John Alexander's wooden box

One of Val's cousins brought me a rather elegantly-made wooden box, with a treasure trove of 'old junk' left in a shed by John Alexander, one of those ancestors about whom we know little and then find that it is probably too late to locate most of it.

This box belonged to John Alexander, a Scot who came to Australia in the late 1930s (it is thought), and somehow found himself farming at Modella, with a wife and five children. See what I mean about family histories that are only oral getting lost, and they are differently remembered by different people anyway.
I thought the things in the box would let me know more about him but I finished up with more questions than I had answers. I thought I was a better detective than that.

Let me talk about what I did find among all the 'desk junk', then.

There was a small medallion about the size and colour of a shilling, or a 10 cent piece if you haven't got a shilling to your name.

On the front of the medallion there is an outline of a small steam locomotive in the centre and around the rim the words "Federated Amalgamated Government Railways & Tramways Service" and in the lower middle, under the locomotive, are the words "Association of Australia", obviously meant to follow the words around the rim.

On the reverse is a railway lantern with the names of the states radiating from it like beams of light, with the words 'One Country' and 'One Society' curving around the rim.

If this is a type of trade union badge that union would be the FAGRTSAA, rather a mouthful for anyone. The Association was formed on 15 March 1886 in NSW and it became the largest of the many railway 'unions', spreading across the states for 34 years.

In 1920 it became part of the Australian Railways Union, which seems to have grown out of the Victorian Railways Union.
So a Scot who came here and farmed at Modella until he got a job as a draughtsman at the Naval Dockyard in Williamstown, and who was studying to become a qualified Naval Architect had in his desk the badge of railways trade union.

Perhaps he just picked it up on the street, or perhaps there is more to his story than we know.

There was an undated Dockyard Smokers' Coupon (MALE) which 'Entitles Holder to Purchase Declared Ration for ONE WEEK". The declared ration was 20 cigarettes. There was no indication of whether this was a Dockyards provision or part of a wider, wartime and post war government rationing. Different authorities argue that smoking was rationed, and the Rockhampton "Morning Bulletin" said that the ration was two ounces of each week and the 'dockers' were seeking an increase.

Butter was rationed. Sugar was rationed. Eggs were rationed at times. Cigarettes were too but there was at that time a belief the cigarettes were part of enjoying leisure, and British and American ration packs for the services included four cigarettes in each meal pack, and they were sold very cheaply in PX stores. During the Vietnam War the C-rations still held 12 cigarettes a day, so if you had a mate who did not smoke you were laughing. There were situations where smoking would have been quite a mistake, of course.

Government rationing was largely stopped by the end of 1947, and completely in 1950.

Apparently in the closing two years of the war Australia had a huge supply of tobacco leaves but an equally huge lack of women to work in cigarette-making.
So what was the Dockyard Smokers' Coupon all about? He was, I believe, a very heavy smoker, and he would have been unlikely to just leave a useful coupon in his desk. The family story about him farming at Modella, at least during the war years seems to be contradicted by the ration coupon headed "Naval Dockyard".

That is just one more question that will probably remain unanswered.
John, whom many people called Jock, Alexander was proving elusive. I know he had five daughters, Bet, Dot, Nance and the twins, Myrtle and Joan. Only Joan is left and her memory is not very good at all. I think he was a heavy smoker – but only because that was suggested to me by someone with few memories of the man. It is said that he might have had a good singing verse. Perhaps. I was not finding much and some of what I did find was contradictory.

I know that in August of 1941 he was building a house in Irving Street, Newport because there was a copy of a Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works drainage plan for the site, with one bath, one double trough and one 'closet' out in the back yard. It seems a fair assumption that this was when the house was being built, but it is still just that, an assumption.

I found one photograph of John standing with his daughter, Joan, on the day she was married. The photo was identified by Val and by Andrew Fisher, a cousin, and they were probably correct. Nothing written on the back. No dates. It almost seems that he was not leaving any footprints.

I still knew almost nothing about this elusive man. I gather that he was a keen bowler because there was carefully preserved map of Melbourne's bowling club, issued by the Royal Victorian Bowling Association. The map shows bus routes, electric tramway lines, railways and stations and some major roads.

It comes our way only as a little further than Clayton railway station, which is in turn just east of East Oakleigh station. It was known as Clayton's Road Station for some years. East Oakleigh Railway Station was opened in 1927, nearly 40 years after the main line went through. It became Huntingdale Railway Station in 1954.

Nearest to Gippsland were the Dandenong and Dandenong Recreation rinks. The back of the map held travel directions for the bowling greens, long before GPS was available. To get to the Dandenong Recreation Bowling Club. "By train, same as Dandenong. Green 1 mile from station, to the left. By car (20 miles), same as Dandenong. On arrival at the main street, turn left at the market into Cleeland Street. 2nd street on right is Herbert Street; 400 yards to green on right."

The map is quite interesting from an historical perspective – but all it really tells me about Jock is that he owned a map of Melbourne's bowling greens some time after 1927 and before 1954. Was he a keen bowler? Val said she thought he played bowls but the man still eludes us.

I am going to find out about this man, but it will be difficult. Do you see why I always say "Write it down before it is too late".