The following  story is about my great-uncle Arthur, who I never met and barely knew existed during my childhood.  This was despite the fact that my father had been named in his honour.  Arthur  died when I was fifteen. He was buried in our local  cemetery at Ulverstone, in northern Tasmania. However, although my father attended the funeral it was not spoken of at the time.  To read part one of the story, CLICK HERE .This article is also about Arthur’s daughters, Winifred Julia and Emily Joyce (Joy).

SINGLETON FAMILY BREAK-DOWN

In 1923, suffering from shellshock and other war injuries, WWI veteran  Arthur Singleton  found he was unable to care for his two young children. His wife Elizabeth (Lizzie) had deserted him and the girls were living with their Singleton relatives.

Winifred (left) and Emily Singleton
Winifred Julia and Emily Joyce Singleton Circa 1924

Unfortunately this situation did not last very long. The girls’ aunt sat down and wrote to an orphanage in Launceston.

                                                                                                                                5th February 1924

To the President of Girls Home

 Madam,

 I am seeking admission for two little girls aged 3 & 5 respectively to your Home.

The case is as follows:-

Their mother has twice been proved in courts of law to be guilty of adultery & of desertion. 

 Their father is mentally weak & is very unreasonable – even at his best. He speaks of building a bark hut in the bush for them & of caring for them himself. He was shell shocked at the war.

 The pension authorities will not grant them a pension until a permanent home is assured. This would be payable to the home.

 The father, Arthur Singleton, would like to be assured that they are well treated before consenting to their going.

We are working people & have already kept Joyce, the younger, for 3 months. Previous to that my father, Mr John Singleton kept both the girls and their father. He still has father & older girl. We have a family of our own & cannot keep Joyce any longer.

Father is too old to rear these children. His housekeeper is leaving unless the children are settled elsewhere.

 If your committee will consider their admission I’d be pleased if you would write me a letter assuring me of their good treatment, as I’d like to show it to their father.

 Please let me know as soon as convenient.

It is an articulate, reasonably  well written letter, but at no point does it express any  affection  for the little girls  or sympathy for their situation.  It appears  the  request for an assurance  they  would be well treated  was simply to convince  their troubled father  to give them up.  I was touched that, in desperation, Arthur had  suggested caring for his little girls himself in the bush.

I have often wondered why no-one else came forward  to take the children.  However, if the mother’s  conduct was as bad as claimed, she may well have been  estranged from her own family.

The police at  Ulverstone were asked to look into the case and in a report dated February 23rd the investigating  officer confirmed the aunt’s  account of the situation;

I have made enquiries regarding the children herein referred to and find that the particulars are as stated …..  The father of these children (A.W. Singleton) is also as stated ………and when first interviewed, objected to the children being committed to the home, and requested that he be given time to enable him to endeavor to procure a permanent home for them, which was done; but on the 22nd instant [of February] he informed me that he had been unable to secure a home for them, and consented to their being committed to the home at Launceston.

The children were made wards of the state.

Not surprisingly, a relentlessly positive image of the  institution was portrayed in the press. It is highly  likely that the Singleton sisters are among the girls pictured below.

Girls from the Launceston Girl's Home on holidy at Ulverstone Beach
The girls on holiday at Ulverstone beach 1936

PRESCRIBED LIVES

The girls were trained to become domestics, and received only a basic level of education.  Years later, Joyce would tell a close friend  that she felt she was disliked by the matron and never understood why.  Her instinct was correct.  Records of the institution reveal it was because, despite everything, she was a confident child and precociously bright.  Her older sister Winifred was ‘slow’ and more amenable.  It seems the matron had a soft spot for Winnie.

During the girls’ stay their grandfather John Singleton died.  Bizarrely, the staff were informed that it was the Singleton girls’  father who had passed away. The following letter was sent to the matron of the orphanage from the Children’s Welfare Department in Hobart after Winnie had been hospitalized with an injured knee. Note that it had been more than four years since their mother had been in touch.

Whether they were given the news  about their father is not recorded.  In fact, Arthur Singleton had been admitted to The New Norfolk  Asylum after his mental health deteriorated to the point that he tried to kill a neighbour.

Lizzie Singleton was now living in Sydney. Her attempt to regain custody of  her daughters in 1929 was denied because investigations revealed she could not offer them a suitable home.

In 1934 Lizzie made another application, though initially only  in regard to Joyce. She had never liked Winnie, who she said; ‘Was too much like her father’.  Lizzie was in a stable de-facto relationship, and running a small boarding house in Melbourne.  Presumably  she felt Joyce would be able to assist at the boarding house.  However, she finally agreed to take both girls. The following is from the records of the Girls’ Home;

The Committee had not thought of discharging Joyce until she turns sixteen at the end of August next. Do you wish her to be discharged at once? Strangely enough I was able to place Winifred a week or two before Xmas in a temporary position from which she has not yet returned, so I suppose it will not matter if she does not go for a week or two. I will wait to hear what you have to say about Joyce. If she is to be discharged now will the Department pay her fare? Winnie has enough in the bank to pay hers.

