Bourke Street, Redfern

Adeline “Charlotte” Robens

1843–1923

Baptised Adeline Charlotte and known all her adult life simply as Charlotte. Fifty years in Redfern, seven children, two of them buried before they were six — and a name given twice.

Born: 1843 · baptised St James, Sydney
Died: 1923 · Canterbury
Married: John Radford (d. 1916), painter, of Redfern
Lived: 80 years

Baptised at St James, Sydney, as Adeline Charlotte Robins — the Robins spelling recurs across this generation and is the same family throughout.¹ As an adult she is Charlotte, and only Charlotte, in every record that follows.

On 30 March 1872 she married John Radford, a painter, at Sydney. The press notice of the marriage names her father outright as Stephen Robens, which is what ties her to this house; the marriage is registered on both the bride’s and the groom’s side under number 303.²³

The next generation

Children

Stephen J. (1873–1876)
William Thomas (1875–1880) — died at five
Arthur John (1877–1964) — painter, like his father
Mary Charlotte (1879–1970) — “our Aunty”
Stephen Robert (1882–1935) — coachbuilder, then engineer
Florence Caroline (1885–1957) — married Hodgson
Thomas Percy (1889–1985) — “Feathers”, of Queensland

1903–1916

Nine Bourke Street, Then Seven

The family stayed in Redfern for the whole of John’s life. The 1903–04 roll finds four of them at 9 Bourke Street: John the painter, Charlotte, their son Arthur John also a painter, and their son Stephen Robert, a coachbuilder.⁴ By 1913 John and Charlotte had moved to 7 Bourke Street — a few doors along the same street, the grown sons gone.⁵

John Radford died at Redfern on 23 October 1916 and was buried at Rookwood.⁶ Charlotte outlived him by seven years and died at Canterbury in 1923, her registration naming her parents as Stephen and Sarah.⁷

1873–1889

Seven Children, Sixteen Years

Two sons did not survive childhood. The name Stephen — their father’s name, and their grandfather’s — was given to the first of them, and given again six years after his death.

Stephen J. Radford

1873–1876

Two or three years old

Died: 26 March 1876, Redfern
Buried: Rookwood

The first loss.⁸ It was almost certainly in his memory that the name was given again to the son born in 1882.

William Thomas Radford

1875–1880

Five years old

Died: 5 November 1880
Buried: Rookwood

His death was carried as a notice in a Sydney paper, giving his exact age and both parents’ names — an unusually full survival for a child’s death of that date, and the reason we can say anything about him at all.⁹¹⁰

Arthur John Radford

1877–1964

Painter, of Redfern, Hurstville and Taree

Married: Florence Elizabeth Williams, 18 July 1906
Where: Redfern Congregational Church
Died: 8 August 1964; cremated Woronora

He took his father’s trade and kept it for sixty years — a painter on the roll of 1903–04 and still a painter thirty years later.⁴ He married the fourth daughter of Charles Williams of Redfern in a double wedding, two couples at one ceremony, and the studio photograph of the day survives.

The household moved from Redfern to Hurstville and finally to Taree, where the 1943 roll shows Arthur John, Florence Elizabeth, and two of their grown sons with their wives all together. Two of those sons served in the RAAF: Arthur John Charles, a sergeant, who later signwrote for a state works department and was given the Imperial Service Medal in 1972; and William Henry, a painter and decorator like his father and grandfather, awarded the National Medal for long service.¹¹

Mary Charlotte Radford

1879–1970

Never married

Lived: Croydon, by 1930
Died: 19 April 1970, aged ninety-two
Inscription: “our Aunty”

She never married and lived independently at Croydon. Her headstone at Rookwood reads simply “our Aunty” — two words paid for by the nieces and nephews of a very large family, and the whole of what is known about the place she held among them.¹²

Stephen Robert Radford

1882–1935

Coachbuilder, then engineer

Married: Pearl Gray, at Waverley, 1904
Died: 24 November 1935, Liverpool
Buried: Smithfield Uniting Church Cemetery

The second Stephen. He began as a coachbuilder and ended an engineer, dying at about fifty-three; Pearl survived him by thirty-two years.¹³ Her obituary named six children, and every one has since been confirmed from a birth or marriage record.

