Fred Watson

Ancestors

Descendants

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Biography

About Watson, Frederick Arthur Fred was made a State Ward in NSW: Admitted 15th September 1921. Record in "Dependent Children's Registers 1900-1923, Folio 5537. His brother Phillip Henry Watson was also admitted the same day. Both boys are recorded as Religion: Church of England. File number: 7299; Date 1921-23; 5479-5572. Location 11/22128 in State Records NSW. Fred is recorded as being 6 years and 6 months old when admitted into Care; and Phillip is recorded as being 5 years of age. Yet Frederick would have been 7 years of age and 5 months in Sept 1921. Interestingly their mother remarried in 1921 in Melbourne. Frederick said that his father had taken first him, then later his brother from their mother, and moved them to Parramatta NSW from Toorak Victoria when Frederick was about 2 years old. The reason is unknown. Frederick said that he lived with Greens, and that his father would come to visit. That sometimes he would see him, and at other times when he woke up in the morning he would find new toys downstairs and then he knew his father had been their the night before. Frederick said that they used to meet his father every two weeks at Hyde Park Sydney, but one Sunday afternoon he did not turn up to meet them as they expected, and he never saw his father again. By that time, his brother Philip was also living with him at the Greens home. Frederick said the Greens had 3 daughters - quite a bit older than him, and he had fond memories of Mrs Green in particular, and the family. When Frederick married Mary, on the their honeymoon they called in and stayed with the Greens for several days on their way from South Australia up to Queensland where Frederick was travelling for work in the Collinsville mines. It is evident from research that Frederick's father either placed the two boys with a family called "Green", or that before they were formally admitted to State Wardship when he disappeared in 1921, the boys had been placed in the care of the Greens by Child Welfare but their father had access visits. Even unto the time of his death in 1991 Frederick was unaware that he was ever formally a state ward. I [daughter, Terry] discovered the State Wardship information in 2002 when I was working in Sydney, [in the Parramatta region too] and went to the State Archives near Circular Quay. In these records their father and my grandfather is recorded as being: Frederick Watson [deserted] warrant issued; and Mother recorded as Deceased. Particulars of Foster Parents or Guardians: Mrs Newton Green; address: "Somona" Inkerman St., Parramatta, NSW. Received: 15th Sept 1921. also 16th August 1921. *** the record that their mother was deceased when they were put into care is inaccurate. She was living in Melbourne. Their mother died in 1927 when Fred was 12 and Phillip 10. The information that their mother had died did not get relayed to Fred or Phillip until the end of WW2 when they both received a letter in 1943 asking them if they were the sons of Elsie Elizabeth Looby. They were left 100 Pounds each in her will. This is how they 'found each other again' and found their uncles and aunts and cousins.

Sources

• First-hand information as remembered by Watson-8714 Theresa Watson, Saturday, December 20, 2014. Theresa Watson along with her mother Mary Audrey Watson [nee Reed] also witnessed the death of Frederick Watson.