The same pattern of drastically reduced child-bearing is seen in TLM-P's second marriage as in his first. He and Nora had eight children, of whom only three (Meta, Eileen and Robert) had children of their own. All three had grandchildren.

1. Edwin Murray Barton (known as Barton/Bartie/Barty) Hobbs, b. 8 January 1897 at Strand, Townsville. In February 1916, the second year of World War I, he 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.¹⁾

Meta and her son 'Bartie' from TLM-P's photo album.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⁾ 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⁾ 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⁾

2. Alice Dorothea Mary Hobbs, born on 7 November 1898. In 1921, she married William Hamilton Gibson Robinson.⁸⁾ 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.⁹⁾ Alice and William Robinson had a daughter (Meta Jean Robinson, married surname Sinclair, 1925-82) and two sons (Arthur West (Polo) Robinson 1922-98, and William Barton Robinson, 1927-71).¹⁰⁾

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.

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.¹¹⁾ 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). ¹²⁾

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 remained single, and had no children.

Like his sister Eileen Hickson, Robert M-P had five children.

1. Nora Estella (1909¹³⁾ - 1984¹⁴⁾). 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 as a nurse at Royal North Shore Hospital during 1936-37, reputedly too late to be accepted in general nurse training, but able to train as a children's nurse. She then worked at the War Memorial Hospital in Casino from September 1938 to March 1940. By 1944, she was a nursing Sister with the Royal Far West Society, with her headquarters at Inverell.¹⁵⁾ The work involved much travelling around the local area for more, click on **nursing with Royal Far West**.
The next three photos are of Nora¹⁶⁾: 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):

Nora left the Royal Far West Children's Scheme early in 1949 to marry¹⁷⁾ widower Lawrence Ashley Frederick Boyd (known as Ashley). Nora was step-mother of Ashley's two daughters, but there were no children born of their marriage. He had a sheep/wheat property, Eldorado, near Young, NSW. My 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.

2. Edgar Sterling (16 May 1911 - — 2010¹⁸⁾)
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 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.¹⁹⁾ 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 team describes him (middle row, second from left) as its Honorary secretary. To see click rugby.

He married Brenda Isabel Pottie (15 July 1914-18 July 2008²⁰⁾ at St Stephen's Presbyterian Church on 29 November 1938. 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. Before her marriage, she lived with her mother at 6 Viret Street, Hunters Hill. 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.²¹⁾ 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.²²⁾ Brenda's mother found it difficult to adjust to the financial implications of her husband's death, and continued with much the same style of living. After the younger Brenda left school, she became a highly skilled typist in the NSW Tax Office [check].

Photo: Brenda M-P on her wedding day with her bridesmaid and sister-in-law Molly M-P.²³⁾

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 child!). A month after his birth, World War II started. Sterling enlisted on 11 July 1940²⁴⁾ and served as a Gunner²⁵⁾ in the 2/9 Field Regiment.²⁶⁾ He served in the Middle East for over a year, as well as in South Australia and North Queensland. As far as is known, he did not see his wife or son again until 1945.
ES M-P shortly after he enlisted, c.1940 ²⁷⁾

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 1945.²⁸⁾ He was re-employed at Perpetual but found being confined to a desk job difficult. On the advice of his brother-in-law, he used almost all of his and his wife's money to buy a dairy farm from a relative of his brother-in-law's wife. The date of the purchase could later be seen as prophetic: 1 April 1949.²⁹⁾ The farm was at Hydes Creek, four miles from Bellingen. Sterling, Brenda, their son and daughter 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 Fertiity 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 enjoyed a comfortable retirement at 5 Hawea Close,Wamberal on the NSW Central Coast. Molly and John Wilson later moved to Wamberal in their retirement as well.
Sterling and Brenda M-P celebrating their 50th? wedding anniversary.³⁰⁾.

3. Phyllis Dorothea (1913 —) was born at home, at Cooroora in Hunters Hill.³¹⁾ She was artistic, vivacious and, like so many of her era and her elder sister, retained the socially conservative views of her youth. She married grazier Alan Robert Cullen-Ward on 23 February 1935. He had a property 'Mani' at Cumnock, NSW as well as a house at Drummoyne in Sydney. They had two sons and three daughters including Susan who married (secondly) King Leka of the Albanians.

4. Evan David (1916³²⁾- March 1981). With his parents' help, he bought a farm at Wyong ³³⁾ and married Hilary Lorraine Piper (31 July 1916- 23 June 2014); the farm was sold after they divorced. They had two daughters. One daughter Beverley Joan (known as Joan) was [occupation?] and later in life struggled with deafness; she married — Black and lived in Tasmania. 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. In later life, 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'.
Three photos of David³⁴⁾: The latter two were taken at Brecondale, his (Herring) grandparents' home at Gladesville in Sydney.

5. Sylvia Mary (Molly) (1919-2007³⁵⁾) joined the WRANs (Women's Royal Air Force) in 1942, during World War II. The following photo³⁶⁾ was taken c.1939 when she was a member of the Women's Emergency Signalling Corp, which trained signallers and telephonists. Molly's service record reveals that she was a 'telegraphist'.³⁷⁾ On 23 September 1950, she married John Alexander Wilson who co-owned (with his sister) a property at Norway, via Oberon. They had 1 daughter and 2 sons.

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References:³⁸⁾