Much to my surprise, my online order with the PROV (20 AUS, i.e. £12) for a copy of Carl Webb and Dorothy Jean Robertson’s 1941 marriage certificate pinged into my inbox in less than 15 minutes (and on a Sunday, no less). Luckily they got married more than 60 years ago, so this counts as an historic document that anybody can order (yes, even me). So I can now tell you exactly what it says…
The 1941 Marriage Certificate
The marriage was celebrated at St Matthews, Prahran on 4th October 1941: the Church of England “Clerk in Holy Orders” (minister) was John Burrell Montgomery.
Carl Webb is listed as a 35-year-old bachelor (no children) (occupation: instrument maker) born in Yarraville to Richard August Webb (deceased) (baker and pastrycook) and Eliza Amelia Grace.
Dorothy Jean Robertson is listed as a 21-year-old spinster (no children) (occupation: foot specialist) born in Ballarat to John Coomber [sic] Robertson (Inspector of Munitions) and Alice Stratford.
The bride and groom’s addresses are all listed as 274 Domain Rd, South Yarra. The witnesses were Doris Martin and J. C. Robertson.
Here are the bride and groom’s signatures:
Dorothy Jean Robertson’s Parents
John Comber (‘Jack’) Robertson was born in 1894 Omeo, Victoria to Robert Robertson and Mary Kate Comber (Australia Birth Index), and died on 6 Jan 1989 (“retired caretaker”). He appears on the Victoria Electoral rolls for 1919 (Beeac, Corangamite), 1922, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1931 (Brunswick West, Bourke), then a gap to 1954 (Essendon North, Lalor), 1963 (1963 St Kilda North, Isaacs), 1968, 1972, 1977 (Fawkner, Burke), and 1980.
Apart from serving in WWI (blue eyes, brown hair, 5ft 8.5in, 11st 12lb, Fourth Light Horse Regiment, etc), pretty much all else that you’ll find out about John Comber Robertson is that on 23 Jan 1924, he was in the Victoria Petty Sessions Court in Colac (ref: 301/P0/Vol 62). Complainant R Batterbury, default summons 20/12/1923, 5 shillings fee, charge “Goods sold & delivered”, struck out, no defence. (Findmypast)
Alice Stratford was born in 1896, married Jack Robertson on 2nd June 1919 in Mildura, and died in Brunswick, Victoria in 1980 (Ref: 05849). According to this rather charming Wikitree page:
Alice Stratford, daughter of Charles Stratford and Louise. Her parents had the hotel at St. Arnaud. Alice learned to drive a car among the trees in the park just before the arch in Ballarat, where they lived after their marriage. Alice married Jack Robertson on 2 June 1919 at Mildura. During WWII both Jack and Alice were in munitions. Alice died in 1980 aged 84.
Alice and Jack appeared at the same address in the Victoria Electoral rolls right up until 1977, so it seems fairly safe to assume that they spent their entire married life together.
Dorothy Jean Robertson
MyHeritage lists Dorothy Jean Robertson being born in 1920 in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, to John Comber Robertson and Alice Robertson (nee Stratford): so I think everything ties together just about as perfectly as possible (even if all the information was behind four different paywalls, bah). According to able online genealogist Angela (thanks!), we also know that Dorothy Jean Robertson’s date of birth was 18 July 1920.
What remains is the question of when and where Dorothy Jean Robertson / Webb died. Though I’ve managed to eliminate a lot of possibilities (e.g. the Dorothy Jean Robertson born Aug 3 1920 who died in New Zealand in 2000), the one candidate I have who’s still left in play is:
- Dorothy Jean Robertson born 1920, died 1 June 2001, Hornsby, Hornsby Shire, NSW
- Buried in Enfield Memorial Park (FindAGrave)
Maybe this is her, maybe it isn’t: hopefully we’ll find out before too long. Still, I think that all of this is a decent enough start, and hopefully researchers with access to different databases (and/or different ways of searching them) will be able to fill in all the missing details. Good hunting!
That was pretty quick, busy bees over there! A wikitree user provides a short bio of John C. Robertson:
Jack was born on 15 October 1894 and began working for the railways after his father died in 1910. He worked around the Mildura area. He served at Gallipoli in WWI. In Shrapnel Gully in 1915 Jack was going down to get a bite when he saw a man walking towards him along the protective beach trench, who had a Red Cross on his arm. Jack said ‘I know you?’ and he replied ‘I have been looking for you.’ It was his cousin Norman Robertson Bennett. On one occasion Jack rode a horse he was just finished breaking in, and when it saw the horse drawn tram for the first time it ran away up the main street with Jack . Jack married Alice Stratford, daughter of Charles Stratford and Louise, on 2 June 1919 at Mildura. they took up a soldier settlement block at Cundare near Colac as a mixed farm which they ran until the drought years of the late 1920s forced so many on these blocks to give up farming. They moved to town and Jack was the manager of the Benevolent Home in Royal Park for five years. During this time he became involved in voluntary work for the Zoological Gardens and was responsible for much of the landscaping. He did the layout and design of Poplar Street. In 1935 he became the factory manager for O Gilpin Stores, a drapery chain, and then manager of Oliver Gilpin’s property in Balwyn. Here Gilpin had a large house and 40 acres of wildlife sanctuary. Jack lived in The Lodge and amongst his jobs was that of trapping birds and animals in the bush to stock the sanctuary. During WWII both he and Alice were in munitions and then Jack went to Darwin with the Allied Works, making airstrips, etc, from 1941 until 1947. He retired and took a job at Ballarat Air Port for a few years and then moved to Melbourne as caretaker at St.Michaels School in 1960.
Thomas: thanks, that’s a lovely little write-up. I do find it a little odd that there’s not a single mention of their daughter (or indeed any other children), but perhaps that will all become clear with a bit more searching…
Wow, well done guys! So everyone was in the wrong track? Please disregard my last comment on the other post regarding her family, but I suppose the newspaper clip about the car crash is about her, right?
3.3.1947
‘THREE HURT WHEN CAR HITS TREE’ The three occupants of a car which crashed into a tree in Albert rd, South Melbourne, on Saturday were injured. They were John Koch, 61, of Queensberry st, West Footscray, who suffered lacerations; his wife, Edie, 61, who suffered a fractured leg and facial injuries; and Dorothy Webber (sic), 40, of Domain rd, South Yarra, abrasions and shock.
Pat: it sounds like a coincidence (the age is 13 years out, so the name is probably wrong for good reason), but I’ll try to have a look later.
Pat: actually, thinking about it for even a few seconds reveals the obvious flaw, which is that the newly-wed Webbs had moved out of Domain Rd by 1943, let alone 1947. So it is indeed just a coincidence.
And if that newspaper clip is right, she should have been born around 1907…
Pat: I’m going to trust the marriage certificate here. 😉
Okay 😇
Is “Instrument Maker” equivalent to “tool maker” or is it literally someone who makes instrument (I’m thinking someone who works for an organ builder). Just remembering earlier conversations about well developed calves on people who might be used to playing the organ – and I think it would be quite normal for someone who builds organs to also know how to play one…
Dorothy’s paternal aunt? https://austcemindex.com/inscription?id=16088157
Pat: yup, looks like you found a relative!
NP: thanks for small mercies Nick but, it would please me if you’d also consider allowing excited punters access to a full scan of the Marriage docs for personsal evaluation. Guess it’s no harm to reveal that just prior to witness John Comber Robertson’s RTA from Egypt in 1919, he had just completed 56 days of sulphur treatment for ‘Cairo Rose’ or syphilus. His next discharge was in May and he had married Alice at Mildura by June which is rather worrisome for future offspring. Byron frquently raised the question of SM’s having a particular nasty form of the disease and so my inquisitive nature is now concerned with where, when and from whom he may have contracted it. The mind boggles when contemplating Doff’s claim that Carl was in the old fart sack by 7.00pm of an evening, presumably not yet ready for settling down to a good night’s sleep.
NP: I can’t find record of a Dorothy Jean Robertson of your given particulars at any cemetery in or around Dunedin. Closest I can find of three DJRs would be one who was cremated at Waitati who resided at 8 Easther Cres., She was born bn. 11/12/17 and died aged 100 on 12/6/18. Two others both too young were processed through Anderson’s Bay facility in 1999 & 2000. I’m thinking that first aforementioned is a more likely candidate than the lass from Hornsby NSW, though I don’t recall having checked the other unrelated find on Myheritage which elludes me for the moment.
There having being no contrary evidence come forward, how likely is it our Dorothy was born out of wedlock during WW1while John Robertson was still hot on the trail of Liman Von Sanders in Damascus. I’ve been thinking that perhaps mother Alice had conceived her to a soldier beau or other nere do well who either deserted her or had died in the Belgian trenches. In those days when an unwed lass delivered close to home they were subsequently sent up country ‘baby & all’ for to hide the family’s shame. In this case Alice ended up in Mildura three hundred miles from Ballarat caring for her wee barn Doffy on her pat when newly demobbed John the ex lighthorseman came riding in to save her virtue and become an instant husband and father. Of course such scenario backs up my claim that a just married Dorothy Jean Donaldson is one and the same with my 1956 NZ returnee of the same name giving 1917 as her correct birth year. Nothing else can account for near identical signatures and three quite distinctive cursive D capitals on official documents fifteen years apart. I guess I’m prepared to stake my reputation as a recognised police handwriting witness on the eventual outcome..So help me Your Honour.
Nick, do you think Phillis Crick in the photo with Alice is Dorothy’s little sister? How old do you think she is in that 1926 photo?
An ancestry user states that a “Coomber John Robertson” (apparently mixing up given name and mother’s maiden name?) had a daughter Phyllis, 1925 – 2012 without mentioning other kids. Unfortunately, no source is referenced. She married a Claude James Crick (1924 – 2014) in 1946.
Thomas: I mentioned Phyllis in a comment here, and have already sent off an email to the family. Fingers crossed I’ll get a response soon! 🙂
Pat: which 1926 photo are you looking at?
Nick and Thomas: https://www.wikitree.com/photo/png/Stratford-642
Phillis or Phyllis?
If Dorothy was her big sister she would have been 6 years old, so why she is not in this photo? Could she have been adopted or born out of wedlock (as in John Sanders’ theory)?
Looks like I’m Robertson Crusoe ptp with my Dorothy the bastard child contention that I’ve becoming convinced of for good reason, namely there being no logical alternative. I’m trying to obtain at least a D & POB, NOK along with any former marriage details plus vocation from a decent Dunedin source. Someone who has figured out Vic. S & Mcdougall online might help with the abive by checking 1956 for the NZ returnee Robertson. Thanks js
Can someone check on Ancestry, a Dorothy Jean Robertson, b. 1920, d. 1 Jun 2001 in Hornsby, NSW and buried in Enfield Memorial Park or cremated at Clearview, Port Adelaide Enfield City, South Australia?
Pat: oh, that’s really great, thanks! If that’s 1926 or so, I expect that (as described) that is Phyllis Robertson on her mother’s lap. It’s just a photograph out of context, so I’m not sure that we can draw any other inferences from it, apart from the fact that there are probably a fair few other photographs in Phyllis Crick’s collection that it would be really good to see. 🙂
Pat: I’ve been checking Ancestry, and I think we’re still a little way off knowing for sure where & when ‘our’ Dorothy Jean Robertson died. Hornsby is indeed one possibility, but there are doubtless others.
Nick: Thanks! Have you seen her father’s photo? It was taken in Egypt https://www.wikitree.com/photo/png/Robertson-15033
Pat: that’s also nice, thanks! I tried searching WikiTree (with its own search and also using Google) for more images, but it wasn’t very helpful. I’ve left a comment for Bruce Bennett to see if he has any more photos from the “Phillis Crick Collection”.
It strange that there’s no mention of children is his long and detailed biography… https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Robertson-15033 and although there’s this photo of Alice with Phillis, their family description shows ‘children unknown’.
Pat, two siblings of Robin May nee Robertson.
Robin May Robertson born 1893 Omeo, Victoria to Robert Robertson and Mary Kate nee Comber. Reg. No: 25388/1893.
Maud Easton Robertson born 1891 Bairnsdale, Victoria to Robert Robertson and Mary Kate nee Comber. Reg No: 8623/1891 Died Geelong, Victoria 1946
John Comber Robertson born 1894 Omeo, Victoria to Robert Robertson and Mary Kate nee Comber
Reg. No: 31958/1894
Nick: It might seem stupid to ask, but what are the questions that you are now trying to answer?
I guess the following:
1) Can you locate a photo of this guy, so as to determine if he matches the physical description? So as to confirm the identification.
2) Why did he go to Somerton beach and how/why did he die there?
3) What is the meaning of the notes in his book?
Nevertheless I kind of get the feeling the mystery has largely been solved now. He wasn’t a spy or a foreigner. It appears as though he committed suicide. He had separated from his wife who had moved near Somerton beach. Unfortunately he hadn’t got much going for him in his life and his attempt to reconnect with his wife had been unsuccessful. He was fond of poetry Abbott suggests the notes in the book are to do with horses that he thought of betting. Are you just trying to check whether Abbott’s assertions are correct?
Mark: a photo would be really great, but my biggest preference would be hearing the family history, and seeing what that tells us. I’m 95% sure that, just as the Australian Navy codebreaker suggested in 1949, it’s an acronymic poem, so there’s perhaps less mystery in the writing than some would have us believe.
(I will get back to Sforza-era ciphers very soon, but this is absorbing all my free time, as I’m sure you can imagine.)
Charles Alexander Stratford married Louise Wilhe Reither and had two sons, both died in Mildura, Alfred Edward Stratford, b.c. 1872, and Lawrence Conrad Stratford, b. c. 1878. Still trying to find Alice.
There was a Phyllis Martha Stratford living in Mildura in 1946. She was a nurse at Base Hospital.
Just out of interest I will a put links to a few records here. John Comber Robertson’s service record is freely available in National Archives. He returned to Australia per the “Karmala”, embarking 15 Jan 1919. He married Alice Stratford in Victoria the same year (BDM 2782 / 1919). Daughter Dorothy Jean was born in Ballarat the following year (BDM 17944 / 1920). Another daughter Phyllis was born in 1925 – the Vic BDM birth indexes use the 100 year rule.
I found a death notice for Phyllis that I won’t share here, she and husband “Jim” had a large family. States her correct maiden name but no mention of a remaing sister. Here is a small newpaper article about the wedding of Phyllis-
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/165030811?searchTerm=%22robertson%20crick%22~9
No death notices for Alice or John Robertson that I could find, but only one Vic paper “The Age” is publicly available for those dates. The Sun News Pictorial (now the Herald-Sun) was the more popular paper for classifieds. Someone (not me!) may be interested enough to visit the State Library for a death notice that could have the married name of Dorothy. I have a likely marriage for her in 1952. J C R’s will is available by visiting the P.R.O.V. in person or paying for a downlad, about $30 and can take several days. The Vic. certificates are an immediate download, $20.
I don’t think anything I have added here will prove or disprove any theory about the Somerton Man – people do love a mystery and some will refuse to believe that he was just an ordinary bloke, but what can I say – I just love researching.
Can I therefore assume that the Phyllis Jean Robertson bn. circa. 1917 and died in Ballarat 2004 is not Dorothy’s sister that married RAAF corporal James Claud Crick in 1946. I had wondered why have two jeans in the one small family.
Phyllis Robertson was born in 28 August, 1925, according to Wikitree but there’s no source mentioned. Anyone knows where is the source of this date?
I suppose her name was Louise Wilhelmina Reiter. I haven’t found anything about her, yet. Disregard Phyllis Martha Stratford, that was the flu virus talking…
Catherine S: thank you for all that! I have already reconstructed Phyl and Jim’s family (which I got from newspaper death notices, as did you) as best I can, and I’m currently trying to contact them so that I can finish and post my follow-up page on the rest of the Robertson family. I’d be very interested to know what you think Dorothy’s 1952 husband’s surname was (offline if you prefer), I’m more than happy to buy copies of certificates and publish what I find here.
The Somerton Man may well have been an ordinary bloke, but you have to admit that he’s left us a perfectly splendid knot to untie. 😉
19472/1952
But it could have been with Edward Dunlop in 1951. `Dorothy Webb`. And if it is, she has abandoned him because there is a note for desertion in the newspaper!
1008/1951
I’m on a completely different trail to everyone else. I’ve found a record of someone coming to England after the war. The Date of Birth for ‘Dorothy Jean’ is correct but they are going by the name ‘Jean’. On the record there is also a child which after subsequent research I found had their birth registered as a late entry. What baffles me is the child must have been born in England to have their birth re-registered again. Registrations like this are only carried out of the child was born out of wedlock or the mother subsequently remarries and the new fathers name is added. Things like this went on because of the stigma surrounding children born out of wedlock or children with different surnames. Sadly the alleged person I found that may be a child of ‘Dorothy Jean’ passed away a couple of years ago. I’ve found another generation under her and I’ve messaged them through a social media site. Only time will tell! 😐
* I’ve also emailed Births, Deaths & Marriages for an explanation on how late registrations work.
Glen: unfortunately, genealogy sites are full of family trees where people have made well-meaning (but wrong) guesses, which in the end amounts to a load of noise that everyone else has to ‘tune out’ before they can see what the real story is.
We have literally hundreds of partial matches for Dorothy Jean Webb, but almost all of those will waste your time unless you have some really good reason to think not that it might be correct, but that it definitely is correct.
When you say “date of birth”, do you mean year or day/month/year?
Did Dorothy ever lived in Acland St, South Yarra?
In the post war period, Katoomba became a unit of the 20th Minesweeping Flotilla and operated in New Guinea, New Britain and the Solomons. In October 1946, at Sydney, the ship began preparations to pay off, but in January 1947 she rejoined the 20th Minesweeping Flotilla, spending the following twelve months in sweeping operations off the Queensland coast. HMAS Katoomba decommissioned on 2 August 1948 and was later sold to be broken up.
7 Jan.1943
HIS GREETING
C. Webb of HMAS Katoomba, who didn’t give his rank, has sent this New Year greeting to Guilford Comforts Fund: –
“Like ships upon a sea of blue,
These happy wishes sail to you.
And may each far horizon hold,
Good luck, good health, and joys untold.”
Could this be the source of his alleged liking of poetry?
Pat: Acland St? Possibly, but so far I only have direct evidence for 274 Domain Rd and 63 Bromby Street.
Nick: Thanks! I will shut up now…
Pat: I found some other references to Leading Seaman C Webb on my travels:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/106136121
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/106132775
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/143945957
In the end, I concluded that this very likely wasn’t Carl Webb, however. 🙁
Pat: keep on looking! The more eyes looking at this from different angles the better!
