Juggling Payments with a Gardener's Job

So many stories of ancestors and relatives are mentioned in the newspapers of the past. During April 2020 for the A - Z blog challenge, I am listing the types of stories or information I have found in newspapers with examples for each letter of the alphabet. My clippings include a variety of articles about relatives of my children's ancestors.

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J - Jobs, Judicial proceedings or perhaps even a Jail sentence are some of the gems found in the news.

Gordon Wallace Stirling, my husband's maternal grandfather, had a job as a gardener at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney and as part of a wage inquiry, he was called upon to explain how he spent the wage earned on the job.
This clipping provides details of where they lived and the composition of the family as well as providing details about the cost of living in 1929.

1929 'LABOURER'S BUDGET.', 
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954),
7 March, p. 7.
 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16536572

LABOURER'S BUDGET. On £4/14/6 a Week. RURAL WAGE INQUIRY.

Further evidence In the rural wage inquiry waa heard by the Industrial Commission yesterday when three gardeners, employed at the Randwick Racecourse, gave details of their yearly expenditure.

Gordon Wallace Stirling, of Allen-street. Glebe Point, said he received £4/14/6 a week and had a wife, and two children aged 8 and 9 years respectively.

He paid 35/ a week rent, bought two suits a year at £5/6/ each, and two pairs of working trousers at 25/ each. He bought nine pairs of socks at 3/8. and two pairs at 4/11. His six working shirts cost 10/6 each, and two good shirts £1 each: for an overcoat, which lasted two years, he paid four guineas, and for an umbrella 15/.

Two working hats cost him 15/ each, but he paid 50/ for a "best" one. For the cleaning of the hats he paid 7/6 each. Other articles he required were: Two ties at 6/6 each; two pairs of working boots at 17/6 and one pair at 45/; six singlets at 6/11; one sweater, lasting two years, at 27/6; two pairs of braces, nine handkerchiefs; three suits of pyjamas, lasting two years, at 10/6 to 12/6.

He found it necessary to take in a boarder, at 35/ a week in order to keep the home going. That paid the rent, electric light cost 16/ to 18/ and gas 36/ a quarter. He worked all the year round. Tram fares cost him 6/ a week, and the hats for which he paid 15/ were only rubbish.

The Chairman (Mr. Justice Piddington): Do you have anything over at the end of the year on your present wages?
Witness- No.

Do you spend money freely on pleasure? No; I have no pleasures at all.

Do you spend some money on drink?-I might have a glass of ale, occasionally, when friends visit me. I don't smoke.

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It appears that he was not over spending his wage but there was little left for necessities for his wife and children. Gordon Wallace Stirling and Louisa May Lawson had married in 1919 with their eldest child Phyllis Yvonne born the following year. The marriage did not last and soon after this 1929 report the children were in the care of their grandmother Maud Stirling. It appears that there was no divorce even though the death notice below lists a wife as Eileen. After Gordon's  death  Louisa May Lawson reappeared and applied for administration of his estate.

Gordon died in 1955 as the result of an accident.

Next up - K for Kindness and Kinship

 This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin