The history section is a series of "books" with a page for each item. You can navigate between pages and books by using the links on the left or at the bottom of each page.
1874 Yarra Park Football
Match
40,000 years ago (or more): First Aborigines arrived in the Yarra area
1802: John Murray sailed into Port Phillip Bay on the Lady Nelson
1803: Lt-Governor David Collins took 460 convicts and white settlers ashore near Sorrento.
1835: Foundation of Melbourne
1839: La Trobe's cottage built in Jolimont, East Melbourne
1853: First private house in East Melbourne, built for Mr Cooke (more)
1858: First game of Australian rules football played at Richmond paddock
1877: First test cricket match between Australia and England played at the MCG.
1891: Yarra River rose 14 metres and destroyed 200 houses in Collingwood and Richmond
1901: Yarra River straightened and Royal Botanic Gardens ornamental lake formed
1954: Proposal to destroy much of East Melbourne for an inner city ring road
1956: Melbourne Olympic Games held at the MCG
1963: La Trobe's cottage relocated to King's Domain
2006: Commonwealth Games held at the MCG
The Journey of Mankind - The Bradshaw Foundation: Tracing the migration of modern humans starting 160,000 years ago
Settlement of Australia - Wikipedia: Genetic, archeological and linguistic sciences point to the single origin of modern mankind
The Pre-History of Australia - Wikipedia: Australia before European settlement
Indigenous Australia - The Australian Museum Online: Chronolgy, culture, stories
Indigenous Australians - Wikipedia: The lives of Australian Aborigines
A Timeline for Aborigines in Victoria - Kooriweb: Major historical events for Aborigines in Victoria
More - National Coordinators of Indigenous Education: More links to Aboriginal history, culture and issues
History of the Yarra River - Yarra River Precinct Association: History of the Yarra River
Yarra River construction works - Federation Square: A place in history
Timeline - Wikipedia: Timeline of Melbourne history
Victoria history - Wikipedia: History of Victoria
Melbourne history - Melbourne Online: Foundation of Melbourne
John Murray - Australian Dictionary of Biography: Murray, John (1775? - 1807?)
John Batman - Australian Dictionary of Biography: Batman, John (1801 - 1839)
William Barak - Australian Dictionary of Biography: Barak, William (1824 - 1903)
East Melbourne - Wikipedia: East Melbourne, Victoria
La Trobe's cottage - Wikipedia: La Trobe's cottage
Yarra Park - Wikipedia: Yarra Park
Victorian Gold Rush - Wikipedia: Victorian gold rush
First Test Cricket Match - Wikipedia: Test cricket history
First Australian Rules Football - Wikipedia: Australian rules football history
1956 Olympic Games - Wikipedia: 1956 Summer Olympics
1956 Olympic Games - IOC: 1956 Olympics
2006 Commonwealth Games - Wikipedia: 2006 Commonwealth Games
This is the collection of building histories written and maintained by the East Melbourne Historical Society.
You can find a particular history by zooming and panning the map. Or you can search the list with the fields below the map.
Using the map
Zoom and pan using the tools at the top left of the map or by dragging and scrolling with your mouse.
Hovering over a marker will show the title of the building history.
Click on a marker to show a summary and a link to the building history page.
The list is sorted by title alphabetically:
Suburb first, then Street name, then Street number.
Restrict the list by entering something in one of the form fields and clicking "Apply".
To return to the complete list clear all form fields and click "Apply".
A terrace of five cottages
The terrace was built house by house over a number of years, presumably as the owner's finances grew. The first two houses to be built were Nos. 8 and 10, and the last was No. 2, which became the owner's own house.
Not known
Initially described in the Rate Books as six rooms, the following year the description changes to five rooms, pantry, bath and shed, and by 1875 it has become seven rooms. The house was built on a wide block with vacant land to the house's south. Fielding lived in the house until 1883 when he sold it to Robert Richardson who added another room.
Cottage
George William Paterson sold his four room cottage very soon after its completion to Andrew Bell who added another room. Bell lived there until at least 1900.
Workshop
First listed in the Rate Books as a workshop but by 1895 the useage had changed to stables. James Peel Browne owned the building until his death in 1905. Sometime after 1910 it became the Commonwealth Motor Garage with Adams and Bradstreet as proprietors.
Cottage
The Notice of Intent to Build gives notice of a cottage to be built by and for Abraham Priest. However the Rate Books from 1870 until at least 1900 give the owner as James Priest. The house is descrbed in 1870 as three rooms, plus a kitchen and servant's room. The following year it is recorded as having six rooms. This description remains the same during the Priests' ownership.
A two storey structure of rustic appearance with half timbered gables and deep verandahs. Its focal point was the octagonal bandstand at the corner of the building.
The Argus, on 28 February 1908, reported:
A block of eighteen flats. Built of brick with a Tudor-Byzantine exterior, with Spanish influence. Decorative brickwork and painted incised render. Art deco interiors
From construction in the 1930s until late 1989 privately owned rental investment residential flats. Nine one bedroom flats; three two bedroom flats; six bed-sitters. Also tower, at that time for communal use. Whole property of eighteen apartments auctioned individually in late 1989, as a company share property - Arbe Questa Nominees. The tower is now privately owned as part of Apt. 18.
Two blocks of 1930's style flats with strong horizontal and vertical accentuation to the facade. They are interesting for their site planning and inward looking outlook to an extensive central garden. The principal building materials are cream brick with tapestry brick, brown brick and render panels. Windows are steel and timber. Notable features include unpainted decorative brickwork. No.
Index to Building Permit Applications dated 25 Oct 1940. First page of Application dated 18 Nov 1940. Letter from Building Surveyor to owners dated 19 Nov 1944 saying 'buildings not yet completed in accordance with specifications approved by this office in as much as fire hoses and chemical extinguishers have not been installed.
A pair of two storey, single fronted houses of brick and stone, now cement rendered
Two four roomed houses were built by William McLean to separately accommodate his father, Peter McLean, and father-in-law, Andrew Arnot. The houses were built on, what was at the time, low-lying floodway land, prior to the construction of the Collingwood railway line in 1901.
Stone house
Originally built as five rooms, a sixth room added in 1882 and a seventh in 1888.
William Niven, stationer, arrived in Melbourne in 1857 on the King of Algeria with his wife, Isabella, and young daughter, also Isabella. He died in 1910.
The houses at 48-50 George Street comprise a pair of semi-detached, nineteenth century, Italianate single-storey residences with basements. The facade is rendered with a moulded cornice and plain parapet extending across both houses. Wing walls have curved parapets and decorative pressed cement corbels. Only the house at No. 48 retains a verandah.
This pair of houses was built in 1861 by and for William Crawford of Melbourne. Nothing further can identify this particular William Crawford with any certainty. The houses, in the Burchett Index of Intents to Build (19 Feb 1861), were described as two 4 room cottages of stone and brick. Crawford named them Bremen Cottages. They were tenanted during Crawford’s ownership.
Two storey double fronted house with simple facade
Abraham Kellet married Ellen Russell in 1857 and was no doubt anxious to provide a home for his new bride and what turned out to be his large brood of children. He advertised for tenders, ‘labour only, for BUILDING four-roomed stone and brick HOUSE’ on 19 October 1860 and he gave notice to Council of his intention to build just ten days later.
Number 55 is a three storey building presenting an asymmetrical facade to the street and exhibiting an understated marriage of Modern and Georgian details in salmon coloured brick. The facade is dominated by a facetted entry rising through the full height of the building with quoins and keystone devices realised in decorative brick around the ground floor entry.
This is part of a cluster of apartment buildings including the neighbouring block at No. 53, and the two blocks at Nos. 29 and 37, as well as the apartments behind in Garden Avenue. All were designed by I.G. Anderson bewteen 1938 and 1941. The area must have been a hive of activity. The building is almost a mirror image of its partner, No.
Pair of two storey brick houses
Not known
A two storey block of flats constructed in 1934 and drawing inspiration from Georgian and Regency sources. Lisieux House is a substantial symmetrical building, its front sections finished in white painted render and surmounted by a roof of terracotta tiles. The street elevation is dominated by a central entrance bay projecting from the otherwise restrained facade.
Built in 1933 by Mansion Constructions, an investment company. The company's directors were politician, Parker Moloney and Anastasia MacIntyre, Moloney's wife's sister. The company was created in 1932, presumably for the purpose of constructing this building.
Large two storey house, with symmetrical facade having central doorway with bay windows each side on ground floor. Brickwork at ground floor level laid in alternating bands of light and dark brick. A tennis court lay to the east of the house.
Maurice Aron owned the house from 1877 to 1897. Maurice Aron of Cohen Aron & Co., was also a partner with Benjamin Josman Fink in an Elizabeth Street emporium called Wallach Bros. Wallach Bros. were furniture manufacturers and retailers. In 1880 NAB lent Fink £60,000 to buy out Aron.
This building is a fine and intact example of 1930's Art Deco flats. Exhibiting extreme care in the detailing including Art Deco treatment of the sash horns on windows ; each flat has a curved balcony with string courses which increase in number up the building.
This block of six two-bedroom flats with six garages was designed by Edith Ingpen in 1933 and built by R & E Seccull Pty Ltd for wealthy bookmaker, Henry Thomas Pamphilon. Ingpen was the first woman to gain an architecture degree from the University of Melbourne and this was her first commission.
A terrace of three two storey houses
Robert R. Rodgers, the first owner, was a sharebroker & land agent of 53 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne
Large two storey house especially noteworthy for its conservative classicism and its unusual verandah with paired cast iron columns
The house was designed in 1865 for William Bowen, a noted Collins Street chemist, by Leonard Terry. Jenkin Collier, noted land boomer, financier and director of the City of Melbourne Bank, owned the property from 1872 to 1918 and occupied it until 1891. It was Collier who added the ballroom in 1886. The house also featured a two storey coach house and stables at the rear.
A photo in 'We of the Never Never with a memoir of Mrs. Gunn by Margaret Berry' shows the house as a large two storey house with a verandah and balcony with cast iron decoration on the west side; and on the east a simple rendered facade with a pair of arched windows above and below. Rate Books describe it as a brick house of twelve rooms.
Mrs. Aeneas Gunn, author of Australian classic, We of the Never Never, occupied the house with her two sisters, Elizabeth Christine Taylor and Carrie Templeton. We of the Never Never with a memoir of Mrs Gunn by Margaret Berry describes the household of "three middle aged very abstemious ladies with a maid". There are photos of the house, and author in the garden.
Three three storey terrace houses of rendered brick. No. 182 retains a timber verandah and balcony at ground and first floor level. Its design and construction are unique. The verandahs and balconies have been removed from Nos. 184 and 186, however No. 184 is currently undergoing restoration and its verandah and balcony will be replaced.
The houses were designed by Joseph Reed who was probably the best known and most prolific architect in nineteenth century Melbourne.
