Robert, the Real Robinson

1890

Ellen “Nellie” Connelly, the grandmother of Margaret Louse Robinson, lived as wife to Arthur Robinson for over thirty years.  But Nellie’s real husband – the source of the Robinson name – was another man, her lawful husband, Robert Robinson.  This is his story.

Robert Robinson was born in April 1890 at Woolloomooloo to James Robinson and Elizabeth Johnson, the ninth of their ten children.  Nothing is known of Robert’s early childhood.  But in December 1906 at the age of just 16 and nine months he married Ellen Connelly, herself barely seventeen years old (see The Connellys in New Zealand for more information on Nellie).

Their first child, named Ellen Winifred, was born only a few months after Robert and Nellie married.  So it’s safe to assume that theirs was a shotgun wedding.  Two more children followed, Madeline (born 1909) and Robert “Bobby” Richard (born 1912).

Nellie Robinson and her (then) three children, Ellen, Madeline and Robert. Based on the estimated ages of the children this photo was probably taken about 1916, possibly as a memento sent to husband, Robert, then serving overseas with the AIF.

Service during World War I

Soon after the First World War erupted Robert, still only in his mid-twenties but already married for almost a decade and with three children, enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF).  It was August 1915 and in those heady days, early in the “Great War”, many young Australian men enlisted, both as a patriotic duty to defend Motherland Britain and the opportunity to escape their regular lives to be part of what seemed like a great adventure on the other side of the world.

Robert’s unit, the 20th Battalion, Egypt, 1916

By January 1916 Robert was on his way to the fighting in France (via Egypt and England) in the 20th Battalion. This Battalion was raised in Egypt in February 1916 as part of efforts to double the size of the AIF.  Half of its recruits were Gallipoli veterans.  The other half was made up of fresh reinforcements from Australia, like Robert.

Robert’s service file shows a troubled history from Egypt onwards.  There are incidents of being absent without leave (AWOL) and drunkenness.   As well Robert’s file show he had several stays in hospital to treat recurrent bouts of gonorrhoea.  This was a common problem in the AIF at the time, with an estimated 10% of the whole force suffering from one or more sexually transmitted diseases, typically acquired from visits to local prostitutes. 

Arriving in France on 30 June 1916, Robert’s battalion entered the frontline trenches for the first time on 12 July and fought its first major battle at Fromelles on the French-Belgium border a week later.

Australian diggers at the Battle of Fromelles, July 1916

The battle was a disaster, resulting in heavy casualties across the division. In early 1917 the Battalion participated in the advance that followed the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, the defensive position they built during the winter of 1916–1917 on the Western Front in France.  Robert was back in hospital, for pneumonia, in August 1917.  About this time the AIF’s focus of operations switched to the Ypres sector in Belgium.

The unit’s war dairies for this period offer chilling insights into the ferocity of battle.  In particular, the orders given to field commanders told them to remind their troops:

"1.  To keep as close as they can to the artillery barrage
2.   To rush each post occupied by the enemy, immediately it is discovered, and envelop it
3.  To keep their rifles clean, and fire on every favourable target
4.  Always to be prepared for counter-attacks
5.   Enemy aeroplane will probably endeavour to harass the front lines, which they are consolidating.  The front line will continue to consolidate, and the hostile planes will be engaged by every possible rifle and machine gun in the support line"

Troop dispositions at the Battle of Polygon Wood, outside Ypres, Sep 1917 at which Robert Robinson was injured

Robert must have recovered from his illness in time to participate in the battalion’s major battle at Polygon Wood on 26 September as he was wounded in action here, hit in the back by shrapnel.

Initially Robert's wife, Nellie, was given scant details of Robert’s injury.  She wrote to the AIF in October 1917 asking for information.  However Nellie was not told of Robert’s condition in any detail, merely that he had been evacuated to a hospital in Birmingham, England.

Robert and Nellie Split

Robert eventually returned to Australia, arriving on 15 April 1918.  He was discharged from the military in July that year “in consequence of medical unfitness”.  Robert received various service awards including the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

It seems clear that Robert had great difficulty adjusting back to civilian life.  He was an unskilled labourer and money must have been very tight.  Robert spent months unsuccessfully pursuing a military pension on account of his war injury.  However all these claims were rejected as Robert was judged to have suffered no permanent incapacitation.   At that time a war pension was only granted in cases where “earnings power was assessed to have been lessened by military service”.

