By Alan Hamill

   Why was the Somerton Man in Adelaide? What happened on Somerton Beach?

Can Charlie really be the “Somerton Man” or is there a glitch in that thinking?

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Coroner Thomas Erskine Cleland

 

How incisive was Coroner Cleland?

In his findings of 1958 (which were adjourned as “Sine Die” – to be resumed at some date in the future if further evidence was found) he made the following statement:-

“I have been discussing the circumstances on the footing that the body found on the morning of the 1st December was that of the man seen in the evening of the 30th November. But there is really no proof that this was the case. None of the three witnesses who speak of the evening of the 30th saw the man’s face, or indeed any part of his body that they can identify. If the body of the deceased was not that of the man mentioned and if the body had been taken to the place where it was found, the difficulties disappear. If this speculation, for it is nothing more, should prove to be correct, the original assumption that it was the deceased who left the suitcase at the luggage room, bought the rail and bus ticket, removed the clothing tabs, and put the printed words “Tamam Shud” in a pocket, would require revision.

The evidence is too inconclusive to warrant a finding.”

I provide to you here a case to support the coroner’s remarks (above) and that there was a man murdered.

When “Breaker” Morant and Peter Handcock were tried and executed during the Second Boer War, there was no longer the opportunity for compassionate despatch on the front line. No more offering your broken mate his pistol, putting it into his hand and turning away briefly.

There had to be an alternative found that wouldn’t lead to the courtroom again, and it turned out to be something readily available to the Vets on the frontline.

Question :- How to provide a story for Carl Webb to be seen to have died, yet for him to get to freedom and anonymity?

Answer :- Replace him with Alexander Arthur Dowling.

All Carl “Charlie” Webb has to do is to show up and model for the plaster bust. Then he can disappear.

So :-

Alexander Arthur Dowling was drugged using a treatment the medical practitioners were experimenting with at the time. And it was supplied by a few members of the famous Light Horse Regiments to the Army Medical Corps.

Alex Dowling was given an injection of Equine Blood Cultivated Anti-Tetanic Serum that was used in abundance in war to treat injured horses. He would have been injected with a dosage possibly as much as 25 times higher than the recommended rate for a horse, and it would have been injected into the sunburnt upper thigh front on one or other of his legs, then he would be left on Somerton Beach near the steps in a state similar to being drunk.

The Serum was known to cause brain lesions to form and cause incapacity and yet be totally undetectable using any of the tests available at the time. There would be no reaction to it in any other organ other than what was already in existence prior to administration of the Serum.

It may even cause the recipient to exhibit the same signs as a Polio affliction without the ugly side affects such as vomiting, and others. It could easily be mis-diagnosed as Polio.

The first time this Serum was publicly outed was with the death of a 40 year old woman in 1933 who’s death in Adelaide Hospital was examined by an Assistant Coroner who listed death by an unknown cause, although he knew of the injection of more than 40,000 IUs of this serum and there were no other health issues found in the woman. The attending Doctors were known but exonerated.

As a further demonstration of medical experimentation, in 1934 a 19 year old woman died after surgery inside the Adelaide Hospital. A Coroner’s Inquiry found that the healthy woman was operated on, on several areas of her body, for no logical or apparent reason. The Coroner found causation as murder by persons unknown yet it was done inside Adelaide Hospital (as mentioned previously) and no persons were interviewed in relation to this murder. There were at least 4 other cases of dubious circumstances ignored in 1934.

The rough sewing on many parts of the Somerton Man’s beach clothing, and the thread and thread card, were left to draw attention to this experimentation and to name persons involved.

During experimentation with the Serum, the trainee and graduating doctors as well as the educators of Adelaide would meet almost weekly in the Piccadilly Restaurant at Birk’s Drapery Store on Rundle Street.

The Piccadilly Restaurant and adjoining Panel Room were also regular locations where bridge tournaments were held.

Cowan, Dwyer, Rice, Barbour, Birks, Cleland and McIntyre were some of the peoples’ names who were meeting regularly at the Piccadilly to discuss their work or other issues.

Alex Dowling was likely given the disabling (but not lethal) injection on the afternoon of November 30th 1948 probably at the Strathmore Hotel on North Terrace opposite the Adelaide Railway Station.

     

Then mid afternoon Alex Dowling was assisted from the Strathmore Hotel to the steps on Somerton Beach where he would rest and occasionally wave to locals using the beach. It was quite a warm afternoon.

Alex was placed near the steps, and not the ramp, to avoid implicating the Childrens’ Home.

After the sun set on the 30th of November (Tuesday) Alex was assisted back across the road to the Somerton Crippled Childrens’ Home as described by witnesses to Police. He was fed sustenance in the form of a Cornish Pastie or something similar after missing a meal or two.

The locals were well used to incapacitated people coming and going from the Somerton Crippled Childrens’ Home, whether on foot, in wheel chairs or carried and at all hours of the day and night. And more often than not, it was via the ramp instead of the steps. Adults were also accommodated, where circumstances allowed it, to possibly contain an outbreak of some illness or other.

Visitors came and went at will.

Then sometime between approximately midnight and  2.00am on December 1st 1948 Alex Dowling was given a course of Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT), although the administration of this course was different, as the operator held the unit’s dial mid return for about 4 minutes which allowed continuous current to flow and caused Alex’s heart to seize and stop.

His clothes were changed, as the earlier ones were wet and slightly dirty. He was cleaned up, redressed and manicured extensively. This was to make him look like the dapper Carl Webb.

All players then paused and waited for the high tide across the road to peak and begin to fall. Alex’s body was then wheeled across the road, down the ramp, and placed on Somerton Beach in the exact same position as the evening before. This activity took place about 5.45am and he was left where he was to be found by the jockeys at around 7.00am.

I provide a copy of “Police Reports To The Coroner” number 1948/433 of the details surrounding the death of Alexander Arthur Dowling, whose body washed up on Semaphore Beach and was located about 6.00pm on Saturday 4th December.

Constable Comley recommended to Coroner Cleland that an inquest was “deemed unnecessary” when he submitted the paperwork that was so hurriedly prepared.

Dowling’s wife had died earlier after being in an institution for some time, all his parents had died and his children had disowned him for not paying two maintenance orders for which he served 1 year imprisonment.

Alexander Arthur Dowling was 5’ 10½” tall. He was a white male Caucasian. He had brown hair greying at the sides and his eyes were grey. He was reportedly well dressed, and witnesses reported brown striped trousers, when he waved to them on Tuesday afternoon. He was 58.

Alex was the person/body witnesses reported as raising his arm on Tuesday 30th November at 7.00pm.

Does Alex’s description sound familiar? Unless you had a good study of him up close both he and Carl Webb could be passed off as twins, just a touch older. And when the authorities arrived they placed a jumper/cardigan over his face supposedly as a sign of dignity to the passed.

However, there is still a further twist!

Alexander Arthur Dowling was not the final body lodged for interment in the paupers grave in West Terrace Cemetery on Tuesday 14th June 1949. To finish this story as to who was interred, go to H C Reynolds was a local lad! (#11)