Arthur's Journey from Conway to "Fither" Robinson
1883
William Patrick Robinson grew up knowing his father as Arthur Robinson, the husband of his mother, Nellie Connelly. The Robinson family nickname for Arthur was Fither, a term of affection for a kindly man. But his life’s journey was full of twists and mysteries.
Just as there’s a story around Nellie’s real Robinson husband, Robert (see Robert, the real Robinson), there is the intriguing journey taking Arthur from his birth-name of “Conway” in 1883 to “Robinson”, the name recorded on Arthur’s death certificate and gravestone 70 years later.
Arthur was born to Martha Conway in the Sydney Benevolent Asylum on 4 April 1883. The Asylum was located on George Street at Railway Square. The current Medina Hotel is roughly on the site of the Asylum, which was demolished in 1902 to make way for the construction of Sydney's Central Railway Station.
The Asylum was established in 1818 as a philanthropic organisation caring primarily for the needy of Sydney. In a colony where so many had been separated from their families through transportation or emigration, the Asylum served a vital role throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries caring for the poor, abandoned, destitute and sick. It was an "asylum" in the sense of being a place of refuge – not as a place to house the insane. By the late 1800s the focus of the Asylum had become helping needy pregnant women, both married and unwed, during their confinement.
Martha was no stranger to the Asylum. She had already given birth there to her first child, a daughter called Edith May, in May 1880. According to the Asylum records, Edith’s father was a railway porter called Charles Campbell. We know nothing of Martha's life up to this point, but the "colourful" history of her father, Michael Conway, and the fact that she was reliant on the charity of the Benevolent Society twice before she herself was 20 suggests Martha was doing it tough.
When Martha entered the Asylum for the second time in 1883 the admission record states that the father of this child was "Robert Murphy, a storekeeper at Forbes".
There's no record of any shopkeeper with this name in the town of Forbes at this time. There was however a Robert Murphy in the Forbes region. Born in Ireland in 1857 this Robert joined the NSW police in 1887, served in Bourke before moving to Bathurst in 1888. Later he lived in Parkes before dying in Parramatta in 1898. It is impossible to know if this is the same man referenced in the Asylum records, or indeed if "Robert Murphy" existed. It may be that Martha invented him to disguise Arthur's the real father. Perhaps Martha did not even know who the father was.
Twenty years later Martha, and her “husband”, Henry (“Harry”) Sams, was to return to Forbes. This suggests Martha did have a connection with the town. On the other hand "Robert Murphy" may have been a pseudonym. In any case Arthur's birth certificate lists his father as "unknown". What we can say with certainty is that Harry Sams was not Arthur’s father as DNA results of Arthur’s descendants do not reveal any Chinese connection, unlike Harry himself (see below).
Martha, Harry Sams and the Blue Mountains
Martha left the Asylum in December 1884. According to the Asylum records Martha took up a position as a domestic servant in the employ of Mrs Wilson, at The Retreat at Lawson, in the Blue Mountains.
Blue Mountains Hotel in Lawson, the successor to "The Retreat", where Martha Conway was sent in 1884
Martha worked as a domestic for the Wilsons, proprietors of "The Retreat". Jessie Wilson, in this photo, may be a daughter-in-law
As the owners of several boarding houses and hotels the Wilsons were a prominent family in the Blue Mountains area at this time. Lawson then was a tiny community and it is very likely that The Retreat was in fact the Blue Mountain Inn, built by Henry Wilson in the mid-19th century, later built rebuilt and moved. Henry died in 1880 and his wife, Sarah, took over the license of the Inn. The Inn was incorporated in the structure of the current Blue Mountains Hotel, still standing opposite Lawson Railway Station.
At some point around this time, if not earlier, Martha became involved with Henry (Harry) Sams. Henry’s own background is unclear. His death certificate lists his birthplace at Ballarat about 1862. He is listed in the Federation Census of March 1901 as of Chinese ethnicity. This fits in with Sams’ family tradition that Henry was the product of a Chinese immigrant working the goldfields and an English woman. There is a record of the birth in the Victorian state registry of a "Henry Ah-Sams" in Buckland in 1862. It seems likely that this is Henry Sam ("Ah" is a sort of popular prefix approximating to "Mr" which Europeans almost always thought was part of Chinese name).
