AN AUSTRALIAN'S DEATH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23107, 5 February 1937, Page 9

AN AUSTRALIAN'S DEATH

BODY FOUND IN CREEK APPARENTLY SUICIDE LONDON, Feb. 4. (Received Feb. 5, at 5.5 p.m.) A man who was found shot dead in a creek off Chichester Harbour a mile from his abandoned car is stated by the Daily Mail to be Bernard Arthur Algar Hamill, aged 40, a retired commissioned officer of the Australian Navy, who came to England from Australia in July, leaving his wife and two children behind. The car was first noticed by a woman, who saw lying in it the snapshot of a woman and three children. She recognised the woman as Miss Catliff, who stayed in the district in the summer with her brother’s children. She remembered also seeing the car and knew it belonged to Hamill, who was the children’s uncle. The police were faced with the problem of Hamill driving 250 miles from Liverpool, where he had been living, leaving his car, and disappearing, but after a long search the body was found. It has been learned that Miss Catliff became engaged, whereupon Hamill sent her a congratulatory telegram. The Daily Mai] suggests that loneliness because his wife and children were absent, unhappiness over a friendship he feared was lost, and worry over a business into which he put his life savings may be among the causes of the tragedy. A Liverpool friend of Hamill says it was a hard blow to him to leave his wife and' children behind, but he wished his children to continue their education. He was proud of them and carried their photograph in his pocket.