In England, while working as a legal clerk for a small firm named Smithson and Albright, he fell in love with the daughter of his employer, Fanny Albright, and in 1873 he married her. The two lived in London with Thomas – who had reverted to the more formal version of his christian name – completing his training in the law and being admitted to the bar at the Old Bailey.
During this time, it would appear that he had no contact whatsoever with his father who, after his son’s departure, had developed a quite prodigious appetite for whisky and had further scandalised Sydney society by becoming involved with the wife of a prominent book-keeper. On 12th July 1878, the same month that his grandson, Edward, was born in far off England, Paddy Rourke was found dead in his empty home, the result of a fatal wound to the head. An empty musket was found in the next room and the Herald reported that: ‘Police concluded that the gentleman had clearly taken his own life …’ and that ‘… somehow, having managed to inflict upon himself the fatal injury, he had flung the weapon away before fully succumbing to the grevious [sic] wound.’
Upon the birth of his son, and presumably before learning of his father’s untimely demise, Thomas wrote to his grandfather, now eighty-eight years old and still very much the patriarch of the O’Rourke clan, despite his advanced age. In his letter Thomas informed the old man of the birth of his great-grandson, his own estrangement from his father, the circumstances of his marriage and his growing prospects as a lawyer in London. It would appear that age had mellowed Timothy O’Rourke, because in mid-1879, Thomas received the following reply:
Dear Thomas,
In writing this letter, I am breaking a promise I made to myself some twenty years ago upon the departure of your parents from this family. I swore that I would not ever again have words or correspondence with them or their issue, and that should they attempt such overtures toward me, they should go unresponded.
That said, I must confess that it pleases me greatly to hear of your success and to learn that you have not followed the example of your father, who has been to this family a source only of embarrassment and shame. I congratulate you on the birth of your son, Edward, and also belatedly upon the occasion of your marraige [sic].
Should you and your wife and child ever see fit to return to New South Wales, rest assured that you will be welcome and that I would be pleased to see provision made for the wellbeing of my great-grandson in my final testament.
I should also entreat upon you not to make the same mistakes as I have. Upon reading your letter, I confess to being ashamed to have wasted so many years of your life, my grandson, without knowing you as either a boy or man. If I may be so bold as to offer this little wisdom: bring your son up aware of the vagaries of pride, because it is indeed the case that ‘Pride goes before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall’ (Prov. 16:18).
I grow weary with alarming ease now, and so I shall cease this short missive.
Afftc’ly,
Timothy O’Rourke
Having thus received his grandfather’s tacit consent to return to the family fold, and having in the interim learned of his own father’s demise, Thomas made the decision with Fanny to return to Australia at the end of 1879, before the onset of the northern winter. They stepped ashore at Sydney in May of 1880, to discover that Timothy O’Rourke, having contracted the flu and passed away in his bed just a month or so after writing the above letter, had been as good as his word and left fifteen thousand pounds in trust for Edward to receive upon his twenty-first birthday.
Despite this financial windfall, it was not an altogether pleasant homecoming for the young couple. Thomas’s uncle, Arthur, having endured for years the social taint of association with his older brother, proved less enthusiastic than his father at the prospect of welcoming Paddy’s son back into the family. The promised warm welcome to the family farm never eventuated and, whilst he remained cordial and made no attempt to challenge Timothy O’Rourke’s bequest regarding the legacy for Edward, letters from Arthur O’Rourke to his nephew made it very clear that they would not be socialising on any regular basis.
A letter of recommendation from his father-in-law allowed Thomas to take a position in chambers and, with their son’s future assured, he and Fanny moved into the Paddington house and commenced their life together as members of an increasingly genteel middle class.
With their son growing up healthy and Thomas kept busy with work, Fanny took to helping in one of the city’s Christian Charity schools, which had been established in The Rocks, just a street downhill from where Paddy and Myra’s first Sydney home had been demolished several years previously. The clientele was largely street kids and urchins, many of whom would attend only long enough to accept whatever charity was made available each day before fleeing again to recommence pickpocketing or labouring in the alleyways and wharfs of that bustling city.
Young Edward Rourke had a somewhat more structured education, and proved himself an able student with a good grasp of mathematics and a solid understanding of the classics. Under his mother’s tutelage, he developed a passion for the natural sciences; with the assistance of his father he became well versed in Latin. While never excelling at school, neither did he do badly and at the turn of the century, aged twenty-two, he looked set to follow his father into the legal profession.
At that point, however, three things happened which changed the course of Edward Rourke’s life forever.
The first was the death of his mother. In mid February 1900, she woke one morning complaining of a terrible headache and severe stomach cramps. Feeling her forehead, Thomas was astonished to find his wife almost too hot to touch and immediately dispatched his son to fetch their physician, a Doctor Armstrong, with as much haste as he could muster.
By the time the Doctor arrived, Fanny’s condition had deteriorated further and Armstrong was aghast to find her racked by copious vomiting, her skin deadly pale and her glands swollen into hard lumps around her throat. Recognising the symptoms immediately, he dispatched poor Fanny, despite the protests of her family, to the quarantine hospital which had been established across the harbour on North Head. It was there that, two days later and without ever again laying eyes on her husband and son, Fanny Rourke died, lying alone in a cot.
