I suspect that my 2nd great grandfather Robert John Steven Sellers was the uncle named in a newspaper report (Geelong Advertiser, Tue 31 May 1910) about the divorce of his wife's niece Lesley Baylis Cradick (nee Slight):
I suspect it was him because he is the only one of Lesley's uncles, who I believe all lived interstate or overseas, who is known to have visited Sydney, where Lesley lived, between the time of her marriage in 1906 and the filing for her divorce in 1909. Robert John Steven Sellers lived in Adelaide from 1878 to 1908 but died in Sydney on 18 Jan 1908, 14 days after taking leave from his work and arriving in NSW.
I have always assumed that he was with his wife, Elizabeth (nee Slight), and on holiday, but my late mother always said that "people just did not go from Adelaide to Sydney for a holiday in those days", and she suspected that there had to be a family reason for going". I always assumed that Robert was there with Elizabeth, and that Elizabeth would be the Informant that I found when I eventually ordered his Death Certificate. Yesterday, I received his Death Certificate from a registration on 21 Jan 1908 in Sydney and the Informant was recorded as his son Campbell Sellers (12 Canterbury Road, St Kilda, Melbourne, Victoria).
From a page All About N.S.W. Death Certificates:
The Accuracy of a Death registration depends on the informant. If the informant was not a close family member (and even sometimes when they were!), it is quite possible that the information on the registration may contain incorrect information. The householder of the house in which the deceased died was responsible to register the death.
Robert died in Sydney Hospital on 18 Jan 1908, from cardiac arrest after being treated for 1 day (from the Death Certificate), and our family story is that he dropped dead on the street on a hot day. Since he did not die in a house, is it a reasonable assumption to make that Campbell must have been with him in Sydney?
Lesley's wife beating husband Albert Edward Cradick was a Boer War veteran, and Robert's son Campbell joined the Scottish Volunteers on 31 Jan 1900, so he may have fought in the Boer War too. In any event, I am now entertaining a theory that Robert (from Adelaide) and Campbell (from Melbourne) may have decided to meet up in Melbourne and travel to Sydney to see what was going on in Lesley's marriage.
There are three items in the NSW Archives about this divorce but they will be expensive for me to get copied, and even more expensive to view in person. Although I suspect they will yield the information I seek, I am hoping to learn more before committing to that expenditure.