Hugh M-P
Some of the photos labelled as Hugh in his step-mother's album. The hand-coloured one with Hugh (far right) and friends in fancy dress was taken in 'Hobart Town', probably while he was at school there. Another photo in his father's album shows just Hugh in his fancy dress.
The next is one of the numerous photos of Hugh in TLM-P's album.
Another photo of young Hugh1)
Robert M-P wrote that Hugh died 'at Annie Vale Run, in the Aramac District, of supposed heart failure .. because of the excessive heat'. He implied that Hugh and his brother Hervey may both have committed suicide, as their cause of death resulted in 'uncertainty and lingering worry'. the 'lingering worry' Robert detected was not suicide but about the brothers' alcoholism. Hugh, as indicated below, appears to have met his death through alcoholic misadventure.2)
Contrary to what is stated, Thomas M-P did not respond with his son's alcoholism so that he was 'out of sight, out of mind'. Rather the ideology of the time encouraged a belief in the healing qualities of country life, the life the boys had been brought up to revere. It is only with modern understanding that we can see that the isolation would have been a cruel extra burden for a man struggling with alcoholism - and perhaps also with traumatic memories of his schooling?
Robert and Thomas Bertram M-P believed that Hugh had two illegitimate children: Alice Maud Cooke by Jane Cooke on 27 March 1890, and William Henry Cooke on 28 November 1892 by Jane's sister Elizabeth Cooke. The two sisters were thought to be nieces of Clara van Zuethen who, Robert and Thomas Bertram claim, had an illegitimate baby with TLM-P.3) The Queensland birth register confirms children were born on those days to those mothers, with no father listed.4)