They ran to trades and shops. Stephen Douglas kept Radford’s Florist and Nursery on Cabramatta Road and married the only daughter of the Mayor of Fairfield — the local paper headed the report “Mayor’s Daughter Weds”. Pearl Adelaide died at fifteen after a week’s illness at Auburn Hospital. Marjorie married a dentist and lived to ninety-seven; her son lived to a hundred.¹³

Florence Caroline Radford

1885–1957

Married Archibald Hodgson, of Oatley

Married: Archibald Hodgson, at Sydney, 1912
Lived: Marine Drive, Oatley
Died: 29 June 1957; cremated Woronora

Six children, born between 1913 and 1922. Two of her sons were taken by one wave in 1940; that day has its own section below.¹⁴

Thomas Percy Radford

1889–1985

“Feathers” — farmer, of Wooroolin, Queensland

Married: Jane Elizabeth “Lizzie” Moore, at Lismore, 1912
Farmed: Wooroolin, South Burnett
Died: 6 August 1985, Brisbane, aged ninety-six

The youngest, known in the family as Feathers, and the only one of the seven to leave New South Wales for good. By 1919 he was on the Queensland roll at Wooroolin with his own registered stock brand, and there he and Lizzie raised five children.

Their eldest, John Wesley, went to the University of Queensland, lived at King’s College, became a schoolteacher, married a teacher, and served with the Second AIF in Papua New Guinea. Two more sons went into the RAAF. Their son Ronald James died at Malanda in North Queensland at thirty-two; the headstone his wife and children raised carries the words “Jesus said — I am the resurrection and the life.”

Studio wedding photograph on a printed mount: a seated moustached man in a dark suit and a standing bride in a tiered white gown with a long veil and a trailing bouquet. — Charlotte’s son Arthur John Radford and Florence Elizabeth Williams on their wedding day, 18 July 1906 — Tesla Studio, Q.V. Markets, George Street, Sydney

14 April 1940

The Gulf

Charlotte had been dead seventeen years when it happened, but it belongs to her family. On 14 April 1940 two of her grandsons — Archibald John Hodgson, called Jack, and his younger brother Ronald — were swept from the rocks at a fishing spot known as The Gulf, between Wattamolla and Garie Beach in the Royal National Park. A third man, Sydney Robert Lamb, went with them. Lamb’s brother James was caught by the same wave and survived it, badly hurt.¹⁴

Jack was twenty-six and had a small daughter, Sylvia. Ronald was in his early twenties and unmarried. The Sydney papers carried it widely.

The family’s own death notice for Jack names a surviving brother, Bruce, among the mourners — and for a while that looked like an error for Ronald, the brother who had drowned beside him. It was not. A birth registration turned up for a separate son, Bruce Robert Hodgson, born in 1922, who served in the Army and lived to eighty-two. There were two brothers, and the notice had been right all along.¹⁵

The three newspaper reports of the drowning give the brothers’ ages three different ways. The coroner’s inquest register and the family’s own notice agree that Jack was twenty-six, and that is what is carried here.¹⁴

Outdoor snapshot of a young couple standing together, the man in a suit and the woman in a light patterned dress. — Jack Hodgson and Lillian May Smithson before their marriage, about the mid-1930s. He was drowned at The Gulf in April 1940, leaving a daughter

What Is Not Settled

Two threads are left open rather than closed. John Radford’s own origins are the first: an 1851 Shoreditch census entry for a John Radford, cordwainer, born at Bristol, has been examined twice and set aside twice — once on grounds of age, and once, on a second look at an immigration list, with the ages found plausible after all. Nothing yet links that household to the man Charlotte married, and the English thread stays open.¹⁷

The second is a handful of Radfords who appear in the right places at the right times and cannot be attached to anyone — a bridesmaid at the 1906 wedding, a witness at a 1937 marriage, an Amelia Radford at Croydon on the same roll and in the same suburb as Mary Charlotte. They are set down here as unplaced rather than quietly adopted into the family.¹⁶

The Record

Sources & References

1
Baptism

St James, Sydney — Adeline Charlotte Robins, father Stephen Robens, mother Sarah. She is recorded as an adult variously as Charlotte, Charlotte A. and Charlotte Robens; the Robins spelling is a variant of the same family.
2
Marriage, 1872

NSW BDM marriage registration — John Radford and Charlotte Robens, 30 March 1872, Sydney, reg. no. 303, indexed under both bride and groom.
3
Marriage notice

