When Clare Ferris’s dad learned of the secret wedding, he took matters into his own hands. Photo: Created using AI.
Before Australia overhauled its divorce laws 50 years ago, news of a marriage breakdown was considered a public scandal and the details revealed in court were often splashed across the pages of tabloid newspapers like the Truth.
In July of 1927 an unfortunate pair of star-crossed lovers had their tale of woe laid bare by the tawdry publication under the headline “Runaway Romance”.
Until 1975 Australia’s divorce laws were fault-based, which required one spouse to prove the other’s misconduct in court and demonstrate evidence of adultery, desertion or cruelty.
In the case of Wagga’s Carl Jack Wunsch it seems that it was his teenage bride’s strict father who not only ended the brief union, but put the groom up on charges!
In 1923 Carl was a 19-year-old master-plumber and had fallen head-over-heels for 18-year-old Clare Marion Ferris who’s father, Herbert Franklyn Ferris, was the highly respected principal of the Wagga Rural School on Gurwood Street.
The legal age to marry in the 1920s was 16 for men and 14 for women, however, parental consent was required for those under 21.
Knowing that the stern principal would not approve of their union, the couple hopped on a train to Sydney on 25 September 1923 and were married quietly at St Peter’s Church. However, as the Truth so eloquently put it in an article in July 1927, they did so under false pretenses.
“With the unreasoning of youth they contrived to have the entries on the marriage certificate so false as to deceive any inquisitive persons,” the paper explained.
“The ages were stated wrongly and the names of the bride and bride’s parents would certainly not be recognised by those worthy people.”
Perhaps feeling guilty, Carl decided to confront the issue head-on and immediately hopped on the train at Central to head back to Wagga and “beard the lion in its den”.
Needless to say, his now father-in-law was less than impressed with the situation and not only threatened to have Carl arrested, but headed immediately to Sydney to retrieve his daughter.
It would be three days before the hapless groom was able to make contact with his new bride and she told him that “she would not have anything more to do with him, adding that she intended to take notice of her father from then on”.
With his repentant daughter back under his roof, Mr Ferris followed through on his threat and filed criminal charges against his son-in-law in early 1924 for making a false declaration on oath.
Carl plead guilty and admitted to lying to the minister about their ages and attributing the false name of “Gwendoline Woods” to his 18-year-old bride.
Principal Franklin Ferris quit teaching and moved with his wife, son and daughter Clare to Sydney where he took a job in real estate.
Carl neither saw nor heard from his wife for more than two years until a letter arrived out of the blue, asking for a divorce before the suspiciously specific date of October 1926.
With no return address or postmark on the note, Carl took out an ad in the Sydney Morning Herald asking Clare to meet him at an appointed time on Sydney’s Macquarie Street.
When she did indeed arrive at the appointed place, the young plumber begged her to come back with him to Wagga but Clare remained aloof and took him to a pub where she introduced him to a man named Bennett. The three continued on to a boarding house in Paddington where it became clear that Clare and Bennett had been living “as man and wife”.
“Wunsch pleaded with his wife to return to him, but she refused. She told him that she was in a certain condition, and that Bennett was the cause. Bennett did not deny it,” explained the Truth.
As the two men discussed the matter in the upstairs room, the boarding house proprietor Ms McKay later recalled that Clare had come down and joked, “My two husbands are up there!” and told her that the soon-to-be-born child was Bennett’s.
The heartbroken Wunsch returned alone to Wagga, and in October, the boarding mistress was called upon to sign a birth certificate for her tenants. She was surprised to see the listed surname was not Bennett but the hyphenated Ferris-Wunsch and the child was listed as “illegitimate”.
Carl took his divorce case to court in July of 1927 and the judge ruled that the issues of “desertion and misconduct” had been proved. The divorce was officially granted in May 1928.
