Evidence shows Jessica Harkness wasn’t too bothered ….
“The Advertiser” 11 Dec 1948 Page 16: For sale: ‘Oak table with 4 chairs and Child’s playground”. Mrs Thomson, 90a Moseley St, Glenelg. (No contact number given.)
There are still plenty of people out there who believe Jessica Harkness and Prosper Thomson were somehow involved in the death of Carl Webb despite there being no evidence. It’s a road well-travelled. Been down there plenty of times meself.
The small coastal township of Glenelg would have been a HOTBED of gossip and intrigue in the days after Webb’s body was found lying beside the steps leading to the beach, looking like he’d just fallen asleep. A good-looking clean shaven man, well dressed, unmarked.
Stone. Cold. Dead.
Imagine. The local hotels, bakery, green grocer, bars, paper shop, pharmacies, cafes, restaurants, The regulars who used the same steps to reach the beach every day. Their theories, their questions. All of them asking .. who is he?
Webb’s body stored in the Adelaide morgue and subject to an unending stream of visitors who thought they knew him or were just curious, no doubt some Glenelg residents amongst them. All of them asking …. who is he?
And there’s Jessica, serene, high above the crisis, flogging off unwanted items in the classifieds ten days after the body was found.
Knowing who he was.
Then, three weeks later she was looking to pay cash for a bungalow and rent out Moseley St. (Advertiser 1 Jan, 1949 page 9)
thanks Clive for the heads up
The Somerton Man 
Whist the hunt is on for the first photo we still got nothing about why Carl was in Adelaide and how and why he met his end. Ergo Im glad some people are still focused on that.
Ive been on about this for years. One week PT is running small ads for second hand crap and flogging extra seats in his car on Melbourne runs and just a few weeks later they are looking to pay cash for a new house.
The fact that the small ads run just before Carl winds up dead on Somerton beach then shortly after the ad seeking to pay cash for a house is a point that can’t be ignored. One minute they are desperate then seemingly overnight they are cashed big time.
BTW On the current Swinburne football photo doing the rounds I have to say I feel pretty strongly that the kid bottom row left hand corner is a 16 year old Carl Webb. Some prominent commentators have chosen other candidates but they don’t have the hair colour or face structure. The bottom left kid has the softer hair colour which is either ginger or blond the large hands and facial structure that when compared side by side to the well known SM image bears an eerie resemblance . Its a little tragic seeing this kid at the start of his life and knowing his end unknown on lonely beach.
Ancestry folks have taken over the chase big time .. beats me why, we know who he is. As you say, the big mystery is what was he doing in Adelaide and where did Harkness know him from …
If Jessie was still studying Nursing at the RNSH, it would seem unlikely that she would have met Carl in NSW, unless, of course, he found himself in the RNSH as a patient. A possible scenario might well be that Jessie, after returning to Melbourne in 1946, met Prosper who, had a friend called Carl. Carl did a few ‘jobs’ for Prosper, cash in hand etc. Carl, for some reason, didn’t think much of Prosper being a prospective husband. His connection with Prosper continued, after both Prosper and Jessie moved to Adelaide. Prosper, ever wary of Carl, only indicated that they lived in a western seaside suburb of Adelaide, perhaps Carl was the stranger asking about a nurse he knew?
We know well Prospers connections to the car trade and I read somewhere running taxi ranks in Victoria before relocating to SA with Harkness in the late 40s.
We have reason to believe Carl may have been employed in the car trade , sold stuff including cars in small adds and that cars adds ran from his flat post divorce but with D George listed as the contact after the date of Carl separation,and we know Prosper went by George.
Id like to know more about Prospers addresses places of work and general whereabouts in mid 40s Victoria.
Dude, reading through Eyston Jones’ court martial papers on NAA shows he had the same type of shifty moves Prosper was known for, especially the fiddling of his wages record. And there’s a car dealer in there somewhere.
Its an interesting connection. So how does Alf B end up with the Estyn J’s ROK ?
Dunno, trying Sanders if he knows of a link between Roy Webb’s and Estyn’s WW2 outfits. Then see if the Stirling Castle ever tied up in Sydney when Alf was working on the harbour.