Rate books describe it as a brick house of twelve rooms
This house was designed by Crouch and Wilson for Bernard Marks. Thomas Newton of Charnwood Crescent, St Kilda was the builder. It was completed in 1881. In 1901 Bernard Marks and his family travelled to England and rented the house out. They never returned to the house, moving instead to St Kilda.
Single fronted two story house in the Federation style. The ground floor is red brick, the upper floor is rouch cast plaster.
The house at 190 George Street was built on part of the land once occupied by the original Trinity Church which burnt down on New Year’s Day 1905. The land was sold in 1908 and the new church built on the corner of Clarendon and Hotham Streets.
The 1920s brought many different architectural styles to Melbourne. Tasma fits most closely into the Prairie style with its low-pitched hip roof, wide eaves, strong massing, and restrained use of applied ornamentation. In spite of its two-storey height the building retains a sense of squatness and connection to the ground.
Tasma, 77 Gipps Street was built for Frederick Charles Duncan in 1927. In February the following year he put it on the market when it was advertised as ‘SET of 4 SELF-CONTAINED FLATS, each with 4 rooms, bathroom, S O. New brick 2-storied Building, just completed.’ The purchaser was Joseph Richard Richardson.
Very narrow single fronted two storey house.
This little house was built as an investment for George Milton. The rate books described it as having six rooms on land eleven feet by sixty-six feet. Roughly ninety years later it was deemed uninhabitable by the Housing Commission on grounds of its size and its ruinous condition and a demolition order was issued.
Two storeyed, single fronted house with cast iron balcony, in the style of a terrace house.
The 1870 Rate Books list John Kelly as the owner, and describe the house as having '6 rooms bathroom 2 kitchens servants room and shed'. Thereafter it is listed simply as 8 rooms. In 1873 William Sydney Gibbons appears for the first time as the owner. He lived there with his family until his death in 1917. Gibbons was an analyst, and for many years, the government analyst.
A double fronted shop with residence above. The shop front has been modernised with plate glass windows each side of the central door. There is a modern awning which may have replaced a cast iron verandah. Above there are three arched windows framed by pilasters at each end of the facade. The facade here is painted brick which is possibly polychrome underneath. The side walls are bluestone.
Mr. Webber, the first owner of the building, when he notified the council of his intention to build gave the description 'house', however it appears that the building was used as a shop with residence above from the beginning. It was known then as Webber Bros & Co.
The building faces Ola Cohn Place, with the rear facing Gipps Street. The outline of the original carriageway entrance can still be seen from Ola Cohn Place.
This building was designed as livery stables by the notable architect, Charles d'Ebro in 1888 for William Taylor. In 1938 it was bought by Ola Cohn, the sculptor best known for her Fairies' Tree in the Fitzroy Gardens. She turned it into her home and studio.
A terrace of three two storey houses with cast iron balconies. The cast iron is not original and it is not known whether it has been reproduced from an original sample. The cast iron fences and gates are original.
Samuel Noble Brook (c.1853-1940), first owner and builder of Salisbury Terrace, was variously described as an ornamental ironworker and an importer, however 'it apears that he operated as a self employed building developer for most of his life in business in Melbourne.' [Willingham] On completion of the property Brook sold it to The Standard Mutual Building Society, who within four months had p
A single storey house featuring a wide, low-pitched gable roof. A central, curved bay window sits below. It is made up of five lead-light segments and protected by a window hood. The lower part of the house is unpainted red brick, while the upper part is rendered with rough cast cement. The apex of the gable, above the window hood, is half-timbered.
Andrew Francis Molan owned a hotel and store in Crossley, near Tower Hill in Victoria’s west. Later he moved to Melbourne and bought a hotel in Victoria Parade, Fitzroy. In 1910 his son, Maurice Leslie Molan married, and this seems to have been the stimulus for Andrew to buy the house at 79 Gipps Street. Maurice and his wife, Alice Leona, moved in.
This is an elaborately detailed mock medieval block of flats designed to look like one house, with tuckpointed brick quoins and rough render panels. There is a corbelled brick string course and label mouldings over windows. There is an oriel window to the west facade and fine leadlights to all windows.
These flats are a conversion of an old single storey house. MMBW plans show a small, perhaps four roomed house set well to rear of block, yet there is a small sketch plan in the Building Application file for Clinton Hall which shows a much larger house.
Federation style double-fronted villa with terracotta tile roof and timber verandah.
According to Winston Burchett’s Index to the City of Melbourne’s Notices of Intentions to Build 83 Gipps Street was built 1909-10 for John Loughnan by John Timmins to the design of architects, Crook and Richardson.
A single storey, single fronted house, with a cement rendered 1930s facade. It has a two storey studio at the rear.
George Waterstrom (1829-1907), engineer, owned this house from the time it was built until his death in 1907. He lived in the house until 1873, during which time it is described as two rooms. Extensions were made in 1874 bringing the number of rooms to six, it was extended again in 1878 to arrive at seven rooms. The facade was altered during the 1930s.
The residence at 104 Gipps Street is a two storey rendered Brick townhouse with a refined almost Regency air. It is architecturally significant as a fine and unusual example of a nineteenth century townhouse and is unique for the open work cast iron panels on the verandah columns which although common in Sydney are otherwise unknown in Melbourne.
104 Gipps Street is historically significant for its association with J J Clark, one of Australia's most important architects in the second half of the nineteenth century.
A large two storey cement rendered house in the Italianate style.
Pre-history: Before Crathre House was built there was another house on the site - a large wooden house known as The Bungalow. This house was owned by Henry Dyer as an investment property. He lived next door at 121 Powlett Street with his wife, Mary, and their children. He owned many other properties in the immediate vicinity.
This is a fine two storey ruled render terrace residence with unusual tri-partite verandah. The upper floor verandah has brackets forming semi circular arches supported on timber columns and a concave (hipped) corrugated iron roof. There are render enrichments to the party walls and dentilled eaves. [i-Heritage database]
Builder, Joseph Baxter, built this house for himself to the design of C Langford in 1882. This was in the early days of Clements Langford’s career but he went on to be a master builder working on many of Melbourne’s well-known churches and commercial properties. [see link below].
A terrace of three two storey houses in Regency style. The brick facade is unpainted and there is a timber verandah.
This regency style terrace, with its distinctive timber verandah, was built in 1863 for Henry Dyer, lime and cement merchant, as an investment. Dyer lived with his family around the corner at 121 Powlett Street.
Large red brick house with central carriage way.
Mitchell's four daughters, along with their cousin, Maie Ryan (later Lady Casey) were educated by private governess in Fanecourt's school room. Four of the five became writers. The Mitchell family sold Fanecourt in 1913 and later it was divided into eight flats and renamed Torrington.
Large double fronted, two storey house. Described in 1918 as having "10 rooms 2 bathrooms, 2 maid’s rooms, laundry, large brick motor garage, stabling, man’s room, &c electric light throughout."
The house was built for John Webster in 1869 and designed by architects Reed & Barnes, who designed a number of houses in East Melbourne. Nancy Adams, in her book, Family Fresco,claims the house was once owned by her father, Sir Edward Mitchell, K.C., who named it Stokesay after Stokesay Vicarage in Shropshire where he used to spend university vacations and where the vicar coached him.
A two storey brick house with a pitched slate roof and simple cement rendered facade without verandah or balcony.
The house first appears in the rate books in 1864 and is described as having five rooms. In 1868 it appears as six rooms. Joachimi owned and occupied the house until 1870 when he sold to Daniel B. Pritchard who in turn sold it two years later to R.D. Pitt. Pitt sold to William Woodall in 1882 who was still the owner in 1890.
Single storey, single fronted house with bay window. A second storey has been added to the rear.
In 1865 a three roomed cottage was erected towards the rear of the land. By 1869 the house had doubled in size to six rooms. The addition of a large room at the front brought the house almost to the street and gave it a new asymmetrical appearance. A second storey was added to the rear of the building in 2002. George Milton owned the house until 1922 although he never lived there.
This is an early handmade brick residence of 2 storeys. The facade is simply composed with three bays of exposed brick with a simple brick cornice.
The house was built for the Austrian born, landscape painter, Eugene von Guerard in 1862. It was initially described in the rate books as having four rooms but von Guerard had an additional three rooms built in 1866. James Dickson was the builder. One of the additional rooms was built as the artist's studio.
When owner Leonard Terry put his house on the market it was described in the Argus of 6 July 1872 as, "That spacious and substantially built FAMILY MANSION, containing drawingroom 18ft x 16ft, dining room 18ft x 16ft, schoolroom 27ft x 14ft ; five bedrooms 18ft x 16ft, 18ft x 16ft, 16ft.
Leonard Terry built the house for himself and family. He married twice and had nine children, hence the need for a school room. Matthew Lang, the second owner, appears to have turned this room over to another use. He moved out in 1887, after the death of his son. He continued to own the house until his own death in 1893, and from then until c.1923 it remained in his estate.
One of a row of three, two-storeyed houses, of which No. 165 possesses a porte cochere (i.e. a porch, large enough to accommodate wheeled vehicles). The row is decorated to present a single identity, i.e. the parapet is plain, and unbroken over the three houses and there is a central basket-arched 'entablature' flanked by scrolling. The cornice is dentillated.
Rev. James Caldwell died in 1907 leaving the property to his wife for her lifetime and then to his children. His wife, Mary Anne, died in 1926. The inventory in his will stated that 'Each house is let at 22/6 per week and assessed by the City of Melbourne at £50 per annum. The whole is valued at £2200'
A large two storey house in the Italianate manner
"179 Gipps Street is classified by the National Trust, with the Citation:- 'A fine two-storeyed house in the Italianate manner with delicate stucco detailing and well proportioned openings' It is included in the Register of Historic Buildings established by the Historic Buildings Act 1974 [now Heritage Victoria] 179 seems to have been built in three stages. The first stage in 1861.
Two storey red brick dwelling with terracotta tile roof, leadlight windows and verandah with double ionic columns. There is a clinker brick soldier course , interesting reinforced concrete and wrought iron fence. [City of Melbourne i-Heritage database]
Building work valued at £2,000. Described as ‘attic villa’. Brickwork of ‘Barkly’ bricks. Attic walls to be lined to a height of 3ft. with 3ply Pacific Mahogany. Other woods used: Pacific Maple, Hoop Pine, Jarrah, Oregon. Red gum stumps. Flooring of Baltic White, ‘Dindi’ hardwood.
A double fronted, single storey villa built of polychrome brick. It has a return verandah to the left hand/western side allowing access to the house's main entrance.
42 Gipps Street was built in 1870 for Mrs Anne/Annie Jones by Murray and Hill, a local firm based in Victoria Parade. The firm built many houses in East Melbourne, some for clients, some on its own account.
Block of flats built of clinker brick in an English suburban style.
Arthur Edward Pretty designed the building for the owner Stephen William Gwillam, master builder. An unusual case of the builder choosing the architect rather than the other way around.
