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And yes I see what you mean about staying on board the Orontes. He might have signed off when he reached Sydney and then stayed on board during the war. However would that not have generated personnel records somewhere. Whoa hang on merchant navy not RAN. Hmmm I wonder.

Found this embarkation roll with three possibilities. Going to take a look.

Name Service Number Unit
Hill, Frederick William 2146 3 Infantry Battalion - 1 to 12 (died of wounds) Reinforcements (December 1914 - December 1915)
Hill, Frederick William 591 8 Machine Gun Company - 10 to 15 Reinforcements (January-November 1917)
Hill, Frederick William 1754 Flying Corps - October 1916 to October 1917 - Reinforcements and 1 and 2 Special Drafts (May 1917 - December 1917)
FWH 604 37th Battalion 1916-1917 Returned to Aus

It was just to set you thinking,
I believe the merchant navy were not quite military but not civilian either. He may also have been injured at any point and even taken off the Orontes for hospitalisation before returning home.

Yes it could be as simple as that. I now have three enquiries in to government departments. Ranging from request to see information, to immigration to war service records. It's a matter of waiting for replies and that may take a while.

Think I might stick another pin into the map of the planet and work on whichever rellie hails from that area. I seem to have "done" all the easy ones.

From 1924 directory. Frederick William Hill, signwriter, 62 Opey Avenue Hyde Park South Australia.

Same address as given by Margaret Hill at birth of daughter 5 Aug 1923.

Aunty has been whirling around the room!! I have found my Frederick William Hill. Well at least between 1915 and 1924.

Lots of questions have been answered. And naturally still more to be asked.

Briefly, what's that you say, Aunty being brief. Mutter mutter.

All of the theories are correct.

He was in the WW1 war served in the 37th Battalion AIF in France 1916-1918.
He was discharged ill - he had rheumatic fever and sciatic rheumatism. He was hospitalised in England.

Both his parents are shown as deceased on his documents.

He gives his occupation as chef/cook. Then applies for a grant to start up a business as a signwriter/decorator after the war.
In the documentation about his request for assistance to start his signwriting business mention is made of his occupation. He wrote chef/cook on his enlistment papers because that was the easiest thing to say. He tried training in signals but wasn't
successful. After he was discharged he trained as a signwriter.

One address in his service documents is the same as on his marriage certificate.

Next of kin on his service documents is a friend at an address in the same suburb he lived after his marriage. There is a curious twist with this person's name. (Buttons lip)

The govt appears to have lost contact with him after he travelled interstate.
The records include a signed letter from him and the signature is a good match for the one on his marriage certificate.


It still leaves the question as to who were his parents.

He enlisted in Australia and not in UK. I was looking in the wrong place.

I now reckon I'm looking on census for Fred Hill occupation cook or something similar.

Ha date of birth. Didn't look. I'll be back.

My thanks to all of you for your help. All the suggestions and theories have a place in the answers.

Now date of birth. On his enlistment papers on 18 Feb 1916 his age is put as 28 years 4 months which makes his dob 1888, about November. This is the fourth different date of birth in ten years. Are you thinking he didn't know and used whatever date fitted the circumstances!!

I think he probably knew very well when he was born,but why make it simple for anyone,goverments included ,to track him.
Much more fun this way...

Oh no, AuntyS. Do you know what my Ernest's occupation was when he married in 1883?




Cook. (In 1901, lunch-room attendant at the gas works.) And he assigned the same occupation to his father in 1883, even though that was utterly bogus. His father was dead, and was never a cook (he had a young chickie to do that for him), he was a bankrupt mining broker.

Blood may out yet!

I did not believe this man did not know the names of his parents. Clearly he did not. I am beginning to lean towards the orphan FWH at the school being him regardless of the place of birth.

FWH put his father's Ernest occupation as clerk. Given that names and occupations run in families. Apples not dropping far from the tree is a thought to contemplate.

The time frame is wrong I think, unless it is an uncle or cousin.

Nuh no -- I'm not claiming your Frederick as son of *my* Ernest! Just some doo-doo doo-doo noises. ;)

I mean ... we do have the fact that my Ernest was in Australia 1887 to 1890-something ... But as far as I know, he took all his kids home with them! Not that the English-born ones had the same names and ages as when they arrived, nooo.

You don't have any male-line descendants of your Frederick, do you? If you did, I'd say it really is high time I got my Monck/Hill uncle to spit on a stick.


I'm still going with my orphan Fred in the institutions for placing my bets.

I just cannot resist.

Births Dec 1888
MONK Frederick William W. Ham 4a 148

West Ham is where my Ernest Augustus Hill/Monck 1851 settled on return from Australia in 1893ish. (His wife was from Romford, east-er in Essex.) But he'd left town for Sydney, Oz, in ... April 1887 ... April, May, June, ...

Could he have been running from a pregnant girlfriend on the side??

Hahahahahaha.

Janey, I have Frederick's info between March 1915 to December 1924. The war service records detail him been invalided from France to England to stay in a hospital in Whitechurch.

I think our synchronisation is out by about 10 years.

However he was 28 when he enlisted in 1916. He could have been up to anything before that.


