Robyn and the Genies : Auntie Jessie and Uncle Ernie (Great Great Aunt and Uncle )

Jessie Smart Kerr 1878 - 1967 and Ernest Edward Rayner1884 -1960 were my great great aunt and uncle. We always knew them as uncle and aunt and not until they were grafted onto the tree 60 years later did I realise she was my great grandfather’s only living sibling from his parent’s first marriage.

Since my recent return from Scotland I’ve been drawn to research her more. Jessie was born in Bridgeton, Glasgow on 20 April 1878 of James Francis Kerr and Jessie Cross. She had three siblings. (two deceased and my great grandfather James Cross Kerr. Her mother died in 1881 when her father was just starting up a horse drawn cab business. Her grandmother in Anne Francis Kerr had stepped in to fill the void. James later remarried in 1883 and Jessie became a sister to a further seven siblings. Her father’s business struggled from time to time and with a lot of babies Jessie was probably busy helping her stepmother.

By 1899 Jessie had met Charles Gallacher and she married him in Glasgow. He soon began working in the family trade as a cab driver. In 1901 they are shown living with his mother. Unfortunately Jessie’s marriage was childless and short lived due to her husband dying in 1905 of bronchitis at a Seaside Convalescent Home in Dunoon which served the needs of the working class of Glasgow.

In 1911 Jessie is a 32-year-old widow living with her aunt Margaret Tennent and cousins while working as a waitress. My father had a written a note that she was a manager of a restaurant called the “Wheatsheaf” tea rooms at 263 Paisley Road. It was common place for Presbyterian marriages which were not held in a house or the home to hold wedding functions there. It had been rebuilt after a fire in 1903 and met with up and down fortunes. For some time it was run as a Workmans’ dining and Tea room. It is probably around this time that Jessie was there. Presumably she returned to work after Charles death until around 1911.

About this time Jessie had decided to immigrate to Australia. This Bible was presented to Jessie in 1911. Possibly it was a parting gift from her cousin Tommy Tennant before she left for Australia.

It’s not known when Jessie exactly arrived in Australia but there was a younger Jessie Kerr on the same ship which brought Ernest Edward Rayner from Norfolk to Sydney in 1911. Ernie was the son of Walter Elmer Rayner and Annie Laura Reeve.

Jessie was the first of the Kerrs to come to Australia and there was a procession of them in the next 10 to 15 years.

Jessie in Sydney- early days

Such a courageous thing for young widow. By 1913 she was 35 and Ernie about 29. They married in 1913 in Annandale, Sydney. When Ernie arrived in Australia he was working in a labourers job although described as a merchant on his travel documents. After they married they ran a greengrocer business in 100 Missenden Road. Later electoral records show them living at Five Dock and Drummoyne with Ernie described as a cafe proprietor or caterer. Their marriage remained childless.

At some stage Jessie and Ernie opened Rayner's Cafe on the corner 396 Pitt and Goulburn Street, Sydney. There had been a fire on the site in 1926 and the building which was constructed in 1928 was to later be the Mandarin Club. Michael Lech of Sydney Living Museums tells me it “was designed by architects H E Budden & Mackellar. Initially the building was known as the McIrath building and then by 1931 as the JA Booth furniture store and building. So Rayner's must have occupied the ground floor, maybe just on the Pitt Street side of the building, from about 1928 or so after the reconstruction took place.”

The following places them in the café in at least 1931. Mary Bryan Kerr and niece of Jessie’s wrote this in her memoirs.

“My father's half sister had a cafe in Sydney known as “Rayners’ Café” in Pitt Street. I joined the staff, working the cash desk. On board the ship "Monawai" on the way to Australia I met a boy, Clarence Rangi Jorgensen who came from Napier. He had found work scarce after the big earthquake which devastated Napier February 1931.Engineering and we went out together. He wanted to be married, but I wasn't very sure as I'd liked someone in Timaru.

However after two years and we married. The staff gave me a nice little wedding breakfast. There were only five people present. My Aunt Jessie, her friend Aunt Maude, Alick Smith, Hazel Falconer, bridesmaid and of course Rangi and I.”

Today the cafe would only be a stone’s throw from Central Station, Haymarket, Chinatown, Museum Station and within the bustling CBD of Sydney.

