Birth

Enlistment Information

Military Service

Embarkation Information

Military Awards

Death

Biographical Notes

Thomas Frederick Dart, born at Timaru, enlisted with the Australian Imperial Force on 25 September 1914. Thirty years 4 months old, an engineer and single, he stated that he had served an apprenticeship of 3½ years with the Union Steamship Company at Port Chalmers, New Zealand. He named his father as next-of-kin – John Owen Dart, 52 Bay Street, Fremantle. Dart was medically examined at Balck Boy Hill Camp on 25 Sep 1914 and considered fit for active service, subject to getting lower sets of false teeth. He was discharged from the 16th Battalion at own request on 14 Oct 1914.

Frederick Thomas Dart (on occasion, Thomas Frederick Dart) had been in New Zealand, at both Dunedin and Timaru. From 1907, his name featured in the Police Gazettes, and two photographs taken at Wellington on 18 Noveember 1908 (Police Gazette, 6 January 1909. Of Dunedin, he was arrested on a charge of false pretences (obtaining goods – a suit of clothes - in Dunedin by false pretence some eighteen months earlier) by the Invercargill and Bluff police in September 1907, and remanded. He was on the “Warrimoo” at Bluff bound for Melbourne, when arrested. He was tried on 26 November and sentenced to 12 months’ probation, ordered to pay reparation, and was to abstain from intoxicating drink. Frederick Thomas Dart was 23 or 24 years of age, a native of Melbourne. It was said that he had been out of the country (New Zealand) between the offences (two suits were procured on false pretences from different tailors) and his arrest. He was a labourer and said that he had been at Timaru, where he was a bicycle agent. He then went to sea as a fireman or trimmer, he continued. He had arrived from Hobart in 1901 and in 1906 left for Western Australia, returning again in 1907. When arrested he was on his way to Hobart, Dart alleged. His character was reported to be indifferent, and he was reported to be fond of drink. There were no previous convictions against him. On 13 June 1908, Dart, a barman born in Australia in 1884, was sentenced to prison and 6 months’ hard labour for theft – theft of clothing and jewellery at Dannevirke, with another young man. Dart, “an old offender” and still under probation, led the other into crime.

This man appears to be Frederick Charles Dart, the younger son of John Owen and Louisa (née Cochrane) Dart. Frederick was born in Melbourne in 1884. His mother died when he was an infant, maybe at his birth. His father, who was born at Hobart, Tasmania, did move to Fremantle, Western Australia, where he died in 1921. He married Rose Sumner Watt in 1920 at Perth, Western Australia, and died on 2 December 1941 at Fremantle.

Sources

Evening Star, 27 August 1907, 11 September 1907, Taranaki Herald, 28 August 1907, NZ Police Gazettes, 11 September 1907, 27 November 1907, 18 December 1907, 7 October 1908, 2 December 1908, 6 January 1909, New Zealand Times, 15 June 1908 (Papers Past) [28 April 2020]; Australian Birth, Marriage & Death Indexes (ancestry.com.au)

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Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG

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