Several times over this period Robert was granted short-term “sustenance” payments for his wife and children.  But efforts by the Repatriation Department to help him find a job came to naught with one potential employer, Mutch & Mutch tailors, telling the department that
"This man does not want to work…[he] does not support his wife and children when he gets any money….”.

View fullsize

Bernard Connelly’s letter to his local MP pleading for his sister Nellie to be granted financial assistance, 31 Aug 1918. The full letter is contained in Robert’s repatriation file

Around this time Nellie and Robert separated.  It seems that by August 1918 things were desperate for her.  Nellie and the children were staying with one of her brothers, Bernard, who like her lived in Waterloo. Bernard wrote an impassioned letter to his local member of parliament on Nellie’s behalf.

In his letter Bernard notes that Robert was no longer with his wife. He says that Nellie was forced to work herself, earning just twenty-five shillings a week ($2.50), of which almost half had been going on rent.  In the most poignant comment in the letter Bernard goes on: “….starvation….is looking her [Nellie] in the face.”  But Bernard’s pleas fell on deaf ears; no government assistance was forthcoming.

In the same month Robert appears in a NSW Police Gazette report. It states that Robert has absconded to “remote parts” of the state to avoid a warrant for desertion of his wife and failing to pay maintenance ordered by the Children’s Court. It gives Robert’s description as "28 years of age, 5 feet 6 inches tall, medium build, fair complexion, dark brown hair, scar on side of face". He must have been on the run for quite some time as it is not until a year later, 25 Aug 1920, another Police Gazette entry reports that Robert "had been arrested by Constables Parmeter and Gilbert, Sydney Police" and had discharged his debt.

Around the same time, the police issued another arrest warrant for Robert, this one for threatening another of Nellie's brothers, Francis Connelly.   Francis at the time lived next door to his sister in Morehead St, Waterloo so perhaps he and Robert got into a scrap when Robert came to see Nellie.

There are few details of Robert’s life after this time.  Robert is listed as the father of William Patrick Robinson, Nellie's fourth child, on Pat's birth certificate in March 1921.  But this is almost certainly done just for appearance’s sake as all the evidence suggests that by that time Nellie was with Arthur Sams.

There is no information on any further contact between Robert and his wife or whether Nellie's three post-WW1 children (William Patrick, Patricia and Michael Arthur) even knew of him.   Evidently some years later Robert tried to visit his second daughter, Madeleine, but she told him never to come near her or her children again.

Robert and Vera Conway

Vera Conway, later Robinson, date unknown

By 1930 Robert was living in Surry Hills, at 53 Marlborough St, with another woman, Veronica (Vera) Mary Conway, born 1897 in West Wyalong.  Vera's family that had been closely associated with the short-lived gold rush in that town in the last decade of the 19th century (see The Conways of the Wyalong Gold Rush).  

During the 1930s and 1940s Vera Conway ran a small cafe / restaurant in Surry Hills.  At the time of Robert’s death in 1942, aged just 51, Veronica is listed as “no relation” on Robert’s death certificate.  However the newspaper notice of Robert’s funeral refers to her as “Mrs Vera Robinson”, a name Veronica legitimised by deed poll 20 years later, in 1962.

According to Robinson family folklore Robert had repeatedly asked Nellie for a divorce after their separation around 1919,, presumably to allow him to marry Vera.  However Nellie always refused the divorce request.

Vera eventually settled at 280 Bridge Rd, Glebe.  She lived next door to a shop at 282 Bridge Rd run by Arthur John (Jack) Conway, and his wife Thelma (Bonnie), the son of one of Vera’s brothers, Augustine (Gus) Conway (1891-1966). The connection to Glebe is through Bonnie's family, the White's, who all lived nearby in the suburb.

Conway family members recall that Vera remained in regular contact with her Glebe relatives until Vera’s death in 1972.   She is buried alongside Robert at Botany Cemetery, although the gravestone does not record her presence.

Vera’s funeral service was at the Catholic Church in Randwick.  Why this church was selected, so far from Vera's residence in Glebe and when neither she nor Robert were Catholics is unclear.  But it has been the venue for many Robinson events over the years, including by coincidence the marriage of William Patrick Robinson and Patricia Bowen, Margaret's parents, in 1952. 

