The Somerton Man, found dead by the sea wall on Somerton Beach in the early morning of 1st December 1948, has had innumerable speculative theories pinned to his unnamed corpse over the years.

Was he a Soviet spy, an international man of mystery, a former lover, an errant parent, a Third Officer, a gangster, a baccarat school nitkeeper, an interstate car thief, a jockey, an accountant, a ballet dancer, a transvestite, a gold prospector, a homesick Norwegian, or a whatever-happens-to-take-your-fancy-tomorrow-morning kind of guy? The list keeps on growing.

But why so many theories?

John Does & Jane Does

In the wider world of cold cases, plenty of other John / Jane Does are arguably every bit as mysterious as the Somerton Man.

Yet if you’re expecting there to be a (socially-distanced, mask-wearing) queue of people stretching down the high street waiting to bend my weary Cipher Mysteries ear with their tediously touching theories about the Isdal Woman, for example, you’ll be looking in vain. (There’s a nice news story about her teeth here, by the way.)

Oh, and despite Wired’s nice story about the unidentified hiker known as “Mostly Harmless”, I haven’t so far seen a torrent of theories speculating that he was an Anglo-American Douglas Adams fan obsessed by Marvin the Paranoid Android. Or a gold prospector. Or a car thief. Or whatever.

“The first ten million years were the worst,” said Marvin, “and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million years I didn’t enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.”

So the issue here is more about why those others don’t seem to attract even a fraction of the theories that he does. What’s the difference that leads people’s minds to conjure up such a glut of (possible) Somerton Men?

Life & Death

Even by the 1949 inquest, a good deal was known about the Somerton Man’s physical condition and the details of his death:

  • [S]mall vessels not commonly observed in the brain were easily discernible with congestion” – I believe this would have taken a considerable time to build up, perhaps years?
  • The spleen was strikingly large and firm about 3 times normal size” – this too would have taken some time to happen, perhaps months?
  • Both lungs were dark with congestion, but otherwise normal.” Like most adults back then, the Somerton Man was a smoker, so this was very probably a long-term consequence of his smoking.
  • The stomach was deeply congested, and there was superficial redness, most marked in the upper half. Small haemorrhages were present beneath the mucosa. There was congestion in the 2nd half of the duodenum continuing through the thin part. There was blood mixed with the food in the stomach.” The blood in his stomach showed that he had almost certainly been convulsively sick (though, oddly, there was no vomit by the body or on his clothes or his oddly-shiny shoes);
  • The heart, if anything, was contracted […] I am quite convinced that the death could not have been natural, as there is such a conflict of findings with the normal heart.” A poison or misadministered drug was suggested, though all attempts to detect what that was unfortunately failed.
  • There was a small patch of dried saliva at the right of the mouth. The impression was that it ran out of his mouth some time before death when he was probably unable to swallow it, probably when his head was hanging to the side. It would run vertically. It had run down diagonally down [sic] the right cheek.
  • The post mortem rigidity was intense, and there was a deep lividity behind particularly above the ears and neck.” Blood pooling at the back of his neck was inconsistent with his having been propped up against the sea wall at the back of the beach prior to his death.
  • His body had been carefully posed, but with various key elements of his clothing (like a wallet, id card, money, hat, etc) missing

It was hard to avoid the conclusion that poison (or drugs) had been the cause of death; and also that many of the “difficulties” and apparent inconsistencies would disappear if the man had previously died elsewhere, and had then been carried to the beach by person or persons unknown.

But with nobody stepping forward to (successfully) identify the body, this whole line of reasoning merely raised at least as many questions as it answered: and so the inquest was not able to reach a helpful conclusion.

And that, sad as it may be, is still very largely where we are some 70+ years later. Something bad had happened, sure; but without being able to flag it as murder, misadventure, accident or suicide, what’s a coroner to do, eh?

(Human) Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Aristotle famously wrote about the Horror Vacui, i.e. the idea that Nature abhors a vacuum so much that it causes things to fill the void. (Though even fifteenth century engineers knew that this principle had its limits.)

To my eyes, though, it seems that Human Nature abhors a vacuum far more than poor old Mother Nature does. That is, where there is a causal void – i.e. a lack of explanation as to the cause – the runaway horses in our minds gallop and leap impossible fences to construct explanations.

In the case of the Somerton Man, none of the sudden death tropes of the day so familiar to newspaper readers were present – no gangland execution, no violent lover’s argument, no business betrayal, no drowning, no falling drunk down a set of stairs, no being hit by a car. In short: no smoking gun.

Ultimately, a quiet death on a beach – however posed or artificial the Somerton Man’s mise-en-scene may have seemed to those looking carefully – was a disappointment to those hoping for the theatrics of violence.

And so I think it is not the Somerton Man’s actual death that so inspired the theories so much as the absence of explicit forensic theatre. He died cleanly, with nicely groomed fingernails, and wearing shiny shoes: which is all wrong on some level.

Evidence of Absence

But above all else, I think the most disturbing thing about the Somerton Man’s death lies in none of the details that were noted, but instead in the fact that – barring a little bit of sand at the back of his head – he seems to have had no real forensic contact with his (supposed) place of death.

Really, the scenario where someone undergoes the trauma of convulsive death throes while laying on a beach and yet somehow manages to avoid ending up covered in vomit and sand makes no sense to me whatsoever. This is a direct affront to Locard’s Exchange Principle, right?

So can we please call a halt on the whole “romantic loner suicide” scenario? The whole idea that he somehow travelled to Somerton Beach just to die on his own simply makes no physical sense.

Similarly, calling him “The Unknown Man” makes no sense to me either. Rather, I suspect that he spent his last hours in a nearby house, laid out on his back on someone’s bed before dying there, and then being left there for a few hours with his head tilted backwards over the edge (while the blood pooled in his neck).

It also seems highly likely to me that people from that house tidied him up (even cleaning and shining his shoes), before carrying him to the beach and posing his body against the sea wall there.

Essentially, if the Somerton Man did not die on the beach, we can be sure that the people who knew him – and who brought him there – have carefully airbrushed themselves out of the picture. He was very much known.

The Missing Thread

In many ways, I’m not that interested in all the different people the Somerton Man might have been. The glut of possible Somerton Men we have are only ever hypothetical, a long row of Pepper’s ghosts we summon up to try to work out what happened, like CSI bullet trajectory sticks.

And yet in some ways we know almost too much about the mundane mechanics of it all: perhaps our dead man even had his final pasty at Glenelg’s All Night Cafe.

In the end, all we’re missing is the narrative thread of a single life that binds all these pieces together. It’s like we’re trying to solve an upside-down jigsaw, where all our attempts to be scientific and rigorous have failed to turn any of the pieces the right way up.

But even if – mirabile dictu – exhumed DNA magically hands us a name on a silver dish, will we really be able to completely reconstruct the jigsaw’s picture side?

Having spent so many years on this man’s trail, I can’t help but suspect that we won’t. Perhaps some secrets don’t want to be known: not all Ariadne’s threads are there to be followed.

