The Collector for the Missions
Hettie Rhoda Robens
1858–1917
The youngest daughter. She collected for the foreign missions from early girlhood until she was twenty-one, married the man who printed the colony’s railway tickets — and left nine children, three of whom did not reach school age.
- Born
- 10 January 1858 · Chippendale
- Died
- 26 February 1917 · Homebush
- Married
- William Spicer Short (1854–1928)
- Lived
- 59 years
Born on 10 January 1858 at Chippendale, the youngest daughter.1 She married William Spicer Short on 14 January 1879 — four days after her twenty-first birthday — at the Cleveland Street Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Rev. George Lane officiating.2
A memorial notice published in the Methodist a fortnight after her death is the closest thing this generation has to a portrait of one of the daughters in her own right, and it is worth reading in full rather than summarising.3
The next generation
Children
- William Wesley Cleveland (1880–1946) — engineer
- Stephen Walter (1882–1942) — iron fitter, then mechanic
- Arthur Herbert Spicer (1884–1959) — carter, of Southport
- Harold (d. 1887) — died in infancy
- Hetty Myra (1891–1923) — died unmarried at thirty-one
- Cecil James (1893–1896) — died at three
- Gertrude Sarah (1895–1962) — married Gilbert
- Frederick Charles (1898) — died at three months
- Henry Macquarie — not yet traced
From very early girlhood until she was 21 years of age she continued in this good work, and then passed on her cards and lists of subscribers to Lottie Huthnance.
A Handful of Subscriber Cards
The notice records that her mother, Sarah, was a class leader at both the Bourke Street and Cleveland Street Wesleyan churches; that her father and mother were connected with both, working “strenuously in the city mission work” with the late Messrs Bowmaker and Freeland — the other city missionaries of Bourke Street “in its palmiest days”; and that Hettie herself was a scholar in the Bourke Street senior girls’ Sunday school class right up to her marriage.3
The handing-on of the subscriber cards is the detail that lasts, and it also raises a question. The only Lottie Huthnance in this family is Lottie Sophia Huthnance, daughter of Hettie’s own sister Elizabeth Malvina — and Lottie Sophia was born on 1 May 1879, four months after Hettie’s wedding.4
So the transfer cannot have happened when the notice implies it did. Either Hettie went on collecting well past twenty-one and passed the cards to her niece years later, or the notice — written thirty-eight years after the fact — has compressed the sequence, or there was another Lottie Huthnance nobody has found. The identification is attractive and the arithmetic does not support it as told.
Two Brothers-in-Law in the Same Office
William Spicer Short was born at Bathurst and spent more than forty years in New South Wales Government service. For many years he ran the railway printing office at Sydney Station, through the move from the old terminus to the present Central Station, and then transferred to the Government Printing Office, where he served about ten years before retiring.5
That is worth setting beside another marriage in this family. Hettie’s elder sister Elizabeth Malvina had married James Stevens Huthnance, who was Foreman of the Railway Ticket Printing Branch at the Government Printing Office from 1893, and in the service since 1858.6 Two of Stephen and Sarah Ann’s daughters married men who printed the railways — one running the printing office at the station, the other foreman of the ticket branch at the Government Printing Office — and the two men were brothers-in-law. Nothing found says whether one brought the other in. The coincidence is on the record either way.