A single storey red brick dwelling with tile roof projecting over the timber verandah. There are paired columns on brick plinths with fretwork timber brackets. A bay window projects on the east end. [City of Melbourne i-Heritage database]
Built on part of land previously the site of the Methodist New Connexion Church which was designed by Crouch and Wilson in 1868 and completed in 1869. It was apparently demolished in 1877. The land was dubdivided into six building blocks and auctioned in March 1877 and again in September 1878.
A simple two storey tuckpointed brick dwelling with two storey cast iron verandah and render dressings. The parapet has a central cartouche and bracketed cornice. Whilst the entry door has a vermiculated arch over. [City of Melbourne i-Heritage Database]
This house was built in 1884 for Louis Perel by M Gooding & Son of Buckingham Street, Richmond. The earliest rate book entries for it describe it as having six rooms on land 22 by 100 feet. It was built on part of the land on which had once stood the Methodist New Connexion Church, built in 1868. In 1877 the New Connexion Church united with the Weslyans and the church beca
Stories of East Melbourne.
An address to the Historical Society by Marga Macdonald, long time resident of East Melbourne and a founding member of the advisory committee for the new East Melbourne Library and Community Centre.
December 2006
I am really pleased to be here tonight in our beautiful new Community Centre celebrating Xmas with you.
I don't think any of us 6 or so years ago when we started planning for this, thought that we would end up with something quite so large, amazing and so full of character. Since its opening in August you, the historical society and the others, bridge, book group, children corner, garde, etc., have really shown how much East Melbourne needed a focus point, a centre that was our own.
At this point I am going to put in a plug for Elizabeth Cam and her monthly "Friends of the Library" morning tea.
Jill asked me to talk about the library and the site on which we stand. Like most of East Melbourne it has a lot of ghosts attached to it. However, this proved easier said than done and made me realise what an awful lot of history of our area has been lost for evermore and how important you, as a group are to make sure no more gets lost.
However, thank heavens for Winston Burchett who did record quite a lot in the 70's. He has only a snippet about this site and as I tried to find out more I realised why it was so patchy and hard to get - because it aint there!!!
The original house on this site of ours was called East Court and was built about 1857 for Alexander Beatson Balcombe, grandfather of Dame Mabel Brookes. It was a large site going right to Powlett Street. The Balcombes had estates on St. Helena called "The Briars" and Napoleon lived in a pavilion on the estate and became a friend of the family. Alexander Balcombe's father had to leave St Helena as he was suspected of being an intermediary in clandestine correspondence with Paris and after a stint in England he came to Australia. Alexander Balcombe took up land at Mt Martha on the Mornington Peninsula in 1840, built a rough-hewn slab house, the forerunner of what is still there today and open to the public, The Briars is well worth a visit and you could take in Beleura at the same time. The family prospered and Mrs Balcombe moved to East Melbourne sometime in the 1850s, first into a prefabricated house which supposedly originated in India. I suspect she was somewhat more comfortable here than at the Briars. The Balcombes had 2 sons and 5 daughters so a fairly large house was needed and the new house at East Court was built about 1857. Dame Mabel Brookes describes East Court as a hospitable place, where the front door was never closed. The main house stood immediately in front of the prefabricated house, and served as kitchen quarters, and food was transported on trays to the dining room in the main house by a myriad of domestics. It was not uncommon in those days to have the kitchen separate due to the risk of fires in the kitchens. The main house was typically Victorian, huge and stuffy. Lots of silver, antimacassars, carved emus eggs etc. But it did have some of the furniture used by Napoleon on St. Helena, a teak table used by both Wellington and Napoleon, and a writing desk bearing Napoleon's kick marks on the lower panels. I remember once hearing that Dame Mabel was once asked what three things she would take if her house went up in smoke, and she said "jewels, photographs and the death mask of Napoleon. The Briars has some of these relics on display.
Mrs Balcombe was a very outgoing woman, she spent lavishly on charities and, according to her granddaughter had a perennially over drawn account at the bank. She had many friends including a Miss Gibbs, who lived in the house as a companion and Mrs Perry, the Bishop's wife, of Francis Perry House fame amongst other philanthropic works. She was also a friend of Mrs Latrobe, though this must have been before the main house was built in 1857 as Mrs Latrobe went back to Europe in 1854 but the two are supposed to have swapped plants and seeds and the Balcombe and Latrobe children played together. After all it was only a short walk across fields and scrub to the two houses.
In 1839 Superintendent Latrobe, as he then was, later to become Lieutenant Governor, had decided that the conditions in town were unsavoury and selected land in what is now Jolimont, amongst the gum trees. Mrs Latrobe on seeing the area supposedly said "Au Jolie Mont", and so it remains. The Latrobe house was also a prefab, imported from England in two parts. Mrs Latrobe was a keen gardener and it must have looked lovely with its flower gardens and overlooking where the Botanical gardens now are. There is a wonderful picture of the house and garden in the State Library with two ladies conversing under an arbour. I'm sure you all know the sad history of the Latrobe house, how it fell into disrepair, was in the Bedggood Shoe factory grounds and was removed in 1960 to its current position in the Domain. Not visited very often but well worth a visit. I'm told that the Latrobe's had a holiday house at Queenscliff. I haven't been able to find out where but somewhere on the cliff, which must be where the fort is now. Prime real estate. Mrs Latrobe, who9 was Swiss herself, encouraged and organised Swiss vignerons to plant the first vineyards in the Barrabool hills. They were unfortunately wiped out by the Phylloxera scourge of the 1870's. Mrs Latrobe, not in good health, went back to Switzerland, her home of birth, and died there in 1854.
A monument to Mrs Latrobe was on the wall in the Cairns Memorial Church, now the Cairns apartments, and told the story of "Oh Jolie Mont!" The Cairns Church was another interesting place, which went up in great sheets of flame in 1988. The church was built in 1883 by Twentyman and Askew and was a centre of Presbyterianism. My sister-in-law, who was a boarder at P.L.C. when it was in E. Melbourne, remembers walking in a crocodile to church, hats and gloves at the ready. There were wonderful memorials on the wall to sea-farers and other old timers, it had a very small congregation in the 70's 80's but it had a wonderful basement. It was where we went to vote, all sorts of groups had meetings there, the Highland dancers, the stamp and coin collectors the train society, and, I remember, the Love Bird Society! We took our children and a couple of cousins who were staying with us there one Sunday when we first arrived in East Melbourne And the verger rubbed his hands with glee and announced, "Now we can start the Sunday School again!" The children refused to go back! The inferno was so great when it went up in flames and not one record was saved.
But back to this site. Mrs Balcombe died in 1907 and East court had two owners in fairly quick succession. It had a series of owners over the next 60 years, and its fortune waxed and waned as did East Melbourne. It's name was changed at some stage to Lanivet and its last private owner appears to have been a Miss White who was there for about 15 years . Cido, our librarian, told me that a lady he spoke to one day told him that she remembers as a child "The Ghost House" which had an overgrown garden and had an old lady living there. The only thing I can find out about Lanivet is of a small town in Cornwall of that name so can only assume that one of the owners had some connection there. The East Melbourne Library was then opened there on 29th May 1964.
The little old cream brick library served us well for many years but as East Melbourne changed so did the needs of the people and time and technology caught up with it. We moved into East Melbourne in 1971 and lived directly behind the library, and the children used to climb over the back fence to get there. One time my young daughter nearly spent the night there as the Library shut and she was left unnoticed reading in a beanbag, fortunately seen by the Librarian banging on the window as she was driving out!! It was a friendly little place but we outgrew it and we still didn't have a centre for community activities.
In the 1990 there was talk of the Melbourne City Council getting rid of our library, amalgamating us with Richmond or Fitzroy, and selling off the land. We think a developer must have been in the wings!!! There was also talk of a central city library and we could use that. There were library meetings of local residents to campaign not to close but then the Council changed tactics and asked the East Melbourne Group to get involved. I was a member of the East Melbourne Group Committee at that time and Nerida Samson, our worthy president, asked me to take on the Library Advisory Group, as it was then called. We organised a public meeting, to which about 20 people came, formed a committee of locals Irene de Lautour, Frank and Penny Lewis, Fiona Wood, Peter Moon and myself. We had one particularly helpful member of the Council, Maurice Bellamy, who was our liaison with the rest of Council, They provided the money for a professional postal survey, which some of you may remember, so that we could find out what it was that the suburb really wanted. It came out overwhelmingly that an enlarged library was wanted and an area where people could meet socially and for group activities. The Council then totally came out supporting us and money was set aside in the budget for a new building. We had many, many meetings with all the players, the Yarra Melbourne library bosses and our own library staff who were always most helpful, the various local groups, yourselves included, the Council who allocated the money in their budget, town planners, architects etc., and it finally all happened. There were several changes of plans. I remember at one stage there was a rather strange conveyor belt to the children's area, which had to go. We had to deal with complaints, of which there were not many actually. The proposed café was a source of contention and had to go which was a pity but in the end we got there.
The East Melbourne Group with first of all Nerida, and later, Margaret Wood as President, supported us in all our efforts. Irene de Lautour and myself left the Committee after about 15 months and left the others to do the rest of it, with Peter, and later Frank, as their Captain. And the result - what we have today!
I know there are problems, things that niggle and aren't quite right; the air-conditioning, the catering facilities to name but two. Rob Adams, the principal Architect is away overseas till January and has promised to look into it all on his return. I built a house at Queenscliff which was finished last February and the builder and I are still working on bits so it takes time. In the meantime we, East Melbourne, have a wonderful facility of which we can be justly proud.
Enjoy it!
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!
When Charles Joseph La Trobe arrived in Melbourne in 1839 as the newly appointed superintendent of the colony of Port Phillip he would have found the north bank of the Yarra, just east of the city, to be bordered by swamps and lagoons rising gently to open scrubland dominated by large river red gums. He would have seen aborigines from the local Wurundjeri clan hunting and fishing in the lagoons; and occasionally he might have seen a corroborree as neighbouring clans joined them in celebration.
He immediately recognised the potential of the area for recreational use and proposed that approximately 240 acres stretching, in modern terms, from Punt Road to Princes Bridge, and northwards to Wellington Parade and Flinders Street, be reserved for that purpose. However it was not until 1873 that this visionary proposal was ratified by an Act of Parliament. By then the original 240 acres had suffered several excisions.
La Trobe, himself, made the first cut when he bought his Jolimont land in 1840. Next, in 1853, the Melbourne Cricket Ground was given permissive occupancy of nine acres which was formally recognised as a Crown Grant in 1867.
1866 Richmond Paddock
Australian football matchIn 1858 the first game of Australian Rules Football was played in Richmond Paddock, or Yarra Park, between Scotch College and Melbourne Gammar. However it was many years before the game was allowed to be played at the MCG as its turf was considered too delicate for the rough and tumble of the new game.
A stand built at the MCG in 1876 was reversible which could be made to face the MCG in summer for cricket, or the Richmond Paddock in winter for football. It burnt down in 1884.
