The Kidd Family A Family History
Chapter Two · Thomas & Mary Rebecca Robens

The Many-Named

Violet Robens

1882–1964

Cock, Cocks, Cox, sometimes Cook — eight children, four suburbs, and a family that could not agree on how to spell itself.

Born
2 June 1882 · Sydney
Died
27 June 1964 · Strathfield
Married
George Herbert Cock, “Bert” (1885–1949)
Lived
82 years

Born on 2 June 1882 and registered at Sydney under 2091.1 On 19 April 1911, at the Balgowlah Methodist Church, she married George Herbert Cock, whom the family called Bert; the marriage was registered in the Manly district under 6044.23

He was a Central West man — born at Carcoar on 15 January 1885, son of Robert Peter Cock and Sophia Cock.4 That single fact explains the next six years of her life, which earlier accounts of this family record without explaining.

Her branch is the hardest in this history to follow, because it could not settle on a surname. Every one of the eight children was registered Cock. Four of them lived as Cocks, one as Cox, two were indexed Cook at their marriages though they signed the register Cock — and the youngest was born Cock in 1925 and buried Cook in 1928.56

The next generation

Children

  • Harold Neville (1912–1995) — turner, of Northmead
  • George Herbert (1913–1968) — fitter; buried in the Catholic ground at Rookwood
  • Leslie Robert (1915–1974) — of Sutherland; his widow outlived him by forty-three years
  • Lila Dulcie (1917– ) — married a McGovern at Parramatta in 1939
  • Thomas Peter (1919– ) — gunner and sapper; Port Moresby, 1942–43
  • Muriel Sophia (1921–1981) — married a Wells; buried at Shellharbour
  • Neva Grace (1923–2001) — “wife of Digger”, of Albion Park
  • William Alfred (1925–1928) — died at three
1912–1917

Home to His Country

The first four children were born in the Central West: Harold Neville and George Herbert in the Carcoar district in 1912 and 1913, Leslie Robert and Lila Dulcie in the Blayney district in 1915 and 1917.5 Earlier accounts place the young family "out at Number One Swamp, Mount Macquarie, near Neville" and leave it there, as though they had struck out for the bush.

They had not. Neville is a few miles from Carcoar, in the same shire. Violet had married a Carcoar man and gone home to his people, and when they came back to Sydney they came back for good.45

The four younger children were all registered at Granville — Thomas Peter in 1919, Muriel Sophia in 1921, Neva Grace in 1923 and William Alfred in 1925.5 Eight registrations in thirteen years, and between them they date the move out and the move back more precisely than any account of this family has managed.

Granville

A Roan Gelding, Taken

On 15 March 1926 he reported a horse stolen, and the *New South Wales Police Gazette* printed it: a roan gelding, thirteen hands, aged, branded "2 over ΛC" on the near shoulder, taken from open land at Granville. The owner is given as George Herbert Cock, Inkerman-street, Granville.7

It is a small entry that does two things. It puts the family at an address nothing else records, in the gap between the last Granville birth and the Northmead rolls of the 1930s. And it shows that a labourer with eight children kept a horse of his own — which in 1926, for a man of his trade, was plant and not recreation.

NSW Police Gazette, week ending 31 March 1926 — “Roan gelding … open land at Granville, 15th instant. George Herbert Cock, Inkerman-street, Granville”
Northmead

Klein’s Road, and Three Households

By the middle of the 1930s the family had settled at Northmead, in Sydney’s north-west, and the roll of 1936 catches the whole shape of it on one page: the parents at Klein’s Road, their eldest son Harold and his wife Florence Louisa at Francis Street, and their second son George Herbert — married two years — at Gilbert Street. The roll distinguishes father from son by adding *senior* to one of them.8

Her own father’s death notice in 1928 had already placed her at Wentworthville, the next suburb but one.9

1939

Named in Her Daughter’s Hand

On 4 March 1939, at All Saints’ Church, Parramatta North, her fourth child Lila Dulcie married Henry Hugh McGovern, a general hand of Homebush.10 The register entry is the only document in this branch that names both parents together, and it is worth setting out as it stands.

