The first part of this story involved the strange case of Ronald Charles Powles, who kidnapped his own toddler, Philip, in 1938. His plan was to extort money from his wife Joyce’s family. He was never charged owing to lack of proof and no doubt concern for Joyce, who was heavily pregnant at the time. If you haven’t read that piece, HERE IS THE LINK.
Unaware that it was her husband who had caused her such stress and anxiety, Joyce gave birth to the couple’s second child two days after Philip was safely returned. Ironically, the baby was named Ronald, for his father, though he would usually be known by his middle name of Adrian. As he grew up the influences (and perhaps the genes) of his hardworking mother would compete with those of his deeply flawed father.
The Powles divorced in 1945 due to Ronald’s desertion and infidelity. Joyce raised the children on her own and encouraged by her, Adrian qualified as a barrister. Joyce was very bright herself. She won a bursary at Fort Street Girls High in 1925, but for some reason did not go on to tertiary education. Instead, she became a secretary and married at 19, which she must have deeply regretted.
Joyce (Powles) Thompson as a young woman
Adrian’s career progressed rapidly, and he became a senior partner in the leading Sydney law firm Allen, Allen & Hemsley (now known as Allens). He was eventually based in London. In 1962 he had married Anne Hogan, a fellow solicitor at the firm.
I’m not sure who the young girl is in the photo below (possibly a half-sister), but the beaming woman is his mother Joyce.
Unfortunately Ronald Adrian inherited some of the destructive traits of his father, Ronald Charles.
This would lead to his spectacular downfall, involving charges of embezzlement and fraud. Bankruptcy followed, as well as attempted suicide and in 1995, imprisonment for embezzling the funds of a client and old family friend, Maud Burns.
Adrian’s criminal activity while at Allens included conspiracy to defraud the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust of vast sums of money. This almost led to the collapse of the long established legal firm. It must have been heartbreaking for his aging mother Joyce, who was also swindled out of $20,000 by the son she had been so proud of. According to The Financial Review (March 27 2000) even Powles’ loyal wife Anne did not escape, as he stole around $300,000 of her inheritance.
The journalist Valerie Lawson wrote a book about the Allens scandal;
Reviewing the book in 1995, Trevor Sykes from The Financial Review wrote;
The Allens affair is a depressing book, because it is about the self-destruction of a human being. Adrian Powles rose from a family of battlers to become a lawyer, but then his embezzlements, gambling and misjudgments nearly brought down the great legal firm of Allens.
Reading Valerie Lawson’s sympathetic chronicle of Powles’ childhood, the reader keeps hoping he will somehow succeed. His main handicap was his father, a mentally unstable ne’er-do-well whose main legacy to young Adrian was to introduce him to horse racing.
Journalist Crispin Hull wrote at the time;
Adrian’s father was a manic depressive, alcoholic and gambler. Adrian was a manic depressive, alcoholic and gambler….The partners did not know of Ronnie Powles’ instability, gambling and suicide threats. They could not and did not visit the sins of the father on the son. They treated him as himself. What percentage of human character is nature, what percentage nurture?
Such an interesting question and let’s not forget the serious condition of manic depression. It was not well understood in the 1930s, nor even in the 1980s, when Adrian began to go off the rails.
Adrian lived quietly at Bateau Bay until his death in 2008.
