Category Archives: Historical Ciphers

Neither Carl Webb’s family nor his wife’s family seems to have much of a clue about him; Trove and the NAA have yielded relatively little; and a (probable) two-year spell at Swinburne Junior Technical College gave us a photo id that remains more than a bit unclear. Barring any sudden new revelations (I’m not holding my breath), the current Somerton Man news cycle now seems to be drifting downwards.

Worse still, well-placed people who really ought to know better are still punting tepid speculations out to the media, which I then seem to spend most of my time disproving (or at least strongly undermining). I really wish they wouldn’t waste everyone’s time, in some quest to look ‘clever’ or ‘knowledgeable’. Inane speculation makes researching history harder, not easier: and so these people are just making it harder for actual historians to make progress. Oh, and the actual data they find seems never to actually get released.

It’s painfully hard not to conclude that all the easy wins have probably now been had, and there is no Royal Road forward – just Hard Graft Street as far as the eye can see. Get used to this view, because it’s not going away any time soon.

It’s true that we still have plenty of sensible (and unanswered) questions, e.g.:

• Did Carl Webb take up the scholarship he got from Swinburne, e.g. to learn electrical engineering?
• Where did he work before the war?
• Where did he work during the war?
• Where did he work after the war?
• Did he have a police record?
• Where did he live after his marriage broke down?
• Did he buy or sell any more items (e.g. in the Melbourne Age)?
• Did he have another relationship after his marriage broke down?
• Why did he have such high levels of lead in his hair at the time of his death?
• What had happened to him to cause his spleen to be so enlarged?
• Was Dorothy Jean Robertson trained as a chemist? If so, where did she train?

However, few of these seem likely to cast any significant light on the end of Carl Webb’s life.

Where should we be looking next? What are we missing?

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.

Cipher Mysteries readers may recall that I recently suggested that, to find out more on the suggested connection between Carl Webb and the “C Webb” at Swinburne Technical College in the early 1920s, it would be good to ask the archivists at Swinburne (now Winburne University). Well, I did: but sadly the only things they were aware of were the same football team photographs we had all been debating here. They too tried cross-referencing between different photographs, but (like us) only managed to work out a couple of names.

I also suggested that more information might be found in the Examination Results books for Swinburne Technical College, though these were held not by Swinburne but by the Public Records Office of Victoria. So you can probably imagine my delight when Melbourne-based CM commenter Jo took time out from the demands of doing a PhD to look at these very same results books!

Charles Webb’s Examination Results

What Jo found were not only the two “beautifully bound” Examination Results books for the 1909-1929 Engineering Department I had hoped for, but also the 1916-1922 Departmental and Annual Supps book, “a rather more used looking book, comprising type written pages glued onto the pages of more officious looking ledger”, and where results were often signed off “Yours obediently”.

Hence we can merge these two sources together to get a timeline for what Webb was studying there:

1920:

• Practical Plane Geometry [Pass]:

• Arithmetic (Practical Mathematics) (73)

• Algebra (Practical Mathematics) (90) joint 2nd with Lisle Clegg behind Douglas Dumsday:

• Geometry (60)

1921:

• Algebra Grade I [73]:

• Practical Solid Geometry – Fail! (Footballer A. Dubberlin failed the same class)

• Junior Technical Certificate – Pass with Credit [“C Webb”]

• Education Department Technical Schools Annual Examinations in Practical Mathematics [Pass]:

• Elementary Modelling. (No photo)

1922:

• Engineering Drawing Grade I [75] Credit:

• Electricity and Magnetism I [62]:

Absent from the archives

Even though historical archives are – almost necessarily – incomplete, there are some obvious gaps. For a start, the list of Scholarships awarded to Evening Students in 1921 by the College Council included only Leonard Bennett and Stanley Preece (i.e. no sign of Webb), which is perhaps a little odd.

But more importantly, there seems to be no sign of Webb there after 1922, even though (for example) fellow footballer Austin Marshall continued taking his Engineering and Building subjects through to 1924.

