Hawken, Albert William Bonear

**Fast Facts**
Type of person	Individual
Date of birth	1860
Place of birth	Willunga, South Australia
Principal occupation	Labourer and tramway employee
Date of departure	c. 1885
Date of death	1936
Place of decease	Elwood, Victoria

Albert William Bonear (or Bonier) Hawken was born on 25 June 1860 at Willunga. He was the son of William Hawken (1835-1905), who was a quarryman and slate monumental mason, and his wife Jane Ann Male (1839-1923) who were resident in Willunga from about 1857-58 until 1875-76. William Hawken purchased allotment 72 (now 9 St. Jude’s Street) in the township of Wllunga in 1858.

Albert William Bonear Hawken probably attended Buckland House Academy in the early 1870s - the Bassett school for boys run by James Bassett. In the Early Willunga Schools folder (26-1) there is a photo of the Willunga Band of Hope Band dated 1873 where second from the left end of the front row is Albert William Bonear Hawken (aged about 13) with a violin next to his brother Thomas (aged about 9) with a triangle.

On 9 August 1882 Albert (aged 22 years) married Emily Morris (aged 24 years) at the residence of Francis Male in Willunga. Francis Male was his uncle (his mother’s brother). They may have had a child (Emiline) but the marriage did not last long, and Emily married for a second time on 1 February 1886 to Arthur Frederick Mills, at the Bible Christian House in Adelaide. The minister and his wife served as witnesses.

It should be noted that Emily recorded her status on the second marriage certificate as widow, but this was untrue. Records indicate that Albert was very much still alive and apparently he married again in Victoria to Mildred Gray at South Melbourne in 1886 and had a son/daughter Bet? in 1902 (married Marshall?). A search of the records relating to divorce and petitions for dissolution of marriage found no divorce record for Emily and Albert in South Australia. It is therefore possible that both Emily and Albert's second marriages were bigamous. Emily died on the 24 August 1904 from the effects of alcoholism and she was buried in the West Terrace Cemetery in Adelaide.

Albert was a tramway employee and lived in Elsternwick in Victoria between at least 1909 and 1936. He died at Elwood on 6 June 1936 (aged 75 years).