Much to Nora's dismay, she and TLM-P she had 8 children. Unlike Matilda, Nora gave birth in urban settings with help at hand. She also remained healthy, so her babies were not so vulnerable: only one (Emmeline) died in infancy. Her children's choices when they grew up were firmly against marriage. Only 2 of her 4 surviving daughters married; only 1 of her 3 sons did so. While there was a dip in marriage rates at the time, and heterosexuality cannot be assumed, it is hard to escape the conclusion that one factor was their first-hand experience of the economic and personal costs of their father's fecundity.

1. Edwin Murray Barton (known as Barton/Bartie/Barty) Hobbs, 8 January 1897 - 20 November 1956. He was born at Strand, Townsville, Queensland and died in Wollongong, NSW.¹⁾

In February 1916, the second year of World War I, Barty Hobbs was a 19 year-old 'station hand' and enlisted in the 12th (Army) Brigade, Australian Field Artillery, Park Section, A.I.F. He stated he was 5'8½“ and nearly 11 stone. On 29 July 1916, he was on his way to the European front as a driver. He had trouble with army discipline, starting on board ship and continuing throughout the war. His offences included returning nearly 3 weeks late after leave; not turning up for a parade; for having a lighted candle in his hut after lights out; for failing to salute an officer; and being late on duty. He was sent to France in January 1917, and subsequently hospitalised several times. In June 1918, he was invalided home to Australia with peritoneal adhesions (scarring after abdominal surgery), and discharged from the army. In 1942, he wrote to the army that he had left Australia during 1926-31 during which time his father died. His address was then Raffles Restaurant, Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross. In 1943, he had moved but still lived in Kings Cross; by 1947 he lived in Melbourne. We know this because he wrote to the army after he lost, in three separate incidents, his discharge papers (twice) and army medal.²⁾

He was apparently doing well in 1932 after he returned to Australia - if he was the Hobbs mentioned. In April 1932 'Barton-Hobbs' was noted flying to New England.³⁾ Later that year, 'Mrs Barton Hobbs' and her young son 'Tony' featured in the social pages.⁴⁾ It appears that his first wife died as in 1938 it was definitely 'our' Barton Hobbs who married Alice Margery (Marge) Michod, the daughter of a Brisbane doctor; the couple planned to live in Melbourne when Barton already lived.⁵⁾ (Alice) Magery was described as a beautiful dress designer, some years younger than Barty, who intended to move her business to Melbourne after her marriage.⁶⁾ In 1948, the Union Trustee Company advertised for Barty's whereabouts since he had left Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross: this suggests he had lost touch with his family.⁷⁾

There is a clue to where he was when he lived outside Australia during 1926-31. One source states that Edwin Murray Barton Hobbs married Isabel Devereaux (1910-?) in Christchurch, New Zealand at an unspecified date. They had a son, Anthony Barton Prior Hobbs (1930-79)⁸⁾ - possibly the child 'Tony' referred to above.⁹⁾. Unfortunately, no primary records have been found to confirm Edwin's New Zealand life or what happened to Isabel.

The following two photos are from Flickr account of Peak Oil Poet, both showing Anthony Barton Prior Hobbs with baby Murray Prior Hobbs in 1954:
Anthony Barton Prior Hobbs with baby Murray Prior Hobbs, 1954

Anthony Barton Prior Hobbs with baby Murray Prior Hobbs, 1954

2. Alice Dorothea Mary Hobbs, born on 7 November 1898. In 1921, she married William Hamilton Gibson Robinson.¹⁰⁾ It is hoped she was happy, as she had had to live with survivor's guilt from the time she was around 15 years old. In 1913, Alice and friends had been swept out while swimming, and three young men drowned trying to rescue them.¹¹⁾ Alice and William Robinson's children are on the private version of this website (sidebar for 4th generation).

Eileen and Rowan Hickson had five children, all sons.
1. Robert (Bob) Rowan Barton Hickson (11 October 1903 - 1994) married Edna Cox and had two sons. He was a Lieutenant Colonel and author of The Historic Family Tree of Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, Sydney: R. Hickson, 1980. A genealogist writing to the Cullen-Ward family considered that it contained a number of errors.

2. John Maurice Hamilton Hickson (4 April 1906 - 1993) married September 1929 to Lillian Killen and had 3 sons and 2 daughters.

3. Brian Murray-Prior Hickson (11 May 1907 - 7 November 1943). In 1937 he was Manager for Riley Newman & Co. at Warialda.¹²⁾ He married Margaret Gaden Day and had a daughter and a son. He enlisted during World War II, becoming a corporal in D Company, 18 Platoon, 2/30 Australian Infantry Battalion. He died of ulcers and dysentery at Sonkurai when a Prisoner of War on the infamous Thai-Burma railway. He is buried at Thanbyuzayat Cemetery, Grave A13.A.3, Myanmar (Burma). ¹³⁾

4. George Harvey Foster Hickson (15 March 1909 - ?) He and his wife had no children.

5. Rowan Darvall Hickson (28 November 1911 - 3 May 1931) he did not marry and had no known children.

Like his sister Eileen Hickson, Robert M-P had five children. They ate shown here (with a friend) in the garden of their childhood home at 1 Yerton Avenue, Hunters Hill: (back from left): David; (friend Phyllis Rolfe); Nora with Molly on her lap; front: Sterling, Phyllis:

1. Nora Estella (1909¹⁴⁾ - 1984¹⁵⁾) Like her sisters, she went to school at SCEGGS. She was active in youth groups including the Crusaders and the Brownies, the latter as a member and, when adult, leader. She trained in midwifery at Royal North Shore Hospital, graduating in 1937.¹⁶⁾ She worked at the War Memorial Hospital in Casino from September 1938 to March 1940. She later nursed in the south-west town of Young as she is remembered as the midwife for a birth there in 1940.¹⁷⁾ By 1944, she was employed as a nursing Sister by the BROKEN-LINK:Royal Far West SocietyLINK-BROKEN, with her headquarters at Inverell.¹⁸⁾ The work involved much travelling around the local area. For more, click on **nursing with Royal Far West**.

Nora kept up her connection to Young, as she left the Royal Far West Children's Scheme early in 1949 to marry¹⁹⁾ widower Lawrence Ashley Frederick Boyd (known as Ashley). He had a sheep/wheat property, Eldorado, near Young, NSW. Ashley had two daughters (one adopted) by his first marriage, but had no children with Nora. My (Judith Godden) recollection of her is someone who could be very kind but also very tactless, while her extensive travelling in later life did not change her narrow view of the world.

The next three photos are of Nora²⁰⁾:the 1st with her elder brother E. Sterling M-P; the 2nd probably on the day she qualified as a nurse; the 3rd with her mother (right):

For more photos, click on Nora Boyd photos

2. Edgar Sterling (16 May 1911 - 22 February 2010²¹⁾)
He never forgave his parents for their choice of his given names, but chose to be known Sterling as the lesser of two evils. He was born in Prince Edward Parade, Hunters Hill, with his birth witnessed by Hunters' Hills' GP, Dr H. S. Lloyd and 'Nurse Martin'.²²⁾ He attended Sydney Grammar until he was around 15, when his father found him work at the Perpetual Trustee Company. He was later to deprecate his schooling as being so hidebound with its stress on unthinking obedience (such as the poems The Charge of the Light Brigade and Casabianca_(poem)). He was, however, good at mathematics with a prize to show for it in 1924 when he was 13 years old. That talent would stand him in good stead not only in his work, but as honorary treasurer of the Bellingen RSL Club in his later life.²³⁾ He was a keen sportsman, a member of the Mona Vale Surf Life saving Club and a good amateur boxer. A photo in the Ryde Library of the 1932 Hunters Hill Rugby Union team describes him (middle row, second from left) as its Honorary secretary.

He married Brenda Isabel Pottie (15 July 1914-18 July 2008²⁴⁾ at St Stephen's Presbyterian Church on 29 November 1938.²⁵⁾ Brenda (known also as Isabel and Isa) had grown up at Waverley, attending the once-progressive school Shirley then, for her final year/s, SCEGGS.²⁶⁾ Brenda's father Herbert (Bert), a vet, had died when she was a toddler. He left his widow Ethel (known by her second name, Brenda) with five young children (Brenda and her four older brothers). Bert's father John Pottie had established the veterinary practice and published two books on the care of horses, then the mainstay of veterinary practices.²⁷⁾ Bert's mother Eliza Pottie was a Quaker, temperance advocate and highly active philanthropist who took a leading role in the fight for women's suffrage.²⁸⁾ Brenda's mother did not adjust to the financial implications of her husband's death, and continued with much the same style of living. The younger Brenda left school and became a highly skilled typist in the Tax Office.