Why? In my opinion, the most likely explanation is that Carl Webb (born 1905) was only at Swinburne Technical College for two years. From the electoral rolls, his family had lived at Camperdown (120 miles west of Melbourne) until around 1918, before next appearing in Malvern (64 Glenferrie Rd) in 1922, and then Oakleigh (50 Kangaroo Rd) in 1924. Glenferrie Rd itself runs directly north straight to Swinburne Tech, and is five miles by bike or tram: whereas Oakleigh is just a little bit further (more like seven miles).

So my guess is that the Webb family moved from Malvern to Oakleigh during 1922, at which point Charles stopped going to Swinburne. Yet we know that, according to Russell Webb (reported in the Camperdown Herald) Carl Webb was still “going to school” in November 1926. (And, as noted below, Webb received a scholarship to study further, and was an “electrical fitter” later in the same decade.) So… which college could Carl Webb have moved to after Swinburne?

Jo points out that “Technical schools were still quite new, their establishment was provided for by the Education Act of 1910 (though some like Swinburne and the Melbourne Working Men’s College [later RMIT] were already up and running by then). The first Chief Inspector of Technical Schools was appointed in 1911.“

In practice, technical colleges in Victoria all seem to be clustered either close to Melbourne or miles & miles away (e.g. Geelong, Bendigo, Echuca, Daylesford, Sale, Wangaratta, Yallourn, Ballarat School of Mines, etc). However, I did manage to find one (non-Swinburne) Technical College in the south-eastern suburbs – Caulfield Technical School (which opened in 1922). (Note that Moorabbin Technical School seems to have opened only in 1939, which is too late for Webb: and there may possibly have been something in Frankston, but I’m not sure.)

Looking in Trove, Caulfield Technical School ran courses in Coach Building, Farriery, Blacksmithing, Memory Drawing, Geometrical Drawing, Engineering Drawing, Model Drawing, Drawing From a Flat Example, Drawing Plant Forms From Nature, Mechanics and Heat, Millinery, Dress Making, Applied Mechanics, Algebra, Geometry, Carpentry (a very popular course), Turning and Fitting, Machine Shop Practice, Typing, Shorthand, Plumbing, English (Student teachers), Commercial English, Economic Geology, Signwriting, Milling and Gear Cutting, and Bookkeeping. And probably others too.

However, the single thing that unites all the numerous examination results listings from Caulfield Technical School that appear in Trove (I’ve checked up to 1927) is the complete absence of anything close to “C Webb”. So, despite the College’s excellent physical proximity to Malvern, it’s currently looking to me very much as though Carl Webb didn’t go there after Swinburne. Which is a shame, but eet ees what eet ees.

So… where next?

Hence we’re back to the eternal question – carve it on thy gravestone, O researchers!

Was there a different technical school in the south-east Melbourne suburbs that I’ve completely missed? Or did Carl Webb instead take up some kind of part-time / evening apprenticeship with a local firm? If the latter, we’re probably close to the end of the line here… but never say never, etc etc.

And yet… having now read up on how Senior Technical Scholarships work (they were awarded at a State level), I’m looking again at the 1921 scholarships awarded locally by Swinburne (on p.8 of The Swinburnian), which is where the Swinburne ball first (or do I mean “furst”?) started rolling:

SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS FOR 1921.
Engineering.—Day Course: H. R. Corr, L. A. Clegg, A. E. Dubberlin, A. O. Griffiths, A. G. Marshall, H. T. Popple. Evening Course: W. H. Sydserff, W . G. Gosbell, J. G. Endersbee, C. Webb.

My best guess now is that these were scholarships awarded by Swinburne to their best students to enable them to continue their education at any (i.e. not just Swinburne) Technical College or University in Melbourne / Victoria. So perhaps the route forward here is to (somehow) look at all Melbourne further education institutions offering evening courses in electrical engineering (or similar) in 1922. My starting point list of these looks like this (though I don’t yet know which specifically offered evening classes):

• Melbourne University
• Footscray Technical School
• West Melbourne Technical School
• Collingwood Technical School
• Castlemaine Technical School

It’s also possible that Webb used his scholarship money to stay in Maribyrnong with Freda Keane and Gerald Thomas Keane during this period (in which case Footscray Technical School would seem the most likely), but that’s no more than a hopeful guess at this point.

What do you think?