Father: George Herbert Cock, labourer. Mother: Violet Robens. The bride, twenty-one, a factory hand, born at Blayney. One of the witnesses signed G. H. Cock.10

Entry 543, 4 March 1939 — “Father: George Herbert Cock, labourer. Mother: Violet Robens”
The War

Two Sons in Uniform, and a Letter to Bathurst

Two of her sons served. Leslie Robert enlisted in the Citizen Military Forces at Wollongong; Thomas Peter attested at Paddington on 4 August 1941 as a gunner in the Sydney harbour defences, transferred to the AIF the following March, and sailed for Port Moresby three weeks after marrying.1112

It is Thomas Peter’s attestation that reaches across into another part of this chapter. Asked for his next of kin, he gave his father — and gave his father’s address as “c/o Mrs Robens, 191 Lort Street, Bathurst.”11

That is her eldest brother William Wesley’s house. It is the only document in this whole history that ties two of the twelve children’s families to one another, and it does so almost in passing: Violet’s husband receiving his post at her brother’s door, four hundred miles from Northmead. Three army clerks wrote the street three different ways in the one file — Lort, Sort and Lord — which is exactly the mess the Bathurst compositors had been making of it since 1932.1113

Thomas Peter Cox’s attestation, 4 August 1941 — “George Herbert Cox … c/o Mrs Robens, 191 Lort St, Bathurst … Father”
1949

The Caretaker

George Herbert Cock died on 25 June 1949 and was buried at Rookwood. The death notice gives what no roll or registration does — the job he held at the end.14

Caretaker, Scouts’ Camping Grounds, Northmead, dearly loved husband of Violet Cocks and loved father of Harold, George, Leslie, Lila (Mrs McGovern), Thomas, Muriel (Mrs Wells) and Neva (Mrs Gagan), aged 65 years. At rest.
Death notice, 25 June 1949
The notice names all seven surviving children, and spells the family Cocks

The Scouts’ ground on Riley Road, Northmead, has been read in this history as the place Violet went when she was widowed. It was not. It was his job and their home, and she was there because he held it.14

She outlived him by fifteen years, and died at Strathfield on 27 June 1964, aged eighty-two — two days past the fifteenth anniversary of his death.

The Children

Eight, and Where They Went

Eight children across thirteen years — the first four in the Central West, the last four at Granville. One died at three; the seven who grew up all married, between 1934 and 1942.5

Harold Neville

1912 – 1995

The eldest, and a turner

Born
25 February 1912 · Carcoar district
Married
Florence Louisa Halling, Boorowa, 1935
Lived
Francis Street, Northmead
Buried
Pinegrove Memorial Park, Minchinbury

The eldest, born in his father’s country. He married at twenty-three into the Boorowa district and brought his wife back to Northmead: the 1936 roll has the couple at Francis Street, a few streets from his parents at Klein’s Road, and the roll of 1946 has them at the same address still.815

A turner — a machine trade, and the first anyone in this family held. He lived to eighty-three.15

George Herbert

1913 – 1968

His father’s namesake; a fitter

Born
1913 · Carcoar district
Married
Ivy May Ireland, Granville, 1934
Died
7 April 1968, aged 54
Buried
Rookwood, Catholic ground

His father’s namesake, and the reason the 1936 roll has to set one of the two men “senior”. He had married two years before it and was living apart from his parents by then, at Gilbert Street.816

He is the only one of the eight in Catholic ground, which follows from his marriage into the Ireland family. He died at fifty-four, the youngest death of the seven who grew up, under an inscription reading “husb, father & grandfather” and a footstone that says simply, “Dad.”16

Leslie Robert

1915 – 1974

Citizen Military Forces, N45593

Born
13 August 1915 · Blayney
Married
Doris Mepstead, Sutherland, 1942
Died
29 January 1974, aged 58
Buried
Woronora Memorial Park

He went further from the family orbit than any of his brothers — enlisting at Wollongong rather than in Sydney, and marrying into the Sutherland shire, where he stayed.17

His headstone carries the two of them together, and the wording was finished forty-three years after it was begun: “our loving mother, grand and great grandmother, Doris Cocks, died 10 May 2017, aged 96.” She outlived him by more than four decades.17

Lila Dulcie

1917 –

Whose wedding named her parents

Born
1917 · Blayney
Married
Henry Hugh McGovern, Parramatta North, 4 March 1939
Work
“Factory” — a factory hand, of Parramatta
Lived
26 Moala Street, Concord West