Henry (Harry) Sams with one of his grandsons. This photo was probably taken only a few years before Harry’s death in 1945 (aged about 83)
Buckland, in the Victorian high country, was a major gold mining area in the 1860' s and there were many Chinese in the area. The Chinese were subject to severe prejudice and treated badly. There were several anti-Chinese riots in area. If an English girl happened to get pregnant to a Chinese man she, and her child, would not have been treated kindly by other Europeans.
Sams family tradition is also that Henry made his way on foot to NSW pulling all his possessions in in a handcart but, assuming this is true, it is unclear whether when this occurred and whether he travelled alone or with his family. We know nothing of his movements until the birth of his first child with Martha Conway in Lawson in 1885.
As with so much of the Conway-Sams-Robinson story there is also no official record of a marriage between Martha and Henry. Martha’s death certificate, as well as the birth certificates of their first two sons, suggests that they were married in Sydney in January 1884 or 1885. Henry’s death certificate states the marriage took place in Lawson, “date unknown”. The death certificate of one of their sons, Herbert Cecil states his parents were "never married". This seems the most likely answer. Martha and Henry went on to have eight more children, all of them boys. All were born in Lawson between 1885 and 1902 and many were were baptised in the Christ Church at Springwood. These records list Harry’s occupation as “carpenter”.
The move to Forbes
While in Lawson the family name is still given as “Sam”. From the electoral roll we know they were still in Lawson in 1903, but by 1914 the family, now called “Sams”, had moved to Forbes in central NSW.
60 Farrand St, Forbes, with Margie Maurice, 2013
What drew them to Forbes? Possibly Martha had been in Forbes before the birth of Arthur if “Robert Murphy” existed. Sams family folklore is that they left Lawson in search of a drier climate on account of their youngest son, Herbert ("Bertie), who suffered from a bronchial condition.
Whatever the reason the family settled in a house at 60 Farrand St, initially rented, and then later purchased, by Harry Sams in 1923. The house stayed in the Sams family until at least 1948. A local newspaper reporting the death of one of Sams boys in 1958 describes Harry Sams as a “well-known carpenter for many years” in the Forbes area. In 1924 he was elected as country delegate for the Master Builders Association and is likely to have been involved in the construction of some of Forbes landmark buildings of that era.
Martha died in 1934. Her will is interesting in several respects. In it Martha only makes provision for Harry and three of her sons, Arthur not being one of them. It is also notable that Martha has to "sign" her will with a cross, indicating that she is illiterate even into her seventies. Harry died in 1945. Both, as well as two of their sons, are buried in Forbes Cemetery.
Arthur "Sands", soldier
even though Arthur was not Harry’s son, he took the Sams name when enlisting in the Australian Imperial Forces (A.I.F) as in Nov 1914. But Arthur gives Martha, not Henry, as his next of kin and her address as Forbes on the enlistment form.
Why did Arthur want to enlist? Many young Australian men at this time saw it as their patriotic duty to fight on behalf of the “mother country”, England. Others were drawn to military service by the lure of foreign travel and adventure.
Whatever the reason Arthur's first attempt at enlistment ended in failure. He was discharged from the A.I.F just three months later, in January 1915. No reason is given in his military file.
Arthur re-enlisted in the AIF in June 1915, this time using the name “Arthur Henry Sands”. To maintain the deception he even gives his mother’s name as Martha “Sands”, while still placing her at the same Farrand St address.
Why was Arthur discharged from the AIF and then why did he reapply using a different name?
The answer may lie in the attitudes towards Chinese-Australians in the A.I.F at that time. When war broke out, an Act of Parliament in line with the White Australia Policy prevented any man who was not white from signing up to go to war. This included Chinese-Australians born here after their parents came for the gold rush of the late 1800s. Some of the men who tried to enlist were barred from enlisting by medical officers because they were "not substantially European"
So perhaps the A.I.F found out about Chinese ethnicity of Arthur's presumed father and declined to accept Arthur. — ironic of course given he actually had no blood connection to Harry Sams. So perhaps Arthur used the “Sands” surname name to get around the prejudice.
Accepted into the AIF at his second attempt Arthur served in France. Twice wounded in action he was also court-martialled in early 1917 for being “Absent without Leave” (AWOL) while stationed at Wadsworth, England. Arthur’s defence was convoluted, claiming that he had just left his unit to retrieve personal belongings and was on his way back when arrested.