Ever since a Cipher Mysteries commenter noticed that a C Webb seemed to be linked to Swinburne Technical College, there’s been a lot of active discussion here about whether or not we have a photograph of our man. Though I’ll try to summarise the discussion below, note that I haven’t yet had a reply from the librarians / archivists at Swinburne (I asked whether they had student records from the 1920s, and if so if there was a Carl Webb listed), so this identification still falls short of 100%.

Football Crazy

The starting point is essentially this: that given that Carl Webb (b. 1905) is listed in the Victoria electoral rolls up to 1939 as an electrical fitter, he must have learnt his trade somewhere. So where?

Commenter Furphy kicked off the whole process with a comment noting that there was a “C Webb” of basically the right age in a picture of the Swinburne Technical College U-16 football team, Minor Premiers 1921. Though this helpfully lists the players’ names (“D Whitfield, K Millar, A Alderson, J Wilson, R James, R Hulse, J Scott, C Webb, A Mahsall, A Dubberlin, H Ainsworth, C Oriander, T Anderson, F Ward, A West, W Hunt, B Stockfield, W Taylor, G Wilson, H Derrick, Sportsmaster D C Chat”), it doesn’t actually say who is who.

Interestingly, we know from Trove (found by commenter Pat from Brazil) that Carl Webb was still playing football in October 1930:

During football playing on Show Day, Mr. C. Webb, of the bakery, fell and again injured his leg, thus placing him on the resting list.

However, Swinburne Technical College is in Central Melbourne and the Webb family home was in Camperdown (1916/1918), then Malvern (64 Glenferrie Rd in 1922) then Oakleigh (50 Kangaroo Rd in 1924/1925/1926/1927) then Springvale (Springvale Rd from 1928 onwards), so it’s not an obviously perfect fit. Yet Charles Webb doesn’t appear on the electoral rolls at Oakleigh, not even for 1927 (you had to be over 21 years to vote): his first entry is in Springvale (as an “electrical fitter”) in 1928. So while it seems a reasonable guess that he was living in the family home during that period, it’s not 100% certain.

Furphy was also far from sure that any of the footballers’ faces strongly resembled the Somerton Man (though admittedly 27 years older and deceased). All the same, it’s a great starting point, one that begged to be advanced further…

Electrical Fitter

According to the Camperdown Herald, 01 Nov 1926 (again found by Pat), Carl Webb (Russell Webb’s youngest brother) was still “going to school” then, which I think fits the pattern of Carl Webb training as an electrical fitter in 1926 rather well:

Russell R .Webb, baker, Camperdown, said his father was suffering from an injury to the knee. He had two brothers, both going to school. There were three sisters, one was married. Exemption till November 30.

And so it wasn’t a huge surprise (to me, at least) when Furphy quickly found a different reference to C Webb at Swinburne, in The Swinburnian, vol. 1, no. 1, December 1922, p. 8:

“Engineering.—Day Course: H. R. Corr, L. A. Clegg, A. E. Dubberlin, A. O. Griffiths, A. G. Marshall, H. T. Popple. Evening Course: W. H. Sydserff, W . G. Gosbell, J. G. Endersbee, C. Webb. ”

Matching Other Players

This was the point where commenter Behrooz had the smart idea of cross-referencing the faces in the photo against other Swinburne photos. Other photos are accompanied by lists of names in order, which makes it very easy to see who is who. For example, this 1922 photo has “A Marshall” on the right end of the middle row:

Similarly, this 1923 image has A Marshall and G Wilson at the left-hand end of the middle row:

So here’s A Marshall in 1922:

And here’s A Marshall and G Wilson in 1923:

With this, I think we can identify G Wilson in the original photo as sitting in the front row (albeit with a slightly shorter hair cut):

And also A Marshall (front row, right end):

At Last, The Photo of Carl Webb (maybe)

However, even though the comparisons are really interesting, I disagree with Behrooz when he then tries to force a zigzag numbering onto the original list of names. Rather, I suspect that commenter Rena was correct to visually identify the footballer on the left end of the middle row as ‘our’ C Webb. For me, it’s the ears & nose that really do it, but perhaps you’ll disagree:

Any other opinions? Or any other Swinburne Technical College photos that prove this wrong?

