Evelyn & Victor Jenkins: “He gave her everything”

by Helen Dennis, January 2022.

The story of Victor, Eve, Richard and ‘Glenbrook’ ~

By the time my grandmother turned 30 she’d already been married, had three children, left her first husband, and was awaiting confirmation of her divorce so that she could marry her ex-husband’s brother.

The housewives of conservative rural Australia would’ve relished the gossip-fuelling antics of Evelyn Jenkins; the immediate family possibly not so much. Had Eve been born a century later, her conduct would likely not have provoked a batted an eyelid. The fact that she was game enough to shun society’s norms in conservative 1930s Australia piqued my interest and led me to delve deeper into the life of the grandmother I never knew.

One family “fact” in particular has long loitered at the back of my mind. The prevailing narrative contends that when Eve left her first husband Victor, he “gave her everything”; that Victor took for himself only enough cash to buy a “tinnie” and sail to Cape York, at the very northern tip of Australia.

There is no doubt in my mind that Eve caused Victor a great deal of heartache when she left him, but did she also strip him of all his wealth?

Victor and Eve had bought and sold various rural properties in northern New South Wales since they were married in 1922. They had also spent a great deal of time living in Sydney, where Eve apparently preferred to be. For some years, Victor regularly traversed the long road between the New England and Sydney, in an attempt to maintain the family’s livelihood while, at the same time, keep his young wife happy.

In 1930, at the time of the couple’s “official” separation, Eve had been living in Sydney with the children for at least two years. Victor had been living and working on his property “Glenbrook”, about 30 miles north west of Armidale.

In September 1930 Victor wrote to Eve and pointed out to her that it was “now four months since I came up here” and asked her to please return to Glenbrook. Despite repeated pleas, Eve refused to return and just over twelve months later the court granted a Decree Nisi, setting in motion the official wheels of divorce.

In the meantime, Victor borrowed a substantial sum of money from his older brother Richard, my grandfather. Richard ran a property named Merilba near Uralla. He had himself been through a divorce a few years earlier.

In June 1931 Victor borrowed £1,200 from Richard, secured by a mortgage of his property Glenbrook. Over the next nine months Victor borrowed more money from Richard and by the end of April 1932 he owed his brother a total of £2,048. Today, this equates to about $200,000.

The day-to-day interactions between Richard and Victor, and the brothers and Eve, can only be guessed at, however it appears that, as well as running Merilba, Richard also spent some time in Sydney where he stayed at the Union Club. Eve was living in Rose Bay and the three young children were attending boarding school nearby. A relationship developed between Richard and Eve, and two months after Victor and Eve’s divorce became final, Richard and Eve were married.

This is where the saga really begins, as subsequent events clearly led to the prevailing family lore that “Victor gave Eve everything”.

The story of Victor sailing up the coast to Cape York is true. He departed Sydney with two friends, in a ketch called the “Mitzi”, just prior to Richard and Eve’s marriage. After the marriage (clearly an understated affair, as no mention is made of it in any newspapers of the day), Richard and Eve, and Eve’s three children, relocated to Merilba where they lived until 1933 when they moved to Glenbrook.

Looking at these events, the assertion that Victor had given everything he owned (that is, Glenbrook and all its stock and plant) to Eve would seem to be a valid one. On the surface it would have looked like Eve had taken Glenbrook, and Victor had sailed up the coast in a tinnie with nothing but a few clothes and a kit bag.

However, as it turns out, the facts are not that simple. The paper trail was quite complicated, and some parts inconclusive, but it does seem to me that perhaps Eve wasn’t the quite the avaricious ex-wife she has been portrayed to be.

As mentioned earlier, by the end of April 1932 Victor owed Richard £2,048. Perhaps in preparation for his departure to sail north, and possibly in an attempt to escape a painful situation, it was at this time that Victor actually sold Glenbrook to his brother.

The property was valued by Whitby Simpson, the mortgage/money Victor owed Richard discharged, and a new loan taken out by Richard for the balance of the purchase price – the money was lent to Richard by Victor and was to be repaid in yearly instalments over seven years. In effect, Richard now owned Glenbrook, and owed his brother £2,738 ($273,000 in today’s dollars).

In addition to the two mortgage documents, I was also able to find the relevant Transfer documents for the sale of Glenbrook. The land consisted of a total of 1,865 acres of Conditional Purchase land and Conditional Leases. The Herbert Park Station Ledger (Richard’s account book) shows the purchase price as £4,197 which would’ve included land, equipment and stock. In today’s dollars, this equates to around $418,000.

