Mr. Frederick Ryall Dart, second son of Mr. R. S. D. Dart, of Moone Ponds, enlisted on Monday.

SOCIAL BREVITIES. (1917, December 20). The Essendon Gazette and Keilor, Bulla and Broadmeadows Reporter (Moonee Ponds, Vic. : 1914 - 1918), p. 2 Edition: Morning.. Retrieved May 31, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article74604664

Sapper Frederick Ryall Dart

by Lenore Frost

Two days after his 18th birthday, Frederick Ryall Dart, son of a Moonee Ponds saddler, enlisted in the AIF. 

Frederick had always had an interest in wireless and signals.  After serving four years in the Senior Cadets of the 58A Battalion, Moonee Ponds, rather than join the 58th Infantry Battalion CMF on the completion of his cadet service, he joined instead the 21st Signal Troop which trained in South Melbourne.  He had been there 6 months when he enlisted,  and he was subsequently assigned to the Wireless Training School.  After a few weeks in Seymour and then Broadmeadows, Sapper Dart was posted to the Wireless Training School, Milson Island,  2nd Military District (NSW) on 27 February 1918.

Frederick had not yet reached his nineteenth birthday when the Armistice was made on 11 November 1918.  He was discharged from the AIF on Christmas Eve 1918.

Frederick continued his interest in wireless and after the war joined the Australian Instructional Corps.  His son Frank recalled that his father had a "very  good understanding of Morse Code". 

In 1938, when an Assistant Station Master, he wrote to the Army Records section asking for proof that he had been enlisted in the AIF and had left Victoria on active service, which entitled him to full privileges of a Returned Serviceman under the Railways Act.

Sources:  B2455 National Archives of Australia.

THE MARRY UP OF TWO FAMILIES

by Frank Dart

I don’t know for sure but presume that Fredrick Ryall Dart meet Catherine Alberta Ruth Jacobson, the sister of Ru, Paul and Alice Jacobson, at St Thomas’s Church as both families attended that Parish for Sunday school and Church.

The Jacobson Family was large, consisting of 8 or 10 children. Grandfather Jacobson worked for National Mutual Life Insurance and gained top sales for this company.  I have a biscuit barrel presented to him for his efforts in the year 1912, but unfortunately I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing him as he passed away the year before I was born.

The Dart family on the other hand was only a small one as it consisted of only 4 children.  Grandfather Dart was a saddler of 43 years experience.  It would appear that when my father Fredrick was born on 15 December 1899, according to his birth certificate, they lived at 503 Mount Alexander Rd, Moonee Ponds.  This I should think is where he had a saddler’s business.[1] I believe grandfather made harness and reins for the Oven’s Bakery which I believe was next door, and also made racing saddles for the jockeys at the Moonee Valley Racecourse stables.

The address of 20 Ngarveno St my father enlisted from I know nothing about. [2] I don’t know when Fred and Catherine met but they married in 1922 in Richmond.  He worked on the Victorian Railway in the North East and later purchased a Bank House at 14 Marion Ave, West Brunswick, where I and my two younger brothers and one sister were born.  That house is still there, and as it was when we lived in it. My grandparents for all my life lived in The Strand, Moonee Ponds opposite the Queen's Park but I can’t remember the number.

 -***-

Frank Dart is the son of Frederick Ryall Dart. (2011)

[1]  In the 1904 Sands & McDougall Directory, and in the 1909 Electoral Roll, Richard Dart, Saddler, was listed at 511 Mt Alexander Rd, possibly a re-numbering of the premises, or a nearby removal.

[2]  In the 1914 Electoral Roll the Dart Family had moved to 20 Ngarveno Street, still in the vicinity of Mt Alexander Rd.  At this time both Richard senior and junior were listed, and they may have moved to find more space for father and son to operate.