Attempting to locate my grandfather BERT WEBB

[jcsturgis]

My grandfather (who I never knew) was born in 1900 in Leicestershire, England and, on the 10/02/1925 he boarded the ship 'The Borda' from London, bound for Melbourne. On 13/12/1929 he returned to London (apparently from Melbourne) on the ship 'The Mongolia' which left Sydney (Pyrmont) on 30/10/1929. I have always been intrigued to know what he did, where he was living etc. during the time he was in Australia, but have no real idea where to start. Rumours say that he was working on a sheep farm and indeed his occupation (following his return) was a wool warehouseman. If anyone has any suggestions on where I might start, I would be eternally grateful.

[almach]

Was Bert his birth name, or was he for instance: Herbert, Albert, Bertram? A precise name may be necessary to have any chance of finding Australian records. That said, as he was in Australia for only 4yrs there may not be any online records.

[jcsturgis]

Yes, Bert was his birth name and he had no middle name. Any ideas where I can start looking?

[christanel]

Hi
I have done some preliminary searching for Australian records on ancestry and 2 or 3 Bert Webbs are there. One in Tasmania who is buried there, one in Sands Directories in Sydney, one in Coolgardie Western Australia. I discounted them all because of the time frames ie they were there before 1925 and after 1929.

My great grandfather was in Sydney from 1880 to 1888 with my great grandma and grandad and she died there but no other records other than her death reg is to be found.

You can take a look at Trove newspapers collection, Here, and there are some articles on a Bert Webb but nothing to link them to your bloke.

Google Cyndi's list and click on Categories to get dozens of links to Australian sites. There are the stickies at the top of the Australian forums page also

Christina

[jcsturgis]

Hi Christina and thanks for looking for me. Yes, on ancestry I found the same entries and none of them are him and, as with your great grandparents, it's proving difficult. I hae looked at Trove and did find one entry relating to his return to England (from Sydney) on the ship 'Mongolia'.

I'll have a look at Cyndi's list and the other links you suggested and see if I get anywhere.

Thanks again,

Julia.

[Tony Moore]

Dear J C Sturgis,

The official record of Bert Webb arriving in Australia is held in the National Australia Archives

https://www.naa.gov.au

I hope the images below upload properly



and



You said he returned via Melbourne, because he certainly disembarked in Melbourne, so it suggests that he might have worked as a general jackeroo / rouseabout / itinerant worker / or even a shearer.

1929 marked the end of a high point in the Wool Industry. The wool price totally collapsed and many who worked in that industry or related were now out of work and were lucky to keep the skin on their backs. My grandfather (b 1898) who had a property with about 3000 sheep lost everything and walked away penniless .... the bank foreclosed on the loan and took the lot ! 1929 also marked the beginning of the Great Depression. Rural workers without work lived in tents, in caves under trees or wherever they could and had to hunt or trap food animals just to keep alive. Desperation.

That's why he returned home to some form of security, or what he believed to be the security he remembered. The great dream he had just disappeared overnight...... I presume conditions in Britain were horrific, too.

My grandfather, even though he had been officially bankrupt never returned to country N.S.W. to take up farming again, He never gave up the dream, and despite working as a clerk / tally-man in the timber yards in inner Sydney until his retirement, always showed on the electoral roll as "grazier" (sheep farmer)even though he lived in inner Sydney !

As the others have said, it would be like finding a needle-in-a-haystack (or in a bale of wool) to find Bert's shadow history. Most country sheep stations are huge and the distances people travelled to anyone who has not experienced Australian remoteness is unexplainable. Would you consider travelling in a modern Landrover for 10 hours in a relatively straight line averaging 60mph on an unsealed gravel road, not seeing another vehicle, just to go and visit a large supermarket.... No narrow roads, no hedge-rows on either side... brown ... dusty... heat...flies..etc. I love it! I was frightened by the narrow main rural roads when I visited the UK in 2012 !

May I suggest you Google: "rural australia in the 1920's" to get a feel for his experience.
When you Google: "wool market crash 1929" to get a perspective of why Bert returned home the first google-book is very informative, particularly page 83 of https://tinyurl.com/nul69q9

I hope you find this helps with background.

Kind regards,
Tony Moore
(Castle Hill, NSW, Australia)

[jcsturgis]

Dear Tony,

Thank you so much for this - it makes for very interesting reading. Yes, I had always assume that his return was related to the start of the Great Depression, but the wool market crash adds a new dimension. It's interesting that he disembarked (on arrival) in Melbourne, but left from Sydney - his occupation on his return to England is listed variously as Warehouse Foreman and/or Wool Warehouseman and I do know that in Pyrmont (from where he left in Sydney) there were a large number of wool warehouses, so maybe he chanced his arm doing the things that you suggested, whilst moving the 550 miles cross country to Sydney, got a job in one of these warehouses before giving up and coming home.

I did smile at your description of the 'unsealed gravel roads' - I visited Australia in the early 1990s and drove from Perth (after having spent a month on the east coast) up to a place called Monkey Mia (I think) to see the dolphins. Your description of the road and associated conditions I can remember very well - unfortunately, I was stopped for speeding on one of these roads, which I attributed to lack of concentration after miles and miles of red dust, but the policeman was very nice and let me off with a caution.

It has been suggested that I could try electoral rolls and/or Election returns (apparently British citizens were entitled to vote), but I'm not sure how far this will get me or where they are held - do you have a view?

I will certainly google the things that you have mentioned - it's more interesting than doing the housework.

Thanks again and kind regards,

Julia Sturgis
(Tamworth, Staffordshire, England)

[Tony Moore]

Dear Julia,

Did you know that the east-west road across the Nullabor Plain was only completely sealed in 1988 to mark the bi-centenary of settlement. Some of the north-west wasn't completed until much later ! Those roads were littered with broken or abandoned vehicles.

From the UK the only access to the electoral rolls would be through ancestry.com
The problem, too, would be that Bert was likely to be moving around searching for work and the rolls were not updated every year. A mammoth task B.C. (before computers). If Bert was located in a rural area rather than the city, even the Post Office directory would be a nightmare. Some suburbs of Sydney still did not even use street numbers till the late 1930's, only house names.
I hate to think what existed in rural areas. If you got the name of the sheep station or cattle station you were lucky. Some rural addresses might be simply: .... Joe Blow Monkey Mia, or Joe Blow Kalgoorlie as examples.
Here's an explanation of the Wool Stores in the Ultimo / Pyrmont area:

https://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/en...ough_mort_&_co

Some sketches / photos:

https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.a...7296?mode=full

https://www.sydneyarchitecture.com/PYR/PYR14.htm

Mix of historical reports & period photos:
https://tinyurl.com/k8ukxug


Enjoy the 'cuppa' while reading

Tony

[christanel]

To browse the Australian electoral rolls on ancestry for NSW the years recorded only start at 1930 and the first one to show up is a Bert Wells at Granville in 1943 and he is still there in 1958.
There is an Albert Bert Wells in Queensland in 1925 but he is still there from 1937 on.
Victoria-there is one in 1914 and another in 1949
No records for the Northern Territory or South Australia
Only one Bert Wells showing in Sands Directories Sydney and New South Wales 1858-1933 and that is in 1914

Christina

[jac65]

Hi Julia

According to the Mongolia passenger list Bert Webb boarded in Melbourne and his proposed address in England was 6 Dingley Terrace, Market Harborough. He was a farm labourer age 29.

Passenger list indexes often indicate where a ship commenced its voyage rather than where passengers actually boarded.

Andy