Is this a real place?

[andrewalston]

Can anyone identify the place of birth of Charles James Steavens, living in Coventry at the 1911 census?

Handwriting from other lines is not going to help - the householder got his boarders to write their own entries on the form.

Charles claimed to be 30 at the time. The 1939 Register gives his date of birth as 29 Feb 1876, and his death registration matches that. Family stories say that he was the first Australian of aboriginal descent in Lancashire.

It reads to me something like "Walomoloville Ville", but I may have been influenced by the "Bruces" sketch in Monty Python!

[Ruskie]

Thpugh spelling is wrong (not surprisingly) the closest I can think it might be is Woolloomooloo(ville)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolloomooloo

Unsure about the “ville” bit though. Presume what looks like Sydua, is Sydney?

Maybe someone who knows the area might have a better idea.

[oldohiohome]

that is exactly what it looks like to me, and I never saw the Monty Python sketch.
I Googled walomolo and found a reference to it in this link. It is a spreadsheet:
https://www.rootschat.com/links/01rr2/

the original link is somewhere at adelaide.edu.au, but Google hides the actual url and their link had to be shortened:

I tried to copy what I could from the results page at Google:
https://arts.adelaide.edu.au/hugo-centre/system/fi...
https://arts.adelaide.edu.au › system › files › docs
XLS
12577, 61176, WALOMOLO, 2000, NSW, N, 1. 12578, 22565, WALPA

edit:
I managed to get the clean link using the cleanlinks extension:
https://arts.adelaide.edu.au/hugo-centre/system/files/docs/PhARIA_Values_2014_15.xlsx

[ShaunJ]

This must surely originate from your Mr Steavens:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/125927887?searchTerm=woolloomoolooville

[ShaunJ]

Here's the letter to Reynolds' Newspaper. Signed by Charles J Steavens.

(Reynolds's Newspaper 11 February 1917, page 5, columns 2 and 3)

[andrewalston]

The newspaper articles certainly originate with the same Charles!

Brilliant finds!

He was working in brass foundries in both 1911 and 1939, so the stories line up pretty well with the truth, rather than the "joke".

(For those who never saw the Monty Python sketch, it involves someone going for a job at the Philosophy Department of the "University of Woolloomooloo". Each member of the interviewing panel wears a hat with swinging corks, and all are called "Bruce".)

[Ruskie]

Posted in error

[Essie]

Out of curiosity I looked up the NSW birth index and this male child was born that same day.!
Reg. 15807/1876
STEARNS CHARLES
Father JOHN
Mother SARAH
Place MURRURUNDI (some 300km from Sydney)