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--- meta_hobbs_emmeline_dorothy_eileen_hickson_frederic_robert_julius_ruth_m-p [2023/11/06 17:38] – judith
+++ meta_hobbs_emmeline_dorothy_eileen_hickson_frederic_robert_julius_ruth_m-p [2023/11/09 13:28] (current) – judith
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 In one of life's coincidences (and indicative of the small population of Queensland then), baby Meta grew up to marry, on 15 April 1896 at All Saints Church of England in Brisbane, Dr Hobbs' son Arthur, a solicitor who lived in Townsville.((The online Qld marriage registration B17986 gives her name as Matilda Annie; //Leader//, 25 April 1896, p.30.)) Not surprisingly, he became his widowed mother-in-law's solicitor.((M-P papers, NLA, MS 7801, Box 4, folder 23.)) Arthur's mother was Anna nee Barton,((Qld births registration B11948)) no relation to Nora but a sister of {{http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/barton-sir-edmund-toby-71|(later Sir) Edmund Barton}}, who became Australia's first Prime Minister. It says much about Nora that, when Meta married, she and Meta's eldest step-brother shared the duties that would have been TLM-P's if he had been alive. Thomas de M. M-P escorted Meta up the aisle, but it was Nora who gave her daughter away.((//Leader// 25 April 1896, p.30.)) Later in life, by 1913, Meta lived in the Brisbane suburb of Ascot.((Andrew Darbyshire, A Fair Slice of St Lucia. Thomas Lodge Murray-Prior, St Lucia History Group research paper no. 8, p.90.))\\
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-When Nora wrote to Rosa Praed, she often described her children. In 1883, when Meta was a young girl, Nora described her having 'little bent towards book learning preferring outdoor pursuits of any description, but she has observation & is shrewd, going straight to the root of any question & taking a common sense, & not a conventional, view of matters... She is quite on the ground, never soars to the stars but sees what is on the ground plainly & shrewdly.'; 'Meta is Papa all over from top to toe – in deposition I mean, so trustworthy & strong & self-confident I already lean on her a great deal.' However, she suffered in comparison to her more attractive younger sister Dorothy.((Nora to Rosa, 14 March 1883 and 1884, check exact date, JOLQ))\\
+When Nora wrote to Rosa Praed, she often described her children. In 1883, when Meta was a young girl, Nora described her having 'little bent towards book learning preferring outdoor pursuits of any description, but she has observation & is shrewd, going straight to the root of any question & taking a common sense, & not a conventional, view of matters... She is quite on the ground, never soars to the stars but sees what is on the ground plainly & shrewdly.'; 'Meta is Papa all over from top to toe – in deposition I mean, so trustworthy & strong & self-confident I already lean on her a great deal.' However, she suffered in comparison to her more attractive younger sister Dorothy.((Nora to Rosa, 14 March 1883 and 1884, check exact date, JOLQ)) TLM-P approvingly repeated to a Salvation Army officer a question Meta had asked 'Why God let the Devil make her bad?' . Her father's response, at least in 1882, was to let faith develop of its own way.(Diary, 14 June 1882)  \\
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 Meta and Arthur Hobbs had two children - more information is available for family members. \\
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 Nora was dismayed when she again became pregnant, around two years after Robert's birth. She apparently delayed telling Rosa until she could put it off no longer: "//Open confession is good for the soul and nothing can be hidden forever, and you can perhaps imagine some little of the mortification, chagrin and disgust [with] which I have been forced to recognise myself as once again in the valley of the shadow of a baby. ... All pleasant plans were broken up and at an end. So many more years of necessary repetition in this quiet dull place, of which by the bye, I am heartily fond when I do not feel eternally tied to it ... [baby] being forced into world where he is not at all wanted.//"((3 December 1883, OM 81-71 JOLQ))\\
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-. **Julius** (Jules) Orlebar (25 March 1884 - 6 October 1931((Queensland death certificate, 1931 C4220))). Nora's 'poor little morsel' was born at 'Ervingstone',((probably a private hospital, given other births there. See, e.g., //The Queenslander//, 3 November 1883, p.727.)) Stanley Street, South Brisbane((Qld Births registration no. B32130)) and baptised at the Kangaroo Point Church of England.((‘Questions to be answered by T.L.M-P’, 6pp Memoranda by the Herald Office, Somerset House, London re Burke’s Colonial Gentry.)) Julius never married and had no known children. His second name of Orlebar was the family name of TLM-P's maternal grandmother; when TLM-P visited his daughter Rosa Praed in England, they visited the widowed 'Mrs Olebar' whom he thought was 'nearly 80 a very nice looking old lady' with two daughters. The Olebarshad fallen on hard times and were in the process of leaving their ancestral home.((TLM-P, Diary, 31 May & 1 June 1882))\\
