When Derek Abbott first named Carl Webb as the Somerton Man, he noted that his brother-in-law was Gerald Thomas Keane, and speculated that the “J/T Kean[e]”-named clothes in the Somerton Man’s suitcase might have belonged to him. I immediately pointed out that Gerald Keane was known as “Gerald Keane” (rather than “Thomas Keane”), and wondered – hopefully more usefully – whether the Keane in question might have been John Russell “Jack” Keane, Gerald Keane’s son, who died in an air accident in 1943. I also – rather more specifically – speculated whether the Somerton Man’s suitcase might actually have been Jack Keane’s suitcase.
In that vein, I threw some money at NAA to get Jack Keane’s 129-page service record digitised: which finally came online yesterday.
Meet Jack Keane
Born 3rd September 1917 in Camperdown, Victoria, son of Gerald Keane (“Theatre Employee”, of 194 Stewart St, Brunswick East), John Russell Keane was educated after 12 at St Monica’s, Wingfield St, Footscray from 1929 to 1931 (p.128), passing his Christian Brothers Scholarship exams in Maths, History, Geography and English in 1930. His occupation since school was as an electrical fitter’s assistant (Radio Service, 3 years), and then as a Motor Mechanic (Lanes Motors, Dorcas Street, South Melbourne, 18 months). He had a single traffic offence (fined £2).
Prior to enrolling in the RAAF Reserve in 1941, he had had two 30-minutes instructional flights in a dual-control plane (courtesy of Essendon Aero Club), plus 3 months “Universal (military) Training” with 8th Field Regiment. His 1934 character reference was from Charles Williams of Amalgamated Wireless Australasia (AWA), who had known him “since his childhood days” (p.126). His 1940 character reference was from A. A. Howitt of 156 Toorak Road, South Yarra, who had known “Jack Keane for many years and [had] every confidence in his ability and integrity” (p.124).
So, here’s Jack Keane (p.68):
Training in the RAAF
Though not initially assessed as being commissioning officer material, Jack Keane did extremely well in training, finishing top in his class of 62 pilots. His instructors’ assessments were all “average” or “above average”, with the only occasional note of caution being a tendency towards “overconfidence” (this appears multiple times). It’s true that one particular training session was assessed as “bloody awful”, but everyone can have an off day, right?
There’s a nice picture of him in his training notes (p.36):
Though admittedly his next photo is a bit more scowly:
His RAAF timeline looks something like this:
- 10 Oct 1941 – 4 I.T.S. (Victor Harbour)
- 31 Jan 1942 – 5 days’ leave
- 05 Feb 1942 – No. 3 E.F.T.S Essendon
- 20 Apr 1942 – No. 11 E.F.T.S Bonalla
- Embarked Sydney 9/8/1942
- Disembarked Canada 2/9/1942
- 02 Sep 1942 – No. 3 “M” Depot Edmonton
- 27 Sep 1942 – No. 4 E.F.T.S Aylmer
- 22 Jan 1943 – Appointed to a commissioned rank
- 23 Jan 1943 – 14 days leave
- 10 Apr 1943 – 7 days leave
- 29 Jun 1943 – 14 days leave
- 16 Jul 1943 – Embarked New York
- 17 Jul 1943 – Embarked Halifax, Canada
- 22 Jul 1943 – Disembarked UK
- 22 Jul 1943 – Promoted
- 23 Jul 1943 – No.11 P.D.R.C.
- 10 Aug 1943 – 7 days leave
- 23 Aug 1943 – A.C.O.S. Sidmouth
- 05 Oct 1943 – No.1. O.T.U. Thornaby
- 08 Oct 1943 – 5 O.T.U.
His progression was marred by an incident where he was courtmartialed for stealing 4 gallons of petrol from Essendon on 14th April 1942, and so spent 90 days in military detention (and was docked 91 days’ pay). When he continued his training after a four month gap, he was inevitably a little rusty at first but soon got back on track. He gained his pilot wings in January 1943, and flew several types of plane (Yale, Harvard, Hudson, Anson?)
Sadly, on 29th November 1943 Jack Keane was killed in an air accident in a Hudson at Loughmore in County Antrim, one mile south-east of Dunadry.
Signatures
Everyone loves signatures, so here are some of Jack Keane’s from the file:
Jack Keane’s Personal Effects
A little bit more digging revealed that the A705 (Directorate of Personnel Services RAAF) Casualty Section report for Jack Keane had (to my surprise) already been digitised (and I’d missed it).
According to the report, this included:
Much as you’d expect, there’s a map of New York, a Statue of Liberty souvenir, eleven souvenir coins, plus a map of Chicago and a “Menu of Wings party”. This was all sent in a “steel trunk” and a “tin suitcase” (blue metal).
After his personal effects were delivered by hand to Mrs Keane on 13th September 1944, she wrote to complain that many of Jack’s things were missing (p.12):
From the records, it seems that these missing items were never recovered or returned.
Sadly, I also have to add that the report on the accident (included in the report) noted that Jack Keane was the pilot of the plane that crashed. Having completed a bombing exercise, he proceeded to perform some steep turns (as part of some “unauthorised flying”), one of which to port caused the engines to stall. The problem was that this happened too close to the surface, meaning that Keane had insufficient time to regain control of the plane in the air before it hit the ground.
Probably not the Somerton Man’s suitcase…
Though it was well worth pursuing this whole lead through the archival trail, it now seems perfectly clear that the Somerton Man’s suitcase was neither the “steel trunk” nor the “tin suitcase” in which Jack Keane’s personal effects returned to Brunswick East. Similarly, the contents of the Somerton Man’s suitcase seem entirely unlike the items listed above. Though Keane had plenty of ties (6 black, 1 blue, 1 blue check), there was also no sign of the Somerton Man’s mysterious white tie (which has vexed us all so much).
And so we are – alas – back to square one, even if that is a familiar place for Somerton Man researchers.
Thanks so much for all this work. It was a nice idea and I’m sorry it didn’t pan out. The ending of Keane’s life was definitely tragic, although the bits of foreshadowing makes it almost read like an orchestrated work of fiction. I will also note that echos of family resemblance to the Somerton Man death mask hit me in the photos, but this is admittedly subjective (although I imagine it could be measured).
Keane had 2 watches missing from his luggage as it transited from Ireland to his parents. Carl Webb seems to have lost his watch. Prosper Thomson lost a watch.
David Morgan: it certainly seems a little odd, yes.
Great work, Nick, and so very interesting. All very sad as well…
Very interesting as ever.
Some pedantics:
– Victor Harbor (about an hour South of Adelaide) is spelt the Yank way (no u).
– I think ‘Bonalla’ should be ‘Benalla’ (a couple hours North of Melbourne (I think it came up before re bakerys)).
It suggests that Carl either had his watch stolen, ripped off by a murderer or he threw it away just before a suicide.
Keane’s luggage from Ireland had other items mixed in. If Carl’s sister gave Carl items perhaps she gave him the items of a mismatched Keane. It would be strange that after going to so much trouble to get them his sister gave her son’s clothes away. But she might have given Carl the mismatched ‘Keane’ items that weren’t her sons. Though they were both similar in size and build.
Thank you Nick for getting that information up on the NAA for all of us to see, makes for very interesting reading, and the photos, he does look like a very confident young man. Interesting his chosen sport was ice hockey. It’s hard to get past that they’re practically the same height, out by half an inch! Those trousers definitely could have been hand-me-downs from JR Keane, perfect fit. I wonder if the dry-cleaning numbers could be traced to Chicago now. I also find it more than a little interesting that Keane died on 29 November 1943, and if Carl was heading up on an overnight train to Adelaide on the 29th he probably was reading The Age newspaper on the trip up which included the three In Memoriam notices to his nephew.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205671947?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FA%2Ftitle%2F809%2F1948%2F11%2F29%2Fpage%2F19598582%2Farticle%2F205671947
Nick Pelling: Your Jack Keane seems to have had an ample sufficiency of flight training up his sleeve by the time he came to grief taking his crew with him whilst performing unauthoried aerial maneuvres. Somewhat peculiar that he got three months in the slammer for helping himself to a bit of juice from his base POL, even more so that he was given holiday postings to Canada/Ireland but not sent to the sharp end where ‘good’ bomber pilots were in short supply. There’s one point of contention if I may, in that you say that “the contents of Somerton Man’s suitcase seem entirely unlike those listed above” (Jack’s personal effects) ?? You will have noted amongst J. Keane’s belongings things like scissors, cut throat razor & strop, ample supply pencils with eraser, pajames, a scarf, thirty hankies, post cards mit envelopes, paper clips, dressing gown, cuff links, soap box, shaving brush, a pair of slippers, white linen (wash) bag, ties and collars, coathangers, various shirts with trousers &c. I guess your remarks on dissimilarity of possessions could be in need of some clarification to justify comments above.
@David Morgan is there any evidence carl webb lost his watch?
I am sure that the clothing Carl had did belong to Carl’s family—One of the Keane men—Either his brother in law or nephew. The label name could have been a J, not a T. I am sure John had more clothing than he had with him during the war years. He also had leaves and could have left more at home now and then. I am sure everything he owned wasn’t on the list of items he had overseas. The fact that Carl had some of his nephew’s items (or even his brother in laws) hints to me that there must have been some closeness with his sister and her family. This makes me also at least entertain the notion that everything his estranged wife said about him in her divorce petition many not have been completely accurate and Carl perhaps was not quite the monster/ abuser she portrayed. He was given some cherished belongings from his sister’s family. Perhaps much of Carl’s angst and depression was due to the losses of so many he loved. He obviously wasn’t perfect, and maybe he was suicidal, but until we know definitively much more about his life and how he interacted with others besides Dorothy, I think we have to resist the temptation to wildly speculate or buy into silly and unlikely scenarios.
Good sleuthing Nick!
Poor Freda!
Writing to enquire/complain about the missing belongings perhaps demonstrates a good bit of feistiness in amongst the grief.
There is some possible overlap between Jack Keane’s effects and Charlie’s suitcase – the laundry bag with the name Keane written on it.
@ Matt and others interested, although there are lots of images on line, for my mind the best view of Charlie’s suitcase is the 1978 ABC Inside Story episode presented by Stuart Littlemore, available on YouTube. It’s also interesting because he managed to interview a few key players, such as Alf Boxall.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=605V1-o3r1Y
I think that the singlets – one of which had Kean written on it – and the laundry bag, indicate that Charlie may have stayed at the Keane’s at some stage after Jack’s death? Eg. used for its intended purpose, as a laundry bag. It is also interesting to note that Charlie and Jack were more or less the same height (Jack is 1/2 inch shorter).
Also interesting to note is that two of Russell Webb’s sons served in the armed forces: Charles, b 1917 – Jack’s cousin, born the same year. According to his service record Charles lived at 97 Punt Road, Prahran, so not far from Jack’s Toorak Road referee and not far from Charlie and also St Matthew’s church where Charlie and Dorothy married. (Pat found references to Charles playing army billiards. His service record is online – I provided a link under the “photo” post).
Russell’s other son who served in the armed forces is Norman Fred Webb b.1921 Leading Aircraft Man 157584. (His record seems to be on line, requiring payment to view). He seems to have continued in the airforce after WWII.
The overall view I’m getting is that this is a family where people weren’t estranged to a point – lots of repetition of names. – Richard, Russell, Fred, Freda, Charles. They attended each others weddings (Charlie and Dorothy’s). Charlie is listed in death notice for his mother in 1946, but not his sister in the 50s, indicating that by this stage they knew he wasn’t around or had given up on hearing from him.
They also seem like a hard working, community minded, skilled working class family – ie not “shifty bogans” (although bogan is an 80s term and there’s a bit of bogan in most of us!). We know that Charlie’s brother Roy also served in the army. Fred senior was involved in the Freemasons (according to FB Derek Abbott is chasing this one up). Another of Freda’s sons served in the forces too, from the letters at the beginning of the service file, from his son). It seems (via Pat) that two of Russell’s children became Sunday school teachers. Charlie played local football in Springvale and was a local identity when working at the bakery (via local newspaper notices from Pat).
The Toorak Road referee may have been a barber/hairdresser (I’m basing this on a 1930s edition of the Sands and Mac directory). The numbers on Toorak Road may have changed. The shop, if its the same one, became the long running Tamani’s restaurant. The two adjacent shops were in the same hands for decades – Beard’s bottle shop (now a BWS bottle shop) and Kallinikos fruiterer (there from the 1930s until the early 2000s). This address is an easy walk from Charlie’s Bromby Street home.