If you look Carl Webb up in the Victoria electoral rolls (and indeed on his marriage certificate), you find him describing his job as “electrical fitter” (up to 1939), and then “instrument maker”. What do these mean? I certainly didn’t know; and from the looks of things, nobody else had much idea either.

Luckily, there seems to be a single right answer…

Industrial Pay Grades

Enthusiastic online commenter Pat in Brazil found a helpful presentation on the RAAF (warning: Prezi motion sickness alert on PCs!), where the most interesting part was grabbed from a 1940 article in Trove (of course it was).

I don’t believe that the RAAF invented any of these terms, they seems almost certain to have been the standard industrial pay grades for technical factory work used in Australia circa 1940.

Carl Webb’s Workplaces…?

Up until about 1939, we know (also from the Victoria electoral rolls) that Carl Webb was living in the Webb family home in Dandenong, before then moving to South Yarra. So if we’re looking for his places of work, these should be the two starting points.

After 1939, I think it probable that Webb (who seems not to have done any military service, despite being fit as a butcher’s dog) was working in one of the rapidly expanding Melbourne munitions factories.

His father-in-law Jack Comber Robertson was Inspector of Munitions, so perhaps Webb met his wife-to-be at a munitions factory social event, such as a 1940 dance? Perhaps this will appear in Trove, who knows?

As for before 1939, I briefly speculated whether Webb might have worked in a munitions factory in Dandenong itself. However, commenter Catherine (“Dandenong gal born and bred”) never heard of a munitions factory in her area, so that seems like it was a tad over-hopeful on my part.

All the same, Dandenong did have a good number of other factories, so I think it would be far from mad to bet that Webb worked in one of those.

Maribyrnong?

From about 1939 on, it could easily be that Webb worked at Defence Explosive Factory Maribyrnong. But that is a huge topic, which I’ll leave for another day (and to make sure this post doesn’t blow up too much). 😁

In some ways, it feels as though we already (nearly) met Carl Webb several times over the last decade – in Melbourne’s Gilded Age of Baccarat schools, in the interstate car black market, in peering into the working class evidential void in Trove.

Maybe we can now each spin our own tidy yarn tying together personally preferred loose threads: down on his uppers… in Adelaide to see a man about a car… having a pasty in the All Night Cafe… having what look like heart pains… getting misdiagnosed & being given the wrong meds… accidentally overdosing… being dumped on Somerton Beach by those who would rather not be linked to him (dead or alive).

That’s broadly the kind of thing I’ve punted here before, though arguably more to provoke asking better questions than as ‘The One True Narrative’. And I’m sure everyone has their own tweaked version of it that works for them.

But… by doing this, I think we’d be dancing around some sinkhole-sized gaps, not in our preferred story (which will always sound nice to our own ears), but in Carl Webb’s actual story.

What was the American connection? Had Webb travelled to America? Did Doff give Webb the Rubaiyat? Did Webb have a replacement partner lined up? Might he actually have been gay, and married Doff to hide his sexuality? What instruments did he make – odometer, violin, or what? What caused the high level of lead in his hair? Did he have a police record?

And that’s just the easy stuff, alas. (Like Tolkien’s road, the list goes ever on.)

If we’re lucky – i.e. lucky beyond words – there’s a 100-year-old person somewhere out there who still remembers Charlie Webb, and can tell us how he lived (though perhaps not how he died).

Though maybe sending a nice letter to lots of Melbourne nursing homes can wait until we have a photo of him (you don’t want to fire that gun twice).

In the end, though, I don’t honestly believe we’ll ever be able to satisfactorily answer every big question about Webb. History is good, but it’s not that good.

And so I suspect we’ll still – in almost all scenarios – most likely be forever presented with a rolling ‘beauty contest’ of overlapping Charlie Webbs, each variant carefully curated and lovingly tweaked to match each new micro-revelation as it emerges. Look at me, no meeee.

Yet the rarely acknowledged reality is that, as in the film “Cabaret”, life isn’t beautiful: at best, everyone’s life is a work in progress. Carl Webb doubtless thought he had plenty of hands yet to play, but The Great Dealer closed his Baccarat shoe earlier than expected.