Winnie was now 18 and really too old to be at the Home. She was regularly  sent out as a domestic servant, but had never been able to  maintain a permanent position. She was inclined to neglect her work, preferring to play with the children of the various households.  Then,  just as her release to her mother was being considered a letter was received from Miss Ivy Haley, postmistress at rural Pyengana.

November 26th, 1934

I am writing in reference to a girl my sister Mrs Coombe made inquiry of while in Launceston.  But I understand Mrs Coombe was told she would have to have someone to recommend her &  I thought of writing you to explain matters. From the enclosed letter you will see they are afraid to allow a girl to come away so far. However, she would be well cared for & my sister made inquiries regarding a girl called Winnie who has a temporary position at Trevallyn but she is fond of the country & of children which my sister requires as she has 2 little children.

 Would you kindly do us the favour of helping us to obtain this particular girl .

Thanking you & trusting you will grant us this favour.

Tragically, it was decided that the location was too remote.  Instead, Winne was sent off with Joyce to their mother, paying her own fare from  money accumulated during previous periods of employment. The girls left Tasmania on February 15 1936.

Only months after arriving in Melbourne Winnie tried to stab her mother during an argument, and ended up in Sunbury Mental Asylum.

Sunbury Mental Asylum
The entrance to the Sunbury Asylum

Winnie died at the istitution from bronchial pneumonia on November 13 1937, aged 18. The coronial inquest states, ‘Next of Kin  – Unknown’  This makes no sense to me.  Surely they knew who admitted her?  Unfortunately the asylum records  cannot be accessed without an involved Freedom of Information process.   Nor  have I  been able to find her grave. There is a memorial to those buried at Sunbury Asylum, but strangely, the name Winifred Singleton does not appear.  RIP Winnie. I will never give up trying to find your resting place. UPDATE….I have since located her grave in the Footscray cemetery.

Coronil Inquest detils for Winifred Singleton
Winifred Singleton’s coronial inquest details.

A LITTLE  JOY

Thankfully there would be a better future for her younger sister.  Joyce (who became known as Joy) became a registered nurse and would later serve in the  Womens’ Australian Air Force. She travelled the world, but always loved Tasmania.  Sadly, her efforts to reconnect with Singleton family members in the 1950s were rebuffed.

Her father was still in the asylum at the time, and his incarceration was viewed with shame.  He was constantly seeking to be released, which terrified his relatives. Below is a response from his sister Amy in June 1950  after she was approached to provide a home for him;

‘I am very sorry I am unable to take  care and be responsible for him. I am not in very good health & the worry would be too much for me. If he had a bad turn while with me I would not be able to do anything with him. I feel sure you will understand my position.  PS – Please do not discharge him unless someone will be responsible for him. We are afraid of what he might do.’

One of the last letters Arthur wrote was to Amy. He had given up hoping for release, and simply longed for  visitors;

There is no record of a response, and his file, which fills a large cardboard box, does not record any visits. I make no judgements about all this. It was a dreadfully difficult situation at a time when effective treatment for mental illness was almost non-existent. Over the years. various members of the family (including my widowed grandmother) had taken Arthur in, with disastrous results.

I’m not even sure whether Joyce knew her father was alive, after that mix-up at the orphanage. Arthur Singleton died at the asylum in May 1966.  Not long before he passed away he was interviewed by a member of the hospital staff. He had been no threat to society for a long time, but was institutionalized, and showing signs of dementia.  He explained that he had been shell shocked in the war and added, ‘I have two little girls. They visit me sometimes.’  I was completely heartbroken to read this, yet grateful that his confused mind had provided him with some  level of comfort. He spoke  constantly  of ‘home’  and his longing to go fishing.

I treasure Joy’s passport, and the school  Merit Certificate she received while  at the  Launceston Girls’ Home. Along with the rest of her papers, they were passed into my keeping by her close friend Mary Morgan, who knew her from the time she arrived at the boarding house in Melbourne. I did manage to  trace Joy  about 10 years ago, but she had  died a few months earlier, on August 13 2009.  I would not have been able to communicate with her anyway, because  she had been in a nursing home for several years, suffering from dementia just as her father had.  Mary and her husband Peter  supported Joy throughout her life. They respected her wish that no death notice was to be published  until after her cremation, and that no-one was to attend. Her ashes were to be simply  scattered in the grounds of the crematorium. The notice of her passing eventually appeared and read;

SINGLETON, Emily Joyce (Joy)

On August 13 2009

Served her country for 5 years in the RAAF Nursing Service. A contributor to Neighbourhood Watch for 6 years (Award of Honour) Great friend of Mary and Peter Morgan, Walter, Mac and Helen Jones, Louise (dec) Fiona and Fred Wallace, and Margaret Aisbett (dec)

Privately Cremated.