The last of the four born in the Central West, and the one whose wedding produced the most valuable document in this branch. The register of 4 March 1939 is the only primary record anywhere that names her parents together — and one of the witnesses signed G. H. Cock, so her father or a brother stood up with her.10

She was twenty-one, working in a factory and living in Grange Street, Parramatta. The couple settled at Concord West. Neither her death nor any children are in the records held.1018

Thomas Peter

1919 –

Gunner, then Sapper; Port Moresby

Born
25 May 1919 · Granville
Married
Betty Ruth Compton, 17 March 1942
Served
1,349 days — 583 of them overseas
Lived
Pymble, later Hornsby

The best-documented of the eight, because he served twice. A labourer of twenty-two with eighteen months in the 18th Battalion behind him, he attested in August 1941 for the harbour guns at Georges Heights. Seven months later he transferred to the AIF, married four days after that, and sailed for Port Moresby three weeks after the wedding.1214

Nineteen months in New Guinea with Paga Battery: dengue fever in the November of 1942, three weeks detached to 1 Australian Special Radio Detachment in the March of 1943, home on the Katoomba that November. Appendicitis, two absences without leave and two £3 fines followed in Australia. He was discharged on demobilization in 1945 with no decorations at all.14

Ten years on he began writing to Victoria Barracks about a Returned from Active Service badge lost on an Anzac Day. It took him nearly three years and nine shillings in stamps to get another.15

Muriel Sophia

1921 – 1981

Named for her grandmother at Carcoar

Born
1921 · Granville
Married
John Richard Fortescue Wells, Five Dock, 1940
Lived
42 Clyde Street, Merrylands
Buried
Shellharbour Cemetery

Named for her father’s mother, Sophia Cock of Carcoar — the only one of the eight to carry a name from that side. She married at about nineteen and the couple lived at Merrylands, where her husband was a painting contractor.19

They moved south to the Illawarra, and it is there the hardest fact in this branch sits: their son Glenn David died in February 1961, at ten or eleven. Muriel outlived him by twenty years and was buried beside him. Her mother Violet, who lived until 1964, outlived this grandson too.19

Neva Grace

1923 – 2001

“Wife of Digger”

Born
21 May 1923 · Granville
Married
Albert Arthur Gagan, Burwood, 1942
Lived
8 Flemington Street, Flemington
Buried
Marshall Mount, Albion Park

She married in the same year as two of her brothers, and then stayed put: two electoral rolls a generation apart put her and Albert at the same door in Flemington, before and after the street was renamed and postcodes came in.20

Her plaque is the warmest inscription in this chapter, and it settles her name for good against a birth index that reads “Grace W”: “Neva Grace Gagan (Nee Cocks), Wife Of Digger … She Left a Great Heritage For Her Children.” She died on Anzac Day.20

William Alfred

1925 – 1928

The one who did not grow up

Born
1925 · Granville, as Cock
Died
1928 · Parramatta, as Cook
Age
About three

Born at Granville the year before his father reported the stolen horse, and dead at Parramatta about three years later.721

He is absent from the 1949 death notice, which names the seven survivors, and his death was registered under a different spelling of the family name from his birth. Two documents three years apart, and nothing else at all.1621

Woronora — Leslie Robert Cocks, 1974, and Doris, who followed him forty-three years later
Albion Park — “Neva Grace Gagan (Nee Cocks), Wife Of Digger … She Left a Great Heritage For Her Children”

They ended nowhere near each other: Northmead, Concord West, Merrylands, Flemington, Sutherland, Shellharbour, Minchinbury, Albion Park, Rookwood. No two of the eight are buried in the same ground.

The Record

Sources & References

  1. 1

    Birth registration

    NSW BDM index — Violet Robens, 1882, registered Sydney, reg. no. 2091; father Thomas Robens, mother Mary R J Robens. The chapter’s date of 2 June 1882 comes from another source and is not contradicted.

  2. 2

    Marriage, 1911

    NSW BDM index — COCK, George H, and ROBENS, Violet, 1911, district Manly, reg. no. 6044. The wedding is recorded as 19 April 1911 at the Balgowlah Methodist Church; Balgowlah falls within the Manly registration district.

  3. 3

    “Bert”

    Family recollection supplied by JK, 4 September 2026 — George Herbert Cock was known as Bert. The name appears in no record held.

