20C day followed by a 25C day doesn’t really seem to warrant a trip to the beach.
Obviously two young love birds might go to the beach for a plethora of other inoccuous reasons (watch the sunset, have some hanky panky, sit and stare at the waves, etc), but so why is there any mention at all of the weather having something to do with it? Surely even if you went to the beach for a quick snog and were a little embarassed to admit it you’d talk about “going to see the sunset” (given the time of day) or something like that?
I accept that it’s a trivial (and probably irrelevant) point, but aside from the motives for (or at least causes of) the innaccuracy, a lot of modern-day armchair experts seem to read stuff into the weather’s impact (Why was he not dressed for unseasonably warm weather? Because it wasn’t unseasonably warm….(incidentally, Melbourne was 18.1 and 20.9 on 29/11 and 30/11 – where some say he came from – I think Port Augusta was also mentioned as possible – and while it doesn’t have data from 1948, it seems to be considerably warmer by the end of Nov most years – although with a lot of variation).
So it’s a minor point, and it has very little bearing on the facts of the day, but I think what I means is we sometimes need to take some care in verifying information. The weather that November would not have been unseasonably warm (there was a string of 3 unseasonably warm days around the 13th – but I think in most years you’d get a similar streak at some stage). With even more certainty, the 30th of November was not an unseasonably warm day, and was pretty close to an average November’s day in Adelaide.
One last thing (which I didn’t realise until the podcast, but perhaps should have). The antrhopologist involved in verifyinf details about SM’s ear, and who also identified HC Reynolds as ‘almost certainly the same person’ as SM is also a Professor at Uni of Adelaide. While I don’t question his expertise (or knowledge) when it comes to anything anatomically related (and I don’t necessarily even properly understand his expertise), I find it a little hard to overlook the massive potential for significant Confirmation Bias when someone is helping a friend or colleague. I don’t know that DA and Marciej Hennenberg are necessarily friends, but as colleagues at the same insitution** I can’t help but think there’s likely a tendency to try to help each other rather than disprove each other’s ideas. I’m not for a second suggesting a deliberate attempt to mislead on confuse, but think it’s natural in that sort of a situation for people to look to endorse rather than disprove a colleague’s ideas….
**I’m not sure when MH moved to Adelaide Uni – He was definitely there by 2011, and as far as I can tell when he stirred media interest as a ‘Hobbit Denier’ in 2004, he was likely already there – but I can’t confirm that.
Perhaps he flew in that morning from a colder place, hence the cardigan, and I don’t recollect the police checking arrivals about that time ..
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) are presenting a doco on the SM case Monday 8 pm (Canberra).
Watched the Doco and (As expected) it was predominantly the Abbot and Egan show…..
One thing that does come out quite strongly, however, is that the current AG is not only willing for an exhumation, but sounds keen for it – on the proviso that it’s not the public purse that pays for it. Her apparent in the interest in the case apparently stems from her days studying law – and I wondered (in answer to PB’s earlier question) whether her interest might have something to do with Major Crimes’ apparent renewed interest.
Other than that I found it hard to watch (but thanks all the same Byron for letting us know it was on)….
Actually, I will confess there are LOTS of pictures of Robin not previously in the public domain, and I will concede some of them seem to bear a resemblance to SM.
Also (while I think of it), some of the pictures of the beach seemed misleading (further South than they should’ve been, I think). There are a couple that actually show the narrowness of the beach their, but (I’m going to blame editing rather than anything else) – I might be wrong, because I’ve not been there a while, but the beach simply didn’t look quite right to me (it looked more like the beach around Whyte St, rather than Bickford Tce – although maybe low tide simply exposes the sand barsto change the look of the beach)
I still don’t understand how DNA can identify an individual without cross-referencing to another sample of a known person.
I think the Abbott angle is firstly to compare with Rachel Egan and then to do something equivalent to an ancestory dot com search.
But not sure any of that necessarily identifies someone, only their family (and is potentially complicated by the potential for someone to have been adopted/fostered and have grown up around a family other than their own blood line (so even if you find the bloodline, the people in that bloodline aren’t necessarily aware of his existence let alone identity anyway).
That said, I’m pretty comfortable with Vickie Chapman’s stance – by all means exhume and DNA test, just don’t expect the SA taxpayer to foot the bill….
Before hitting the fart sack last night I’d been thinking on the recently neglected Broken Hill line of inquiry, including the Pruszinski Somerton beach suitcase affair, Prosper Thomson’s regular trips &c., and what might be still out there to create new interest. Unfortunately Jack Gordon Keane wasn’t ever likely to give up his ghost. Problem being that despite a few vague NP cuttings, there was nothing to trace through the usual traps and it seems that he was going to be border line at least for upper age cut off limit in any case.
I had a dream last night, to do with Broken Hill and it’s likely relevance to SM’s presence there at some point, but as a transient visitor only which fits the bill for his being passenger on the train to Adelaide the night before he died. Cut a long story short, a strange location out of context kept cutting in to my trance with an additional location. There are five listings for Bald Hill Creek as follows:- North Dakota, California, Oregon (?), then in Australia with one near the goldfields of Ballarat Vic. and the other, out near the Barwon River headwaters in Central NSW.