Above: Fernande Butler in Beaumont Smith’s film Joe (1924). Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Hood collection. (Enlarged) Although unnamed in the collection, she is named in the same photo in Sydney’s Sunday Times in August 1924.[1]Sunday Times (Sydney) 3 Aug 1924, p20
The Five Second Version
How Fernande Nicolle from Normandy, France, ended up a model and actor in Sydney, Australia is a fascinating story. The Australian War Memorial estimates that 13,000 Australian soldiers married while serving overseas during World War One, and that 5,600 returned with English brides. However, the fact some Australians married French women is also well documented.[2] Coulthart (2016) p302-5 This essay concerns one of those French war brides, Fernande Butler (nee Nicolle), who gained some brief fame as a Sydney model and appeared in five Australian silent films between 1922 and 1925. She departed Australia quite suddenly and without publicity. She apparently did not continue as an actor or model, and never recorded anything about her life in Australia. She died in France in 1972.
Fernande Marie Marguerite Nicolle was born in Houlgate, Normandy, France in June 1897. Her birth certificate indicates that her father Hilaire was a house painter – not a noted landscape painter as a later Australian newspaper report suggested.[3]Smith’s Weekly (Syd) 1 Sept 1923, p23 Her father died when she was quite young, and for reasons no longer known, she was sent to board at the Convent of the Sisters of Providence in Hampstead, London, England.[4]She was one of two French students listed as students of the boarding school in the 1911 UK census
Marriage to Lionel Butler in 1918
Fernande’s ability with the English she learned at school almost certainly explains subsequent events. Following the outbreak of World War One in 1914, her mother Delphine Morin ran a cafe in Rouen, where Fernande also worked.[5]Table Talk,(Melb) 7 Sept 1922, p12 & Goulburn Evening Post, (NSW) 14 Sept 1922, p5 One can understand why this would have been a popular destination for Australian soldiers – with the owner’s pretty daughter speaking fluent English to them. It was here that Fernande met Lionel Richard Butler, a Sergeant in the Australian Army (AIF). The couple married in Rouen on January 5, 1918.[6]A certified extract of the marriage certificate is included with Butler’s AIF records, now held by the National Archives of Australia. Butler was recorded with the wrong first name – … Continue reading
Born in Fulham, London in 1889, Butler had only been living in Australia for a few years when war broke out in August 1914, and he was amongst the first wave of enlistments into the AIF.[8]Australian Imperial Forces Probably because he had previously served in the London Regiment’s 28th Battalion, he was given a non-commissioned rank as corporal almost immediately. By mid 1916 the AIF was in France and Butler had been promoted to Sergeant, now serving at the AIF headquarters at Rouen.[9]National Archives of Australia military records for Lionel Richard Butler, SERN 380
Despite the war’s end in November 1918, Fernande and Lionel had to wait twelve months for a “family boat,” in order to be repatriated with other married Australian soldiers and their wives – and they did not arrive in Australia until January 1920.[10]On the requisitioned ship SS Lucie Woermann While waiting, Lionel Butler took a course in commercial art in London.[11]Butler’s family still lived in London, however he chose to return to Australia
Modelling in Australia 1920+
It seems that on arrival in Australia, Fernande and Lionel may have struggled in deciding what to do and where to live. Although Lionel had previously been a travelling salesman for the Singer Machine company, and had shown an interest in commercial art – in November 1920 he applied for a soldier settlement grant. This would have granted him land to establish a fruit farm in southern New South Wales. But he was apparently unsuccessful or didn’t go through with his dream of farming, which may have been a blessing, as many ex- soldiers failed as farmers after World War One.[13]New South Wales Archives NRS-14544-1-[6/14937]-[210] | BUTLER, Lionel Richard; Service No. 380 – Sergeant, 4th LH [Light Horse]
Quite soon after however, Fernande became the focus of considerable public attention. She was painted by well known Australian artist Norman Carter (1875–1963), and the portrait was entered in the Archibald Prize competition in 1922.