Joy never married, but she led a fulfilling and productive life.

Emily Joyce Singleton
Joy in her RAAF uniform. Her father would have been so proud.

This has been a very brief account of the lives of Arthur Singleton and his children. I  attempted to write a full account, but put the manuscript aside when it became too overwhelming. I hope to finish it one day. Rest in peace Private Arthur William Singleton, 12th Battalion AIF.,  and your beloved daughters.

NOTE – When Arthur  returned to his  Tasmanian rural community in October  1917  his proud  friends and neighbours presented him with a  medal.   They treated him as a hero, which he certainly was. He was at the dawn landing at Gallipoli, fought in the horrendous battle of Lone Pine, and subsequently in France.

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25 Comments
  1. What a tragic story and beautifully written; thankyou Paulie for sharing it with us.

    • Pauline

      Thanks Josie. Yes, it was all a terrible thing for the family. Had a very bad effect on my Dad, too.

  2. Thank you for sharing this story. It is so terribly sad – yet despite her deprivation and separation from her family, Joyce made a huge contribution to Australia’s war effort and made wonderful life-long friends.

    • Pauline

      Thanks for taking the trouble to leave a comment, Peter. Yes, Joyce never lost the spirit that so annoyed the matron of the Girls’ Home.

  3. I remember reading about Arthur some time ago – his is such a sad story, Pauline, and that of his daughters even more so. Tragically, all too common for the times. I worked as an occupational therapy assistant in a UK asylum for a while in the late 1970s, with long-term patients. The stories were so heartbreaking – it made me realise just how ignorant the ‘caring professions’ were in the old days.
    Thank God Joyce survived.

    • Pauline

      Wow, had no idea you had worked in that area, Ann. How things have changed since WWI, not perfect of course, but at least better medical treatment.

  4. A very moving story…thank you for sharing it. So many tragic stories out there. I am glad that Joy at least had some happiness in her life. How sad for her Dad. War left so many destroyed in the mind and they really had little idea then how to fix them…..in fact, do they now? At least they are not lost from history and they have had someone who cared enough to find out about them. I had an aunt who was several times in mental homes….maybe even Sunbury…probably because she had some hormonal problems which seemed to be in the family. She was able to come home but it is scary to think how often once a patient went in that they never came out again. May they all be Resting In Peace now.

    • Pauline

      Thanks for taking the trouble to leave a message Roberta. Yes, I think men like Arthur deserve to have their stories told. The war never ended for them, and families, including mine, were affected for generations. Arthur’s two daughters hold a special place in m heart.

  5. Our War Heroes deserve to have their stories told and to the extent of how their life and family life was affected by War and circumstances. Poor Winnie and bright Joy, how their lives werè affected by their early life (Iam presuming here that was the case for Joy) Thank you so much for allowing us to read this tragic family history.

    • Pauline

      I have always been fascinated by social history Catherine, even more so when it involves my own family. Bright Joy at least had a fulfilling, albeit rather lonely life. Thanks for taking the trouble to leave a message.

  6. Thank you for publishing this Pauline, you’re right it’s such a sad story. At least, the story has been told.

    • Pauline

      Thanks for taking the trouble to leave a comment Sarah. Yes, war affects families for generations.

  7. Have you found Winnie’s grave? Such a sad story.

    • Pauline

      Yes Catherine, for some reason she was buried in Footscray General Cemetery. Payment was by her mother’s defacto husband. No headstone of course.

  8. What a heartbreaking life. Thank you for sharing.

    • Pauline

      Thanks for taking the trouble to leave a message Michelle. Yes, it was all such an enduring tragedy for our family.

  9. Another beautifully written series of stories, Pauline.
    We find so many sad stories like this when we look into our family histories and can sometimes only guess at the reasons. The Wars, family situations, relationships gone wrong and so much more, all impact on the lives of the children in particular. But despite the terrible stories there are others of survival and triumph over the odds, like Joy’s was eventually.
    I applaud your determined search for your relatives and understand the disappointment in being ‘too late’ to make proper contact. I like to think they know that someone cared!

    • Pauline

      Thanks so much Lorraine. Joy and Winnie’s story and that of their father almost broke my heart.

  10. You’ve really lifted up the lid on what Arthur and the family went through after he returned home from the war. There were no real winners. Have you ever read Christine Stead’s “Seven Poor Men of Sydney”? She explores some of this post-war world and one of these seven men was a returned serviceman who had troubles before the war which were compounded by shell shock and all he went through. It’s fairly heavy reading. I first read it studying Australian Literature and re-read it recently after visiting Watson’s Bay where much of the novel is set but as Fisherman’s Bay.
    Best wishes,
    Rowena

    • Pauline

      Thanks for taking the trouble to leave a comment Rowena. I haven’t read the book, but someone else recommended it recently. Arthur’s dreadful life affected our family even down to my own generation.

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