Lanes assembled American cars as well as sold them – Chevrolet etc in Fisherman’s Bend. They also sold good second hand cars.
https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/5a12763221ea691db4cccad1
They are now a Mercedes Benz dealer. Dorcas Street is not too far from Bromby Street.
I’d really like to know what Charlie did during WWII! (I’m still punting on signals related work – maybe as an instrument maker/technician).
Well, I’m going to get hold of Jennifer Mills’ Monthly article today, to see if there’s anything of interest there (the Monthly do in-depth pieces, left leaning middle class angle, not the usual right wing Murdoch daily press…).
….https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/99328562?searchTerm=roy%20webb
if this is the same brother of Carl. ould not find the effets returned to his wife ruby
also it should be noted that John had a brother – leo keane
Good work Nick. Money well spent.
I lost my watch in 1992 before a trip to New Zealand. It was a Casio with a temperature sensor. It would have been great to have, alas. Maybe there
is a group of putrid watch covetors/thieves out there somewhere. Its not
totally impossible it could show up, though the “potential” memories have been lost. I would think about a “find my” in the future life. That would be far from 100% imho. Its not impossible in all this (as people seem to speculate) now the SM just set out from the beginning to create a mystery without a meaning as a big FU to all the people he felt did him wrong. If you out there are in this situation, get to ciphering!
Unlikely his family will press any charges now, if they ever could.
…also goes without saying that the Keane tie might well have been one that Jack left behind when he went off to meet his destiny, (ala Prosper’s pilot brother Rollo). Even more likely it was probably his dad’s. How so? when the Keane initial had to be a ‘J’ or a ‘T’ which would seem to leave Gerald right out of contention. Not so for those more savy on quirks in the world of entertainment in the forties eg., the usual short form of Gerald ended up as Jerry as in Tom & Jerry not Gerry like in Gerald Feltus, and why not?
Johnno … being an ex-army man and one in tune with the habits of the military, does it make sense to you for Webb to have souvenired a pair of Keane’s jocks?
Nick,
As someone with a long-standing interest in the social history of Australia in WW2, as well as military aviation l’m grateful for that summary.
It is common, for pilots (trainee and experienced) to stall in tight turns – put simply, the wing on the inside slows far more than the other wing, leading to an unexpected dive/spin –and while trainer aircraft are normally docile beasts, at very low altitudes there can be no chance of regaining control. “Unauthorised flying” I would interpret as bureaucratese for, let’s say, “no one told the pilot to do a tight, low turn”.
The court martial is particularly interesting. It was far from unheard of for aircrews of the Commonwealth air forces, worldwide, to siphon off service fuel for personal cars. The RAAF has traditionally been regarded as the “softest” of the three services (re. discipline) – even in WW2, it incarcerated so few personnel that they were sent to one of several Army detention centres. Nevertheless, the case implies a lot about the general desperation for fresh personnel, in early/mid-1942. A trainee pilot with uneven assessments, caught red-handed misappropriating fuel for non-operational purposes was normally regarded gravely, and in other phases of the war, someone so convicted would likely have been re-mustered – possibly to training as a WOAG (air gunner/wireless op), if not a ground trade (aviation mechanics, fitters, armourers etc were in demand), and had his record coded “not to be commissioned” (and also, quite possibly, been unofficially pressured to transfer to the AIF).
David/Nick,
Even more then than now, watches were, “attractive” and fragile items, that frequently “went missing”. In the case of Jack Keane’s watches, I’m not sure if they were actually both sent back to the Keane family as luggage(?); for instance, it’s possible that one (or even both) was destroyed, or genuinely lost, in that crash.
But the two watches aren’t on the RAAF inventory which suggests they went missing in NI, doesn’t it?
I think Charles Williams looks an interesting character. If he knew Jack ‘from childhood days’ then he knew Charles’s sister when he was looking for a job in electrical engineering. In 1934 CW was working for a very exciting company – beam wireless was the in-thing and there’d been a lot of government money thrown at it since 1922-ish. A foreman would be exactly the person our Charles wanted to know if he wanted a job with prospects.
And who might Jack have been “Electrical fitters assistant” to in the mid-thirties?
My head hurts.
Nothing new in the article by Jennifer Mills in the Monthly.
It’s basically a well written literary piece – updating on the investigation and reflecting on Adelaide as a place where weird stuff happens.
“Webb seems to have been an ordinary bloke, an unassuming loner with a patchy work history, a man who had split up with his wife the year before and left very little record of his meagre existence behind. The scientific work that has led to these details is compelling and thorough…
…
“In her famous essay “Wierd Adelaide… Barbara Hanrahan identified the dark mysterious underbelly of her home city… As a guest of the Adelaide Writers’ Week in 1984, author Salman Rusdie declared the city “the ideal setting for a Stephen King novel, or horror film… Adelaide is Amityville or Salen and things here go bump in the night.””
…
“There is something poignant in the thought that Carl “Charles” Webb might have become far more interesting in death than he was in life: an ordinary, pedestrian existence that has flourished and sprawled into the city’s imagination. More facts will arise in this active cold case and more will be written. But the puzzle may refuse its resolution.”
So there we have it, again!
I have to admit I’m puzzled. The 25 January 1949 editions of the Argus and the Herald both speculated that SM was from Melbourne and included details of the clothing labelled “T Keane” – they mentioned that the police didn’t believe that was his name. They also included the now widely known photo of deceased Charlie.
The 1945 edition of Sands and McDougall (the State Library don’t have a digitised 1949 edition) has only a column of Keane’s listed – including Gerald T Keane. There are around half a dozen T Keanes. I wonder how many Keanes the Victoria Police contacted? Maybe just the T Keanes?
25 January is the day before Australia Day, which I don’t believe was a Victorian holiday in the 1940s. I wonder whether the Keanes ever saw or head anything but had been given a satisfactory explanation for Charlie’s absence? Or was there something they didn’t want known or to be connected with?
So much to wonder about!
Pete Bowes: glad you’ve come to your senses at last, abandoned your rusting hulk and come over to Domes site to help put his tired old tub back on an even keel. OK then, there’s an old proverb known to all ship’s ratings, airmen and grunts; If it don’t move and no orficers are about it’s fair game but, if it moves, best to take no chances and throw a boxer (salute) at the cunt. I happened to be, with help from my trusty nit keeper Lex (KIA), scurge of the regimental drying room. Sundays it was dead easy to serve yourself just like in Aldi today and if lucky you might get a new wardrobe, civies, uniforms with chevrons, underdacks, the works even the odd sock which one could stuff into a sky rocket and make like a nog. Guess I still have a pair or two in my trunk with another bastard’s name on em. As for the Battalion POL, anyone on Active Service what had wheels was within their plurry right to top up of a Sunday or fill a jerry can or two for Ron..By the way your scout dude aint likely to make much of an impression here with his eternal nattering on about Webb/Thomson/Estyn? links to the big boys in Melbourne. He’s Boring the living shit out of our top punters with crap about ultra sophisticated car jacking tools such as a pair of sharp scissors, a (suposed) scewdriver and his soon to be released plastic credit cards for the slipping of latches.
Milongal: The plural form of bakery is bakeries.
Keane’s watches were pinched along with his gold cigarette case and lighter
where does webb losing a watch come from
Matt – sad story but was replacing it out of the question?
John
“Somewhat peculiar that he got three months in the slammer for helping himself to a bit of juice … even more so that he was given … postings to Canada/Ireland but not sent to the sharp end where ‘good’ bomber pilots were in short supply.”
The Allies were short of aircrews worldwide … but in the SW Pacific they were critically short of _everything_, especially aircraft. The shortage was especially acute with larger aircraft – such as bombers, transport and maritime patrol aircraft.
Hence the continuation, after 1941, of the established flow of aircrews under the system known in Australia as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS), to Canada/US for intermediate training, followed by operational training/conversion at units in the UK (i.e. the stage that Jack Keane had reached) and, finally, posting to one of the 15–20 RAAF sqns formed for service with the RAF and financed by the UK (under an agreement signed in Ottawa in 1939). For practical reasons, RAAF, RCAF and RNZAF crews that were part of this system were as likely to be posted to an actual RAF squadron, rather than one of their own.
Since the aircraft in which he died was a Lockheed Hudson, it would appear that Jack Keane was destined for a maritime patrol squadron (i.e. either one of two or be three such RAAF sqns in the UK, or one of numerous such RAF sqns). Losses were very high in the heavy bomber squadrons flying over continental Europe, but maritime patrol was no picnic either – see e.g. the story of the crew of Short Sunderland EJ134, callsign “N”, 461 Sqn RAAF, who one day fought off eight German aircraft over the Bay of Biscay.)
Perhaps there was some mix-up. There was a Jack Keane POW who returned via the UK and John Keane killed in Ireland. John’s mother complained she had some other person’s items mixed in.
It could be the white tie belonged to the other Jack Keane. John’s ties were mostly black but no white one in the list. Perhaps POW Jack Keane from Adelaide ended up with 2 watches and no ties.
POW Jack Keane had traded his gold watch for a loaf of bread.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/245340341?searchTerm=%22jack%20keane%22%2C%20raaf&fbclid=IwAR12BSYnjMfSepWxwTZXq9IQtJTVaGG18_sdIUTC5eJEDP_Ya53eJsPh3EI
B. Lackdown,
Yes its fair to say losing a similar watch now, I might try to replace it. Back then this was a recuperation trip from a job I had to quit because of a burst peptic ulcer. The trip was somewhat costly, and I was pushing it buying the watch to begin with. So no way in heck. It was just sooo cool, and I couldn’t fathom where it went. Sort of like our lost SM.
There are lots of folks online who are interested in retro watches and there are forums for them. I found my particular forum, and my foggy memory recalled some lowlife admitting he stole his off someone he had a particular disdain for. I’m not sure he was a pro thief, its just my blood kind of boiled at his audacity. When Nick mentioned the oddness of the watches, that sort of LOST music when weird things happen kind of echoed in my head, and I had to share. It was sort if a strange trip I had to NZ, though truly phenomenal one, which I wouldnt want to have missed.
Continuing B.s inquiry…Did Carl Webb lose a watch?
Matt,
Carl Webb probably had a watch to catch trains and buses. If he had a watch on the bus then he had a watch before he was on the beach. He may have thrown it into the sea with his wallet or dropped it in a litter bin.
Alternatively. they were stolen from him when someone saw him looking drunk on the beach.
@ David Morgan Carl probably did have a watch as most people in those days needed one. I am leaning towards most likely stolen. Al though what i find strange is prosper looking for a gold watch 18 days after Carl’s death…coincidence? these watches weren’t cheap , probably would be a wedding present ,etc
https://www.tudorwatch.com/en/inside-tudor/history/tudor-history-origins-1926-to-1949. On another note,i was really about hi s brother Roy though got me curious if they were close. he was listed as a driver , could he have known prosper? # i never watched bridge over the river kwai#
@ Furphy
Thanks for RAAF background. My maternal grandfather, Joe, was in the RAF and attended the same training camp in Canada. He was involved in bombing, but not as a pilot and was based at a number of airfields in the UK.
Re WWII social history there was an incident between black and white US troops in my mum’s village (Bamber Bridge, in Lancashire). There was a riot following directions to the local publicans to uphold the race bar. – which they did “Black Troops Only!” In my mum’s generation it was a local oral history phenomenon – everyone knew someone whose house the black troops had run through. Since the 1990s it has crept into formal history and popular culture and versions of the story have cropped up in Foyles War was most recently the Railway Children Return…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bamber_Bridge
You’re no doubt familiar with similar stories of race riots in Brisbane, mirroring those in Detroit.
Sorry if this is too femo/multicultural for some and a bit off the Somerton Man winding track! I actually think we are in rich territory looking at what was happening in WWII.