+. **Julius** (Jules) Orlebar (25 March 1884 - 6 October 1931((Queensland death certificate, 1931 C4220))). Nora's 'poor little morsel' was born at 'Ervingstone',((probably a private hospital, given other births there. See, e.g., //The Queenslander//, 3 November 1883, p.727.)) Stanley Street, South Brisbane((Qld Births registration no. B32130)) and baptised at the Kangaroo Point Church of England.((‘Questions to be answered by T.L.M-P’, 6pp Memoranda by the Herald Office, Somerset House, London re Burke’s Colonial Gentry.)) Julius never married and had no known children. His second name of Orlebar was the family name of TLM-P's maternal grandmother; when TLM-P visited his daughter Rosa Praed in England, they visited the widowed 'Mrs Olebar' whom he thought was 'nearly 80 a very nice looking old lady' with two daughters. The Olebars had fallen on hard times and were in the process of leaving their ancestral home.((TLM-P, Diary, 31 May, 1 June, 14 August 1882)) TLM-P also refers to seeing Miss Olebar in England and mentions the 'Olebars farm at Warrnambool Victoria'(( Diary 1882, 16 August))\\
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 Julius was three months old when Nora wrote to Rosa about her 'morbid thoughts and feelings' during pregnancy and what we would now call a mid-life crisis (Nora was then 37 years old):' You have brought a life into an uncertain world of wrecks and disease and dynamite explosions. Your heart’s love is irrevocably invested in that life."((15 June 1884, JOLQ)) As far as childhood diseases went, necessity meant that she had gained considerable confidence, writing to Rosa that 'Fortunately I am now quite as good as a Doctor with baby complaints', which was fortunate given she also assured her that 'as little as I care for having babies, I should like losing those I have still less.'((Nora M-P to Rosa Praed, 21 December 1884, JOLQ.))\\
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 Little is known about Julius' life immediately after the war. By 1927 he was living at Stanthorpe, perhaps on one of the notoriously inadequate soldier settler blocks there (to check). Calling himself Jules Murray-Prior, he was also trying to find work as a stage and screen 'character' actor: [[https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-557796529/image?WID=1217|click here for his ad]](( see also Everyones, 6:389 (17 August 1927) p.65.))\\
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-In 1931 Julius died, aged 47, after shooting himself in the head. Sadly, his end was not quick, as he died in Stanthorpe Hospital.((Queensland death certificate, 1931 C4220)) He was then described as an orchardist at Broadwater, Stanthorpe.((//The Brisbane Courier//, 23 October 1931, p.12 and ?24 October 1931.)) His Australian experiences and army service may provide one explanation for one informant's belief that he was an alcoholic and was often found drunk on his horse outside his home in the early hours of the morning.((Tom M-P, Pers. Comm., 2017, information from person selling the above sketch of Julius. It is as likely that this was a confusion with his step-brother Hervey.))  His domestic and overseas war experiences could also be an explanation for his sad end. So too was the fact that 1931 was near the depth of the Great Depression. As an orchardist, Julius was unlikely to have been able to make a living at this time. It may be a factor too in his not marrying, if he had ever been so inclined, as he probably could not afford to support a wife and any children.   \\
+In 1931 Julius died, aged 47, after shooting himself in the head. Sadly, his end was not quick, as he died in Stanthorpe Hospital.((Queensland death certificate, 1931 C4220)) He was then described as an orchardist at Broadwater, Stanthorpe.((//The Brisbane Courier//, 23 October 1931, p.12 and ?24 October 1931.)) His Australian experiences and army service may provide one explanation for one informant's belief that he was an alcoholic and was often found drunk on his horse outside his home in the early hours of the morning.((Tom M-P, Pers. Comm., 2017, information from person selling the above sketch of Julius. It is as likely that this was a confusion with his stepbrother Hervey.)) His domestic and overseas war experiences could also be an explanation for his sad end. So too was the fact that 1931 was near the depth of the Great Depression. As an orchardist, Julius was unlikely to have been able to make a living at this time. It may be a factor too in his not marrying, if he had ever been so inclined, as he probably could not afford to support a wife and any children.   \\