Nick: yes, I found some notes by a C. Webb about horse bookmakers… if that’s what Abbott is basing his allegations… I will post when I find something useful, flu is getting worse!
Pat: you do know that there was a racehorse owner called C Webb (who, again, wasn’t Carl Webb)?
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but I think 274 Domain Road was a B&B (“Gowan Brae” Single and double vacancy with every convenience). 63 Bromby Street was being advertised as vacant at the time (last advert was 18 Oct ’41) so its probably reasonable to assume the couple moved into a B&B after the wedding then moved into Bromby Street within days.
@JS and NP (haven’t been through everything from yesterday), but what Dorothy Jean birth record are you looking for? BDM Vic has 1 that is 100% consistent with Webb…
Surname: Robertson
Given Names: Dorothy Jean
Mother’s Name: Alice
Mother’s Maiden Name: Stratford
Father’s Name: Jno Comber
Place: Ballarat
Year: 1920
(Reg 17944/1920)
Didn’t mention it yesterday because I assumed everyone knew it was there….
@Pat re 19472 Anything to think that marriage record is the DJ we’re looking for (I find it a touch odd if she sought a divorce in ’51 that she’d get married and list her ex’s name)…..that is, I find it odd Webb would appear on her second marriage.
There is (also in ’52) a Dorothy June ROBERTSON marrying Edwin William KING….
but not sure Vic is necessarily the place to be looking.
Regarding Enfield Park there’s certainly a Dorothy Jean ROBERTSON b1920 there, but it seems (to me) a touch odd to bring remains back to a metropolitan Adelaide cemetery from NSW – unless there’s some other SA connection there (I don’t know how accurate findagrave is re the NSW death, but CemeteriesSA definitely have the cremation and interment details ). HOWEVER, I notice the ceremony (and interment) dates are (almost exactly) 8 years after the death so perhaps there’s some plausible scenarios.
For what it’s worth, it’s alongside another Robertson – Peter d 29/07/2008 age 55 with Right of Interment issued 10/12/2009 (same day as Dorothy Jean). So perhaps Peter is Dorothy’s son and has had her ashes since her death. When he dies, perhaps his family decides to bury his mum’s ashes as well (or something).
Unfortunately most of this is too recent to be in accessible newspapers, and (just) too old to be on online tributes (most of which start around 2010, I think).
But might be worth searching “tribute” sections for anniversaries in the early 2010s
Can’t find the Enfield DJR in Ryerson…in fact there’s nothing that matches exactly….
– THere’s a Dorothy Jean NEWTON (late of Hornsby) in 2003 (a couple years too late).
– Dorothy Jean PEGLER/SIMPSON in Jun2001 (with death notices in both Melbourne and Adelaide) – but appears to be 88yo
But Peter ROBERTSON appears to be
Peter Stanley ROBERTSON (Robbo) (It’s sort of interesting because according to Ryerson the Advertiser has a notice on 5/08/08 with Peter Stanley (Robbo) and then on the 6th there’s one for “Peter (Pete)” – which presumably is same guy – known to some people as Robbo, and other mates as Pete…..
Jamie: yup, good observation! I was pretty sure that “Gowan Brae” was a B&B, but didn’t find an advert for it, well done!
ABC News report that descendants of Dorothy Jean’s sister have told Professor Abbott she remarried and died in the late 1990s in New South Wales.
Thomas: hmmm… I can’t help but wonder whether someone is listening in on all this, while perhaps even snickering into their professorial hand somewhat. So would it surprise me if the ‘mainstream’ account being squawked out to newspapers from Adelaide now drops all the speculative nonsense that accompanied the initial press release, and just gets on with the serious business of cutting and pasting Cipher Mysteries? Well… no, not really.
NP: your partial posting of ‘Jean Robertson’s Marriage Certificate’ for which you paid out of your own pocket twelve hard earned nicker and received by return mail not at all surprisingly was a Godsend in one way, but sadly uncapitalised to date by a reluctance? to put up the ‘Full Monte’ for full evaluation of it’s worth. Dorothy’s signature didvthankfully provide me with near positive proof that she is identical with a trans Tasman air passenger of the same name who arrived in Melbourne from Christchurc in 1956. This despite a two or three year STATED age difference, giving her address as 1 Kimber St. Preston and occupation as office machinist in the diamond drill (precision not mining) industry. My reporting on this piece of key information has not resulted in any information or comments from punters to date, undoubtedly due to case overload and a constant barrage of related detail coming to light. So without wanting to seem pushy, I would once again implore anyone with time on their hands to follow up by checking out the given address to see what gives as I’m absolutely stimied in my attempts to figure the Vic. S & Mc. deal.
We of course must assume that Derek’s team and news hounds have jumped the gun and been working tirelessly on precisely the same Robertson angle as we are and capitalising on resultant leads though in a more professional manner. They’d presumably also be covering their tracks and throwing spanners in the works by urging informants on the imortance of being on guard against unscrupulous troll activity. All in all its guaranteed that most of our posted information is being raked over and deceminated as it surfaces on line and anything overlooked in their own research thus acted upon and given all due consideration for it’s potential. The warning pen having writ, punters be mindful of consequences that may befall all ye who pay no heed!
Nick: I didn’t know that, hard to know these things from Brazil… but I’ll keep that in mind from now on 😇
Dorothy Jean Klein? https://pt.findagrave.com/memorial/179139892/dorothy-jean-klein
Sorry for being a pain… I don’t know anything about the Australian law regarding marriages and divorces in 1951. Once Dorothy Jean had been granted divorce, would her maiden name be reinstated? Would this take a while, regarding documents, registers, etc? When she married again, would she adopt her husband’s surname as a rule? Would there be any exceptions to this rule?
So – who’s up to the challenge? There are 3942 death, probate and funeral notices for people with the first names of Dorothy Jean published in Australian newspapers from 1951 to 2022. Only one has the nick name of Doff – Favaroni nee Bock. She isn’t our D J though – her birth and marriage is in the public record.
http://ryersonindex.org/search.php?page=all
You don’t need a surname to search Ryerson and it’s free.
Nick – how do I contact you offline?
Pat: nice pic of Jack Robertson in his 4th Light Horse regalia athough but, truth be known he looks nothing like Somerton Man’s post mortem snap, Roy Webb takes that prize, same forehead line (urmh)….Back to yet another less important detail, ‘apparently’ mentioned in the MC, refers to the 21 year old bride as being a foot specialist vis., podiatrist-chiropodist. My first observation being would it have been possible in 1941 for someone of such tender years (21) to earn a degree/diploma in such a hands on vocation, I’d reckon not plurry likely; what say you or anyone else on duty?
….e.g. F.R. Sleep in 1948 was top of his 1st year chiropody class or near to it at the ripe old age of 25. Our Doff musta been a child prodigy or summit to get through three or more years for her qualification/degree at 21.
DjR dod 30/8/92 Bromley Christchurch not ours…DJR dod 12/6/18 Waitati Dunedin not likely to be ours but in contact with former nursing home plus possible relative and awaiting response to follow-up request follows initial middle name confusion
.
Pat: the Aust. Matrimonial Causes Act which I worked from in the 70s was a very complicated cluster fuck and both parties to Divorce procedings didn’t get their decree nisi without constant pleas from divorce lawyers and could take years not not months. As for married name reversion, that was fairly simple and was usually undertaken by deed pol or statutory declaration upon issue of a Decree Absolute. The DA was more or less routine three months after DN from memory. More often than not divorcees with kids didn’t bother legal name change until they hooked up with another sucker so long as his monicker wasn’t something like Webb or Crick.
Pat, re. “Once Dorothy Jean had been granted divorce, would her maiden name be reinstated…?”
The short answer is that anyone can, legally, use any name they like, although it may cause inconvenience (e.g. in regard to things like bank accounts) and/or
may attract unwanted suspicion on the part of various authorities.
There is a formal legal process inherited from English law, known as Deed Poll, which involves a formal, witnessed statement in front of an official so authorised (usually a Justice of the Peace), followed by advertisements in newspapers. I knew one person who did this – a teenager who was ridiculed and bullied due to an unfortunate combination of names.
I doubt that many divorced women would ever have used a formal process like Deed Poll to revert to their pre-marital surname, since they would already have documents in that name, including a birth certificate.
Until the 1970s, it was not uncommon, for immigrants from non-English speaking countries to just start using an “Australian” surname. (My former father in law, who emigrated from Europe as following WW2, to “fit in better” chose a surname that was common enough, but led to him and his family being questioned by well-meaning people about the “Scottish heritage” that it seemed to indicate.)
Furfphy, Thanks!
John Sanders: Why would Dorothy’s father resemble Carl Webb? 😂 Of course he’s the spitting image of his brother Roy. Have you noticed that Roy’s eyes look almost closed in that photo? II thought Carl’s eyes were swollen by the fact he was dead or maybe due to the poison, but it seems that this was a family trait.
Catherine S: Thanks for the link! I would start by DJ Webb see DJ Brown and DJ Webb see DJ Montgomery, although one died late 80s and the other in 2000. But maybe the hint given by DA that she married again and died in the 90s is a distraction to leave her sister alone.
Out of interest when did divorce become possible in Aus?
Jean Morgan Auld ex RAAF Flight School was only 25 at the time of departure from Adelaide 9/48. Sorry my error.
Furphy: Sorry fo spelling your name wrongly. I have a terrible flu.
Catherine S: I have narrowed down to 101 names, considering the period range from 1990 to 1999, the local to NSW, and her age between 69-80, if we are to believe in what DA has disclosed about what her sister said and her year of birth as 1920 +/- 1. The only record that actually shows the date of birth is surprisingly 1920 for a DOROTHY JEAN BREMNER, who died in Christian Caring in 1999, obituary published in the Sidney Morning Herald in 16 Dec 1999.
I expect the fast response to your request for the marriage certificate is because the office has received a few dozen (hundred?) requests in the last week, and the clerks all have a copy of the certificate on their desktop. They may not even have read past “Carl Webb” before dragging it into the response mail.
The Sunday response is still impressive, though.
Warren Charles Thorne married Dorothy Jean Webb in 1961 in Kurri, Kurri, NSW
Warren Charles Thorne married Dorothy Jean Webb in 1961 in East Maitland, Maitland, NSW
Pat:
According to ancestry, D.J. Bremner’s (from Pymble) father was Edwin Snipiev (referring to the obituary you mentioned).
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=1060826&isAv=N
Presumption of death – Casualties in Royal Australian Air Force Units – Committee Minutes
Descriptive note
GIBSON John Arthur – (Serg); S/N – 405549; A/C – B25 Mitchell No 41-12491; Place – Lae, PNG; 23.5.1942
DICKINSON Wesley E – (Lieutenant); A/C – B25 Mitchell No 41-12491; Place – Lae, PNG; 23.5.1942
WEBB – (Sergeant); A/C – B25 Mitchell No 41-12491; Place – Lae, PNG; – 23.5.1942
POCKLEY Harold Graham – (S/L); S/N – 260608; A/C – Liberator A72-191; Place – Borneo; – 25.3.1945
COX Charles Ian – (Flying Officer); S/N – 415403; A/C – Liberator A72-191; Place – Borneo; 23.3.1945
DAY Leonard Francis – (Flight Lieutenant); S/N – 409672; A/C – Liberator A72-191; Place – Borneo; 25.3.1945
GRADWELL David Prenton – (Flight Lieutenant); S/N – 8960; A/C – Liberator A72-191; Place – Borneo; 25.3.1945
FARMER Ronald Roy – (Flying Officer); S/N – 412503; A/C – Liberator A72-191; 25 3 1945
LITCHFIELD Eric Mileham – (Sergeant); S/N – 439370; A/C – Liberator A72-191; Place – Borneo; 25.3.1945
Interestingly, WEBB is the only one without a first name…
milongal: depends on how you look at it. Australia’s 1959 Matrimonial causes Act was implimented to enable formal recourse to enable ‘beaten’ wives to obtain divorce based on an earlier 1857 model considered to be a landmark for womens rights in marriage disolution outside the church. The Act enabled wives to obtain divorce and fair (?) settlement on grounds of desertion cruelty, drunkeness and insanity though, infidelity still relied on Common Law statues to assign fault. Of course blokes didn’t have any opportunity for equal say, only recourse being to ‘pack up and shoot through’ just as poor Carl Webb did in order to gain freedom from his nagging bride Dorothy Jean nee Robertson.
Does anyone remember mention of a 1941 drowning at Somerton – one Alexander Webb?
‘According to able online genealogist Angela (thanks!), we also know that Dorothy Jean Robertson’s date of birth was 18 July 1920’
Has she disclosed the source of this date?
For John Sanders: The Dorothy Jean Robertson who gave the address of 1 Kimber St, Preston is on the electoral roll at that address in 1954. In the 1949 roll she lives at 28 Roxburgh St, Preston with a note that she left that address 2 Jan 1951 to live at 1 Kimber St. In 1942 she is living with her parents at 23 Roxburgh St. Through the Victorian BDMs and newspaper family notices I have found that her maiden name was “Lynn”, and that she married (9142 / 1940) John Stanley Robertson in 1940. John Stanley Robertson died as a P.O.W. on the notorious Montevideo Maru in 1942, God rest him.
Here are some family notices in case anyone is curious. Dorothy seems to have gone by her middle name of Jean within the family. The D in the two Dorothy’s signatures is fairly similar.
The first is to show D J Rs parent’s names and address in Roxburgh St, under the listing for LYNN, — Keith:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/630700
The second is to link all the names, see ROBERTSON, John Stanley with entries from his wife and the Lynn family.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/1671332
For John Sanders: The Dorothy Jean Robertson who gave the address of 1 Kimber St, Preston is on the electoral roll at that address in 1954. In the 1949 roll she lives at 28 Roxburgh St, Preston with a note that she left that address 2 Jan 1951 to live at 1 Kimber St. In 1942 she is living with her parents at 23 Roxburgh St. Through the Victorian BDMs and newspaper family notices I have found that her maiden name was “Lynn”, and that she married (9142 / 1940) John Stanley Robertson in 1940. John Stanley Robertson died as a P.O.W. on the notorious Montevideo Maru in 1942, God rest him.
Here are some family notices in case anyone is curious. Dorothy seems to have gone by her middle name of Jean within the family. The D in the two Dorothy’s signatures is fairly similar.
The first is to show D J Rs parent’s names and address in Roxburgh St, under the listing for LYNN, — Keith:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/630700
The second is to link all the names, see ROBERTSON, John Stanley with entries from his wife and the Lynn family.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/1671332
Ken: I weighed in on the need for procuring a copy of DM/CW MC as a matter of espediency, this in sure knowledge that said copy would be sent directly upon payment of the set fee. Turns out such is precisely what transpired, much to NP’s surprise, having nought to do with a rush on Carl Webb. My desire for haste was to secure samples of the bride’s signature to comare with one seen on a flight entry card, since shown to be in the same hand. Whilst no enthusiastic reviews have been noted, any judicial notice taken of the documentary evidence and what it represents in the chain of evidence at any forthcoming death inquest will suffice instead.
Peteb: The real Doff having gone missing herself at around the same time as her went after the bitch could suggest involvement on her part. Perhaps It’s worth noting that a Sister Dorothy Robertson of Melbourne is known to have been in Adelaide herself just prior to SM’s day at the beach, enroute inland to Birdsville with a mate of uncertain gender preference…Getting back to your not unexpected renewed interest in syndicated interstate car theft, you might bear in mind there was no sign of intricate lock picks suggesting the dead man’s involvement in the trade. That might have been expected had instrument maker Webb been in the game. What’s more, an improvised knife, a pair of muelsing shears, some other nondescript sundry items plus a tar brush and a screwdriver (never sighted) could fit any trade other than that of a dedicated auto thief. My best advice would be to give your prompter a ‘C’ note for his time and get back to the current state of play.
John S … how about an answer to the big question … was he murdered? NickP ? Anyone?
Catherine S: Although you’ve blown my case wide apart and ruined my credibility as a handwriting expert, my esteemed thanks to you for your efforts on my behalf.
Catherine S. A couple of things of some interest noted from poor John’s file are, that he had given his religion as Salvation Army on inlistment so we might assume wife Dorothy was too, if we go by Salvo rules of engagement. More interest but probably not suspicious would be her reported loss in 1943 of her Repat issued widow’s identification card; replaced accordingly.
NSW BDM has a Dorothy Jean King dying in 1991 whose parents were named John and Alice. I note someone above found a Dorothy Jean Robertson marrying an Edwin King in Vic in the 1950s. (NSW BDM Number 203787/1991). Could it be her?
NSW BDM only shows deaths up to 30 years ago so it won’t show anything past [today’s date] 1992. However the free search for records up to 1992 includes parents names so it can be useful for excluding people.
Pb: Probably, if ‘spider’ Webb’s your SM candidate especially in light of latest Sister Dorothy revelations; Though not likely based on no evidence of violence or other scullduggery apparent.
Now live on abc.net.au. the professor who cracked the histerical Somerton Man case, answering stupid questions on how DNA was used to track down fake SAO grave robber or something equally self serving…and here we are long believing evidence based theory that Gordon Cramer got there first.
Has anyone viewed John Comber Robertson’s Probate record (from 1989) at PROV? That may include Dorothy’s more recent name and where she was if it was stated in his Will…
James: Only Phyllis and James Crick are mentioned in John Comber Robertson’s Will, although Dorothy (first name only) is included in the death record (VIC: 1074/1989). Similarly, Dorothy’s married name is not recorded in the death record for her mother, Alice Robertson (d. 1980, Ref. VIC 5849/1980).
Phyllis was the informant for the deaths of her parents.
According to the death records, John and Alice Robertson only had two children.
The ref. for Dorothy’s birth is: VIC 17944/1920.
Re: Phyllis Crick née Robertson
DOB: 28.7.1925
DOD: 25.5.2012
Source: Herald Sun on line Tributes (HST): A memorial (funeral) notice is there as well
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/tributes/notice/death-notices/crick-phyllis/3592882/
Re: James Claude (Jim) Crick
aka Claude James Crick ( on electoral rolls).
DOB: 11.8.1924
DOD: 4.7.2013
Source: HST (several notices for Jim)
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/tributes/notice/death-notices/crick-james-claude-jim/4677406/
James and Phyllis had 4 children and they resided in Fawkner for many years at same address on electoral rolls between 1954 and 1980.
They had four children.
Their daughter Joye Louise Hendy née Crick died 16 Oct 2013.
