Who was Mary Thelma Goodworth?

Mary Thelma with Chris and another grandchild at Londonderry c1961

My cousin Chris, who was orphaned while still at school, asked me to find out about his grandmother. She was a puzzle to him and he had been told that she was a Jewess. Generally, women who are from the Jewish religion bring up their children in the Jewish religion, so this was curious. His mother had been Church of England.

Chris’ details about her were. “Her name was Mary Thelma Goodworth and she had a hardware store in the Darlinghurst, Eastern Suburbs” known to be part of the Jewish community in Sydney.

I had to work backwards as it turns out she appears to have had more than one marriage. My father had been involved with tidying up Chris’ mother’s affairs upon her death somehow he had found a few bits of information but the wider Ancestry trees were all over the shop with names for parents, birth details and a marriage to John Kennedy in Mannum South Australia while she was a minor. 

This led me to search for Mary Thelma’s parents and her beginnings in South Australia. One thing led to another and the search gave the tragic story of her mother, her sister and their neglected beginnings.

See previous story on Mary Williams Campbell 

https://robynandthegenies.blogspot.com/2026/03/whats-story-maria-wheelhouse-aka-mary.html 

The little neglected girls from Mitcham…… the story so far

Mary Thelma Wheelhouse b 1908 and Lillian Olga Wheelhouse b1905 were the daughters of Mary Williams  Begg nee Campbell. Their births and therefore their father’s name were never registered. Let’s say they were born out of wedlock and their mother was left to care for them in say parts around Mitcham South Australia. Mary was also known around SA as Maria Wheelhouse.

There is newspaper article that mentions Lillian and her grandfather Mr Wheelhouse in Blanchtown giving a presentation of violets and snowdrops to the wife of the Governor. This suggests they are familiar with their grandparents around 1909.

There is more evidence of her relationship to the Wheelhouse family. Papers submitted during Maria’s admission to an Asylum tell of their accommodation and relationship with the Wheelhouse family.

The gist of this letter has Maria living in Cromwell St Adelaide with minimal furniture, bedding and a piano. Harry Hugh Wheelhouse the presumed father of the girls is living in Kalgoorlie- some evidence of money sent to her is found.

Letter regarding the situation with Mary Williams Begg

Indeed, it does point to a poor situation for Maria and the Children.

As was mentioned in Maria’s story in the previous blog,  their mother known as Maria Wheelhouse was never released from the Parkside Mental Hospital where she died in 1946.

The two little girls from Mitcham were charged with being neglected in 1910 were sent to Industrial Schools and foster homes until they reach adulthood.

Another couple of entries in Government Gazettes charge that Mary Thelma has absconded from her foster home. At this time she is still a minor and needs to be found.

Mary Absconded from Foster care

Later presumably from the next notice  she is now of legal age or found and the search is off.

Mary no longer being looked for

Another report in the South Australian newspaper has Thelma missing for three months. She had been working in Petersborough. Her sister Lillian had sent her a present at Christmas but had heard no more. Lillian inquired of her friends and they thought she had gone to Sydney. A handy description tells us Mary Thelma was described as tall for her years, brown eyes, olive brown complexion with semi shingled thick black hair.

Mary's missing

Mary Thelma makes her way to New South Wales. There is supposedly a marriage to a John Kennedy. A date bandied around in Ancestry is 12/9/1926 in Mannum, South Australia. This is not right as Mary Thelma would have been underage at this stage and besides no record can be found for the marriage or the birth of her daughter Aileen Kennedywhich comes soon after. Aileen Jill Kennedy was born we think around 1928 to 1929 and it was previously assumed this happened in Mannam South Australia.  I can’t access a birth certificate yet because of the 100 years rule. We now suspect she was born in Waratah, New South Wales.

