Is there a link between Prosper’s ads and Webb’s movements?
We’re going on the assumption here that Webb and Prosper knew each other in Melbourne before PT and Jessica moved to Adelaide and Webb deserted his wife and dropped off the map.
With this in mind there may be some way of linking PT’s classified ads to accommodate Webb’s appearance in Adelaide.
Mar 47 – Wanted .22 rifle (This ad place three times this month). Hindley St.
Mar 47 – WANTED .22 auto or repeater -cash or exchange Healing Cycle. Thomson.
Mar 47 – WANTED. Partner for used car business – £500 to £1000. City premises. Box 1009j £500 to £1,000. ($1,000 in 1947 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $14,088.57 today.)
April 47 – CARL WEBB DESERTS WIFE.
May 47 – WANTED. Employment of any kind. Good refs Thomson. Box 953H.
The above ad suggests Thomson was looking for work for an acquaintance and was willing to give him good references.
May 47 – WANTED. URGENTLY. Car any type, spot cash. Thomson. Box 953H
May 47 – WANTED DESPERATELY. Car, any type, pay cash. Box 953H. £75 to £200.
May 47 – WANTED. Any make car, cash or takeover terms. Thomson. £150. Box 953H
These ads might lead you to believe PT was buying a car for someone else.
May 47 – WANTED. Building suit workshop – pay ingoing or buy plant. URGENT. Thomson. Box 953H.
This ad doesn’t appear to be for premises a car dealer might use as most dealerships have onsite facilities for mechanical work.*
27 Nov 1948 – Wanted bungalow, pay cash to £1,500*. Can give tenancy maisonette, all mod cons, rent 22/6, Glenelg. Phone Thomson X3239
Equivalent to more than Aud $50,000 today.
1 December 1948 – Man thought to be Carl Webb found dead in mysterious circumstances on a beach a couple of hundred yards from the home PT shared with Jessica and her young son.
(any mistakes are mine …..)
*Spoken from experience.
The Somerton Man .. 
The earlier requests for a gun are interesting, I’ve got him wanting to buy a rifle, automatic Winchester the same month the S.M. inquest in on June 1949.
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Century motors would be about where 254 Pultney is now. Here’s a pic (see extreme left)
https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+12464
Duffield was another block South (about 304, at the edge of what is now a carpark or something)
https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+13563
Perhaps Prosper would wander down past Duffield’s and meet up at the Earl of Aberdeen for a few snorts.
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Yes that was Thomson’s showroom at 12 Hanson Street. Century Motors. The south end of Pulteney Street from Wakefield Street was Hanson Street in those days
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Few extras…..
March 29th ’47:
WANTED urgently by ex-serviceman about commence business, car or buck-board, £50 to £150. Will call, pay cash. McTaggart, Box 953H. G.P.O. Adelaide.
19April:
WANTED car or buckboard, reas. order,any make suit traveller, cash £75 to £ 150. McTaggart. Box 953H. G.P.O .
May 24th:
WANTED urgently, car, any type, reasonable condition, utility would do £75 to £150, inspect anywhere if full particulars given, spot cash. Thomson. Box 953H. G.P.O, Adelaide.
May 31st:
WANTED any make car. reasonable order utility would do. cash to £150 or take over terms. Inspect anywhere. Full particulars to Thomson. Box 953H. G.P.O..
20 Mar ’48:
WANTED by ex-serviceman, car for business, consider utility: cash to G250. Thomson, Box 953H, G.P.O.
Interestingly by 5 Nov 1949 he’s pivoted from cars to cameras:
LIECA, model 3c. Summitar F2 lens, speeds 1 sec. to 1,000th. brand new. with er. case, price £150; also Leica, same as above, with Elmar F3 lens, price £ 135; send bank cheque with order, we will be pleased to quote on any other photographic equipment; mail your inquiry to P. M. Thomson. P.O. Box 953H. G.P.O. Adelaide.
And he’s got a greater account to splurge on a new house:
WANTED house, suit couple, any suburb, with immediate possession. cash £1,800 to £2,200. Phone Thomson. F3380, or write Box 953H G.P.O. Urgently required.
(From memory F3380 was also used for Duffield Motors, also in Hanson St – which came up a lustrum or two ago. Back then there may have been discussions assuming Hanson St was Hanson Rd, Wingfield….).
