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

The Saddler of Lort Street

William Wesley Robens

1878–1963

The eldest of the twelve. He buried a wife at Enfield, a son of sixteen at Rookwood and a second wife at Blayney — and kept house at Lort Street, Bathurst, for the rest of his life.

William Wesley Robens
Born
1878 · Newtown
Died
2 July 1963 · Bathurst
Married
Alice Eva Frances Hibbert (1877–1915); Florence Adelaide Death (1877–1929)
Trade
Saddler, then carter
Lived
85 years

Born at Newtown in 1878, registration 4619 — the eldest of Thomas and Mary Rebecca Jane’s twelve children.1 A memorial summary gives 2 February 1877 instead; a civil registration is the better source, and 1878 is kept here.1 In 1901 he married Alice Eva Frances Hibbert at Newtown.2

Alice was English — born in Derbyshire in 1877, daughter of William James Hibbert.3 Between 1902 and 1913 they had five children, every one of them registered within a few miles of the last: Marrickville, Ashfield, Leichhardt, Ashfield again, Petersham.4 Nothing in the record puts this household in the Central West in those years at all.

The trade came down to him twice over — from his father Thomas, saddler and bootmaker, and from his mother’s father Archibald Joseph Jeffries, who kept a saddlery at Bathurst after going blind. He worked at it for some thirty years, and then set it down.

The next generation

Children

  • William Thomas (1902–1918) — died at sixteen; Rookwood, with his mother
  • Leslie Harold (1903–1993) — cabinetmaker; fifty years at 364 Peel Street, Bathurst
  • Beryl Alice (1905–2001) — married a Pym in 1926; fifty-four years at Lithgow
  • Percy Norman (1908–1970) — tram conductor at Balgowlah; buried Porters Retreat
  • Ida Doris (1913–2006) — went to Queensland; died at Buderim at ninety-three
Alice Eva Frances Robens, née Hibbert — born in Derbyshire, dead at Enfield at thirty-eight
Ashfield

“Hawthorn,” Lion Street

In December 1908 he applied to buy Crown land, and the Department of Lands approved the purchase in the Government Gazette of 13 January 1909. The entry names him “William Wesley Robens, of ‘Hawthorn,’ Lion-street, Ashfield, saddler, &c.”5 It is the trade documented twenty-two years before the first Bathurst roll, and the family’s Sydney address with the name of the house on it — the district where Leslie had been born in 1903 and where Percy would be born the following year.

What he bought was portion 1101 in the parish of Manly Cove, Shire of Warringah: six acres, two roods and thirty-four perches, for £34, the balance payable in five equal annual instalments.5 It is the only property transaction anywhere in his record. What became of it is not known.

Entry 17 — “of ‘Hawthorn,’ Lion-street, Ashfield, saddler, &c.” Six and a half acres at Manly Cove for £34, over five years
1915–1918

Two Graves at Rookwood

Alice died on 23 December 1915 at Enfield, in the Municipality of Burwood, and was buried at Rookwood.3 She was thirty-eight. He was left with five children, the eldest thirteen and the youngest two.

Twenty-eight months later he buried the eldest. William Thomas died at Newtown on 4 April 1918, aged about sixteen, and was laid at Rookwood with his mother.6 Leslie is called the “second son” in a notice printed twenty-five years afterwards — which is the whole of what the family left in print about the brother who did not grow up.7

It is after those two deaths, and not before, that this household appears at Bathurst.

Bathurst

191 Lort Street

Seven electoral rolls, from 1930 to 1943, put him at 191 Lort Street with whichever of his children had not yet gone.8 His father’s death notice in 1928 had already given the address.9

The compositors could never settle the street. Leslie Harold is set at “191 Fort Street” in every year from 1932 to 1937 and “191 Lord Street” in 1943; on a later page it is William Wesley’s own line that reads “Lord” while his daughter’s, two lines above it, reads “Lort”.8 It is one house all the way through.

Those rolls also date the end of the trade. He is a saddler in 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1935, and a carter from 1936 onward.8 The craft that had come down from his blind grandfather was set aside in the middle of that decade, and he never took it up again — he was still entered as a carter on the roll of the year he died.

