He had arrived at Hull by November 1889, lodging in the nearby town of Beverley. Here he passed himself off as “a retired sheep farmer named Harry Lawson from Mount House Farm, Rockhampton, Queensland, living on 1,500 pounds a year. He wooed Helen Matheson, the 21 year old daughter of his landlady and married her, bigamously, on 18 February 1890. About a month later, after a honeymoon in the south of England, he suddenly disappeared, taking his expensive gifts to Helen with him. Deeming’s wife and extended family had heard of his bigamous marriage to Helen according to Gurvich and Wray.
Deeming was later found to have then visited his first wife Marie and his (now) four children in Birkenhead.