Thomas Henry and Eva endured a very bleak and challenging home life in their early years. Money was scarce, tempers were short, and many times the children went to bed with the persistently familiar pain of hunger in their bellies. Their cousins lived in the nearby area of Collingwood and Clifton Hill and attended the Clifton Hill Primary school, whose numbers had swelled to over a thousand students in those years. Their cousin, Alfonso, who was John’s son and closer in age to Eva, spent quite a lot of time with them.

By the time that young Thomas Henry was of school age at Princess Hill Primary School in Carlton, both of his parents were suffering the more advanced stages of syphilis, a disease that was rife in Melbourne in the late 1890s and early 1900s, with no known cure. This would have meant a life of constant pain and discomfort with persistent headaches, back pain, strong mood swings, and a general sense of lethargy as their immune systems began to fail. They could barely look after themselves, let alone anyone else. They were frequently fined for the children being absent from school without a legitimate reason - Alice even served prison time. Tom rarely ever spoke of this family life - he thought his father angry, hateful and severe. His earliest impressions of life were sad and dark.

 

Thomas, Alice and familyThomas Hobbs Clutterbuck

from left: Thomas Hobbs, Alfonso, Thomas Henry, Alice, Eva

When young Tom was about 6-7 years old, he was taken by the authorities and placed in the care of the Scot’s Church Neglected Children’s Aid Society, which provided as best they could for local orphans and street kids, mainly through foster programs. His sister, Eva, being thirteen years old at the time was considered too old for the orphanage and sadly had to make her own way in life. For the two children, being torn away from each other by this well-meaning intervention was emotionally devastating. Their father, Thomas Hobbs, perished the following year and was buried in the Springvale Cemetery. Not long after this, their mother was lost to a pauper’s grave at Boroondara Cemetery in Kew.

In a cruel twist of fate, history had repeated itself, and like his Berkeley ancestor and namesake born more than two centuries earlier, Thomas found himself an orphan at 8 years of age. He knew nothing of his parents‘ illness and harboured a deep sense of sadness, confusion and bitterness towards them. The orphanage, while catering to some basic needs, was what he described as “hell on earth”. Deprivation and corporal punishment were a mainstay of such institutions and predatory behaviour - bullying and sexual abuse - were often commonplace. Thomas could never understand why his family had abandoned him to such cruelty.

Thomas Henry Clutterbuck with sister, Eva

In 1907, at the age of 8 or 9, Tommy had a lucky break in being taken out of the Orphanage by a 43 year old spinster, Miss Marion Turner, to be raised as her foster child. Knowing nothing of the selection process involved, Tommy reasoned that if he sat up really straight, looking as ‘well-behaved’  and keen as possible when this next person came to adopt a child, it might impress them enough to take him home with them. It must have worked!

Miss Turner had a little farm called Ochiltree  at Mirranatwa in the Victoria Valley, deep in the Grampians mountain range. She had always been a strong, solid and highly capable woman who did all of the manual farm work by herself. A recent operation for hydatids in her liver, however, meant that she was still recovering her strength and seriously needed some physical help on her farm. Adopting a young orphan boy who could be a helping hand and provide her with some company was a sensible move.

With this serendipitous event, Thomas Henry Clutterbuck, the grandson of Thomas and Elizabeth Hobbs Clutterbuck of Gloucestershire, became the first Clutterbuck of  the Valley.

 

Miss Marion Turner