He leaves besides his wife … twelve children, the eldest being Mr. William Robens, of Lort Street Bathurst.
Death notice of Thomas Robens, 1928
His father’s death notice, 1928 — the eldest of the twelve, named and placed
Lort Street, undated — William Wesley and his daughter Ida Doris at 191; his son Leslie and Leslie’s wife Mary Bridget Agnes at 364 Peel Street
1924–1929

Florence

Nine years after Alice died, he married again. At Bathurst in 1924 he married Florence Adelaide Payne — born Florence Adelaide Death at Carcoar in 1877, daughter of George and Elizabeth Death, and the widow of Francis Payne, whom she had married at Blayney in 1901.10

No account of this family has ever mentioned her, and for a long while the rolls seemed to argue she was never there: she stands beside him on none of the twelve that survive. The reason is simple, and bleak. She died on 19 October 1929 and was buried at Blayney, and the earliest Bathurst roll held was taken the following year.11 The marriage lasted about five years, and what remains of it is a registration number, a probate card, and a grave in another town.

The card gives her address as Bathurst and her occupation, in the manner of the time, as “Married”. Administration of her £240 estate was not granted until July 1938 — nine years after her death.11

Probate card 123340 — “Robens, Florence Adelaide. Bathurst. Married.” Date of death, 19.10.29
“Leslie, second son of Mr. William Robens of Lort Street, Bathurst and the late Mrs. Robens of Abbotsford”
The Children

Five, and Where They Went

Five children, all born in Sydney’s inner west between 1902 and 1913. One died at sixteen; the four who lived all married. Two stayed in the Central West and two went further.4

William Thomas

1902 – 1918

The eldest, and the only one who did not grow up

Born
1902 · Marrickville
Died
4 April 1918, aged about sixteen
Buried
Rookwood, with his mother

He was thirteen when his mother died in December 1915, and dead himself twenty-eight months later at Newtown. No cause is recorded in anything held; the influenza pandemic did not reach Sydney until January 1919, so it was not that.6

He is on no electoral roll because he never reached enrolling age, and some memorial summaries of this family leave him out. The one trace the family left of him in print is indirect — a notice of 1943 that calls his brother Leslie the “second son”.7

Leslie Harold

1903 – 1993

The son who stayed; a cabinetmaker

Born
4 March 1903 · Ashfield
Married
Mary Bridgid Agnes Cosgrove, Bathurst, 1943
Lived
364 Peel Street, Bathurst
Buried
Bathurst Cemetery, with his father

He lived at his father’s house on Lort Street into his forties, on every Bathurst roll from 1932 under the “Fort” and “Lord” misprints, and married at forty.812

He and Mary then took 364 Peel Street and kept it for half a century. In 1977 they are the only Robens left on the Bathurst roll at all. He died there in 1993 at ninety — the last of his generation in the town, and the only one of the five buried in the same ground as his father.1320

Beryl Alice

1905 – 2001

Fifty-four years at Lithgow

Born
1905 · Leichhardt
Married
Richard Guy Pym, Bathurst, 1926
Lived
“Wenvoo”, Ordnance Avenue, Lithgow
Then
4 Padley Street, Lithgow, by 1980

She married first of all the children, four years before the earliest Bathurst roll held — which is the whole reason she never appears on one. Her absence had been read, wrongly, as a doubt about whether she existed.416

Pym was a carter, the trade her father would take up ten years later, and was born at Kalgoorlie in 1904. They settled one subdivision west of Bathurst and stayed: three rolls of the 1930s at a house called “Wenvoo”, and the roll of 1980 still has them at Lithgow. Fifty-four years of enrolment in the one town.1617

Percy Norman

1908 – 1970

Labourer, then tram conductor

Born
26 December 1908 · registered 1909, Ashfield
Married
Margaret Daphne Cosgrove, Oberon, 1938
Lived
184 Woodland Street, Balgowlah
Buried
Porters Retreat, Oberon Shire

Born five days after Christmas and registered in the new year, which is why the index reads 1909. He married five years before his brother and into the same family — two Robens brothers married two Cosgrove sisters from a property outside Oberon.414

The couple were at Peel Street, Bathurst, in 1943, and later left the Central West for Sydney, where a roll has Percy as a tram conductor at Balgowlah with Margaret Daphne and their son Barry John, a chemical engineer.15 He died in 1970, aged sixty-one, and was taken back to Porters Retreat — his wife’s country, not his father’s. Margaret outlived him by thirty-eight years and was brought back to lie with him.14

Ida Doris

1913 – 2006

Kept house for him longest, and went furthest

Born
1913 · Petersham
Married
Francis Alfred Franklin, a Londoner
Lived
Tanawha, then Buderim, Queensland
Died
1 July 2006, aged ninety-three

The youngest, and two years old when her mother died. She kept house for her father longer than any of the others — beside him at Lort Street from 1935, and still beside him after the move to number 225.810

Then she went further than all of them. She married a Londoner and a farmer and settled in Queensland, at Tanawha and then Buderim. She outlived her husband by twenty-one years and every one of her brothers and sisters by at least five, and died half a continent and ninety-three years from Petersham.1819

Buderim — Ida had the plaque cut for “my dear husband” in 1985; her own name was added beneath his almost twenty-one years later
Last Years

225 Browning Street

He moved twice more. Undated rolls take him from 191 Lort Street to 225 Lort Street, and then to 225 Browning Street, where earlier research places him by 1958 — a man approaching eighty, still entered as a carter, still keeping his own house.8

He was on the Bathurst roll in 1963. He died there on 2 July that year, aged eighty-five, and was buried in Bathurst Cemetery.20

Alice lies at Rookwood with their eldest son; Florence at Blayney; Percy and Margaret at Porters Retreat; Beryl at Lithgow; Ida at Buderim. Of the whole household, only Leslie is buried in the same ground as his father.

The Record

Sources & References

  1. 1

    Birth registration

    NSW BDM index — William Wesley Robins, 1878, Newtown, reg. no. 4619; father Thomas Robins, mother Mary Rebecca J Robins. A memorial summary gives 2 February 1877 at Newtown, City of Sydney; the civil registration is preferred pending the certificate.

  2. 2

    Marriage, 1901

    NSW BDM index — William W Robens and Alice L F Hibbert, 1901, Newtown, reg. no. 4549. The middle initial is a mis-transcription: two of the children’s birth registrations and William Thomas’s death registration all give the mother as Alice E F.

  3. 3

    Alice Eva Frances Robens, née Hibbert

    Born 1877, Derbyshire, England, daughter of William James Hibbert. Died 23 December 1915 at Enfield, in the Municipality of Burwood, New South Wales; buried Rookwood General Cemetery. A 1943 engagement notice for her son Leslie calls her “the late Mrs. Robens of Abbotsford”.

  4. 4

    Birth registrations of the five children

    NSW BDM index — William T, 13931/1902, Marrickville; Leslie H, 9843/1903, Ashfield; Beryl A, 4498/1905, Leichhardt; Percy N, 1108/1909, Ashfield (born 26 December 1908 and registered in the new year); Ida D, 17473/1913, Petersham. Father William W throughout; mother Alice E F on the first two, Alice E thereafter.

  5. 5

    Crown land purchase, 1908–09

    NSW Government Gazette, Department of Lands, Sydney, 13 January 1909, “Approval of after-auction purchases”, entry 17 — “William Wesley Robens, of ‘Hawthorn,’ Lion-street, Ashfield, saddler, &c.” Application 18 December 1908; Land District Metropolitan; portion 1101, parish Manly Cove, county Cumberland; offered for sale 8 October 1908 at Sydney; area 6a 2r 34p; price £34; balance in five equal annual instalments; catalogue C. 1,220–2,030 R. (c); Shire of Warringah.

  6. 6

    Death of William Thomas Robens, 1918

    NSW BDM index — William T Robens, 1918, Newtown, reg. no. 4794; father William W, mother Alice E F. Died 4 April 1918; buried Rookwood General Cemetery. Born 1902 at Marrickville, he was about sixteen.

  7. 7

    “Engagements” notice

    “The engagement is announced of Mary, second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Cosgrove of ‘Rose Dale’ Porter’s Retreat to Leslie, second son of Mr. William Robens of Lort Street, Bathurst and the late Mrs. Robens of Abbotsford.” A separate announcement in the same column concerns a Beryl McMillan of Lord Street, Bathurst, who is not Beryl Alice Robens.

  8. 8

    Bathurst electoral rolls, 1930–c. 1958

    Commonwealth Electoral Rolls, Division of Macquarie, Subdivision of Bathurst — 1930 (p. 89, entry 5305), 1932, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1943, all at 191 Lort Street; saddler to 1935, carter from 1936. Four later pages carry no printed year: pp. 110–111, entries 6626–6629 (191 Lort Street); pp. 116–117, entries 6976–6979 (225 Lort Street, his line set “Lord”); pp. 122–123, entries 7259–7261, and pp. 126–127, entries 7529–7531 (both 225 Browning Street). The earliest of the four cannot precede 1949: entry 6609 on the same page reads “Riley, Victor Cecil, Immigration centre, electrician”, the Bathurst Migrant Reception Centre having opened in 1948.

  9. 9

    Death notice of Thomas Robens, 1928

    “Personal” — died at his residence, Cross Street, Baulkham Hills, aged 80, the last son of the late Mr Stephen Robins; formerly “a well known and respected resident of Bathurst” who “was in the boot trade, in Howick Street prior to leaving Bathurst”; his wife “the eldest daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Jefferies of George St Bathurst”; buried in the Methodist Cemetery, Rookwood.

