Anzac Day Special! Some family ANZACs

Arthur Edwin Jones (1893 - 1961)

b. 07 Apr 1893 at Westbury, Tasmania, Australia
m. Florence Vera Ratcliffe
d. 24 Oct 1961 at Heidelberg, Melbourne, Australia

Arthur Jones - my grandfather - was a crew member on the HMAS Sydney.  During the early stages of World War I, Sydney was involved in supporting the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force, and escorting the first ANZAC convoy. However, it is most famous for sinking  the German light cruiser SMS Emden off the Cocos Islands, in 1914.  It was the first victory of the recently formed Australian Navy - and a famous one - the Emden at the time was “arguably the most hunted ship in the world”, having wreaked havoc in the Indian Ocean, sinking or capturing thirty allied merchant vessels and warships before encountering the Sydney.  The Sydney had been on it's way to Anzac Cove when it encountered the Emden.  Arthur Jones continued working as a merchant seaman after the war, moving with Florence Ratcliffe and their young daughter Sheila to South Melbourne, where the family grew to include five children (including my mum, Valda Jones). 

Robert Ambrose Jones (1884 - )

b. 30 Sep 1884 at Westbury, Tasmania, Australia

m. 15 Apr 1914 Vera Maggie Purton at Penguin, Tasmania

d. unknown date

Robert Jones was my great uncle, and brother of Arthur (above) and William (below). Robert was a sporting lad in his youth, representing Westbury in cricket and also football (he captained the Westbury team in 1908, according to a news-clipping from the Hobart Mercury).  He joined the army during WWI (No. T7133), but was fit only to serve in the ‘Home Service Band’.  Later, however, he was declared unfit for all service - perhaps owing to him having ‘a deformed right foot below ankle’.  He married Vera Purton at the start of the war, and had 2 sons - one of them being the swashbuckling Lloyd Jones.

William Thomas Joseph Jones (1890 - 1962)

b. 06 Jun 1890 at Westbury, Tasmania, Australia

m. 13 Jan 1914 Hannah Isabel Wilson  at Tasmania

d. 14 Jul 1962

Another great uncle, William Jones was a gunner (No. 33529) in the 8th Field Artillery Battery (3rd Brigade, Australian Imperial Forces) in WWI.  He was injured by a mustard gas attack at the Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux (France), and shipped off with other casualties to England, where he spent nearly 6 months recovering at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Southampton.  Towards the end of this time, it is possible that William had a child with a young English munitions worker, Catherine Neill, who gave birth to George Bernard Neill, on 19 June, 1919.  The Australian Army received a letter from a ‘Miss C. Neill’, dated 18 August 1922, that says “...I have a little boy who is the child of W. T. Jones...”.  This letter is part of William's digitised army records that are available online.  William returned to Tasmania after the war, and he and Hannah raised six daughters.  I don’t know what became of George Neill, or his mother, or whether William Jones was truly the father of the child.

William (Bill) Trinder (1921 - ?)

b. 17 Sep 1921 at Launceston, Tasmania

Bill was my mum's cousin (one of Maud Ratcliffe's two sons).  He was a sailor in the RAN (Service Number: 23658).  An undated newspaper article among family documents shows a photo of the young lad, under the headline ‘Military News’.  The article says “William Trinder… is serving aboard the HMAS Perth. Seaman Trinder has been on the Perth for 18 months and in his last letter to his parents he said that he was well”.  It is a good thing that he didn’t remain fit and healthy – during the battle of the Sunda Strait on 1 March 1942, the Perth was torpedoed and sunk. 353 of the 681 aboard were killed; all but 4 of the 328 survivors were captured as prisoners of war. 106 later died in captivity – only 218 were repatriated after the war's end.  So what of ‘our Bill’?  Well, he was sick and unfit for duty before the Perth sailed, so was not onboard during the cruiser’s last days (mum remembers a cousin that didn’t sail when the Perth was sunk – this is him).  We have another family connection to this event – Sue Hannon’s grandfather was on the Perth when it was attacked, and sadly was one of the sailors that perished.

Reginald William Charles Trinder (1916 - ?)

b. 12 Mar 1916 at 111 Cimitiere St, Launceston

Another of the Trinder boys who fought in WWII, but his army records have yet to be digitized (Service Number: VX 22448).  Floss says “he fought in the desert” and indeed, the same newspaper article reporting on his brother William (see William Trinder) also reports “Reginald Trinder, who is with the AIF, is safe in Egypt”.  Of all my research, I can find not a single family member who died during active service in WWI or WWII – a remarkable thing, considering the great loss of life in these conflicts.  I know nothing more of what Reg did once the war was over.