To clarify, for what it might be worth, John/Jack’s father’s birth certificate lists his name as Thomas Gerald Keane. Most of his other census docs, etc…list him as Gerald Thomas but not his birth certificate:
Name Thomas Gerald Keane
Birth Date Abt 1889
Birth Place Ballarat East, Victoria
Registration Year 1889
Registration Place Victoria, Australia
Father William Keane
Mother Emma Hawkins
Registration Number 28190
The time the Somerton Beach body was laid out starkers for his cut and tuck by Doc. Dwyer (Moseley St.) and possibly Jim Cowan (Moseley St.), certainly Scan Sutherland, the Coroners cop. There were none of the usual watch wearing marks noticed which puts paid to all the irrelevant hooey we’re being subjected to in the name of dead fly boy Jack Keane, who’s two Timex? watches didn’t arrive home with the rest of his not so collectable kit.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=3399251&isAv=N
Webb, Charles Citizen Military Forces pay file 1940-49
Appears to be Tasmanian though…
Jo,
The Bamber Bridge incident has had some media attention recently, and will probably get more next year, with the 80th anniversary and all. GI-on-GI racial tensions in Australian cities and the SW Pacific more generally are perhaps not as well known, although I do remember SBS showing a fine documentary about that subject around 15 years ago, featuring lots of interviews with veterans from both sides of the Pacific. Definitely less well known (even in NZ) are several bloody “battles” between US and Maori servicemen – mostly in NZ, but there was also one in Fremantle (WA), in 1944, when NZ troops returning from Italy stopped over – some GIs took exception to sharing the same hotels, several Maori were stabbed and one died from a stab wound. (Some decent local press coverage, visible on Trove, but something of a cover-up elsewhere, it would seem.)
“I actually think we are in rich territory looking at what was happening in WWII.”
Could not agree more, and I’m grateful to Nick for his efforts.
(If anyone is interested in the unique arrangements under which the Commonwealth air forces combined forces in ’39–’45, this is a good starting point:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_XV_squadrons .)
I saw on one of these threads today that someone said there were new photos of Carl found. Can’t find it now. Does anyone know if true, and if so, where they are? I would think if that were really true Prof. Abbot would have them on his site by now.
John Sanders
You and I are the only ones onto the Moseley Street gang it would seem. Everyone relevant to this case seems to have lived on that one (admittedly quite long) street at one time or another, and it is, at its southern end, very close to where SM’s body was found. You obviously didn’t read my post about Dunstan and his dear uncle and aunt very closely or else you would have seen that Mrs D was very much involved in supporting the nursing sorority in dear old Adelaide back in the day. If you are frightened at the idea of stirring that particular pot then remember that Jo and Prosper T have been accused of murder on the basis of – a few dodgy car deals and a liking for the Rubaiyat – and ZERO evidence. ZERO, ZILCH, ZIP! Hell, for all we know Freeman the Chemist ripped out a small portion of his old copy of the Rubaiyat after seeing the bit about Tamam Shud in the newsrags and thought it would be a ripper wheeze to hand it into the cops as evidence forgetting (or not) that it had some scribbled letters and a phone number or two on the back page that would set the world guessing for the next 70 plus years.
The only things worth pursuing now seem to me to be:
Why Carl Webb had no war record?
Why he disappeared from view after his marriage break up?
Why Dorothy Jean disappears from view after 1951 when she had (supposedly) been in hiding in Bute? Did she take on an entirely new identity? Derek Abbott doesn’t now seem to put much store on the Kevin D’Arcy link.
Why am I wasting so much bloody time chasing a chimera?
Jo
My aunt who is 94 remembers VE day and told me it was spoiled for her by seeing a black GI being set upon by his white counterparts in the centre of Bristol and being badly beaten. The centre of Bristol was largely destroyed in the blitz and never properly rebuilt (much of it is now a park). My dear departed pater was in the RAF in India but before that he was nearly killed in an air raid on the aircraft works at Filton (near Bristol) when a bomb blast “blew the bloody doors off” the air raid shelter and killed the bloke nearest the door. Come to think of it it might have been better if pa had carked it – it would have saved me 60 plus years in this vale of tears. Mater also served in WW2 in the WAAF (Bomber Command), helping Bomber Harris slaughter thousands of German men, women and children in the firestorms of Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Hanover etc etc. What did you do in the war mummy?
Race riots in Brisbane? I remember the days of Joh Bjelke-Petersen. That bastard turned Qld into a police state. And did his utmost to deprive Aboriginal people of their land rights – he thought they were all commies!
Don’t obsess about the “femo-multi-culty” backlash nonsense. That war was won decades ago although the reactionaries have been kicking up a fuss recently and Trumpist factions in the doomed US of A have helped that benighted country on its path to the flame pits of hell which it maybe deserves although not to the same degree as the monstrous regimes in Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and etc etc. I don’t worry about the braindead morons who spout ignorant, bilious, onanistic nonsense on the internet and neither should you,
Carl had no records because
a) he was deemed unfit
b) he was exempt because of the nature of his work, either way surely there are records somewhere of this doctors reports, etc
Another curious fact Prosper’s brother Rollo was killed in aviation accident in henley england in 1943 the same year Carl lost his brother and nephew
Carl was exempt from enlistment either because he was an engineer or worked in a protected industry. One zinc factory went on strike during the war because the foreman said that they were exempt from military service only because they were zinc workers. I think the implication was if you don’t do as I say – you’ll be on the front line in the war.
But the zinc in Carl’s suitcase is the biggest clue. It had to be a malleable thin sheet of zinc he could wrap around his scissors and knife. He probably couldn’t buy it in a hardware store. It would have to come from some factory/job where he worked which used thin malleable sheets of zinc.
EM I would add c) he was working off the books.
That could include working as a “nitkeeper” professional punter or part time wind back Charlie for second hand car dealers. Noted at least one of PTs car adds mentions”low miles”
I would say there’s more to the suspicion around PT and Jess than ‘a few dodgy car deals and liking for the ROK”
The best and only decent lead ever in the SM case was the phone number.
The fact that he’s found dead in a public space a few hundred meters from 90a Mosley st and has the phone number to 90a Mosley st having traveled there from the CBD same day is a pretty big red flag I would have thought. One which should have been more thoroughly investigated at the time.
Of anywhere he could have wound up dead in SA he winds up there. Coincidence??
BTW Colonel I read some of the bitchy trolly stuff you wrote about the dude and all I can say is I think its very sad the way Australians treat their heroes.
Brilliant Nick….
Photos certainly show family resemblance ….
More unravelling no doubt
Regarding military service:
Conscription (Australia) was effectively introduced in mid-1942, when all men aged 18–35 and single men aged 35–45 were required to join the Citizen Military Forces (CMF).
(from wikipedia).
Charles was 35 when he got married in 1941. Did he get married to avoid conscription? It is a possibility. 35 is old for a first marriage. Unless he was married before.
Page 5 of John Russell Keane’s file…
Small detail but John Robert Keane (John Russel’s nephew) made a statutory declaration that he was the eldest living next of kin alive in October 2000. His father Leo was still alive. Leo died the 12th September 2005. It’s probably nothing (perhaps his father had dementia or something like that) but it wasn’t true.
It certainly makes sense that he would want the medals as he became a history researcher specializing in WWII aircraft.
“
Well…It’s looking like either John or Leo had a child (they might not have even known about) in England…
Once John Russell Keane’s death was confirmed, the family posted memorials. On several occasions, so did a Bessie Sharple and, at least once, a Ted Sharples did too. It made me curious because, Bessie was consistent and she also made reference to Bill Mullins who died in the same accident (which John’s family members didn’t do). I thought maybe there was a possibility that there had been a romantic interest or something of that sort.
Bessie turned out to be Elizabeth Matilda Sharples (nee Dowden). She was born in 1882, so that kind of ruled out a romantic relationship with John Russell; she was more of a youngish contemporary to Gerald Keane. She has a fairly complicated family tree (kind of crazy actually) and I won’t get into that end of things here but, suffice it to say that she married (no certificate found) a James Henry Sharples. She was his third marriage and he was 18 years older than her. I have found a 1914 electoral roll showing her and James living at 103 Cowper Street which is walking distance to where the Keane’s lived at 25 Hyde Street up until at least 1937. James died in 1918. She had a son Edward (born 1913) who I think may be the Ted who posted in the memorials for John Russell. I believe she also had a son James Richard who lived at Lakes Entrance. She shows up there with him in the electoral rolls for 1949.
Given the fact that some of these notices also included William Mullins, I decided to look into that to see if perhaps they were related or had been friends. William (Bill) was living at home with his mother Julia Ethel when he was given leave for a brief period in 1942. They lived at 5 Hyde Street.
So, it’s most likely that John Russell (b. 1917 – at 25 Hyde Street) and Bill Mullins (b. 1914 – at 5 Hyde Street) and Edward Sharples (b. 1913 – at 103 Cowper Street) all knew each other and were friends.
I thought that was that and that it explained Bessie. But…Of course not.
There was something I hadn’t noticed as I was trying to track these families…Bessie shows up (with Edward) at 25 Hyde Street! The electoral rolls for 1921,1924, 25, 26, 27 and 1931 show her staying at 25 Hyde Street while the Keane’s were also living there. Keep in mind that I cannot find rolls for her in between 27-31, so she may not have stayed there the entire time but she most definitely lived there with them for several years. I looked up the house on google maps and it’s possible that it has two units. I’m not familiar enough with typical Australian housing to know. Perhaps she was helping to take care of the Keane children or maybe she is somehow related. I have been trying to find a possible family connection ever since and have not been able to do so.
A few extra things:
John Keane shows up in the electoral roll with his parents as well in 1942 (they were now at 194 Stewart Street) – which makes me wonder if Bill and John might have been together when John was caught stealing petrol.
William Murray Mullin’s father died when he was 9. Some trees show Julia as having had two sons but I haven’t been able to track a second one down. Sadly, Julia died at the age of 59 in 1944, the year after her son’s death.
Bessie (Elizabeth Matilda) posted right up until 1952.
She died in June of 1953.
1945
KEANE. — In loving memory of F./O. John Russell Keane. who lost his life in
flying operations. Sadly missed. — Inserted by B, Sharpies.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205651709?searchTerm=%22John%20Russell%20Keane%22
1946
Keane, — In loving memory of’ Flying Officer John Russell Keane. who lost his
life In flying operations over Ireland on November 29. 1943. Ever remembered. – Inserted by Sharpies. Lakes Entrance.
1946
KEANE – MULLINS.— In memory of my two pals, Jack Keane and Bill Mulllins (R. A, A. F.j. who were killed together in North Ireland (aircraft accident) November 29. 194l3 – lnserted by Ted Sharples.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/204943946?searchTerm=%22Keane%22%20Ted%20Sharple
1947
KEANE. — In loving memory of Pilot OfficerJohn R. Keane, also Sgt. Bill Mullins and
their other comrades, who lost their lives inaircraft accident over Northern Ireland,November 29, 1943. — Inserted by their friend, Bessie Sharples, Lakes Entrance, Vic.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206052466?searchTerm=%22John%20R%20Keane%22
1949
KEANE.—MULLINS.— In loving memory of my good friends, John R Keane and BiI Mulllns, also their comrades, who lost their lives in air accident over Ireland November 29.1943.-Inserted by Bessie Sharpies, Lakes Entrance.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/189485908?searchTerm=%22John%20Russell%20Keane%22
1950
KEANE.. — in loving memory of Flying Officer John Russell Kcane, also
Bill Mullins and their other comrades who died by aircraft accident on No
vember 29. 1943. Ever remembered.— Inserted by Bessie Sharpies.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/206411389?searchTerm=%22Bessie%20Sharpies%22
1951
KEANE.— in loving memory of John R Kaane also Bill Mullins and comrades, wno lost their lives in aircraft accident over Northern , Ireland, November 29,
1943.-inserted by. Bessie Sharpies, Lakes Entrance. Vic
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205662525?searchTerm=%22John%20Russell%20Keane%22
1952
KEANE. — In loving memory of John R. Keane and comrades, who lost their lives in aircraft accident over Northern Ireland on November 29, 1943.—Inserted by Bessie Sharpies, LakesEntrance. Victoria.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205429811?searchTerm=%22John%20R%20Keane%22
@misca,
Interesting the family commemoration says Gwen and Bill – not Leo. Nobody can remember the names of their children…
Is Bessie Sharpies a reference to a girl and a boat or clothing – best sharpies a name they used for their dress kit?
David Morgan –
I don’t understand your question. Did you see the post above the links? She was a person. Trove transcriptions sometimes incorrectly use Sharpies instead of Sharples.
misca: try Leslie Hope Mullins bn. 1918 NSW (correct), died QLD 1998, ex RAAF Vic., for Julia’s missing son…if’n it serves any purpose re the Carl Webb @ SM news cycle which seems to have peeked according to NP but, to nobody else SADLY!
Whoa, good job there Misca, darn-tootin’ excellent research and super interesting to boot …. I’d been wondering, well, obsessing really, about that Bessie Sharples and Bill Mullins. So, nothing to do with those Sharples up in Kadina near Bute it would seem.
Mary –
I would not eliminate her being related to other Sharples in Kadina. There are many Sharples and they reproduced and travelled easily and extensively.