Olga May "Robinson"

Olga Harvey / Robinson / Anderson, 1947

There's another element in the mystery of the Robert-Vera relationship.

The newspaper notice of Robert's death in 1942 also refers to another person, “Olga”, and describes her as the daughter of Robert and Vera and used the Robinson surname.

But Olga May was not their daughter, even though she did use the Robinson surname.  We know this because later in 1942 she married Allan Harry Anderson.  Their marriage certificate notes "Harvey" as an alternate surname for Olga and she lists her parents as Francis Harvey and Olga Marie Olling -- see the section below for more details.  According to another Conway family member who knew Vera personally Vera had "adopted" Olga, probably informally.

Olga Marie Pankhurst and her daughter, Olga May Harvey / Olling / Anderson

Olling family researchers have uncovered many, but not all, details of Olga May own intriguing background.  As she acknowledged on her 1942 marriage certificate Olga May was the daughter of Olga Marie Olling and grand-daughter of Hanius Christiansen Olling, who emigrated to Australia from Denmark in the late 19th century. 

Olga Maria Pankhurst (b. Olling), date unknown

Olga Marie married a George Pankhurst in 1908 and the couple moved to New Zealand a couple of years later, before returning to Newcastle, Australia after WW1.

The couple had several children together, but their marriage seems to have fallen apart in 1921, around the time that Olga May was born.  

On 27 July 1921 in Sydney, Olga Marie Pankhurst is the complainant in a charge of wife desertion against George Pankhurst.

It is unknown what subsequently happened to George.  The family story was that he died about 1921-22, but there is no record of his death anywhere in the Australian or New Zealand records.  It may be that the death story was to cover the desertion of his wife and children.

From contemporary newspaper reports we also know that in October 1921 Olga Marie left a 5-month old daughter with her sister-in-law, Louise Barker, narrowly avoiding a charge of child abandonment.  According to Mrs Barker, a witness in the later court case, she took the baby to Sydney and "handed her [Olga May?] over to the State Children’s Department”. 

Was this baby Olga May? Perhaps. But Olga May’s birth certificate gives her birth as 39 June 1922 which does not fit in with the 1921 timeframe of the Barker story.

There is also uncertainty as to who was Olga May's father.  As noted above on her 1942 marriage certificate Olga May lists her father as "Francis Harvey".   There are 1921 NSW gazette items referring to "Frank Harvie",  accused of wife and child desertion, the police noting that this to be the same claim that Olga also made against her husband, George Pankhurst.  There is an additional later entry in the gazette which shows the claim against 'Harvey' was subsequently dropped.

Was there really a "Frank Harvie / Harvey"?  Apart from the gazette items and the fact that Olga Marie used the name "Olga Harvie" for a few years there is as yet no documented evidence confirming Frank's existence .

To further confusion Olga Marie  later also used the name "Olga Lowther", becoming involved with yet another man, Francis Lowther.  Together they had a son Lindsay Francis Lowther born circa 1929-1930.  Sadly, Lindsay died in 1939 the result of a scooter accident in Rozelle, Sydney. 

After a stint in Brisbane Olga Marie moved in the early 1930s to Adelaide Place in Surry Hills, Sydney, just a couple of hundred metres from Vera Robinson's cafe.  Presumably this proximity is how the two met and a friendship between them led to Olga May's "adoption" by Vera.  Whether this was a formal adoption, through the Children's Department or that by this time Olga May had returned to live with her mother before being handed over to Vera is unknown

Further evidence of a connection between Vera, Olga May and Olga Marie comes from Olga May's 1942 marriage certificate.  One of the witnesses on that certificate is a "Elva May Chandler", a niece of her mother, Olga Marie, and who lived next door to Olga Marie in Surry Hills.

What happened to Olga May?

Olga May's subsequent married life does not seem to have been a happy one.  In 1946 her husband, Alan, was sentenced to ten years in jail for armed robbery during which he menaced a shopkeeper with a gun.  The marriage was dissolved in 1952 but Olga kept her married name, still describing herself as "O.Anderson" on Vera's death certificate twenty years later.

Olga May died in 2013 having reverted to using the Robinson surname. The comments from family and friends in her obituary paint the picture of a warm and widely loved person. Her two children by Alan are still alive at this time.