The person of interest is Ernest. Frederick's father who died before 1916. I had him dead before 1919 when he married. We now know he was dead before Frederick enlisted. I still think we are looking for a young couple who died somewhere between 1888 and 1890.

Ha if he was not an only child would he not have listed his next of kin as brother or sister. Unless of course he did not know whether he had brothers or sisters.

Oh bother I need to go. I've gmailed you the documents. I don't think you will be able to get into one but you are clever enough to work out how to do it.

And please don't wish me another wife escapee. Had enough strife searching marriaged on OHs side of the family. We spent months searching that lot and one of the first things they said when we made contact was to confirm the lack of a marriage. Could have saved me months of research if I'd found them earlier.

Pulling your leg, Aunty. Mine *is* an Ernest, and he could have had a son Frederick in Q4 1888 if he left behind a preggers girlfriend when he went to Australia himself in April 1887. ;) Who might have spelled the surname wrong when she registered the birth of the child ... who might have discovered his real name was Hill and not Mon(c)k ... Haha.

Oh. Haha. Groan. That makes a 1 yr + 9 months pregnancy, not a 9 month pregnancy, doesn't it? No wonder you're ignoring me. Hey, it was Friday.

So no Ernest Hill/Monck for you still! Lucky for me mine was in Australia in 1888!

I look from time to time for my William Stephen Hill 1843 who could have had a son Ernest William Hill (named for his brother) mid-1860s ... who could have had a son Frederick William Hill 1888. But still no trace of him anywhere after the 1861 census.


Just to keep in mind:

- you don't actually know F's father Ernest was dead when F enlisted; you know F said he was
- you don't actually know F's father was Ernest William Hill; you know F said he was

We don't even know whether F believed either or both this things himself, or made them up to hide something, or made them up because he didn't know!

In fact, so far, we don't even know that he was Frederick William Hill ... . Seriously.

Until I can find a birth certificate which ties the Frederick William Hill to the man who enlisted in the AIF in 1916 and married in 1919 I have no proof that he is who he says he is.

Have just done a heap of research on the "lady friend" he lived with prior to his enlistment. I can find no connection to the family. She married in 1924 and by that time FWH was married and living in South Aus.

His documents list the sequence of events of his life between 1916 and 1924 and I have filled in other gaps through the electoral rolls and the Sands directory.

I can see this being a very slow process. Well it is being a very slow process. I have put an enquiry into the NSW Maritime Archives people and they have left a message for me to call them Monday.

I can not see how they are going to have any diferent information from what I already have particularly if, as you are supposing, he made up an identity on leaving the UK. Or his whole life was a manufactured identity because he did not have any information. Or was fleeing from some problem. Reading through his documents he appears to have gathered problems throughout his life. So you might very well be correct in your theory.

Seriously I am developing a certain amount of frustration over this. I think the fates should allow me an occasional win without any effort.

I have a cooking day ahead of me. OH has decided he is tired of cooking every day. And I can't say I blame him. So I will be magicking up three or four casseroles for freezing for next week's meals.

I have just read through this thread again. In the 1911 census Frederick Hill was a boarder with two or three families. That is there were two or three Frederick Hill types boarding with other named families. What were their names? And where is Whitechurch. Please!!!

And Janey. "So no Ernest Hill/Monck for you still! Lucky for me mine was in Australia in 1888!"

According to Frederick he was born in London about 1885-1889 depending on his mood.

According to the Continuous Certificate of Discharge Merchant marine record he worked as a waiter on the Orontes between March and July 1915.

He left from SYDNEY went to Tilbury and returned to SYDNEY. Which means he was already in Australia when he went on board the Orontes. Which means he must have come to Australia before 1915.

The only information about him being born in London comes from his marriage certificate, his CCD which originated in Australia and his AIF enlistment papers. Wonder if I can find him on the electoral rolls in Victoria between 1900 and 1915.

Name: Frederick Hill
Estimated birth year: abt 1887
Age: 28
Port of Departure: Bbane
Port of Arrival: Sydney, New South Wales
Voyage Arrival Date: 6 Apr 1915
Vessel Name: Orontes

Place of birth from image. London England.

Ernest Hill.

There is no Ernest William Hill who is born around 1868.
Marries around 1887
Dies around 1889.

There is no Ernest William Hill (or indeed Ernest Hill) who is on the census in 1871, 1881, 1891.

He should have been dead about 1891 anyway.

There will not be a census record for Ernest Hill with a child Frederick Hill if the child was born between 1885 and 1889 and the father (and mother) died prior to the 1891 census.

The best will be the census info for a child without a mother or father.

It has got to be the orphan school record. If he was born in UK.

local studies library for Kensington and Chelsea. They maybe able to trace through records not on line,http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/leisureandlibraries/libraries/localstudiesandarchives.aspx

Thank you. I have emailed them. I have just about reached saturation point with my network of queries covering the greater London area.

Someone has to know something somewhere.

Edit. Just ordered two FWH birth certificates. One for Sep 1887 Kensington and the other June 1888 Mile End.

I'll be having a certificate sale if they aren't the correct ones. I know I should have ordered them one at a time. Takes too long to wait for two to arrive.