In 1859 the railway line to Richmond effectively cut the park in half lengthways. In the same year land was reserved for the Swan Street extension, although it was not built until 1875. Thirty three acres to the south of this was given to the Acclimatisation Society which gave way to the Friendly Society Gardens when the animals were moved to Royal Park two years later as the start of the Zoo. Now that area is Olympic Park.
The Acclimatisation Society was linked to the Botanical Gardens by a foot bridge over the Yarra, and passengers on the Richmond line were once able to alight at the Botanical Gardens Railway Station, and from there it was just a short walk to either destination. The old railway bridge in Yarra Park, although much lengthened now, is a relic of those days. The land on the corner of Punt Road and Wellington Parade, which had once been the police barracks and gaol, was also excluded from the grant. A section of it was granted separately for a state school. The remainder was subdivided into 83 residential allotments and sold in 1881.
The remaining land when it was finally reserved in 1873 was gazetted as two parks, one each side of Jolimont Road, which then ran to the river and Branders’ ferry. Flinders Park was to the west, replacing the Police Magistrate’s Paddock where Captain Lonsdale had built his cottage; and Yarra Park to the east, replacing the old Police, or Government, Paddock, also known as the Richmond Paddock, where the police horses had once grazed. Yarra Park also included the parcel of land to the south of Swan Street known as Gosch’s Paddock.
Modern encroachments have reduced the size of the park even further. The MCG’s girth has expanded considerably. And the tennis centre, or Melbourne Park, once called Flinders Park because that is where it was, has slipped into Yarra Park with the building of the Vodaphone Arena in 2000.
The 1956 Olympic Games marked the beginning of Yarra Park’s degradation. This was the first time visitors to the MCG had been allowed to park their cars in the park proper. Previously parking had been limited to the corner formed by Brunton Avenue and Jolimont Street. The Council was very pleased with this clever solution and has never looked back, and except, ironically, for the hugely successful banning of car parking during the 2006 Commonwealth Games, cars now fill Yarra Park every time the MCG is used. The result is bare, compacted earth and suffering trees; a far cry from the thriving natural environment La Trobe hoped to bequeath to the citizens of Melbourne for their recreation and pleasure.
We would love to publish more stories about the residents of East Melbourne. If you have a historical record, an obituary, a memoir, an oral history, letters or a personal glimpse and would like to share it please make contact.
Bitter Honeymoon front coverMelbourne author Jean Campbell (1901-1984) was the writer of five novels for William Hutchinson, publishers, in London, and also produced magazine style romance novels for New Century Press, 3 North York St., Sydney. These booklets, sold for 4d, were distributed through newsagents and booksellers and boasted "A new title every month." So, while the novels were serious writing, Bitter Honeymoon, Passion from Peking and Her Fate in the Stars were clearly produced for light reading, though given the continuing popularity of Mills and Boon even today, may well have made their author a good deal of money. Many were published during World War 2. On the back page of Passion from Peking is an inscription: "This book has been reduced in pages to reflect the War Time Economy".
Jean Campbell lived in East Melbourne and was clearly a member of a literary/artistic set. Her portrait, by Lina Bryans, hangs in the National Gallery at Federation Square. Titled "The Babe is Wise", from the title of one of her most popular books. It shows a young, fashionably dressed woman who exudes independence and self assurance. The State Library has a photographic portrait of her by Wolfgang Sievers, better known for his architectural photos, especially of the ICI building. There is a third, autographed photograph held in the National Gallery of Canberra, described as "prepared for a luncheon given by Hutchinson representative George Sutton when Brass and Cymbals was published". Hutchinsons obviously saw her as a promising author and were prepared to spend to promote her image.
But where did she live in East Melbourne? The Sievers photograph, dated 1950, catches her in her East Melbourne flat, and the electoral roll has her living at 17 Powlett Street at that time. However this flat, tucked behind the house at that address, was quite small – a single bedroom, with bathroom attached, a small kitchen and sitting room – somewhere perhaps she moved to in her later years.
Clues may, perhaps, be found in her work. One of her greatest strengths as a writer was in the detail of landscapes and buildings that she described. She loved Melbourne, it is clear, and at least two of her novels are set there. East Melbourne, with its "curiously mixed charm" features strongly in The Babe is Wise and she writes that from the house "you could look across to the city, and in the evenings, when the electric signs sprang into life, it was rich, not gaudy with colour." This could be either Jolimont or East Melbourne proper, but another passage fixes her location clearly in Jolimont:
Then there was the other entrancing aspect of the locality. If it hadn't been for the electric trains and trams thundering by at intervals … you might have thought you were living in a sylvan retreat … there were the gardens over the way and the park at the back … and a bridge over the Yarra that brought you to some more gardens, the Botanical.
So where did she live? The description of the cottage in the novel is quite specific:
She saw it for the first time cuddling in between two tall old brick houses for all the world like a small fat child toddling out between a couple of maiden aunts. She was certain that it must have been the identical cottage made by the witch to lure Hansel and Gretel.
157 Wellington Parade South, Jolimont: Could this be Jean Campbell's house?Perhaps it wasn't her house at all, but that of a friend whom she visited often, because she describes the inside of the cottage and the layout of the rooms quite specifically. But there is something so personal about her knowledge, so loving, that she seems to be describing a house in which she lived.
Can any of our readers help us with information about Jean Campbell or about the house in which she lived? And if any of our members is visiting Canberra and has some free time, perhaps he or she could look through the collection of Jean Campbell"s papers held there and help us in our quest.
James McArdle has contacted us to tell us that in 1975 Paul Cox and Prahran College students, including himself, made a film about Jean Campbell and her day-to-day life in her retirement home in Windsor. It was called 'We're All Alone My Dear'. James adds that she was, 'still feisty and reasonably fit. My input was to film her through the front door of the home and then walking in the nearby Victoria Gardens. It was clear she was frustrated with the other inhabitants as a poor match for her intellect.' There is a copy of the film at ACMI.
See also, Victorian's Book Accepted: https://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article203812827
James McArdle, email 7 May 2025
Cooke, HenryHenry Cooke was born on 10 March 1818 at Egglestone Abbey Paper Mill in Durham, England, fourth child of Henry and Hannah (nee Wilkinson). He was baptised two weeks later in Startforth Church, the day after his mother died. His father remarried in 1819 and fathered fifteen children, four with his first and eleven with his second wife. Henry and his siblings are descended from a long line of Papermakers in Durham and Yorkshire.
The family moved to “Howe Villa” Richmond, Yorkshire, eighteen miles away when Henry was twelve years old. While there, Henry worked as a Papermaker at the Whitcliffe Mill run by the family, until leaving England with his brother John in 1842, for Nelson, New Zealand. Henry and John spent about three years there, as landowners and early settlers before moving across to Victoria, Australia and continuing with landholdings north west of Melbourne, running cattle and sheep. Over the years they bought and sold land together in East Melbourne, Yan Yean and Mulgrave.
Henry and John were some of the first landowners in East Melbourne, importing timber from New Zealand to build residences in 1852. Henry lived in East Melbourne for many years with his wife Amelia and their young family. His home named “Egglestone Villa” at 180 Clarendon St was the first private residence in East Melbourne, and he lived there for about three years. This is now the site of the Freemasons Hospital. From 1856 to 1859 Henry was farming near Geelong, but he returned to East Melbourne and lived there for at least two years in Grey St and at 197 Albert St, before moving to “Howe Villa” at Yarra Falls from 1863 to1866. The family returned to live in East Melbourne in the1870’s, and lived in Jolimont Square and then at 102 Hotham St, for over fifteen years.
Henry and his brother John set up a general merchant business in 1851, initially operating in Sydney, Ballarat and Melbourne. During the Victorian Gold Rush they received gold on consignment for safekeeping. The merchant business continued in Melbourne on the corner of Bond and Flinders St until the late 1870’s, when it was moved to Swanston St. The focus of the business in these later years seems to have been on the importing and sale of paper products, including books, religious tracts and paperhangings.
In 1854 Henry and John founded “The Age” newspaper in Melbourne, partly because they disagreed with the way the existing papers were dealing with issues of the times. The Cooke brothers had been brought up in the paper mill industry, which possibly explains why they undertook this venture. Within three months they were struggling for finance and relinquished ownership, but the paper went on to celebrate over one hundred and fifty years in operation. John returned to the family paper mill in Yorkshire at about the time another brother, Francis arrived in Melbourne, and Francis then worked with Henry in the merchant business before he migrated to New Zealand in 1859. It appears that the brothers stayed in business together, as importers and merchants.
During the 1850’s Henry was elected as a Melbourne City councillor and was also a Director of the Hobsons Bay Railway Company. He resigned from the company when they wanted to run trains on Sundays, which as a fervent Methodist he strongly objected to. 
Ham, Amelia Annie JobSimilarly, during his time as owner of “The Age”, he would not allow any work to be done on the paper on Sundays. Henry was a church trustee, class leader and superintendent of the Sunday school of the Methodist Church in Lonsdale St. In his later years he also spent his Sundays as a lay preacher and distributed religious tracts to the needy and those in prison watch houses. He was also clearly a family man with strong links to his extended family in England. Several of his properties in Victoria were named after his childhood homes.
On 5 Aug 1851 in Sydney, Henry married Amelia Annie Job Ham, daughter of Rev John Ham, the first Baptist Minister in Melbourne, and they had twelve children. Henry died on 18 Mar 1889 at his home “Egglestone” Dandenong Rd, in Oakleigh and is buried in the Cooke family grave in Melbourne General Cemetery.
By Jane Morey (great great grand-daughter), 25 June 2008
Thomas Joshua Jackson was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1834, and emigrated to Victoria around 1852, but little is known of these early years of his life. Research in Ireland has revealed little, other than he was probably an only son. His life from 1852 was inextricably mixed together with those of his aunt's families. Jackson's aunt Sarah Heaton married in Ireland for the second time at the age of 40, to Henry Young, a law clerk. The Youngs had one child, H. F. Young, in 1845, and emigrated to Victoria in 1849, with three children. These were five year old H. F. Young and the two youngest children from Sarah Young's first marriage - 13 year old John Connell and nine year old and only daughter Sarah Isabella Connell. Cooper, J.B., The History of St Kilda: From Its First Settlement to a City and After, 1840, 1930, v.1., Printers Proprietary Limited, Melbourne, 1931, p.162. Sarah Young's eldest son also appears to have arrived separately in Victoria about 1851. By 1859, Henry Young senior had become the landlord of the Elsternwick Hotel, one of the earliest 'suburban' hotels in Melbourne. The Australian Brewers' Journal, 20 November 1919, p.81.
Between 1852 and 1861 nothing concrete is recorded about Jackson. H. F. Young later said that in 1861 he had 'chummed together' with Jackson, and 'set forth for New Zealand, where for some considerable time they successfully engaged in mining. This might imply that Jackson had some previous experience of mining, perhaps on the Victorian gold fields; it is Thomas Jackson's name which appears as a preferred claim holder at Gabriel's Gully in Otago province in early 1862. Cole, R.K., Harmston, G., and Telow, E. (contributors.), R. K. Cole collection of hotel records/ surname records, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, 2000, vA, p.339. The third Maori War of 1863 and declining gold returns by 1864 probably acted as catalysts for a return to Melbourne. The next clear public reference to Jackson occurs in December 1867, when he appears in a high profile and somewhat amusing court case involving Young senior.
The town clerk of Melbourne, Edmund Gerald FitzGibbon Barrett, B., 'FitzGibbon, Edmund Gerald (1825 - 1905)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, vA, Melbourne University Press, 1972, pp.181-182., had stopped at the Elsternwick Hotel on his way to Melbourne from Mt. Eliza, and remaining on his horse outside, called for a beer. Finding himself ignored, he then rode his horse into the bar to claim a drink first hand. Young senior, the landlord, 'assisted by a man named Thomas Jackson', promptly evicted him from the bar. Cross-summons ensued. Young initially claimed FitzGibbon was drunk, while FitzGibbon claimed the horse, due to a fondness for Colonial ale, rode him into the bar. The judge decided for the horse and Young had to pay £50 and costs. Other charges, including against Jackson, and FitzGibbon by Young, were dismissed. The Argus, 16th January 1867, p.5 and 5th April, 1867, p.5.
Soon after this court case, Jackson entered business together with H.F. Young when they took up a licence for Sparrow's Hotel at St. Kilda junction, first recorded in 1868. Cole, R.K., Harmston, G., and Telow, E. (contributors.), R. K. Cole collection of hotel records/ surname records, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, 2000, vA, p.339. By then Melbourne was on the cusp of a decade long financial, industrial and property boom. Jackson and Young positioned themselves perfectly for it when in 1875 they made their move across the Yarra River to the Prince's Bridge Hotel. The Princes' Bridge Hotel was established there in July 1861. Schumer, L.A., Princes Bridge Hotel Young and Jackson's, East Malvern, 1981, pA. With license and lease in hand, they promptly made their mark with extensive renovations. The Young and Jackson names and management of the hotel became so well known that it began to be referred to as 'Young and Jackson's'. The words 'Young and Jackson' did not appear on the hotel facade until many years after they first won the licence; it would have been more convenient to retain the licence in the old name. The partnership seems to have been based on a 'gentleman's agreement'. Young, who continued to be associated with the hotel until 1914, ensured the fame of the hotel through astute marketing, including with the purchase of the then controversial Chloe painting in 1909.
In August 1878, Jackson finally married, at 44. His bride was a widow, well known to Jackson; in fact she was his first cousin. Sarah Isabella Cavanagh was the only daughter of Sarah Young's first marriage in Ireland. Her late husband, Michael Cavanagh, protege of Henry Young senior and former landlord of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Prahran, had died in 1877. He apparently left no will or property. Sarah Young died in February 1883. Sarah Cavanagh brought into the marriage with Jackson her 16 year old son, James. Until the time of his marriage, Jackson most likely had lived at the Elsternwick, Sparrow's and the Princes Bridge Hotels in turn. Once married, there was an imperative to find a place of his own and by 1879 Jackson had taken up land in Jolimont Road, East Melbourne, 'a most attractive proposition for the investor.' Burchett, W., East Melbourne Walkabout, Cypress Books, Melbourne, 1975, p.9.
In 1880, the year that Irish-Australian bushranger Ned Kelly went to the gallows, the Young and Jackson partnership was extended once again with a renewed lease on the Prince's Bridge Hotel, this time for 14 years at an annual rent of £1,000, which included the adjoining building in Flinders Street. New connections to Flinders Street station in 1879 had quickly boosted confidence in rail travel and the popularity of Flinders Street Station for train riders from country and city alike. The hotel was in the right place at the right time and well positioned for the coming boom. It seemed that the incredible decade of growth in Melbourne from 1880-1890 would never end; the crash and recession which followed was of equally monumental proportions. The crash had its effect even on popular and profitable hotels and may have precipitated the end of the partnership of Young and Jackson. After all, by 1894, Jackson had turned 60, with plenty of business to engage him and property development as well.
Jackson's name first appears in connection with Jolimont Road in the Sands and McDougall Directory and in the Melbourne City Council Rate Books in 1879. Jackson also appears in Albert Ward in the 1878/1879 List of Citizens, a Melbourne City Council record. In August 1879, he applied to bring some vacant land on Jolimont Road under the Transfer of Land Statute, and acquired other property on the street. By 1881, he was living in one of three six bedroom brick houses that he then owned. Over the years to his death in 1900, Jackson appears to have owned between two and five blocks, with a double block making up his eventual home on Jolimont Road, at Number 42. Much of the research on Jackson's land and house interests on Jolimont Road was completed by Peter Fielding 1998-2001. For the List of Citizens, see PROV, VPRS 4029/P3. For the 1879 notice, see The Argus, 26th August 1879, p.8.
Jackson was there in August 1881 when the railway level crossing for the line from Brighton to Flinders Street not far from his home became the scene of one of Melbourne's great rail disasters. Loaded with some of the business elite of Brighton and Elsternwick, as well as ordinary passengers including a coach especially for schoolgirls, the 9 a.m. Brighton Express, three minutes from Flinders Street, went over an embankment and smashed up, killing three passengers outright (a fourth died later) and injuring dozens. The Argus tells the story:
At this stage - it was but a few minutes after the accident - the people around began to realise how matters stood, and the cry was for pickaxes, axes and levers. Speedily the already roused inhabitants of Jolimont were requisitioned for the necessary implements, and a dozen or so of axes appeared upon the scene. They were mostly obtained through the personal exertions of Mr. T.J. Jackson, who also thoughtfully sent a supply of brandy with jugs of water to revive the fainting.' The Argus, 31 st August 1881, pp.5-6.
In December 1882, Jackson's architect, James Gall, placed an advertisement in the newspapers calling for tenders to erect a 'villa residence' for Jackson. A Notice to Build was lodged in January 1883. The Argus, 1st December 1882, p.3 and PROV, VPRS 9463/P3, Notice of Intention to Build, No.134. Jackson called the house' Eblana', the Latin spelling for Dublin his city of birth. It became a comfortable two storey home, complete with tiled balcony and hall, vaulted timber ceilings, lead light windows and horse stables in the rear giving access to Jolimont Lane. Jackson with a year added a single storey extension on the ajoining block in which he installed a billiard table.* Years after, it was described by unknowing but ever optimistic real estate agents as a 'ballroom'. Across the street between Jolimont Road and the City lay the East Melbourne Cricket Ground (later an early home of the Essendon Football Club) which
... saw many famous sporting events including in March 1887, a match between Australia and England when the two elevens were shuffled and divided into teams of smokers and non-smokers. Five years later, Dr. Grace led an English team against the East Melbourne Cricket Club on this ground. Burchett, W., East Melbourne Walkabout, Cypress Books, Melbourne, 1975, p.14.
Jackson's records in 1901 give a fascinating insight into life at Eblana and the labour intensive consumerism at the turn of the 20th century. The list of personal liabilities includes bills from doctor, chemist, bell repairer, pork butcher (the area had a large Jewish community at the time and so pork was sold separately), butcher, baker, butterman, wood, dairy milkman, Chinese greengrocer, servant, gardener, washerwoman, fruiterer, fishmonger, nurse, wine and brandy supplies (from H.F. Young), house repairs, eggs and boot makers. PROV, VPRS 28/P3, Probate Jurisdiction Sarah Isabella Jackson 1924. Most of these services provided personalised service to Jackson's home at Jolimont Street. He also paid separately for street lighting and sewage services, in addition to his rates. Most home owners in Melbourne today would be envious of the fact that in 1900, Jackson only paid £29/3/4 in income tax. That he and Sarah Jackson lived such a comfortable life was evidence of the financial security he had achieved from his hotel businesses and business investments. PROV, VPRS 28/P2, Probate Thomas Joshua Jackson 1901 (Probate Jurisdiction).
Exactly when Jackson began making business investments is not known with certainty. The opening of the Melbourne Stock Exchange in 1884 may have provided an early incentive. Both Jackson and H. F. Young invested in a diverse range of business, banks, a brewery, brickworks, gold mines and government stocks, as well as property and in speculative new technology opportunities. Young was an astute businessman who went on to develop a highly valued business portfolio and art collection which was valued at over £120,000 by the time of his death in 1925. PROV, VPRS28/P3/1604 and VPRS7591/P2/725, Will and Probate Henry Figsby Young 1923.
Jackson, although not as successful as Young in business and died some 25 years before Young, still retired from the hotel with a comfortable income from his portfolio of interests. Most of Jackson's investments did well, even during the major recession of 1891-1895. But in common with today's investors, not all the tips he received worked out for him. In the attendant bank crashes to the recession, Jackson also lost like many others. The Metropolitan Bank failed in 1892; Jackson and two of his wife's relatives were listed as depositors in The Argus in March 1892 when a meeting at the Athenaeum Upper-hall was called 'to arrange for their representation in the liquidation of the bank.' The Argus, 2nd March 1892, p.8. The fact that only a handful of depositors were named in the public notice suggested that they had considerable sums on deposit. The Montgomeries Brewing Company was another investment which turned sour.
Both Jackson and H.F. Young invested their reputations and perhaps capital when Montgomeries Brewing Company was formed in 1888. The Argus, 24th February 1888, p.9. The new limited liability company floated on 1st March 1888 with 240,000 shares at £1/10- each. The directors included Jackson, and H.F. Young at a later date, while stockholders meetings were often held at the Young and Jackson Hotel. By 1897, Montgomeries finally failed, and went under owing the Bank of Australasia £73,302. Disgruntled investors sued the directors including Jackson but not Young who by this time had astutely managed to divest.
The case came to the Victorian Supreme Court in 1899 and began'sitting in late 1900. The judgement of the court was in favour of Montgomeries shareholders. Jackson had to pay £975 for the 1,500 shares at 13s each that he was issued in the initial float but never paid up, the payment was to be paid within one month of 15th February 1901. PROV, VPRS 267/PO/1361, Victorian Supreme Court, Montgomeries Brewery vs. Jackson and others, Case 1040/1898 Montgomeries was Jackson's Waterloo. It didn't destroy him financially, but he must have felt that his reputation at least was damaged, perhaps permanently. The pressure on him may have contributed to his death less than three months later, at Eblana, on 9th May 1901.
