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they had only one child, a son, another Thomas - named after George's brother and father and,
no doubt, to please his widowed mother. This Thomas, or Tom as he was also known, was
born ten months after the wedding, which was solemnized 'according to the Rites of the Church
of England' in St Stephen's, Richmond on 1 May, with as witnesses two relatives of the bride.
George's mother apparently lived with him and his wife for several years and moved with them
to 247 Scotchmer Street in North Fitzroy in 1918, where George, the Town Clerk of Fitzroy,
would remain for the next 30 years, until his death. For Catherine Honeycombe is not listed as
the head of a household between 1912 and 1921, when she was living, presumably on her own,
in Clifton Hill.
She died in 1938, two years before George and Bertha's only child, Tom, married Robina
(Bena) Morrish in December 1940 in Ivanhoe. George died there in June 1947, aged 65. His
widow, Bertha Honeycombe, lived thereafter with her older unmarried sister, Rose Madden, at
10 Holden Street, North Fitzroy.
194
Meanwhile, Dirty Dick, his wife and unmarried daughter, Jane, continued to wear away their
lives at 76 Albert Street, in a villa or bungalow on the corner of Walter Street. The widows of
his two eldest sons (George William and Dick) lived with their children in South Yarra and
Footscray: Eliza Honeycombe with her four children in 40 Albion Street, and Fanny
Honeycombe with her remaining three in Ballarat Road. Dirty Dick's fourth and only surviving
son, Jack, was still in Johannesburg with his wife and four children, all of whom had married by
the end of the First World War.
The war, meanwhile, had entered its bloodiest phase in France. In July 1916, on the Somme,
60,000 British soldiers were killed in one day. In seven weeks the Australian casualties would
soar to 27,000 there. Reinforcements were required, and the new Labour Prime Minister, WM
Hughes, resolved to introduce conscription. But his own party and the unions were generally
opposed to this - although the churches and the press were generally not. God was said to be
on the side of the Allies and conscription was 'morally necessary'. The Melbourne Age
denounced 'muddy-mettied wastrels who disgrace the country in which they skulk.' How, one
wonders, did young Richard Thomas Honeycombe react to remarks and comments like this?
In a base attempt to increase enlistment, the government began discharging some of their
employees, those in public service and in the railways and elsewhere. This added bitter fuel to
anti-war speakers and pacifists, whose aims and opinions were countered by crude government
propaganda and such pro-conscription organisations like the ANA (Australian Natives'
Association), which campaigned vigorously in picture houses, factories and pubs. The ANA
branch in Footscray was one of the most active in Victoria. Yet anW-conscription meetings,
their arguments reinforced by casualty lists and cinema newsreels showing actual scenes of the
war, won the day. In a national referendum held on 28 October 1916, those opposed to
conscription won by a narrow margin of 51 per cent. In Footscray about 73 per cent of the
voters were opposed.
Were the three Honeycombes in Albert Street among the voters? What did they think of this
issue and others involving the war? Or did the infirmities of age make Richard and Elizabeth
indifferent to the warring political, social and sectarian factions at home - let alone those so
hideously out of control so far away? Their main concerns must have centred on food and
warmth and health, and the daily battle of dealing easefully with each new day.
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