As a portrait of a young Frenchwoman who had married an Australian in the recent war, it was probably a refreshing change of subject from the middled-aged “men of distinction,” who so often dominated the Archibald prize at the time. The Australasian thought the painting “charming” – one of Carter’s “most finished pieces of work.” Their reviewer felt the artist had captured “something gay and spirituelle that lights the whole composition.”[15]Australasian (Melb) 16 Sept 1922, p39 The painting did not win the Archibald Prize, but it was a finalist.(A portrait of Professor Harrison Moore, the Dean of Law at the University of Melbourne won the prize in 1922)[16]See Art Gallery of NSW, Archibald Prize Finalists, 1922
By 1923, Fernande had become a celebrity model for Sydney’s Grace Brothers department store. (Sunday Times (Syd),14 October 1923, p3)) She also appeared in advertisements for cosmetics – notably Mercolized Wax, a popular skin-whitener. The Dearborn company employed many young Australian women who were on stage or in film to advertise their products.
Breaking into film 1922
Fernande Butler appeared in at least five Australian films in the mid 1920s. Reports suggested that she came to the attention of filmmakers thanks to a vivacious personality and striking looks, which is quite likely to be true. Records in the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) catalogue confirm she was in the cast of Lawson Harris’ melodrama A Daughter of Australia (1922) and Raymond Longford & Lottie Lyell’s The Dinkum Bloke (1923) – probably in very minor roles. She then took more important supporting roles in two films for Beaumont Smith in 1924 – Joe, loosely based on characters from Henry Lawson stories, and the slapstick Hullo Marmaduke, a vehicle for popular stage comedian Claude Dampier. Unfortunately none of these films survive, but her prominent role in Joe is confirmed by the surviving production photos held by the Mitchell Library.
A partial print of Fernande’s last known film, F. Stuart Whyte’s Painted Daughters (1925) does survive, although it is not currently available for viewing in Australia. By the time she appeared in this, we know that Fernande had already begun to be coached by leading Sydney dance teacher Minnie Hooper, and voice tutor Signor de Alba, obviously with an eye to a career on stage.[17]Everyones (Syd), 15 August 1923 But for reasons we no longer know, this did not happen.
Return to France
Sometime in late 1925 or early 1926, Fernande returned to France. We can speculate, but there really is no evidence to indicate what dramatically changed her life, again. Clues may exist in other writings of the time. Playwright Betty Roland wrote the play The Touch of Silk in 1927. It concerned a young French woman Jeanne, who married an Australian soldier at the end of World War One. She joins him on a drought-ravaged farm near a remote Australian country town – struggling with the mean-spiritedness of some of the townspeople, with his shell shock and her culture shock.
We know that Fernande’s marriage failed, but there are no Australian divorce records or sensational newspaper reports to confirm this – she simply disappeared from Australian records, with an annotation in Lionel’s repatriation records stating she had returned to France.[18]Sometime in the late 1920s, Lionel Butler met a new partner, but they did not formally marry. He died in Tasmania in 1958 We known nothing of Fernande’s later life in France. One cannot help wondering how she fared in German-occupied France during World War Two. And was she on hand to welcome English-speaking Allied troops in Normandy in 1944? Fernande briefly reappeared in the historical record as the informant when her mother died in Rouen in 1946. She died at Dives-Sur-Mer, in Normandy in 1972, an event noted in the margin of her birth certificate. She apparently never married again, and had no children.
Note 1
The NFSA website currently claims that Fernande Butler died in 1983 and was alternatively known as Fernande Philomine Jouglet. This is not correct.
Nick Murphy
November 2024
References
- Australian War Memorial
- National Archives of Australia
- Butler, Lionel Richard. SERN 380, 4th Light Horse Regiment, AIF. (Butler’s military record gives a great deal of information. Place of birth: London England. Place of Enlistment: Broadmeadows Victoria, Australia. Next of kin: Butler, Fernande Marie Marguerite)
- Butler, Lionel Richard, SERN 380. Repatriation file.
- Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University
- Frances Lindsay, ‘Norman St Clair Carter (1875–1963)’, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 4 November 2024.
- Roger Butler, ‘Alethea Mary (Thea) Proctor (1879–1966)’, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 5 November 2024.
- Graham Shirley, ‘Frank Beaumont (Beau) Smith (1885–1950)’,published first in hardcopy 2002, accessed online 11 November 2024.
- Mervyn J. Wasson, ‘Raymond John Walter Hollis Longford (1878–1959)‘, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 5 November 2024.
