Sadie and Harry Moss of Fawkner

(Henry Ephraim) Harry Moss and (Sarah Jane) Sadie (King) were a colourful couple with an unusual background - they were 'theatricals'. When they married in 1903, he was touring Victorian country towns as a palmist under the name Prince Cerio and 17 year old Sadie was described in the press as a 'fair singer', so presumably she sang in the same shows he organised.  They almost immediately found themselves in the newspapers. 

Age, 13 Nov 1903

Bendigo Independent, 14 Nov 1903

Benalla Standard, 17 Nov 1903

Already my interest was piqued, so I looked into their backgrounds further.

Their first child Dorothy was born at Wodonga in 1904. Then came son Cyril, born in Fitzroy North in 1906, the same year in which Harry (under the name Henry Ephraim) was charged with 'using a place for betting purposes by post.' Described variously as Prince Cerio, a phrenologist, a turf commission agent and one-time hairdresser, he was fined £50.

The headline makers had fun: 'A turf swindler', one cried. The Sydney Sportsman declared ‘Mountebank Moss. Bounder and Blackguard..’ The sub-heading reads ‘Comprehensive Commonwealth Capers – Prince Cerio Pinched – Those lying advertisements – how the green ones bit – blackguardly letter to a Bendigo man.’ (It turns out the Sportsman had used the Melbourne Truth as its source!)

The Sydney Sportsman had more to say:

‘There was a time when this Moss, who has just been apprehended in Fitzroy, was quite a notability in our local world. He then ran a fifth-rate phrenologist joint in the Arcade, between Pall Mall and Hargreaves-street.’ … ‘for a while the impudent imposter did remarkably well. He had then not developed any tendency to that bookmaking on a big scale that has landed him into his present bother.’ When Bendigo proved ‘altogether too warm for Mossy ‘Prince Cerio’ he migrated in haste.’

The paper goes on to refer to him as an ‘arch-imposter’ and used racial and religious slurs to describe this man they called a 'blackguard and bounder’. The vitriol was repeated in other newspapers.

Yes, you guessed it - Ephraim Henry (Harry) Moss was Jewish - another strike against him as far as the Sportsman was concerned.

(Mount Alexander Mail, 25 Oct 1906, Bendigo Advertiser, 25 Oct 1906, Sydney Sportsman, 7 November 1906, North Eastern Ensign, 9 November 1906, Sydney Sportsman, 14 November 1906)

Move forward two years. It's 1908 and their third child, a daughter Sadie Ruth is born. It appears that Harry is still moving from place to place and is still drawing the attention of the police. In May 1912 he's found guilty in Sydney (where his family (ie the Moss family) lives) of obtaining fruit etc 'by means of false pretence') and he's sentenced to 12 months' hard labour. By now his occupation is fruiterer.

A year later, his 5 year old daughter Sadie was knocked down by a taxi-cab while playing in the road in Elgin Street, Carlton and died in the Children's Hospital of a fractured skull. The inquest brought in the verdict 'death by misadventure'.

At the time of the accident, Sadie had been living with her maternal grandmother Elizabeth Douglas for the previous twelve months. So where was her mother? We know her father was in prison in New South Wales, so perhaps the children had been left with their grandmother and Sadie, the mother, had gone to live near her husband. Or maybe she took work somewhere else to support herself and the children.

Then came more extraordinary headlines in the press - Harry was back in Melbourne and he wanted compensation for the loss of his daughter - or more properly he wanted to be compensated for the loss of earnings that her death brought with it. Apparently this little girl had earned money giving diving exhibitions with her brother [ie Cyril] off the beach at Balmoral, Sydney, and he wanted compensation:

Kalgoorlie Miner, 21 Feb 1914

(Sources: Ballarat Star, 15 May 1913, Argus, 15 May 1913, The Telegraph, 15 May 1913, The Sun, 23 May 1913, Kalgoorlie Miner, 21 Feb 1914)

It's at about this time that the Moss family moved to Fawner where they threw themselves into the life of this fledgling community. 

In my next post I'll follow up on the Fawkner connection and reveal the next link to World War One.