Aged 55 (sudden death). Source HST
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/tributes/notice/death-notices/hendy-crick-joye-louise/4237660/
Pb,
I would as well be interested in links to the Rubaiyat as a suicide handbook. It certainly is not well known as such, because if it was well known, it would be ah well…known. I need to know more on this, and if it is not forthcoming, it is worthy of being ignored.
The murder allegations were made by the investigating coroners who examined the body at the time of death. They said he was poisoned. End of statement.
I have no dog in this fight as such, though something I can well believe is he was a labor adjitator. Word on the street was there might have been a few of these deaths (Jimmy Hoffa another obviously famous one), and if carried out in other countries would be out of Aussie hands to manipulate.
It could be something else, like the always strange doings of the rich and famous. Watch movies like Austrailias own Picnic at Hanging Rock, or Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut. In EWS, the orgies location was named Somerton
If I were strongly connected with “john law” it would probably bode them well to reconsider this finding and clarify where they stand. Not the most popular people at the moment. Nor are the wealthy.
Matt
Can someone in Australia check if Dorothy had become a nun or nurse at Convent of Mercy, Mansfield? I found a reference of a Dorothy Webb. Maybe that’s why we can’t find much info about her… Maybe that’s the source of Sister Dorothy Robertson? Maybe she used both names…
@Angela:
Death record VIC: 1074/1989 for John Comber Robertson:
Mother’s name Robertson, Catherine
Mother’s family name at birth Comber
Father’s Name: Robertson, Robert
I thought his mother was Mary Kate Comber?
Event: marriages
Registration number 7701 / 1888
Family name: COMBER
Given name(s) Mary Kate
Personal detail
Spouse’s family name: ROBERTSON
Spouse’s given name(s) Robert
For John S & others
Re: Sister Dorothy Robertson and articles from Trove.
Dorothy Robertson was from Melbourne, Victoria. However she was trained as a nurse and midwife : not chiropodist.
In Sep 1948 she was aged 24 which excludes our DJR who was born in 1920.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/231146019?searchTerm=Sister%20Dorothy%20Robertson
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/243548042?searchTerm=Sister%20Dorothy%20Robertson
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/129892914?searchTerm=Sister%20Dorothy%20Robertson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Nick & all:
Re Dorothy Jean Robertson DOB 1920 and DOD 1.6.1921 (Hornsby NSW) & burial Enfield SA.
I think we can exclude this person: her maiden name was TAYLOR.
Dorothy is buried at Enfield Memorial Park in SA in Plot No:
VF Roberts Memorial Rose Garden LAWN T167
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/169024106/dorothy-jean-robertson
Dorothy’s husband Kevin Robertson (1925-2011) is in the same Plot.
No: VF Roberts Memorial Rose Garden LAWN T167
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/169026046/kevin-robertson
Peter Stanley Robertson (1953-2008) as others have noted is in the grave next to them: VF Roberts Memorial Rose Garden LAWN T168. Likely to be their son.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/169061568/peter-stanley-robertson
Re: Marriage of Kevin ROBERTSON & Dorothy Jean TAYLOR
NSW BDM’s: Transcription No: 18531/1952
Kevin Robertson m Dorothy Jean Taylor.
The marriage was registered in Mosman (Sydney).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re: WikiTree citation & Dorothy Jean Robertson’s mother Alice Robertson née Stratford.
Several family trees have Alice born to Charles Alexander Stratford and Louisa Wilhelimina Reither.
Charles and Louisa m in 1871.
VIC BDM’s Transcription No: 2163/1871.
They had 10 children.
All of them had their births registered with VIC BDM’s.
Then Charles died 13 Nov 1892.
VIC BDM’s Transcription No: 148/1893
Probate: Granted Mar 1893.
https://www.ancestry.com.au/imageviewer/collections/61315/images/00028-p0000-000651-0180-00000?pId=902665
Birth Certificate for Alice not able to source to date.
Alice is not likely to be the daughter of Charles Stratford as he died before she was born.
Alice was however raised as a ‘Stratford’ child.
Whilst there is no Birth Certificate for Alice (yet). Her ‘Father’ is named on her death certificate (5848/1980) as Charles Stratford.
Charles Alexander Stratford died Nov 1892.
Alice was born in 1896.
Her DOB has been calculated from her death record which states Alice was 84 yrs when she died. VIC BDM’s Transcription No: 5849/1980
An entry by B. Bennett on WikiTree also cites Alice was 84 yrs when she died. He has the lovely photo from the Phyllis Crick collection (Alice’s other daughter) on this page. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stratford-642
Alice’s husband John Comber Robertson was cremated at Fawkner Memorial Park Jan 1989. https://www.gmct.com.au/deceased
Alice died in 1980. There is only one Alice Robertson cremated at Fawkner Memorial Park in 1980. The service date 7 Mar 1980.
So descendants of Alice would probably not expect to find Stratford’s in their DNA.
Addit: Excuse typo re Dorothy Jean Robertson née Taylor above
B. 1920. Date of death was Jun 1 2001 (not 1921 !).
From MyHeritage (I know it’s not the best source of info, so I’m asking you to check on this)
Charles Alexander Stratford (variations Char, Alex, Alexr) married to Louise (var. Louisa. Lousia)) Wilhelmina (var. Wilhe) Reiter (var. Reither, Riter, Reichtem, Reitcher, Reisher, Ruther, Reighter) Trust me, it’s the same person…
Now, the offspring:
1872 Alfred Edward
1874 Charles Frederick Byron
1875 Mary Georgina Louisa
1876 Henry Mason Gerrard
1878 Lawrence Conrad
1881 Powys Lorraine
1883 Jane Arundel
1885 Martin Harrold
1889 Ferdinand
1890 Florence Olivia
They were born in St. Arnaud or Avon Plains
No ALICE….
The only record I could find for Charles Alexander Stratford was b. 1834 d. 1892, Avon Plains. How could he be Alice’s father if she was born in 1896? Can you find another suitable Charles Stratford?
It is surely too cute by half that Somerton Man had family living until 2012 who never heard about/saw photos appurtenant to the case. Or that he happened to be buried by a gentleman who shared his exact surname.
Remember on ’38 minutes’ when Jestyn’s daughter insinuated that her mother had known exactly who SM was? Obviously a wide circle of people knew and have been laughing at the rest of us for 70 years.
Another DJR for the record. Only child to M&M A. Robertson 20 Perth St. Prahan – William KcKercher Hardwick bn. 1922, wed 12/4/48 Age 31/5/47 (DJR bigamy?). No subsequent confirmed details of military service, death etc for either. Bit weird but arn’t they all.
@JS little wonder
https://ibb.co/Sc03bb6
Clever people such as self professed genealogist and full time sleuth Colleen fitzgerald and her partner in grime Derek the prof. Abbott have cornered the DNA Keane gene matching market which is very big bickie’s indeed indeed. This field had up until recent times only been practiced by FBI forensic scientists but, now the secret’s out the competition is intense.
Selective gene matching has been around awhile, the concept being based more or less on the fairly simple process of elimination along with patience and gall To simplify the concept for Keane punters, all they need to heed for making a DNA marriage of convenience is to follow the ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ rule as Ms. Fitzgerald has done and ‘Bob’s your long lost uncle’.
For Angela: on her parent’s d. certs. where it lists the names of children, does Dorothy have a “dec” after her name? I’m guessing not as I think you would have mentioned it but I thought I’d check. Does JCR’s will have the date it was written and was it a detailed will, or does it just mention Phyllis and her husband as executors? Thank you.
I just noticed that Cleland said poison could have been self administered. It seems to me the case has not been presented as such with the murder idea taking precedence however. In this context it seems AIAQC equalling “And I am quite content” being less likely I would guess. I am still quite interested in the Rubiyats connection with suicide, any articles about it. Rubaiyat SuicIde, search terms bring back a lot of hits about the current case.
thanks,
Matt
Peteb: yeah, I was thinking of giving Matt a serve on the inquest no poison caper, but as you hinted, couldn’t be bothered, been busy on Dorothy’s trail to Bute fuck S.A. with nought to show but bunyons, which you seem not to have read about. I then suggested to the CM punters that they should take a squiz at Isle of Bute on Fifth of Clyde to see if any of the Robertson clan had any dope on our lassie. All the while I was covering Bute Streets in cities and towns of New Zlnd on a hunch, one which turned into a clusterfuck. Good news is I just happened across a Bute St. in good old Footscray, yeah that’s right Footscray where a young fella name of Carl Webb was welped in 1905. Haven’t been poking around there yet but, if you can send Clive JohnnTurner in to scout around, from say 1947 onwards I’ll foot the tab. Warning though, it would have to be smartish cause if the hyenas get a scent the mongrels will be on it before you can say Jack Robertson. Good hunting and should you get lucky don’t forget to throw dusty a bone.
Footscray … a place indelibly linked with my mob, Droop Street in particular, and me, an urchin there in 1942.
Anything’s possible in my book. John Hunter, British surgeon and pal of Ted Jenner who invented Somerton Man’s lucky stike small pox vaccination method, was said to have impregnated the draper’s wife by insemination in 1790. So why flatly reject the possibility of Alice Robertson’s birth having been result of her long dead father Charles’ semen, being stored away in a syringe by mother Stratford and placed in the cool room of the family pub for possdible use on a rainy day. Those old farm girls knew a thing or two about obsetrics and not forgetting, she had dropped the odd bundle of joy in her day. Mum could have managed her own servicing and then surprised even herself when her new bun in the oven started to sqirm. Maybe I’m for real maybe not, no harm trying to ease the burden of collective frustration is there. In any case I managed to resurrect notation of the little known three scars on SM’s left wrist observed during his post mortem autopsy.
For Catherine: John Comber Robertson’s Will, dated 21 Mar 1980, reads:
“I GIVE devise and bequeath unto my daughter Phyllis Crick all my possessions
In the event of her death preceding mine to be given to my son-in-law James Crick.”
On his death record, his children are listed as follows:
Dorothy 68 Years, Phyllis 63 Years.
For Pat: It would apper that Alice Stratford’s birth was not registered, although she is listed on Louisa Stratford’s death notice as a daughter. Charles Stratford died in 1892, and Alice was born circa 1896, so there is definitely an issue there – perhaps a granddaughter raised as a daughter?
For those who are interested in the Webb and Robertson families, please visit:
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LR91-P4B
It is free to join and use FamilySearch.
AngeIa: If Jack Robertson’s will dated 1980 left all his worldly possessions to his daughter Phyllis, or by default her husband Jim Crick, with no mention of Dorothy; On his passing in ’89 there being no interim codicil, must we assume that he was of the view that poor Dot was herself deceased prior to 1980 or believed to be. Is that your take or am I missing something.
John Sanders: Only if he believed it but clearly it wasn’t the case, because her age is listed on his death record as 68, otherwise her age would have been < 60. On the other hand, I wonder why call her Dorothy and not Dorothy Jean.
Angela: Yes, maybe a granddaughter, or maybe she was born before that and only registered circa 1896? Or maybe she is from another family? What is the proof that she had been driving cars in St Arnaud, apart from that quote (no source)? And where is her birth record? All the other alleged siblings have plenty of records. There's an Alice E Straftord born 1895 in NSW, father George, mother Jane. Do you think it's possible she is another Alice Stratford? Louisa would have been a bit old in 1896 to conceive, I think. Do you have her age at her marriage certificate? Or is it not available?
Sorry, I see that a ‘Mrs. Robertson’ is quoted on her death notice (1935) as a family member. Maybe Alice was adopted? That’s why we can’t find her birth record?
This is the Source section for John ‘Jack’ Comber Robertson on WikiTree
Sources
Jack Robertson.
Victoria Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Birth: John Comber Robertson. Registration number: 31958/1894, District: Omeo. Father: Robert Robertson. MOTHER: MARY KATE COMBER.
Victoria Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Marriage: John Comber Robertson and Alice Stratford. Registration number: 2782/1919.
Victoria Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Death: John Comber Robertson. Registration number: 1074/1989, Place of death: West Heidelberg. Place of birth: Bairnsdale. Age at Death: 94. Father: Robert Robertson. MOTHER: CATHERINE COMBER. Spouse at death: Alice Strattford.
Public Record Office Victoria: VA 2620 Registrar of Probates, Supreme Court, VPRS 28/P0019 Probate and Administration Files, 1009/599, John Comber Robertson: Grant of administration, 27 Apr 1989. Link
Public Record Office Victoria: VA 2620 Registrar of Probates, Supreme Court, VPRS 7591/P0015 Wills, 1009/599, John Comber Robertson: Will; Grant of administration, 27 Apr 1989. Link
Can someone explain why his mother was Mary Kate and Catherine at the same time? Was her full name something like Mary Catherine, aka Mary Kate?
According to John ‘Jack’ Comber Robertson’s BIO at WikiTree:
‘Jack married Alice Stratford, daughter of Charles Stratford and Louise, on 2 June 1919 at Mildura. they took up a soldier settlement block at Cundare near Colac as a mixed farm which they ran until the drought years of the late 1920s forced so many on these blocks to give up farming. They moved to town and Jack was the manager of the Benevolent Home in Royal Park for five years.’
If they married in Mildura, then settled at Cundare until late 1920s and had to move to town, where the Benevolent Home is (Parkville?), where would Dorothy had been born/registered, if she was born in July 1920?
And why would Phyllis be born/registered in Beeac if they were already living in ‘town’ (Zoological Gardens, Poplar St)?
ALICE STRATFORD’S BIO
‘Alice Stratford, daughter of Charles Stratford and Louise. Her parents had the hotel at St.Arnaud. Alice learned to drive a car among the trees in the park just before the arch in Ballarat, where they lived after their marriage. Alice married Jack Robertson on 2 June 1919 at Mildura. During WWII both Jack and Alice were in munitions. Alice died in 1980 aged 84.’
Who lived in Ballarat after their marriage? Charles and Louise? But they have married in 1871 and Alice was born around 1896. Or is it referring to Alice and John? If so, that doesn’t fit with leaving in Cundare near Colac. Or are/were these places in the same area?
@Matt:
‘I am still quite interested in the Rubiyats connection with suicide, any articles about it. Rubaiyat SuicIde, search terms bring back a lot of hits about the current case.’
Some good info here:
https://medium.com/the-mystery-box/unsolved-mysteries-tamám-shud-c8a77fb2b1fa
There’s a Dorothy Jean Morrow, buried at Balranald, NSW (d. 2 April 1996), but I can’t find anything else about her.
Cundare is close enough to Ballarat for mine ….Ballarat (it’s almost 100km, but flip the coin whether you go there or Geelong) would be the nearest big centre – so either you go to the hospital there to have a kid, or in any case that’s the closest place to register. And “Until the late 1920s” makes Phyllis (1925) being registered as Beeac reasonable too for mine – perhaps by then there was a closer hospital (or perhaps second time parents aren’t as fussy about needing the big hospital, or perhaps registration regions have been refined – loads of plausible explanation)
I don’t follow where the Poplar St reference (Melbourne Zoo) comes from…
One thing I am noticing is that all of these people (in every generation) seem very transient – more than I would expect in that age. Aside from obvious interstate moves (Syd->Melb->Adel – depending on who we’re talking), Mildura to Ballarat is no picnic either (or Mangnoson hanging around the Riverland, for that matter).
I would have expected people to be more attached to their local area (although I suppose if you’ve not long arrived in the country you might be open to moving around), and I would have expected 3 professions to be highly transient (but few of these people seem to fall into these categories) – Defence, Other Government, Railways…..
Thanks for the link re Rubaiyat deaths…..interesting that 3** of them are in Adelaide (SM, Kaldor and Colgan Bell (I think he’s been mentioned before, but not in connection with Rubaiyat)) and there seems some possible Ballarat connection too – and a couple of others seem connected to Adelaide (perhaps this shows more about where the research starts than anything, but interesting nonetheless
**Obviously although Clive Mangnoson is mentioned that’s a different context
Pat: Not at all Pat. Jack’s death record which gave Dorothy’s age as 68 was not his doing, he being deceased and all right?. The dead are not generally consulted when their family details are submitted post mortem for the record. That might also account for omission of her middle name which mat not have been known to the informant.
milongal: A very good point and not only unusual but most confounding indeed. It’s almost as if it had been part of a very carefully plotted deception to throw a spanner in the works for folks like us attempting to solve the case by piecing together a host of endless familial crap and by-passing the facts which may mean in essence that missing Carl Webb has nought to do with the Somerton Beach death.
@milongal: Thanks a lot, I looked in the map but there are different locations with similar names, so it can get confusing. All the info comes from the WikiTree page.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Robertson-15033
‘They moved to town and Jack was the manager of the Benevolent Home in Royal Park for five years. During this time he became involved in voluntary work for the Zoological Gardens and was responsible for much of the landscaping. He did the layout and design of Poplar Street. In 1935 he became the factory manager for O Gilpin Stores, a drapery chain, and then manager of Oliver Gilpin’s property in Balwyn.’
I find it odd that no children is mentioned in his bio.
Extrapolating the death tributes….
Although Dorothy J is never mentioned (almost like there’s been a falling out in the family) there is a notice for Jim Crick:
CRICK. _ Jim. Dearly loved and respected uncle to Sandy, Kevin and families. Deepest sympathy to Fay, Peter, Phillip, Joye and families. All our love, truly one of nature’s gentlemen.
Is it possible that even if in their generation (and above) there had been a falling out, that the generation below is showing its respects…..could Sandy and Kevin be Dorothy’s kids?
I also notice the family search record links Dorothy to a second marriage to Lindsay Robert KENNEDY b1908 m1952 d1981 (also his second marriage). Ryerson lists a small number of Dorothy Jean KENNEDY, although I think only 1 without an age (Sep 2004). There’s also references to a few Dorothy KENNEDY (no Jean)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-05/somerton-man-sleuth-nick-pelling-on-the-search-for-carl-webb/101291154
milongal: a little bird just told me that Dorothy Jean Robertson’s second husband was Kevin D’Arcy
Mark Knowles: that ‘Nick Pelling’ character sounds like a bit of a cipher chad. Frankly, I don’t believe a word of it. 😉
No other information!
Nice NP – How reliable is D’Arcy’s little bird?
NB: Does anyone know how reliable Abbott’s facts are (lived in Bute, d~1997 in NSW etc)?
Addendum: is Bute definitely Bute SA (top of the Yorke Peninsula)? I’ve found some reference to a Parish of Bute near Cootamundra (NSW)….and some more scratching comes up with
From bonzle dot com:
Bute is a locality on the Ironbong Creek in south New South Wales. Its closest capital city is actually Canberra (show me) in the Australian Capital Territory about 140km to the east-southeast (the capital of New South Wales is Sydney (show me), about 320km away to the east-northeast of Bute). Bute is at an altitude of about 324m above sea level. The nearest sea is the Tasman Sea which is part of the South Pacific Ocean about 240km east-southeast of Bute.
The nearest more populous place is the village of Stockinbingal which is 19km away with a population of around 240 (show me a map with Bute and Stockinbingal).
Pat:
Acvording to ancestry, Dorothy Jean Morrow’s (from Balranal, b. 17 May 1918) maiden name was ‘Bradley’.
milongal: show me a map with either and I think I’d be impressed. 🫣
milongal: very reliable (and a thoroughly nice old guy to boot).
Ryerson suggests “Bega” and “Chevron Island”, which sounds like a geographic version of “chalk and cheese”.
But Chevron Island is a 1977 death, which is too early. So the Ryerson choice is actually 1994 from Bega (who sold sone land to the local golf club e.g. to build its clubhouse on) or a 1999 death (also smh, no details noted).
Interesting – I had my sights on Bega (there was a Dorothy Jean there (but not Webb, Robertson, D’Arcy ))
Don’t know how much you know about Bega. It’s South Coast of NSW and is best known by Australians for Bega cheese. It’s the sort of place Canberra Public servants retire to (anywhere South of Bateman’s Bay) until they realise they’re old and need the larger city hospital. From some of the scratching I did there was some interesting potential to link into Canberra and surrounds (Canberra is small, but “and surrounds” I’ll include Wagga to Goulburn (some 200km probably) – which of course includes the NSW Bute – which as best as I can tell is just where 2 roads intersect – literally nothing there but a farm with a dam)) (rough coordinates 34° 39.680′ S 147° 49.4240 E)….
NB: Something PB said on his site strikes a slight chord. DJ seems to have been estranged from her family, Webb must have been from his (else someone would have recognised him) so maybe hiding out in Bute from some sort of history is kinda plausible….except for 2 little problems – firstly the divorce notice (which admittedly doesn’t reveal where she is, but presumably her lawyer might know then), and secondly that people now know (or claim) she was in Bute (suggests staying in contact with people rather than dropping off the radar). But even the SA Bute – WHY? It doesn’t even seem to be a place that a Vic would know existed, and if you’re moving to the Yorke Peninsula, why not find some beach. Perhaps inaccessibility is one of the advantages…..in which case you’d have to at least contemplate whether she might have had something to do with his demise….
SMH 19 Jul 1999
D’ARCY, Kevin Francis — Passed away peacefully. Much loved husband of Bridie (deceased), sadly missed by his son Eamon and Babette. Loved brother-in-law of Eileen and John and their families in Ireland, USA and Australia. Greatly missed by the soccer community. Aged 72 years. Togerther At Last.
SMH 6 Aug 1994
D’ARCY, Mary Bridget (Bridie).–Aug 2 1994, dearly loved wife of Kevin, fond mother of Eamon, sister of Eileen, Emily and David. Aged 65 Years.
Nick – any chance that Kevin D’arcy are both first names? My tiny mind is on to something.
And I remembered, the DJ in Bega was SLY d1990 (I chuckled that it might be an alias)….but pretty sure that one’s not it…..
At the risk of being accused of joining the dark side, it occurs to me that one or both of Webb and Doff may have been working for the Government at a high level of clearance (hear me out). Contrary to what a lot of people think, high level clearances don’t always involve espionage and “interesting” stuff like that, but clearances can turn people into hermits. I don’t know how people werre vetted back then (or what the nature of clearances were) but up until recently (ok, not that recently – but recently enough that there’s still confusion in AGSVA over them) there were 2 totally different types of clearance. National Security (Defence, Some Law Enforcement, spooks) had Restricted, Secret, Top Secret (possibly with a couple of other layers) while Non NatSec (Finance, Customs (yeap, wasn’t NatSec), Immigration, Health, Parliamentary Service (this might have had both)….) was Restricted (this appears in both but I think was a different level in each) , Protected, Highly Protected (and I forget the layers above that). When they started to combine them (from memory about 2008) they loosely aligned them together and most people with Protected were converted to Restricted (NATSEC), HP were converted to Secret and anyone who needed higher than that was re-vetted. In any case, getting these clearances involved similar vetting – so you could have a high level clearance and do fairly mundane stuff in the tax office, (And I’m sure noone cares, but the layers more recently have been changed to Baseline, Negative Vetted 1, Negative Vetted 2, Positive Vetted and then there’s caveats and codewords that kind of further restrict really sensitive stuff (exactly how data (and therefor the people with access to it) should be classified is explained on some Government sites if anyone’s interested, but essentially it boils down to how much embarrassment or harm it might cause the Government/Nation). I’ll talk in current language, but I assume this applies similarly in the past. The difference between a Negative Vetting and Positive Vetting is that am NV will start with an assumption that details you have given them are true, and they’ll make some attempt to verify/disprove them. A PV assumes that nothing you say can be taken on face value and a much more thorouhh effort is made to absolutely confirm everything you say….but as ever, I digress.
One of the other big differences between clearance levels is the amount of traceable history they want, and the degrees of separation of contacts they’re interested in (Incidentally, a lot of people don’t get clearances because they avoid information that the Government doesn’t really care about – e.g. if you admit to having used drugs then noone can really hold it over you, but if you claim not to have used drugs and they find out you lied, then it’s a bigger problem because it makes you more corruptible (or at least more vulnerable to someone trying)). I forget the amount of history and other specifics they look at for different levels, but I think at ones stage the highest levels were at least 15 years. One of the things you can’t really control is your family – so the easiest way to deal with it is to talk to them as little as possible so you can say “oh yeah, I got a brother who lives in Belgium, but I never talk to him”.
Obviously this doesn’t really work in terms of the transient comments I made before (easiest way to have a verifiable history is not to move around), but it may work for Carl and Doff apparently distancing themselves from each other. Some Government roles might cause a little bit of transience but I think only Defence type work would send you to weird locations (wherever there might be a base) – and I can’t really imagine there being one in Bute or Bega. Assuming it is Federal Government work, though, there is a strong chance of getting pulled into Canberra as you move up the management ladder….
It’s sort of worth mentioning that a lot of people watch too many movies. Having a high level of clearance doesn’t give you access to everything. The single most important criterion of accessing classified material is “need to know”. You can have the highest possible clearance, but there will still be low-classification information that you shouldn’t access because you have no “need to know” (you can lose a clearance for this).
There’s also a lot of other vagaries about clearance and classification (these days they have a level that essentially means “Commercial In Confidence” – but I can’t remember the (Sensitive? or OIfficial?). And ironically a document can be classified Unclassified (it’s literally a classification so a document marked Unclassified is in fact classified as unclassified compared to a document that hasn’t been classified and is therefore unclassified…..except…..my head hurts).
siderant: one of the biggest problems with classification is that people don’t know how to do it and err on the side of caution so a LOT (read “most”) information is grossly over classified. I once had some contractors they couldn’t email an IP address because it was classified beyond what was allowed via internal email…..think about that – I’m not talking about aggregating an IP address with a server name, or with the role of that address….or anything else….they seemed to think they couldn’t email 10.1.1.1 (pretty sure that wasn’t the actual address, but trying to make a point it was network-internal).
Short Version:
– It’s plausible that these people were Cleared Government workers
– This does not mean espionage necessarily
NB: I’d never heard of Chevron Island, but as soon as you hear “Island” you assume QLD….
NB2: I don’t like most of this idea – it’s *plausible* and not a direction I’ll be digging….I like car thieves (linked to Pruzinski) – althouigh I note Broken Hill hasn’t cropped up in the current Webb….
Pete: a bit surprised you didn’t jump in on revelations that black Jack Robertson VD & Bar had spent the war years involved with inspecting munitions factories and stires, moving them all over Australia from Melbourne to Darwin. He had also cunningly arranged for his daughter Dorothy Jean to wed a suspected nazi fifth column plant named Karl Weber @ Charles Webb who as an instrument maker (gun sights) would certainly have had access to critical armament factories and the like. Time to rise up Bozo, the country may need us to hold the fort when next a like menace comes a calling.
This one has the same date of birth.
https://billiongraves.com/grave/Dorothy-Robertson/11907181
Peter Davidson:
that looks like a slam dunk, well done!But who’s Bob?
On the tombstone are also some offspring. Dunno if they’re just Bob’s though.
Peter Davidson:
it probably means that we have the wrong Dorothy Jean Robertson’s date of birth! So it was an excellent match for probably the wrong starting point.Peter Davidson: no, Angela was correct about VIC 17944/1920, what you found was unfortunately just a coincidence. Dorothy Jean was so popular a name that these are almost inevitable, alas. 🙁
I’m just a working class lad, Johnno, not decorated by any mentions in Trove and knowing my place, prefer to bide my time …
Peteb: but you’ve done so well for an urchin, credit where credit’s due.
Love you Nick, deeply and sincerely.
Nick: Very suspicious that the author of the article was “Daniel Keane”. Where does he fit into this spider’s “Webb”?
Do you know what is truly infuriating and absurd about this case? The protection afforded Jessica Thomson by Feltus. We all accept that in ’48 the South Australian Police behaved with an embarrassing, fawning faux-chivalry in protecting ‘Mrs Thomson’ from scandal and judgment when they knew for a fact she was involved – so why continue to protect her (to the extent of giving she and her husband false names) well into 2010?
Sort of like… ‘I’m a policeman and this is how we do things – I used my contacts to find out her name, but you can’t know it… and by the way I am certain she is involved. Buy my book and like it’.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Was then, is now, forever shall be.
Possibly, if Feltus had spent less time being cagey and more time being open about Jestyn, leads would have opened up earlier and people who DID know the story might not have died of old age in the meanwhile.
Abbott isn’t much different in this regard, even though the two of them aren’t speaking. I have only ever maligned Jestyn in order to blow the tits off the stupid cone of silence surrounding her. By all accounts she was a [ insert random swear words from South Park here ]
Pat,
Thanks very much. Lots of info to process there. Good stuff. Im going to have to read this book. I’m quite a literature hound, so it is provocative. I have considered the angle of SM staring forelornly out to sea before, so not a total shock. I would just encourage anyone with info about dastardly doings to speak up. Spies are known in folklore to have cyanide capsules, and if you consider someone like Nathan Hale “I regret that I have only one life to give to my country”, their devotion can be intense. I had a number of Aussie friends in my wheelhouse in the past. I found this on Youtube and appreciated it to give me some lay of the land there (never been unfortunately). Melborne is suprisingly cosmopoliton and quite cute. Even in 1948.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuUoY0gOT_U
Matt
Nick: think I omitted to enter Kevin’s death date 21/5/91 (hiding not in plain sight). Did I mention also that he was some years junior to his cradle snatching bride?
Milongal: were you also aware that Kev D’Arcy was a taxation officer no shit!
I do not believe my final remarks should have been censored since the lady in question was clearly a prawn head.
However, I had forgotten in my haste:
1. To congratulate you on your appearance in Australian meeja, &
2. To express concern that the Police have given biological material to the Electrical Engineer. I can think of no reason known to man or womyn why this would be acceptable as it violates every one of the Crown’s evidentiary rules.
Besluttika Pontifikana-Turdlika: yes, I get all that, even the swearing at the end – it is indeed frustrating that this has taken so long that just about everyone involved has fucking died.
Feltus manifestly smelt a rat with Jestyn (even a polite old copper like him working harder than almost anyone else to balance all sides couldn’t hide his feelings in print), and he was in retrospect completely right.
But… spaffing out swearwords at Jestyn makes a load of presumptions of her role in what happened. And we just don’t know: history makes fools of those who read it hot.
Yet in many ways, this last week is the real start of the Somerton Man’s history. For all Derek Abbott’s flaws (and I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to draw up a long list of the big SM calls he’s got wrong), he has done the hard (DNA) yards for us all, and we have – barring a different story from FSSA – genuine stuff to work with. Maybe we won’t end up knowing everything we’d like to, but perhaps we’ll end up knowing much more than we ever thought possible.
The stuff that reduces me to gibberish series of swearwords isn’t people like Jestyn (who, who knows?, perhaps only realised her complicity many months after the event), but the people who seem to flood the world with delusional nonsense, tripling the noise level for everyone.
But if you feel happy directing your anger at Jestyn, that’s your business.
Mark Knowles: he is indeed related to one of the various candidate Keanes who has popped up on this blog (though I don’t know which one, and I guess it doesn’t really matter which).
Besluttika Pontifikana-Turdlika: thank you! Though as for the suggestion that the good prof might possibly have used his academic capital to weasel his way to physical evidence that should never have been his to use, I’ll have to get back to you… 😜
Matt,
That is a fantastic video, thank you! I will have to read this book as well, before I die.
Regarding the cyanide capsule… would there be some sort of heavy foaming in his mouth, vomiting or cherry red skin? Poisoning is said to be a woman’s MO for murder (Mother Russia included) so anything is possible.
On the Kevin D’arcy hint:
Kevin D’arcy Kennedy buried in Lismore NSW
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/123435244/kevin-darcy-kennedy
Buried with spouse is Valmai Joyce ‘Somerville’ Kennedy
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/123435255/valmai-joyce-kennedy
NSW BDM’s Transcription No 18477/1955.
Kevin Darcy Kennedy m
Valmai Joyce Somerville
District: Byron Bay
Can exclude as DJR
The mind boggles: Re Bute / Butte
Found a Kevin D’arcy Campbell (KDC) b ~ 1919 in Mudgee NSW to George & Ellen.
In 1936 he is a surveyor with New Occidental Gold mine, Cobar NSW.
He marries Audrey Selina Harris in Cobar 1939.
In 1947 at age 38, he is working as a Mining Engineer for Lake George Mines, Captains Flat ( near Canberra ACT).
On Jul 13 1947 KDC flies to San Fran to go to “BUTTE MINE” in BUTTE, Montana
https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/9343569:7949
Passage paid for by Lake George Mines, Captains Flat ( near Canberra ACT).
Re marriage to Audrey Selina Harris
NSW BDM’s Transcription No: 9113/1939
KDC dies in Bowral NSW 19.8.1967 (NSW 32335/1967)
His wife Audrey Selina also dies in Bowral NSW 15.12.1978 (NSW 200094/1978).
No apparent marriage or connection to DJR
A “Kevin D’arcy” we know went to a mine in BUTTE (Montana).
Pat,
Glad you liked it.
Ew, dont actually know. Its a standard trope in spy stories for the spy to be given a pill so he/she can end his or her life without divulging something, like for instance the way to the secret submarine base or whatever.
Matt
An ancestry user states that DJR married a Kevin D’Arcy Cook (b. around 1915) in NSW in 1955 (no source mentioned).
I doubt the Kevin D’Arcy Cook hypothesis, since according electoral rolls from the 1950s and 1960s he lived along with his wife Daphne Upward whom he had married in 1941.
Thomas: this has been happening for a while, people publishing data without mentioning the sources. I won’t waste my time on it.
The mind boggles: Re Bute / Butte
Found a Kevin D’arcy Campbell (KDC) b ~ 1919 in Mudgee NSW to George & Ellen.
In 1936 he is a surveyor with New Occidental Gold mine, Cobar NSW.
He marries Audrey Selina Harris in Cobar 1939.
In 1947 at age 38, he is working as a Mining Engineer for Lake George Mines, Captains Flat ( near Canberra ACT).
On Jul 13 1947 KDC flies to San Fran to go to “BUTTE MINE” in BUTTE, Montana
https://www.ancestry.com.au/discoveryui-content/view/9343569:7949
Passage paid for by Lake George Mines, Captains Flat ( near Canberra ACT).
Re marriage to Audrey Selina Harris
NSW BDM’s Transcription No: 9113/1939
KDC dies in Bowral NSW 19.8.1967 (NSW 32335/1967)
His wife Audrey Selina also dies in Bowral NSW 15.12.1978 (NSW 200094/1978).
One Kevin D’arcy we know went to BUTTE (Montana)
NP: would appreciate if you came clean on Kevin D’Arcy in order to get this rabble, self included, back on track. We’ve now also got D’Arcy as a middle monicker. That puts one in mind of our old Glenelg denist D’Arcy Education Cock, upshod being that disrespectful punters took the piss by calling him Dr. D’Arcy ‘Pullem’ Cock.
@SAlly – there’s some interesting stuff…..not just But(t)e, but I think I had a possible DJ Kennedy…..doesn’t fit in with your D’arcy, but a coinky dink I’ll look at closer when I rememeber
@JS Honestly didn’t know there was an ATO connectionl – so that’s a touch on the interesting side….
Apologies last post inadvertently put up twice.
Another ‘Dorothy Jean’ that can be excluded who died 15th Jul 1996 in NSW.
This woman died with surname of Lindsay.
Photo request has just been fulfilled which confirms wrong DOB and therefore not DJR.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/135155560/dorothy-jean-lindsay
I found a Dorothy Jean Darcy who died on 25 Jul 2013. There is an entry for her in the Shoalhaven Crematorium register.
https://www.shoalhaven.nsw.gov.au/Services/Bereavement-Services/Historical-Records
There were two probate notices (NSW, 11 Sep 2013 and 23 Apr 2014). She was a resident of Basin View, NSW.
Interestingly, it would appear that her funeral was held in Sandringham, Victoria (The Age, 17 Aug 2013), unless we are talking about two women with the same name who died on the same date. The date of birth provided in the funeral notice is 13 Mar 1925, so if this info is correct then she can be ruled out.
It looks like Carl’s disappearance was a case of history repeating itself in the family. His maternal grandfather, John Wilson Morris, was a miner in Pleasant Creek, VIC. He sustained a fractured spine in an accident, and died on 23 July 1871. There is very little information on the death record, and it would appear that his wife, Amelia, never learned his fate, as she never married her new partner, Robert Grace. It is possible that he had abandoned the family some years prior to his death, but there isn’t enough evidence to confirm this.
What do we know about Kevin Francis D’Arcy 1926-1977?
https://et.billiongraves.com/grave/Kevin-Francis-Darcy/18098476
The Dorothy Jean Darcy who died 25 Jul 2013 seems to have been cremated at Shoalhaven and interred in Victoria. Most likely she is the DJD living at Sandringham and neighbouring Hampton in electoral rolls from 1954 to at least 1980, living with James Leonard Darcy. They married 1943 (2923 / 1943). James Leonard d. 2000 at Sandringham (Ryerson).
