“Missing Link” – have you any goods to sell? I never refuse them
We recently shared a story with a photo that had the “Missing Link” second-hand shop in the background. Some of you were curious, so we did a little digging …
The shop sat on the corner of Dixon Street and Taranaki Street (adjacent to the present Hope Gibbons Building). At about the time the photo was taken, the proprietor was Edwin Joseph Ellis. We can’t confirm his origins but we believe he was born around 1860.
Edwin first appears in the records in the Victoria police gazette in October 1897, with a warrant for deserting his wife and two children. His occupation was described as ‘hawker’. He was arrested in November.
In January 1899, there is another warrant for his arrest, this time in NSW – charged with being about to leave the colony to defeat the provisions of the “Deserted Wives and Children’s Act”. His physical description included the fact he had no fingers on his left hand! He had left home with a swag and a violin in a case. The complainant was his wife Caroline Ellis but now there were three children on the scene: Florence, Agnes and Edward. Somehow Edwin and Caroline must have patched things up as their younger children William, Matthew, Beatrice and Alexander were born in New Zealand between 1899 and 1910.
In 1903 in Wellington, Edwin was charged with three counts of having purchased goods from boys aged under 16 years. He pleaded guilty and was fined 20s for each of the charges. In 1909 he was fined 3s for purchasing a shirt after 6pm. His defence being that the man had come to him twice pleading with him to buy the shirt, as he was hard up and wanted a bed, and it was only then that he made the purchase.
But theft seems to have been the family’s primary woe. In 1908 a boy (unnamed) was convicted of stealing a pair of boots from Edwin worth 7s 6d.
In 1908, his wife Caroline was acting as a second-hand dealer in Adelaide Road. She had unwittingly purchased a pair of stolen planes. Alexander Swanson who was defending the charge of theft claimed that while he was muddled with drink, he had received the planes from another man who could not since be found. He was sent to jail for seven days.
In May 1909 Frank Kerwin was convicted of stealing a tape measure from Edwin, valued at 5s. In July, Peter Neilson and Francis Lawson were jointly charged with stealing a blanket valued at 9s.
Edwin’s second-hand shop “Missing Link” was burgled in October 1909 by Alfred Driscoll and Thomas O’Neill. They stole a miscellaneous selection of watches, chains and jewellery valued at £12 19s 6d.
In 1910 Maurice Pointon and Joseph Haughey were charged with breaking and entering the “Missing Link” and stealing two revolvers, one clock and three tobacco pouches, valued at £2 10s.
By June the same year a sale of all the stock in trade of the “Missing Link” was held as the premises were to be pulled down. Edwin relocated his shop to the corner of Tory and Vivian Streets and the site was replaced with “Belchers Buildings”. In 1917 he had another clearing sale due to the expiration of his lease. We presume he retired at this point.
He was said to have acquired considerable property in Te Aro, most notably the land for the new Municipal Milk Station in Tory Street that he sold for £7,600. The site is the present day carpark for Noel Leemings. But his obituary said that many old residents will remember his shop at the corner of Taranaki and Dixon Streets.
Caroline died in Sydney in 1927 while on a visit to her daughter and is interred at Randwick cemetery. Edwin died in 1932 aged 74. His son Alexander was interred in the same plot in 1979. Edwin’s Will & probate runs to 70 pages and his estate was valued at £17,961. Amongst his belongings was 3 violins.
ROM CATH/W/234
