Biographical Notes |
Note: Ronald was as much a small fiend as his brothers Walter and Stuart during their extreme youth at Bordertown. He completed his not extensive education at the Unley School and was a contemporary of the famous South Australian baritone, Peter Dawson (1882-1961) who with his brother, was also a scholar at Unley. Both were friends of the Stevenson boys and Walter met up with them in England in 1916. Ronald was apprenticed to a German cabinet maker at Unley, but as he was ambitious for a country life he ran away from home at 17 and escaped by climbing from his bedroom window one night. For three months his naturally concerned parents were unaware of his whereabouts, then they received a letter to say that he had found work as a jackaroo at Wood's Point, upper River Murray. He gained much experience working with horses and became an expert horseman. Later he took on a contract to break in 1000 wild brumbies for Andrew Smith of Mootaroo Station, the father of the famous Australian aviators Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith who made the first flight from England to Australia in 1919 and for which exploit both were knighted.
At this period Ronald owned and rode a mule he had named Maud and between them was great enmity. Maud did her best to maim him. His closest escape from injury was on an occasion when his attention had wandered. Maud, with malice intent, rushed him beneath the low hanging branches of a gum tree (a dead one) and at the last moment he crashed his riding whip between her ears, and shocked, Maud sank to her knees, throwing him to one side and safety.
By the time Ronald had reached his mid twenties he had gained a reputation as a formidable amateur fighter and boxer. His physique was short, powerful and stocky. As a stockman and horseman his prowess with a long stock whip was notable as he could bend a silver threepenny piece, the smallest coin in the old currency, with a single lash. He had left home as a boy and returned a man with a bushy red beard that contrasted with his dark hair. His eyes were the Scotch "agate" of his father's. He casually walked in the door at Unley one day some seven or eight years after his disappearance, picked his little mother up bodily and kissed her soundly. She didn't recognise him and promptly fainted.
Ronald's photograph of the period shows him in riding gear with dark neckerchief, broad brimmed bush hat, and doubtless due to inherited Scottish caution, both braces and a wide leather belt. Spurs and a fearsome looking stock whip completed his outfit.
By the outbreak of the 1914-18 war Ronald was aged 29 and he was back in Adelaide where he had learnt all he could of the new form of lighting, namely electricity and set up a business at Unley. He would have lived at home, for unlike Walter, petticoat government did not worry him unduly. He simply ignored it. He would have been waited on hand and foot by Ada who was specially fond of him. Walter was always rather cool towards Ada and on his 1950 visit to Adelaide was in no way concerned that she was absent at Burra on one of her two monthly visits to Reg. and Winifred Warnes of Woolgangi Station.
Ronald enlisted at Adelaide on January 3, 1917. His papers give this description: Age - 31 years. Height - 5 feet, 4 inches. Weight - 130 pounds. Chest measurement - 35 inches. Complexion - medium. Eyes - hazel. Hair - brown. Religious denomination - Presbyterian. Distinctive marks - Tattoos - Lady's bust on left forearm - Large crucifix on the broad of the back - triangle inside the left knee.
Private Stevenson, Ronald Robert, No.3307, joined B Company, Mitcham, S.A. on January 17, 1917 for preliminary training and titled "Trooper" left there for Sydney on February 23. His photograph in the uniform of the 9th. Light Horse Regiment, was taken there before embarkation on May 9th. The troopship reached Suez on June 20.
The ship went via Cape Town where Ronald, always on the look-out, like Walter, for entertainment and when nothing was forthcoming provided his own, organized a donkey race through the city's main street after rounding up all the animals he could find. He found many willing jockeys from amongst his companions on board. The wild race commenced just as a number of irate owners appeared on the scene resulting in chaos and much recrimination.
After isolation camp at Moascar he was sent to join the 3rd. Light Horse and in August attended a school of instruction there and passed as a first class gunner from the 29th. Hotchkiss course. He did a further course at the Imperial School of Instruction at Zeitoun on signalling and went back to the 3rd. On December 6, 1917 he was transferred to the 9th.Light Horse and was detailed to an escort troop. He was in hospital at Gaza in September 1918 and at a Rest Camp, Pt. Said afterwards, before rejoining the 9th. No reason is given for his hospitalization but EMS believes it was for severe dysentery. He saw further duty in Egypt and was moved to the Australian Base Depot on 28 Jun 1919, and from there on July 4, as part of the "10 percent leave scheme" embarked for the U.K. from Alexandria and travelled by the troopship "Magdalena". In September he was given special leave to attend Drake & Gorhan's electrical course at 66 Victoria Street, London, S.W. following which he was on duty at A.I.F. Headquarters Orderly Room until November 21st. when he went on furlough. He returned to South Australia for discharge by the troopship "Konigan Luise", and his welcome home party attended by all the family with the exception of EMS and her mother, and Walter at Perth, was held at "Craiglea", Unley Road, on February 1st. 1920, the day EMS was born.