Here are some nice period photos for you, and a little challenge. 🙂

While looking on Trove for white ties (as per the one which was famously in the Somerton Man’s suitcase), I stumbled upon the Sam Hood Photographic Collection II’s Theatrical subsection, which contained this intriguing white-tied image (“308. Smoker with violin case”):

There was no further identification or markings on the photograph or in the NSW catalogue, so just for fun I trawled through the rest of the 275 photos in the set to see if the white-tied guy turned up again. I’m pretty sure I found him (right of centre) in “137. Chorus with comics”:

…and in “169. Child Performers” (as the front half of a pantomime cow, possibly with the same guy who was on the stone stairs with him above):

The catalogue notes say that 137-138 show the “male comic, Alfred Frith” (1885-1941, and whose stage credits are listed here). Here’s what Alfred Frith looked like in 1933:

So it’s safe to say that our Formbyesque Alfred Frith is definitely in “294. Comic arrives, Central Station”, mugging away for the ‘Hood:

And also in “295. Comic arrives, Central Station”, with his same precious golf clubs:

Oh, and it’s definitely sure it’s Alfred Frith in “138. Chorus with comics”:

But your challenge is: can you identify the comic actor with the violin case?

…who was surely the same comic photographed with Alfred Frith (if you don’t believe me, check out the handkerchief in his top pocket):

(PS: please don’t tell me he’s a Russian spy called Pavel, *sigh*.)

Pretty much everyone who has had a look at the Somerton Man mystery at some stage ends up raking through Gerry Feltus’ book “The Unknown Man” for research leads to follow.

So let’s hear what Gerry has to say about “Handel” (p.59):

At 11 a.m. on 7 January [1949] Detective Sergeant A Evans had a conversation with a tool inspector at General Motor’s (Holden’s) Ltd. He and several of his workmates were of the opinion that the deceased was a former employee with the Christian name Handel and an English surname. Born in Sweden on 10 November 1899, he was a member of the Merchant Navy in the First World War. A butcher by trade, he was employed in the Tool Section from 27 August 1946 to 17 February 1948. It was believed he lost his wife about 6 months earlier. His last known address was 271 Gouger Street, Adelaide.

I vageuly remembered seeing the (fairly unusual) Christian name Handel before: and so searched Cipher Mysteries. And here’s what I had written back in 2015:

I also asked about AA59/1/256. TIRS [Tasmanian Information and Research Service] noted that this file contains records dating from 1947 to 1950, and contains records relating to seven British migrants: John Bradley, Alan Clay, Frederick North, J L Targett, Henry Alfred Thompson, Kenneth Thompson, and William Handel Williams.

And with that, the game is afoot (as Conan Doyle famously wrote). So let’s pursue the ball for a little while, see where it leads.

Trove on 271 Gouger Street

It doesn’t take long in Trove to find a couple of references to the address mentioned, and they’re both deaths of women in 1948:

Adelaide Advertiser, 22nd May 1948

KEEGAN.—On May 20, Helen Keegan, of 271 Gouger street, Adelaide late of 35 Alexander street, Prospect, loved aunt of May and Alice and friend of Dolly. Aged 66 years. Requiescat in pace.

Adelaide Advertiser, 3rd August 1948

NELSON.—On July 31, at Adelaide, Maisie Josephine, of 271 Gouger street, Adelaide, loved wife of Thomas Nelson and loving mother of Raymond and Patricia, Requiescat in pace.

Perhaps one of these two is relevant, perhaps not: but I thought I’d mention them anyway. But the rest of Trove’s hits are fairly silent, alas: mostly they talk about the Maher family (e.g. Thomas Francis Maher) at that address.

The Christian name “Handel”

When you start raking through FamilySearch et al for men with the first name “Handel” born in 1899, you will (if you’re expecting to find any Swedish people) have a bit of a surprise. Because the first name “Handel” seems to have been a peculiarly English trend during the 19th century, particularly in Lancashire.

For example, I drew up a list of men with the first name Handel born/christened in the UK in 1899 / 1900:

  • Handel Bond — All Souls, Ancoats, Lancs
  • Handel Riley — Bolton, Lancs
  • Handel Ward — Barton Upon Irwell, Lancs
  • Handel Wild — Bury, Lancs
  • Handel Howarth — Ashton Under Lyne, Lancs
  • Handel Fletcher — Ormskirk, Lancs
  • Handel Fletcher — Bolton, Lancs
  • Handel Morris — Barton Upon Irwell, Lancs
  • Handel Seddon — Bolton, Lancs
  • Handel Shepherd — Endin, Lancs
  • Handel Whiteley — Bournemouth, Dorset
  • Handel Morris — Walkden, Lancs
  • Handel Carpenter — Walsall, Staffs
  • Handel Hodson — Wheatley Hill, Durham
  • Handel Heatley — Prestwich, Lancs
  • Handel Eckersley — Bolton, Lancs
  • Handel Hone — Ashton Under Lyne, Lancs (probably Joseph Handel Hone, 1900-1980)
  • Handel “Nenole” [Hard to read, I’m not convinced this is correct]

However, I should point out that I fed all of these names into both Trove and the NAA’s RecordSearch, without any luck. For what it’s worth, I did find (a) Handel Hone playing trumpet in 1955 (he’s the guy in the middle):

I did find a Handel Booth, 26, who emigrated (with Annie Booth, 25) on an Oversea Settlement Pass (O.S.P.) on the Demosthenes on 3rd July 1922. But there’s no sight of him in the archives beyond that.

I should also mention that there was an Ancestry mention of a William Handel Williams (1914-1986), born in Gorseinon, Swansea, in 1914. Though I don’t have access to Ancestry, I strongly suspect that this was the same William Handel Williams (b. 5th November 1914, d. 25th September 1986) who was cremated in Manukau Memorial Gardens, Auckland, NZ. So the Risdon migrant file mention was probably no more than a coincidence.

Might he be Handel, Hallelujah?

Gerry Feltus doesn’t mention whether the ‘Handel’ line of enquiry led anywhere, even though he does give the resolutions to many of the others. Hence it’s not obvious to me that this was resolved by SAPOL at the time.

Furthermore, I suspect (having searched the Swedish BDM records) that Handel’s supposed Swedish birthplace might not be correct. Rather, the odds seem reasonably high to me that our missing Handel was born in England (and indeed probably in Lancashire). So it could well have been that the police were entirely unsuccessful in tracing him.

Incidentally, there were a fair few middle-name-Handels I could have tried tracing (but didn’t), e.g.:

  • Ronald Handel Haswell — 1899, Handsworth, Birmingham (1899-1950, says Ancestry)
  • Wilfred Handel Bennett — 1900, Blackburn, Lancs (married Elsie Caroline Bennett, says a tree on Ancestry)
  • Henry Handel Edwards — 1899, Belvedere, Kent (September 30 1899, says MyHeritage)
  • Leslie Handel Wells — 1900, Hackney, London (1900-1930, says Ancestry)
  • George Handel McCallum – 1900, Liverpool
  • Hubert Handel Arthur — 1899, Southport, Lancs (26th Feb 1899 – 11th Jan 1983) [died in Stanmore, NSW]
  • William Handel Allsop — 1899, Huthwaite, Notts (6th July 1899 – 25th July 1983, says Ancestry)

So unfortunately I don’t have an answer neatly tied with a bow and flourish this time around, sorry. But perhaps someone else will have more luck stitching all these pieces together, so we can find out who Handel was. 🙂

Here’s a nice article on Trove from September 1951 that I think sets a fair level of expectation about how car thieves and car theft worked at that time in Adelaide. Enjoy! 🙂

C.I.B. WINNING BATTLE WITH JOYRIDERS

Motorists can cut car thefts

Detectives are slowly, but surely winning the battle of wits with Adelaide’s joyriders. Since January 1 this year, 232 motor cars have disappeared from Adelaide streets. CIB investigators have recovered all but six. In the same period, 550 motor cyclists reported the loss of their machines. Only 19 have not been recovered. Bicycles are not so easy to find. Of the 1,180 stolen or used illegally, 620 are still on the missing list.

