Arthur Ernest Read

Arthur Ernest Read was born on 19 July 1880 at Redfern to William Read and Emily Ann Ida Rogers. He died on 20 May 1950.

On 27 August 1894 Arthur went missing from his home at 5 Boundary Street, Alexandria. He was reported missing to the police and mentioned in the Police Gazette of 12 September 1894. His description was:

14 years of age, medium height, stoutish build, fair complexion, brown hair, dressed in dark clothes and wearing a soft black hat.

Somehow Arthur managed to get on a ship to England, his intention being to join the army. He joined the Oxfordshire Light Infantry (known from 1908 as the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry) in about 1897 based on the regimental number on his promotion to Corporal certificate and the sequential numbering of the Oxford Light Infantry.

Arthur’s obituary states that he served in the Boer War (second), First World War, and later in India. The Oxford Light Infantry did serve in South Africa and on their return they were based at Chatham, Kent which could be the reason Arthur ended up there. Arthur certainly did serve in the 5th Battalion Machine Gun Corps during World War I. His regimental number in that unit was 27398 and he was discharged in 1919 and went on to work in Chatham Dockyards until the family emigrated to Australia in 1921. Service in India? no records found but it could have occurred but before WWI. Perhaps a slight embellishment like the reference to being a Queen’s Corporal in his obituary. There was no such official rank and it seems to be a construct of the Boer War.

After nine years in England Arthur married Bertha Evenden on 30 January at St John’s, Chatham, Kent, England.

Bertha Evenden was born on 18 June 1886 in a hop house on Mr Duddy’s farm in Kent, England. Her parents were Nathan Evenden and Mary Ann (Polly) Corke aka Cooley. The family were pitifully poor and many of the children were passed between relatives for their care. When Bertha married Arthur she was not sure of her name or her father’s name which was incorrect on her marriage certificate. Her daughter Evelyn Bertha Read had thought that her mother’s father was Nathan Cooley and that her mother’s mother was Mary Ann Cooley. That was also incorrect. Research much more recently with the English side of the family has sorted out the true story.

Arthur Ernest Read and Bertha Evenden

After Arthur Ernest Read and Bertha Evenden married on 30 January they continued to live in Chatham, Kent, England where Arthur was employed. The first of their 15 children, Sidney Arthur, arrived on 17 September 1904. When WWI broke out Arthur Ernest Read was in the army accompanying troops back and forward to France which enabled the conception of their seventh child, Arthur Harry John Reid, who was born on 17 September 1917. My grandmother, Evelyn Bertha Read used to tell me that they were very poor during the war and often had nothing more than bread and dripping to eat. I later found out that her mother Bertha and various siblings of hers spent time in the Medway Poorhouse during the war years. Who cared for the siblings not in the poorhouse is not known but as in the past with this family they were probably farmed out to extended family.

After WWI the family chose to leave England for Arthur Ernest Read’s birthplace of Australia. By the time they were ready to leave England there were eight children and Bertha was pregnant again. They could not have improved their financial status much but they did have a beautiful studio photograph taken just before they left England.