Have you ever had a comment in your childhood reports which was a little unreasonable?
We were intrigued with the comment “Very troublesome”, written next to one of the students’ names in the St Ildephonsus College (SIC) enrolment register from 1913, which grabbed our attention.
The name against which it was written was Ross Abbott who, a little research revealed, was Rosslind Gerard Abbott, known as Ross.
He was the second son of Charles, a Boer War veteran and commercial traveller with Goode Durrant & Co, in Adelaide and then Perth, and Grace nee Williams, the young lady in the hat in the back of this car (on the right), which featured in Museum of Perth’s exhibition ‘From Hooves to Highways’, here:
https://www.fromhoovestohighways.com/annie-mrs-h-williams
Charles and Grace had married in November 1902 and their first son, Leo, was born in February 1904. Young Leo died in May 1905 at 15 months, and Ross was born just before Christmas the same year.
The Abbotts lived at ‘Terra Haute’, the top end of Rokeby Road, Subiaco, until 1908, when his father moved the family south to Pingelly where he opened a store. Ross’ younger brother Mervyn was born in April 1909.
In 1913, at the tender age of seven, Ross was sent 225km north to New Norcia to board at SIC.
Not sure how much trouble he could’ve caused at that young age, but it’s probably a safe bet to say he missed his family and is, perhaps, why he did not return for the years 1914-1918.
If it had been written against his name on his return in 1919 it would have been understandable for, then, he had plenty of reasons to be troublesome…
On 15 January 1915 Ross’ baby sister Grace was born, followed the next day by the death of his mother. Without her care, baby Grace died six weeks later, on 2 March.
His father Charles’ grief is unimaginable, but what the boys endured next is heartbreaking.
Charles left Ross (9) and Mervyn (6) in the care of his widowed sister-in-law Emma Williams nee Taylor in West Perth and, on 16 August 1915, enlisted.
He embarked overseas and served as a lance corporal with the 11th Battalion and, just nine months after he enlisted, was killed in action near Armentieres on the Western Front, on 30 May 1916, aged 38.
Ross was at Christian Brothers’ College in Perth at the time, and it was there in 1918, aged just 12, he signed for his father’s 1914-1915 Star, and some of his effects: a pair of brushes in a case, playing cards, photos, a pocket book and some personal papers.
Later, he also received photos of Charles’ grave in the Rue-Petillon Military Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France, and his Victory and British War medals, the King’s Memorial Scroll and Plaque (Dead Man’s Penny).
In 1919, Ross (13) returned to SIC. Far from troublesome, he was a credit to the School as, over the next four years, he placed in the top four in most of his classes, played in the First XVIII football team and the First XI cricket team, was a sergeant in the cadets, the College’s Champion Athlete (twice), and one of the College’s three Duxes. He's quite easy to identify in the College's photos with his blonde hair often slicked back, his level gaze, and the determined set of his jaw.
He went on to study law at the University of Western Australia and became a barrister and solicitor with offices in Weld Chambers, passing the West Australian bar in 1925.
After a few years practising in Perth, in the mid-1930s Ross moved to Kalgoorlie where, at St Mary’s Cathedral on 31 January 1940, he married Hilda Harvey, a well-known local musician. They soon moved to Adelaide where Ross was admitted to the South Australian bar in 1945.
When completing the form for Charles’ inclusion on the Roll of Honour in the early 1920s, Ross had written his father was “a man in every sense of the term”. No doubt Charles would’ve been very proud of the man this son became. We are.
Ross died in South Australia on 22 May 1984, aged 78, and is buried in Centennial Park. Hilda subsequently returned to WA where she died in 2000, aged 91.
