Gwendoline Bailey

In December 1924, Ulverstone born Gwendoline Doris Bailey was the subject of an amazing story. The press reported that the nineteen year old had inherited more than £15,000 from a great uncle in England. At the time she was living in Victoria, working as a waitress at Surf House, a St Kilda boarding establishment in Marine Parade.

Gwendoline Bailey

Briefly, the story was as follows. Miss Bailey explained that she was in the Carlton branch of the Commonwealth Bank when an acquaintance showed her a ‘Missing Friends’ advertisement that mentioned her name. It stated that if she got in touch she would hear something to her advantage . Somewhat bewildered, she followed it up and discovered her remarkable good fortune.

‘My great uncle was a wholesale draper in Liverpool, and though I corresponded with him, I had never seen him. My great aunt came to Ulverstone some years ago, when I was quite little, and she took a fancy to me and wanted to take me back with her. My mother, however, was unwilling…After my great aunt’s visit, however, I frequently wrote to them.’

The inheritance was particularly newsworthy because Miss Bailey said she was an orphan, and that her life had been very difficult after she left Tasmania aged only thirteen.

The next step was for her to return to Ulverstone and finalise a few legal details regarding her identity. Until then she was to receive a weekly allowance from the estate of £20.

She said she was engaged to 26 year old contractor Louis Carter and that they would marry in March. Meanwhile, she was planning to buy a custom built car.

‘I suppose you will travel when everything is settled?’ Miss Bailey was asked. ‘Oh yes, my great aunt will no doubt want me to go to England. ‘

The proprietress of Surf House, Mrs McSweeney, spoke glowingly of her waitress turned wealthy paying guest; ‘She has a charming disposition, and is a general favourite. Yesterday I was not well, and Gwen promptly volunteered to act in her former role of waitress here.‘

I could imagine my hometown of Ulverstone being agog with this story, but oddly enough, nothing more appeared. It was also impossible to find any mention of her ‘intended’, Louis Carter.

Gwendoline was definitely born in Ulverstone in December 1906. to James and Frances (Fanny) Bailey. However, these turned out to be the only true facts in the newspaper reports.

Birth certificate of Gwendoline Bailey

There was never a published ‘unmasking’ of Gwendoline as having fabricated the story of her alleged wealthy relative, but that is what she had done.

A 1922 document in the Tasmanian archives reveals some startling information. It states that Gwendoline was admitted to the Magdalen Home in Hobart as a vagrant, aged 16. The institution was a reformatory for ‘fallen women’. Further, Gwendoline was definitely not an orphan. There was contact by the relevant government agency with her parents at this point. They were noted as being of good character. Both were alive and well and by then living further down the coast at Wynyard. We can only assume that they simply had no control over their daughter.

The most disturbing thing is a note written across the page. ‘ This girl was married to John Martin , age 60, at Devonport R.C. Church on 25th Jan. 1922.’ How the church allowed a marriage between a sixteen year old and a man old enough to be her grandfather is beyond me.

Gwendoline Bailey was married here in 1922.

Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Devonport.

In the file was a letter from John Martin, who was trying to locate his young wife after she had run away from his home at Latrobe. She had been charged with vagrancy in Launceston.

Martin was informed that Gwendoline was an inmate of Magdalen’s. He asked them to find out if she was willing to return home to which they replied as follows;