Police case histories here reveal that drivers are to blame in nine stolen car cases out of 10.They rarely disappear when the owners have taken normal precautions against theft or interference. A potential joyrider or thief has to make it a rush job. It has to be quick and easy, or he won’t attempt it. Any impediment — a locked door— may deter him.

Keys in car

Make a survey of any 20 cars parked in the street. You’ll probably find the ignition key has been left in two or three of them, one or more windows will be open on others, and, in most cases, the doors will be unlocked. These cars are sitting shots for the joyrider. Open tourers are easier. An ignition system that can’t be ‘wired round’ in a few minutes is yet to be invented. Thief proof devices have been invented. Some are cumbersome, none entirely effective.They have ranged from chains and clamps on the gear lever, clutch, and brake pedal, down to the secret switch. Secret switches mean nothing to the experienced thief. He doesn’t bother to look for them, simply uses a lead and wires round the switch.

A RAA spokesman told of the driver who chained a wheel of his car to a post when he parked for any length of time. It worked well — until the day a daring thief jacked up the wheel, removed it, put on the spare, and drove away. There was a device on the market some years ago which was wired into the electrical circuit so that a siren sounded when a door was opened or the ignition system operated. This embarrassed owners who had forgotten to turn off the secret switch before using the car.

Steering lock

The most effective device of all, according to the RAA, is the combination steering and ignition lock. These are good until the key is lost or mislaid. Then it is necessary to lift-tow the car or force the lock.

The experienced car thief is a resourceful type who makes it his business to learn the peculiarities of each car. One caught recently had a pocket full of different types of distributor rotor brushes. In some countries motorists who leave cars unlocked are liable to heavy penalties. The result is that few vehicles are stolen.

Six ‘dont’s’

Here are six ways to make the task of the car thief easier: —

  • Leave body and boot doors unlocked.
  • Leave the ignition key in the lock.
  • Leave valuables on the seat.
  • Leave the number on your ignition lock uncovered — a piece of adhesive tape will do the trick. An uncovered number can be read through the window and a duplicate key made. In many cases the key will also fit the door lock.
  • Forget to have your mechanic show you how to remove and replace the distributor rotor brush.
  • Leave the car out of gear with the brake off. Cars have been pushed to a secluded spot for ‘further attention.’
PCC MODRA holding a length of wire with spring clips at each end, used by thieves to start cars without a key. This device was found in a car parked outside a Marryatville theatre on Saturday night.

…and one on Backyard Deals (1950).

This second article was from the 14 Jan 1950 Adelaide Mail.

Interstate car thieves ‘often sell in S.A.’

C.I.B. WARNS ON BACKYARD DEALS

Many cars stolen in other States were disposed of in South Australia through unlicensed ‘backyard’ dealers, Chief of the CIS (Superintendent Sheridan) said today.

Mr. Sheridan warned buyers of secondhand cars to beware of unlicensed dealers, and to trade only with reputable licensed firms whose businesses were under police supervision.

‘Interstate car thieves seek out back-yard dealers, because they know their businesses are not regularly inspected by police,’ he said.

‘Some Adelaide people, who have unwittingly bought stolen vehicles from illegal dealers, have later had the cars confiscated and thus lost their money.

No car gangs here

‘The number of stolen interstate cars recovered in SA outnumbers cars taken from SA and disposed of in other States,’ said Mr. Sheridan.

‘There are no organised gangs of car thieves here, but there are isolated cases of SA cars being stolen and driven to other States.’

Mr. Sheridan warned prospective buyers of secondhand cars to be suspicious of cars that had come from another State, unless they were completely satisfied about the car dealer’s bona fides.

Car thieves often went to great lengths to convince a prospective buyer a car was ‘genuine.’

‘Easily registered’

‘The fact that a seller can produce car registration papers doesn’t always mean the vehicle he is selling hasn’t been stolen,’ he said.

‘Thieves often register cars, after erasing the correct engine and chassis numbers, and substituting fake numbers.’

Mr. Sheridan said one interstate car thief, who reputedly made enough money through his illegal transactions to finance three trips to England, travelled all over Australia stealing cars and selling them.

‘He would steal a vehicle in one part of Western Australia, sell it in another, then fly to Queensland. There he would steal a car, drive it down to Sydney, sell it, and immediately fly to some other State and repeat the procedure,’ Mr. Sheridan said.

Many motorists made the car thief’s job easy by leaving their vehicles parked unattended in streets with the doors unlocked, and the ignition key in the dashboard, Mr. Sheridan said.

To foil prospective car thieves motorists should—

  • Always lock the vehicle and remove the ignition key when parking it in a street. Because stolen cars are often used in crimes, some US States have strict laws against leaving cars unlocked and unattended
  • Have some private, secret mark on their vehicle, which would aid in identification if the car were stolen.
  • Note any stains, dents, or parts damaged in accidents. Such features were invaluable aids to identification.

Finally, The Case Of the Baby Austin (1953)…

If that’s not enough for you, here’s a final link to a police officer’s notes on a particular interstate car crime that was detected on the streets of Glenelg (of all places), as reported in the Port Lincoln Times, 05 Mar 1953.

It just struck me that I haven’t seen anyone suggest that the most useful part of the Somerton Man’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum packaging might simply have been the aluminium (AKA “aluminum”, before any American readers choke on their Coke) foil wrapper around each thin stick of isoamyl-acetate-flavoured gum.

As thedude747 posted in a comment here back in Feb 2015:

I was chatting with an older relative who was in the Adelaide car trade in the 60s and 70s … […]
I shared my theory with him about SM being a car thief and without knowledge of the full tool kit SM had in the suitcase he volunteered that cars of that era could be easily started with a small sheet of alfoil. You would simply slide it behind the ignition button which was how many cars of the time were operated. It was a simple but effective and handy trick known by people in the trade. He described using the alfoil wrapper from a lifesaver packet to start his FJ when he lost the keys once.
I then told him about the sheet of soft Zinc SM had in his suitcase and he said that it would have been idea to start a car without keys provided you were able to gain entry and that a short screwdriver would have done that job no problem.
I cant think of a better reason why he would be carrying a worn out small piece of pliable alfoil or zinc than this.

Maybe this is all that anyone properly savvy needed to know his profession?

Let’s start with the original 26th Jan 1949 news story in the Adelaide News, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the Geraldton Guardian, and the Age:

Melbourne.- Two prominent Melbourne baccarat players who desire to remain anonymous, believe they knew the unknown man in the “Somerton beach body mystery.”