Unfortunately the paper trail cools somewhat from here on. Victor remarried in February 1934, and in September of that year Richard’s mortgage to Victor was discharged. I can’t find any evidence that the yearly payments of £350 had begun (due 1 November 1932), or that a lump sum was ultimately paid by Richard to his brother.

It would be pure speculation to suggest that perhaps Victor forgave the loan as a financial settlement to Eve, but this is possible. However, if that is the case, Victor in effect only gave Eve a little over half the value of Glenbrook. The other half was “paid” to him when Richard forgave the original loan.

Victor & Eve’s eldest child, Penelope, has said on a number of occasions that she was asked to finish school early because Eve had “spent all the money left by my father for our education”. I was able to find one entry for school fees in the Station Ledger. This was for £299 for the year ended 30 June 1936 (about $29,000 today). This suggests that Richard and Eve were paying for the children’s schooling. [It is noted, as an aside, that this sum is as significant as the £350 loan repayment that Richard owed to Victor each year.]

Tony was at The Armidale School from 1935-38 (four years), Victor 1935-41 (seven years) and Penelope was at New England Girls School from 1935-38 (four years). The cost of school fees would’ve been a significant expense for Richard and Eve, and of course, schooling isn’t the only cost of childrearing. Today, it would be reasonable to expect this cost to be shared between the parents, and I believe that Victor would’ve contributed in some way, perhaps by way of surrendering some (or all) of his remaining equity in the Glenbrook property.

I don’t have all the answers, but I feel I’m a little further ahead than I was before I began this investigation. The mortgage and transfer documents have shed some light on the family myth, and I’m now confident that Eve didn’t actually take all Victor’s money.

The discovery that Victor owed Richard nearly half the value of Glenbrook in 1932, and the proof of the actual sale from Victor to Richard, goes some way towards dispelling the myth, but questions still remain. Did Victor forgive the loan he made to Richard? If he did, was that on the understanding that Richard would pay for the children’s upkeep while Victor was miles away from his family unable, practically, to make any financial contribution? Was the sale of Glenbrook initiated by Victor because he had no other way of repaying his original debt?

These are questions I may never know the answer to, but the information I have so far unearthed goes some way towards vindicating Eve, in my mind at least.

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References & Sources:

• Letter dated 12 September 1930 from Victor Jenkins to Evelyn Jenkins, copy in divorce papers obtained from NSW State Archives, held by the writer.

• Decree Nisi of the marriage of Victor & Evelyn Jenkins, made 26 October 1931, divorce papers obtained from NSW State Archives.

• Mortgage dated 23 July 1931, Land Registry Services, Book 1629, No. 753, obtained from TriSearch 13 January 2022, copy held by the author.

• Station Ledger Herbert Park, UNE Heritage Centre, Acc No A0617.1, File No V5242, “VGH Loan Account”, copy held by the author ref IMG 5841.

• Decree Absolute for the marriage of Victor & Evelyn Jenkins dated 17 May 1932, divorce papers obtained from NSW State Archives; Marriage Certificate of Richard Charles Cludde Jenkins and Evelyn Mary Jenkins dated 7^th July 1932, registration number 10890/1932, St Peters Church, Blues Point Road, Municipality of North Sydney, copy held by the writer.

• “Ketch’s Long Voyage”, Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, 2 July 1932, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article136592578, accessed 14 January 2022.

• Discharge of Mortgage dated 27 April 1932, Land Registry Services, Book 1641, No 992, obtained from TriSearch 13 January 2022, copy held by the author.

• Mortgage dated 7 May 1932, Land Registry Services, Book 1641, No 993, obtained from TriSearch 13 January 2022, copy held by the author.

• Transfer of Conditional Purchase by way of Sale dated 30 April 1932, various named parcels of land in the County of Hardinge, Parish of Sandy Creek for a sum of £2,872, from Victor GH Jenkins to Richard CC Jenkins, Land Registry Services Book 1643 No 975 purchased from TriSearch, copy held by the author.

• Transfer of Additional Conditional Purchase by way of Sale dated 30 April 1932, 394 acres of land in the County of Hardinge, Parish of Sandy Creek for a sum of £886, from Victor GH Jenkins to Richard CC Jenkins, Land Registry Services Book 1643 No 974 purchased from TriSearch, copy held by the author.

• Copies of TAS and NEGS school registers held by the author.