And so I think everyone should beware narrative beauty: historical beauty is often a sign of contrived neatness, superficiality, selection bias, over-finessing, voids, deletions, airbrushing.

A good history of the actual Somerton Man would instead present his difficulties and his struggle in a deeply humane and accepting way – true, in other words. But right now that’s not ready to be written, not by a long way.

And I can’t help but wonder if it will ever get written.

Much to my surprise, my online order with the PROV (20 AUS, i.e. £12) for a copy of Carl Webb and Dorothy Jean Robertson’s 1941 marriage certificate pinged into my inbox in less than 15 minutes (and on a Sunday, no less). Luckily they got married more than 60 years ago, so this counts as an historic document that anybody can order (yes, even me). So I can now tell you exactly what it says…

The 1941 Marriage Certificate

The marriage was celebrated at St Matthews, Prahran on 4th October 1941: the Church of England “Clerk in Holy Orders” (minister) was John Burrell Montgomery.

Carl Webb is listed as a 35-year-old bachelor (no children) (occupation: instrument maker) born in Yarraville to Richard August Webb (deceased) (baker and pastrycook) and Eliza Amelia Grace.

Dorothy Jean Robertson is listed as a 21-year-old spinster (no children) (occupation: foot specialist) born in Ballarat to John Coomber [sic] Robertson (Inspector of Munitions) and Alice Stratford.

The bride and groom’s addresses are all listed as 274 Domain Rd, South Yarra. The witnesses were Doris Martin and J. C. Robertson.

Here are the bride and groom’s signatures:

Dorothy Jean Robertson’s Parents

John Comber (‘Jack’) Robertson was born in 1894 Omeo, Victoria to Robert Robertson and Mary Kate Comber (Australia Birth Index), and died on 6 Jan 1989 (“retired caretaker”). He appears on the Victoria Electoral rolls for 1919 (Beeac, Corangamite), 1922, 1925, 1927, 1928, 1931 (Brunswick West, Bourke), then a gap to 1954 (Essendon North, Lalor), 1963 (1963 St Kilda North, Isaacs), 1968, 1972, 1977 (Fawkner, Burke), and 1980.

Apart from serving in WWI (blue eyes, brown hair, 5ft 8.5in, 11st 12lb, Fourth Light Horse Regiment, etc), pretty much all else that you’ll find out about John Comber Robertson is that on 23 Jan 1924, he was in the Victoria Petty Sessions Court in Colac (ref: 301/P0/Vol 62). Complainant R Batterbury, default summons 20/12/1923, 5 shillings fee, charge “Goods sold & delivered”, struck out, no defence. (Findmypast)

Alice Stratford was born in 1896, married Jack Robertson on 2nd June 1919 in Mildura, and died in Brunswick, Victoria in 1980 (Ref: 05849). According to this rather charming Wikitree page:

Alice Stratford, daughter of Charles Stratford and Louise. Her parents had the hotel at St. Arnaud. Alice learned to drive a car among the trees in the park just before the arch in Ballarat, where they lived after their marriage. Alice married Jack Robertson on 2 June 1919 at Mildura. During WWII both Jack and Alice were in munitions. Alice died in 1980 aged 84.

Alice and Jack appeared at the same address in the Victoria Electoral rolls right up until 1977, so it seems fairly safe to assume that they spent their entire married life together.

Dorothy Jean Robertson

MyHeritage lists Dorothy Jean Robertson being born in 1920 in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, to John Comber Robertson and Alice Robertson (nee Stratford): so I think everything ties together just about as perfectly as possible (even if all the information was behind four different paywalls, bah). According to able online genealogist Angela (thanks!), we also know that Dorothy Jean Robertson’s date of birth was 18 July 1920.

What remains is the question of when and where Dorothy Jean Robertson / Webb died. Though I’ve managed to eliminate a lot of possibilities (e.g. the Dorothy Jean Robertson born Aug 3 1920 who died in New Zealand in 2000), the one candidate I have who’s still left in play is:

• Dorothy Jean Robertson born 1920, died 1 June 2001, Hornsby, Hornsby Shire, NSW
  • Buried in Enfield Memorial Park (FindAGrave)

Maybe this is her, maybe it isn’t: hopefully we’ll find out before too long. Still, I think that all of this is a decent enough start, and hopefully researchers with access to different databases (and/or different ways of searching them) will be able to fill in all the missing details. Good hunting!