  10. 10

    Second marriage, 1924

    NSW BDM index — William W Robens and Florence A Payne, 1924, Bathurst, reg. no. 17603. She was born Florence Adelaide Death at Carcoar in 1877, reg. no. 10111, daughter of George Death and Elizabeth M Death, and had married Francis P Payne at Blayney in 1901, reg. no. 3324.

  11. 11

    Death and probate of Florence Adelaide Robens

    Died 19 October 1929; buried Blayney Cemetery. NSW probate index card no. 123340 — “Robens, Florence Adelaide”, address Bathurst, occupation “Married”, administrator M.; endorsed 21 July 1938, value £240.

  12. 12

    Leslie Harold Robens, 1903–1993

    Born 4 March 1903 at Ashfield. Married Mary Bridgid Agnes Cosgrove at Bathurst in 1943, reg. no. 8681. Died 25 July 1993 at Bathurst; buried Bathurst Cemetery.

  13. 13

    1977 Bathurst roll

    Electoral Roll, Subdivision of Bathurst, p. 38, made up to 25 February 1977, entries 8590–8591 — Robens, Leslie Harold, 364 Peel St, Bathurst 2795, cabinetmaker; Robens, Mary Bridget Agnes, same address, home duties. They are the only Robens on the roll.

  14. 14

    Percy Norman Robens and Margaret Daphne Cosgrove

    Percy born 26 December 1908; married at Oberon in 1938, reg. no. 21905; died 19 June 1970; buried Porters Retreat, Oberon Shire. Margaret Daphne Cosgrove born 11 March 1918 at Bathurst, daughter of William Thomas Cosgrove and Bridget Mary Cosgrove; died 1 October 2008 at Balgowlah; buried Porters Retreat. Her father’s second name against the engagement notice’s “Mr. … Thomas Cosgrove”, her mother’s names against Leslie’s wife’s “Mary Bridgid Agnes”, and the Porters Retreat burial together make the two wives sisters; only Mary’s own birth registration would settle it formally.

  15. 15

    Balgowlah roll

    Commonwealth Electoral Roll, Subdivision of Balgowlah, pp. 70–71, entries 4149–4151 — Robens, Barry John, chemical engineer; Robens, Margaret Daphne, home duties; Robens, Percy Norman, tram conductor; all at 184 Woodland Street. The page carries no printed year; Sydney’s trams ran until February 1961, and Barry John’s enrolment puts it no earlier than about 1958.

  16. 16

    Beryl Alice Robens and Richard Guy Pym

    Married at Bathurst in 1926, reg. no. 16570. Richard Guy Pym born 17 August 1904 at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, son of Robert Daniel Pym and Eliza Rebecca Pym; died 14 March 1983 at Sydney; cremated Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens, North Ryde.

  17. 17

    Lithgow electoral rolls, 1934–1980

    Commonwealth Electoral Rolls, Division of Macquarie, Subdivision of Lithgow — 1934 (p. 99, entries 5917–5918), 1935 (p. 101, entries 5987–5988) and 1937 (p. 98, entries 5801–5802), all at “Wenvoo,” Ordnance Avenue, Lithgow, Beryl Alice at home duties and Richard Guy a carter; and the roll made up to 1 August 1980 (p. 30, entries 6719–6720) at 4 Padley Street, Lithgow, he then a shop assistant.

  18. 18

    Ida Doris Franklin, née Robens

    Married Francis Alfred Franklin, born London 28 May 1902, died Queensland 24 September 1985. Commonwealth Electoral Rolls, Subdivision of Landsborough, Queensland, undated — pp. 46–47, entries 2766–2767, Bruce Highway, Tanawha, via Buderim, he a farmer; and pp. 30–31, entries 6058–6059, 35 Mayfield Street, Buderim. An indexed roll entry places her at Tanawha in 1969, register no. 2917.

  19. 19

    Death of Ida Doris Franklin

    Died 1 July 2006 at Buderim, Queensland, aged 93. Sunshine Coast crematorium and burial register, p. 154 — FRANKLIN, IDA DORIS, age 93, service 5 July 2006, Buderim Cem., ref. M3883. Joint memorial plaque, Buderim: “IN LOVING MEMORY / OF MY DEAR HUSBAND / FRANCIS ALFRED FRANKLIN / DIED 24.9.1985 AGED 83 YEARS / AND HIS LOVED WIFE / IDA DORIS FRANKLIN / DIED 1.7.2006 AGED 93 YEARS / NOW IN THE LORD’S CARE.”

  20. 20

    Death of William Wesley Robens

    Died 2 July 1963, Bathurst Regional Council, aged 85; buried Bathurst Cemetery. He appears on the Bathurst electoral roll for 1963, the year of his death.