Mandarin Club Building

Location of Rayner's Cafe

A tin plate photo supplied by Anne Kerr of the Cafe interior shows that it was probably situated below road level underneath the store. One would assume it was a tearooms style place also suitable for after-hours functions- a rendezvous for shoppers, city workers and probably evening men’s groups and Returned Services meetings. Based on ads for the cafe in Trove it probably opened for dinner from 6 to 8 pm.

Interior of the cafe

A staff shortage in the war years

During the war years there was a demand for waitresses, kitchen hands and dishwashers in their lunchtime and dinner sittings. Wages were two and six pence per hour plus tips.

Even my great uncle Alf was filling in rostering gaps and possibly even my grandfather. My nanny was housekeeper for Jessie who had by then moved to a substantial house in North Bondi overlooking the iconic Bondi Beach.

My uncle Bill, now in 80s, remembers the posh eating there. Naturally as a child he remembers the big bowls of ice cream served up in the Café’s silver bowls. Asking around the amongst the younger members of the family it seems that Ernie and Jessie had ceased trading at Rayners Cafe after the war or around the early 50s as no one in the next generation besides Bill remembers dining there. In any case Ernie died at age 76 in 1960 which probably suggests retirement around 1950.

I’ve no doubt Jessie was every bit the equal partner in the business especially with her previous experience. However here are the injustices of the time for equal women’s rights. When he died in 1960 Jessie’s will remain unchanged in accordance with her husband’s wishes. By the time of her death in 1967 everything went to his siblings in England who he probably hadn’t seen for a number of years.

About 1961 Jessie sold her house to her nephew Alf and his family and at 83 applied for a passport. Time to revisit Scotland and possibly Ernie’s relatives in England. On the return sea passage she broke her hip and with nowhere to live she moved in with uncle Alf Kerr, his family and his mother-in-law. Quite a crowd living in what was once a house with only an elderly couple. I think it’s what the Scots are used to though. It could have reminded her of her earlier days of tenement living but in a much more comfortable space.

Jessie's passport

This passport represents what I remember of Jessie -Grey eyes, white hair and quite a shorty at 5’5”. She was a sweet old lady. Although I was of the age of “being seen and not heard” I was 12 and she died and I remember her always being there. She lived in the Bondi house until 1967. Ironically it was with a household full of four adults and three teenagers something she had ever had to live with since the days at home with the Kerr step family in Scotland before her marriage and then later the Tennents in 1911.

I remember Dad‘s cousin, Anne clanging the door chimes once to announce dinner was ready. Poor Jessie, slightly deaf by then limped to the front door to see who is there while we were all beginning to wolf down the sumptuous Boxing Day spread which Auntie Molly was renowned for. It just occurred to me that she was 88 when she passed away. A good innings.

Another interesting piece of trivia is that Jessie‘s nephew Francis Kerr who had a vaudeville act in Scotland adopted Ernie’s name as his stage name. Frank E Rayner. He was a Hebrew impersonator and in this day and age it’s hard to know if it is an honour or not. Frank would have met Ernie during his short immigration to Sydney 1926/1927.

Just as I had finished this piece I pulled out the photos to scan from the album. Messages on the rear of the photos add to the intrigue. One is of Jessie in her early Sydney days see above writing to her aunt Maggie Tennent.

Jessie and Ernie c 1920s

The other is more tricky- but a lovely shot of the two of them. It seems Ernie and Jessie returned to England and Scotland at some stage. I’m trying to date the photos from the words in the message. It appears she was writing to Margaret her cousin who may have recently married into the Allison family. (Post 1920s) I’ve found a Mr and Mrs E Rayner returning to Australia on the Esperance on 28/1/1924 but its not conclusive. Perhaps this journey sparked the flow of Kerrs to the Antipodes!

Timeline of Kerr arrivals :

Jessie circa 1911

Ernie 1911 “Commonwealth”

David Kerr (half brother and family) to New Zealand 1922

Mary Bryan Kerr NZ to Australia 1931

Agnes Park nee Kerr (widowed Half sister) niece Agnes and nephew James Francis Kerr Thomas (half brother) 1924

Agnes Kerr Step Mother arrived 1924 returned 1929 with Thomas and Agnes Park junior

James Cross Kerr (brother) arrived 1924

James Kerr (nephew arrived )1925

Alfred Kerr (nephew) Lavinia Kerr nee Strelley (niece in law), Mary Ann Kerr sister in law and Frank(nephew) arrived 1926 (Mary Ann Kerr and Frank Kerr returned to Scotland 1927)

Agnes Park jnr returned to Australia 1930

A few shots from the family album.....