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[Page 20]
After his last parade In Sydney Tristram James went into retirement in South Australia. There he resided at 61 Jeffcott Street, North Adelaide in a house which he had purchased in 1920. He shared the house, after his retirement, with his widowed mother who died there on 5 October 1936.
Mrs James, and her husband, had adopted at some earlier stage the hyphenated surname of Wordsworth-James. But their son, Tristram James, did not adopt this form of surname. Mrs Wordsworth-James was a writer. She wrote plays and poetry arid she sometimes wrote under the pseudonym of "An Australian". No evidence has been found that this interest of Mrs Wordsworth- James in writing was transferred to her son, Tristram James, for it seems that he had no published work of any kind to his credit.
As an economy measure during the Great Deparession the Royal Military College of Australia closed down at Duntroon and it re-opened on 7 February 1931 at Victoria Barracks, Paddington, N.S.W. Six years later the College moved back to Duntroon where it re-opened on 8 February 1937 under the command of Brigadier (late Lieutenant-General) C.G.N. Miles. On Wednesday 14 April 1937 Tristram James paid a private visit to the College. He had probably called for the day on his way home by train to Adelaide from one of his visits to Sydney. The visit would have enabled him to meet old friends and to refresh himself with memories of the first five years of the College at Duntroon when he played an important part himself in its daily work, as a member of its staff. He signed the Visitors Book of the College that day and gave his address as care of the Bank of New South Wales, Adelaide, S.A. Evidence suggests that this visit that Tristram James made to the College on Wednesday 14 April 1937 was the last one he made there. The College was one of the milestones in his career and because of its associations it was an institution which he would not have forgotten while life lasted.