Years passed, then in 2019 I was ready to give A.B. another go. I'd found other people's long lost relatives, surely I could find my own? I went after the elusive ancestor again. This time, I would get him.
Constable Turner
The Leadbetters' excellent website FamilyHistorySA.org, [Note 2.] listed Albert Benoni Turner as joining the South Australian Police force then deserting 5 years later, on 31st March 1879. He would have been 34 and unmarried when he absconded.. A search of Trove for A.B. Turner AND police yielded a a handful of minor incidents involving Constable A. Turner, normal police business, no scandal or misdemeanour that might have prompted him to leave. I also discovered Albert had been a butcher before joining the Force, so my next task was to search Trove for Alfred Turners who were butchers. I found one in Queensland and another in New South Wales, but nothing to connect them to my South Australian family.Matrimony
I might have overlooked an article in the Sydney Truth if it had not been for the amusing headline: HIS BANKER. Refuses to Part—the Money. BUT IS SATISFIED TO PART FROM HIM. ALF TURNER'S FINANCIAL AND MATRIMONIAL MULL.An Alfred Turner had appeared in the matrimonial court, Sydney. His wife had deserted him and he sought a court order for her return. Elizabeth Turner was by all accounts a feisty woman; her views on matrimonial property were ahead of her time - she had taken the furniture and removed to the Working Women's Club. Marriage, she told her partner, was distasteful to her. This was in 1911 and The Alfred Turner in question said he was "over 60". My great great uncle would have been 66.
 |
| "A solemn-looking cove" Sketch from the Sydney Truth 21 May 1911 |
- - he had been a journalist for a New Zealand newspaper before his marriage,
- - married Elizabeth Schuhman in 1906
- - opened a butcher shop on Military Rd, North Sydney that did very well,
- - sold this business
- - had a paralytic stroke
- - went on a trip to Melbourne
- - returned to Sydney with plan of starting business again, but his wife refused him their money
- - went to South Australia, where he got work.
Alfred died a year later, 1912, from horrific injuries sustained when he fell between a railway carriage and the platform "and was dragged along some distance" as he was getting off a train. [Note 3.] A notice in the N.S.W. Government Gazette regarding his estate referred to him as Alfred Beresford Turner. There was no will and no apparent heirs, other than his wife.[Note 4.]
Journalist & Author
This had occurred some 30 years after Alfred Benoni deserted the police force and disappeared. I considered the possibility that Alfred Benoni Turner had become a writer, using the pen name Alfred Beresford Turner, and also the possibility that the man in the Sydney courtroom was not telling the truth and was not a journalist at all. Eliminating people who are not the one you're looking for is just as important as finding matches, so I headed for the New Zealand digitised newspapers [Note 5.] There was indeed an A. Beresford Turner who had written articles for NZ papers in roughly 1900 - 05, eg Lake County Press, 18 Sep 1902, article: "Life in Sydney": Evening Star, 3 January 1903, opening chapters of "The Banishment of the Honorable Charles - an Anglo-Australian tale" by A. Beresford Turner. The whole novel had been serialised. The writing seems to have been done in Sydney.The serialised novel was the most interesting in terms of identifying my great great uncle. A young man from a wealthy family leaves his sweetheart in England and goes to Australia. Landing in Melbourne, he answers an advertisement for a Station Manager, a new arrival being preferred (unlikely). [Note 6.] The Station is in the heart of Kelly country, and our hero arrives just as the notorious gang are being chased down by the police. Hon.Charles is captured by the gang, and the police close in. From here, the novel becomes an account of police operations. A great deal of attention is given to their weapons and strategies. While the broader points re the pursuit of the Kellys could have been obtained from contemporary newspapers, this was clearly written by someone who was well acquainted with police work.
The Kelly Gang
So what would Alfred Benoni Turner have known about the career of the infamous Ned Kelly and his gang. Is it possible he had some first-hand knowledge? Could the author and the policeman be the same man?The Kelly gang's stoushes with the law began in late 1878, when Alfred Benoni Turner was Constable Turner in the South Australian Police.
The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 - 1922) Wednesday 11 December 1878 p 2:
"THE KELLY GANG
[From our own Correspondent.]
Melbourne, December 11.
Kelly's gang yesterday stuck up and
robbed the Bank at Euroa."
By January 1879 letters in the Adelaide papers condemned the incompetence of Victorian Police. The name of local hero Alexander Tolmer was invoked as an example of a South Australian who would soon have the Kellys rounded up. Speculation heated up and colonists were eager for anything Kelly.
 |
The Express and Telegraph (Adelaide, SA : 1867 - 1922) Friday 10 January 1879 p 1 Advertising |
 |
| Edward "Ned" Kelly in 1880, the day before he was executed. |
Numerous sightings turned out to be false alarms, there were stories that the Kellys had crossed into New South Wales, and even that they may progress to South Australia. Every day there was something in the Adelaide papers.
Adelaide Observer (SA : 1843 - 1904) Saturday 11 January 1879 p 3 Article: "The Kelly Gang"
"Whether the Kelly gang will feel flattered by the likenesses [in Fry's painting]
it is for them to say when they get over here." (my emphasis)
Constable Turner, witnessing the frenzy in Adelaide, might have had a number of thoughts:
- his Victorian counterparts were not only being murdered, they were being made to look inept and ridiculous.
- South Australians would not put up with this sort of nonsense
- if something isn't done they will be here soon anyway
- an opportunity existed for him to be a hero, or at least to have an adventure
Burra Record (SA : 1878 - 1954) Friday 14 February 1879 p 3 Article: The Kelly Gang:'Truth is stranger than fiction.' What novelist would dare to imagine such an incident as the following, or if he did who would think such a thing possible in the 19th century, and yet it is from this week's Register:... [followed by report of hold-up of a police barracks.]"
Continued in Alfred Benoni Turner Part Two This blog article is copyright ⒸAnne Tichborne 2019
Notes
- Trove website is the home of the National Library of Australia's digitised collection. Its old newspapers and magazines are particularly loved by family historians
- Persons Lost and Found at Family HistorySA website is a valuable list of ships' deserters, runaway spouses, escaped convicts and other absconders. The extensive database by Barry and Maureen Leadbetter includes immigrant ships, new arrivals, births, deaths and marriages, police, whalers, land selection and more.
- Reference to the death of Alfred Beresford Turner:
RAILWAY ACCIDENT AT ASHFIELD. (1912, February 13). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 10 - In the intestate estate of Alfred Beresford Turner, late of 42 Chandos-street, Ashfield, cab-driver, deceased. (1912, March 6). Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales (Sydney, NSW : 1901 - 2001), p. 1663
- Papers Past is the New Zealand website for digitised newspapers.
- This article may be completely unrelated, but there's a marked coincidence with the story of the "Honorable Charles" and the year is 1881!
A man named Alfred Turner was arrested on Thursday afternoon at the Mount Rothwell Station, on a charge of having deserted his wife in Melbourne. He was brought before the Geelong Police Court yesterday, and remanded to appear at the Melbourne Police Court to-day. It was stated by the arresting constable that Turner had hired himself out as a general servant, and had taken a young woman to the station to act as laundress. [TOWN TALK. (1881, March 5). Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1929), p. 2.]
No comments:
Post a Comment