ALL THE SINGLE WIVES
Updated: Sep 8, 2022
While most of the residents of Corio Bay Villa were family groups, there was also a high proportion of married women living on their own. I'm not sure what to call this group, as they were by no means 'single' and perhaps not even alone. The married women who lived at Corio Bay Villa without husbands are as follows:
MRS MARY ANN LEEMAN (see below)
MRS MAY PAGE (see below)
MRS ETHEL MAY STEVENS (see below)
MRS MARIA BARHAM BROWN (see below)
Until recent decades it was considered unacceptable for a young single woman to live on their own. However once married there were a myriad of reasons why a wife would be living alone: abandonment, voluntary separation, widowhood, as well as the husband’s work commitments, incarceration or enlistment in the armed forces. One must not forget that prior to the 1970s, all married women were expected to give up their paid employment.
Nearly every married woman I have investigated for this project has her employment listed as "home duties" or just H.D, whether she had children or not. The only one who did not was Clara Crocker who was married to an artist. She listed her job as sales, perhaps working as her husband's art dealer. Essentially a married woman was 100% dependant on her husband for financial support, which made it difficult for her to leave of her own accord, especially if she had a young family to support.
Most of the time we cannot know why these women were living at Corio Bay Villa on their own, however, sometimes the evidence is clear. For instance, I have taken the stance that Mrs Margaret Farney was abandoned, while Mrs. Beatrice Maskell's husband was likely supporting her while he was temporarily away. Some of these women have significant back stories, like Mrs Olive May Amery, while very little information can be found on others such as Ethel May Jane Stevens. Without a maiden name, date of birth, or their full husband's name, they can be very difficult to track down.
This particular post is dedicated to the female tenants of Corio Bay Villa: the women who lived there on their own and for whom very little is know. I will update this page as I find out more information about these women. If you have any further information regarding these women, please contact me via my contact page.
MRS MAY PAGE (1883-1935)
May Page lived at Corio Bay Villa for around two years in 1907 and 1908 with her young daughter. May was born May Christina Winifred Whorlton to Thomas Whorlton and Ellen Egan (1850-1912) in 1883. She had a number of siblings, which are listed in the document below as: Francis Ignatius, Thomas Dudley, Mary Ellen, Annie Elizabeth and Hugh Sylvester.
May married George Hemsworth Page (1876-1944) in 1903, aged 20 years old. George had been born in England and immigrated to Australia in 1882, presumably with his family as he was only aged around six. May's family had probably immigrated from England, as their birth are not recorded in Australia. There were a few Whorlton's that arrived in Australia prior to 1903.[1]
The year following their marriage, May gave birth to a girl called Annie Victoria Page. So by the time May living at Corio Bay Villa in 1907, her daughter would have been around three years old. Where her husband was at this time is not know. He was not dead however because when May's mother died in 1912 she listed herself married woman, not a widow (see below). Further in 1917 May registered another daughter whose father was George Hemsworth Page. May would have been 34 when she had her second daughter.
May lived the remainder of her life in Melbourne and died in 1935 aged 52, leaving George a widower aged 59. It is not know what became of their daughters.
Image: Probate of May's mother Ellen Whorlton, signed by May Page 1912.
Source: Public Record Office Victoria, https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/66381740-F209-11E9-AE98-CD68A6457B63?image=2
MRS MARY ANN LEEMAN
In 1906 a Mary Ann Leeman is on the Surrey Hills electoral roll living in Broughton Park Road, and later that same year, a Mrs Leeman is the sole tenant at Corio Bay Villa. As there weren't that many people living in Surrey Hills at the time, I have made the assumption that they are one and the same.
Before living in Surrey Hills, there is Mary Ann Leeman living in Caulfield during 1892 and 1893. The latter rate book lists her occupation as 'widow' which fits in with what we know of her. Six years later in 1899, she is a tenant in St Kilda and this time her occupation is listed as "D.D" which may have stood for domestic duties. In the next column is written "Port Melbourne Building Society," which may be where her bank account was situated.
All we know for sure is that a widow called Mrs Mary Ann Leeman lived in the suburbs of Melbourne for about 15 years between 1892 and 1906. What happened to her before, or afterwards, is unknown.
ETHEL MAY JANE STEVENS
Ethel May Jane Stevens may, or may not, have been a married woman. She was a laundress and as noted above, it was unusual for married women to work. It was also very unusual for single women to live on their own, but of course there is always the exception to the rule. We presume she was single as there was no man listed at the address. But according to the rate books, there were 6 occupants at Corio Bay Villa whilst she was there. So perhaps she was a single mother of multiple children. Based on rate books and electoral rolls, she lived at the following addresses:
1925 21 Shepherd Street, Surrey Hills
1927 Corio Bay Villa, Surrey Hills
1928 33 Shepherd, Surrey Hills
1931 8 Scottsdale Street, Surrey Hills
With this scant information we can see that Ethel's living situation was at least sometimes unstable and precarious.
MRS MARIA BARHAM BROWN (1865-1944)
Mrs Maria Barham Brown was a widow who lived at Corio Bay Villa from 1940 to 1944 when she was in her sixties. Marie was born to John LePage and Elizabeth Sebire near Lilydale in 1865. Her father was a illiterate gardener who died in 1899, when Marie was about 34. There are no records of her parents or siblings.
She married George Barham Brown (1864-1936) in 1887, when she was around 22 and he one year older. She and George did not have any children.
George was born in regional Victoria, the youngest of five siblings. He died in 1936 when a motor vehicle crashed into this jinker, leaving Maria a widow at the age of 70 years old.[2] At the time of his death, one of his older sisters, Ermine, was still alive and living in Melbourne. Apart from his one sister, I can find no other relatives of Maria or George who were around in 1936.
A few years after George's death, Marie moved into Corio Bay Villa, where she stayed for approximately four years until her death. She died in 1944, aged 69. This doesn't really fit in with the rate books that have her living a Corio Bay Villa until 1946, but I cannot find a record of anyone else with this unusual surname. She died of cardiorespiratory failure in November 1944 at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and was buried in St Kilda cemetery, as per her death certificate below.
Image: Death certificate of Maria Barham Brown, 1944
Source: Registry of Deaths. Births and Marriages Victoria.
REFERENCES
[1] National Archives of Australia, https://www.naa.gov.au/
[2] 'Jinker Driver's Death: Finding of Misadventure', the Age, Friday 17 July 1936, page 13.