Outside the office William was known across Sydney as a choir conductor, at the Old Cleveland Street Methodist Church and later at Summer Hill, and as an active member of the Sydney Philharmonic Society under Signor Roberto Hazon, where he counted as one of its leading tenors.5 An undated clipping shows him as honorary secretary of a benefit concert at St George’s Hall, Newtown, got up in aid of a railway widow — the same instinct, in a smaller frame.7
Homebush, Then the Tweed
The 1913 roll finds the household at Rochester Street, Homebush: William a compositor, and three of the children still at home — Arthur, Stephen and Hetty Myra.8
Hettie died there on 26 February 1917, aged fifty-nine, and was buried at Rookwood.9 William survived her by almost twelve years. He went north to the Tweed River district to live with his son Arthur, suffered a stroke in September 1928, and died in his sleep at Coolangatta on 15 December that year. He was buried at the Tweed Heads Old General Cemetery, in an unmarked plot.5
His obituary names one unmarried daughter, Gertrude, and four surviving sons. Three others had gone before them all: Harold in 1887, Cecil James at three in 1896, and Frederick Charles at three months in 1898.510
The Centaur
Their granddaughter Evelyn Rhoda Short — daughter of William Wesley Cleveland — married Walter James Colemane at Concord in 1943.11
He was killed within months, on 14 May 1943, in the sinking of the hospital ship AHS Centaur off the Queensland coast, one of the worst Australian maritime losses of the war. He was twenty-seven, serving with the 2/12th Field Ambulance of the Australian Army Medical Corps. He has no grave; he is commemorated on the Sydney War Cemetery memorial at Rookwood.11
She married again in 1948, to George Francis Duffey, who had also served, and they settled at Rydalmere with their daughter Jillian. Evelyn Rhoda died in 1995. Her headstone reads “wife of George & mother of Jillian”, and does not mention the first marriage of a few months at all.11
The Trade Carried Down
William Spicer Short was a compositor and printer. His son Stephen Walter trained as an iron fitter and became a mechanic. But his grandson Stephen John Short went back to the press: by 1936 he was a compositor and rubber-stamp maker at the Government Printing Office — his grandfather’s own institution — and he was still a lithographer at Toowoomba in 1959.12
Stephen Walter’s own household carried a heavier record. His first wife, Edith Pearl Peters, died at Cabramatta on 30 May 1913, aged twenty-nine, in the same year her youngest daughter — named Edith Pearl for her — was born. Their headstone at Rookwood carries mother and infant son together: “Edith Pearl, dearly loved wife of Stephen W. Short, died 30th May 1913, aged 29 years. Also Lawrence, son of above, died 29th Aug 1907, aged 7 weeks.”13
That daughter, Edith Pearl the younger, never married and lived to 1989. Her own death notice is one of the most useful documents in this branch, naming every one of her surviving siblings and their spouses in a single line — the sort of paragraph that does more genealogical work than a certificate.14 The other branches of the nine ran to Summer Hill, the Blue Mountains and the Queensland Gold Coast, and are set out in the sources below.15
The Record
Sources & References
- 1
Birth
Born 10 January 1858 at Chippendale, Sydney, youngest daughter of Stephen Robens and Sarah Ann Catt.
- 2
Marriage, 1879
Married 14 January 1879 by the Rev. George Lane at the Cleveland Street Wesleyan Methodist Church — confirmed independently by her 1917 memorial notice and a contemporary newspaper marriage announcement. A marriage notice separately records her as “Hettie Rhoda, seventh daughter of the late Stephen Robens, city missionary, High Holborn-street, Sydney”.
- 3
“Church Triumphant”
The Methodist (Sydney), 10 March 1917, p. 6 — memorial notice for Hetty Rhoda Short. Records her mother Sarah as a class leader at Bourke Street and Cleveland Street; her parents’ city mission work alongside Messrs Bowmaker and Freeland; her own membership of Bourke Street Wesleyan from an early age, her scholarship in the senior girls’ Sunday school class until her marriage, and her years as a collector for the foreign missions.
- 4
The Lottie Huthnance problem
The memorial notice says she passed her subscriber cards to Lottie Huthnance when she gave up collecting at twenty-one — that is, in January 1879. The only Lottie Huthnance in this family is Lottie Sophia Huthnance, daughter of Hettie’s sister Elizabeth Malvina, born 1 May 1879 (NSW BDM reg. no. 1774/1879). The dates cannot both stand as the notice tells it; the notice was written thirty-eight years after the event.
- 5
William Spicer Short — obituary
Tweed Daily (Queensland), December 1928 — born at Bathurst, the obituary giving 1854 where other records give 1853; more than forty years in NSW Government service; in charge of the railway printing office at Sydney Station through the transition from the old terminus to Central Station, then about ten years at the Government Printing Office. Choir conductor at the Old Cleveland Street Methodist Church and later Summer Hill; a leading tenor of the Sydney Philharmonic Society under Signor Roberto Hazon. Suffered a stroke in September 1928, died in his sleep at Coolangatta 15 December 1928, aged 74 by the obituary or 75 by other records; buried Tweed Heads Old General Cemetery, unmarked plot. Survived by one unmarried daughter, Gertrude, and four sons.