Does anyone know if a decree nisi was granted to to Dorothy? I know she instituted proceedings against the absent Carl Webb in Oct 1951, the notice says the case may proceed in his absence, but was the divorce actually finalised?. If Dorothy was still legally married we won’t find a marriage record, she may have taken her common-law husband’s surname or used Robertson or Webb.
Catherine S.
I’ve been thinking similar. The notice in the paper might’ve just been put in to put off someone asking too many questions.
And obfuscate the truth with a narrative that he deserted his wife and was avoiding alimony.
I still think that murder was most likely.
But insight of what we now know, an old fashioned domestic murder.
Possibly someone was paid to take him out, and he might’ve been lured to Adelaide for that to happen.
Everything following could’ve been pure luck for whoever did the job.
It might explain why Dorothy seemed to of gone to ground.
Anways just pure speculation to make what we don’t know fit into a plausible story.
Regards
Peter
About the only Kevin D’Arcy that I could find in NAA that has an Army record is D’ARCY KEVIN ALEXANDER : Service Number – VX142120 : Date of birth – 04 May 1923 : Place of birth – MELBOURNE VIC : Place of enlistment – IN THE FIELD NEW GUINEA : Next of Kin – D’ARCY W
William D’Arcy is his father.
Page 2 has notation “died 21/5/1991:
Contains correspondence in 1971 from 49 Keith St Alphington Victoria
http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/AutoSearch.asp?O=I&Number=5708918
Can someone check this?
GARTLY, Dorothy Jeanne (sic)
Death
20JUL1999
80
late of Castle Hill
death notice
22JUL1999
Sydney Morning Herald
Anyone still want to view Jack Comber Robertson’s WW1 service record on NAA or likewise a condenced bio on the AWM site including detail of his landing at Gallipoli with the AIF 4th Light Horse (dismounted) on 25th April, 1915 etc.? Sorry you’re too late, for this original gallant Anzac hero is no longer worthy of inclusion. It seems Jack’s daughter Dorothy Jean’s marriage to Carl Webb, strange disappearance and perhaps sensitive details on her upbring, be of more public concern then a brave trooper’s legacy, warts and all!
Thanks to Thomas for his most revealing bio of Jack Comber Robertson and his most adventurous long life. One yarn tells how, during his stint in WW1, at Gallipoli Jack bumped into his cousin Norman Bennett of Adelaide. If Keane punters care to look back on the name Bennett in old thread references they should find the clue to what may prove to be sufficient evidence of conspiracy. One that will effect the outcome of a death inquest and other crimes on a broad front from day one. Up until our own introduction to Jack’s daughter Dorothy who, by and large becomes the linch pin upon which Derek’s very reputation depends ie. DNA or coincidental happenstance, that be the question.
Carl Webb’s 1st cousin died at Gallipoli
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/719214/alan-stephens/
His Aunt’s boy.
The marriage of Dorothy Webb to Keith Alexander D’arcy (or was it really Darcy, like his dad) is sketchy. He said in 1971 he lived in 49 Keith Street, Alphington. Were they married then?
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/49+Keith+St,+Alphington+VIC+3078,+Australia/@-37.7712335,145.0298484,3a,75y,284.72h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-wRrWy-Ybo5glZch4g-A6Q!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D-wRrWy-Ybo5glZch4g-A6Q%26cb_client%3Dsearch.gws-prod.gps%26w%3D86%26h%3D86%26yaw%3D284.72498%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x6ad6440d05ad8cb3:0x27a0069b272d6046!8m2!3d-37.7711811!4d145.0295939
Hi David,
There’s no proof yet that this is the correct Kevin D’Arcy however everything about him fits the time frame. There’s a problem finding him in Victoria BDM records. Can’t find his birth, death, nor anything else. All info about these came from his Army file, yet none of these events are in Victoria BDM Records.
It’s like he never existed
The army record for D’ARCY KEVIN ALEXANDER : Service Number – VX142120 : Date of birth – 04 May 1923 : Place of birth – MELBOURNE VIC : Place of enlistment – IN THE FIELD NEW GUINEA : Next of Kin – D’ARCY W
William D’Arcy is his father.
Page 2 has notation “died 21/5/1991:
Contains correspondence in 1971 from 49 Keith St Alphington Victoria
http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/AutoSearch.asp?O=I&Number=5708918
Appears to contain two different hand writing styles for Kevin D’Arcy as if two different people had filled in and signed the forms both purporting to be Kevin. One set uses D’Arcy and the other uses Darcy and the handwriting is different
Pat: The death notice for Dorothy Jeanne Gartly states that she was the wife of Keith (deceased). She is most likely the Dorothy Jeanne Kelty (28, spinster) who married, Norman Keith Gartly on 8 Mar 1947 at St John’s Church, Parramatta (original record available at Ancestry).
Also, Kevin Alexander D’Arcy’s death record (VIC: 15653/1991) states that he never married, so he can be ruled out as well.
I would be interested to learn how the researchers managed to get a copy of Carl’s divorce record from the Supreme Court of Victoria. Perhaps the South Australian Government was involved?
https://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au/application-for-divorce-information
Punters be advised that Carl Webb’s wife Dorothy Jean Robertson and 1949 inquest cause of death witness Dr. John Barkly Bennett be related along paternal lines, her dad Jack and John’s dad Norm now identified as cousins who met up by chance serving as stretcher bearers at Gallipoli in 1915.
A little humble indulgence follows as consequence of fine spotting and dedicated to memory of good times past.
Dorothy Webb flew into Adelaide late November ’48 with husband Carl and ‘brother-in-law’ Gerald Keane of the Borovanski ballet. There they liaised with uncle Norm and cousin John Bennett, both local GPs on how best to facilitate Carl’s express wish to die on his own terms and in total anonymity so not as to prolong any needless suffering nor to bring shame upon his family. A plan was formulated to accommodate Carl’s wishes accordingly as to ensure the desired outcome and for leaving no evidence of any foul play. Gerald Keane had legitimate reasons to stay and take care of loose ends, while Dr. Bennett was to administer the fatal dose then be on hand to make the pronouncement of death with minimal exposure. He would take a leave of absence from his RAH hospital duties so as to avoid queries arising from his PM observations. New widow Doff planned to leave town incognito and overland to Wagin W.A. where she had relatives, in order to thus maintain a low profile for a respectable period after which she might, as custom dictates expected, take measures to facilitating a legal separation from long gone Carl then later initiate claim against substantial insurance cover on basis of legal death presumption …Seems that everything went down without a hitch, Carl getting his wish of anonymity and the facilitators peace of mind for the part they played; Up until the not so eternal wall of silence came crashing down that is, compliments of a leak within the families..Here then endeth the epistsle, not quite but an ending of sorts though sadly there be no rest for Carl Webb or rightful claim to being an Unknown Man of Somerton Beach.
Nickpelling:
I was wondering if you or anyone in this network has found access to the Dorothy Jean Webb’s divorce papers filed in 1951 (and 1952). I think that is one of the most important primary, if not the most important, sources and I am surprised it has not been unearthed yet.
I tried reaching out to some offices in Australia, but the divorce fell in a period that does not make it available publicly, and I am too far from there (from the US) to file requests for it. Someone in Australia can obtain a copy, I am sure, even if they are not related, per reason of research into TSM.
I am inclined to think that the details from it that so far have been selectively made public (death poetry, horse racing, card playing, sleeping habits, etc.) may be just those the observer chose to make public, and there may be more there. Even the tone and manner of writing it can offer more insight.
Do you know a way of accessing the full file and its text, or can you or colleagues, especially those living in Australia, find a way of obtaining a copy? I don’t think it is proper just to rely on what a third party revealed about the file, and it must be directly studied.
These links may be of interest in the search https://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2018-11/application_for_divorce_information.pdf
https://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au/contact-us/locations
https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/collections-and-research/guides-and-indexes/divorce-records-guide
@Angela: Thanks!
Peteb: have to report on more bad luck for Keane family in that Russell’s father Gerald Thomas Keane, aged 71 formerly of the Russian Ballet? was crushed to death by a firewall in an industrial accident at Fitzroy in March 1960. Strange we did’nt pick up on it though we’ve been flat chat. What’s the latest on Dude 47’s Melbourne to Adelaide grand theft auto trade, still got legs or ready for the tip like most of CM’s initiatives, along with staff lay offs.
How’s about the latest controlled release laxative from Adelaide Advertiser re Anterio Bonifacio’s six degrees of separation with SM’s cast hair (singular?), either that or a well concocted reverse DNA hoax with young marketing guru with AB (Alf Boxall) initials the patsy. Only wish I could command a similar genuine initiative for cofirming Dorothy’s FA degrees of separation from her 2nd cousin Dr. John Barkly Bennett 1/12/48 death officiado.
What’s up with this Antero Bonifacio? I would appreciate if someone with access to the Adelaide Advertiser (apparently Abbott’s exclusive partner in crime solving) could explain their ‘breaking news’ to us, poor mortals.
Pat
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/Relatives%20of%20the%20Somerton%20Man%20come%20forward%20_%20The%20Advertiser.pdf
Hope this works, I ain’t very computer savvy!
Steve H, it doesn’t work…but thanks for trying!
Re Kevin – I noted before that there was a newspaper sympathy ad after Jim CRICK’s death talking about “much loved and respected uncle to Sandy, Kevin and families” – supposing Dorothy has remarried, and suppose it was Kevin D’Arcy might they have had a Kevin Jnr?
(I think at the time I speculated the mention of niblings but not siblings implied a family rift that the next generation was trying not to get too closely involved in – i.e. Phyllis and Dorothy might have had a falling out, but the kids weren’t necessarily party to that)
@ John Sanders
Your scenario provides a wild and complicated biography for several of those involved in the demise of Somerton Man! The link between Jessica Thomson and Dr John Barkly Bennett is very interesting and I hadn’t heard of this before!
It did get me thinking… There were two phone numbers that were picked up from the Rubiayat of Omar Khyyam and one analysis suggests that the name Jess was next to her phone number. The other number was for a bank. I’m assuming that police would have checked at the time whether JT had a bank account at this bank and if she had received any unexplained deposits. She may have had access to controlled substances? This is of course all very speculative… Adelaide does seem to have been the place to go for Melburnians with a history, seeking that final sleep (cf Timor Kaldor).
My instinct is that this was a suicide, I think that is why I’m keen to join the search to give Somerton Man an empathetic biography. I believe he was involved in protected war work and had trouble adjusting to the post war Cold War world (I worked for the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service at one time, it was formed as part of the post War reconstruction effort. Most of their early clients were people who had psychological difficulties in returning to a post war world). It would be very difficult explaining a period of secret war work to potential employers. Perhaps CW, as a working class man without strong social capital, was cut loose after there was no need for his skills? He would certainly be aware of the social capital of the old school tie, living opposite Melbourne Grammar School! The Rubiayat of Omar Khyyyam doesn’t seem like standard fare for a regular Aussie footy bloke… Your hypothesis about the terms of a life insurance policy is difficult as without a body or death certificate there could be no pay out?
Evidence of those pesky card games and a penchant for puzzles?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11049094?searchTerm=c%20webb%20springvale
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11050735?searchTerm=c%20webb%20springvale
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11053854?searchTerm=c%20webb%20springvale
Pat
Are you on Facebook? It’s on there in pdf. form on Derek Abbott’s ‘Identifying The Somerton Man’ page. I don’t really do Facebook (no friends in real life or on there!) but found it is worth getting an account as you can pick up all sorts of useful info. Otherwise, I copied the article in a reply to john sanders at 11.58 on 14 August on the ‘Carl Webb “Electrical Fitter” and “Instrument Maker”‘ thread (but of course without all the many pics). I am taking a break from sleuthing for a while as it is taking up too much of my time but I will arrange for this site to be monitored in my absence in case anything interesting comes up.
Best wishes
Steve
Jo: I was never an advocate of Jessica Thomson’s involvment in this case and am not likely to be so at any time soon. If you look back on my recent posts you’ll see where you went wrong. I spoke of Dorothy Webb’s familial links to doctor Dr. John Barkly Bennett (second cousin) who officiated at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and provided police with an estimated time of death. Nevertheless I do generally have a strong empathy for your views on other aspects you have raised, apart your non cognizance of the potential of a hefty insurance payout on a presumption of death ruling after seven years abscentia.
Pat: I don’t have access to the Adelaide Advertiser article either, but I do know that Mr. Bonifacio is a descendant (via his mother) of Mary Jane Morris (1860-1932), sister (or half-sister) of Eliza Amelia Morris/Grace, mother of Carl Webb. The researchers already had a DNA match on Carl’s paternal side, and the match on the maternal (Morris) side allowed them to confirm the link between the DNA sample and the Webb/Morris family.
John Sanders: It would appear that John Comber Robertson and Dr. Barkly Bennett both descend from Duncan Robertson and Robina Young – well spotted!
Angela: I was beginning to think nobody would ever notice. Still unsure as to anbody even cares. Thanks for that and also for the Bonifacio connectors which make sense although that doesn’t leave reverse engineering out of contention, or does it?
…whether an body cares or not, my long held stated suspicions of Intern Dr. John Bennett’s nonchalant attention to his death affirmation duties on the day remain. I also wonder what odds of pure circumstance might be involved re his 2nd cousin Dorothy of Melbourne being wife of his deceased patient.
Angela, thanks!
Steve, thanks! I have managed to read the article on FB. Sorry to hear you’re taking a break, but I totally understand. Hopefully the SM mystery will be over soon.
Jo,
If Estyn Dick James was the real owner of the book, maybe it was a gift from him to Roy Webb, both were in the Infantry Battalion (2nd/27th and 2nd/29th, respectively), and maybe it was returned to the Webb family after his death. Estyn lived in Henley Beach, and maybe that’s where the SM was going to when something happened… Lots of news on Estyn Dick James and his wife Florence May, they went bankrupt and owed money to a couple, maybe the bank telephone number was written by him.
https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/602522?fbclid=IwAR3LG30clvGzOWUHKqlhng30aNlG8KBSaJYP4CbWlqx8qSKhwbIY3Jo2TT8
…..might also pay to mention that cousins Jack Robinson and Norm Bennett knew each other by sight when they met by coincidence at Gallipoli in 1915. So the chances of their kids Dot and John having had previous contact would seem rather good one would assume.
I have posted this elsewhere, but just for the sake of accuracy, the minister who signed the marriage certificate was Rev. John Bruce Montgomerie. Here you can see his name, probably just before he went to St. Matthew’s Anglican Church, in Prahran.
https://www.churchhistories.net.au/church-catalog/adelaide-sa-st-lukes-anglican
Interestingly, his name is not listed under St. Matthews, but the register from 1940-1946 is missing, so it fits with him being there in 1941.
https://www.churchhistories.net.au/church-catalog/prahran-vic-st-matthews-anglican
Oh and before going to St. Matthews, the Rev was in St. Luke’s which happens to be part of a triangle with Henley Beach and Glenelg South. Just a curiosity…
@ Pat – great research on the Rubaiyat!! A new angle!
@ Pat and Behrooz
St Matts is still around, in Prahran. It is a small, very social justice oriented church in a socially diverse area. The Anglican church closer to Domain Road and Bromby Street is Christ Church, South Yarra, which is larger and far more establishment (it has a junior grammar school attached to the church – Christ Church Grammar School). Prahran has always had more of a rough and tumble working class edge (there are now numbers of significantly disadvantaged people). The Domain area of South Yarra has always been predominantly though not exclusively posh (lots of very expensive cars these days amongst the latte sipping brunch crowd). I think the choice of church speaks to Carl and possibly Dorothy’s class positioning.
@ Pat
The copy of the Rubaiyat with Jestyn written in it belonged to Alf Boxall, not Carl Webb… This was the copy Jess Thomson claims to have given Boxall – which Boxall showed to the police, so a different copy. The phone numbers were in Carl Webb’s copy – the one from which Taman Shud was torn.
Careful, don’t get the Rubaiyat’s mixed up – the Jestyn one is an actual book given to Boxall, the Glenelg one was a small, cheap paperback.
I remember JS pointing out years ago that it’s a touch odd that the coppers looking for one should find a completely different type of book and not thinking it strange….
It’s a part of the story that strikes me as quite peculiar – if Jo knew something about what was going on, why mention a book that clearly has nothing to do with it. It seems an odd distraction – and I can’t help but wonder whether the bust had enough of a resemblence to Boxall that she thought it actually was Boxall (remembering she may not have seen him for quite some time).
@Pat: Is it normal for Anglican priests to cross state borders? Pretty sure Catholic priests (in Australia, at least) belong either to a Diocese or an Order – the ones in an order might get moved around the world at the whim of their superiors, but Diocesan ones would generally only get moved around the Diocese at the mood of the Bishop (and different Diocese have different rules about how often that happens). I know Anglicans are a little different (not least because they live with family and so might have more flexibility in the family dictating where they move) – I guess it’s why I ask.
@ John Sanders – I’m so sorry, speed reading is my downfall! A rather odd and sinister link! And thanks for clarifying insurance policy conditions!
Milongal, she was throwing chaff. She thought she was busted. The woman would have been called in to see the bust with no reason offered, the Police doing the usual trick of trying to wind up the POI. She sees her friend in plaster and nearly drops to the floor – realising the gig is up. They ask her about the Rubaiyat. It’s cold now, but sweat is trickling between her baps and down her lower back. ‘I know’, she thinks. ‘I’ll throw them off the scent by saying I gave mine to Alf’. This buys the stupid woman at least a few days since if they HAD interviewed Boxall personally (required if the South Australian Crown intended to arrest her) then the coppers would have had to take the Overland to Melbourne and then the Spirit of Progress to Albury for a gauge change onto the Melbourne Limited Express to Sinney. The same in reverse. 72 hours at the least since she knew they wouldn’t stump up for a ticket on an ANA DC-3.
Chaps, he didn’t die on the beach.
That means he did not commit sideways.
John Sanders,
That is a remarkable, discovery regarding “Woof” Bennett and Doff Webb – I must admit I didn’t fully take in what you were hinting at until now. It wouldn’t be the first time there’s been such a coincidence, if it was one, and the implications of it not being are, obviously, sinister.
Re. “that doesn’t leave reverse engineering out of contention, or does it?”
If I understand the suggestion correctly – faking a DNA connection? I don’t have the words to explain exactly how … impossible that would be. But put it this way: any attempt at such a bizarre fraud would be as difficult to conceal, in the short term, as (let’s say) a PM having himself secretly appointed to several ministerial posts.
@Jo @milongal, thanks, I’m a newbie on the SM affairs, so excuse my stupid speculations!