Sydney press notice of the marriage, 30 March 1872, naming the bride as the daughter of Stephen Robens.
4
Redfern roll, 1903–04

NSW electoral roll, Redfern — John Radford, Arthur John Radford and Stephen Robert Radford, 9 Bourke Street; occupations painter and coachbuilder.
5
Redfern roll, 1913

NSW electoral roll, Redfern — John Radford and Charlotte Radford, 7 Bourke Street.
6
John Radford’s death

NSW BDM death registration, John Radford, 23 October 1916, Redfern; Rookwood General Cemetery burial record.
7
Charlotte’s death

NSW BDM death registration, Charlotte A. Radford, 1923, Canterbury, father Stephen, mother Sarah.
8
Stephen J.

NSW BDM birth registration reg. no. 1411/1873, Sydney; death registration 1876, Redfern, reg. no. 3577, father John, mother Charlotte A.
9
William Thomas — registration

NSW BDM birth registration reg. no. 5048/1875, Redfern; death registration 1880, Sydney, reg. no. 2241, father John, mother Charlotte A.
10
William Thomas — death notice

Sydney newspaper death notice reporting his death on 5 November 1880, aged five, and naming both parents.
11
Arthur John’s family

Married Florence Elizabeth Williams, fourth daughter of Charles Williams of Redfern, at Redfern Congregational Church, 18 July 1906, in a double ceremony. 1943 electoral roll, Taree. Died 8 August 1964, cremated Woronora; Florence Elizabeth died 29 November 1966. Sons Arthur John Charles (1907–1991, RAAF sergeant, Imperial Service Medal 1972) and William Henry (b. 1911, RAAF, National Medal); daughter Norma Alice (b. 1916). Birth years for both sons are taken from their registrations in preference to a cemetery record and an RAAF service record that each give a year earlier. A Clifford Alan Radford appears with the family on the 1943 Taree roll but no record names his parents, and he is not carried as a son.
12
Mary Charlotte

NSW BDM birth registration reg. no. 3212/1879, Sydney. Monumental inscription, Rookwood, Section A, Row 7 — died 19 April 1970, inscribed “our Aunty”.
13
Stephen Robert’s family

Married Pearl Gray, Waverley, 1904; died 24 November 1935, Liverpool, buried Smithfield Uniting Church Cemetery; Pearl died 1967, aged eighty-five. Her obituary named six children, all since confirmed: Marjorie (1905–2002), John Robert (b. 1906), Stephen Douglas (1907–1989), Pearl Adelaide (c.1908–1924), Edwin George (1912–1992) and Frederick Charles. Marjorie’s middle name appears as both Cassie and Bessie across records; Cassie is the better attested.
14
The drowning at The Gulf, 1940

Sydney press reports and the NSW coroner’s inquest register, April 1940 — Archibald John (Jack) and Ronald Hodgson, with Sydney Robert Lamb, swept from the rocks at The Gulf between Wattamolla and Garie Beach on 14 April 1940; James Lamb survived. The three newspaper reports give the brothers’ ages inconsistently (22/23 and 22/28); the inquest register and the family notice agree on twenty-six for Jack and are followed.
15
Bruce Robert Hodgson

Birth registration, 1922 — a sixth Hodgson child, whose existence resolves the family death notice of 1940 naming a surviving brother “Bruce”. That name had been assumed to be a slip for Ronald; it was not. He married Betty Margaret Curran in 1951, served in the Army, remained at the Oatley address for decades, and died in 2005.
16
Unplaced Radfords

Several names surfaced that could not be confidently attached to the family and are excluded: Maud Radford, a bridesmaid at the 1906 wedding; W. H. Radford, a witness at the 1937 marriage; Amelia Radford, at Croydon on the 1930 roll in the same suburb as Mary Charlotte; and a Queensland roll entry for “Reginald Ronald Radford” appearing in both 1941 and 1959, which cannot belong to either of the brothers of those names.
17
The English question

An 1851 Shoreditch census entry for a John Radford, cordwainer, born Bristol, was considered as a possible origin for Charlotte’s husband and set aside on grounds of age; a later look at an immigration list found the children’s ages plausible. No direct link to the Sydney John Radford has been established, and the English thread remains open rather than accepted.