Photo: Brenda M-P on her wedding day with her bridesmaid and sister-in-law Molly M-P.²⁹⁾

Sterling and Brenda's only son was born 10 months after they married (luckily at this censorious time, he was not premature like their next baby!). Australia entered War II eleven days after their son's birth. Less than a year later, on 11 July 1940, Sterling enlisted.³⁰⁾ He served as a Gunner in the 2/9 Field Regiment.³¹⁾ He served in the Middle East for over a year. He saw his wife and son briefly in Sydney on his return from the Middle East, on his way from South Australia to far north Queensland, then not until the war had ended. Brenda had four brothers (no sisters) and they also all joined up (2 in the RAAF, 2 in the AIF) leaving her and her widowed mother alone in Australia.³²⁾ In 1943 her address was 40 Raglan Street Mosman.³³⁾ Sterling was discharged on 6 November 1945.³⁴⁾
ES M-P shortly after he enlisted, c.1940 ³⁵⁾

Sterling had thrived amidst mates from very different backgrounds and in highly physical work, and returned a very different man. With the war's end, he was discharged from the army on 6 November 1945.³⁶⁾ He and his wife remained at 40 Raglan Street, Mosman.³⁷⁾ Sterling was re-employed at Perpetual, but now found being confined to a desk job difficult. On the advice of his wife's brother-in-law, he pooled his and Brenda's meagre resources to buy a dairy farm from a relative of the brother-in-law's wife. The date of the purchase could later be seen as prophetic: 1 April 1949.³⁸⁾ The farm was at (R.M.B. 7) Hydes Creek, four miles from Bellingen. Sterling, Brenda, their son and daughter Helen moved there; a second daughter was born nearly two years later. The farm was never a viable proposition, despite the efforts of agricultural researchers to find alternative crops, and became less so with the inexorable decline of the North Coast dairy industry. While he thrived on the outdoor life and went from total inexperience to a highly respected farmer, Sterling's big achievement was to wrest a minimal living from infertile land. He only once, in the late 1960s, accepted a desk job to tide the family over a specially bad drought. His wife and son had a particularly challenging time due to their huge decline in living conditions: Hydes Creek had no electricity until 1962; the roads were untarred; and when he entered High School their son had to undertake a long commute to Coffs Harbour High School, involving bike, bus and train. Dairy cows need to be milked twice a day and the family could not afford any help; in later years Sterling made a yearly trip to Sydney to see his widowed mother, but Brenda rarely had a day away from the farm. Even when bitten by a red-back spider, she had to drive herself to Bellingen Hospital while the rest of the family did the milking.
Photo of the M-P farm published in G. Wilson, F. Cradock, K. Flemons, 'Pasture and Soil Fertility Investigations in the Bellingen District', The Agricultural Gazette, May 1961, p.244. The article reported one of the numerous crop trials at the farm. The farm now looks completely different - the house has been moved to a sub-division at the Bellingen end of the old property; the reedy creek has been dammed; and new buildings added. Returning to look at a site can be very misleading! (see google maps for 423 Hydes Creek Road.)

Brenda and Sterling benefited from family legacies as well as the local area being transformed by 'tree-changers' and the Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM, now Amcor). After they sold the farm, the local creek made into a dam, with the land apparently used as a hobby farm, the area looks idyllic and, to those who grew up there, unrecognisable. Brenda and Sterling moved to 5 Hawea Close,Wamberal on the NSW Central Coast. They enjoyed a comfortable retirement there, enjoying gardening and the local garden club, making numerous friends and benefiting enormously from dedicated nurses and other home-carers supported by the Department of Veteran Affairs. In their final years, however, infirmity made their lives difficult. Molly (Sterling's sister) and John Wilson later moved to Wamberal in their retirement as well.