They saw the man’s picture in a Melbourne newspaper and said they thought they recognised him as a “nitkeeper” who worked at a Lonsdale street baccarat school about four years ago. They could not recall his name.

They said the man talked to few people. He was employed at the baccarat school for about 10 weeks, then left without saying why or where he was going.

From a purely Melbourne-centric angle, the appeal for witnesses had only just appeared in the Herald (25 Jan 1949) and the Argus (25 Jan 1949). So it should be clear that the two baccarat players came forward immediately.

A few days ago, I wondered whether the man they had been thinking of might have been George Henry Newman. It’s true that Newman died in 1986, so could not have been the Somerton Man. However, given that people working at baccarat schools were generally younger than the Somerton Man, might the two baccarat players have mistaken George Henry Newman for the Somerton Man?

On balance, I think this is unlikely. Newman’s specific role in the whole baccarat ‘ecology’ was as a motor driver: that is, he would drive customers to and from the baccarat school. And he did that for years, not just for ten weeks.

So the person we’re looking for is someone quite specific and yet quite unusual (because of his age): a 40-year-old Lonsdale Street baccarat school nitkeeper circa 1945.

The annoying thing is that the Victorian police knew everything there was to know about these baccarat schools, but were unable to shut them down because of two specific factors:

  • The police had to catch punters while they were actually playing baccarat (and not other legal card games), which was actually quite a lot trickier than it sounds; and
  • The baccarat school principals bribed policemen left, right and centre to avoid the schools being shut down.

In the end, Christos Paizes’ long-running baccarat school got closed down courtesy of some kind of mealy-mouthed legal technicality, largely rustled up by Victorian politicians. And Paizes couldn’t really blame the poh-lice for that: they were too busy taking their brown envelopes to actual get him to court. Why would they ever call a halt on such a good thing?

The Missing Evidence

It seems that our well of Lonsdale Street baccarat school-related articles in Trove has now pretty much run dry. So where could we look next?

There is a ton of interesting stuff in the Victorian police archives – the NAA knows what it is, and wants to curate it, but nobody knows where it is. One day, this will come into the light, and perhaps there will be a sudden feeding frenzy from everybody with an interest in historical Melbourne crime. But… that blessed day still seems a way off just yet.

I wish I had found a list of Australian gamblers’ memoirs: anyone around Melbourne in the mid-1940s would have gone to Lonsdale Street, its baccarat Mecca. The closest I got was a series of brief articles in the Melbourne Argus of 1954, describing the memories of Melbourne baccarat school owner Robert Walker. (Incidentally, there’s a nice chapter on knockabouts in the 1986 book “Disorganized Crime”, which might still be available online.) Maybe there are more Aussie gamblers’ memoirs out there, please shout if you find any.

I therefore wonder whether the best thing to do would be to put an ad in a Melbourne newspaper – perhaps the Age, what do you think? – asking any lovely old people for their memories of Melbourne’s baccarat schools in the 1940s. Sounds like a Banker Bet to me… something to consider, anyway. 🙂

Any other suggestions for routes forward?

Towards the end of last year, I went through a period where I tried to finesse different ways of raking through the Australian archives to pursue the Melbourne nitkeeper research thread in the Somerton Man cold case. (Which arose because two Melbourne baccarat players came forward in early 1949 to say that they thought the man had worked as a nitkeeper at a Lonsdale Street baccarat school for about ten weeks around 1945 or so.)

Despite meticulously stepping through story after story in Trove to reconstruct what I could of the Melbourne baccarat school timeline, all I could come up with was the Romanian name “Balutz” that appeared in a single article. And when I received a nice reply from the Public Records Office Victoria helpfully suggesting I look up the (admittedly not entirely dissimilar) Greek surname Balutis, I then followed that lead as far as I could, all the way to Triantafillos Balutis and Stelios Balutis.

The pair (presumably brothers or cousins?) had arrived in Melbourne on 16 Feb 1923, both travelling in 3rd class on the RMS Ormonde: but I could find no details of what ultimately became of Triantafillos Balutis. He had lived for eight years in America (always a good box to tick for Somerton Man candidates, and the juicier the Juicy Fruit the better); had lived largely invisibly since 1930; had worked within a horse’s sneeze of the main Lonsdale Street baccarat school (which, let’s not forget, was run by the Greek Christos Paizes); and yet by around 1948 had completely disappeared from sight. No wife, no family, no funeral, no nothing.

In short, Triantafillos Balutis seemed pretty much a perfect candidate for having been the Somerton Man, if (and I know it’s very much an ‘if’) the Somerton Man had been the Melbourne nitkeeper the two gamblers claimed he was. But I was short of the last pieces of evidence that would confirm or deny it. What I needed was a cunning Aussie insider, a well-disposed researcher who would go to the Melbourne archives and ferret out the last pieces of the puzzle.

And that is indeed what happened next…

A Surreal Day Out At Shiel Street

The modern building at 99 Shiel Street, North Melbourne is shared by both the National Archives of Australia and the Victorian State Archives. According to my generous (but doggedly anonymous) Melbourne mole (I’ve lightly edited their notes):

The modern bureaucracy makes visiting here quite surreal. I’ll explain why in case you have reason to go to Shiel Street in future.

The first thing to note is that there is a single reading room, and along one side of it there runs a single long L-shaped desk.  

On the shorter side of the ‘L’ is a very nice librarian who hands over the National Archives Files.  As far as possible from her, at the very top of the long side of that ‘L’ is the very nice librarian who hands over files from the Victorian State Archives.

Now, if it happens that you speak first to the NAA librarian, he or she will tell you that there is no public digital scanning facility: in fact, only the librarians are allowed to do that, and they will charge you per scan.  Otherwise you can make ordinary photocopies at about three times you’d pay elsewhere… or you can bring a camera, or use your camera-phone.

However, if you happen to speak, instead, to the very nice Victorian Archives librarian at the other end of that long desk, you will be told that there’s no charge for anything. Not only that, but they have a dedicated side room (complete with professional-looking camera) where you are free to make hi-res digital scans if you prefer.  All for no charge whatsoever. “All you need to bring is a USB stick” they will tell you over the phone.

And, oddly, neither of the nice librarians is wrong.

It seems that the commonwealth (=Federal) government won’t agree to let its records be snapped using Victorian government equipment, so if you turn up with just a USB stick for NAA docs, you’ll be out of luck.

Luckily I had both a usb and a phone… which is why I’m sending through a neat pdf of the (Victorian Archive) probate material and a whole lot of poorly-lit camera snaps of the really interesting NAA material.

Needless to say, I’m extremely grateful for the kindness this anonymous researcher hero showed.

Stelios Balutis

We can now say a little more about what happened to Stelios Balutis. In his July 1963 will, the (obviously misspelled) “Stelois Balutes” of 581 King Street West Melbourne did:

“[…] Give devise and bequeath all my Estate both real and personal unto my Trustees Upon Trust […] for my granddaughter ELEONORA ASSIKIS of Sinikismos Evangelistries Ano Skalakia Thessaloniki Greece if she attains the age of Twentyone years and if living at my death but she shall predecease me then Upon Trust for my grandson NIKOLAS ASSIKIS of the same address if he attains the age of Twentyone years and if living at my death.”