Incidentally, the house was to have been "Craigielea" and RRS left the ordering of the brass name plate to Maria when he returned to Bordertown in the early years of their residence at Unley and she gave the maker incorrect spelling influenced perhaps by the Durie's "Craiglea" at Wayville. RRS lived at West Craigielea, Paisley, as a boy.
The photograph of Trooper Stevenson wearing the 9th. Light Horse hat with plume on the left side and summer uniform has a tasteful backdrop of foliage and Grecian column with steps and wrought iron ballustrade but rather spoiled by the tattered mat on which he stands, perhaps worn so by innumerable servicemen. This may have been taken at London. He appears to be years older (and has a thick moustache with waxed pointed ends) than in the one taken just before the original embarkation at Sydney. While on leave in the U.K. he visited Paisley, Scotland, hoping to find relatives but without success, doubtless because he had so little information to go on.
On return to South Australia Ronald set up again as an electrician and was more confident and competent after the London course. He wired public buildings and churches, including Xavier's Roman Catholic Cathedral Adelaide, besides private houses. The change-over from gas lighting to electricity was growing fast. During the war he had become unofficially engaged to an Irish V.A.D. named Margaret. They corresponded for some time. Her surname was in a book of sentimental Irish verse with passages underlined that she sent him, but it has vanished in the welter of books at Clarence Park. At one time he sent her a collection of Australian gems, the opal being particularly fine, and EMS recalls watching her father pack them in cottonwool between sheets of thin cardboard to insert in a book gift, in the hope they would escape customs, or sticky fingers, and they did. Very reprehensible of Keith who was noted for his strict verity.
Later Ronald booked his passage to England to marry his lady and return with her to South Australia, but on the day he was to sail a cable reached him with the news that Margaret had died of pneumonia, so the ship departed without him.
In 1925 Ronald joined the Guinea Gold Company and was sent to New Guinea to investigate gold bearing areas. The first destination was Wau to which he travelled on foot with 30 native carriers as guides and bearers of his equipment. The way lay through swamps covered with moss so thick that the party sank through knee deep with every step, and over mountains not previously penetrated by white men, all under the worst kind of tropical conditions. The journey took three weeks and was so exhausting that Ronald declared that he would remain at Wau until an aeroplane fetched him out. Three years later one did, taking just 20 minutes to cover the previous route of 3 weeks.
He holidayed down south and reported to his company, then returned to Lae on the coast, preparatory to moving inland again. EMS has the air ticket (on flimsy paper) dated September 1st. 1928, Lae to Wau. The fare was £25 and the flight was by a primitive Junkers plane. The passenger had to accept the conditions laid down by the Gold Transport Company which declared it was without liability whatsoever though the company guaranteed every precaution for a safe passage but might cancel or postpone any flight due to weather conditions or other circumstances.The passenger was permitted 20 pounds of luggage free. The company declared itself exempt from all claims of any accident to a passenger and ended with "No passenger shall carry loaded cartridges, or any combustibles or explosives, nor be permitted to smoke on or in the vicinity of the plane.'"They needed to be cautious with the vehicle constructed of thin plywood, wires and stiffened canvas.
There were still cannibals amongst the natives of the Wau area and Ronald's boys from the coast greatly feared them and worried constantly over the possibility of attack and with reason as two white men were killed and eaten within a half mile of Ronald's camp. He saw the fires and knew what was happening but was powerless to give aid being the only white for many miles. Small snapshots sent to Ada in 1930, and very faded, show Ronald outside his native built, thatched house called "Chipside" with Merri the "dawg" and the cook Sarrawarank. Another of him beside that same Junkers plane, dated July 1930, with Ronald in the baggy shorts that during the 1939/45 War were called Bombay Bloomers. Christmas 1930 a group of white visitors that included Mrs. Booth, child and husband Jack, the Thomases and others. She was the first white woman at the Bulolo gold fields and Edie Creek and later wrote a book of her experiences but did not give Ronald a mention. Photos of Ronald's boys and another of the Chief (or Lulular in the local language) named Wobbui in full costume of grass skirt, bushy hair decorated, a bone through his nose and his weapons well displayed.
With the aid of native workers he found rich deposits of gold in the river beds and extracted much ore for the Guinea Gold Company, but kept secret and untouched the richest section until the opportunity came for him to resign and begin working for himself after staking claim to it. Once he had to go south hurriedly for an appendectomy and his head "boy" Sarrawank begged most earnestly to accompany him in the belief that no one else was capable of giving Ronald the necessary care and attention and when he finally left the country he had not the heart to say he would not be returning, ever.
He had made a fortune out of his claim and sold it for $60,000 (present figures) in 1934 having spent nine years all told in New Guinea. At first he lived with his mother and sister Ada at Unley, Jean having died the previous year and was most generous to both. He brought home with him a carved camphor wood box fitted with drawers which he had made in New Guinea by a Chinese craftsman to keep his clothes safe from the ever present mildew of the tropics. In this he seems to have also stored gold as for a long time particles were present in two of the three drawers. On arrival by ship at Port Adelaide a wharfie stood his 200 pounds plus on this box and cracked a door. Ronald, quite furious, and half the size of the culprit, knocked him out cold there on the wharf.