Like the other 303 victims of Australia’s first outbreak of bubonic plague, Fanny Rourke’s body was wrapped in a disinfectant-soaked shroud, sealed into a watertight coffin and consigned to a deep grave dug into the sandy soil on the cliffs at North Head, looking out across the trackless emptiness of the Pacific Ocean.
The death of his wife proved to be the undoing of Thomas Rourke. Now fifty-six, and suddenly without the woman who had been by his side for almost thirty years, he slid into a deep depression from which he never emerged. Until then, he had always been regarded by his peers and colleagues as a solid, if unremarkable, barrister. After his wife’s death, court records show that his performances became increasingly erratic and his behaviour unpredictable. In late 1900 he was reprimanded by a magistrate for appearing in court while apparently inebriated, an allegation he fervently denied but which was borne out by witnesses to the drama.
Things came to a head on a warm February morning in early 1901, when Thomas made his way to North Head. He skirted the perimeter of the quarantine hospice and walked to the spot where his wife had been buried, a year ago to the day. There, without ceremony or explanation, he stepped off the cliff and into thin air. His body was found four days later, washed up against a headland just inside the harbour mouth.
Thus Edward Patrick O’Rourke found himself, at the age of twenty-three, without family or future, but with a startling and wholly unexpected financial legacy. In addition to the 15 000 pounds left to him by his great-grandfather, it came as a shock to discover that upon his death Edward’s grandfather, the erstwhile Paddy, had bequeathed to his only son the sum of almost 120 000 pounds, which had in turn passed on to Edward.
No doubt Thomas Rourke had his reasons for not wanting to touch even a
shilling of his father’s money for himself, but whatever they were, he carried them with him to his grave.
* * *
From the Journal of Lieutenant William Downes
11th October, 1921
Hobart, Tasmania
There is a vast amount to be accomplished before we are able to set sail, and such a short amount of time. Mr Rourke aims to have us underway for the South in the first week of December, an undertaking I’d have judged impossible if not for the preparations that he and Captain Smythe-Davis have taken upon themselves already.
In fact, I find it quite incredible the amount that Mr Rourke and Captain Smythe-Davis have managed to accomplish, and in such secrecy. Already much of the specialised clothing and equipment required for our push to the pole has arrived; indeed most of the space inside our Elizabeth Street rooms is taken up with crate upon crate, containing everything from finneskoe to reindeer-fur sleeping bags, from dried and salted beef to a ton of ship’s biscuit. Several of the rooms in the suite are now completely inaccessible, and downstairs the entire space of suite number two is also filled, floor to ceiling, with equipment and supplies that the two men have been assembling for the last eighteen months.
Unfortunately, much of it has simply been piled wherever it would fit, with no rhyme or reason to its storage and only minimal inventory made; this is going to prove problematic in planning the loading of the Raven. Compounding this is the fact that, despite the amount already here in Hobart, the vast bulk of our equipment – the timber for the hut in which we shall spend the winter, for example – is yet to arrive. In the light of this, one of my first tasks has been to organise the hiring of a warehouse with suitable access to the waterfront, into which the supplies may be transferred and properly inventoried. I have had to utilise a degree of cunning to achieve this without raising suspicion, but I have managed to convince the proprietor of the property in question that a businessman is considering establishing a company in Hobart for the purpose of importing farm equipment from the mainland. I am certain that our new landlord thinks me quite mad.
My other duty has been to take on much of the logistical planning and to work with Captain Smythe-Davis (try as I might, I still find it very difficult to refer to him as George, but am making a concerted effort to do so), so that Mr Rourke might have his time freed up for approaching and employing the rest of our expedition company. This task he has deliberately left until now, to minimise the possibility of word of our plans getting out.
His need for secrecy is somewhat mystifying and creates, in my opinion, much unnecessary work. I asked George about this the other day and was surprised when the Captain, who is usually so easy to talk to, offered only a very evasive answer.
‘He’s got good reasons,’ he said, and refused to be drawn further on the subject.
The first of the men should arrive in a week or so, and it will fall to the three of us to welcome them to Hobart, brief them in the broadest possible terms on the nature of the expedition, and hopefully secure their commitment to helping achieve our goals.
15th October, 1921
This afternoon I was introduced for the first time to Captain James McLaren, who will be ship’s master and in charge of all of the ‘at sea’ aspects of the voyage. He is the same master who brought the Raven out from Clyde earlier this year and he seems an affable enough chap, though very quiet. As I will be liaising closely with him during the next couple of months, planning the loading of the ship, I expect to get to know him quite well. Aside from Dick Ryan, he will be the only other crewman aboard who is familiar with the ship from her sea trials, Mr Rourke having dismissed upon arrival the largely Irish crew originally employed to bring her out to Australia …
17th October, 1921
Arriving at the office this morning I was startled to find a tall, pale looking gentleman of indeterminate age and with a definite military bearing standing outside the door, peering somewhat confusedly at a crumpled slip of paper in his hand. Upon enquiry, he identified himself as Doctor George Dalby, a retired army surgeon. Remembering well my own confusion at discovering the understated nature of our expedition headquarters, I assured the doctor that he was in the right place and invited him in to wait for Mr Rourke.