My interest was primarily in understanding who Bessie was relative to the Keane family. She was obviously close to them as confirmed by the fact that she lived with them for several years. I wasn’t able to determine if there is an actual family connection. (Perhaps, someone else can?)
I’m not sure if it was you who made the comment about Leo Keane and finding his parents? If so, could you elaborate a bit as I seem to have completely missed that discussion.
@misca,
Elizabeth Matilda Dowden
Date of the event 14 Nov 1907
Location of the event Footscray, Victoria, Australia
Location of the event (original) Footscray Courts, Victoria, Australia
Tribunal Footscray Courts
Type of event Legal
Role of the individual Accused or Defendant
Source Collection Title Victoria Petty Sessions Registers
Reference source 1334/P0/Vol 27
Unfortunately I don’t have access, do you?
@ misca,
Elizabeth Matilda Sharples
Date of the event 29 Mar 1920
Local of the event Footscray, Victoria, Australia
Local of the evevent (original) Footscray Courts, Victoria, Australia
Tribunal Footscray Courts
Type of event Legal
Role of the individual Accused or Defendant
Source Collection Title Victoria Petty Sessions Registers
Reference source 1334/P0/Vol 41
Williamstown Chronicle (Vic. : 1856 – 1954) Sáb 15 out 1938
Page 4
No Title
The engagement is announced of
Doris, only daughter of Mr and Mrs
C. E. Morna, 5 Hotham Street,
North Williamstown, to Edward,,
youngest son of Mrs Sharples and
the late Mr Sharpies, of Footscray.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/70689758?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FW%2Ftitle%2F193%2F1938%2F10%2F15%2Fpage%2F6753882%2Farticle%2F70689758
Maybe she is the ‘Dot’?
The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 – 1954) Sáb 26 jun 1954
Page 20
Family Notices
SHARPLES, Bessie. — In loving
memory of our dear mother,
who passed away June 26, 1953,
— Jim and Ted.
SHARPLES. — Fond memories of
our dear Bessie, who died June
26, 1953. Loved and remembered
always
— Freda and Gerald.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/205384416?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FA%2Ftitle%2F809%2F1954%2F06%2F26%2Fpage%2F19714251%2Farticle%2F205384416
Pat –
Thank you! The memoriam from Freda and Gerald is quite a confirmation!
Jim is “James Richard” and Ted is “Edward Dowden Sharples”. I cannot find record of him marrying a Doris Moran, but I have found a record of him marrying an Olive Gloria Saynor in 1943. They are later seen together in electoral rolls. living at the same address.
Name: Edw Dowden Sharples
Gender: Male
Marriage Registration Year: 1943
Marriage Registration Place: Victoria, Australia
Spouse: Olive Gloria Saynor
Reference Number: 5652
The other two records are also very interesting but, unfortunately, I do not have access to these! Where did you find them? Do you need a subscription/payment to access them?
Pat –
James Richard Sharples (1907 – 1973). He lives in Bruthen, Gippsland and I found him with Elizabeth in the 1949 electoral roll. He starts out as a miner and then becomes a fisherman. I have not found a record of birth or marriage for him. His death record however lists his father as “Richar James” and what I believe to be a mangled transcription of his mother’s name as “Elizabeth Hat Dowden”. Maybe one of those petty court incidents could relate to his birth?
Edward Dowden Sharples (1913 – unknown) does have a birth certificate with his father listed as “Jas Hy Sharples” and his mother as “Dowden”.
1919 was a bit of an odd year for all concerned parties:
James Henry Sharples died in September 1918 but there is an electoral roll for 1919 that still includes him. (Maybe too late for removal…I’m not sure when they are published.) In that 1919 listing, he was still listed as living at 103 Cowper St. but Elizabeth was not.
In 1919, Elizabeth is listed alone (without any other Sharples) as living in Korumburra at Outtrim as a house domestic.
The same year, 1919, Gerald Thomas Keane is living alone at 80 Whitehall Street (labourer) while his wife Freda Grace was listed at 21 a Hyde. (No other Keane’s are listed with her.). Whitehall and Hyde are within walking distance of each other.
To further complicate this, Bessie and Ted are at 28 Whitehall in 1936, 25 Whitehall in 1937 and then back to 28 Whitehall in 1942. (This is after all her years staying with the Keane’s as I’d outlined in my previous post.)
I’m not sure what to make of any of it. Could be something. Could be nothing.
@ misca,
My Heritage and yes you do need a subscription/payment to access them, but I don’t advise you to subscribe, Ancestry is much better. I have a subscription of My Heritage until next year, so if you need something from there, just ask!
Regarding Miss Doris Morna (not Moran) maybe they were ‘engaged’ but didn’t marry? I don’t know how these things work, hahaha. I’ll try to find out more about her.
I would like to know what was Bessie doing regarding the Footscray Courts!
Yep, Doris Elsie Morna (Shaw), b. 10 Oct 1918 (Williamstown), daughter of Cecil Eddington Morna and Lillian Frances/Francis, married Henry Frank Shaw in 1940
So… they were engaged but didn’t marry. Unless there was another Edward Sharples living with his mom in Footscray around 1938.
Edward and Olive were living in Newmarket, Footscray in 1946. Maybe the connection between the Dowden/Sharples and the Keanes is Footscray, and that would include the Webbs as well, around the time they were in Footscray and Carl was born?
James Richard Dowden was born in 1907 in Footscray to mother Elizth Matda DOWDEN and father UNKNOWN (VIC#3257), so maybe 3 times married James Henry Sharples wasn’t around when James Richard was born? Maybe that’s why the Webbs/Keanes helped her?
You said her family tree was crazy… I would very much like to hear about it!
When James Richard (Jim) died he was listed as Sharples (not Dowden) and his father James Richard Sharples is there (VIC #13961/1973)
Elizabeth Matilda Sharples (home duties)
Electoral Rolls
Year: 1941
State: Victoria, Australia
Division: Footscray
Subdivision: Footscray South
Nº: 4835
Address: 28 Whitehall St
Edward is also listed at the same address, but his name is wrongly stated as Edward Powden Sharples (machinist)
@misca
That IS interesting!
‘The same year, 1919, Gerald Thomas Keane is living alone at 80 Whitehall Street (labourer) while his wife Freda Grace was listed at 21 a Hyde. (No other Keane’s are listed with her.). Whitehall and Hyde are within walking distance of each other.’
In 1946, when Edward was living with his wife in Newmarket, Footscray, his mother Elizabeth Matilda was listed in the electoral rolls as living alone in Lakes Entrance, Bruthen, Gippsland East, home duties.
One simple and interesting use for a ‘white tie’…
BLACK SHIRT, WHITE TIE, TO-DAY
Veteran engine-driver Roy Burton Lee, of O Connor, who will step from the footplate to-day into retirements For his last two runs he’will don a black shirt and white tie, traditional wear of drivers when he joined the N.S.W. Railway Service. The battered Digger hat he is wearing in this picture, taken at Canberra railway station yesterday, recalls four years service in another uniform —overseas with the A.I.F. in the first world war.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/91253925?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FC%2Ftitle%2F11%2F1957%2F12%2F28%2Fpage%2F7148980%2Farticle%2F91253925
Pat: I’ve looked too, and the combination of black shirts and white ties does come up a fair bit, but… there was no black shirt in the suitcase. 🙁
I was able to view the documents regarding Gerald’s Keane’s industrial accident. It seems he was working as a caretaker/storeman at the JC Williamson scenery store at 47 Richmond Terrace, Richmond. The accident with the fire-door occurred at 10.45 am on Wednesday 30 March 1960. A lady across the road was sweeping her footpath when she heard a noise. He was conscious and talking at the time and he was able to assist her to lift the door. Sadly he passed away in hospital on the 4th of April when they were moving him to take some x-ray films when he took an unexpected and sudden turn for the worse. Have attached some documents if you’re interested to follow the story some more.
https://imgur.com/XLsOF2z
https://imgur.com/cFUrZjd
https://imgur.com/Gj1oohe
https://imgur.com/pbMy6fl
@ Poppins – how sad! He must have been fairly strong at 70 years old… The documents don’t show their age! It’s interesting that by this stage Leo is an advertising executive…
Poor old feller begad. What in the blazes gets a bloke of 71 doing hard yakka. One can only hope the J. C. Williamson mob paid for his funeral and the death compo payout after forty years of unblemished service, guess they did. Bloke must have been a trojan for work and a mighty Keane one at that.
But it does sound like they were pretty nice to him, keeping him on as caretaker in his older years, he probably enjoyed keeping busy and the company of colleagues, but yeah, that door sounded pretty dodgy – poor fella, yes, he shouldn’t have levered it up when it got stuck, caused the wheels to come off their tracks. Very sad. The doctor’s report describes him as “a big elderly male”, so not a slight frail chap. I’ll check out the Herald at the State Library when I get a chance to see if JC Williamson put in a notice for him – sure hope they did!
Sorry the images weren’t as clear as I thought, whoops – will try and replace those ones with clearer ones when I get a chance. I photographed the whole doc, so if you want more info I can pop it up too, but that pretty much sums it up.
So now, h’mm, back to that pesky toothpaste …..
Poppins: that sounds like it would be a good Cipher Mysteries post, could you please send me a copy? (nickpelling at nickpelling dot com as usual.)
@ Poppins – do you sometimes feel that these people were once almost everywhere we go? I went to the Comedy Theatre tonight, with my mum, to see The Mousetrap. Mum saw it on her honeymoon in London, sixty years ago! (She married at 18 on the coldest British day on record and I was at her 21st!). It struck me how little the theatre has changed, ditto the Princess, the Regent and the Atheneum. They would all be recognisable to Gerald. Even some of the classic Melbourne picture theatres – like the Capitol, the Astor and the Forum. If you haven’t already seen it I think you’d love the doco, “The Lost City of Melbourne” – there’s a few mentions of JC Williamson and lots on Melbourne theatre and cinema prior to the sixties. There are a couple of articles that I found on Trove with Jack and Leo Keane involved in amateur theatre, with a company made up of the families of JCWilliamson employees – Leo as an actor and Jack as a stage manager: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/204905623?searchTerm=Leo%20Keane%20j%20c%20Williamson
Aww Gerald …always helping out and in good spirits. That is why I am sure that he was the one sorting out Carl during his missing years.
Gerald also seems like the sort that would keep notes or a record. Any direct descendants with photos or old stuff in the loft , would be cool to find out.
And let’s not forget that, in all probabilty Gerald Keane, by the very nature of his work with J. C Williamson & Co. as ballet stage props, costumes machinist and fabricator, would himself have been in attendance at Her Majesty’s (Tivoli) theatre Adelaide on 30 November 1948 for Joanna Priest’s world premier of ‘The Listeners’ ballet.
John Sanders: I think it’s fair to say that the SA Ballet Club was hardly Ballet Rambert, whose stint at Adelaide’s Royal finished on 13th November 1948, to be replaced by two weeks of England’s Greatest Comedienne Cicely Courtneidge “Under The Counter” (courtesy of J. C. Williamson, of course) from the 15th November 1948.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43791234?searchTerm=SA%20Ballet%20club
I’m sure it was a huge thrill when Mme Rambert visited her former pupil Joanne Priest at the SA Ballet Club (Advertiser, 16th November 1948), just before the Club’s run at the Tivoli Theatre (30th November 1948 to 4th December 1948):
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43791512
It was reported that she also liked the rehearsal of the show she saw:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43791893
The Adelaide News liked the show too:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/129897175
But… Gerald Keane? It would be no surprise if he had been in town for “Under The Counter”, perhaps to take the production down at the end of the run. But personally, I’d be a little bit surprised if Gerald Keane was involved with the SA Ballet Club’s production. What say you?
Nick Pelling: Gerald worked for Kenneth Rowell. Kenneth Rowell was there! That mean sonething?
Jo: apart from a couple of rain affected USO type shows I was fortunate to see as a teenager, not far from where I sit now, the only up town live theatre I saw was around 1960 when my aunt & uncle took me to a performance of the ‘Black & White Minstrel Show’ at the Tivoli theatre. Looking back, puts me in mind of Peter Davidson’s last post, with pics of ‘Darkie (Dargie) tootpaste, that I also recall well from my time “a serving of her Majesty The Queen” also in the last century.
NP……and there’s an impressive 400 word review on page review of the first night’s performance on page 10 of the Advertiser vis ‘Attractive Features In New Ballet’..Kenneth Rowell’s backcloth, depicting the interior of an abandoned house was magnificently effective and well lit. Mrs. Compton Trew’s work on the costumes was beautifully done..alas no mention of Gerald Keane…Don’t mean he weren’t there though!