Mary Thelma and Aileen Kenedy

By the next year Mary Thelma is in Warringah Electorate in Sydney. The information I have heard from one of the other researchers  is that John or Robert Kennedy was a merchant seaman from Scotland with a wife and children. He was not at liberty to marry Mary but he hung around long enough to father another son Alan Robert Kennedy who was born 4^th January 1930 in a destitute mother’s hospital in Sydney after his father had returned to Scotland.  Mary is doing it tough raising two children without support and Alan is fostered out to the Carroll family. Not everyone in the family knows about Alan including my cousin but it seems Mary maintained the relationship with Alan as he is mentioned in Mary Thelma’s obituary along with his wife and children.

Alan his mother and a foster parent ?Sommerville

 

In December 1933 Mary married Charles Louis Roland Jackson in a Presbyterian Church at Gladesville. He was a Yorkshireman working as a merchant seaman.  Soon they hear the pitter patter of little feet and little sister Ivy Priscilla Jackson is born in August 1934.The marriage ends in divorce in 1954. According to the divorce papers, Charles Jackson sued Mary Thelma for divorce in December 1954 on the grounds of desertion. The dissolution came about in March 1956. It seems Mary Thelma had left him “deserted” on many occasions. Another excerpt from the divorce files shows a history of desertions.

Charles Jackson's statement at the divorce proceeding

 Read into this what you will but in the 1950s women had few options for getting out of an unfortunate marriage. The man seems to be the disadvantaged one with their lack of conjugal rights but the women had to deal with the expectations of the times, little chance at working,  lack of systems in place and little government support.

Her divorce papers state she only has one child by him, Ivy, and no mention of a step daughter Aileen or second child, Alan.

Divorce, marriages and births 

By this time Aileen had married Richard Knighton aka Moran Gray in 1950. They had divorced after a marriage of domestic violence.

Aileen's wedding with her mother Mary Thelma

Soon, she married Frank Kelf, my uncle, in April 1959. Her son Christopher was born a little over a year later.

She lost her husband when he died about six months later and continued on the path of being a single mother until her death in 1974.

Alan, who was brought up under the name of Carroll, married Elaine Jeffrey in 1958 and had three children. (2 boys and a girl)

Ivy Priscilla Jackson married Otto Arnold Ruhnan in 1957. Together they had three children (2 girls and a boy) and I had brief contact with Ivy before her death in 2024. She had been searching for information about her mother and grandmother who she believed had died in childbirth and some of the information turned up had reached her before her death.

Ivy's wedding 1957  Arnold 2nd left top, Aileen Mary  Thelma and Ivy mid left 

Happiness at last

After her divorce from Charles Jackson, Mary married Peter Bateson Goodworth (1913-1996) in 1958. They lived together in Sydney until her death in 1977. Mary Thelma died on the 10th of June 1977 at Carlton, New South Wales.

Mary Thelma, Peter Goodworth Chris and Aileen

She’s not Jewish
Fast forward, I talked to my cousin to update him and tell him I had found a lot more about Mary Thelma's past. I explained that she probably wasn't Jewish. Blow me down. Then he said, “I remember relatives saying she was a Jewess, but I remember her in a Catholic church being very devoted Catholic. She was a convert.”

Apparently, her family had called her the derogatory word “Jewish” meaning miserly. It appears she was careful with her money. Any little wonder, considering her harsh upbringing, neglect at the age of 14 months, foster homes, lack of money, single motherhood, abandonment, divorce, etc.

Nevertheless, his request to find her religion has unearthed her story of her sad upbringing.

Misinformation and more….it was a bit of a nightmare
I had looked up what was recorded already in her tree. She was supposedly married three times. My dad had started on the research after the death of my cousin's mother. I checked out Mary Thelma’s obituary. I consulted Ancestry and she had numerous surnames. Coupled with the fact there was not There was not a definitive birth nor a marriage in South Australia, as was reported on her daughter's documents. Her children's births are not yet “open” on Births, Deaths, and Marriages.

