NAME Alan Cecil Adams
BORN Cooma 26 October 1888
DIED 1967 Burwood, NSW
MILITARY SERIAL NO. 6606
UNIT 8th Field Ambulance
ENLISTED Sydney 27 April 1915
DISCHARGED Sydney 5 July 1919

Alan Cecil Adams took up a small block of land of 61 acres in the Parish of Strathearn, Scone Land District, County of Brisbane.[1] The soldier settlement board believed the land would be suitable for dairying and agriculture.  Adams began with £600 of his own money and at one time obtained a loan from a relative for an amount of £500.   Not long after he took up the block he decided to join a community based irrigation plan with four or five other settlers.  This move absorbed £300 of his ready cash. [2]  He applied for his loan on 18 August 1924.[3] There appears to have been some delay with receiving this, because the transfer of his land from Ebenezer Richard Hall was not registered.   He had purchased his holding privately with the aid of the Rural Bank but by April 1929 still owed £975.

Adams appears to have struggled with debt for most of the time he was on his block.  This, as well as his own ill health, the loss of a child and labour troubles influenced his decision to leave the block, eventually selling out for £40 an acre.

Footnotes

[1] SRNSW: Lands Department; NRS 8058,  Returned Soldiers loan files [12/7396 No. 9788], Alan Cecil Adams, Appliction for Loan, .

[2] Ibid, District Surveyor to Under Secretary for Lands, 24 September 1924.

[3] Ibid, Application for loan, Alan Cecil Adams, 18 August 1924.

 Sources used to compile this entry:

State Records NSW:  Lands Department, NRS 8058, Returned Soldiers loan files [12/7396 No. 9788], Alan Cecil Adams.

National Archives of Australia: B2455, First Australian Imperial Force Personnel Dossiers (Alan Cecil Adams) http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/scripts/Imagine.asp?B=3019702