His estate amounted to $1381.15: and the notice of probate appeared in the 02 Sep 1977 edition of the Melbourne Age. The only thing I rather liked was the colour of the probate’s duty stamps (in the NAA scan):

The Victorian Archives had more about Stelios Balutis. I’ll spare you his fingerprints, but there was a perfectly nice photo of him from his 1948 passport (which I contrast-enhanced slightly for clarity):

All in all, nothing remarkable, then; but even so, more than enough to close our (admittedly small) chapter on Stelios Balutis.

Triantafillos Balutis

Because I had previously been able to access Triantafillos Balutis’ application for Australian naturalization via the NAA’s website (my attempts to do this were mainly hindered by the 20+ different spelling combinations of his first and last names), our Melbourne mole was able to find only a single page of additional information in the archives.

Luckily (or possibly unluckily, depending on your Somerton Man point of view), this was the most important page of all, because it revealed what ultimately became of him. This was from the Criminal Investigation Board, whose (small) file relating to Triantafillos Balutis’s naturalization was included separately in the NAA records.

At the end, the file noted: “Triantafillos BALUTIS appears on Passport List No. 2857 of 15/9/1949 Proceeding to Greece. CIB.”

Ships leaving Melbourne for Europe on the 15th September 1949 were (according to Trove) the Devon for London and the Port Vindex for Liverpool, or (on the 16th) the Dundalk Bay for Adelaide and Naples.

By far the most interesting one of these was the Dundalk Bay, which had just arrived from Naples accompanied by the Nelly, the two ships carrying more than a thousand migrants each from all over Europe.

The Australian archives contain nominal rolls (all nicely digitized and cross-referenced) listing all the incoming migrants for the Dundalk Bay and Nelly (in fact, these lists appear several times over). But as far as I can see, there is no sign of nominal rolls for passengers travelling in the opposite direction: presumably because nobody in their right mind would want to be going back to Europe in September 1949.

As a result, I wasn’t able to dig up anything as useful as a nominal roll for any of the three ships listed as leaving on the 15th/16th September 1949, to fully confirm the (already extremely likely) story that Triantafillos Balutis left Melbourne for Europe then.

Perhaps someone with better m4d archival sk1llz than me will be able to dig this up. But to be fair, there’s probably little point: this research strand seems to have also reached the end of its life. We’re done here, basically.

So… Back To Lonsdale Street, Then?

I’ve been thinking about this whole thing for a couple of months now, in a kind of methodological post mortem. And I think the way it all rolled out revealed weaknesses in the way I was approaching archival research. In essence, I jumped at the chance to pursue what (superficially) seemed like a substantial lead, because it seemed likely that I would be able to follow a research lead on a single person of interest right to the end line (which is indeed what happened).

Sure, this was a plausible (if slightly opportunistic / optimistic) plan, but at the same time it didn’t really amount to anything like a systematic, goal-directed attack on the archives. And in fact this was what was missing.

So, in retrospect what I should have done was try to devise ways to open up the Australian archives in respect of the Lonsdale Street baccarat schools, and particularly the Victorian police records. We know (thanks to the PROV) that there was nothing Balutz-related in the Victorian Police Gazette for 1944/1945/1946: but Balutz should only ever have been a helpful secondary angle to prise open the archival lid.

Because Christos Paizes was the big fish in the story, I now think it was Paizes’ Melbourne history that needed bringing into the light in a far more systematic way, rather than guessing and hoping.

Christos Paizes and his Henchmen…

The NAA records say that Christos Paizes was born on 5th February 1897 in Ithaca, Kionion, Greece: and that he arrived in Australia on 4th January 1914. His naturalization was in 13th August 1937, at which time his address was (the familiar-sounding address) 269-271 Lonsdale-street, Melbourne.

According to the sensational (but probably not entirely historically reliable) book “Gangland Melbourne“, Paizes (also known as ‘Harry Carillo’) allegedly had Freddie ‘The Frog’ Harrison and Norman Bradshaw ‘working’ for him. All the same, Harrison was mentioned quite openly here as having worked for Solomon’s baccarat school, so I’m not yet convinced that Gangland Melbourne completely nailed that one:

Police witnesses alleged Harrison was the constant companion of thieves, that as doorkeeper of a baccarat school in Elizabeth-street, city, he had many times given warning of the approach of police, and, that he had kept a supply of bullets in his home. Harrison said he was employed by the proprietor, Mr. Solomon, as doorman of the Rendezvous Bridge Club, until May 20. From a weekly wage of £5 he paid £3 board to his aunt, with whom he and his wife and child had been living for twelve months. He had nothing to do with the conduct of the bridge club.

He was also mentioned quite openly in this news story on Trove:

Described by detectives as former doorkeeper for a baccarat school mentioned in connection with an Elizabeth Street shooting on May 22, Frederick William Harrison, 26, of Peel Street, Windsor, laborer, successfully appealed to Judge Mitchell in General Sessions today against a three months’ gaol sentence for vagrancy.

This was the baccarat school in Fink’s Building, according to this report.

Even though Harrison was not convicted of the Elizabeth Street shooting, George Henry Newman (45) was, and in October 1947 went to jail for two years. There’s a picture of Newman in an article in the Sydney Truth, which to my eyes isn’t terrifically different from the Somerton Man:

There’s no details of when Newman was let out of jail: and Trove has no obvious further trace of him. Just sayin’, just sayin’… 😉

We know that Christos Paizes subsequently surfaced in Sydney, running (no surprises) a baccarat school there. According to the Sydney Crime Museum, (quoting the 1980 book Drug Traffic by Alfred McCoy, which – with the inevitable shipping from Australia – is currently sitting just outside my comfortable price range, though the British Library does have a copy) when casinos in the 1970s became the next ‘hot’ place for gamblers to go to:

The established Goulburn Club at 51-7 Goulburn Street, owned by George Zizinos Walker and Christos Paizes of South Coogee, simply added roulette to baccarat, recruited a bevy of hostesses, and polished up its image. 

Putting all this together: it seems to me that if the Somerton Man was in some way connected with the Lonsdale Street baccarat schools, a far better first research step would be to map out the different Melbourne schools and all the crims and thugs associated with them, and only then with that groundwork in place start to look at individuals.

Back to the Archives?

And so the actual research question finally arrives: what is the best way of using Australian archive resources to try to reconstruct the Lonsdale Street baccarat school crim network circa 1945? After all, historians now spend so much of their time mapping out social networks, why not map antisocial networks too? :-p

Hence I think it’s the NAA’s B745 series that perhaps offers us the possibility of some kind of way in. However, when our marvellous Melbourne mole specifically asked the NAA about getting access to B745, the response was:

With regards to series B745, ‘Index of offenders investigated by the Commonwealth Police’, this is a collection of index cards which the National Archives does not have in custody. Although the series is registered with us it does not appear to have ever been transferred from the Australian Federal Police. Theoretically it may still be held by them, but previous attempts to identify their whereabouts have not been successful.

And so, for a change, one research door shuts only for another to also shut. There must surely be a way of locating B745 but… it will probably take a while.