Over a cup of tea, we were both pleased to discover that the other had also served in Europe and, indeed, Doctor Dalby very nearly ended up at Bullecourt too, except that a last-minute change of orders took him elsewhere …
23rd October, 1921
… and also today arrived the first two members of our scientific staff. Douglas King is a geologist and cartographer, whose responsibilities will include the accurate surveying and mapping of the eastern coastline of the continent, and Doctor Gregory Shannon-Stacey, who will serve as the expedition zoologist. The former, a tall, bald individual, seemed quietly confident at the prospect of the voyage and appears a very competent chap. The latter gentleman is quite possibly the shortest man I have ever met, with a shock of blond hair and a strangely effeminate manner about him. That said, he strikes me as extraordinarily cheerful, and will, I suspect, turn out to be an entertaining addition to the party, especially during the long winter in the hut …
29th October, 1921
A veritable influx of possible expeditioners arrived in Hobart aboard the Loongana this evening and it fell to George and me to make contact with each, in advance of their meetings with the boss tomorrow morning. With summer drawing closer, it is essential that we don’t lose too much time recruiting and we are all hopeful that none of these new men will decline their invitations, especially once they learn the full scope of the undertaking.
The first of the men I met was the photographer, Randolph Lawson, whom Mr Rourke located through one of his newspaper connections. I must be honest and say that my first impressions of Mr Lawson are not particularly favourable. He strikes me as a man with a keen sense of his own importance. His qualifications, however, appear impeccable and he cites as one of his inspirations the work of Frank Hurley, whom I was lucky enough to meet in London at the end of the war, and so I should perhaps reserve my judgment somewhat.
The second man was, as luck would have it, a far more likable chap, going by the name of Alexander Jonathon Holdsworthy. I am particularly pleased at this, because Alex – as he prefers to be known – will be my cabin mate if he takes up the position of expedition meteorologist. Given the cramped conditions aboard the Raven, I cannot imagine having to share my space with someone for whom I felt no affinity.
The final two individuals on this evening’s ship are brothers – one Lawrence Moreton and his younger sibling, William. Both hail from Sydney and both are carpenters whom Mr Rourke met several years ago through some sort of business transaction. If you did not know that the two were related, you’d never guess it as both are as dissimilar from one another as it is possible to imagine. Lawrence is a gangly, skinny character with a rat-like face and shifty expression. During our brief conversation he chewed a wad of tobacco and spat constantly. William, on the other hand, seemed almost painfully shy, and uttered perhaps three words during the entire course of our meeting …
3rd November, 1921
… With more expedition members in Hobart now, the task of moving our equipment from Elizabeth Street to the warehouse is proceeding apace, which is good news, though the amount of coming and going from our little apartment is attracting some attention. Mr Rourke has housed most of the men at separate boarding houses or hotels throughout the city and all have instructions to keep their contact with one another minimal.
Despite these precautions Mrs Clark, the elderly resident of suite number four on the second floor, asked me this morning what ‘all the commotion’ was about and I was forced to tell her that Mr Rourke was moving his importing business back to the mainland. She appeared genuinely upset at this news and I felt quite terrible having to lie to the dear old thing. An hour later, she showed up at the door of number seven with a freshly baked batch of scones as a farewell gift and, despite m
y guilt at the false pretences under which they’d been obtained, I have to say that they were quite delicious.
The Loongana docks tomorrow, bringing with her a new bunch of expeditioners and I shall note their arrival with interest.
4th November, 1921
… and then I hurried to the docks to greet the ship, which had made good time from Melbourne, and arrived at her berth unexpectedly early in the afternoon. Aboard were ship’s engineer Charles Weymouth, expedition cook Samuel Piper, geologist Michael Burke – who claims to be descended from the late famous explorer, a fact I’m hoping he won’t bandy about in the presence of superstitious sailors – and a Stanley O’Hanlon, an old friend of Mr Rourke’s, who is to be the ship’s steward.
All the arrivals made for a busy afternoon. Weymouth, Piper and O’Hanlon, along with their luggage, had to be transferred out immediately to the Raven and Burke is being temporarily accommodated in a camp bed in the warehouse. It is far from ideal accommodation for him, I’m afraid, but with the expedition party now almost complete, accommodation options in Hobart are becoming rather limited.
11th November, 1921
An important day, today. The cargo ship Prometheus, which Mr Rourke chartered especially for the purpose, arrived from Sydney and aboard it were the 60 Siberian huskies which will be so crucial in our push to the pole. They have been offloaded upriver at the quarantine station and we shall take them on board the Raven only as we depart for the south. Until then they and their handlers must remain secured at Kingston.
Into White Silence Page 6