Nick Pelling: amongst other job titles such as Machinist and Theatrical Asst., Gerald Keane, as I recall when touring New Zealand, gave himself the rather more glamorous, hands on, performance wise tag of STAGE MECHANIC. To my mind that makes him rather indispensable to the show from go to whoa; as opposed to your “under the counter” end of the run take down boy. You gonner concede that your estimate of the man is somewhat demeaning?
@ Em – Gerald and Freda Keane were also the witnesses to Roy’s will – made on 26 December 1940, which suggests some kind of family gathering on Boxing Day… Eliza Webb also died at their house in 1946. It does seem that the Keanes were at the centre of the extended family. I wonder whether there was some kind of dispute in 1947 for them not to have been concerned when Charlie dropped off the radar or couldn’t be found after Gladys’ death. There is someone with the same name as Leo Keane’s son (eastern suburbs) in the Melbourne phone directory – if it is him I imagine Derek Abbott or others have been in contact with so he probably doesn’t know or remember anything and he must be quite old (he contributed aviation information to the Oz at War website sometime between 2000 and 2020)
John Sanders: my point was that he worked for J. C. Williamson in Melbourne, not for the SA Ballet Club in Adelaide. If he was in Adelaide for the end of the “Under The Counter” run, I would expect he’d then return to Melbourne etc.
Nick Pelling: whatever! Anyway what I wanted to get to is that, on his last known departure ex Auckland in April of 1941 en route to Sydney aboard the Mariposa, a G. K. Kean gave his occupation as “Theatrical” for a change. The year 1941 is significant in that according to some of our best minds, that was the same year Whitcombe and Tomb’s published their Auckland Courage & Friendship pocket edition of ROK, said to be basis for Dereks original Facebook search agenda and that’s what the game is really all about in Ciphermystery terms right?
I’ll have a look at that doco Jo, and the old Melbourne footage they put up on youtube is great, I’m always looking for Carl and co on there … yeah, those buildings still pretty much the same as they were back in their day, for sure, they would have been in them or sauntered past at some point, no question.
If Freda and Gerald were away a lot maybe Carl lived at that address when they weren’t there, might be worth looking into. Now you’ve all gone and got me fascinated with the ballet, JC Williamson, New Zealand ventures, Mme Rambert, Under the Counter ….. err, I think I’ll put the toothpaste to one side for now, lol, and head to ANA. I saw a youtube clip too where all JC Williamson items had been donated to the Victorian Arts Centre, I believe – will find the clip, they might have some info.
Em, he does sound like a nice fella, agree totally.
Was Gwen Keane a dancer?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2427838
@ Em – there seems to be a Gwen Keane in Canberra (involved in girl guides and dancing) and another in Melbourne around Malvern (older, Kildara Birigidine convent school, Table Talk social columns), however this could be sixteen year old Gwen singing in Footscray: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244837990?searchTerm=Gwen%20Keane
Some time ago there were comments about the Webb sisters singing and Freda playing the piano in Camperdown, even Gerald singing and performing blackface – this was back in the twenty teens, different sensibilities and politics to today (noted for JS’ benefit). They seem to have been a musically talented and theatrical family. Roy Webb played the violin https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/154423567?searchTerm=Roy%20Webb%20violin
JS – excellent pick up on Gerald Keane’s visit to New Zealand! This could well be the provenance of the ROK!! A real pearl drop! Should I polish that cheek strap, hold the horse and double check the NAA, or is there a Gould League Lover of Birds badge in the mail for you?
There doesn’t appear to be any mention of J. C. Williamson in connection with Gerald Keane’s funeral or, at least nothing on his gravestone. Unlike at least one other Borovansky 40 member of the the NZ 30’s touring troupe where the brand is even more prominantly displayed than the deceased artiste’s name.
JS – more information needed on your 1941 Keane visit to New Zealand! How did you piece that one together?
Jo blow,
“Rumoured Keane theatrical trips to New Zlnd” then having the temerity to press me on my aquisition of such a rumour. Well flock me gently that beats all don’t it? No sweat, all I’m going by is what shows up on the NZ Passenger Lists and Tasman shipping records on Gerald’s entries and departures from 1934 through 1941. Nothing comes up on J.C.W’s ballet season ticket from NZ library indices apart from the Borovansky 40 tour 44/45. If you need further proof I’d recommend that meticulous follow up delving through ‘papers past’ could also produce more information. Oh and there is plenty to be found on several old Ciphermystery threads where I recall discussing the ROK trans Tasman tranfer possibilities. NB: The same lists also give hundreds of C. Webb entries for those with time to spare.
…..I don’t do links but, whoever gets to post Gerald Keane’s most impressive individual full sheet record of NZ Arrival/Departure certificates, is In for well researched accolades from envious lady punters far and wide.
Sanders …… wait, is this something you’ve already found and won’t share and want us to go mad searching to find, or , per chance, is it something you haven’t found yet? Hey, this isn’t that Gerald Kean the amazing tenor fellow, per chance …. that curious little fellow?
Well Mr Sanders, there he is, on Family Search, Migration, New Zealand Archives, Passenger Lists, 1839-1973
GT Keane
Age 52
Theatrical
19 April 1941
Sydney to New Zealand and back on the Mariposa!
OK, on this occasion not only will sing your accolades, you get to choose the tune! I do a great Wuthering Heights with a karaoke machine but on this occasion it should surely be something from Tamam Shud! Might I suggest Mr Strange?
PS – could you get your nephew to tutor you in doing links?
Where should we send the Gould League staunch punter badge?
@Jo
It seems so obvious but no-one has ref’d it
Camp[erd]town ladies sing this song,
Doo-da, doo-da
Camp[erd]town racetrack’s five miles long
Oh, de doo-da day
I come down there with my hat caved in
Doo-da, doo-da
I go back home with a pocket full of tin
Oh, de doo-da day
It was often sung by minstrels. My uncle was in some group that toured in Wales. It is interesting these repeated working-class patterns of working hard then playing hard in social clubs which they often had to fund themselves. I am impressed the Webb children could play piano, Roy the violin and Carl playing Bridge. It suggests they were moving into middle-class circles. But we are left to imagine whether Carl played a musical instrument or wrote songs like his school chum Clegg.
Thanks Jo, and …..
Bravo Sanders, that’s super interesting. I’d been wanting to know if Freda was travelling with him when he went on tour but I can’t see her name there, so maybe Carl stayed at their place at times when Gerald was away and, err, Dorothy wasn’t in the picture. Good on ya 🙂
https://imgur.com/4l1QMUI
David Morgan, catchy little tune, “Sanders was right and I was wrong, doo-da doo-da”
So, thanks to the Colonel, we could say that the ROK probably came from the Keane’s house. It wasn’t with Jack’s effects sent home from Ireland. Had it been purchased for Jack? After he left Bromby Street did Charlie stay in what had once been Jack’s room? The poem offers good advice to a fighter pilot:
And this I know, whether the one true light,
Kindle me to love or wrath – consume me quite,
One glimpse of it in the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright.
It may have been too painful to have a surly, maintenance dodging brother or brother in law around for too long… time to pick up the pieces Charlie and try a for a new start out West?
I believe Jack may have hung around with Charlie and Dorothy, Doff was certainly closer in age to Jack. Jack’s RAAF referee lived on Toorak Road very close to the early marriage home of Gowan Brae on Domain Road. The roadster sold from Bromby Street may have been Jack’s. A commemoration for Jack, penned by Dot at Greenhill could be either Dot Martin or Doff…
“If only I had been as loved or loveable as Jack!”
I realise this is more family psychodrama than true detective… if only Leo the script writer was here to offer some insights!
Jo: two tunes come to mind that have always given me great cheer when far away, far away from home; both having a similar message of forelorn yearning.. Long lost to modern mainstream sentiment.
Pokarekare Ana – (Stormy are the Waters Maori trad. WW1)
Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming (Stephen Foster 1855)
……as for the links; don’t trust em where I live and neither do the good folks at my local People’s Committee. Too much like ‘chain Mail’ though whilst frowned upon in online social intercourse is no longer a capital offence..far as I’m aware. I don’t dare to chance my luck.
So Gerald’s souvenir of NZ a well worn travel companion by ’48 was very likely to have been with the suitcase when located, but kept from the public to accord with Sapol’s need to know policy. When the time came for it’s presence to be revealed publicly as a timely means of extend parameters of the investigation, Det. A/Sgt Leane discretely sought assistance of the Freemans who owed him one for services rendered back in 1943. They of course played their not for disclosure part in the handover subterfuge as directed and all’s well that ends well…for now!
If George Johnston or even Charmian Clift were still around perhaps they’d be at work on a new novel, in the style of George’s classic story of Melbourne life from WWI to II, “My Brother Jack”, this time riffing off the idea of “My nephew Jack”!
@ Nick, have you perchance been in contact with car and aircraft enthusiast JR Keane, formerly of Hughesdale, perhaps now living in a Melbourne suburb with the same name as a Lancashire town once famed for the number of holes in its roads?
Nick and JS, that’s really interesting about the JC Williamson’s Under the Counter playing in Adelaide at the time! Hindley Street theatre, around 13ks to Somerton Beach. Wowee, there might be an old program floating around with Gerald’s name on it, or some JCW memorabilia. I often notice things in delay, takes a while to register. And the ROK if it is Gerald’s from New Zealand the darn code could be his scenery/stage notes …….
PS: I’m still thinking about the toothpaste a little more than I should …. alas and woe.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/2657007
Mr Sanders – it’s very serendipitous, I’m in the company of my Māori brother in law and his soon to be wife. She can sing Pokekare Ana in Māori! He was raised by white Australians and is more familiar with June Factor’s Alright Vegemite and Unreal Banana Peel versions – “He slipped on a big banana”… so here goes:
Sanders is a clever fella
He got that one right!
Gerald went to Auckland
On the Mariposa
There’s a lesson here for dilettantes
Don’t rely on the NAA
You’d better check with NZ
A staunch punter wins the day!
Yes Sanders is a clever fella
Good one bro eh!
Yes Sanders is a clever fella
He won on the day!
I don’t have the tech skills to attach it as a mp4, with guitar accompaniment. Poppins- I’m still trying to figure out signing up for Imugur, it won’t take my Australian mobile number!)
Now, will I survive a Māori hens night next week in downtown Prahran? Or will Nick simply replace me with one of those Jasper AI blog commenters?
@ Poppins
https://www.nla.gov.au/collections/guide-selected-collections/williamson-collection
It looks as though there is a whole trove up in Canberra!
https://find.slv.vic.gov.au/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma999560913607636&context=L&vid=61SLV_INST:SLV&lang=en&search_scope=slv_local&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=searchProfile&query=any,contains,Jc%20Williamson&offset=80
JC Williamson file of theatre programs at the SLV?
https://collections.artscentremelbourne.com.au/#details=enarratives.1998
More JC Williamson archives – this time at the Arts Centre, Melbourne
It’s interesting to see the cast of the Gondoliers on the Mariposa with Mr Keane. I reckon Gerald would have had a pretty good photo collection!
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT19410123.2.13
Maybe his name wouldn’t make it on the credits in the programs from what I’ve seen online – will keep looking though. Thanks Jo, the archive documents could be the way to go.
It is interesting too with the Under the Counter season ending on 27 November 1948, the Saturday, in Adelaide – the JC Williamson workers maybe had the Sunday off, taking us to Monday 29 November. H’mm …….
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/129888885?searchTerm=cicely%20under%20the%20counter
Poppins & Jo,
Gerald Keane should come up trumps for you @ Guide to Records of Ballets Russes in Australia Project NLA. See all the J.C. Williamson salary lists, staff, performers and extras along with hundreds of photos and Trove newspapers.
For added intrigue I recommend looking into the life and times of ballet Russes numero uno backer and friend of the Tait, Allen, Williamsons, Thomas Bernard Kelly (Aust. Bio) who, amongst other things, was also el supremo of Australian Intelligence 1910 to 1920 and like many of our players including SM he passed in 1948.
Perhaps all of the Keane effects in Charlie’s suitcase had belonged to Gerald. Gerald is described as a “large elderly man” in his inquest file – his clothes – singlets etc may have fit Charlie. The laundry bag was the only crossover between the items in Charlie’s suitcase and the list of Jack Keane’s effects sent home from Ireland. There is no photograph of the laundry bag, so we don’t know if it was a service type issue. If Gerald travelled with his work and with travelling shows, it would make sense to label some of his laundry – eg singlets and shirts and his laundry bag. The provenance of both some of the marked clothes and the ROK could be Gerald Keane.