Arthur "Sands" with his AIF unit in England. Arthur is on the far left, middle row.
Three other Sams brothers also joined the A.I.F. (one of whom, Richard Hector, was gassed in action and died soon after the war). A couple of their letters back to Martha from France were published in the local Forbes newspaper, providing some insight into their war experiences. In one of the letters Richard talks about life on the front line and the everyday concerns of the Australian soldiers:
"…I spent Easter in the firing line. It was not too bad, the only thing being that we had no dates in the pudding and the bully beef had too much salt in it, but we keep old Kaiser Bill’s soldiers busy enough [Kaiser Bill refers to the German King Wilhelm]….”
Early 1919. Nellie Robinson is living at 150 Morehead St, Waterloo (A on the map) and Arthur is living at house 130 (B) in the same street, just a couple of hundred metres apart
Arthur returned to Australia in January 1919. Back in Sydney he came to live in Morehead Street, Redfern the same street as his future wife / partner, Nellie Robinson. It seems he was a lodger in a house with a neighbour from Forbes, Mrs Mary Gibbons. There is also a letter in Arthur’s war file from Mary Gibbons seeking information about Arthur, after she stopped getting regular letters from him. The fact that Arthur was in such frequent contact with Mary and went to stay with her after his return suggests that perhaps Mary was someone significant in Arthur’s life.
Meanwhile, at this time Nellie Robinson was also living in Morehead St, Waterloo. Less than 200 metres separated Arthur and Nellie so it is not hard to imagine how they could have met. Nellie was estranged from her husband, Robert, by late 1918. With three young children to look after and deserted by her husband it is easy to understand why Nellie would have been keen to find support from another man.
According to Robinson family tradition Arthur and Nellie subsequently moved to Ultimo to get away from people who knew that Arthur was not Nellie’s legal husband.
Arthur and Nellie presumably were living as man and wife by the time Nellie’s fourth child, William Patrick ("Pat"), came along in March 1921. Interestingly Pat was born in Katoomba, back in the Blue Mountains where Arthur grew up and where at least one of his brothers, William Sams, still lived at the time. Although Robert Robinson is listed on Pat’s birth certificate as his father it seems safe to assume it was in fact Arthur (who IS listed as Pat’s dad on Pat’s marriage certificate).
Arthur Sams becomes Arthur Robinson
Living together as man and wife and having children together it seems that Arthur took the "Robinson" name to avoid scandal and practical complications. The older three Robinson children would have known that they had a new “father” but not the next three, Pat, Michael (“Mick”) and Patricia (“Doota”). For them Arthur was the only dad they ever knew.
According to Mick, Arthur never spoke about his time in WW1. According to Mick their father was reserved and always well dressed, leading his friends to joke that he was “a toff”.
Pat, in a recorded interview in 1996 for a history project on the suburb of Ultimo, also mentioned Arthur’s travel to Forbes in search of work. Pat recalled that he would cycle there from Sydney. At close to a 400km journey and having to traverse the Blue Mountains it would have been a long and tough bicycle ride. More likely Arthur travelled most of the way by train but with his bicycle. In the interview Mick also recalls that his father's visited Forbes "to see his people" (that is, his family).
While working as a stevedore during the 1940s Arthur kept a meticulous diary listing every ship he worked on, as well as the pay he received. On a couple of pages of this diary it seems that he was also using it to practice his "bank signature" as “Arthur Robinson”
Arthur does not seem to have had a stable career or a specific trade. When joining the AIF he gave his profession as carpenter, like his nominal father, Harry. Later he worked on the tramways.
According to his son, Pat, Arthur lost steady full-time employment during the Depression years. He did odd jobs, including working as a shearer in the Forbes area. During the Second World War he worked on the Sydney docks as a stevedore. After WW2 Arthur worked as a night watchman.
Headstone of Arthur and Nellie, Rookwood Cemetery. Arthur Robinson, taken by a street photographer in Sydney, about 1948
Arthur died in December 1953. He is buried in Rookwood cemetery Sydney, alongside Nellie.
Nellie and Arthur Robinson, about 1950
During his lifetime Arthur went from being a “Conway” (or theoretically “Murphy” if indeed Robert Murphy existed) to “Sam”, then “Sams”, “Sands” and finally to “Robinson”.
One man, many names. An enigma.
Arthur & Nellie, outside their family home at Randwick, 1952