Upon further researching, it turns out her name was  indeed Wheelhouse. No credible parents' names were available. People had various versions and possibilities in their own trees - West, Western, Daley etc. Differing Christian names for her parents were Mary, Matilda, Thelma, John.  Even the first name for her sister and herself were interchangeable.

So, hitting a bunch of brick walls, I decided after a year or two to check her divorce record from Jackson in 1954. Details were vague on her daughter's documents, also with her mother's name listed as West. The marriage certificate in these documents confirmed her name as Wheelhouse and a comment: ‘never married previously’ helped rule out John/ Robert Kennedy. Her mother was down as Mariam Daly and her father John. So it helped a little.

Facebook genealogy groups helped with checking South Australian births and marriages. Nothing came up. After searching for Wheelhouse on Trove, bingo. I found the Gazette entries around the 24th of August 1910 - three Wheelhouse females. Thank you to the genie gods. Never discount the Ancestry algorithm. It amazingly found the connection Mary Williams Begg nee Campbell and opened up the whole investigation.  

Lillian’s story

Lillian and Mary maintained contact in South Australia as they got older. Lily reported her sister missing before she left for Sydney.  Meanwhile, living in Peterborough, Lillian had met a man named Clifford James Fowler and an announcement in the paper stated that they had become engaged.

Lillian ended up in Sydney, joining her sister. Presumably her engagement fell through before she came to Sydney. She was working as a theatrical artist in Adelaide.

Having married John Sidney Murphy, a stevedore, in 1930 they welcomed eight children. Four sadly died in infancy.

Olga's marriage certificate

However, it wasn't a happy marriage. According to reports in the divorce her husband's habit of drinking and staying out late usually ended up in a domestic violence assault and attacks on the children. Lillian became a kindergarten teacher to support herself and her children.

The divorce as reported

According to the divorce papers they moved several times during their marriage. For the last 10 years of her marriage, she lived at the same address as her husband, but there was no cohabitation and few meals were served nor washing and cooking etc. They divorced in 1961.

Later Lillian married Cecil Harold Denning in 1962 and they lived together until he died in 1978. Lillian lived until the ripe old age of 86 when she died in Sydney in 1991.

Lilian Olga  (from MM Ancestry tree)

DNA works its magic

During the courses of my research other researchers had been networking through DNA matches. Isn’t it interesting when various people for various reasons independently do DNA tests. Be prepared for the surprises.

DNA found from Mary Thelma and Lillian Olga’s offspring strongly match the Beggs family members. In turn DNA from Mary Thelma’s and Lillian’s offspring match others who were looking for answers.

Thankyou

This has taken three years at least to work through. Thank you to those who DNA tested, to those who corresponded with me via Ancestry Message, email and phone.  Some information is not mine to tell so there may be some gaps in information.    To my partner in crime, Lorraine Jeffrey- we made a good team and I enjoyed working through this with you. Thanks Chris for the photos and MM from ancestry.

Any errors in this story are mine.

 

 

 

 

What’s the story ? Maria Wheelhouse aka Mary Williams Begg nee Campbell, 1871 to 1943

 

 

Mary Williams Campbell left Scotland in the spring of 1888. As she left Scotland, she was saying goodbye forever to winter and the bitterly cold Scottish weather.

Mary was born in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland, to Alexander Campbell and Elizabeth Garrett on the 24th of February, 1871. Mary, a domestic servant, came to Australia aged 17 as a free settler from Scotland, leaving on 1 August 1888 on the Merkara,  which arrived on 24 September 1888 in Brisbane.

Back in the Scottish 1881 census, she was shown as living with her parents in Dalziel, aged 10, the eldest of five children. Her mother had died and she may have come out to Australia to take pressure off her father and earn some money for the family.

Merkera arrived 1888

The shipping document above shows some of Mary's travelling companions. The newspaper report  24/8/1888 stated that the ship brought cargo and immigrants for Rockhampton. There were 8 single girls, 18 single men, 1 married couple and a child. They would have taken positions as labourers, domestic servants, a nurse, or possibly even governess on northern Australian farms. Filling a chronic labour shortage was one thing but the single girls were of marriageable age too.