At his death Jackson left assets of £17,483. His estate had to pay £3,515 to the shareholders of Montgomeries Brewing Company to settle the Supreme Court case. Due to Jackson being the only director with assets he had to carry the total settlement costs. The probate showed that at the time of his death Jackson held a range of stocks and shares, most notably in government bonds and debentures, in the Port Fairy Corporation (a land developer), in a number of gold mines including one in Queensland and another in Tasmania, with Dan White - the well-known coach building company - the Modern Permanent Building Society, the Herald & Weekly Times newspapers, the Hoffman Patent Steam Brickworks as well as the Buchanan Gordon Diving Dress company. PROV, VPRS 28/PO, Probate Thomas Joshua Jackson (Executors' Acc6unt), and PROV, VPRS 28/P2, Probate Thomas Joshua Jackson 1901 (Probate Jurisdiction),
Somewhat oddly, Jackson had few investments in beer. At the time of his death he only held shares in the leading malting company of Samuel Burston & Company; he had, of course, also invested in Montgomeries. He kept a phaeton and horses at the Hotel & Livery in Collins Street of James Garton, a long established hotelier (Garton was also a Director in Dan White's coach-making company). One of Jackson's last investments was in Buchanan Gordon Diving Dress Limited, floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange in 1899. The product driving the float was an underwater diving suit which allowed the diver to safely reach 30 fathoms (about 50 metres), remain underwater for lengthy periods and even talk by telephone to the surface.
Overall, Jackson's share investments, despite the stressful debacle of Montgomeries Brewery (and even that paid well for many years), must have provided a reasonable income stream. However, by the time of his death many of his shares had little value, bringing in only around £1,500 at probate. Even Jackson's interest in 'new technology' stocks, as they would be called today, did not payoff for him - Montgomeries Brewery, Hoffmans Brickworks, some of the mine technology and even the Buchanan Gordon Diving Dress were highly innovative firms and products for their time. But at his death, Jackson's most valuable shares were the 661 he held in the Herald Standard [newspaper] Company - worth £1,090 at probate, followed by the 1,041 shares he held in the Great Extended Hustler Gold Company, worth £780.23. PRO V, VPRS 28/P2, Probate Thomas Joshua Jackson (Probate Jurisdiction)
Jackson was made secure financially, more than anything else, by his modest investment properties and of course his own home (altogether worth over £9,000), backed up by Government stocks, debentures, holding of two mortgages on Hawthorn properties and cash in the bank (worth over £7,500). It was this 'balanced portfolio' which allowed Jackson to overcome his debts and provide handsomely for his widow. Jackson also held a modest but wholly respectable investment property folio which included seven other houses which he rented out in Fitzroy, Carlton, Collingwood, South Yarra, East Melbourne and South Melbourne, plus some land in Moonee Ponds. PRO V, VPRS 28/P2, Probate Thomas Joshua Jackson (Probate Jurisdiction)
With the death of Thomas Jackson in 1901, Sarah Jackson remained at Eblana. In 1907, Sarah Jackson's son James Cavanagh also died, at the age of 45, leaving a widow, Ellen. James Cavanagh had apparently been a heavy drinker, contributing no doubt to the liver disease which killed him; he was also virtually 'broke'. At his death in 1907 his only assets consisted of 650 shares in the Northcote Brickworks worth £455, a £2 share in the Morwell Tennis Club (from his days in Gippsland), and £78 of assorted jewellery. Listed among his liabilities at probate was £16 advanced to him in 1907 by his mother a bleak testimony to Cavanagh's circumstances at the time. PROV, VPRS 28,106/363, Probate, James Henry Albert Cavanagh. Ellen Cavanagh married John Connell after the death of her first husband and continued to live at Eblana with Sarah Jackson, John Connell is Sarah's brother's son who later became famous as the owner of Connell's hotel in Elizabeth street and left a fourtune to both the Anglican church and the National Gallery on his death. Sarah's died on Christmas Day, 1924, aged 84. Sarah Jackson was buried with Thomas Jackson and her son James in Kew Cemetery.
What of Sarah Jackson's assets, including Eblana? In her Will, assets included an oil painting of Melbourne Cup winner Carbine (very possibly the Frederick Woodhouse Jr. oil on canvas painted in 1889 and now in the State Library of Victoria's collection); several thousand pounds in cash to relatives, friends and house-maid, donations to the Organ Fund of the Vestry of the Holy Trinity Church in Clarendon Street East Melbourne, the Queen Victoria Hospital; and the City Newsboys Society. The balance of her estate was divided into shares to be divided among the wider circle of Young and Connell relatives. PROV, VPRS 7591/P2, Will, Sarah Isabella Jackson 1920.
Altogether, at probate Sarah Jackson's personal assets consisting of personal effects, cash, debentures and shares realized assets of £25,918. Sarah held Commonwealth Government Treasury Bonds, and Debentures of the State Savings Bank, the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, the Metropolitan Gas Company and the Victorian Government. She had shares in the Northcote Brick Company Limited and the Commercial Bank of Australia but the bulk in the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. (these last realised £7,126 alone). In addition she held a similar mix of property to her late husband, which were all sold and brought in £11,000. PROV, VPRS 28/P3, Probate Jurisdiction Sarah Isabella Jackson 1925.
Less than a year later, in October 1925, Eblana was sold (described as a 'magnificent brick residence' in the auctioneer's flyer) to the Commonwealth of Australia, when it was used as the head office of the Post Master General; various owners followed. Cawthorne, Z., 'The House that Beer Built', Herald-Sun Weekend, 24th July 2004, p.11. These included by 1983, a subsidiary of Telecom Australia. Later that year, a National Trust survey described Eblana as a ' ... boom period render Italianate style terrace dwelling with a two storey colonnade and parapet over. The grand entry is approached by a flight of substantial bluestone steps ...' 'National Trust Survey', dated 26th July 1983, in the Fielding Collection.
In 1983, just over 100 years since it had been built and occupied by Thomas Jackson and his family, Eblana came up for auction once again. A real estate reporter wrote: ' ... The agents suggest the building would be ideal for offices or professional use, but also suggest, rather wistfully, that someone might want to live there.' In 1997, the neglected house was bought by entrepreneurs Peter and Nancy Fielding. The couple got to work to extensively restore Jackson's house, inside and out. Eblana today is a 'beautifully restored Victorian gem, in which antiques, reproduction pieces and classic elegance blend effortlessly', thanks to their generous and sensitive restoration.
Jackson lived through one of the most exciting periods of Melbourne's history. When he arrived just 14 years after the Colony was proclaimed, Melbourne was a very raw town. Bushrangers still held up travellers near the house signed as the Elsternwick Hotel after it had been built in 1854. Albert Lake as it is known now was a swamp and in 1856 the future Young and Jackson Hotel was a butcher's shop. From such beginnings, and with luck at the New Zealand gold fields, Jackson and Young slowly but surely built a highly successful hotel business together.
This brought Jackson opportunities to build his wealth, which he was able to do and it brought Jackson to Jolimont, where for 20 years his house reflected both his success and provided him and his family a magnificent home in which to reflect on his journey in life. It was a long way from Jackson's arrival in Victoria in 1852 as a young man with perhaps uncertain prospects. His home Eblana became an expression of his success in 'Marvellous Melbourne' - and a haven during the recession and unhappy failure of Montgomeries. Despite the disinterest and neglect of its many occupants since 1925, it is the story of Eblana which fittingly ends the narrative of Thomas Joshua Jackson, for it stands beautifully restored today. 130 years since it was built, Eblana stands today as Jackson's main legacy.
*It has since been established that the billiard room was built in 1898 for Thomas Jackson by G W (George Wilson) Dodd. In the building register it was described simply as an 'addition' but the 1899 rate books [Albert Ward ref no 804]refer to it as a billiard room.
[PROV. Building Register VPRS 9289/P0001/000006/[type] VH1. Mar 27 1898/Reg. No. 7204]
Louise and Robert Johnston 1909Mary Louise Friedrichs, known as Louise, was born in 1880. Her father had migrated to Victoria from Hanover, Germany, in 1860 hoping to teach the violin. Alas, such opportunities were in short supply and he became a wood carter, labourer and miner.
Louise and her three siblings grew up in a small miner’s cottage in Parker Street, Maldon. The family lived simply. Her mother, Mary Therese, born in Galway, may not have been able to read or write, but she could sing and she loved the Irish jig.
When young Louise left the local Catholic school she took a job as a scullery maid for Thomas Welton Stanford of Stanford House, Clarendon Street, East Melbourne (now the site of the Freemasons Hospital).
Louise’s grandmother, Maria Stanford, a hotel keeper, was born and married in Athlone, Roscommon, Ireland. She died in Ballarat three years before Louise was born. Two relatives of Louise, still living in Maldon, said their grandmother always said they were related to the same Thomas Welton Stanford for whom the young Louise worked, and indeed they thought that was how she got the job.
Thomas Welton Stanford, the brother of Leland, founder of Stanford University, arrived in Melbourne in the 1860’s with a shipment of kerosene lamps. So successful was this new light that on the first night of its demonstration in a shop window, the sidewalk was so blocked with spectators that a policeman had to be stationed in front to clear the way.
Stanford married his Canadian born wife, Minnie, in 1869. She died the following year. Stanford was distraught and his interest in Spiritualism was heightened with his home regularly playing host to meetings.
We are not sure when Louise commenced working as a scullery maid in East Melbourne, but in 1900 she sent a postcard to her brother from Stanford House wishing him a happy birthday. Miss Annie Cupit was Mr Stanford’s housekeeper and one day her friend Miss Johnston paid her a visit accompanied by her brother, Robert Alexander Johnston, a boot maker. This was the man Louise was to marry in 1909. Their one and only child, William Robert, was born in Lilydale in 1911.
Thomas Welton Stanford made a new will in the same year, and died in East Melbourne in 1918. Whilst Stanford did not leave William anything, when one reflects on their lives they had a lot in common. Both were collectors – Stanford collected paintings, and Johnston collected furniture and porcelain. Both started collecting as young boys. Throughout their lives they both owned substantial property and both loved gardening. In later life William Johnston went to work at Ackman’s Home Furnishers in Smith Street, Fitzroy (now Safeway’s), a property Henry Ackman had bought off Stanford during the 1880’s.
One has to wonder whether Louise Johnston (née Friedrichs) ever took her young son back to Stanford House to visit Miss Cupit, or perhaps even Thomas Welton Stanford himself. If so, how much did these visits, or his mother’s talk of this fine mansion, influence and shape William Johnston’s life?
The Johnston Collection, East Melbourne, the legacy of William Robert Johnston, houses a collection of 18th and early 19th century antiques. For further information visit http://www.johnstoncollection.org
Henry McGuiganIn the years from 1845 to 1852 against a backdrop of an Ireland devastated with famine, through the potato blight – the people’s staple diet – and an insidious mixture of politics– one million Irish people emigrated to the New World and one million had already died through starvation.
This semi-exodus resulted in a huge demographic change which affected, not only Ireland, but with these scatterlings, the whole New World.
The Irish contribution to their new found homes in Australia greatly enhanced the population and creativity of the early colony.
Their tremendous and enthusiastic willingness to embrace, integrate, and contribute, to their new life, brought warmth, hospitality and general vivacity, to those who embraced them.
Henry McGuigan was born in Maghera, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland in July 1823, the first of four sons of Roman Catholic parents, Michael and Mary (nee Hagan) McGuigan. Maghera is a farming community situated approximately one hour’s drive east of Belfast. Not much is known about his childhood or adolescence other than that he was educated at private schools in Londonderry. Henry acquired some knowledge of farming with his father and was afterwards apprenticed to a grocer in Maghera. After serving part of his time he left Ireland for Victoria in 1852, aged 29 years, attracted by the news of the gold discoveries. On arriving in Victoria he went into business at Port Fairy and from there took charge of a store at Creswick, near Ballarat in country Victoria
James McGuigan was born in May 1835 and was the youngest son of Michael and Mary McGuigan. In 1852 at sixteen years of age, the same year his brother Henry left Ireland, James went to live in Sunderland, England, where, under the charge of another older brother John, who was a successful road contractor, he took his first lessons in the business of a contractor for public works.
Because of the great opportunities existing in the fledgling colony for public works contractors, Henry sent for his youngest brother, James to join him.
Aged 18 years, James boarded “The Queen of the East” sailing ship in Liverpool, England on the18th June 1854, and set sail for the new colony of Victoria. With three hundred and eighty-five passengers, the journey took 101 days, finally reaching Melbourne on September 17, 1854.
At that time the rich gold discoveries distracted the population from legitimate enterprise and like a good many other hard-headed men who subsequently proved themselves the backbone of the colony, James tried his hand at mining, prospecting around the Ballarat area.
In 1856 Henry was eligible to vote in the very first election held in the colony and was listed as being employed by William Pole of Albert Street, Creswick as a salesman and was earning over £100 per year. After several years of steady application Henry went to nearby Clunes and started a business in partnership with Samuel Connell trading as Connell and Company. This partnership with Samuel Connell, as storekeepers and wine and spirits merchants, lasted 3 years and ended in September 1859. Henry left Clunes in 1860 and came to Melbourne, establishing his wine and spirits business at the corner of Lonsdale and Elizabeth Streets, Melbourne.
James also returned to Melbourne in 1860 and embarked on his career of contracting for public works starting with road making.
Eliza McGuiganOn May 25th 1861, age 38 years, Henry married widow, Elizabeth (Eliza) Condron Dick, a Protestant, at St. Patrick’s Catholic Cathedral, Melbourne and James was his Best Man. Eliza’s late first husband, John Dick owned the Builders Arms Hotel in Fitzroy and it is probably how Henry and Eliza met through Henry’s business dealings with the hotel. Coincidently 4 months later James also married. His wife was Miss Susan Harte, a Protestant from Dublin and the wedding was held at Christ Church, Hawthorn on the 26th of September. James was 26 years of age when he married.
By Brenda Croft (great great grand-daughter) Dec 2009
Margaret McLean was a resident of East Melbourne and a towering figure in liberating women through education, health, prison reform, temperance and democratic participation. The material here was researched and presented to the Society by Dr Liz Rushen on 18 June 2008.
Margaret McLean 1902
By Jill Fenwick, President, East Melbourne Historical Society
Dr. Liz Rushen is known to many of our members tonight as a friend, neighbour and an active member of the East Melbourne community. She is a co-founder, with Dr. Anne Colman, of the East Melbourne Historical Society, which they began discussing in 1998 and brought into existence in 1999. Liz is the author of fourteen books, the last three on the immigration of free females to Australia. Her text, Single and Free: female immigration to Australia 1833-1837 was drawn from her PhD thesis and was followed by two further books, Quarantined and The Merchant's Women.
Tonight, however, she will talk to us about Margaret McLean, also an East Melbourne resident, who lived for many years at Torloisk, later known as St. Ives, on the corner of Wellington Parade and Vale St., East Melbourne. McLean was active in the temperance movement, in prison reform, particularly for adolescents and in the movement to gain the vote for women. It is difficult now to understand the resistance to the female franchise and why it took so long to achieve, but perhaps we may look to general attitudes among males in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Lord Curzon, speaking to the House of Lords in 1910 was adamant that
No precedent exists for giving women, as a class, an active share in the government of this great country or Empire, and it is not for Great Britain, whose stake is at the greatest, and in whose case the result of failure would be most tremendous, to make the experiment ... the presence of a large female factor in the constituencies returning a British government to power, would tend to weaken the estimation of Great Britain in the estimation of foreign powers.
Universal female suffrage was not achieved in Britain until 1928. In Australia, men's fears seem related to more mundane matters. In the Victorian Parliamentary debates of 11 December, 1906, a Mr. Staughton declared that.
There are some women, I admit, who always fancy they have a grievance. There are some women who, in their houses, are always complaining and I have no doubt that the houses of these women, who are the advocates of women's suffrage, are in a very miserable state. There are women who are agitating for the franchise who, if they attended more to their domestic duties and to their houses, would help to make the world more happy than it is at the present time. The result is not going to tend to make homes happier ... some of the women who are great shining lights in the suffrage movement have made their homes perfectly miserable.
I'm not sure whether the female franchise helped bring down the British Empire, nor whether granting the franchise to Victorian women led to more misery in the home, but I welcome Liz here tonight to honour one of those women with a grievance, Margaret McLean.
1870 Margaret McLeanMargaret holds a special place in Australian female suffrage and women's rights, yet her name is little known. She was one of the founders of the Victorian branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and was instrumental in many other women’s organizations.
Margaret was born at Irvine, in Ayreshire, Scotland on 7 April 1845, the eldest child of Andrew Arnot, a carpenter and builder, and his wife Agnes. In 1849 the family migrated to the Port Phillip District embarking at Glasgow on the ship Quentin Leach. They first lived in Lonsdale Street, where Margaret's sister Agnes was born in 1853, and with whom she shared a life-long involvement in the WCTU.
In 1862-64, she undertook teacher training at the newly formed Melbourne Training Institution for teachers. This training as a teacher was important because it formed the basis for Margaret's later focus on education for women as a key to social reform. She was employed at St James Cathedral School until 1869 when she married William McLean, a fellow Scot and Baptist. Born in Dumfries, Scotland, the son of Peter McLean, cabinet maker, and his wife Jane, née Strong, William had arrived in Victoria in 1853, when eight years old.
He started a hardware business in 1870 and two years later his brother, Joseph, and William Rigg joined him. McLean Bros. & Rigg became a large and prosperous firm of ironmongers and general merchants. The new company grew quickly into one of the successes, and casualities, of 'Marvellous Melbourne'.
When they were first married, William and Margaret lived at 115 Leopold St, South Yarra and then spent two years in London, departing in January 1876. On their return, they moved to Overton House, Pakington Street, Kew however, due to the ill-health of their son Norman, Margaret wished to be close to the medical facilities of East Melbourne. They re-located to Varzin in George Street, where their daughter, Eva, was born in 1886 and where 11 year old Norman died that October.
In March that same year, William commissioned the architects Twentyman & Askew to design 'a large three story residence with stabling' and engaged the builders W. W. Saddington for their landmark property Torloisk, on the corner of Wellington Parade and Vale Street.
They named the property Torloisk due to its association with the Clan McLean in Scotland. Their daughter Jessie was born at Torloisk 1888 and it was there in October 1888, that Margaret’s sister, Agnes, married William Lucas, an architect with strong South African connections.
William and Agnes Lucas lived for a time in Hotham House at 175 Hotham Street and various other houses in East Melbourne, including Burlington Terrace, 19 Lansdown Street, in 1923.
1887 TorloiskWilliam McLean built two other houses in East Melbourne – at numbers 40 and 42 George Street: #40 was built to accommodate his father Peter; #42 was built for Margaret’s father, Andrew Arnot. The houses were built on low-lying floodway land. When the Collingwood railway cutting was excavated under Hoddle Street, this low-lying section of George Street was built up with the excavation material to the height of approximately one building storey, which accounts for today’s siting of the houses in relation to the street level.
The family had one final connection with East Melbourne - due to William’s business reverses, the family left Torloisk around 1893, moving to 342 Albert Street. Torloisk transferred to the Church of England and it became well-known as St Ives Private Hospital. The front turret was removed at this time. It is now back in private hands.
Margaret managed to combine her public duties with raising a large family of 11 children: she had six daughters and five sons. Margaret’s daughter’s careers reflect her wide-ranging interests.
1900 Ethel McLeanThe eldest daughter, Ethel, distinguished herself at the University of Melbourne where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1900. She was for many years head of staff at Lauriston Girls' School and was a member of the first elected council of the Assistant Mistresses’ Association of Victoria. She retired in 1936.
The next daughter, Winnie, who was a twin, became a nurse, while Hilda was a Baptist missionary for many years in East Bengal, a distinguished student of classical Hindu texts and Islam, and author of two books. She died of pernicious malaria on board ship in September 1938 on her way home to live in retirement in Australia.
Alice was one of the first women in Victoria to hold a medical degree from the University of Melbourne. She matriculated from PLC in East Melbourne when she was aged 16, too young to be admitted to the University, so she undertook horticultural studies. She was finally able to be admitted to the University, and graduated in 1906 with two degrees: medicine and a Bachelor of Science. She was one of three women to graduate that year and a scholarship at the University is named after her. She was for many years a Baptist missionary in India with her husband, Rev Lorraine Barber. During the First World War, Alice worked at the Women's Hospital, Melbourne. She later studied psychiatry in England before returning to Melbourne to practice psychotherapy, making an influential contribution to its establishment in Melbourne.
Eva led a domestic life and looked after Margaret, while Jessie, the youngest daughter, became a graphic designer.
It was Margaret’s concern for the well-being of women and children which led to her involvement in the formation of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in Victoria. Elected President of the Melbourne branch of the WCTU at its formation in November 1887, in 1891 she became Colonial President. She served two terms as State president: in 1892-93 and from 1899 until 1907 when she retired with failing health and was elected Honorary Life President of the WCTU of Victoria, due to her long and distinguished service.
In 1902, at a meeting of representatives of 35 voluntary societies, held at the Austral Salon and chaired by Janet Lady Clarke, Margaret moved the motion for the formation of the National Council of Women. Margaret was nominated as President, but declined, due to conflicting responsibilities with her WCTU work.
Margaret became one of the WCTU's foremost advocates of votes for women. Her pamphlets Womanhood suffrage (1890) and More about womanhood suffrage were circulated throughout Victoria via the WCTU's branch network.
In 1891 the WCTU combined with other women's and suffrage organisations to present to Parliament a petition containing over 30,000 women's signatures, calling for female franchise. The petition has been called the 'Monster Petition' due to its size. Margaret’s was the first signature on the petition; No 2 was Mrs Monroe, wife of the then Premier of Victoria. However, Victorian women were denied the right to vote until 1908 – a centenary we are celebrating this year.
After retiring from the WCTU in 1907, Margaret continued working for temperance, social reform, free kindergartens and the Baptist Church. She died at Malvern on 14 February 1923 survived by eight of her children and was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.
