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with his mother and older brother, George, and he is described in the certificate as a 'traveller'
or salesman. Albine was a milliner and the daughter of a Northcote butcher. The witnesses are
interesting: John William Metters, and a man who signed his name as Mac Robertson, Metters
was a name now notably associated with the manufacture of gas stoves in Melbourne. The other
signature looks very like that of the philanthropist Sir Macpherson Robertson, who made a
fortune in confectionery, sponsored antarctic expeditions, air and motor racing entreprises, and
at the time of the centenary of Victoria in 1934, provided the prize money (£15,000) for an Air
Race between London and Melbourne, as well as large sums for a girls' high school and a
fountain. He also introduced chewing-gum and candy floss to Australia. Dressed in white, with
silver hair, he impressed wherever he went. His personal indulgence was a fleet of Packard
cars. The Robertson signature became known all over the sweet-eating world. His empire has
since been absorbed by Cadbury-Schweppes, but 'Old Gold' chocolates are still produced and
carry that unique signature on the box.
Macpherson Robertson, son of Roderick Robertson and Catherine Macpherson, was born at
Lethbridge, some 20 miles northwest of Geelong, in 1859 - so he was the same age as
Gordon's father. The eldest of seven children, four of whom were boys, he was apprenticed
with the Victorian Confectionery Company in 1874, and six years later began making novelty
sweets in the bathroom of his Fitzroy home, hawking them to local shopkeepers. It may have
been about this time that he got to know Gordon's father, who married Catherine Morris in
1880. On the other hand, Macpherson Robertson may have only become acquainted with
Catherine as a widow living in Fitzroy. He himself married Elizabeth Hedington in 1886, in
North Carlton, where the Honeycombes were living at that time.
Now the maiden name of the mother of Gordon's bride (Albine Child) was Rebecca Martha
Hedington. Surely she and Elizabeth Hedington were sisters? If so, Mac Robertson, who would
have been 53 in 1912, was Albine's uncle by marriage.
This was confirmed in an aside by Aunt Lil years later that meant nothing at the time. She said:
'Gordon married twice. The first was Mrs Mac Robertson's niece. In Fitzroy. They had a
daughter, but then she got rid of him, and he married again.'
So Gordon must have had great expectations because of this marriage, with the good fairies of
the Metters and Robertson families blessing the connubial rites. After all, he had nearly married
into a fortune. Unfortunately, he must somehow have blotted his copybook or not shown any
business flair, as his expectations were never realised, it seems, and he remained a salesman or
small businessman all his life.
The witnesses at his sister's wedding in 1909 had been two Permewans. How interesting it is to
know now, through a chance finding in a marriage index,
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that a Robert Robertson married a Mary Permewan in 1881 in Geelong. So both Gordon and
his sister had related themselves by marriage to burgeoning dynasties, and might have raised the
name of Honeycombe to be on a par with the Permewans, Metters and Robertsons in the
Melbourne business world. Alas, it was not to be. For one thing, Gordon had no sons; and then
Albine divorced him in the 1930's.
But did anyone, at either wedding, know or remember that Thomas Gordon's aunt, Mary Ann
Regelsen, had given birth to an illegitimate baby girl in Geelong in 1872 - a girl whom she named
Margaret Mary Robertson? If this child had lived she would have been Gordon's cousin. Was
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