After her arrival in Queensland about 900 kilometres NW of Brisbane, Mary presumably went to work as a domestic servant in a cattle station or farm where she presumably met William Begg, who was 14 years her senior.

They married in Albert Park, Melbourne, on the 19th of November 1891. Mary was still a minor, and a JP gave written consent for the marriage to occur.

At this stage, Mary's address was listed as Albert Park, and Williams was in Wanaring, in New South Wales, where he was a station manager.

Mary and William  c 1890

After she married William Begg they journeyed to Queensland, where they took up residence at “Coreena” near Barcaldine which was a large sheep station, the site of a large shearer's strike.

Coreena is near the town of Barcaldine, classified as 1240 square miles of absolutely first-class merino country, dotted with Downs and first class timber. This is the Aboriginal name for Big Water. Begg came to the station as manager.

They welcomed a son, Hector Campbell Begg, on the 16th of September, 1893. Their second son was born on the station - Percy Campbell Begg was born on 5 November 1895.

And after that, things went terribly wrong.

This part of the story is largely unknown. Mary disappeared from William Begg's life. You see, Mary left William Begg's life for whatever reason. Perhaps it was vice versa.

Who knows the hardship this young lady had to bear in remote Australian outback with no parental support, moving from Queensland to New South Wales to Victoria and back again. Two young boys, possibly postnatal problems, a marriage to an older man, and any other number of situations.

What is known is that the family left Coreena Station in 1897, as it seems William Begg was again working in New South Wales and possibly travelling back and forwards to Queensland.

Whether Mary and the children were accompanying him is unknown, but something was seriously wrong as the children were placed in an orphanage around 1901. (Later, Begg's relatives, who were living in Mount Carmel Station in Heathcote, Victoria, took the children in to live with them.)

I was researching this lady from a totally different angle.

What I was looking for at this stage was the mother of my cousin's grandmother. I was researching this lady from a totally other angle, and we can thank Ancestry's algorithm for making the connection to Mary Williams Campbell.

What was Mary up to during this time apart from William?

My clues were that his grandmother’s name  was Mary Thelma Wheelhouse and that she had a sister called Lillian Olga Wheelhouse.

Notations from various marriage certificates suggested that her name may have been Daly, Western  or West. Others had called her Thelma Beck. Unbeknownst to us, the girls had a pretty sad life, and it was no wonder they were unsure of the details of their birth.

So Mary Campbell  Begg  probably had an affair with a man called Harry Hugh Wheelhouse met in either Queensland or South Australia.

Two little girls were born but never registered in Queensland or South Australia. Mary Thelma was insistent she was born in Mannum, South Australia but there’s no record.

The dates we have for the girls are Lily Olga Wheelhouse 24-8-1905, Murray Bridge, South Australia, and Mary Thelma Wheelhouse, 24-6-1909, Mannan, South Australia.

During my research, I was distracted by a piece in the South Australian Police Gazette that two little girls, Lily Wheelhouse, aged five, and Mary  (Thelma )Wheelhouse, aged 14 months, were charged with being neglected children at Mitcham and were sent to an industrial school. These dates fit.

Life in an institution, no wonder they didn't know their details.

What I also noticed was that Maria Wheelhouse, in the item above, was charged as a lunatic at Mitcham and sent to an asylum.

As I mentioned before, Ancestry's algorithm was responsible for solving the mystery.

Maria Wheelhouse in my tree was generating Mary Campbell Williams hints and photos for me to investigate!

Luckily, the owner of a tree had put a message on her tree that her DNA investigations had linked Mary to the little girls.

I contacted Lorraine, and we compared findings, collaborated further and pretty much confirmed the details.

We are hampered by the 100-year privacy rules and undigitized South Australian records and also the fact that she's in Western Australia and I'm in New South Wales.  Some information though was available, such as papers from the South Australian State Archives. Despite this we make a good team researching in our own ways where we could.

