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William Bennett
Coral Browne's father Leslie Brown married Victoria Bennett, Coral's mother. Vicky was the daughter of William Bennett (my grandmother's brother) whose wife's name was Edith - Coral's middle name.
I have two photos which I believe show William Bennett.
That's my mother in the centre, younger than 20, so, as she born 1915, it's before 1935. To the right are her father and her mother, Christina Bennett (born 1880). I believe Christina had a favourite among her six brothers, William, born 1869. If that's William on the left, he would be about in his early 60s. There's nothing written on the back of the photograph. (I think I recognise the other man, at the back, as a friend of the family, perhaps Alec McIntyre. Perhaps his wife Olive is taking the photo.)
This second photograph (which was kept by my mother in the same box) shows the same chap, though on a different day, as his shirt is of a different style. He may be a few years older.
And this time, there is something written in an unknown hand on the back on the photo: 'Snapped in garden of Will'. So this is definitely a man called William. And, as the first photo is a family group, it is reasonable assumption that the man on the left and the woman on the right might be brother and sister. And, finally, my mother and her uncle William are similar in appearance.
Unfortunately, I have no other data about William Bennett except that he had a daughter called Victoria who was born in Footscray 9 April 1890, when William was only 21.
The photograph in the biography by Rose Collis, facing page 128, and purporting to show 'Coral's maternal grandfather, William Bennett - the H V McKay man' is entirely due to my error. I tried to check the identity of that man with a cousin who is older than me and the only person who would now know who it was, but she did not respond when I asked, and only mentioned casually some years later, as if it was of no importance, that she 'always thought that was Mr Shugg', an employer of our grandmother - who must have admired him, as she kept his photo as if he were family. I will never be able to apologise sufficiently to Rose Collis.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 23 February, 2019 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/coralbrowne/bennettwilliam.html (it was last updated on 28 July, 2021), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.