Ronald Ryan - Early Life

Early Life

Ronald Edmond Thompson was born on 21 February 1925 at the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne's inner suburb of Carlton, to John Ronald Ryan and Cecilia Thompson (née Young). At the time Ryan's father was not married to his mother. Cecilia already had a son with her first husband George Harry Thompson and was living with John Ryan. Cecilia and George had separated in 1915 when George left to fight in the Great War. The relationship never resumed. Cecilia met John Ryan while working as a nurse in Woods Point where he was suffering lung disease. They formed a relationship in 1924 and later married in 1929, after Thompson's death in 1927 by falling from a tram and getting hit by a car. Ryan then adopted the name Ronald Edmond Ryan. In 1936 Ryan was confirmed in the Catholic Church. He took as his confirmation name Joseph, becoming Ronald Edmond Joseph Ryan. He did not like Edmond and from then on used "Ronald Joseph Ryan".

Following the theft of a watch from a neighbour's house at Mitcham in November 1936, the plight of the Ryan children was bought to the attention of the state welfare authorities. Ronald was sent to Rupertswood, Sunbury, the Salesian Order's school for orphaned, wayward and neglected boys. His three sisters were made wards of the state a year later after authorities declared them to be "neglected". The three sisters were sent to the Good Shepherd Convent in Collingwood. Ryan absconded from Rupertswood in September 1939 and, with his half-brother George Thompson, worked in and around Balranald, New South Wales; spare money earned from sleeper cutting and kangaroo shooting was sent to his mother, who was looking after their sick, alcoholic father.

At the age of 20, Ryan had saved enough money to rent a house in Balranald. He then collected his sisters and mother and they all lived in this house. Ryan's father stayed in Melbourne and died a year later, aged 62, after a long battle with miners' disease, phthisis tuberculosis.