The Continual Inner Search. Margaret Winn
or talking about it. Given that the accounts of particular battles accurately mimic what we know of Roy’s actual war experience, one cannot help but speculate that Tas was Roy’s alter ego and that putting pen to paper likely was designed to help Roy exorcise some of his war-inflicted demons. Rather than laboriously using endless quotation marks, I have chosen to insert some of the novel’s text directly into this biography and have substituted ‘Roy’ for ‘Tas’ so that the excerpts from the novel appear as part of the narrative. I cannot be certain that every passage used in this way is an accurate record of what Roy did or what happened during this period, but it is clear that, even if it is not, it is as close to a first-hand account of the events described as one could hope. Although this decision could result in a less than fully accurate history, it is a price I decided to pay in order to flesh out Roy’s emotional state, about which we otherwise would be ignorant.
With regard to the text, Roy’s spelling is sometimes idiosyncratic. Rather than attempt to correct or highlight everything with a sic, I have generally left his words as he wrote and spelt them. Similarly, I have left measurements in acres, feet and yards as I found them.
All the photographs used in the book are from Winn archives, except the one of Winn houses on Mayfield Ridge which is from the University of Newcastle. The Gallipoli photographs were taken by Roy in 1915 and, although their quality is variable, they demonstrate the subjects that Roy found worth recording at the time.
Several generations of Winns covered in this biography anointed their descendants with a limited range of given names, such as William, Janet and Betty, and then proceeded to use them or similar names, as nicknames for other members of the clan. This practice could have caused significant confusion, so I have consistently used given names, rather than nicknames. Hence the name Bertha is used for Roy’s wife, even though he always called her ‘Betty’; and his daughter Betty is referred to as ‘Betty’, even though Roy’s pet names for her were ‘Bettina’ or ‘Bonnie’. The only exceptions are Roy’s oldest brother, William Harold Winn, who everyone referred to as ‘Harold’, his wife Ellie McMurtrie and my father Dick.
I have copies of Roy’s main professional publications and some of his medical, philosophical and poetic writings, but privacy and confidentiality concerns meant I did not have access to patient case notes or sensitive material held at the various psychoanalytical institutes. The sum of all the available material relating to Roy is scant and occasionally contradictory4 and I suspect the inevitable paucity of personal and professional biographical material will raise questions that I will never be able to answer. Still, I think it is worth doing what I can in order to present this most singular of men to his descendants.
1 Graham F Obituary of Roy Coupland Winn MJA February 1964 p333
2 Garton S Australian Dictionary of Biography ANU Vol. 12 1990
3 Winn RC Men May Rise p1
4 Official records have conflicting dates and details
1
A Privileged Upbringing
Roy Coupland Winn was born on 26 June 1890 into a God-fearing family which was on the rise socially and materially. His parents were William and Janet Winn5 née Shade. They already had three sons. Roy was to be their last child.
Roy’s birth certificate lists his residence as North Waratah, which at that time was part of Mayfield on the outskirts of Newcastle, an area where the well-to-do were buying acreages and building grand homes. During his early years, it is likely his parents were living at Winnonaville, a substantial Victorian house on two acres of land at 15 Kerr Street, and later at Winn Court, a larger Victorian house with wide verandahs and five acres of land on the ridge overlooking paddocks leading down to the Hunter River.
Roy was given Coupland as his middle name as a nod to Harriet, his grandmother on his father’s side who, before her marriage to John Winn6 had been a Coupland from Lincolnshire. Roy described his grandmother Harriet as ‘a Personality’.7 Whenever Harriet came to visit, she would never walk up the path from the front gate, she would gallop. Despite the alcoholism and early death of her husband, Harriet had been instrumental in holding her family together and, from the 1850s, in successfully establishing the first of the many Winn’s drapery stores in Newcastle.
Roy’s father William8 was listed on his birth certificate as a draper aged 41. He called himself ‘a merchant’ but is better described as a canny and energetic businessman with determination and practical ability. With his brother Isaac, he further developed drapery businesses in Newcastle and then moved south to establish and run various enterprises in Sydney. During his time at the helm, Winn’s Ltd was a very successful conglomerate. William was well connected to the movers and shakers of the Sydney Establishment and was regularly cited in newspapers as a well-known figure in the business communities of Newcastle and Sydney.
For sport, William shot targets and won a number of prizes. He was prone to losing his temper when people were foolish but would make an apology afterwards.9 He had a short beard that pricked his grandchildren’s faces when he kissed them.
A staunch Methodist, William set great store by integrity and uprightness and was vehemently against the consumption of alcohol. Vice president of the New South Wales Temperance Alliance, newspapers occasionally referred to him as ‘Wowser Winn’.10 His uncompromising temperance stand may have been reinforced by the alcoholism of his father John, who reportedly fell from his horse when drunk, damaged his skull and eventually died in 1855, aged only 40, suffering such severe mental problems that people thought he had gone mad.11
William had positions of responsibility in Methodist church affairs in Newcastle and later in Sydney. The Winns funded the building of the Mayfield Methodist Church and there is still a Winn Hall in its grounds. William, together with his great friend William Arnott of biscuit company fame, chartered space on a ship to bring New Testaments from England to Sydney in order to spread the gospel. The Winns and the Arnotts maintained a close familial friendship which lasted for three generations.
At William’s funeral in 1929, there were many notables from the Methodist church hierarchy, the YMCA, Salvation Army, as well as a large representation of Winn’s Ltd staff. In his will, William left £200 to the Methodist Foreign Missionary Society and £200 to the British and Foreign Bible Society – not inconsiderable amounts in 1929. William is buried in the Methodist section of Rookwood Cemetery near his mother Harriet.
Janet’s parents were Thomas Shade and Sophia Cameron, who was part of the big Donald Cameron clan centred on Stroud in NSW. Janet12 shared William’s Methodism. According to Roy she had the countenance of a saint, religious emotion was the joy of life itself and the Sermon on the Mount a literal guide for how she conducted herself.13 She was a little dour, believed in self-denial and tried to make others do the same.14 She was quiet and in later life always dressed in black.15
William and Janet had three sons before Roy. The first was William Harold, born in 1883 and always known as Harold. He was eventually the director of Winn’s Ltd in Newcastle. In February 1917, he married Helen (Ellie) McMurtrie from Braeside at Lady Martins Beach, Wolseley Road, Point Piper. They had a daughter, Janet Winn, a widely respected dietitian.16 Harold died at 64 in 1948.
The