  4. 4

    George Herbert Cock

    Born 15 January 1885 at Carcoar, Blayney Shire, New South Wales, son of Robert Peter Cock and Sophia Cock. Died 25 June 1949; buried Rookwood General Cemetery.

  5. 5

    Birth registrations of the eight children

    NSW BDM index, father George H (George on one), mother Violet throughout — Harold N 2854/1912, Carcoar; George H 39253/1913, Carcoar; Leslie R 31707/1915, Blayney; Lila D 19722/1917, Blayney; Thomas P 21183/1919, Granville; Muriel S 22963/1921, Granville; Grace W [Neva Grace] 24943/1923, Granville; William A 29482/1925, Granville. All eight are registered under the surname COCK.

  6. 6

    The surname

    Cocks on the 1936 and 1946 Parramatta North rolls and in the 1949 death notice; Cox throughout Thomas Peter’s two service files; Cook in the marriage indexes for Lila Dulcie (1939) and Muriel Sophia (1940), though Lila signed the marriage register “L. D. Cock”; George Herbert junior is indexed “George H Cook” at his 1934 marriage and headed “Cocks” on his headstone; William Alfred was registered Cock at birth in 1925 and Cook at death in 1928.

  7. 7

    Police Gazette, 1926

    New South Wales Police Gazette, “List and Description of Horses and Cattle Reported to the Police as Stolen During the Week Ending 31st March, 1926”, entry 3 — reported 15 March; roan gelding, “2 over ΛC” on the near shoulder, 13 hands high, aged; taken from open land at Granville on the 15th instant; owner George Herbert Cock, Inkerman-street, Granville. No reward offered and no recovery noted on the page held. The entry is not indexed to this family, but the full three-part name at Granville in 1926 makes the identification all but certain.

  8. 8

    1936 Parramatta North roll

    Commonwealth Electoral Roll, Subdivision of Parramatta North, 1936, pp. 18–19, entries 1093–1097 — Cocks, Florence Louisa, Francis Street, Northmead, home duties; Cocks, George Herbert, 7 Gilbert Street, fitter; Cocks, George Herbert, senior, Klein’s Road, Northmead, labourer; Cocks, Harold Neville, Francis Street, Northmead, turner; Cocks, Violet, Klein’s Road, Northmead, home duties. The roll of 1946 (p. 21, entries 1187–1189) has Violet alone at Hammers Road, Northmead.

  9. 9

    Death notice of Thomas Robens, 1928

    “Personal” — the death of her father at Cross Street, Baulkham Hills, aged 80, placing Violet at Wentworthville among his twelve children.

  10. 10

    Marriage register, 1939

    Marriage register p. 143, entry 543 — solemnised 4 March 1939 at All Saints’ Church, Parramatta North, according to the rites of the Church of England by G. B. Manning. Henry Hugh McGovern, general hand, 32 Barrington Street, Homebush, bachelor, born Five Dock, aged 22, son of Patrick McGovern, sign-writer, and Ethel May Collis; Lila Dulcie Cock, factory, of Grange Street, Parramatta, spinster, born Blayney, aged 21, daughter of George Herbert Cock, labourer, and Violet Robens. Witnessed by G. H. Cock. Registered 5929/1939, Parramatta, as “Lila Dulcie Cook”.

  11. 11

    Thomas Peter Cox — militia service file

    NAA: B884, N274734 — attested 4 August 1941 at Recruiting Depot E.C. (Engineer & Signals Depot, Paddington), oath sworn 5 August; born Granville 25 May 1919; labourer; prior service 18th Battalion, 1 year 6 months; gunner, 5 Heavy Brigade, Heavy Artillery Fixed Defences, taken on strength at Georges Heights; 220 days; discharged 12 March 1942, certificate EC 5014, "having enlisted in an Expeditionary Force raised for service outside the Commonwealth". Next of kin on all three forms: George Herbert Cox, father, "c/o Mrs Robens, 191 Lort Street, Bathurst" — set as "Sort St." by the typist of the service and casualty form and "Lord Street" on the discharge particulars.