I thought my last post had gone through pretty much all the sources available online relating to Triantafillos Balutis, the Melbourne waiter who the PRO Victoria flagged as possibly being the mysterious “Balutz” at Christos Paizes’ Lonsdale Street baccarat club. But, thanks to the almost endless spelling variations of his names, it turns out I was wrong.

Which is good!

1930 Naturalisation Certificate

For a start, the NAA has a file marked “Treantafellous BALUTES – Naturalisation certificate” (NAA A1, 1930/1546), which is the correspondence and certificate (“A.A. 6302”) relating to Triantafillos Balutis’ naturalisation application.

From this, we learn that:

  • his address was Victoria Hotel, 404 Bourke Street, Melbourne;
  • he had no wife or children;
  • he had placed advertisements for his naturalisation application in the Argus and Age, both of the 24 Jan 1930;
  • he was 5ft 5in, black hair, brown eyes, small mole on right cheek;
  • he was born on 5 Aug 1886, in Cavalla in Greece;
  • his father was Dameanos Balutes, and his parents were both Greek;
  • he arrived in Melbourne from Greece on the 16 Feb 1923 on the S.S. Ormonde;
  • after leaving Greece but before coming to Australia, he lived in the USA for eight years;
  • he was a café proprietor, who had been running a café at 426 Bourke Street, Melbourne for four years and five months; and
  • he was represented by Messrs. Luke Murphy & Co, Solicitors, 422 Bourke Street, Melbourne.

The general remarks section on the form asserts:

Applicant has been established in business in Bourke St. at the Canberra Café during the past 4½ years. He has opened up a further business at Warrnambool for the manufacture of cheese, which he proposes to export to Egypt & U.S.A. Applicant is of the keen type of business man & gained a good business knowledge during his residence in the U.S.A. for about 8 years. There is nothing known against applicant.

His three referees were two householders and a police officer:

  1. Donald Mackintosh, Gun Maker, of 2 Thistle Street, Essendon
  2. Horace Govett James, Business Manager, of 3 Sunnyside Grove, Bentleigh
  3. Sidney James Kirby, Constable of Police, of Russell Street, Melbourne

From this, we learn that – despite the apparently contradictory evidence presented in the previous post – all the evidential threads tie together, i.e. there was only one Triantafillos Balutis, even though his date of birth seems somewhat uncertain. His full name would therefore have been Triantafillos Dameanou Balutis.

Note that when he was born in Kavala, it was part of the Ottoman Empire (Greece absorbed it in 1912 during the Balkan War). So his nationality at the time of his birth was Turkish, but later became Greek: hence he was both Greek and Turkish, depending on how you asked the question. Nationality can be quite a fluid thing!

George Vrachnas & Jack Lenos

The NAA lists two other documents relating to him. The first, dated 1930, is item NAA: A10075, 1930/21 (item barcode: 3140391) is “BALUTES Treantafellous versus VRACKNAS George; LENOS Jack”, and relates to a cause (complaint) brought by one party against another before a single judge. (Not yet online.)

According to findmypast, George Vrachnas was born in 1890: and had a restaurant in the ground floor of Traynor House, 287 Elizabeth street. Though Vrachnas & Lenos appear in a number of other cases that appear in Trove (e.g. Wolff vs. Vrachnas and Lenos; Boyd vs. Vrachnas and Lenos; Palmer vs Vrachnas and Lenos, etc, while 1932 saw the inevitable Vrachnas vs Lenos), I so far haven’t found anything relating to Balutes vs Vrachnas and Lenos.

We can see a separate case being taken against the pair in 6 Nov 1931:

IN THE COURT OF PETTY SESSIONS, HOLDEN AT WATER POLICE OFFICE, SYDNEY. No. of Writ. 5993 of 1931. No. of Plaint, 5680 of 1931. THE NATIONAL CASH REGISTER CO. OF A/SIA, LTD., Plaintiff; and GEORGE VRACHNAS and JACK LENOS, trading as Vrachnos and Lenos, 215 Oxford-street, Sydney, Defendant. UNLESS the amount of £14/17/11, together with all fees due herein be paid at or before the hour of noon To-day, Friday, the sixth day of November, 1931, the Bailiff will sell by Public Auction, at Water Police Office, the Right, Title, and Interest of the defendants in goods which are the subject of Conditional Bill of Sale dated 16th July, 1930, No. 13779. last renewed 9th September, 1931, between George Vrachnas and John Lenos (Mortgagors) and John Vrachnas (Mortgagee), and the Right, Title, and Interest of the defendant George Vrachnas In goods which are the subject of conditional Bill of Sale dated 11th October, 1930, No. 19858. between George Vrachnas (Mortgagor) and A. A. Marks, Limited (Mortgagees). Dated at the Court of Petty Sessions abovementioned, this twelfth day of October. 1931.

Incidentally, Trove mentions that Gwendoline Vrachnas was charged in June 1932 with being a manager of a common gaming house in Elizabeth-street, Sydney, in relation to “the sale of share tickets in the State Lottery”.

As a final aside, there’s an oral history recording of George Vrachnas online here, reminiscing about his life. In one part he mentions the effect of the Depression upon his business (suddenly none of the businesses renting from him could pay their rents, and the whole setup collapsed), which was the point in his life when his fortunes dramatically changed.

Police Records

The last of the NAA records is simply titled “Treantafellous Balutes” (NAA: B741, V/7104, Item barcode: 1140692, Location: Melbourne), and contains (or, at least, seems to contain) details of his Victoria police record from 1930 to 1949. Even if Balutis wasn’t in the Victoria Police Gazette for 1944 / 1945 / 1946, it would seem that there was still police interest in his activities.

The B741 series:

[…] comprises files relating to the investigation of all criminal offences committed against the Commonwealth, the contravention of Commonwealth Acts or of State Acts committed on Commonwealth property; the pursuit of recalcitrant debtors to the Commonwealth; and inquiry into the whereabouts of persons requested to be traced by government departments, organisations such as the Red Cross, International Tracing Service, Australia House, private persons or by diplomatic or consular representation. Investigations carried out at the request of government departments include areas such as narcotics trafficking, impersonation, bribery, “forge and utter”, ships’ deserters, enemy aliens in wartime, prohibited immigrants, naturalisation, and rape on Commonwealth property. In most instances a separate file was raised for each particular case requested to be investigated.

It therefore may well also be that Balutis appears in Victoria’s B745 series (because, as it says, “No items from the series are on RecordSearch“):

Name (offenders) index cards to: (1) Correspondence files, single number series with “V” (Victoria) prefix, 1924 – 1962 (2) Correspondence files re Police investigations, annual single number series, 1963 –

The series is the name index to all persons committing an offence against the Commonwealth and/or contravening Commonwealth legislation or State legislation on Commonwealth property, persons whose whereabouts have or are being investigated, and up until 1963, recalcitrant debtors to the Commonwealth.

The Shadow of the Depression

The Depression cast a deep, malign shadow over the life of George Vrachnas, and it seems to have had the same effect on Triantafillos Balutis.

Even though he applied for his naturalisation in January 1930, that was right at the end of the good times. Before that, you can see from Trove that Vrachnas’ café had held regular social meetings and dances, often raising money for war veterans: but now the 1920s were gone, and a different kind of economic reality was in place.