Would ‘Jo’ and ‘Jestyn’ be common nicknames for Jessica? Maybe she knew Estyn Jones? I’m just thinking of a possible connection here. I find it intriguing that his name hasn’t been mentioned in all these years of investigation, with his unusual Welsh name and living in Henley Beach.
@ Behrooz
I’ve checked the availability of PROV divorce files and there are none relating to C Webb.
My guess now is that it was either the marriage certificate that the recent female visitor to the PROV had requested or that it was someone with a close or official connection to the case. To view the divorce details an application to the Supreme Court is required (as the case is less than 75 years old.). This involves an affidavit stating one’s connection to the case and reasons for wanting to view the file.
I don’t know that I have the credentials!
https://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2018-11/application_for_divorce_information.pdf
Jo:
Thanks much for pursuing the inquiry about divorce papers. I really appreciate it. I had actually found that form and offered the link to it (and to two others) in another comment. Not being from Australia and familiar with procedures, I thought perhaps there is a way to do this by offering research interest as a reason for obtaining a copy. I wonder if Nick Pelling has tried, as he did with the marriage certificate.
I wonder whoever has had access to the texts (so that we have at least some quotes from it) can provide a full account of them somewhere in the spirit of transparency. I do believe the divorce texts are very important and should be directly read and studied. Perhaps the media can themselves inquire into this and write a complete and full report on it.
@Pat: Jessie seems to have gone by Jo sometimes – not sure how normal that is. I think when the book was signed Jestyn she explained it away as a mix of “Jess” and “Tiny” (from memory she claimed work colleagues sometimes called her “Tina” or “Tyna” because she was relatively small) – but it sounds a bit odd. The inscription itself is interesting, and people have speculated the colour of the ink in the ‘E’ looks different and might have been added later. The fact the ‘E’ is capital is odd too (although people have proposed reasons for that). That’s why there have been a few pages here considering Styn (or J. Styn, or J. E. Styn) – and given it’s scrawled in handwriting it could also be something like Stijn or similar…..because the E is capital, there is some interest in Estyn (and the J for Jones adds some interest).
Lecher Monane: fulla shite min and classic case of the horse before the cart. Jestyn didn’t mention Alf Boxall as her nominee for the (not so identical) Rubaiyat at the time, she’d done that already, when Det. Canney called at her house for a cuppa and an iced vo vo or two before taking her to town for the viewing. If we’re to believe bust maker P. Lawson, Jo wasn’t all that communitive with the plods when he pulled away the shroud a few inches in front of the wee thing. There to reveal his gruesome hairy shouldered creation which appears to have scared the living shite out of the poor dear..only thing that about your yarn that borders on reality relates to the Spirit of Progress gauge change at Albury on it’s daily run twixt Mebun and Sinney
..Smart horse musta done a backflip.
Pat: the name Estyn is not so unusual, as a surname, Christian name and place name, not only in Wales where in times past it was common, especially in the burrough of Estyn where it serves as centre for the ministry of education. French Canadians have also found favour with it as a Quebecois first name and a celebrated convict Bryn Estyn is mentioned in several papers from Hobart to Sydney and even in English horticultural journals between 1860 and 1915 or so. SA geni gives us two first name Estyns and I recall that milongal found an Estyn surname in Adelaide back when Nick and others had a thing for J.E. Styne that thankfully ran out of steam.
Oh, and the Overland didn’t exist? Seems I have caught you out good sir!
Byron: your our odds man, see what you can do with this if you will. Two cousins meet by chance at Gallipoli around May of 1915, Jack Robertson a trooper from Ballarat with 4th Lt. Horse and Norm Bennett a Medical Corps stretcher bearer from Adelaide…Clock forward to December 1948 at Adelaide Hospital where Norm’s son Dr. John Barkly Bennett makes a death pronouncement by cursory visual inspection on an unidentified man found on Someton Beach…Clock forward to August 2022 where a researcher somehow connects Jack’s daughter Dorothy to the beach body, lately confirmed as her husband Carl Webb. What be the chances of that happening by pure coincidence in your opinion; I’d say Buckleys and sweet FA but that’s only my jaundiced understanding of the ‘human factor’ ala G. Greene.
To be clear … the second number written on the back of the book was the phone number of a local, unnamed business. This can be confirmed by reading the contemporaneous notes Stuart Littlemore wrote whilst interviewing Detective Len Brown.
David Morgan: Abbott the so called world authority on SM from 2010 was and is still is an ill informed light weight put alongside the likes of Bowes, Pelling and Feltus to name a few. When it comes to knowledge of 1940s syndicated press coverage of big news stories with legs poor Derek isn’t in the hunt. All city and big regional newspapers couldn’t get enough Somerton beach body stories which remained news courtesy of the Sapol Leane team and it’s media liason man Scan Sutherland. Be assured that pics of eg., the body dressed to kill, Somerton Beach panorama with X maks the spot, the code page and torn piece inset with a doctored Rubaiyat &c., were seen concurrently in Cairns, Townsville, Kempsy also Broken Hill and Alice Springs too, mostly just hours behind Adelaide and the other capitals Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Hobart and Brisbane. Dunno about Darwin it’s different.
John Sanders … I have a copy of an address Derek Abbott made to a room full of people some years ago where he stated unequivocally that Webb was wearing a buttoned up cardigan under his coat when found …. but wait, there’s more. Abbott then professed himself of the opinion that a chap who dressed himself in such a fashion was of a higher class than one who doesn’t, using Professor Emeritus Cleland as a cardigan wearing example of the higher classes
Lecher Monane: If you’re addressing moi please say so. I didn’t mention the Train from Adelelaide to Mebun, you did. Now that you tell us The Overland wasn’t around in 1948, I beg to differ most fervently; Had Peteb’s Estyn Jones still been with us, he could vouch for it’s having started the Melb. Adel. run renamed ‘The Overland’ in 1936 and he well may have serviced it, working out of Milicent for SA rail around that time.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on our Derek. A cursory observation of his mannerisms appears to indicate that he very much likes order and can’t cope with the inevitable chaos of the Somerton Man’s life. Why else must he constantly reduce everything in the grand parade of Somerton theories to ‘Mundane existence. Wrote a poem. Bet on horses’? And the poor bastard has the Bride of
Botox for a mother in law. In my opinion even the tide wouldn’t take her out. Sheesh. Nonetheless it beggars belief that anyone apart from a supremely lazy journalist would parrot his lines in the local rag when there is clearly so much else afoot.
John, even though you have maligned me most cruelly, I submit that the fact that the Somerton Man was triaged in death by his SECOND COUSIN (in law) to be $&!?& insane! What are the chances of this? He didn’t talk about the case to his dad or family and they didn’t mention it to their cousins etc etc? Beggars belief. In fact I do not believe it. Not one bit.
I don’t however understand why you love Jestyn so much. You’re sufficiently conspiratorial to think that the Beaumont children are alive and well as the Snoswell children but you can’t accept that Harkness (her own brother a cousin in law of the same Beaumonts) could be involved? You’re prepared to take one coincidence as evidence but not another? Surely this wizened old Jewess is a lynchpin in both cases!
And by the way, the Spirit of Progress terminated (not changed) at Albury. We New South Welsh subjects used to alight there to get onto the Melbourne Limited perversely travelling to Sydney. Owned by His Majesty the King in right of NSW in 1948. Not the King of Victoria. Thankyou.
And furthermore, I believe Robin Thomson’s child to be extremely shy for not wishing to be part of this case. For what imaginable reason would you not wish to be part of this case? Does anyone know how many children he had and where they live? Why can’t the Police exhume Jestyn?
Katie-Dee, you are free to express your point of view (of course) and I like your colourful prose, but let’s drop uncomfortable terms such as “wizened old Jewess”. Ouch! I’d lose my job in Canada for saying that even once … and I’m not a Goody Two-Shoes type.
@John Sanders
And how many of those Welsh or Canadian people named Estyn were living in Henley Beach in November/December 1948?
Robin Thomson has one daughter called Lizzie. The other one Rachel Rebecca Abbott née Egan formerly Jenny O’Neill has ‘Unknown’ for her father on her Birth Certificate.
Katie-Dess: And the botox reference is too much. Please stop the bullying.
John Sanders: Please keep to the facts and stop bullying Abott and everbody else.
Where is the moderator?
Pat: I’m having enough trouble finding Katie Dee’s Estyn living at Henley Beach within your necessary time frame; Don’t tempt us with any more of your own unlikely Estyn suspects, now even Peteb and his team are under Katie’s spell.
‘Unpleasant older female identifying human of the Judaic faith’.
Peteb: I’ll go with Derek’s call on class distinction but just this once, on Carl’s upper upperclass credentials in his having worn a buttoned cardigan to the beach. I recall wearing a similar black knitted ‘Cresknit’ meself when out and about, feeling pretty classy and hoping to be taken for Dig Richards or even Lucky Star at a stretch.
IMO Abbott uses his title to suggest he’s qualified in places he isn’t. Sort of reminds me of Dr Wamsley the Conservationalist of Warrawong fame. Everyone assumed he was a vet – in fact title came from his studies in Mathematics….
Mr Mohammed Tamdgidi aka Behrouz,
You must understand that the Rubaiyat exists in this context only as a one-time pad or messaging device due to the cut out piece. The writing or ‘code’ is in the form of an indentation from a different note which was simply composed using the Rubaiyat as a flat surface.. The scrap of paper on which the indentation was originally written had been disposed of prior to the death of the Somerton Man. The man did not suicide and was murdered. It is likely that he never HAD the book or the piece of paper on which the indentation ewe originally written. They just crammed the slip into his pocket. He was murdered by Jessica and the chemist due to their involvement in the Government House affair. The innocent brother found the Rubaiyat in his car and reported it to the police before his guilty brother could stop him: thus the stupid story of ‘he popped it in the glove box’. I understand your interest in associating with the Rubaiyat with the case in terms of your research, but it is not the focal point of the case. We are dealing with scumbag used car dealers, petty thieves, horse racing (the Governor’s wife owned horses), a murder in Government House, potentially large sums of money, a Russian speaking Jewish convert who was mates with the worst commies in the country, close familial connections between the deceased and the bloke who failed to identify him at the morgue, and tonnes more. To think that the Rubaiyat plays anything other than a bit part in this sordid affair is to be away with the pixies my friend.
Louise: I am fairly confident that a cursory viewing of the interview with Ms Egan will be sufficient to demonstrate that she has made heavy use of lip fillers and botox; quite probably in anticipation of her all star telly appearance with the risible Charles Woolley. This was mentioned on ciphermysteries at the time. Ms Egan no longer associates with the dear but hapless prof. If you call that bullying you’re quite the sensitive type my lady.
Peteb: to be even clearer the first number, the one alongside the letter P on the code page and taped over for the ’78 doco, by arrangement. was Sister J. E. Thomson’s number X3239 which she had given Len on the phone at his Angus St. desk on Sunday? 24th July ’49. no need to say more nudge nudge wink wink.
While I’ve gotcha on the mat so to speak, re your new most unlikely suspect Taffy Estyn Jones; Apart from working for S.A. Rail at Millicent pre war, in ’48 when he was at Goodwood he had an old army mate name of Kingsley Hilton, a dealer? living at 142 Brighton Rd. Somerton, about 600 yards (mine not yourn) from 90A Mosley St.
I saw the recent photos of Mrs Abbott and it looks like she has used quite a lot of Fillers and Botox on her face too. I don’t know how anyone is able to do a facial comparison with a face that has been altered so much. It’s would be hard to do a comparison with a subject that has chipmunk features. Also for the record Robin Thomson had a nose job back in the day. He softened his features when he was in The Australia Ballet. My Ballet source says that Roma Egan was also known by the name ‘Heidi’.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10446663/celebrities-face-filler-transformations/amp/
Roman Egan before surgery.
https://ibb.co/x3Fmx8c
Glen: spitting image of Abbott’s animated SM after surgery, but a good while before Derek took her cher.. (whoops) DNA.
https://ibb.co/bF8Jjsd
I’m sure she is wearing blue contact lenses!
Anything for $$$ I suppose!
I’ve just done a freedom of information request. (Basically an email) to the all news outlets Derek Abbott and Rachel Egan have dealt with asking how much they were paid for each of their stories. 60 Minutes paid out a hefty sum to them. All part of the wider situation and fraud.
The marriage certificate mentioned that the witnesses were Doris Martin and J. C. Robertson. I’d guess JC was Dorothy’s father, but how might Doris be related? Would she be associated with Carl if there was one representative from each family? She may have been the Doris Martin registered as born Doris Ruby Bates in South Yarra, Victoria, in 1914 (ref: 26421/1914), married Eric Richard Martin in 1939 (ref: 5210/1939), died in South Yarra in 1992 (ref: 11581/1992). That would make her c.27 at the wedding of 21 year old Dorothy and 35 year old Carl. Mention this in case via this route there’s some extra info/photos available for example from any relations.
Jimmy: Doris Martin nee Webb could possibly have been Carl’s older sister at a rough guess.
Jimmy: Doris Maud Martin, née Webb, was one of Carl’s sisters (not Doris Ruby Martin, née Bates, who is unrelated, afaik). There’s a pic of Doris here:
https://planetnewspost.com/u-k-news/somerton-mans-family-revealed-and-why-he-was-wearing-american-clothes-at-the-time-of-his-death/
And yes, JCR was Dorothy’s father.
I think the names of their siblings and parents are covered elsewhere on this site, but I must admit this story has moved so fast, it’s hard to keep up.
@ John Sanders: your wish is my command, sir. I rest my case, regarding you, of course.
Minstrel Janet:
You replied on a different Nick Pelling post here, but it is ok, I will just say here, thanks for sharing more details of your opinion, which you seem to still regard as facts and clearly not as what you call “being away with the pixies.”
I had no quarrel with calling those faint markings indentations, later traced by the police, as evident in my report. For my study it is really irrelevant whether they were marked on the booklet itself or indented on it over another sheet. My purpose has been to understand what they could mean, which is something you are not interested to know and read about, it seems. In my interpretation, they tell the story of a suicide plot, being a suicide planning note, as I have previously explained in detail in my report, to which my post name “Behrooz” has been linked in this site.
I am not sure why you found it necessary to expand my post name (at times misspelled) , when it was transparently linked to my website anyways. I just used the short “Behrooz” to make it easier for others to type in when responding.
I wish you well with convincing others with your opinions on the matter. I think that is all I have to say in this exchange.
Many thanks John and Furphy for setting me straight. I’d somehow missed the Doris connection.
Looking into that now, I see that Charles Webb’s sister Doris was born, married and died in Melbourne (Victoria registrar refs: 11289/1901, 7739/1923, 5420/1956).
Also a lot of content is on an ancestry site already. It suggests that Doris had a child Norma, who passed away in 2019.
https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LR91-L67/norma-mary-martin-1925-2019
Norma could feasibly have had family photos, recollections of “Uncle Charles”, and even have been at his wedding to Dorothy, as she would have been c.16 at the time that her mother was the named witness.
Also, I reasoned that perhaps Dorothy was issuing a divorce notice in 1951 if she was looking to remarry. There is a Dorothy Jean Webb marrying a Lindsay Kennedy in 1952 (ref: 19472/1952). Lindsay may have been Lindsay Robert Kennedy who died in Melbourne aged 73 on 19th May 1981 (ref: 10775/1981). A chap by that same name worked in the Income Tax office of the Department of the Treasury in Victoria in the 1950s: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232900539/25089971
Pat: I should have clarified. I couldn’t find anyone at all named Estyn living at Henley Beach in 1948 and I’ll stand corrected if you can show otherwise. Only one Estyn I came upon in routine searches was the same one Katie-Dee and Peteb did vis-a-vis their Estyn Dick Jones. WW2 rolls gives Henley Beach as his locality on enlistment in 1940 but, folks are known to move their digs especially with upheavals connected to six years of war, if you can accept that?
Remember the little commune in Mentone Victoria, where Jessica Harkness grew up and mixed with the Langley family according to the documentary Missing Pieces?
Langley (through Savige), and Webb families are now confirmed as inlaw related.
Chances of Jessica Harkness having been acquained with Carl Webb prior to him turning up in Adelaide has just shot up exponentially.
JS,
It may interest you in regards to who was a Gallipoli, that Lieutenant General, Sir Stanley George Savige, KBE, CB, DSO, MC, ED is related to the Langley family of the Mentone Commune.
PD
PD: the only Langley family members I’m interested in at the present are Max and Jean, son and daughter in law of Gallipoli landing veteran Thomas Langley (10th Btn) of Glenelg. They are not related to the commune mob of Mentone (lately Stirling S.A.) that Jessica was rumoured to have known. Thanks, much appreciated.
Can’t help being rude can you, Colonel?
Is it because the individual mentioned was more highly decorated? Whereas you yourself were grubbing around French Indochina trying to find ‘half caste’ children?
She was Jessie Harkness before she was Jessica Thomson and she didn’t grow up in a commune.
Katie D: Gen. Savige was by then an officer, old Tom Langley a mere sergeant and after Gallipoli a one legged one at that; not too many medals for wounded front line diggers in those early days of WW1.
Margaret Cohen (nee Langley)
Childhood best friend of Jessica Harkness of the Somerton Man mystery according to evidence presented in the documentary Missing Pieces https://youtu.be/C4XdHo4j8OU
Headstone Description
Margaret Cohen – cherished by Dr-Elef-Jorgensen and Harry Edhouse. Mother of Sarah, Kirsten, Simon and Timothy. Beloved wife of Leonard.
Previous marriage 1
Dr-Henry-Harry Edhouse married Margaret Langley. They had 2 children
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/family/LJZ4-5XV
Her father, John Samuel Langley was English. Born in 1889, he came to Australia in 1912. After arriving in Perth he became a schoolteacher and took up public soapbox lecturing. He was atheist and an impressive speaker. The Victorian Rationalist Association became aware of his heard of him and invited him to Melbourne – an invitation he accepted. The Association was founded in 1906. Its fundamental view was that all significant beliefs and actions should be based on reason and evidence. It aimed to promote critical enquiry into religion and what it perceived as other superstitious practices, stimulate freedom of thought, and encourage interest in science, criticism and philosophy. In 1919 he became the Associations Secretary. In 1924 he founded the Rationalist Journal, and in 1926 he became the inaugural Secretary of the Rationalists Society of Australia. Jean’s mother was Vera Lucy Savige. She was born in Elsternwick in 1892 and met Margaret’s father through the Society. She was already a Society member, and at the age of twenty-two, on their Board of Directors. They married and lived on a Rationalist commune at Mentone. Several families lived there, on a ti-tree covered ten-acre property by the sea.