But that number links to this interesting one 3 Nov 1948:
PAY spot cash for gent’s wardrobe, good condition. F3380.
and in December ’48 that number is selling a repeating rifle – several ads.
There’s a few other non-car related ones to F3380, but thought looking for some clothes a month before SM turns up possibly not in his own clothes was an interesting one.
Actually, it seems like Duffield, not Thomson switched to cameras – but there’s definitely a connection (Thomson seems to have definitely used Duffield numbers from time to time). It looks like he sells a private camera in June 1948 and then by 1949 is selling them regularly. Maybe he decided it was lucrative after selling his own. Or maybe he realised it was something easy to pinch, easy to onsell….or something else.
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Thomson was most likely working for Duffield 22 October 1949 in their business in Hanson St as a car salesman hence their phone number F3380
Facebook says Century Motors was established in 1950 https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=century%20motors%20est.1950
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We don’t even know if Carl Webb was in Adelaide and he probably wasn’t.
For mine, he took off from Fremantle to Malaysia to see his brother’s grave driven by his guilt because he had stayed behind, met with misadventure because of his demeanour and vanished. That’s why there is no trace of him. He is nowhere to be found. Body dumped somewhere, no ID and nobody cared in the post war world, especially not that part of it anyway
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kinda like one of the Rockefellers, they never found his body!
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So, the advert for a gents wardrobe would, to possible sellers of such wardrobe have nothing to do with Thomson, only Duffield Motors? Interesting, to say the least, as assuming it was Thomson behind the advert,why would he be short of a gents wardrobe? And, why the camera sales, were they ‘government issue’, I wonder?
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l forget: Interesting that W. Duffield, Duffield Motors lived at 47 Barnes Ave, Magill and tel: F3380 was his home phone. In ‘The Advertiser’ 10/12/48 he was selling cars at his address. Then, in the same paper, on 1612/48 he was advertising cars at 48 Hanson St.
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Or maybe it was his business phone in Hanson St and he was selling cars at home as well from that number. Take a car home off the lot and not own one. ‘You can look at it after 6pm when I get home’ What address does the 1948 telephone directory have that number listed at
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intriguing isn’t it? Here’s Prosper ducking and diving from active WW2 service suffering (?) all manner of illnesses and finally getting out of uniform by claiming he had shell shock then not long after he’s shifting all manner of goods – and awash in cash.
Doesn’t say much for the less than delightful Jessica either.
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F3380 – prefix F telephone exchange was at Norwood (automatic exchange in 1931) and that would likely serve the Magill area
The old phone books are in the State Library on North Terrace which would show the phone number either to Magill or Hanson St
Might be a PMG tech from that era who knows if you could redirect a phone number on an automatic exchange in those days, eg house to business premises or vice versa, to take calls out of hours
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l forget: Looking on Google, it looks as if the building is still standing, judging by the roof gable on the Google photo. “Cheeky Greek”, 252 Pulteney St. Your photo from sa.collections shows the same stone gable.
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Correct 12 Hanson St is 252 Pulteney St, (now Cheeky Greek restaurant). They were also trading as Century Trading Co Ltd (The News Adelaide 23 Nov 1953 p.21) There is a photo of Thomson there. They were also at 215 Hanson St on the other side of the road down near South Terrace near the Green Dragon Hotel on the corner. They were also at 176 Grenfell St near the East End Market. So, two registered companies Century Motors and Century Trading. Quite a used cars empire with that amount of stock. Probably rented all the business premises. LTO search would show what’s what.
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Seems PT was a proper “wheeler dealer”. If he was trading in second hand clobber, as the adverts suggest, it’s possible the clothing SM was found in was never his at all. Hastily dressed after his death at location unknown…but probably PT’s house.
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And Thompson would also put the name “Keane” on labels in those clothes, as a false lead, not knowing there’s a connection with Carl Webb? Just a weird coincidence? Nope, I don’t think so, that clothing theory is too farfetched.
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It’s certainly strange, that, out of all the newspaper adverts that Prosper used, there was only one for a gents wardrobe. Even more intriguing is that particular advert appeared in Nov 1948 only, Why didn’t Prosper visit some second hand clothes shops, I believe there was one at 19 Grote St selling gents clothes.
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Or does wardrobe mean a furniture item eg for a bedroom in a gentleman’s bungalow. All it has is the phone number F3380 which seems to be an ad placed by Duffield.
What intrigues me is Thomson appears to be desperate for money prior to Somerton man, trying to scrape together money through buy and sell to get by. Then all of a sudden the pair of them are flush with money like they inherited a windfall…or had a bundle dropped in their lap for services rendered
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Victory is slipping away from DA
His evidence is flawed in that things can’t be tied together
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From 1938, when Prosper was in WA selling cars, why in the late 1940s does he also sell guns, cameras, etc. Perhaps, a new sideline to add to his car sales? As No. 1 states, Prosper, and his bride to be, suddenly become flushed with money. Was he made an offer he couldn’t refuse, no questions asked and, no trails leading back to his involvement?
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Clive .. A pattern you think, coinciding with SM’s (Webb’s) disappearance?
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Could well be. A struggling, car salesman needing money, possibly in debt and, then, one day he receives a telephone call about a certain individual, all he has to do is to look in his mailbox and follow the instructions? And only one advert, wanting ‘gents wardrobe’. Interesting that the advert doesn’t go into specifics, I mean, if he wanted clothes, why not specify suit(s), shirts etc. Just a seemingly innocuous advert by a unnamed individual, no address to visit.
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People didn’t refer to their clothes as their wardrobe in those days. Your clothes were kept in your wardrobe. Wardrobe was the costume department or costumes of a theatre or film company and in recent times television which is where it is borrowed from for modern use. Your wardrobe wasn’t your clothes in 1948 it was a piece of furniture in your bedroom
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As in “the lyin’, the which? And the wardrobe”….
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PAY spot cash for gent’s wardrobe, good condition. F3380
Some gent’s wardrobes for you
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/sunshine/antiques/antique-gentleman-s-georgian-style-armoire-wardrobe/1307014422
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/welland/antiques/gentleman-s-wardrobe-/1325313670
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/littlehampton/antiques/antique-gentlemans-wardrobe/1326563669
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Prosper was as dodgy as a three dollar bill. Don’t forget you’ve got the Daphne Page case at the same time.
One minute he’s broke then after Webb dies he’s loaded. How convenient
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Dude! I was told you went mad and the coppers shot you ..
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Not true PB , I never went mad , I was arrested whist snorting cocaine off a hookers ass in Amsterdam.
AND for the record I wasn’t shot just tasered.
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People have written off a link between Webb and PT through lack of a solid mutual connection such as a shared employer or associate known to both parties.
Fact is these small adds would have put PT in contact with many randoms.
We know Webb used small adds in Victoria so it stand to reason he would have been a reader of such adds.
I believe there is a strong possibility that Webb and PT came into contact via small adds.
Has anyone found adds posted by PT in Victoria?
Ive no doubt he was using them outside SA.
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dude47: I’m pretty certain that at one time Prosper was advertising in Port Lincoln, although PT isn’t in Victoria, It shows he wasn’t restricting ads to Adelaide alone.
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For what it’s worth, Prosper was advertising for a house in Adelaide, per “The Advertiser” 18 Dec 1946 P17.
“House will purchase for cash 1500.00 Pounds, prefer hills district, vacant possession, can trade 1939 Ford V8 Sedan, as new, if req. NSPR 310.00 Pounds. Apply P.M. Thomson, GPO, Adelaide”
Interesting there isn’t a P.O. Box mentioned, I wonder where Prosper was living at that time?
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Prospers adds paint a very peculiar picture of his financial status. He’s offering huge money for a house one minute and looking for work of any kind the next.
His arrest details from WA are also intriguing. One minute he doing well in WA then he’s desperate the next. The papers report that he threatens suicide when arrested.
I wonder if he was a gambler. We know Carl was.
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Do we know how long Prosper was living in WA? And, why WA? It would be good to track where he lived from living in WA to ending up in Adelaide, the time periods etc. Another intrigue, is that, Queenie, his first wife had, I understand, family living in Adelaide. This makes me wonder if Prosper lived with Queenie’s relatives in Adelaide, while he looked for a house? From his point of view, it would make sense, no hotel/motels to pay for etc. Interesting if, at that time, Queenie was aware of Jessie?
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He went to WA prior to WW2 and was there only a matter of months.
He took Queenie but sent her home when things got tough. He probably took the “Transcontinental”.
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