For Balutis, I think you can see the same thing via the advertisements in Trove, from the 2 Jan 1930 (just before his naturalisation)…

Waitress, experienced, start at once, no Sunday work. Canberra Cafe, 426 Bourke st.

…to the 10 Feb 1930 (just after his naturalisation)…

WAITRESS, 16 to 18 years, ready to start, permanent. Canberra Cafe, cr. Lonsdale and Swanston sts.

…to, alas, 13 Dec 1930

THURSDAY, 18th DECEMBER. At Half-past 2 o’Clock. On the Premises, 426 Bourke-street, MELBOURNE. Under Power of Bill of Sale No. 173,535, instructed by Mr. A. H, HILL, 11 Elizabeth-Street, Melbourne. COMPLETE FURNISHINGS AND PLANT OF CANBERRA CAFE. SODA FOUNTAIN, SODA WATER MACHINE, JACKSON BOILER COMPLETE With Pie Heater; NATIONAL CASH REGISTER, TOLEDO SCALES, 2 Ice Chests, Cutlery, Crockery, Glassware, &c. The Whole To Be Offered As a Going Concern. Full Particulars in Future Advertisement. R. RICHARDSON, Auctioneer, 18 Queen-street.

Whatever the relationship between Balutis and Vrachnas & Lenos was, 1930 seems to have been the year everything went wrong both in the macro-economy and in the Melbourne micro-economy. It was not only the year that Balutis became a naturalised Australian, but also the year that the Australian economy – as the phrase goes – went South.

I think it’s fair to say that a lot of dreams died that year.

What Would I Like To See Next?

As always, the archive records accessible online are only the tip of a giant evidential iceberg. So, the (non-online) documents I’d really like to see next are all held in Melbourne archives:

  1. “Treantafellous Balutes” B741 V/7104 (barcode 1140692) from NAA Melbourne (99 Shiel St, North Melbourne). All I know about this is that it covers the date range 1930-1949: beyond that, all outcomes are possible.
  2. I’d also like to know if any Balutis / Balutes / Balutz is mentioned in the B745 series. This is the set of name / offender index cards maintained by Victoria’s Investigation Branch: so if anyone had any contact with the Victoria police from 1924-1962, their card should be there. Having said that, it’s not entirely clear to me from the NAA online description whether B745 is at North Melbourne at all. Getting some clarity on this would be very good!
  3. As an aside: if it turns out that B745 is accessible, I’d also (just in case, you never know, it’s possible that, etc) really like to see the index cards of all the (T or J first initial) Kean / Keane individuals. Because if it were to turn out that any of those had been charged with nitkeeping prior to 1 Dec 1948, we might just have struck gold. 😉
  4. Finally, I’d also like to see Stelios Balutes’ death records (he died on 09 Jul 1977). According to PRO Victoria’s website, their archives hold both his will (PROV ref: VPRS 7591/ P4 unit 757, item 836/255) and his probate records (PROV ref: VPRS 28/ P8 unit 494, item 836/255), both of which I’d like to see. I’d guess that they are stored together (because they share the same item number), but you never can tell with archives. These are held at PRO Victoria’s North Melbourne site (also at 99 Shiel St, North Melbourne).

I just received this very helpful email from the Public Record Office Victoria, in response to a request I put in a few days ago to have a look at the Victoria Police Gazette 1945, 1946, and the two photographic supplements covering that period:

The Victorian Police Gazette (1853 – 1971) is not actually a part of our collection, though we do keep a copy of it in our reading rooms for reference purposes. There are several indexes in the back of each volume and each volume contains a single year of records, in the later years each volume also contains a photograph section.

Most volumes contain indexes to weekly photographs, fortnightly photographs, prisoners discharged from gaol and a general index. I have had a brief look in the index of 1944, 1945 and 1946 and unfortunately none of the names you mentioned appeared.

After reading the article you cited, it does not appear that these men were charged with anything. They appear on an ‘affidavit’ and the house was eventually listed as a common gaming house and was sold not long after that, by Paizes.

I thought the name Balutz might be a nickname but after seeing one of the other men was a Richard Thomas known as Abishara and tracing him shows his name was really Abishara, a Syrian born man who later became ‘Donegal Dick’, I wasn’t so sure.

When I put Balutz into an electoral roll search, the name Balutis came up as an alternative, possibly might be this man, but again nothing comes up in the Police Gazette. Treantaillous Balutis was a greek waiter, living in Melbourne in the 1930’s and 1940’s, as I am sure you are aware Paizes was also a greek immigrant. not sure if that is relevant or not.

You could try looking through the records for Melbourne Courts (VA 518) to see if these names appear, as an option.

So, even though this line of research started with a (single) mention of a Balutz, might he actually have been a Balutis?

Triantafillos Balutis…?

It’s a reasonable suggestion: so let’s look for “Treantaillous Balutis”, see what we find? (Note that the proper Greek spelling (I think) of his first name would be closer to “Triantafillos”.)

  • Findmypast has a Triantafylos Balotis (brother to Vassilios Balotis) arriving at New York from Piraeus on the Themistocles (NARA publications M237 and T715) in 1910, but no original image to check. Note that Theodoroula Balotis (mother of Vassilios Balotis) also arrived on the Themistocles in 1910, as did Vassilios Balotis (aged 19, of Constantinople, Turkey).
  • Findmypast also has a Triandafilos Balutis arriving on the Carpathia in New York from Trieste in 1913 (NARA publications M237 and T715), but no original image to check.
  • Findmypast has a “Trentafellos Damianon Balutis” (born 28 Aug 1885, nationality Turkey, son of Theodoola Balutis of Constantinople, medium height, slender build, brown eyes, black hair, living at 342 Broadway NYC) joining the US Army in 1918 in New York.
  • Ancestry lists “Messrs T. Baloutis” (born about 1889) arriving at Fremantle on 08 Feb 1923, but I don’t have a subscription so can’t see the arrival record behind the Ancestry.com paywall.
  • The NAA also has a 1928 record of a Triantafilos Balutis (Nationality: Greek) being nominated by Dimitrios Balutis. This was a Form 40 (“Application forms […] for admission of Relatives or Friends to Australia“), so would imply that Dimitrios Balutis was almost certainly a relative already in Australia. (No original image.)
  • The 1939 Melbourne electoral roll has a Balutis, Treantafillous at 27 Lansdowne st. (waiter): and he was at the same address in 1946. Note that 27 Lansdowne St seems (from various small ads) to have been a house converted to BSRs (bed sitting room).

While it’s possible that these are all the same person, it’s also hard not to notice that one record says he is Turkish and born in 1885, and the other says he is Greek and born in 1889. All the same, the vectors of people’s lives are often complicated, so who can say?

Stelios Balutis…?

As for other Melbourne people with the surname Balutis, we can see a Stelios Balutis in North Melbourne applying for naturalisation in 06 Aug 1954 (his certificate of naturalisation, issued 12 May 1955, is here):

I, STELIOS BALUTIS, of Greek nationality, born at Thraki, resident 31 years in Australia, now residing at 119 Queensberry Street, North Melbourne, intend to APPLY for NATURALISATION under the Nationalisation and Citizenship Act 1948.