Glen: she was Jessica Harkness before she was Jo Thomson. Where she grew up is debatable, Marrickville or Maryville but, what would I know she was/is a side show fantasy as far as I’m concerned is Jestyn-ed to remain so. She’s a total irrelevance imho.
She was never Jessica Harkness?
She was born Jessie Ellen Harkness in Marrickville, NSW and changed her name to Jessie Ellen Thomson (Sister in the Directory) whilst her husband Prosper was still married to his first wife Queenie. ‘ Jo’ was just a nickname and she never used that name formally. Upon marriage and in later years her name changed again to Jessica Ellen Thomson
Lizzie Thomson (Robins only acknowledged Daughter)
https://ibb.co/4ZJd7vm
And her website:
https://www.lizziethomson.net
I think if the right people had gone to her in the first place it would have shut down Derek Abbotts stupid theory that Carl was Robins father. Enough said really!. But the large payment from 60 minutes that Rachel Egan and Derek Abbott were paid changed things. Jessica Thomson only met Rachel twice and on the second meeting Rachel stole personal items from Jessica’s home. Some of which were letters which ended up on the internet. Very sad!.
Glen.
Did you watch Missing Pieces?
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8c9v9y
They interviewed Margaret Cohen/Edhouse (nee Langley)’s sister who knew her in childhood.
She was always a regular at the house in Mentone. Heavily influenced by their mum, Vera Langly (nee Savige), the matriarch of the commune.
Margaret’s son Tim Edhouse verified that they stayed friends in Adelaide.
I’m sure they would’ve recognised an imposter.
Regards
Peter
I don’t think there is anything wrong with the theory that Robin is his son. I’m more concerned that the Blonde Lady isn’t the biological granddaughter. Since this has been raised as a possibility we urgently need to get Lizzie’s DNA into the system so we can find out whether she is related to Carl and whether this explains her love of crap dancing and fake art. Hopefully the Police will force her to complete a DNA test.
Glen are you related to this case? Why are they your friends?
Carl Webb isn’t Robin Thomson’s father. THE END
Right at the beginning Derek Abbott was saying Alf Boxall was Robins father.
I’m sure the next thing will be is that Carl Webb is Jessica’s father.
It really is about the $$$$
Profiting from a crime is really horrible.
@Behrooz – for mine suicide has just as many problems as murder (which isn’t really helpful lgiven it was likely one of the 2). Some of the problems for mine:
1) How was the drug taken? If it was intravenous, where did the syringe go. If it was oral I think there was evidence at the inquest the quantities required would have been detected (and where is whatever receptacle it might have been in).
2) if Tamam Shud is your “Goodbye”, why roll it up tightly and put it in a pocket where people will struggle to recover it? Wouldn’t you hold it to contemplate on it as you pass and/or so that it is found on the body?
3) It’s a strange place to suicide – why go to Somerton if you’re not local? If you’ve had all day to wander around there are far quieter spots you could find (that would still be busy enough to be found if that concerns you). Most notably, the beach North of where the marina is today – and closer to what was then St Leonards. It does occur to me that maybe there may be some romanticised notion that a specific person is going to find you…..but not sure how much I’d subscribe to that.
4) Why check luggage? To me that suggests at least that at that point you’re not fully committed and might come back (which I suppose is possible). If you know you’re not returning, why not just leave the suitcase on the train (or station, or bus or anywhere) and let Lost Property find it.
5) Why have a last meal (that seems to have been relatively plain – unless you REALLY love pastys)
Then there’s some lesser things (like why keep a Henley ticket you definitely won’t need – to me the fact he still has it means he either thought he might still use it, or hoped he could get a refund at some stage).
Of course as per my first line, there are just as many problems with a murder hypothesis – which I guess is one of the reasons this has remained a mystery so long….
For some really weird reason I think Jessica loved the attention that this case brought to her. It might have made her feel special and wanted. Perhaps she put herself into this case so her husband wouldn’t leave her. She was an unqualified Nurse and her husband has a record of Fraud. I’m at the point where I really don’t think Jessica is anything to do with it at all. No wonder the potential family of Carl Webb won’t come forward. Are they going to be subjected to Ear comparisons?, every detail of their lives made public and more.
Could Jessica herself have tossed that book in the Chemists car?
Glen: without a DNA sample how can you assert that with any confidence? Has that woman completed a DNA test for comparison? Or are you going by the claims of a fraudster and his liar wife? See my difficulty here?
In 1940s if you were looking for your wife, the logical thing to do would be to contact her friends, relatives, and acquaintances from her usual haunts. From his movements, it can be assumed that he was tipped of that she went to South Australia. It may have been that Jessica was someone that Carl intended speaking to to enquire about his wife’s whereabouts. It would appear that she did know who he was, but was still protecting her friend / relative / acquaintance even in Carl’ss death. In light of at least one report of the coroner saying that murder could not be ruled out, it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine that Jessica wouldn’t of known if Carl’s wife was involved or not in his demise, and so would’ve kept mum about it all.
Did Carl find Jessica that day? Probably not.
Was Jessica Carl’s last hope at finding his wife, and failing to gain her help to locate his wife convinced him that he’d expended his last hope, and last option? Maybe.
That’s probably the only extent of Jessica’s involvement IMO.
Her behaviour suggests that she knew something. That something may have been the true circumstances of his death.
Derek Abbott has such respect with SAPOL that individuals assisting SAPOL with investigations were told to stay away from Derek Abbott completely. There is a rumour going around the University that all three of Derek Abbotts children were born via IVF through a surrogate mother. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that but the horrible part is that Carls DNA was injected into the embryos. I really hope that this is a rumour but who knows with Derek Abbott. He is just too weird and has strange agendas. Does anyone know his correct name?. He was Derek Mistry at the school he went to and on the birth records was Narir Mistry. Between Rachel and Derek they have loads of name changes.
LOLOLOL
I sat through the interview with old steel-wool. What a heap of crap. All
Conjecture and Glen has just regurgitated it hook, line and sinker.
Who is this irritating old frightbat?! If ROBIN’S REAL DAUGHTER hasn’t provided her DNA then we do not know whether he was SM’s son. Daughter of Chipmunk could be anyone’s!!
Omg, everything that woman parrots is diahorrrea from Derek. Oh yeeeeahhhh Aaaadelaide is a little west of Melbourne. Everything Lady Glen has written here is pinched straight from the interview.
The Police will legally go to Lizzie Thomson if they need anything. Rachel Abbott formerly Rachel Rebecca Egan WAS Jenny O’Neill has ‘Unknown’ for a father on her birth certificate. Is she even Robins daughter in the first place?. Not even Robin cared about her. She blackmailed Robin Thomson when he was working at a car dealership. She wanted a car in exchange for not telling Robins wife about her existence. Robin was a decent bloke and went straight to his wife and told her. Even then Roma tried to wreck his marriage by telling his wife they were having an affair. Romas big plan was to get back with Robin and create a family unit with Jenny / Rachel. Robin didn’t want anything to do with any of it. She has Unknown on her original birth certificate because Roma really didn’t know who the father was and Robin agreed.
Why would Carl look for Dorothy if he was the one who ended the marriage? A change of heart? Looking for money? Revenge for being chronically poisoned by the chemist/chiropodist? I think we should focus on finding evidence. There are too many possible scenarios for the half hints provided by alleged family members who don’t want to get involved in a public uproar but at the same time keep posting on private groups, whose members will probably spread the word under aliases. I’m beginning to think that this is all meant to divert our attention.
I don’t think it’s a matter of diverting attention. It’s more that people don’t want to deal with Derek Abbott. His approach to things at times is really horrible and he doesn’t have much respect for people.
@Pat – that was my thought too – why is Carl looking for Doff? At the same time ending up in a remote place like Bute does hint at her fleeing something or someone…..but that assumes she was even there.
Slightly aside, I was trawling through the Estyn court-martial on nla. One of the witnesses they call is an ex-military car dealer. It made me question whether Car Dealership was a common post-military career for people from the services? Is there a link there (not necessarily sinister)?
@Glen – I think the police would be cautious that he gets excited and potentially steers things in directions that they don’t need to go. If I were officially investigating something I think such an enthusiast would be a big risk of compromising something – even if he were the nicest person on Earth. Some of this was evident in the HC Reynolds saga where his enthusiasm managed to gain support from a colleague specialising in Anthropological Anatomy…
But TBH I’m more intrigued by his research methods – they seem quite random/unorganized and somewhat at odds as what I’d expect from someone who is expert in a quantitative precision-obsessed engineering field.
I suggested to the people that knew Carl to perhaps contact Gerry Feltus for advice. He would be the safe bet all round and I don’t think SAPOL would mind. I believe photos of Carl have just been found.
Pat: your photo of Alice and Phyllis Robertson of 1926 seems to portray a child somewhat much than Phyllis if her birth year of 1925 be correct. You might note that the pic was uploaded by a family historian Bruce Bennett, son of the intern who declared Carl dead on 1/12/48. Well well well or is it Webb Web Bennett?
..older by at least 18 months if I’m any judge of kid’s ages, having gone 50/50 in quite a few.
Milongal
“One of the witnesses … is an ex-military car dealer. It made me question whether Car Dealership was a common post-military career…? Is there a link there … not necessarily sinister…?”
Yes, it’s safe to assume that motor trades, including dealerships, were a common postwar career choice. (tcalss) The Allied militaries stationed in Australia (not counting those in New Guinea, Indonesia etc) and civilian auxiliaries/war industries were prodigious users of motor vehicles. The relevant technical/engineering musterings of the military underwent a corresponding exponential expansion (and in the army training etc was consolidated in the Royal Australian Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, formed in 1942). At the end of the war, perhaps needless to say, the Allied militaries also released a lot of vehicles into civilian markets around Australia, often (iirc) by job lot at auctions. These would have included some civilian cars, although military vehicles, ranging from Indian motorcycles (used by messengers and military police) and jeeps, up to heavy trucks, would have been far more common. (Not to forgot de-gunned tanks, which were a hit with farmers, and very useful in a kind of heavy tractor role.)
Furphy: not to forget the military version of the Hillman Minx in it’s ‘Jeep’ version. We must not forget that Prof. Cleland in his after notes alluded to the Rubaiyat having been tossed into the back of a utilty and not a car as was the popular view.
Nick Pelling: reckon the time’s ripe, in light of recent revelations to give Dorothy Robertson another chance for immortality by submitting her to further scrutiny with a well deserved follow-up thread of her own. If only to take a break from some by now repetitive, albeit well intended diversions.
Glen, you can certainly try and contact Feltus, but going by my experience he does not reply to e-mails. Perhaps you will have more luck, as long as your surname is not Abbott!
John Sanders,
“We must not forget that Prof. Cleland in his after notes alluded to the Rubaiyat having been tossed into the back of a utilty and not a car…”
That is an interesting detail, which I hadn’t noticed before – so the Rubaiyyat car was definitely a Hillman Tilly (as that style of tray-back vehicle was known in the UK)? The Australian Army seems to have used large numbers of the heavier Ford utes, but it’s more than possible that Hillmans were used by one of the military services.
@John Sanders: regarding the photo of Alice and Phyllis, I have no idea if it’s them, but if you say Bruce is related to their family then it might be true that it’s Alice with Phyllis, although he wrote Phillis… I don’t know about children’s age, but she could be one year old or a bit older on the photo depending on the month of the year it was taken, children grow fast!
Wow. So much to catch up on…So far behind. Doing my best and don’t really know where else to ask (perhaps stupid) questions. There is another marriage certificate that pops up on ancestry for a Charles Webb…It’s to a Grace Caldwell. Has this been discussed/debunked/followed up on at all?
Name Grace Caldwell
Gender Female
Marriage Registration Year 1934
Marriage Registration Place Victoria, Australia
Spouse Charles Webb
Reference Number 6425
Just searching Victoria BDM between 1934 and 1942 for marriages to a Charles Webb gives 20 results. Obviously these are not all the same people. Hence it’s probably safe to dismiss these Charles Webb’s as unlikely to be the same as Carl Webb without other evidence to support the assumption
Peter – Thanks. I realize that there are many but most can be tracked down. I haven’t been able to trace Grace Caldwell. You’re probably right that it’s unlikely the same as Carl Webb but it would be nice to eliminate the possibility. I was just wondering if someone else had looked into it.
Nick – Find a Grave shows a Dorothy Jean Taylor Robertson b. 1920, died June 1, 2001 with her spouse buried in the same cemetery listed as Kevin Robertson 1925–2011 (m. 1952).
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/169024106/dorothy-jean-robertson?_gl=1*1tzekk3*_ga*NjM2OTk3NzM0LjE2NjE3MTM4OTI.*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*MTY2MTg1MTU5Ny41LjEuMTY2MTg2NzQ0Mi4wLjAuMA..
On the 22nd July 1949 it was reported that a businessman found the Rubaiyat in November 1948 on the back seat of his car while it was parked in Jetty Road.
Feltus;
I have established that the person who owned the car in which the relevant copy of the Rubaiyat was located and his wife are both deceased. Their next of kin have recently given me permission to release identities and details relevant to the ‘Unknown Man’ investigation. John Freeman, in December, 1948, was a Chemist, and resided with his wife in premises attached to their Chemist shop, at 24A Jetty Road, Glenelg. Their family car, a small Hillman Minx was more often than not parked in Jetty Road, outside their shop/residence.
http://www.theunknownman.com/comments.html
whether this happened in nov or Dec is contentious
misca – Here is a Vic Death Record 1965 for “Grace Marcella Maud WEBB”, whose father had the surname CALDWELL. So a different person.
WEBB
Grace Marcella Maud
Death
, Elizabeth
KELLY
, CALDWELL Robert
Cooma New South Wales
Heidelberg
58
1965
25902/1965
Misca
The Dorothy Jean Robertson on FInd A Grave who died in Hornsby NSW : and ashes interred with her husband Kevin in SA was born with the surname Taylor.
NSW BDMs DOB is 14 Jan 1920 in St Leonard’s NSW to Percival and Almeda Taylor (née Miller).
Unfortunately not the DJR we are looking for …
If Dorothy trained as a nurse, do we know at which hospital?
Clive Dorothy worked as a foot specialist/Chiropodist.
I understand she also worked as or at a chemist: according to those who have read her divorce application records.
Freemans Pharmacy on Jetty Road (the ROK was apparently discarded in a car parked outside this pharmacy) employed chiropodists and this was unusual for the time. Could Dorothy have been working at Freemans and Carl tracked her down?
As I can’t find a record of Phyllis Birth on the VIc BDM and her parents only refer to her perhaps Dorothy changed her name to Phyllis?
@My Two Cents,
Perhaps the wedding was just a document signed by Mr Robertson and Webb’s sister to give Carl an identity document. Dorothy didn’t exist. It would explain why there was no engagement. Why she didn’t attend her sister’s wedding. The divorce document also a fiction. It explains why Dorothy has to have a fictional life in a commune to explain how she was an off-the-grid chemist in Bute with no telephone. Useful for a chemist. You would imagine as a trained chemist she would not need to borrow money off her sister. Why was she living in poverty?
Dorothy didn’t go to school anywhere or die anywhere because there was no Dorothy. She didn’t need to train as a chemist because she didn’t exist.
David Morgan: the marriage certificate (and witnesses), electoral roll entry, divorce petition, newspaper declaration, divorce papers, the friends & family who talk about her…
@nickpelling
The living relatives of Dorothy would have to be distant relatives of Phyllis or the Crick family. How was a distant cousin (say in America) able to request access to a divorce document legally in Australia?
David Morgan: you’d have to ask them, but the request seems to have been good enough to satisfy the legal requirements.
@nickpelling
Any person is able to request proof of divorce even if they were not involved in the proceedings. As a third party you will receive “a certificate” naming the parties and stating the date on which the divorce was finalised.
It won’t state the details of the box of matches and the ether. Those would have been held by her solicitor.
So how would they be requested?
It is also an amazing coincidence that precisely 10 years after her marriage on 4/10/1941 she travels a long way from her supposed commune in Bute (whilst in poverty) to a solicitor on the 4/10/1951 who posts an advert in a Melbourne newspaper on the 5/10/1951.
How much did a solicitor charge in 1951 to instigate divorce proceedings and put an advert in a newspaper?
I don’t know if anyone has posted this yet. Sorry if it’s a repeat…
“DARWIN, June 18: “1 had a hunch I was going to win it,”said Mr. John C. Robertson,
supervisor for the Department of Works and Housing, when he received a telegram today informing himn he had won £10,000 in a lottery.”
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/46916407?searchTerm=%22John%20C%20Robertson%22
misca: in Darwin?
From the first post on this…From Thomas:
“During WWII both he and Alice were in munitions and then Jack went to Darwin with the Allied Works, making airstrips, etc, from 1941 until 1947. He retired and took a job at Ballarat Air Port for a few years and then moved to Melbourne as caretaker at St.Michaels School in 1960.”
misca: well noticed! And what a lucky man he was! 🙂
Has this letter been posted? It seems to fit with his war record:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/90589826?searchTerm=%22John%20Comber%20Robertson%22
I really don’t understand the supposition that Carl was in Adelaide to find Dorothy while Dorothy was still in Victoria. She was in the 1949 Electoral Rolls with a moving on date into 1950. It doesn’t really add up as a reason for him being in Adelaide.
In the same interview, she (Colleen) suggests that Dorothy gave him poisoned food to go out to Adelaide to look for her? HuH? She says “Here Carl…Let me give you some food for the trip…”
“black widow” insinuations for her are about the same as those for him…
Very odd (and a bit unfair) to be throwing out this kind of speculation.
Have they shared who the lawyers were that represented Dorothy in the divorce? That would be interesting. Also, no one is saying if there were any issues (children) of the marriage. If there weren’t, why not say that there weren’t ? Did I miss that?
Last question…Did they say what percentage of DNA was shared between the relative they found and Carl?
Still trying to catch up…
Geez. Last comment (sorry)…But, Colleen insinuates a Keane “Jack” that lives in England as their first “hit” regarding DNA. Sounds like maybe John Russell Keane had a child while overseas? Is that possible?
@ Misca
It read it that the young man, “Jack”, was Leo Keane’s grandson, on the other hand you could be right, it could be Jack Keane’s grandson!