Perhaps all of the Keane effects in Charlie’s suitcase had belonged to Gerald. Gerald is described as a “large elderly man” in his inquest file – his clothes – singlets etc may have fit Charlie. The laundry bag was the only crossover between the items in Charlie’s suitcase and the list of Jack Keane’s effects sent home from Ireland. There is no photograph of the laundry bag, so we don’t know if it was a service type issue. If Gerald travelled with his work and with travelling shows, it would make sense to label some of his laundry – eg singlets and shirts and his laundry bag. The provenance of both the clothes and laundry bag marked “Keane” and the ROK could be Gerald Keane.
Jo & Poppins (nobody left),
J. W. Williamson Entertainment Co. brought its comedy farce ‘Are You a Mason’ to Australia in 1903 after successful seasons in London and on he Continent in it’s original German…The plot involves a fake Mason, who unwittingly teams up with his father-in-law, who be like inclination; and their hilarious joint efforts to avoid being exposed. Leading lady was played by Canadian born Ethel Mollison, soon to be wife of my Thomas Bernard (Bertie) Kelly..see above.
Great pick up on the fake Mason story JS!
Did you mean Thomas Herbert Kelly? https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kelly-thomas-herbert-6924
I wonder whether Charlie, with his neat appearance and polished shoes, down on his luck and money, may have hoped to catch Gerald Keane in Adelaide? He may have read about “Under the Counter” in the paper and hoped that Gerald may have been in town and slipped him some of the same…
If stellar SM researcher, Poppins, is still in then the story hasn’t run its course yet!
Jo,
Now that you’ve been admitted to Gordon Cramer’s inner sanctum and getting him interested in the Keane suitcase contents, perhaps you might now impress upon him a need to post his 2009 scatter picture of same. It consists of, the by then badly moth eaten and carefully draped white Keane tie with name turned down, a mostly concealed badly tarnished ‘Green’s fluid lighter plus assorted paraphernalia. Perhaps GC might also consider doing some enhancement to the backdrop in order to highlight eg. the modern wall air conditioning unit, an uninstalled twin neon upright light fitting , wheeled suitcase, white polystirene packing sheet and what appears to be a semi concealed red Volta 2000 heavy duty vacuum cleaner. Good luck..you’ll need it!
JS – I can’t see the reply on Tamam Shud but I’m sure Gordon said that the photo was taken in the police property room. What makes you believe it was taken in 2009? Wikipedia and Derek Abbott both have the suitcase and its contents as being destroyed in 1986 (By SAPOL or Haley’s Comet? You choose…). What a pity!
Jo,
…yep Thomas Herbert Kelly sorry, Thomas Bernard was a WW1 digger. While we’re at it, the Volta Vacuum cleaner was actually Milongal’s pick for GC’s air conditioned “Police Property Room” photo, though I’m pretty confident that it was a similar German Miele S224 1000 Watt. model.
Was the case closed until 1986? Suicide as verdict?
Adelaide police back in the day for you , eh. No wonder Stephen King picked up on it , dodge af
I asked ChatGPT for an anagram of tamum shud it came back instantly with mash mud hut. It must be getting sick of being asked. Except there’s only 1 H.
MASH MUD UT.
https://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/wiki/index.php/Timeline_of_the_Taman_Shud_Case
Hi Em – the case has never been closed and is still a cold case, both coronial inquests have returned open verdicts.
Had a quick look at the State Library newspaper reel re Gerald’s accident. In the Herald evening edition of 30 March 1960 there is a tiny report at the bottom of the page …. hey, my ability to get clear legible images is, err, sadly lacking at this point, but am learning some tricks for the future to amaze and astound with clarity. There were no other obit notices, just the same ones from The Age. No other stories found, nothin’ re JC Williamson’s. Will check out the May reel next time to see if there’s any reporting on the inquest.
Report says: “MAN CRUSHED – Twenty-one year old Gerald Keane was crushed by a big long steel fire door which fell on him at a Richmond storeroom today. He is seriously ill in hospital.” Yes, it says “twenty-one” in the newspaper.
https://imgur.com/r1hWAmz
https://imgur.com/nGfrjcw
David Morgan: to be fair, that might one of the closest to correct things ChatGPT says this week, so perhaps just enjoy it for what it is.
@Jo exactly , who would of thought of destroying evidence of an open case
@poppins , 21?! ah to be young again. Was there any link between JC Williamson theatre and Duncan McDougall, Pakie ‘s husband? Pakie had trained to be a nurse before her bohemian cafe
Jo: THAT photo first appeared, to the best of my knowlege, in the Feltus book of 2009. “Gordon said the photo was taken in the Police property room…Wikipedia and Derek Abbott both have the suitcase being destroyed in 1986”. Now take a close look at the scatter & background items, particularly those that I referred to ie., the condition of the Keane tie & shiny lighter in the ’78 doco. commpared to those in the pic; and what is an aircon unit doing in a police property room…By the the way, I’m pretty sure that whilst Abbott claims the suitcase was “destroyed” in 1986, according to his former Facebook buddy Gerry Feltus, it was “thrown out in a fit of spring cleaning”. I’d suggest that you take a more skeptical view of facts from the likes of the three dubious sources you mention and see what sounds right based on intuition. No need to wait around for Sapol or the next appearance of Hailey’s comet to help you decide. PS. Two alternate pics that GC posted at request of somebody (moi) at Cipher Mysteries showing the folded garments plus jaded shoes and socks were from the same time and place as the one that y’man flatly refuses to post; wake up and ‘mell the ‘moke mate it ain’t nuthin’ like the 43 beans per mug we were all once happy to swill.
Em,
Plenty of evidence of J. C. Williamson’s close ties with the McDougall family, just check through the names in Pakies book, especially those of the Ballets Russes affiliation.
David Morgan,
It was taking the piss out of you for incorrect spelling of your Tamum Shud [sic] input, most likeky!
The Under the Counter programs for Melbourne, NSW and Adelaide are here; There’s loads of ’em for all the shows …. h’mm, wonder if one of the cast enjoyed Juicy Fruit chewy, hey, Carl could have met up with Gerald before he popped his little brown suitcase in the locker at Adelaide station.
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3007582742/findingaid?digitised=y#nla-obj-3037137958
Nice link, thanks very much Poppins! I just had a read through of the November 1948 “Under The Counter” Adelaide programme, though no sign of Gerald Keane.
Brilliant find Poppins! Whilst I can’t see Gerald anywhere I did notice that the Kiwis were beginning their third season at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne, with Benghazi, and had been there since 1946! Another source perhaps for the ROK?https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3079745821/view
Thinking about the Kiwis and the ROK, I wonder whether:
– any of the them were staying at 19 Seacombe Grove, Brighton – phone number x3239 and
– we could map the code against either any of the songs they sang or the placement of singers on the stage?
The Kiwis, began as a wartime military review show, had several fabulous cross dressing stars (wedge shaped feet and high calves from wearing high heels?): Phil Jay, Wally Prictor and John Hunter… Ernie Fish must surely be the source of any rare brand of toothpaste? And Stan Wineera looks completely discombobulated after a run of 674 shows!
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3051712899/view
Sanders – looking for Pokekarekare Ana on the program….
H’mm, true it is he’s not showing up on the program but it’s not definitive that he wasn’t there – he could be one of the assistants to the lead mechanist who are just a collective bunch. Now need to find the Gondoliers program, lol, to see if he made the cut onto that program in NZ.
Interesting theory Jo, I like it … worth looking into.
The other day I saw a cyclist decked out in lycra and he had the very high calf muscles too, it was quite striking.
Sanders, you always get me fascinated with topics, heading over to check out the social Somerton man’s suitcase.
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3051711299/view
@ Nick – there’s a bit of a ringer for you here in the Kiwi’s program! Are you related by chance to Hartley Power?
Is there some irony to the fact that, during his period of residence at West Terrace mortuary following the T. Keane tie discovery, folks connected with with their long term ‘John Doh’ eg., Laurie Elliott, John Dwyer & Co. referred to him affectionately as “Jerry Somerton” after cartoon characters Tom & Jerry. During Gerald Thomas Keane’s long career with J. C. Williamson’s, he was also known by the pet name Jerry, for the same Tom & Jerry. The misplaced irony then lies in the fact that, seventy four years on, in his discovery investigations, Derek Abbott’s eureka moment came only folllowing a mistaken link between Thomas Gerald Keane and Carl Webb; This based on the very same T. Keane suitcase and tie connection from 1949.
Jo: there happened to be a well known N Z troop entertainment group called ‘Te Kiwis’. They did UFO concert digs in 2 Corps Danang during the 60’s. One of them was my mate, guitarist and natural comedian ‘Hose’ Cartwright who fell off the perch suddenly in Saigon; much to his surprise no doubt, but not to those of us familiar with his many past excesses.
My point is if there were close ties between Mcdougal and JC williams could Gerald Keane have perhaps frequented or got to know Augusta Mcdougal, who might have been acquainted with Jo , having been a nurse and all. Just throwing ideas out there
The Kiwi Revue Company really were the Crowded House of their time!
https://www.audioculture.co.nz/articles/musicians-at-war-the-kiwi-concert-party-in-world-war-ii
And if only SM’s suitcase had been as well preserved as Ernie Fish’s make up case!
https://www.facebook.com/atQPAC/photos/makeup-case-and-contents-used/10153647375058510/?paipv=0&eav=AfblJD8qgbxQ7Y_QlEfhvLzgEMszpMJXVfxdm791dSCHed8Or75t6PgE4QNHdEzedUM&_rdr
Em: In your case scenario you have a Catholic Gerald Keane with his bog Irish or lowland Jock roots hob nobbing it with sophisticated bohemian arty farts the likes of Dame Mary Gilmore and Walter Berley Griffin. Same goes for self admitted bed pan nurse Jessica Harkness, a lass of similar lowly origins who was not likely to have fraternised with any of the Pakies cafe in-crowd. A long bow Indeed indeed.
Jo: bet you didn’t know that Neil Finn and Crowded House were a regulars at Australia Day and NZ Waitangi Day celebrations in Saigon during the early 90s. They were the days when Antipodians were still well respected internationally. That was before the rot set in and we lost our top rating as fun loving knock abouts on the world stage.
I created a post about Ham Radio I’m not sure where it went..
I just thought that Swinburne started their radio engineering course in 1926 an ideal time for Carl. Also, the Swimburnian had a detailed article on building your own crystal radio. I could imagine Carl in his bedroom Dah Dah Ditting to some English kid at Eton.
A serendipity black hole horizon event happened that when I searched for Carl Webb radio call signs I found one in Malaga. Strangely the address turned up Charley Webb from TV soap ‘Emmerdale’ in a restaurant in Malaga it seems to have been the same area code. Carl became Charley.
As I often say to Pat – the universe is laughing at us.
Randomly clicked on a program, Victoria Regina 1 October 1937, and there he is – hey, this guy was never home by the looks of it – “Heads of state departments: Jerry Keane (Chief Mechanist)” – ah, he’s known as Jerry!
There ya go, J Keane ………..
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3079970880/view
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/265050799?searchTerm=jerry%20keane
Need to access those salary lists and JCW goodies mentioned re employees …..
Poppins: that is really stunning, well found! Very impressed! 🙂
Bravo Poppins!
Here he is again, winning a lottery, with a ballet dancer, whilst on tour with JCW in Launceston:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/265050799?searchTerm=Jerry%20Keane
So is this him aswell ?
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/30151600
Poppins: thanks for revealing in print what I said months ago and re-stated as late as yesterday that Gerald was Jerry for all intents. Now that Nick Pelling is in sync, albeit belatedly, we seem to have confirmed the J. stands for Jerry in the T. Keane tie which was never in doubt since the Hindley St. butcher told Sapol in May 1949…Yes, really stunning Poppinns and indeed well found, Indeed indeed.
So if the Rubaiyait was supposedly Gerad Keane’ s then could the code could have been written by him….then perhaps the weird M/w was theatre shorthand for curtains?
By the way his son
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244558248
@ John Sanders – who is the Hindley Street butcher and what did he say?
@ Em – the first article is Gerald and his sister Julia, Manifold Street, Camperdown, Gerald’s family home. The Webbs lived down the road prior to their move back to Melbourne.