Son of a convict, daughter of a gentleman

Thomas Ratcliffe - my Great Grandfather - was the son of John Ratcliffe (the convict) and Mary MacMahon - which is about all I know of him, other than that he lived in Launceston in the same suburb as his parent (Inveresk) and worked as a train driver or railway worker of some description in and around the port on the Tamar River. Aunt Floss is fond of saying "His name was Thomas, and he drove a tank engine!".


Thomas' eventual wife, Ada Stephens (my Great Grandmother), was born in England to Harriet Elizabeth Hanson and William Jeane Stephens on the 9th of November, 1869 in Edmonton, Middlesex (now part of current day London). Floss says "they came from money" and she was right.  William Jeane Stephens came from a wealthy land-owning family from Somerset - I've traced the family right back several hundred years to Somerset nobility, with several knights among them, including Sir Amias Paulet, keeper of Mary Queen of Scots.  The census records show a number of servants working for the family when William was a young boy, and later when he lived in London with his mother and sisters at 19 Thornhill Square, Islington (check it out on 'Google Street'), but later after he married (quite late, at 43 or so) and with two young daughters (Maude and Ada) the family lived in the relatively lower class neighbourhood of Edmonton, first at 6 Geneva Cottage, Snell's Park, and later at 'Elizabethan Villas'.  Floss also says that the family story is that something happened that caused the family to lose their wealth, but that is all we know.  Could it have been Williams failing health?  William Jeane Stephens died in 1878, and his will states that he was worth less than 100 pounds.  Whatever had happened, the family had fallen on hard times.

Ada Stephens (date unknown)

Ada emigrated as a child to Tasmania (from England) between about 1879 and 1881 with her mother (Harriet Elizabeth Stephens, formerly Hanson), sister Maude, and new step-father Alexander Phillips - it seems Harriet had remarried quickly after her husbands death, and her new husband soon after moved the family to far off Tasmania.  Could Alexander be the 'Captain Phillips' (or was it 'Admiral Phillips?) that mum was fond of mentioning?  Mum didn't seem to know where he fitted in - except that there was a mariner in the family of surname 'Phillips' - clouded by the fact that there seems to be another Phillips of greater Tasmanian antiquity in the family tree (and also a Sailor/Mariner) - but I am still working on that one, so you'll have to wait!

In August 1894, at age 25, Ada married Thomas Ratcliffe in Launceston, Tasmania.  You may well ask how the son of a common transported convict came to marry the daughter of landowning English gentry?  How they met, is anyone's idea, but presumably their marriage was a matter of great urgency, because at the time Ada was about 3 months pregnant with their first child (my grandmother) Florence Vera Ratcliffe, who was born the following February.  Incidentally, sister Maude had married two years earlier in 1892 for apparently the same reason, being 6 months pregnant at the time with her first child.

Ada and Thomas had 4 children that I am aware of - Florence (1895), Lillian (1896), Maud - who everyone called 'Ila' (1898), and late arrival Thomas William John Ratcliffe ('Uncle Jack') who was born in 1910.


In 1914 the family were living in the industrial dock-side working-class suburb of Inveresk (Launceston), but in 1919 they were living in Devonport, and later in 1922 had moved to Hobart. By 1936 Thomas and Ada were back back living in Inveresk (Launceston) at the old family home at 13 New Street after Thomas' mother Mary Ratcliffe (MacMahon) had passed away.  By this time, children Florence and Jack had moved to Melbourne, and Lillian had passed away at a young age (a story for another time), but Maude was still living in Launceston, and had married Bill Trinder, brother of Ray Trinder who famously won the 1972 Melbourne cup with Tasmanian horse 'Piping Lane' (who came in at 40 to 1 odds).


Thomas and Ada both lived on into their 70s.  Thomas died at home at the family address of 13 New Street, Inveresk on 27 February, 1945 - the same address where his father (John) and mother (Mary) had died.  Ada died a year later on September 13, 1946 at 35 Williams Street (to the best of my knowledge, the current site of Boags Brewery's "Centre for Beer Lovers'!)  She and Thomas are both buried in the same plot at Carr Villa Cemetery, Launceston (Catholic Section A8 No 65). You have to look hard for this (almost) unmarked grave. There is no headstone, but there is the name ʻRatcliffeʼ engraved in the concrete border of the plot.

The almost unmarked grave of Thomas and Ada Ratcliffe

Newspaper notice for death of Thomas Ratcliffe

Newspaper notice for death of Ada Stephens