James Philip Hewlett IV [1875 - 1919]

 

James Philip Hewlett IV was born at 188 Cowley Road, Oxford on February 26, 1875. He migrated to Australia in 1883 with his parents and ran away to sea at an early age.

After years in the Merchant Navy he married in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1897, settled in Melbourne, Victoria, and had three daughters: Edith Elizabeth, Gertrude Esther and Elsie Selina. After deserting his family in 1903 he spent some years in Northern Victoria and the high country of New South Wales delivering mail by horseback and working in menial jobs.

He established a new family in Wagin, Western Australia in 1907 with Lavinia Marvell born in Adelong, New South Wales and had two sons: Herbert and James Philip.

Enlisting in the Army in 1915 as a medical orderly he returned with great joy to his native land serving in the AAMC in England. Discharged from the Army because of ill health he arrived back in Australia on the SS Boonah  on September 9, 1918 and died, unexpectedly, in Wagin, Western Australia, on October 28, 1919.