According to https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-30/somerton-man-researcher-rules-out-link-to-wife/101281666, Carl Webb and Dorothy Jean Robertson were (according to their marriage certificate) married on October 4, 1941 at St Matthews in Prahran, when Carl was 35 and Dorothy was 21: they were living on Domain Rd in South Yarra. (Note: Trove gives you far more hits with “Domain Rd” than with “Domain Road”, but I haven’t found any small ads from there.)

Yet most of the Webb-Robertson family trees that have quickly sprung up in the last few days (e.g. the one on familysearch maintained by “MichaelBennett14”) seem to think she was born in 1905 or 1907 and died in 1965 or 1996. So… what did actually happen? Who was Dorothy Jean Robertson?

The Candidates

According to findagrave.com, a Dorothy Jean Robertson died on 1 Jun 2001 aged 80–81 in Hornsby, Hornsby Shire, NSW. However, there were at least two Dorothy Jean Robertsons in NSW who first appear in the electoral rolls in 1943, one in Cargelligo, the other in Bathurst. The former was likely Dorothy Jean Robertson born 2 Aug 1921 in Ardlethan (no date of death given, but the user family tree says that she died near Lake Cargelligo). So my current guess is that the Hornsby DJR was the Bathurst DJR (and that she therefore wasn’t the DJR we’re looking for), but please feel free to correct me.

I’m 99% certain we can rule out the Dorothy Jean Robertson who was the only daughter of Mrs and Mrs A. Robertson (of 20 Perth-st, Prahran), because she was due to marry William McKerchan (only son of Mr and Mrs T H Hardwick, of 157 Moore-st, Ararat) on 12 April 1947 at St Matthews’, Prahran. Which, given that ‘our’ DJR was still married (albeit not happily) in 1947 would be tricky.

Similarly, we can rule out the Dorothy Jean Webb who died in Colac on 19 Nov 1996, because she was buried with her husband Stanley Douglas Webb (courtesy of billiongraves.com). And to support that, there’s a long series of electoral roll references to the two (plus Leslie Douglas Webb and Beatrice Mary Webb) at 413 Cooke-st, Ballarat West (e.g. 1949, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1980).

So we’re kind of left (unless you know better) with the widow called Dorothy Jean Robertson who died in 1965 in Balwyn (according to PROV), though if she was born around 1920, you’d probably think that that was quite young. And archives are almost by definition incomplete, so the notion that we’ve eliminated all other alternatives would be rather foolish. Hence we now need to take a different tack to make any progress…

A Second Marriage?

In 1952, Dorothy Jean Webb divorced Carl Webb in absentia: but did she subsequently remarry? Ancestry.com and familysearch don’t seem to have any Dorothy Jean Robertsons getting married in Australia in 1952 to 1972 (and the same for Dorothy Jean Webbs).

But I had a plan: I went into ancestry.com and brought up all the women called “Dorothy Jean” in the 1954 Electoral Roll in Victoria (the South Australia electoral rolls only really go up to 1949, so they weren’t any use for what I had in mind). Then – cunningly, I thought – I’d be able to search the list for any chiropodist.

Except… if you put anything in the Keyword field (e.g. hoping to pick up, say, “machinist” or “teacher”), Ancestry doesn’t have them in the index. So (unless you know better) it seems that you can’t actually search for occupation in these Australian electoral roll. Which, as we say in the UK, is a bit ‘pants’.

Regardless, I decided to soldier on: how bad could manually searching through 1392 Dorothy Jeans in the 1954 Victoria Electoral Rolls be? Let’s just say that after 350 non-chiropodists, I gave up with eyestrain and headache. Maybe I’ll continue another day (or maybe I won’t).

So: while it’s possible she remarried in 1952 or later, I haven’t yet seen any evidence that supports this.

The Bute Connection?

According to Derek Abbott, by 1951 Dorothy Jean Webb had moved to Bute in South Australia. However, the South Australian electoral rolls only really go up to 1949 (and even then only patchily): and there seem to be only two Dorothy Jeans listed in Bute (Dorothy Jean White and Dorothy Jean Snodgrass, both in 1939 and 1941). And even if you search for “Robertson” in Bute’s electoral rolls, you get zero results.

So while it’s entirely possible that Dorothy Jean Webb did indeed move to Bute, it seems that the electoral rolls are so sketchy around there for that time period that we can’t use them to try to track her.

What else might we try to use a connection between Bute and the Robertsons? Searching findagrave.com (and billiongraves) for anyone with the surname Robertson buried in Bute yielded only two people:

• David Martin Robertson, 1932-2002 (at Ashford Hospital, according to the ‘Tiser)
• Lynette Ruth Robertson, 1930-2012 (at Moonta Hospital, according to the ‘Tiser)

A MyHeritage family tree says that David Martin Robertson’s parents were Thomas Robertson and Mary Robertson (nee Spence), and that Lynette Ruth Robertson (nee Hocking) was his wife.

Ancestry.com also had:

• Lily Robertson, d. 25 Aug 1910

OK, it’s clear I’m making heavy weather of this, so I’m guessing that Derek Abbott has some specific information here that I’m not aware of. Perhaps all this stuff will come out over the next few days.

*** Update ***

Retrying the same keyword search for “Dorothy Jean” and “chiropodist” via the FindMyPast search interface was much more successful. Even though the keyword match triggers if “chiropodist” is anywhere on the same page, this was enough to reduce the number of hits to manually go through to a mere 7 (down from 1392).

Alas, the only actual Dorothy Jean who was listed as a chiropodist anywhere in the electoral rolls was Dorothy Jean Webb, for the year we already knew about. So this was a nice idea that didn’t actually work out.

Once I found (from the Victoria electoral rolls) that Carl and Dorothy Jean Webb‘s address in 1942 was 63 Bromby street, the blindingly obvious next step was to look for any small ads at that address. So, in the spirit of keeping up with the Abbotts, here’s what I found (it’s not a massive haul, but it is what it is)…

The Small Ads

16 Feb 1942 – The Argus (same in The Age)

MORRIS 8 40 Roadster 1937 only two private owners mechanically splendid. Inspection after 6. £110 Cash only. C Webb 63 Bromby-st, South Yarra (behind Kellow’s)

15 May 1943 – The Argus

ELECTRIC Shave Master. £4/10/; Golf Clubs. £4. Saturday afternoon, Webb, 2/63 Bromby st.. South Yarra.

5 Jan 1946 – The Argus

BILLIARD Cue and Case. Joe Davis: also almost new flat-top Tennis Racket. Flat 2. 63 Bromby st.. S. Yarra. Sat, afternoon.

31 May 1947 – The Argus

TOOLS. Hand, Engineer’s, Carpenter’s chance. Before 11. Flat 2, 63 Bromby st..South Yarra.

D George

According to Derek Abbott, Carl Webb and Dorothy Jean Webb separated around April 1947. However, someone at the same address (apparently “D George”) then carried on selling cars through the Melbourne small ads for the next few years:

10 Jul 1948 – The Age

Jaguar, 2.5-litre 1937 Saloon; 2205: PP £450; exch. D George, Flat 2 Bromby-st. S Yarra.

17 Jul 1948 – The Age

Rover, 1938, identical with current mod, faultless in all detail; PP £444, exch, D George 63 Bromby-st, S Yarra

13 Nov 1948 – The Age

Lancia, 16 or 17 hp Farina, convertable coupe, 1931, brand new tyres, immaculate car. George, 63 Bromby-st, S Yarra. Sat afternoon.

• 28 Apr 1951: Austin A/90, convertible, fully automatic…
• 02 Jun 1951: Chevrolet 48 Stylemaster, completely overhauled, capped tyres…
• 16 Jun 1951: Panel Van, Austin A/40, brand new; £825…
• 15 Sep 1951: Panel Van, Ford 10/10 appearance and tyres good, low mileage…
• 1 Mar 1952: Consul, new, beige and blue, £50 over list…

Might there be some kind of car dealer connection? Or is all that just a normal Somerton Man coincidence?