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 Julius left an estate of £2,492 - around $223,449 in 2017 values.((//The Courier-Mail//, 18 July 1934, p.11.)) In a will made 4 months before he died, Julius left land, presumably his orchard, worth £696 to Miss Mary Myrtle Macdonald, then living in Brisbane. She was also his sole executor of the will.((//The Courier-Mail//, 8 October 1934, p.2.)) Mary (1889-1958) never married.((Qld BDM, 1889/C/6525 & 1958/B/24758))\\
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 Nora apparently suffered 'perineal tears and subsequent haemorrhage' during Julius' birth (( Katie Spearitt, 'The Sexual Economics of Colonial marriage' in Gail Reekie (ed) On the Edge. Women's experiences of Queensland', University of Queensland Press, 1994, p.71)) but nevertheless, eight months later she conceived again and desperately, despairingly, sought to induce an abortion. With her earlier pregnancies, she had taken care not to miscarry, cancelling travel and postponing dental work.((Nora to Rosa, 9 February 1879, OM 81-71.)) This time was very different. In a much-quoted passage, she wrote to Rosa: '//What will you say to me? How will you manifest your disgust? When I tell you that I am again sick, sorry and expecting ... When it first began I resolved to try heroic remedies - so ... had sixteen teeth taken out - but ... I was much pulled down and very sick after it, but my prospects remain the same. What will become of all my little ones of whom the world stands in no need, how will they find niches & sure foothold for themselves amongst the many struggling ones who are each pushing for themself. There is certainly not room for them all to walk safely - some of them must go to the wall. No mother even bore children into the world with more foreboding than I do...//'((Nora M-P to Rosa Praed, 3 November, 21 December 1884, M-P papers, JOLQ, OM81-71. )) Fortunately for Nora, it was to be her last baby.
-. **Ruth** Angela (27 July 1885-15 August 1961).((Qld Births registration no. B34762; //Sydney Morning Herald//, 16 August 1961.)) She was born and baptised at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.((Dorothy, Alienora and Ruth was all baptised at the Kangaroo Point Church of England by the Rev. D. A. Court, ‘Questions to be answered by T.L.M-P’, 6pp Memoranda by the Herald Office, Somerset House, London re Burke’s Colonial Gentry.)) As the youngest child, she was seven when her 73-year-old father died. When her mother chose a verse to describe her, probably in the 1890s, it was one from the poet Lowell, 'I know not how others see her/ but to me she is wholly fair.'((M-P family papers, NLA, Box 7, folder 42.)) From shortly before World War I, Ruth lived in England (mostly London) with her mother and her elder sister Dorothy. After Nora died, Ruth and Dorothy returned to Australia in 1931. The sisters spent the rest of their life at 'Drak', 17 Madeline Street, Hunters Hill.\\
+. **Ruth** Angela (27 July 1885-15 August 1961).((Qld Births registration no. B34762; //Sydney Morning Herald//, 16 August 1961.)) The birth notice((28 July 1885, Brisbane Courier)) stated that, like her brother Julius, Ruth was born at Ervingstone, presumably a private maternity hospital: 'MURRAY-PRIOR.—On the 27th July, at Ervingstone, South Brisbane, the wife of Thos. L. Murray-Prior, of Maroon, of a daughter'. Dorothy, Alienora and Ruth were all baptised at the Kangaroo Point Church of England by the Rev. D. A. Court.((‘Questions to be answered by T.L.M-P’, 6pp Memoranda by the Herald Office, Somerset House, London re Burke’s Colonial Gentry.)) As the youngest child, Ruth was seven when her 73-year-old father died. When her mother chose a verse to describe her, probably in the 1890s, it was one from the poet Lowell, 'I know not how others see her/ but to me she is wholly fair.'((M-P family papers, NLA, Box 7, folder 42.)) From shortly before World War I, Ruth lived in England (mostly London) with her mother and her elder sister Dorothy. After Nora died, Ruth and Dorothy returned to Australia in 1931. The sisters spent the rest of their life at 'Drak', 17 Madeline Street, Hunters Hill.\\
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 In 1903 the 18-year-old Ruth wrote to her 'Dearest Old Mother' saying that she would like to be coached in mathematics, if Nora could afford it.((M-P family papers, NLA MS 7801, folder 22)) If the coaching occurred and was for matriculation, it succeeded as she enrolled in the University of Sydney and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1906. Her success meant that for three successive years she, her brother Robert (in 1905) and her sister Dorothy (1904) all graduated from that University with a BA.((//Alunmi Sidneienses//, University of Sydney Archives, accessed 25 October 2003.)) Ruth shared her mother's and her sister Dorothy's intellectual interests: in 1904 all three attended the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science congress in New Zealand.((//Otago Daily Times//, 7 January 1904, p.2; //Evening Star//, 5 January 1904, p.4.))\\