Although we have never found a marriage certificate or birth certificates, it appears the children's father is Harry Hugh Wheelhouse of Kalgoorlie, previously South Australia. The paperwork confirms her relationship with the girls and a connection with the Wheelhouses.  

 

In addition, a newspaper article years before confirms a relationship with Francis Wheelhouse when he and his granddaughter Lily present the visiting Governor’s wife with a bunch of snowdrops and violets.

At the time of her admission to the Parkside Asylum she's a pauper and obviously mentally ill.  Her house in Cromwell St Adelaide was quite poorly equipped with a table , three chairs, some bedding, kitchen utensils and a pram. Interestingly she had a piano. Records we have accessed stated that she was a music teacher and the wife of Harry Wheelhouse, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

Investigations into Maria's circumstances and her partner, and previous acquaintances at her place of residence suggested that Mr. Harry Wheelhouse should contribute to her costs in the asylum. The investigations also link Wheelhouse’s father to the lady in question. Papers discovered claim Harry Hugh Wheelhouse is her husband and currently residing in Western  Australia.

When the  Institution writes to him asking for support for Maria  of 3/- per diem he won’t admit responsibility and claims she is the responsibility of William Begg of Coreena as she is married to him.

The final report, though, from the Commissioner of Police, Adelaide, states that Harry Hugh refused to contribute towards maintenance because they had not been living together for four years due to domestic troubles. He also said that as they had never married, she was legally the wife of Mr William Begg, the former station manager of Coreena.

Mary never left the asylum until she died on the 14th of August, 1943, aged 71 years. Her death certificate does not mention any of her children or a spouse, but alludes to Harry. She died of cerebral thrombosis anterio sclerosis. It seems a pity that such an accomplished woman has languished in an asylum for many, many years. If, for example, she suffered from postnatal depression, in different times she may have been treatable and even well enough to live a normal life.

There were probably many things that ailed Mary/Maria- Mental illness, postnatal depression, unhappy marriage, domestic violence, loneliness. Neglect. The saddest thing is she ended up having a lonely life deprived of her children. Mary Thelma  never thought to search for her because she believed she died at birth.

Today her grandchildren  are reunited with her story through Ancestry Records and DNA Connections and some serious digging by Lorraine and me. Did they have a better life? That’s  to be continued…

DNA

DNA tests for other people looking for parents show links to both Lily and Mary via associated DNA tests. These in turn match with DNA testing from Mary Campbell Williams' offspring's Percy  and Hector plus Lily and  Mary Thelma’s children's offspring. Details are deliberately vague here to protect the privacy of others involved in this case.

Meanwhile, Harry Hugh Wheelhouse had moved on.

No sooner had Lily been born in August 1905 Harry married Lucie Hay, in Redfern, Sydney, in September 1905. When they met or how quickly he left SA for Sydney  after Lily was conceived is unknown. We know he was back in SA giving Maria money and he’s quite possibly Mary Thelma’s father too. His father is with the children in a newspaper report.

However when Lucie  died in 1914 Harry was quick in collecting her inheritance. Harry, who was native to Kapunda, South Australia, had a number of jobs, one of which was as a bookkeeper when he married Lucie Hay. However, he also was quite well known for running an  skating rink in Kalgoorlie and performing with Jessie Dodsworth. Harry, it seems, is a bit of a slippery character. Despite a search we cannot  find his death.

Harry Hall Wheelhouse and Jessie Dodsworth - Kalgoorli Argus

The Wheelhouses had come to South Australia in 1876 and father Francis was employed by the South Australian Railways at Kapunda where he eventually became an inspector. He resigned in 1902 and then he established himself on the Murray in Blanchetown as publican.  There must have been a falling out because they didn’t take the little girls in. After retirement, he and his wife lived at Watson's Bay in Sydney. His wife Ellen died in 1920 and he died about one month later at sea.