The Papers
A newspaper printed in 1936 confirms five details of a eulogy delivered in 2010. Two other headlines look damning and say the opposite of what they seem to. This is the archive's worked example of reading evidence rather than skimming it.
The Brisbane papers have a great deal to say about this family, and the first lesson of them is that a search result is not a source. Three of the headlines below would, left as snippets, put a man in the dock who was standing in the witness box.
The obituary, and a eulogy written seventy-four years later
OBITUARY
Mr. L. A. D'Arcy.— The death occurred suddenly yesterday of Mr. Lindsay Atkinson D'Arcy, of Botany Street, Clayfield, who for many years had been on the staff of the Brisbane office of the Union Trustee Company of Australia, Ltd. Mr. D'Arcy, who was aged 44 years, was the only son of the late Mr. G. T. D'Arcy, of the Railway Department, and received his education at the old Normal School. He served with the Australian Forces in France during the Great War. The late Mr. D'Arcy is survived by his widow and five children. The funeral will leave the funeral chapel of John Hislop and Sons, Peel Street, South Brisbane, at 3.30 p.m. to-day, for the Toowong Cemetery.
In March 2010 his son Kenneth's children stood up and described a father Kenneth had lost at the age of nine. Nobody involved had seen this obituary. Set the two side by side:
| The eulogy, 2010 | The obituary, 1936 |
|---|---|
| "an old Queenslander home at Clayfield" | "of Botany Street, Clayfield" |
| Ken "started work as a 15 year old at Union Trustees where his father had worked" | "for many years had been on the staff of the Brisbane office of the Union Trustee Company of Australia, Ltd." |
| his father died "unexpectedly" when Ken was nine | "The death occurred suddenly yesterday" |
| — not mentioned — | "served with the Australian Forces in France during the Great War" |
| five children | "survived by his widow and five children" |
Two corrections the paper forces on the tree. He is Lindsay in both the obituary and the funeral notice, not Lindesay — the spelling moves about even in his own lifetime, which is the whole argument of the name page. And "G. T. D'Arcy" is wrong for George Pitt; either the compositor or the OCR has it.
"TRUSTEE ALLEGES FRAUD", September 1927
Ten years before he died, Lindesay Atkinson D'Arcy was an insolvent grocer. The Daily Standard reported his examination under that headline, and the facts it gives are these:
- For about two and a half years to 25 July 1926 he ran a grocery at Cavendish Road, South Brisbane, "with the assistance of his wife".
- About three months before that he left his wife to run the shop and took a position as a clerk with the Union Trustees — the beginning of the career the obituary describes.
- On 25 July 1926 he could not go on: "not having sufficient funds, the pressure of creditors, heavy overhead charges, and smallness of profits". He called his creditors together and assigned the business to them.
- The deficiency was £1,381. He was declared insolvent on 1 October 1926.
And then the date. Kenneth Lindsay D'Arcy was born at Sandgate on 17 August 1927. One month later his father stands in the Supreme Court, described in the paper as "Lindesay Atkinson D'Arcy, of Sandgate", in the wreckage of the grocery. The eulogy's account of a family suddenly "in a spot of bother" in 1936 turns out to have a ten-year prehistory — one that Ken, born into the middle of it, plainly never knew.
Daily Standard, Tuesday 20 September 1927, p. 5 · nla.news-article184914345
"AGENT CHARGED — ALLEGED THEFT AS SERVANT", August 1929
In a list of search results these read as a man in serious trouble: "ROBBED PETER TO PAY PAUL." AGENT'S ALLEGED REPLY TO DETECTIVE, and AGENT CHARGED. ALLEGED THEFT AS SERVANT. BIG SUM SAID TO BE INVOLVED. — both matching "Lindsay Atkinson D'Arcy".
Open them, and the accused is William John Rode, 48, an agent of Clayfield, charged with stealing as a servant of the Beak Pastoral Company out of a deficiency of some £1,450.
D'Arcy is the witness for the prosecution. He was the Union Trustee Company's agent who took the Beak Pastoral Company's affairs over from Rode. He called at Rode's office and at his home, and when he said whom he represented, Rode answered:
Don't say any more. I don't wish my wife to know anything about the business.
When the promised settlement cheque never came, D'Arcy went to the C.I.D. Three years after his own insolvency, the man in these headlines is the one who detected an embezzlement and reported it.
Daily Standard, 6 August 1929, p. 1 · nla.news-article187390932 · The Brisbane Courier, 7 August 1929, p. 20 · nla.news-article21435307
Found in the kitchen at Banyo
At the inquiry into the death of George Pitt D'Arcy, 76, railway pensioner, who was found dead in the kitchen of his residence, in Victoria street, Banyo, on March 21, Lindsay Atkinson D'Arcy, a son of deceased, said his father had been suffering from heart trouble, but had never been treated by a doctor.
The tree recorded only "21 Mar 1931, Brisbane". The paper gives the street, the room, the fact that he was alone, that there was an inquest, and that his only son gave the evidence — five years before that son would himself die suddenly at forty-four.
One discrepancy, unresolved. The report says he was 76. Born 5 May 1864 he was 66. Either the reporter or the OCR has 76 for 66, or the birth year is wrong — his 1888 marriage and his eldest child in 1890 both support 1864. Added to the queue →
The other insolvency
Frederick Robert D'Arcy — the surveyor, half-brother of the direct ancestor — went through the Insolvent Court seventy-four years before Lindesay did. The New South Wales Government Gazette of 30 July 1852 gives the estate of "Frederick Robert D'Arcy, of Hartley, in the Colony of New South Wales, gentleman", placed in insolvency on 20 July; meetings of creditors ran on before the Chief Commissioner through August, September and October. Hartley is in the Blue Mountains, which fits the surveying.