Good on ya Sanders and Nick, the leads re the Mariposa and Over the Counter are the genius finds …. I’m, err, not unlike Rover, a mad mutt really, I just go fetch the stuff 🙂
Okay, theory: Carl’s in Adelaide, stays the night with Gerald in his hotel – 29th November, they reminisce about John Russell Keane on the anniversary of his passing – Gerald gives him a few ties and things to take with him as the show’s come to an end and he’s heading back to Melbourne. Carl showers next day in hotel room then heads to station and puts his case in locker and who knows what he was planning next, bit of sight seeing before catching train, but his ticker gave out (hereditary) and he expires on the beach. Oooh, and yeah, @Em and Jo, Gerald gives him the Rubiayat for something to read on his travels with the so called code already there.
H’mm, the only spanner in the works would be if Gerald wasn’t in Adelaide for the show, lol, but hey ………
Random: The PANETP may be per annum net profit – PA NET P?
On J.R. Keane’s NAA record look at pages 128 & 103.
Jo: Multi lingual Egyptian butcher’s assistant Moss Keipitz who was known to Det. Leane, opined that the name on the tie was likely to be Keanic (Bulgarian) and the initial a J. in Arabic from memory.
Poppins: thanks for the heads up..few and far between these days. I can’t see too many problems with the plausability of your yarn; especially in that there is little doubt that Jerry was in town for the ‘Illusions’ premier and for Carl’s pre arranged send off. That being so, we can also put into play contact with the deceased, his estranged wife Dorothy and cousin John Barkley Bennett, the conveniently placed death preciding doctor of RAH. Last part can be played out in any manner or form according to personal preference.
Clive J. Turner: done that mate, where to next?
PANETP might equate to – Pan American (silver ’42/’45) Nickel Equals Two Pennies.
@poppins what ever it was, Gerald Keane was not expecting to hear back from Carl. Might he have known from some underground secret source that Carl was dead.
What about all the tools in his suitcase?
Didn’t Jo say something about he is know by a higher power than the police …as in the Freemasons perhaps?
Em: did you ever consider that the suitcase left at Adelaide station may have been indeed a key element of an ingenious multi faceted which even allowed for eventual identification of the beach body after a decent interval. I’m sure I even suggested such a case scenario a while ago, making particular mention of Gerard Kean’s participation in the plot re planting the suitcase which included the Barbour thread and the Rubaiyyat with missing TS slip; Then of course the cousins making their orderly departure so as to avoid being questioned should things come to a head sooner than expected.
…deception ploy..Gerald..Rubaiyat..OK?
Clive, what is it on those NAA pages, I can’t pick it out, thanks.
Em, not necessarily – if Carl visited Gerald before the show ended, he may have said he was heading off somewhere and they would have said their goodbyes then, with Gerald heading back to Melbourne and Carl heading wherever he said he was going. Speculation of course.
Sanders, yep, that too, possible ……
Mr Sanders, re your answer to Clive J Turner “been there, done that mate, where to next”, can I just ask, do you know the answer to Clive J Turner’s puzzle presentation? I’d really like to know, it’s all very curious. Thanking you in advance. Cheers.
Is this Jack Keane at St Monica’s in the First Communion photo … h’mm, looks like him to me, but I’m no expert ……. second from the right back row, per chance, the little fella would be 8 or 9.
PS: Oooh, I see my unanswered question Sanders …. there it lies, dormant and redundant – alas and woe …………
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/171428759?searchTerm=first%20communion%20st%20monica%27s
Poppins: re your “been there done that mate where to next” (sans been there). Sorry but I don’t recall what puzzle details be associated with Clive’s John Keane NAA file page reference; hence reason for your own “dormant and redundant” riddle remaining unanswered. Sorry.
I asked Bing Chat to give the first letters of the words in the 1st quatrain of the RoK:
The first quatrain of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, as translated by Edward FitzGerald, reads:
AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light. 1
The first letters of each word in this quatrain are: A, f, M, i, t, B, o, N, H, f, t, S, t, p, t, S, t, F, A, L, t, H, o, t, E, h, c, T, S, T, i, a N, o L.
I will ask for a bit more every day. Someone else can collate it and then the full RoK code will be known to look for patterns that match.
As luck would have it, Sanders, I can help you out there. Clive J Turner’s post was:
“On J.R. Keane’s NAA record look at pages 128 & 103.” And yet, we know not why; there must be a reason.
Now I’ll go get those pages so we can see what it’s all about. I’ll have another look too. Cheers
https://imgur.com/sqI5GyN
I tried to comment on this Gordon Cramer’s blog thread https://tamamshud.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-suitcase-barbours-thread-card.html but it won’t allow me.
He went into so much detail when describing the pins used to support the photographed items but failed to notice ‘Linsburn, Ireland’.
Does the fact that the Barbour’s thread found in the SM suitcase shows its origin as Lisburn, Ireland (Northern Ireland), exactly where his cousin John Russell Keane (Jack) died and is currently interred, ring a bell?
The thread could had come with Jack’s jacket for repair purposes (I think Clive has mentioned this on CM).
Even considering that the Barbour’s threads sold in Australia had the same origin, it’s quite a coincidence.
https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000519292/HierarchyTree?recordID=vtls000519292
@ Pat – well spotted! I’m sure that there has also been discussion that this particular thread wasn’t available in Australia!
@Pat,
The implication is Carl’s clothing was tKeane’s stuff returned by the RAF from Ireland where they screwed up and lost his watches. Perhaps his white tie was some dress tie in the US when he was training.
Jo & Pat: The Lisburn Barbours card contentions had been covered at length well before your breaking wind news. Not only did we have it out with Gordon Cramer Pat but Peteb, Byron and Clive Mk2 all came in for some attention too. Suggest you do some research through old threads before coming out with these not so ‘well spotted’ old news regurgitations.
It has been touted that ASIO spy (1945-75) and director (1970-75) Peter Barbour was a descendant of John Barbour who established his family run linen thread factory in County Down back in 1784. One ASIO yarn that has gained favour with old spies is that during his stint with intelligence then later as a diplomat, Peter’s calling card incorporated elements of the iconic ‘Barbour of Lisburn N. Ireland’ thread card shape.
In the 1936 Leo Keane was linked to an amateur dramatic society the comedy players. A lot of the people connected to his group are fairly difficult to track for example Charles Norden and Norman Lee.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/204905623?searchTerm=%22the%20comedy%20players%22%2C%20%22leo%20keane%22
Norman Lee could be a dance instructor
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/174052461?searchTerm=%22norman%20lee%22
or
speech instructor
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/174052539?searchTerm=%22norman%20lee%22
or 1920s actor
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/103427853?searchTerm=%22norman%20lee%22
or producer
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/174051996?searchTerm=%22norman%20lee%22
or later British crime author Mark Corrigan of Aussie crimes
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/139108005?searchTerm=%22norman%20lee%22
Perhaps all of them or some of them are the same person.
In Feltus’ book he has a Leo Francis Kain who reported his missing brother Thomas Hugh as the Somerton man. But Leo Francis Kain who writes about wars killing young people in 1937 seems to have left school aged 14 (if he ever attended) – not a typical letter writer to a newspaper.
The police could find no Thomas Hugh in electoral rolls. So Leo Francis who was a soldier in 1943 reported his fictional catholic brother Thomas Hugh as missing in 1948?
Leo Francis seems to have been a troublemaker in the army as a signaler – either sick or absent (MIA). His fines for absence may have exceeded the days he was paid for.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5686458
It is hard to imagine this Leo the labourer was writing letters to newspapers. Perhaps it was a case of a ghostwriter borrowing his ID.
Nick Pelling wrote:
‘His 1940 character reference was from A. A. Howitt of 156 Toorak Road, South Yarra, who had known “Jack Keane for many years and [had] every confidence in his ability and integrity” (p.124).’
I’m yet to find this A. A. Howitt, and I think his signature could be W. W. Howitt, or C. A. Howitt, or A. B. Howitt, or anything Howitt!
The address in the 1940 S&Mac has two possibilities:
– 156 Toorak Road W-N side, Yakatra Flats (more likely).
– 156 Toorak Road S-side, Richard Greville, hairdresser, although there was a J. Howitt, hairdresser at 13 Sturt Street, Ballarat, and there weren’t many Howitts in Victoria who owned properties (14 on this edition).
In the 1935 edition there’s a A. B. Howitt, serv stn, 9 Esplanade, St. Kilda.
If this service station was a gas station it sounds like someone who would have personally known motor mechanic Jack Keane, n’est-ce pas?
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957)
Wed 5 Aug 1936
Page 16
GARAGE HOURS
(…) Retail Motor Dealers
Association and other organisations
in endeavouring to eliminate preferen-
tial discounts had not been success-
ful. Efforts were also being made to ensure
the stabilisation of petrol prices and
with this object an unofficial conference
between the association and representatives
of the Victorian Automobile Cham-
ber of Commerce would take place to-
day.
An advisory council representing country
interests had been formed. Later
meetings would be held in country centres.
The following office bearers were
elected for the next 12 months –
President Mr E A Piper; auditor Mr E N
Moore; city representatives, Messrs A J Eas
terbrok and A B Howitt; (…)
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11899483?searchTerm=%22A.%20B.%20howitt%22#
Alexander Benjamin Howitt, born in 1890 at Corowa, NSW, married Rose E Lewis in 1926 in Sydney and died in 1957 at Kew, Vic (aged 66).
Alexander Benjamim Howitt (he or his son) married Irene Beryl Barnett in 1952 in Victoria.
Wrong marriage!
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957)
Tue 19 Feb 1929
Page 15
DIVORCE COURT.
Eva Minnie Howitt, aged 39 years, of Balmer
street, Brunswick, petitioned for divorce from
Alexander Benjamin Howitt, aged 38 years, of
Alma road, St Kilda service station proprietor,
on the ground of cruelty. The marriage took
place on December 4, 1920, at St. Kilda. There is
one child. A decree nisi was granted, with
costs.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4002014?searchTerm=%22alexander%20benjamin%20howitt%22#
The Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne, Vic. : 1922 – 1954; 1956)
Thu 18 May 1933
Page 11
Motor Mechanic For Trial On Fire Charge
At South Melbourne yesterday
Llewellyn Ystraad Wynne, motor me
chanic of Post Office Place, South
Melbourne, pleaded guilty to having
set fire to the Swift Service Station,
corner of Whiteman and Queen’s
Bridge Streets, South Melbourne, on
April 22. and to having broken into
the station on the same date and
stolen £5 12 /. He was committed for
trial.
Detective Wightman said that Wynne
had admitted having set fire to the
service station because of a grudge he
bore against the proprietor, Alexander
Benjamin Howitt, his former employer.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/277589578?searchTerm=%22alexander%20benjamin%20howitt%22#
Record (Emerald Hill, Vic. : 1881 – 1954)
Sat 24 Feb1940
Page 8
TRUCK DRIVER CHARGED WITH ASSAULT
RUCK DRIVER CHARGED
WITH ASSAULT
Admits Striking Service Station
Proprietor
On a charge of having assaulted Alex
ander Benjamin Hewitt, service station
proprietor, Queen’s Bridge Street, on 20th
instant, Gordon Burnett Stewart, truck
driver, of Westbury Street, St. Kilda,
was, at the South Melbourne Court on
Wednesday, fined £2, in default eicht
days.
Informant related that he was at the
station at 8 p.m., but had closed at a p.m.
Defendant arrived with his truck and
spoke to the caretaker. He came to in-
formant, said he wanted petrol. He was
told to go to the caretaker and give 1/
for opening the bowser and 1/- for mak
ing a declaration in the book, as it was
after hours. As defendant turned away,
it was alleged, he was struck on the
face, the blow breaking the bridge of his
nose. Defendant then left.
Mr. Marshland (for defence) said his
client admitted the assault.
Printed, and Publlthed by James William Meehan,
45 Denham Street, Hawthorn, for the proprietor,
C. G. Median & Co. Pty. ltd., at its registered
office, Wynyard Street, South Melbourne, S.C.5.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/164982840?searchTerm=%22alexander%20benjamin%20howitt%22#
He used to be a motor dealer at Horsham.
The Horsham Times (Vic. : 1882 – 1954)
Tie 16 Mar 1920
Page 5
Advertising
I, ALEXANDER BENJAMIN
HOWITT, of Horsham, Proprietor of
the WIMMERA MOTOR GARAGE
AND ENGINEERING WORKS at
Horsham, hereby give notice that I
have disposed of my business to MR.
R. A. MELKEB, who-takes over as from
1st Mlareh, 1920, and from that date
carries on the business on his account,
trading as THE WVIMMERA MOTOR
GARAGE, I remaining on as Mansger
only.
DATED the 30th day of February,
1920.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/73190740?searchTerm=%22alexander%20benjamin%20howitt%22#
The Horsham Times (Vic. : 1882 – 1954)
Fri 18 Mar 1921
Page 4
Sale of Motor Car.
