For the prompt of ‘at the courthouse’ I have decided to write about my great-grandfather Herbert Samuel Starr. Now, Herbert spent what I would consider a decent amount of time in the courthouse for someone not employed at the courthouse.
Herbert was born in 1903 in the central west town of Molong in NSW. However, his father worked on the railways and the family was soon on the move to Young, NSW where the youngest child of the family was born and where Herbert’s parents remained for some years. However, by the time of his marriage in 1922 Herbert was residing at Paddington in Sydney NSW and was employed in the Citizens Military Forces (CMF). Now, this all seems very humdrum so far and his life was very much unremarkable for nearly a decade, beyond the birth of two children to the marriage.
But in 1931, Herbert Samuel Starr makes his first appearance in the courthouse. The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW) reported that on March 6 1931 Herbert’s house was searched and a large quantity of groceries was found in his possession. He claimed he had bought the groceries at a local store, explaining that he was frequently away from home with his work and as a result bought groceries in bulk so as not to cause his wife too much trouble.
The newspaper article reports that the constable conducting the search was very suspicious, stating that it still seemed like an awful lot of groceries to have on hand. The constable also states that none of the staff at the local grocer, where Herbert had claimed to buy the groceries, remember him coming into the shop at all let alone purchasing anything. Herbert tries to bluster and maintain that he bought the groceries at the local grocer.
However, the story soon unravelled and it was found that Herbert had stolen the groceries from the military store. Fortunately for him, his case was dismissed under the circumstances that his wife was ill at the time of the theft and had since died leaving him with three small children.
But this was not the last time Herbert would appear in the courthouse. Having three small children, one a newborn, it is perhaps not surprising that Herbert quickly remarried following his wife’s death. Unfortunately, it seems that this was not a happy marriage and when he was posted in Western Australia during WWII he had an affair with another woman and apparently fell in love.
But the other woman was also married and when her husband discovered the affair upon returning home from overseas he sued for divorce. As one of the arties implicated in the adultery, Herbert would have been required to appear in court. So that was a second appearance in court. But wait, there was a third appearance in court when his second wife sued him for divorce on the grounds of adultery.
So Herbert Samuel Starr led a bit more of a colourful life than other ancestors of mine who were his contemporaries, but it is fortunate for me as court appearances mean an article in the papers and it means I get to flesh out his story a bit more.
Anonymous, The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate, 6 March 1931
Anonymous, The West Australian, 12 March 1947