For sometime after his return home Ronald kept a dish of gold specimens under his bed and gradually gave them away to friends. The last one is in a china cabinet at Clarence Park - a piece of light coloured stone liberally speckled with gold flecks. He gave one small nugget to Keith's wife who had it made into a ring (set with an amethyst) for EMS on her 16th. birthday. When Ronald left Unley for Melbourne, following the death of Maria in 1935, he presented the camphor wood box to EMS then aged 15 for a "glory box". Stuart's wife May, or Princey, remarked acidly, "sort of pushing the business on I suppose". She had hoped for it herself.
In October 1935 Ronald was living at the Kingston Hotel, West Richmond, Victoria and a little later installed himself at the expensive and exclusive Victoria Club, Queen Street, Melbourne, and proceeded to thoroughly enjoy his large fortune. Race horses and high living occupied his time and at one stage he owned three hotels, several race horses and had a half share in a yacht. But the horses failed to win, he lost heavily on the hotels and the yacht foundered. Ronald had a wide knowledge of firearms, so when war came in 1939 and he was too old for active service, he became an inspector of weapons and firearms at the munition factories.
When EMS was at Melbourne in 1945 he took her one night to dinner at the Victoria Club, it being "Ladies' Night", and afterwards on a tour of Melbourne's Chinatown which was an interesting experience. By now he was more at ease with grown up nieces and nephews than he had been in the past. He lacked Walter's twinkling humour and happy association with the very young. His youthful vigour had gone and the damp cold weather of Melbourne winters gave him bronchitis, but he was still able to take care of himself by using wits instead of brawn as he did when accosted by a gang demanding his wallet when taking one of his evening strolls. It was too dark for them to see how well dressed their intended victim was, so when he said, promptly, "Sorry fellows, pension day tomorrow," they departed with a gruff "Sorry", but within a night or so had killed another harmless citizen who put up a fight and were subsequently arrested.
When Ronald was tired of living at the club he built himself a pair of maisonettes, and lived in one and gave the use of the other to his housekeeper and her family. She eventually got both houses and an extensive collection of silver and crystal trophies he had won for marksmanship, and to Ada's regret he did not offer her even one piece, saying it had never occurred to him to do so, and in any case it would have been a bother to convey to Adelaide, so nothing remains with the family of his many prizes.
His holidays to Adelaide became more frequent and each time of longer duration, and at the 1950 reunion he announced that he had almost decided on returning to S.A. but it was not until 1953, having disposed of his Victorian assets, that he was boarding at suburban Mitchell Street, Woodville from where he took an occasional trip back to see Melbourne friends. By the November (1953) he had coaxed Ada into letting her only spare bedroom to him and providing full board in spite of the brothers' objections that her arthritic condition was too severe to manage caring for him. Ada did her best for this favourite brother but it was a continual struggle as, having been waited on for so many years and had every wish attended to, he expected the same to continue. He attended race meetings, saw old friends and read a great many "wild west" yarns, this being his only preference in literature.
With the exception of Walter, the brothers were together again on Christmas Day 1955, at Clarence Park, for an hour or two, and he visited occasionally with Ada, but remained at home increasingly with bouts of the tropical dysentery first contracted in Egypt and aggravated by the New Guinea climate, and in the latter part of 1956 collapsed in a coma at Malvern. At hospital, the Royal Adelaide, he was discovered to have diabetes and the condition was stabilized so that he was able to return home but the amount of nursing he required was more than Adacould manage. The Repatriation Hospital (then) refused treatment for ailments due to causes other than war injury so the brothers spent a weary time investigating suitable private hospitals.
Such permanaccommodationation, as always, was difficult to find, but at last they came upon a hospital at Freeling, 50 miles north of the city with a sleep-out type room available which suited Ronald, and on Sunday March 10, 1957, Stuart with Ada to see to his comfort, drove him there. At first he was able to walk the mile to the town but gradually this became too much of an effort and he was forced to remain in and around the hospital building. One or two of the brothers, sometimes Ada also, visited every second weekend and Walter went along on that last holiday at Adelaide. Ronald survived Ada by just a year, and died of a sudden heart attack on January 20, 1960. He was 74.
His Will, dated May 29th.1950 began - "I, Ronald Robert Stevenson of 2 Queens Road, Melbourne, State of Victoria, Gentleman, hereby revoke all former Wills etc. etc.". In this he left all interest on investments and property to be paid monthly to Ada, but in the event of her predeceasing him, all his estate was to be converted to cash and divided equally between the surviving children of his brothers. His once sizeable fortune had dwindled to a gross estate of £3,223/4/1 which, after estate and succession duties and debts had been paid, and a search of land records in Victoria had been made for land he was believed to have owned at Sunshine (but did so no longer), was duly divided between three nieces and a nephew.
|