ALLEGED BREACH OF CONTRACT.
HORSHAM AGENT PLAINTIFF
In the County Court, Mlelbourne, on
Monday, before Judge Woinarski,
Alexander Benjamin Howitt, of Hor
sham, motor dealer, soughtl to recover
damages, or alternatively commission,
from Arthur Turner, of Turner Bros.,
agents, for the Studebaker motor cars,
of Swanston-street, Melbourne. The
plaintiff claimed £250 damages for al
leged breach of contract whereby the
plaintiff bought a light Studebaker car
for £650,, less &60 commission. Al
ternativey he claimed the return of the
dcposit of £25 , and the sum £60
commission for procuring an order on
behalf ofi the defendant. The plaintiff
stated that until recently he was the
proprietor of the Wimmera motor gar
age, and had had eighteen years’ ex
perience at the business. He gave evi
dence as to his business relations with
the defendants, and stated that he had
purchnaed the car in question on the
understanding, that it was to be de-
livered in a reasonable time, it having
been represented that the car was on
the water. However, the defendant de
layed in the delivery of the car, and
the plaintiff had lost the prospective
profit on the sale of the same. It had
been ordered for a man named Winder
lich, of Horsham. The defence was a
denial of contract, and a denial of
the payment of the deposit. It was
stated for the defence that the plain
titf went to the defendant and ordered
a light “six” Studebaker car and paid
£25 deposit. No light size could be
obtained. however, and the plaintiff
who had bought some light fours from
the defendant induced Winderlich to
take one of that pattern instead of a
light six, and ihe promised that if Win
derlich were not satisfied he would ex-
change that car when the light six
came to hand. Shlortly afterwards the
plaintiff sold the agency to a man
named Melke, and gave up the busi-
ness. Winderlich was not satisfied with
the light ‘”four'” and mentioned the
fact to Melke and the defendant, and
eventulally the detilndannt took bakk the
light four and gave Winderlich a light
six, the latter paying the diferene- in
the value. It was allIeged that the
defendants los money on the ex-
change.
The case stands part heard.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/72755635?searchTerm=%22alexander%20benjamin%20howitt%22#
He was an Engineer and lived at Alma Road, East St. Kilda.
The Sun News-Pictorial (Melbourne, Vic. : 1922 – 1954; 1956)
Tue 21 Dec 1926
Page 16
JOY RIDE
Damage Cost—£ 110
THREE MEN TO PAY
Alexander Benjamin Howltt, en
gineer, Alma-road, East St. Kilda,
left his motor-car in Princes-
street, St. Kilda, at 8 p.m. on Sep
tember 25, when he returned
three hours later it was gone.
Yesterday Judge Moule ordered
Edward John Pennell, Pearson-
street, Brunswick; Athol Bernard
Pennell, and Edward Hewitt, cor
ner of Lincoln and Murchison
streets, Essendon, to pay £13 0 for
damage done to the car, together
with costs of the action.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/275071557?searchTerm=%22alexander%20benjamin%20howitt%22#
The Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 – 1954)
Mod 1 Nov 1937
Page 2
65 Not Dangerous Speed, Says P.M.
65 Not Dangerous
Speed, Says P.M.
Sixty-five miles an hour in a car was
not dangerous in the circumstances of
the case before him, said Mr Pyvis, P.M.,
in the South Melbourne Court today.
He dismissed a charge against Alex-
ander Benjamin Howitt. motor engineer.
of Queen’s Bridge Street, South Mel
bourne, of having driven at a dangerous
speed.
First-Constable Wright said he saw
Howitt driving along St. Kilda Road on
August 22 at a speed from 60 to 65 miles
an hour.
Howitt said there was no other traf
fic about at the time.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244529711?searchTerm=%22alexander%20benjamin%20howitt%22#
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957)
Tue 9 Dec 1937
Page 13
Suburban Courts DRIVER FINED FOR SPEEDING
Suburban Courts
DRIVER FINED
FOR SPEEDING
Had Tested Cars at
120 m.p.h.
A man who it was said had driven cars
in tests on the speed tracks in London and
Los Angeles appeared at the Preston Court
yesterday on a charge of having driven
along Plenty road, Preston, at a speed
which was dangerous to the public. He
was Alexander Benjamin Howitt of
Queens Bridge street South Melbourne.
The Bench which comprised Messrs
T J McMahon and W E Hooper J P’s
overruled a submission by Mr E A F
Croft (for Howitt) that the charge should
be dismissed on the ground that Howitt
was an expert driver and was driving a
modem car with perfect brakes. Howitt
was fined £3.
Constable Ernest Russell of the traffic
branch said that at 10 p.m. on October
16 he saw Howitt driving a car north along
Plenty road. He followed him for three
miles. Between Dundas street and the
tram terminus at Tyler street the speed of
Howitt’s car was up to 53 miles an hour.
From the tram terminus for a distance of
a mile the speed was between 65 and 70
miles an hour. Trafiic was light on the
roadway at the time.
Mr. Croft said that Howitt had driven
cars for 32 years. He had never had an
accident nor a conviction.
Howitt, in evidence, said that he received
a call to take a wheel to Whittlesea at
once. He had driven cautiously and had
not taken the slightest risk. The car was
in perfect order.
Mr McMahon, J.P, said that the Court
was not concerned with what Howitt had
done in London, Los Angeles, Japan. or
China, but with his speed when driving
along Plenty road. He (Mr. McMahon)
held strong views on the question of fast
driving.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/11131076?searchTerm=%22alexander%20benjamin%20howitt%22#
His son was Robert Alexander Howitt, born in 1923 at Elsternwick. (Vic BDM Birth Registration 21429 / 1923)
Pat: wasted time and effort, ours included and with help from misca no doubt. John Keane’s reference of 1940 was certainly signed by A A Howitt, it could hardly be otherwise. There’s absolute proof but for a bit of pay back…go find it and best use your own nouse this time.
https://imgur.com/a/wrkTB9u
@ Pat – this is interesting! I think the first photo is the Yakatra Flats (now Taurea), the last building before the corner of Toorak Road West & Park Street. I think you’re right that this was more likely to be AB Howitt’s address than the hairdresser’s shop (unless he lived above it). It’s not far from Bromby Street. It’s also around the corner from Enid Wall’s apartment, 16 Park Street, the second photo, above. The numbers on Toorak Road West have changed over time, so it’s easier to work from the street corners, as given in the Sands & Mac directories. They numbers also begin again once Toorak Road crosses Punt Road…
Howitt’s garage was also around the corner from the Castlemaine Hotel, run by Henry Stokes, the Baccarat King and sometime associate of Joe and Clara Gavey (they were all involved in the botched Ballarat bank raid together).
@jo : Nick Pelling’s nominee A A Howitt, John Keane’s 1940 referee, has absolutely nought to do with Pat’s A B Howitt the garage owner, no doubt about it. Get with the program or else this crap will likely go on ad infinitum, you can rest assured. Or is that the intention?
@ Jo,
Thanks! It’s great to have your feedback on Melbourne places and history!
In 1940 and 1944-45, Howitt’s service station, Swift, was at 2 Whiteman Street, City South (Southbank?) according to Sands&Mac. It’s just an 8 min drive from 156 Toorak Road according to Google.
He would have been 50 years old in 1940 and he married again in 1952 (long after his divorce in 1929, when his address was Alma Road, St. Kilda).
So it’s possible that he was living in a flat in 1940 around that area.
Cars and motorcycles were his passion and past trade.
He used to compete in motor cycle races (Trove), so I reckon he was a ‘playboy’ sort of guy, which makes me think it’s highly likely that he was Jack Keane’s personal reference.
But… if someone comes up with an A. A. Howitt, it’s not a problem, I’ve enjoyed reading his life history (and being a Voluntrove)!
There definitely should be a full-blown film on the Aussie mafia Gavey family with Roy as a minor player perhaps the driver for his daughter which turns to romance. I love their craziness – shoot-outs in the courthouse and bank where it always seems to go wrong. But they never seemed to get convicted of that much. It’s like they always get to the jury and twist their arm.
Yes Jo if people in the group aren’t voluntroving now and again they need to reapply for their serious researcher badge. What we do for those who follow behind – even if it’s AI is important. Imagine if Trove couldn’t be bothered to transcribe the newspaper text. We’d have nothing to search.
One day an AI app may join all the dots – but only if the text is transcribed accurately.
Pat/Jo: “someone” had come up with the original and best Jack Keane reference, namely Alfred Alaric (Alexander) Palmer Howitt, surveyor of Frankston, bn. Euroa Vic. circa. 1895 died 1979, Frankston. We’ll leave it to misca for her usual input of superfluous extras. Hope that serves your immediate needs ladies.
I wondered where the NAA record is for AA Howitt the Storeman or AB Howitt the car mechanic.
David Morgan: right where you’d expect to find him mate. In WW1 NAA records he served as a driver in the AIF that’s a fact. No need to elaborate apart from pointing out that he wasn’t the Storeman that was John Russell Kean’s other referee Charles Williams Chief Storeman with AWA, and if you can beat Poppins to the punch, you’ll also find Alf Howitt on inbound arrivals.
You’re right Sanders, it’s Alfred Alaric Palmer Howitt, he’s enrolled to vote at 156 Toorak Road in 1937, occupation manager.
https://imgur.com/a/CKvV2E2
This is his NAA record:
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7017109
Ah, Aleric Howitt wrote a musical called Joanna …. so maybe he was Gerald’s friend. Alaric was Department Manager at Myer Emporium.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3536241
@ Poppins,
Thanks, well done! It’s really important to have access to the electoral rolls, n’est-ce pas?
I’ll leave it to you Aussies!
If I ever come acrros something useful to track down Dorothy or Carl’s cause of death, I’ll post a comment, in the meantime I’ll keep my Voluntrove hobby!
Cheers!
@ Poppins & Pat
This is certainly the right Howitt – there’s a letter in the “Joanna” file in the same handwriting as Jack’s letter!
Pat, there’s quite a bit on Trove about him, he was a composer and poet who also wrote a few film scores!
https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/his-royal-highness/credits/f
@ Sanders – he even had a thing for CJ Denis!
I need to re-read the AQA interview with “Bill” (the one featuring Hickey Taylor’s drag performance) as I’m sure there was mention of a Myer’s department store employee…
https://www.ozmovies.com.au/uploads/media/credit/0001/07/7e222fd1cae32376df8c906a867e4479d4592f81.pdf
Sorry – I don’t think the ASO link, above worked – here’s another to the CJ Dennis/ AA Howitt collaboration on His Royal Highness the movie!
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244133262?searchTerm=Alaric%20howitt
Where’s Steve? I’ve just found Norman McCance & AA Howitt together at a “Bohemian Ball”! … with mentions of bridge…
@Pat, I have access to electoral rolls now, so anything you want looked up, chuck it my way and I’ll find it for ya, no worries, happy to find stuff.
@Jo, how fabulously interesting, will have a read about him now, thanks.
Bingo Gals! Ghoul League Awards be in order, even you Pat o rato. Now to check on Alfred Alric @ Aleric @ Alaric Palmer Howitt’s daughter A.M.P., the apple of daddy’s eye no doubt, as there may be a link with Hickey Taylor’s missing years (1940/45) OS.
@Poppns,
I wondered about Ruby Webb’s property with Roy. Presumably he was registered there until perhaps 1940, I wondered whether any male appeared in their electoral register at their address 52 Blackwood st, Carnegie while she lived there to make Brenda.
Jo: Thanks for the heads up means F Hall. Alfred Alaric Howitt sailed home aboard QSMV Dominion Monarch ex Southamoton via The Cape. Same tub as your Hickey Taylor who to the contrary opted to stay onboard at Melbourne, ending his cruise in Wellington NZ on 27/1/46. Couldn’t find him on the NAA manifest, reason being far as I can guess would be his probable supernumerary position as Shaw Savill’s onboard director of entertainment … and still under contract to JCW perhaps.
Is that Alfred Alaric Palmer Howard of “Eddingly”, Cliff Road Frankston?
Alfred Alaric was in Seattle in 1926.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDZW-XLR
niagra falls
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XPSN-22C
New York
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q23C-Q83L
@ Sanders – Great heads up on AA Howitt and for a link between Howitt and Hickey and New Zealand!!
I actually really like the shift in gear from Howitt the garage owner to Howitt the thespian composer – it mirrors the Ciphermysteries investigation into car racketeering suddenly taking a turn towards theatre and potentially the queer scene!