Sterling and Brenda M-P celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.³⁹⁾

For more photos of Brenda & Sterling click S&B.
For Sterling's eulogy, click eulogy

3. Phyllis (Phyl) Dorothea (14 December 1913-10 March 2003) was born at home, at Cooroora in Hunters Hill.⁴⁰⁾ Phyllis flanked by her siblings Molly and David on steps of their home 1 yerton Avenue, Hunters Hill.⁴¹⁾
Young Phyllis ⁴²⁾ Phyl was artistic and employed as a commercial artist. As the next photo reveals, she was vivacious and outgoing. She married grazier Alan Robert Cullen-Ward (1910-85) on 23 February 1935⁴³⁾. Phyl on her wedding day with an unidentified bridesmaid (left) and her sister Molly (right).⁴⁴⁾
In this photo, Phyl appears to be the bridesmaid second from right.⁴⁵⁾

Alan and Phyl lived on his property 'Mani' at Cumnock, NSW as well as a house at 70 Wrights Road, Drummoyne in Sydney. The house and land was later sold and a block of flats built on the site . They lived in one of the flats, 7/70 Wrights Road Drummoyne. Her final years were spent in a retirement home in Buderim, Queensland. She was cremated at the Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens and Crematorium, Ryde, Sydney.

Phyl in 1951.

Phyl and Alan had five children: a daughter b. 22 January 1936; Malcolm David (27 October 1937-March 2020;he married Sandra (Sandy) and had two daughters); Susan Barbara b. 28 January 1941 (see next generation for details); a son b.30 December 1942; and a daughter b.7 August 1944.
4. Evan David (1916⁴⁶⁾- March 1981). His brother understood that David went to school at Tudor House as a boarder, then to Sydney Grammar. He also thought David attended Wagga Agricultural College, though that institution did not start until 1949. With his parents' help, David bought a farm at Wyong which was later sold.⁴⁷⁾ In 1938, David married Hilary Lorraine Piper (31 July 1916- 23 June 2014)⁴⁸⁾; they divorced in 1965. In his old age, David shared a house with his mother at Hunters Hill until she died. In his final years he was reclusive; in contrast Hilary remained a 'people person'.

David and Hilary M-P had two daughters. Beverley Joan (known as Joan) was [occupation?] and later in life struggled with deafness; she married — Black and lived in Hobart. David and Hilary's other daughter became a highly respected midwife at King George V Hospital and, in retirement, an Anglican chaplain at St George Hospital.

One story by his brother Sterling was, that when David was a baby he was shown to his maternal grandmother (Caroline Herring nee Delange) who was grieving the death of her son Edward Edgar (Jack) Herring at Gallipoli on 9 August 1915. He reached out for her (was she wearing some of the shiny jet jewellery which was worn when mourning and passed down the family?) and she was convinced that he was her son reincarnated. She consequently lavished affection and money on him, much to the resentment of his siblings at the time.⁴⁹⁾

The Museums of History NSW (State Archives) has the following record of David's employment in the NSW Treasury Department from 1949-6:

Photos of young David⁵⁰⁾: The first images is of a photo-postcard with its light-hearted message on the back (“To Grandmother from Evan David. It is no use looking back & remembering that any of your children were sweeter than this baby, his parents couldn't believe it.”). The latter ones were taken at Brecondale, his (Herring) grandparents' home at Gladesville in Sydney.

5. Sylvia Mary (Molly) (1919-2007⁵¹⁾
A photo of young Molly ⁵²⁾:

This photo of Molly was taken c.1939, either when World War II was imminent or had just begun.⁵³⁾ She is shown in the uniform of the Women's Emergency Signalling Corp, a voluntary organisation which trained women to be signallers and telephonists.⁵⁴⁾ Molly consequently joined the the WRANs (Women's Royal Air Force) in 1942 as a 'telegraphist'.⁵⁵⁾ The family understands that Molly did highly secret work intercepting Japanese morse code signals.⁵⁶⁾

This photo of Molly during the war was taken by photographer Julia Leslie who had a Sydney studio between 1941-46.⁵⁷⁾

On 23 September 1950, Molly married John Alexander Wilson who owned, with his sister J. Marion Wilson, a property at Norway, via Oberon. They had 1 daughter and 2 sons. Molly and John retired to Wamberal; after John's death Molly moved to a retirement home in Lindfield.

References:⁵⁸⁾