@misca, I thought ‘Jack` was in the US…
@Misca, sorry to say it looks like that Tatts winner wasn’t Dorothy’s dad – I found another story where the Clatterbag dreamer said he wanted to buy a farm in Queensland or Victoria and have a holiday in Japan. That got me curious. Found another articles and it says he’s a widower, so I guess that rules him out.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49645203?searchTerm=Robertson%20supervisor%20works%20%26%20Housing
Poppins –
Interesting. Strange that they write he’s a widower in one article and not in the other where they are identical otherwise.
Have you tried to find him? (The widower…). I did and I cannot find a widower with that name living in that area/with that job.
Who knows..Maybe he went to Japan after all!
Misca
Here’s a superb little poem a mate wrote for him, and I have to say it sounds like there’s no wife on the scene, and if there was she’d probably get a bit cranky after reading said poem, lol. This fella says he’s been all over the world except Japan, so yeah, unfortunately not Doff’s dad, but now I’m curious about what became of him, did he buy his farm, go to Japan, marry again ….. ah, hope he got it all, hey.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49985453?searchTerm=jack%20robertson%20darwin%20(Robbie)
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49985403?searchTerm=jack%20robertson%20first%20prize%20in%20Tatts
Poppins: not sure it’s quite ready for Palgrave’s Golden Treasury, but it does has the same kind of Strine charm I expect the ROK back page acrostic poem had. 😉
NIck, Poppins and miska: such a shame that your Robbie Robertson had nought to do with Dorothy’s dad and never showed any promise of having done so. For starters Robbie the lucky punter worked on a goverment administration lurk, like in a flamin office whereas our ‘Jack’ was labouring on a NT airfield runway project; Whatsmore we’re talking mid ’48 when our ‘Jack’ was likely back working at Ballarat airport for a living as we were reliably informed by Thomas on his initiating thread post of 31st July.
There seem to be two at least two accounts of the Rubaiyat thrown into the chemist’s car.
1. It was thrown into the chemist’s Hillman Minx outside his shop in Jetty Road and he picked it up and put it into his own glove box before the 1st December 1948.
2. He took his brother-in-law to the Parafield airshow pageant on the 20th and he found it in the back of the car and put it in the glove box.
Both behaviours are quite odd. That you would find a book in the back of a car and not mention it to the driver as you sat there. If the driver found it you would think it was left by your brother-in-law when you took him to the airshow and then you would phone him up about it.
If you knew it wasn’t his or yours why would you keep it?
Poppins –
Thanks for sharing; particularly the poem! Very funny!
Pat –
I don’t know. I listened to the interview again and she starts off talking about how ancestry and DNA testing is such a big thing in the US and maybe Canada but not elsewhere so, they were quite surprised when their first “hit” which turned out to be very lucky (because it was a close cousin hit) was where they found it.
She’s quite convoluted when she talks so, it’s difficult to gage. You might be right. Maybe she meant that they really didn’t expect an Australian-related hit in the US? John (Jack) did go to the US while enlisted. We don’t know if Leo did, because his files still haven’t been digitized.
Nick –
How much does it cost to have files digitized? I’m surprised they haven’t all been requested. Maybe we could do a pool and open them all!
Did Roy Webb marry into the Gavey family with links to crime?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205342050?searchTerm=brenda%20gavey
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/224399792?searchTerm=joe%20gavey
There is story of a Joe Gavey being shot at by his wife and then his name being used by another criminal.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/123031807?searchTerm=joe%20gavey
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/149698295?searchTerm=joe%20gavey
Roy seems to have a daughter (Joe Gavey’s granddaughter Brenda) born after his death.
Recently made what I think is an important post on the “First photo of Carl Webb” and Somerton Man pages, but I’ve since noticed something that I think is pertinent to it on this page so I’ll put it here too (with a couple modifications to help with context)…
Browsing through others’ submitted school team photos on this page, I was taken aback by the very stylized W on the name board each time the sign appears: sometimes just within the word “Swinburne” (the Melbourne college of one properly-aged C. Webb, who did take Engineering there), though in at least one case it’s every W on the whole sign. It always appears at least once: within the college’s name. I think that the letter bears a striking resemblance to those in-between looking ones on the Rubaiyat page. Seeing that there are no other, clear examples of the letter W among the page’s jumble, perhaps that’s the only thing those strange scratchings are meant to be. Maybe it was just Webb’s signature way of writing Ws… a style he picked up in school? A nod to his alma mater, perhaps?
https://commons.swinburne.edu.au/file/e961abba-0b35-4f19-b694-a6482eece17c/1/pho020i0010.jpg
Perhaps I’m late to the party with this, but I don’t recall having heard talk of it before…
Now as to what all that has to do with this page: looking at it through the “W” lens, it seems that same letter in his marriage certificate signature is even a stylized version of the Swinburne/Rubaiyat one! I think it helps to support the “Swinburne W” theory… what do you think?
@Misca
To have items digitised on the ANA archives site, here’s how you find out the cost.
Click on the one you’re interested in, then click “Request a copy”, then click “continue” and you end up with it in your shopping trolley with a price – eg $36.27 is the Leo Vivian Keane one not yet digitised – the prices vary, probably regarding how many pages I guess, I’ve seen some costing $26. Hope that helps.
It is very tempting to fill one’s trolley in a clicking frenzy ……..
Nick: I most humbly beseech thee and, for that matter all other dedicated Dorothy J. Webb devotees to take a real hard close squiz at the attrociously malformed (mispelled) Dorothy signature on the frustratingly incomplete MC. Why up til now, has no Keane punter spotted the badly mangled OR and arse about face TH, including this sorry son, is tantamount to gross dereliction to the duty of care, one imposed on us to reveal all the truths as they present without fear or favour.
Best to keep it simple this time. Why did Dorothy have so much trouble with her own signature when signing off on the marriage certificate? Comment anyone.
I have been collecting the signatures. But no thoughts on it as yet.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AkxCJOWMO0q2hRpCNdGtmSg5Qk2bMDIR/view?usp=sharing
Nick (and others with little first-hand-knowledge of Australia)
The Scots and Irish better appreciate Australian irony and genuine humour than the English have ever done. I have always been amused by the fact that the English imagination has invented for Australians the character of their own most vicious men, these it having been the habit of the English to inflict on the once-great southern land.
their idea of Australia from their own practice of sending their most vicious specimens to Australia, but then conveniently forgot that the habits of such persons had been bred and fostered in England, not in Australia.
Now, as far as lit.crit. goes, to appreciate the author’s rather nice, even delicate, counterpoint for them, you’d need to know works by the three poets who defined the pre-WWII ‘Australian character’ : Henry Lawson, ‘Banjo Patterson’ and – especially in this case I think – C.J. Dennis.
Standards of general knowledge and literacy were better in those days than what I’ve seen more recently produced by first year university students in Australia, America and even in Britain. In fact, in the mid-1980s I saw an exercise book containing essays produced by an Australian woman who was then nearing her 100th birthday, and who had been educated only at the local school in a not particularly affluent suburb of Sydney.
The essays was written with a fine lead pencil, in perfect copperplate script, had faultless grammar (better than mine by far) and were in pencil because these weekly composition exercises had written when she was eight years old. Standards remained very high well into the 1970s, when Australians were rated as third-highest in the world in their standards of living and of education.
So when I read comments here about the Somerton Man, I find myself tagging (perhaps unfairly) as ‘not Australian-born’ the writers who load their speech with movie-version-Australian slang.
I agree that the poem wouldn’t have appeal to Palgrave, or to the editors of the Oxford Treasury come to that, but for its purpose it’s really quite perfect and very well done. Like a best-man speech, it is designed to bring blushes and grins in equal measure and to re-assure the object of everyone’s best wishes and continuing friendship, despite the recently acquired blessing.
@ DN – some very nice observations! I think you should include some of the women writers & poets! My favourite character would have to be Mary Gilmore. I think it’s superbly ironic that we have someone who left Australia to live in a socialist utopia in Paraguay (chasing Robert Louis Stephenson’s nephew, Dave) on the ten dollar note. Almost as good as having a Lancashire grandma- Mary Reiby on the twenty dollar note. I love that a cross dressing joy rider (she was deported for borrowing a horse whilst dressed as a boy) founded one of Australia’s most prestigious schools so that her children could get a good education. She left Australia and then returned so that she could be re-recorded as a free settler…
The early convicts had their own language- Cant & it drove their overseers mad! One of the early officials said they would be a much better class of people if only they’d stop butchering the English language!
Now, I’d like to know whether you have me tagged as a true blue bogan, an off shore parvenu or cheap import? 😉
I know I’ve cracked a few jokes about it, but I really wish Charlie Webb had been picked up by the Angry Penguins & honed his craft with a bit of good advice. I also wonder whether we should be looking for Dorothy in the 1975 Australian Women’s Anthology- “Mother I’m Rooted”! I’m sure she could have penned something truely aching and remarkable.
Back to Dorothy’s signature Ms. Donovan and no tedious sideshow diversions stp. In keeping with strict guidlines for sticking to the relevant thread subject, reminds me that, despite my polite request for same, we are yet to be given a peek at the full MC document which may hide a clue or two worth pursuing.
…..you’se sheilas can take your King’s English and stick it where the sun don’t shine for mine. What about our Dorothy Robertson’s frigging moniker s’il vous mucking plait. PS. You’se also forgot Kenneth Slessor, Dorothea Mackellar, Fr. John Obrien, Henry Kendall and Porto/Pommy import Adam Lindsay Gordon who did the decent thing and blew his brains out on Brighton Beach one fine and sunny morn in 1870.
I have never read a bigger load of sanctimonious wanking great tripe. The English are the Australians, in large measure. The strictures of the British Isles have never applied here except for the fact that Rome refused to loosen its poisonous grip upon the Irish emigrees. Australians are Englishmen living abroad.
Joe Biden is a wonderful example of a paddy on top form.
Jo: a bit confusing your mention of Dame Mary Gilmore and Robert Louis Stephenson’s nephew. So would you by any chance be referring to Robert Stephenson the ‘Rocket’ man or Robert louis [sic] Stevenson, author of ‘A Child’s Garden of Verses’ and other bonza polms for olde time kidley dids.
Omggggg.
Has anyone seen Cosmo Cramer’s latest?
There’s another Carl Webb who looks nothing like the SM, but he is him. Reason being he was at Camp Granada with Colonel Clink and they gave him treatments which made eighteen teeth fall out, changed the DNA on his pubes and aged him twelve years. And this cretin was a copper – anyone wonder why they never found the Beaumonts?
@ John Sanders – wash my mouth out with soap – Stevenson it is! What do you expect, best of British comprehensive school education! I was the only child in my class who didn’t write “skellington” which gave me a lifelong proclivity towards intellectual pretentiousness! Now onwards with task at hand! Whatever that might be… It’s almost November 31st again!
Jo: touche to you, I had it coming but thanks for reminding me of Henry Lawson’s unforgetable use of skellington in one of his clever yarns from ‘Joe Wilson’s Mates’, or was it ‘While the Billy Boils’. I still love to drop it whenever I get the chance.
Why is Bowes so far ahead of you people? Sanders? I just checked out the old crashing bore’s webpage and he seems to have alighted upon many many criminal connexions viz the nasty Webb family. Krauts of a feather go to gaol together.
Cramer has utterly lost it now. He’s at home trying to find microwriting on a discarded packet of Army Club with the somerton man’s loupe.
The “most vicious” went to the gallows. The plods they sent here were mostly guilty of petty theft and any of the 19 odd reasons you could be sent into penal servitude one being impersonating an Egyptian (look it up). In the 1770s each member of the Bangles would have got 7 years for their minor hit.
But I do agree re the Irish and Scotts getting the Aussie. I once asked a barman in Edinburgh why Scotts were so nice to Australians, his exact words were “because we believe you haste the English as much as we do” said in a Scotch accent.
what I find interesting is Clara Gavey would go around in the capacity of bonds person bailing out criminal friends out of jail. When asked are you a professional bonds woman Mrs Gavey, she replies to no. so how many times have you put up a bond? Once or twice, she replies
it seems the Gaveys invested in property, buying property and refurbishing them. Now, how about the mob as your landlord. I would very much like to see a connection between Gavey etal and Prosper.
@dude747 I think it’s the Scots who like chanting at the football** “We hate England, We hate England, We hate England more than you!”?
** appreciate the effort it took not to write ‘soccer’
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/58520085?searchTerm=%22Niel%20McRae%22
mates club,… i wonder if Carl was into puzzle solving
Caronia Oronsay: simple answer is that Bowes & Cramer have been at this game longer than most and as such have honed their constantly changing themes to a fine art. Looking closely at their more recent activities you’ll note a tendancy to act on self serving initiatives of their ever postulating lieutenants. They tend to run with the new game until the faults are exposed and genuine comments drop off, then fall back to safer ground, like striped trousers or no matches in one case and a host of convenient supplicant alter egos the other. No harm done to anyone and a worthy contribution for their combined service to the easily led for mine.
thedude747
Never heard of remittance men?
John Sanders – you’re a hoot. But, it would appear, one with a liking for dictionaries. (I’ve got a dictionary of Anglo-Indian slang. If you like you can have it for Christmas. Will accept an address in Oxford or Lancashire or somewhere in that vicinity.
Other comments above. My point was about the style in which that specific poem was couched. Not intended as a catalogue, or a paean to Australian poets (and to be frank, I prefer the pre-1920s writers.
Ayruvedica re “Australians are Englishmen living abroad”. Just so wrong. Try looking up the current Australian demographics. For a while the ruling class was, or attempted to ape, the English. But go to any rural town, or look at the plans of any city and you’ll find that before WWII the names were roughly 50-50 English-Welsh-Scottish and Irish and after WWII we accepted shiploads and shiploads of refugees. More during and after wars in the middle east and Vietman. Then Lebanese (mostly Christian) in the 1970s. After the 80s when the old ‘white Australia’ policy (so ironic) was dropped, other Asian migrants were invited too. Last I heard, Sydney is about 30% Chinese and less than 10% Irish either direct or by lineage. And that’s not to mention the refugees from Ethiopia, the Sudan and so forth. All of them Australians, one as much as another, and all if they elect to becomes citizens automatically entitled – and actually required – to vote. Pity about Murdoch.
D.N. O’Donovan: So long as your dictionary is not in Mohican I’m y’man and I can be found either in Hartford, Hereford or Hamshire during the Chrissy hols. Far as I’m concerned there were no Australian poets born post 1920 apart from Keith Garvey (Moree 1922) and possibly F. C. Webb (Adelaide 1925). At long last we can find somethink to agree on but, that would not include the vast chasm that exists t’wixt aspirations for better learning back in our own formitive years. Merry Xmas anyhow.
O’D ,sorry old mate but your out by a few million with your gestimations.
Chinese make up about 5% of the total population. Its is a lot higher in Sydney at around 10% but your 30% is a bit lazy.
Your right about the Colonel though, he is “a hoot”
John,
..where hurricanes hardly ever happen. Very wise.
I won’t bother replying to some fomenting Fenian again. Why don’t you try to gather together some credible strands of a theory and solve the Somerton Man puzzle rather than coming here and prattling on about some imagined Antipodean hatred of the English-dominated British Isles. Maybe in your family and the thirty percent Chinese but not in mine. I hope your grandmother died in the famine.
D. D. O’D……My uncle Ernie would’ve said ” …… where urricans ardly hever Appen but he would certainly not have left the P out of Ampshire.
The marriage certificate of Carl Webb and Dorothy Robertson
https://imgur.com/KD9fj55
poppins: at long last someone has finally taken the initiative and posted the full certificate so thanks for that, It’s five months since I suggested it to NP, along with several later reminders that we needed the full monty not merely two signatures. Looking over the detail all appears as it should there being nothing particularly noteworthy, apart from the parties not shy about detailing their pre marital dome-stic situation. John Robertson’s signature to witness is probably the real deal and his middle initial could pass for a big C even though it looks more like a big B. My particular interest derives from early days as a suit and being seconded to a squad investigating offences under the Marriage Causes Act of 1966, with false details in MC’s being basis for most of our rather boring briefs..
@JS,
In her divorce affidavit she never mentions living in Domain road and goes straight to Bromby St. Was it simply a fantasy about living in a big house and that they were never tied to Buesst at all other than that they lied about where they lived.
It seems to match young joker Carl in that he thought his children would think they were born in a big house. Perhaps he had said to Dorothy they would one day live in that big house with a fast sports car. They started their marriage with a lie. along the lines of “One day I’ll be a millionaire”.
Poppins – thanks for posting the complete marriage certificate. I think Carl Webb’s signature and the one at window 3 “Name and surname of each party”, which is probably also his, can be very useful in handwriting comparisons.
No worries, it’s a pleasure – thank you 🙂
@milongal
Previously, you have asked if Sandy and Kevin could be Dorothy’s offspring.
They were Joe Crick’s daughter (Sandra) and son-in-law (Kevin). Joe was Jim Crick’s brother.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/tributes/notice/death-notices/crick-joe/3384340/
It looks like Doff was estranged from her sister, so I wonder how someone had contacted Phyllis when Doff died.
@Behrooz/Pat/jo/anors.,
Seems our Doff was not the only Dorothy Jean Robertson to get hitched in St. Matthews Anglican Prahan but no big deal, t’other being four years her junior and a local lass to boot. She got herself hitched to William Hendricks of Ararat in 1947 and passed in 2019 according to Ryerson death index. I’m sure similar coincidences will keep us busy with little hope of catching our dead Dorothy off guard.
Which is the real wedding certificate number?
https://imgur.com/gallery/serial-number-1306-1941-december-1941-16701-1941-october-1941-oswald-bishop-will-alma-magician-who-doesnt-seem-to-marry-betty-how-to-explain-both-4RO12M4
Carl and Dorothy real or fake?
Bishop and Glew real or fake?
David,
I know from experience that in some instances the registration numbers can be non sequential.
@Byron D,
The point is they were never married – Bishop and Glew but obtained a marriage certificate. There was another case of two other stage performers ‘married on stage’ where Bishop was their witness.
Betty married Horrie Dargie in England.
Bishop’s dad was in the Tivoli as Pharos.
Young Alma Bishop’s minder ‘the Great Levante’.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/131970433?searchTerm=%22magician%22%2C%20%22tivoli%22
The Tivoli magic links are:
Pharos (father) > Alma (son)
Great Levante > Esme > stage Mgr Butt > Alma
Alma > Jonathan Swift > Great Levante
Jonathan Swift > Carl Webb or Dr Raphael? > Jerry Keane
@Pat the family told me Kevin was last name Walton.
@PeteB If he was higher class then he likely would have married a debutante Dorothy Robertson from your comment https://ciphermysteries.com/2022/07/31/carl-webb-dorothy-jean-robertsons-marriage-certificate#comment-468282