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Thomas was born in 1887 in Bacchus Marsh, the youngest son of Samuel Lewis Hawkins and Elizabeth Bywater.
Thomas was a Stock and Station Agent as well as a farmer when he enlisted in the AIF, Army Medical Corps, Special Medical Reinforcements on the 21st of July 1915, aged 26. Thomas embarked aboard the HMAT A61 Kanowna in April 1916, disembarking in Egypt in May and spending three weeks in hospital with a cough, sputum, loss of weight, pain in chest and rheumatism. He transferred to the 2nd Light Horse Field Ambulance in July. While in the desert he was not well - family history of TB, aggravated by service - and he embarked from Suez aboard the Euripides in January 1917, arriving back in Australia in February [1][2].
In 1920 Thomas married Ettie Jacobsohn[3], who was also from Bacchus Marsh, and Joan was born in 1922.
They were living in the Commonwealth Hotel in Rainbow. Toward the end of 1923, when Joan would have been a toddler, Thomas had Ettie and Joan evicted from the hotel and sent on their way. Ettie went back to Ascot Vale to live with her mother. She then went to court to claim maintenance, it was reported in The Age[4]:
WIFE CLAIMS MAINTENANCE.
Henrietta Elizabeth Hawkins, of Ascot Vale, proceeded against her husband, Thomas Hawkins, at Flemington yesterday for maintenance for herself and child.
Complainant, a well-dressed young woman, at present living with her mother stated that she was married to defendant, in August 1920. After the marriage they lived at the Commonwealth Hotel, Rainbow where she was insulted and humiliated by her husband. Witness received a day's
notice from the lessee to leave the hotel, and when she asked defendant what he intended to do, he replied that it had nothing to do with him. Taking the child, she left and went to Dimboola. Her (husband said good-bye, to the baby and gave witness £10. Witness eventually went to live with her mother at AscotVale, and she had received nothing from defendant since. Her husband was an auctioneer; he had a motor car and never
missed a race meeting in the district. When in Melbourne he stayed at one of the principal hotels.
Mr. R. Hayes (for the defence); Is the
fault on your husband's side?
Witness: Not entirely.
He uses his motor car in business? —
Yes.
And has business at the races? — Not in the saddling paddock. (Laughter.)
The bench upheld Mr. Hayes's contention that the case should he heard at
Rainbow. The case was remitted to Rainbow.
The judge in the maintenance case did Ettie rather a disservice and remitted the case to Rainbow, which in those days was an 18 hour train ride from Melbourne.
Evidently Ettie and Thomas reconciled (or something of the sort) because Pauline was born in Rainbow in 1925. However, it didn't last long, in 1931 Thomas filed for divorce on grounds of "desertion", which was also the type of thing that made the papers in those days[5].
In 1932 Thomas remarried, to Lyle Ailsa Boyd, the daughter of a doctor from Bendigo.
They lived together in Horsham[6] until Thomas' death in 1965.
Name: Thomas Leslie Hawkins
Birth Date: Abt 1887
Birth Place: Bacchus Marsh, Victoria
Registration Year: 1887
Registration Place: Victoria, Australia
Father: Samuel Lewis Hawkins
Mother: Elizabeth Newport
Registration Number: 246
Source: Ancestry.com. Australia, Birth Index, 1788-1922 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
Birth date on Baptism record says "Feby. 19 1877", but there are numerous examples on the same page where "1877" has been written where clearly it should have been "1887". So given Thomas' birth was registered with the State in 1887, it has been assumed that he was born in 1887.
Marriage and divorce dates from divorce notice in The Argus on 26 Sep 1931 (p. 23).
Name: Lyle Ailsa Boyd
Gender: Female
Marriage Registration Year: 1932
Marriage Registration Place: Victoria, Australia
Spouse: Thos Louis Hawkins
Reference Number: 10951
Source: The Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages; Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Victoria, Australia, Marriage Records
Family Notices (1932, November 24). Table Talk (Melbourne, Vic. : 1885 - 1939), p. 21. Retrieved October 6, 2018, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article149611081
Name: Thomas Leslie Hawkins
Birth Year: abt 1888
Age: 77
Death Place: Horsham, Victoria
Father's name: Llwis Samuel
Mother's name: Elizabeth Bymater
Registration Year: 1965
Registration Place: Victoria
Registration Number: 25199
Source: Ancestry.com. Australia, Death Index, 1787-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
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