- Frances Lindsay, ‘Norman St Clair Carter (1875–1963)’, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 4 November 2024.
- Art Gallery of New South Wales
- Text
- Ross Cooper (1976) Beaumont Smith Filmography, Cinema Papers, March-April 1976, p332-333 via University of Wollongong, Archives Online.
- Ross Coulthart (2016) The Lost Diggers. Harper Collins
- Garry Gillard (2018-2019) Australian Cinema. Painted Daughters
- McKenzie, Kirsten. Journal of Women’s History; Baltimore Vol. 22, Iss. 4, (Winter 2010): “Being Modern on a slender income: ‘Picture Show’ and ‘Photoplayer’ in early 1920s Sydney”. 114-136, 329.
- Andrew Pike & Ross Cooper (1980) Australian Film 1900-1977. Oxford University Press.
- Hal Porter (1965) Stars of Australian Stage and Screen. Rigby
- Betty Roland (1927) The Touch of Silk (play) Currency Press, Sydney, 1974.
- Andrée Wright (1986) Brilliant Careers. Women in Australian Cinema. Pan
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Sunday Times (Sydney) 3 Aug 1924, p20 |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Coulthart (2016) p302-5 |
| ↑3 | Smith’s Weekly (Syd) 1 Sept 1923, p23 |
| ↑4 | She was one of two French students listed as students of the boarding school in the 1911 UK census |
| ↑5 | Table Talk,(Melb) 7 Sept 1922, p12 & Goulburn Evening Post, (NSW) 14 Sept 1922, p5 |
| ↑6 | A certified extract of the marriage certificate is included with Butler’s AIF records, now held by the National Archives of Australia. Butler was recorded with the wrong first name – Leonard. However, his SERN or Army service number – 380 – correctly identifies him |
| ↑7 | Australian War Memorial Collection. P10550.115 |
| ↑8 | Australian Imperial Forces |
| ↑9 | National Archives of Australia military records for Lionel Richard Butler, SERN 380 |
| ↑10 | On the requisitioned ship SS Lucie Woermann |
| ↑11 | Butler’s family still lived in London, however he chose to return to Australia |
| ↑12 | Smith’s Weekly, (Syd) 1 Sept 1923, p23 |
| ↑13 | New South Wales Archives NRS-14544-1-[6/14937]-[210] | BUTLER, Lionel Richard; Service No. 380 – Sergeant, 4th LH [Light Horse] |
| ↑14 | New England Regional Art Museum |
| ↑15 | Australasian (Melb) 16 Sept 1922, p39 |
| ↑16 | See Art Gallery of NSW, Archibald Prize Finalists, 1922 |
| ↑17 | Everyones (Syd), 15 August 1923 |
| ↑18 | Sometime in the late 1920s, Lionel Butler met a new partner, but they did not formally marry. He died in Tasmania in 1958 |
I am researching ‘war brides’ of Australian soldiers for my PhD History thesis and submitted a short IMBD bio of Fernande earlier this year. So, I am really pleased to see Fernande Butler getting the recognition she deserves with an article. Fernande Philomine Butler (née Jouglet) was another French war bride who coincidentally married an Australian soldier named William Charles Butler and accompanied him home to Australia. William left Fernande (Jouglet) and their two young daughters in the early 1920s. It is really crazy actually as both Fernande Butler’s marriages to Australian soldiers broke down and ended in divorce or separation.
Ps – the repatriation records for Lionel Butler later in life indicate he was living in a de-facto relationship with another woman, Alice Ada Butler, in Tasmania when he died in 1958. Alice made some inquires about obtaining a war widow’s pension but was turned down on the ground’s that Butler’s legal wife was still living in France. So, I doubt very much they were divorce and indeed, I am not sure there would have been much legal ability for Fernande to have got a divorce in France. The difficulties surrounding international divorce law is one of the things that comes up in my PhD research. The only European bride I know of who managed to get a divorce from an Australian man, was a Belgian woman named Jeanne Marie Anthony (née Cockelbergh) who had lived in NSW for some years before returning to Brussels. She managed to divorce her husband from Belgium in the NSW Supreme Court, with the court taking the legal standpoint that she was still domiciled in NSW, as there was no legal recourse for her to divorce in Belgium or even in England (as her husband was not domiciled in either country).
Thanks for that additional information, Charles.