There are a number of other Stelios Balutis records:

  • Findmypast has a record of a Stelios Balutis being born in 1890 and died in “Park”, Victoria in 1977 (reg: 17231).
  • The NAA also has Stelios Balutis’s service record (V377969, born 28 Feb 1888 in Sterna, Turkey, enlisted in Caulfield, Victoria, next of kin “BALUKIS IOANNA” [presumably BALUTIS misspelt]).
  • Familysearch’s reference books (which, it has to be said, aren’t normally the most useful part of that site) have “Balutis, Stalios” [sic] living at 119 Queensberry St in the 1959 Commonwealth of Australia electoral roll (though the document itself can’t be seen online).
  • There was also a Stelios Balutis on the S.S. Bretagne, arriving in Sydney in 1962 from Piraeus, with his destination “Grenvell St 26 Hamilton Melb”.
  • findmypast has the will/probate records for “Stelois Balutes” [sic], died 09 Jul 1977, retired, of “Parkville”, Victoria.
  • The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust lists a “Stelias Balutis” [sic] as having been interred on 13 Jul 1977 in the Chivers Lawn section of Templestowe Cemetery (location: “TE-CH_L*H***52“) in Manningham City, Victoria. (This also appears in findagrave.com)

Again, it’s entirely possible that these are all the same person, but it’s hard not to notice that one was born in Sterna, Turkey (where is that, exactly?) while another has Greek nationality.

Where Next?

Well… I have to say I’m not entirely sure. The logical step would seem to be to get hold of Triantafillos Balutis’s Form 40, and/or Stelios Balutis’ service records, his death notices from 1977 and/or his will/probate records, to try to reconstruct a little more of both men’s immediate family.

But for all the details scattered across all the archives, I’m not yet sure I’ve really got even a basic handle on either of these two yet. For example, I have no idea at all about Dimitrios Balutis, or Ioanna Balutis: so everyone in this family / these families seems to be close to archivally invisible.

At the same time, given (a) that the S.S. Ormonde arrived at Fremantle a few days before proceeding to Sydney, and (b) that I’m not a big fan of coincidences, it does seem overwhelmingly likely to me that Triantafillos Balutis and Stelios Balutis both reached Australia on the same ship.

Note that there was a fireman (i.e. a fire stoker) on merchant ships called Demetrios Balotis (5ft 5in, 160lbs) born around 1911 (nationality: Greek) who appears in US crew lists from 1945-1950, who had been at sea for 14 years by 1945. I don’t believe this was the same Demetrios Balutis who filled in Triantafillos Balutis’s Form 40, but I could easily be wrong-footed there.

I suppose the big question for me is: where are these people all buried? We have a plot for Stelios Balutis, sure, but there are at least three other Balutis family members to account for in or around Melbourne, and there are no other Balutis graves in Templestowe Cemetery. Perhaps some ended up near The Resurrection of Saint Lazarus Greek Orthodox Church? It feels to me as though there is a gap in the records here that findagrave and billiongraves aren’t touching. All suggestions and ideas very welcome!

As Derek Abbott liked to point out (particularly when he was trying to raise Somerton Man crowdfunding from Americans), we can easily imagine the Somerton Man having some US connection. This was not just from the distinctly American feather stitching on his coat, but also from his Juicy Fruit chewing gum, probably a habit picked up at a younger age (when he had more teeth to chew with).

So I’ve been playing around behind findmypast.com.au’s database paywall, seeing what’s there. And it was there that I found four American John Joseph Keanes all born in 1898, thanks to their First World War enlistment records.

These four American draftees should be worth a quick look, right?

JJK #1

Serial Number: 2271 / 3171. Address: 221 Vernon, Wakefield. Born: 28th June 1898. Description: Tall, Medium Build, Blue Eyes, Light Hair. Nationality: Irish. Next of kin: Mrs John Keane, Attymon, Galway. Drafted: Melrose City #28, Massachusetts. Occupation: Lead Busman. Employer: Thompson Scarnitt, Nitro, W. Virginia.

JJK #2

Serial Number: 2376 / 1388. Address: 2123 S. Opal, Phila, Phila, PA. Born: 13th September 1898. Description: Short Height, Medium Build, Gray Eyes, Brown Hair. Nationality: US born. Next of kin: Patrick Keane (Father), 2123 S. Opal. Drafted: Philadelphia City No. 51. Occupation: Assistant Blue Printer. Employer: United States Navy Yard, United States Govt.

There’s a John Keane, born 13th September 1898, who died in Pennsylvania in October 1966 (Social Security Number 164-05-1829): so it looks as though #2 may be fully accounted for. 🙂

JJK #3

Serial Number: 3841 / 5260. Address: 556 Paris St, San Francisco, CA. Born: 19th May 1898. Description: Medium Height, Medium Build, Blue Eyes, Auburn Hair. Next of kin: Ellen Keane, 556 Paris, San Francisco, CA. Drafted: San Francisco City No. 3. Occupation: Heater Boy. Employer: Schawbatchee shipyard, South San Francisco, San Mateo.

There’s a 1910 Census entry for 596 Athens Street, with John Keane (Head, born in Ireland), Ellen Keane (wife, born in Ireland), John J. [12] and James Keane [8] (all born in New York), and Katherine [6], Robert M. [4], Evelyn [3], and William Keane [2] (all born in California).

JJK #4

Serial Number: 1503 / 94638. Address: Brentwood, Suffolk, N.Y. Born: 25th Dec 1898. Description: Medium Height, Medium Build, Blue Eyes, Black Hair. Next of kin: Anna Keane (Mother), Galway Ireland. Drafted: Suffolk County No. 2, New York. Occupation: Farmer. Employer: Sisters, St Joseph, Brentwood, Suffolk, N.Y.

Any Matches?

Here’s the tie linked to the Somerton Man, with the name (T? or J?) Keane on it, which (I have to say) doesn’t look like any of the signatures. And we also know that the Somerton Man was tallish (5ft 11in) and with grey eyes. So it looks like we’re out of luck here, sorry.

But the point I’m trying to make (albeit implicitly) here is that this kind of archival search is extremely random and patchy. For these four draftees, we have a date of birth, a physical description, a next of kin, etc, which is really great: but this is the archival exception rather than anything like the rule. In just about every other case, we have only the tiniest of fragments – for example, marriage details are often little more than a pair of names, a place and a date. Unless you already know what you are looking for, you’re going to be struggling from the start: and that has been true of the research so far.

That Dulwich clerk, at last…

Even so, all my fine-tooth trawling through findmypast’s databases did mean that I found the Australian Electoral Rolls 1939, which (mirabile dictu!) lists:

  • 5761 Keane, Clara Maude, 16 Union st, Dulwich, home duties F
  • 5762 Keane, John Joseph, 16 Union st, Dulwich, clerk M

So it would seem that we finally have (probably) a wife for our Dulwich bookmakers’ clerk.

And this Clara Maude Keane in turn led (via the inevitable long string of intermediate dead-ends) to the following Family Notice in the Adelaide Chronicle of 23rd January 1941:

KEANE. —On the 20th of January [1941], John Joseph, dearly beloved husband of Clara Keane, of Gurney road, Dulwich, and loving father of Kevin and Ronald, beloved brother of Rita, Josie, and Kevin. Aged 44 years. Requiescat in pace

And so, I believe, this search ends.