- 6
The other printing marriage
NSW Public Service List, 1898 — James Stevens Huthnance, husband of Hettie’s sister Elizabeth Malvina, Foreman of the Railway Ticket Printing Branch at the Government Printing Office, in the service from 1 January 1858 and foreman from 1 July 1893. The connection between the two brothers-in-law’s careers is an observation drawn from the two records, not something either document states.
- 7
The benefit concert
Undated newspaper clipping — William Spicer Short as honorary secretary of a charity benefit concert at St George’s Hall, Newtown, in aid of a railway widow.
- 8
Homebush, 1913
Electoral roll, 1913 — the family at Rochester Street, Homebush; William a compositor, with Arthur, Stephen and Hettie Myra at home.
- 9
Hettie’s death
Died at the family home, Homebush, 26 February 1917, aged fifty-nine; buried Rookwood General Cemetery.
- 10
The three who died young
Harold, died 1887; Cecil James, born 1893, died 9 July 1896 aged three, buried Rookwood; Frederick Charles, born late 1898, died 28 December 1898, buried Rookwood. Hetty Myra, born 1891, died unmarried at Chatswood on 30 January 1923 aged thirty-one, also buried Rookwood.
- 11
Evelyn Rhoda and the Centaur
Evelyn Rhoda Short, born 25 May 1911 at Petersham, married Walter James Colemane at Concord in 1943. He was killed on 14 May 1943 in the sinking of AHS Centaur, aged twenty-seven, serving with the 2/12th Field Ambulance, Australian Army Medical Corps; having no grave, he is commemorated on the Sydney War Cemetery memorial at Rookwood. She remarried George Francis Duffey at Ashfield in 1948 and died 23 June 1995; buried Macquarie Park, her headstone reading “wife of George & mother of Jillian”.
- 12
Stephen John Short
Born 21 May 1909; married Dorothy May Smith at Rockdale in 1932. By 1936 a compositor and rubber-stamp maker at the Government Printing Office, living at Stoddart Street, Lakemba; by 1959 a lithographer at Ruthven Street, Toowoomba North. Died 27 September 1969; buried Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery.
- 13
Edith Pearl Peters
Born 13 January 1884 at Darlington; married Stephen Walter Short at Leichhardt in 1906; died 30 May 1913 at Cabramatta, aged twenty-nine, in the year her youngest daughter was born and named for her. Headstone, Rookwood: “Edith Pearl, dearly loved wife of Stephen W. Short, died 30th May 1913, aged 29 years. Also Lawrence, son of above, died 29th Aug 1907, aged 7 weeks.”
- 14
Edith Pearl Short the younger
Born 1913, never married, died 21 May 1989 at Nepean Hospital, late of Faulconbridge; buried Faulconbridge Cemetery. Her Sydney Morning Herald death notice names her as “beloved daughter of Stephen and Edith (both deceased), loved sister of Stephen (deceased), Cecil, Gwen and Ralph, a fond sister-in-law to Dorothy, Rachael (deceased), Arnold and Val” — confirming all four surviving siblings and their spouses in one paragraph.
- 15
The other branches
William Wesley Cleveland Short (1880–1946), engineer, of Summer Hill and later Concord West, had ten children though his death notice names the eight who survived him; two, Frederick and Milton, died in infancy. Arthur Herbert Spicer Short (1884–1959) married at Murwillumbah in 1917 and settled at Nerang Street, Southport, working as a carter; he is buried at Southport General Cemetery, and his Queensland death registration renders his mother’s name as “Rhoda Robbins”. Gertrude Sarah married William John Gilbert in 1930 and lived in the Katoomba district for thirty years; her 1962 death notices name three children — Rhoda, John and Robert — not recorded in any earlier account. Henry Macquarie Short has not yet been traced beyond his place among the nine.