Thanks Nick. I checked and the repatriation file for Lionel Butler (NAA: P107, M16280) include a statement – “member’s legal wife, whom he married in France + shipped to Aust in 1919, deserted him after two years + was last heard of back in France.” Hope this helps to clarify Fernande’s marital circumstances! It is honestly great to see Fernande Butler (nee Nicolle) recognised in this way with an article – she is actually one of the few success stories of my thesis. I have come across so many British and European brides who came to Australia and ended up in very difficult circumstances when their marriages failed or their husbands’ died young though the effects of the war. Fernande thrived where so many others ended up in such poor situations. I have also written to NFSA to ask them to update their bio as it really should be correct!
Thanks again Charles. I will have a think about tweaking what I’ve written to acknowledge more of this. Butler’s post war experience is so much a part of the forgotten Australian WW1 story and I find it very sad. But the story of war brides is also a fascinating topic and your PhD should prove very interesting.
Good luck getting a response from the NFSA! Much as I admire their work, unfortunately, I have had no luck communicating with them and I also baulk at the idea of paying $80 an hour to use their access facility. But that’s another story.
In the meantime, interested readers who have followed the thread this far can consult the very lengthy Repat file for Lionel Richard Butler at the National Archives of Australia. Just a note of caution for those interested readers – the Repat file gives voice to Butler’s de-facto or second wife, but not to Fernande. The question as to why Fernande abandoned her husband (did she?) and what seems to have been a successful public career in Australia, remains unanswered.
Thanks Nick. Lionel Butler’s post-war experience is definitely rather sad, yet so very common among returned service personnel. The story of war brides is fascinating but also rather sad in many ways, as I am finding lots of stories of desertion and hardship, as opposed to “they all lived happily ever after”. I am not too surprised though as I came into the PhD from my own research into my great grandmother, a British military nurse/war bride, who split from her husband in Sydney in 1928 and went on to live an incredibly hard life of destitution and alcoholism.
The NFSA also got back to me regarding Fernande – so with luck they will update their bio so that it reads correctly. I can well understand the mistake as I myself did a double take when I stumbled across two French war brides whose married name was Fernade Butler living in Sydney in the 1920s.
If Fernande (née Nicolle) departed Australia in 1926, then her name should be mentioned in an outward passenger manifest held by the National Archives of Australia. If Fernande left from Sydney then the passenger listing should be held by National Archives NSW Office in Chester Hill. I have to go to Chester Hill at some point to search for an outwards passenger listing for Fernande (née Jouglet) departing Sydney for a holiday home to France in circa 1923 so I shall see if I can also find Fernande (nee Nicolle).
Thanks Charles. If you find evidence of her departure please let me know and I will add it here. 1926 was a bit of short hand that I’ve now amended to 1925-6. The last mention of her I can find in Trove is her modelling for Madam LouLou in Gosford in May 1925, followed by attendance at a “Matrons Ball” in late August 1925.
As a great-nephew of Madame Loulou (real name Louise Anderson nee Bastide), I’ve recently written an article about her and her friendship with Fernande Butler for the March issue of the RAHS magazine, ‘History’. My interest in Loulou’s story began 24 years ago when my father and I recorded an interview with her son, Ron Anderson, for family history purposes. I started researching Fernande’s story several years ago when I first had the idea of writing the article about her friendship with Loulou. I myself haven’t yet managed to discover what happened to Fernande after 1925. Loulou would probably have known what eventually happened to Fernande in Australia, and at what point she returned to live permanently in France. However, after 1948, Loulou and her husband Andrew lived in the Nambucca Heads region, and I met them only once, when I was a child in 1962. Had I, when I interviewed Ron Anderson in 2001, asked him about Fernande’s later life, he may also have been able to provide the necessary information. Ron passed away in 2014.
Hi Graham, I have just come back to this thread after a time. I did not realise reading the above article that Madame Loulou was Louise Anderson (née Bastide). There is a great article about the arrival of the ‘charming French bride’ of Sergeant Andrew Anderson which was published in the Sydney Evening Herald in January 1919. I would love to read your article about the friendship between Fernande and Louise if you are happy to share.
Thanks Graham – very interesting. Nick
The magazine can be purchased here:
https://www.rahs.org.au/history-magazine/