  12. 12

    Thomas Peter Cox — AIF service file

    NAA: B883, NX92429 — attested 13 March 1942 at Paddington; married Betty Ruth Compton 17 March; embarked H.M.A.T. Taroona 2 April and disembarked Port Moresby 9 April 1942; Paga Battery; dengue fever November 1942; detached to 1 Australian Special Radio Detachment, March 1943; home on the Katoomba, November 1943; later Sydney Coast Artillery and 1 R.A.E. Training Battalion, graded Instrument Operator Group II. Discharged 29 November 1945 on demobilization after 1,349 effective days, 583 of them overseas; decorations nil. In 1956–58 he wrote twice to have his Returned from Active Service badge replaced, enclosing nine shillings in stamps.

  13. 13

    The Lort Street misprints

    Commonwealth Electoral Rolls, Subdivision of Bathurst — Leslie Harold Robens is set at “191 Fort Street” in 1932–1937 and “191 Lord Street” in 1943, and on a later undated page William Wesley’s own line reads “225 Lord street” while his daughter’s, two lines above, reads “225 Lort street”. See the chapter’s page for William Wesley Robens.

  14. 14

    Death notice of George Herbert Cocks, 1949

    “COCKS, George Herbert.—June 25, 1949. Caretaker, Scouts’ Camping Grounds, Northmead, dearly loved husband of Violet Cocks and loved father of Harold, George, Leslie, Lila (Mrs McGovern), Thomas, Muriel (Mrs Wells) and Neva (Mrs Gagan), aged 65 years. At rest.” Born 15 January 1885, he was in fact sixty-four.

  15. 15

    Harold Neville Cocks

    Born 25 February 1912; married Florence L Halling, 1935, Boorowa (registered Burrowa), reg. no. 21062; a turner, of Francis Street, Northmead, on the 1936 and 1946 rolls; died 20 September 1995; buried Pinegrove Memorial Park, Minchinbury.

  16. 16

    George Herbert Cocks

    Born 1913; married Ivy M Ireland, 1934, Granville, reg. no. 3620, indexed “George H Cook”; a fitter, of 7 Gilbert Street, on the 1936 roll; died 7 April 1968, aged 54; buried Rookwood, Catholic Mortuary 2 & 3, Section 17, Row 6 — “husb, father & grandfather”, the footstone “Dad.”

  17. 17

    Leslie Robert Cocks

    Born 13 August 1915 at Blayney; Army, Citizen Military Forces, service no. N45593, enlisted Wollongong, next of kin George Cocks; married Doris Mepstead, 1942, Sutherland, reg. no. 33519; died 29 January 1974, aged 58; buried Woronora Memorial Park. The headstone records Doris Cocks, died 10 May 2017, aged 96.

  18. 18

    The McGoverns at Concord West

    Commonwealth Electoral Roll, Subdivision of Yaralla, undated — McGovern, Henry Hugh, and McGovern, Lila Dulcie, home duties, both at 26 Moala Street, Concord West.

  19. 19

    Muriel Sophia Wells, née Cock

    Born 1921; married John Richard Fortescue Wells, 1940, Five Dock, reg. no. 29969, indexed “Muriel Sophia Cook”; of 42 Clyde Street, Merrylands, on an undated Granville roll, he a painting contractor; died 4 February 1981; buried Shellharbour Cemetery. Their son Glenn David Wells, born 1950, died 24 February 1961 — death registration 17210/1961, district Kiama, father John Richard F, mother Muriel Sophia — and is buried at Shellharbour.

  20. 20

    Neva Grace Gagan, née Cock

    Born 21 May 1923; married Albert Arthur Gagan, 1942, Burwood, reg. no. 7629 — the registration reads COCK, NEVA GRACE, against the birth index’s “Grace W”; of 8 Flemington Street, Flemington, and later 8 Flemington Road, Homebush 2140, he a clerk; died 25 April 2001; buried Marshall Mount Methodist Cemetery, Albion Park. Her plaque: “Neva Grace Gagan (Nee Cocks) / Wife Of Digger / Lived On Earth / 21-5-23 To 25-4-01 / Now In Heavenly Dwellings / She Left a Great Heritage For Her Children.”

  21. 21

    William Alfred Cock

    Born 1925, Granville, reg. no. 29482, as COCK, WILLIAM A. Died 1928, Parramatta, reg. no. 4830, registered as “William Cook”, father George H, mother Violet. He was about three.