On 15 February 2008, local resident, Nora Riches turned 100. Her son, Graham, and his wife, Viv, invited family and friends to celebrate the occasion with her.
Riches, Nora
Nora was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England. As a young child she was an avid reader, particularly of poetry and plays. This, combined with an infallible memory, led her inevitably to a career in the theatre, acting under her maiden name, Nora Peachey. Among her many performances her favourite remains The Cradle Song, which she played twice.
At the age of twenty she married her actor husband, Arnold Riches. She tells the story of spending their honeymoon in Montreux at the same hotel as Stravinsky and his wife. Stravinsky was busy composing and his much younger wife was bored and spent all her time with the newly married Riches, much to their dismay.
The birth of her first child put her life on the stage on hold, but she was still in the thick of the theatrical world through her husband who continued a successful career. Rex Harrison was a close friend and, according to Nora, had exceptionally long arms. She used to take the arms out of his shirts and add extra material before re-attaching them. Under a jacket they looked fine.
In the lead up to World War II the Riches fell under the influence of the Mosleys, and became friends. Arnold stood for Parliament and Nora campaigned wearing a sandwich board and handing out pamphlets. Arnold failed to get in but polled better than a labour candidate had ever polled before in their electorate. Nora joined an organization which provided temporary refuge for Jewish families while negotiations took place for their resettlement. She put aside a bed-sitting room in their house for that purpose and during that time fed and looked after seven or eight families.
In 1939, realizing the inevitability of war, the Riches approached J.C. Williamson with the idea of setting up a theatre company in New Zealand. Williamson agreed and gave them a two year contract, but asked that they perform a couple of short plays in Sydney on the way. By the time that the ship reached Colombo war had been declared.
On arrival in Sydney the couple fell in love with it and never made it to New Zealand, or back to England. Looking for work in Sydney they approached E.J. Tait who pointed out the fine print in their contract – null and void in the event of war.
Nora eventually got work with the ABC, in particular the children’s show called The Argonauts. This had a segment called “Fishy Fantasies” starring two characters, Stella the Stealing Starfish and Silas the Sinister Shark. Nora played Stella, and Peter Finch played Silas.
In Melbourne finally, with young children at school and fees to pay, Nora took work with Flair fashion magazine. She brought to it the idea of an eating-out column and each month would try out restaurants and write a short column of her experiences. She was involved in the fashion side too, and her biggest coup was to have Lisa Minelli photographed for the magazine’s cover.
In her retirement Nora continues to star on East Melbourne’s stage with women, young enough to be her grandchildren, citing her as a role model for their senior years – charming, vibrant and positively “cool”.
Archbishop Frank Woods and his wife Jean were residents of East Melbourne from 1957 to 1977 when they lived at Bishopscourt. Their daughter Clemence was six when they arrived in Melbourne from England for her father to take up his appointment. In October 2008 Clemence gave a delightful talk to Historical Society members about growing up at Bishopscourt. Her talk is illustrated in our Bishopscourt Gallery.
As you will see an overwhelming impression from the gallery is that Bishopscourt, house and garden, was full of life. The family was, of course, central: children, games, dogs, study, celebrations, meals and music. But Bishopscourt was also where Frank did much of his pastoral and diocesan work so there were many visitors. Judging from Jean's extensive photo album most of the visitors engaged with the family as well. There were open days for church and community groups. And there were the endless cups of tea. Finally there was Frank's, and the family's, devotional life. The chapel played its special part as a place for private prayer and small ceremonies.
However, there is much more to be said about Frank Woods, and Jean, than can be included in one evening's programme about Bishopscourt.
Frank's family had a long tradition of religious service. His great grandmother was the Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. The Woods themselves were pillars of the Anglican Church. Frank's father, Edward Sydney Woods, was Bishop of Lichfield. His uncle, Frank Theodore Woods, was Bishop of Winchester. His brothers also went into the Church. Samuel became Archdeacon of Christchurch, New Zealand and Robin became Bishop of Worcester. Needless to say, two of Frank's children, Theodore and Clemence, also became ordained priests.
Frank's CV was impeccable for a distinguished man of the Church:
However, perhaps Frank's influence on the church in Australia can be best summed up by Bishop James Grant in his introduction to the Frank Woods Endowment Centenary Appeal:
First encounters, very often determine future relationships. So it was with Frank Woods and the Diocese of Melbourne, and later the Australian Anglican Church. In 1957, Keith Rayner, the young Bush Brother in Southern Queensland who was himself to become Archbishop and Primate, wrote of the electrifying impact of Frank Woods' Enthronement Sermon: "it set the pattern for his Episcopate: a strong biblical foundation, the context of a challenging world, a broad catholicity, the need for a pastoral, a praying and an educated priesthood, the importance of the laity, the call to ecumenism. It was all there; and Melbourne knew it had found a true Father-in-God."
Building on this foundation he brought to the clergy new perspectives on ministry and spirituality and made their formation and care his first priority. He took seriously the ministry of the laity and strove to equip them to engage confidently with issues of faith and morals. His gifts as teacher and apologist were apparent in his Synod charges, his Refresher Courses and his Forward-in-Depth and Let's Pray Better programs. With Dr Davis McCaughey and Archbishop Frank Little, he created a unique ecumenical climate that bore fruit in such ventures as the InterChurch Trade and Industry Mission and the United Faculty of Theology. It was entirely appropriate then for Archbishop Little to introduce him to Pope John Paul II as "Our Abraham".
His faith was so rooted in a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ that he could afford to question and explore his faith while never losing hold of its essentials. He abhorred closed minds and intellectual timidity and habitually demonstrated an openness that was as refreshing as it was rare. His view of creation as the embodiment of God's love, and of humanity as its crowning glory, sustained in him an abiding interest in, enjoyment of, and concern for nature, science, the arts, indeed the whole range of human endeavour. As an exemplar for students of theology and incipient clergy, he stands supreme in the recent experience of the Australian Anglican Church.
I was ordained by him; I served as his Chaplain for four wonderfully happy and fulfilled years; and I was nominated and consecrated Bishop by him. He was a dear friend and constant inspiration, and he remains the dominant influence in my ministerial formation, as of many others.
More on Frank and Jean Woods can be found in the following tributes.
A tribute compiled by Anglican Media
Originally published in 1993 by Anglican Media Melbourne and reproduced here with permission:
http://www.melbourne.anglican.com.au/
It is my privilege to speak of Frank Woods for a few minutes as I knew him, while we all continue to think of him each with his or her own memories, and give thanks to God.
I first became aware of Frank Woods almost 60 years ago when he was chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge; his youngest brother was a close friend and Frank was one of the college chaplains who gave unfailing support to the Student Christian Movement, where Christians from a variety of church backgrounds learnt to recognise each other, and learnt much about the message and mission of Christ and his Church in the world.
It was therefore no surprise when years later in Melbourne and Australia we knew Frank Woods as a leader in the ecumenical movement in this state and in the Australian and World Council of Churches. He taught us all that you must recognise in the other man or woman, one whom God has recognised, that you must rejoice that Christ has called into his service men and women of diverse races and traditions, that in the gift of the Holy Spirit we all belong to the one family of God. In Australia he inaugurated a new era of better relations between the Anglican Church and the Church of Rome, beginning with his call on Archbishop Mannix soon after his arrival; and I often thought that he understood better than some of us did what we were trying to do in bringing three churches together in the Uniting Church. Like many of us he regretted that the Anglican Church was not a party in those discussions, although thanks to his initiative we had Anglican observers throughout.
My second picture is of Frank as senior chaplain to the British Army in Northern Ireland at the end of World War II. Our closer friendship dates from then, now almost 50 years ago. We saw much of him in our home. He even came from time to time to hear me preach, a singular act of friendship. He persuaded me to join with him in conducting some Bible studies for the chaplains of all denominations stationed in that area. We were required to work from the text of the Bible alone, for the chaplain on active service might only have two books with him, a New Testament, preferably but not necessarily in Greek, and his prayer book.
It was therefore no surprise to me when we met again in Melbourne to find in Frank Woods a strong supporter for better theological education for the clergy and for better instructed people. Nor was it a surprise to see him present at schools of theology, humbly learning afresh truths in which his life was deeply embedded.
My third picture is of Frank Woods, companion, friend and pastor; entertaining companion whose company was enjoyed by so many and who was so readily accepted by young people; loyal friend; and pastor. The instances are too many and, in some ways, too intimate to recount. Wherever you went, whatever you were asked to do, you knew that Frank was encouraging you and supporting you with his prayers. He once gave me a book which he had read with some satisfaction, entitled The Shadow of the Galilean. He lived his life in the shadow cast on our ways by that Galilean, Jesus of Nazareth; or it might be better to say, in the light cast on our ways by that same Jesus, and he in turn shed light on our ways. He stood on the Christ-ward side of our lives.
I last saw him not much more than 24 hours before he died. As I came away I reflected that the next day would be Advent Sunday; and I remembered the opening words of a great sermon I had heard on Advent Sunday 26 years ago in a church in Heidelberg in Germany: "God would make a new beginning with you; and would have you make a new beginning with him. That is the message of Advent."
Thank God, that message was fulfilled in the life of Frank Woods last Sunday.
Dr Davis McCaughey
former Governor of Victoria
The portrait of Sir Frank Woods in the Chapter House is a remarkable example of an artist's ability to portray the inner being of his subject, and it has a close affinity with that of his mother which was at the chapel door of his study in Bishopscourt. One suspects that the deep spirituality shining in them both stems from their illustrious Quaker descent.
Steeped in Anglicanism as he was, the archbishop knew all the collects by heart and his selection of one or other of these to open a meeting was usually incredibly apposite and drew you at once into his realm. Behind all this there was a wonderful humility revealed in his unbelievable patience at small meetings in the early years when the assertiveness of another so often prevailed.
Nevertheless, there was an arresting authority about the man, more powerful because it was never claimed. One can never forget being present when a regular army chaplain appeared before the archbishop at his own request; very little was said, but the man found himself committed to starkself-disclosure, and went off from the interview to become one of the valuable members of the Army team.
All this was part of a presence which one could not ignore. Wearing clerical robes in an unselfconscious way so typical of English clergy, he might well have been born in them. He always produced a sense of occasion, not only at a great service, but also in a meeting of a small group. Some of his synod sermons were exciting, in spite of the spectre of the debates which would follow and which he appeared to find so tedious.
Sir Frank was particularly sensitive to the opinions of others and was always ready to hear their argument and then to be fair in his judgments. Always open to new ideas, he appeared to have read all the latest books and was keen to discuss them, although he was observed to defer to academics. Despite its rejection in England, he showed great courage in leading the diocese to adopt the Paul Report involving a radical change in the tenure of clergy.
In a sense the archbishop was an Israelite in whom was no guile. One suspected that he knew very little of the frailty of humankind, always believing the best of others, and himself incapable of anything mean. Occasionally he referred to the existence of fundamentalists and, to him, these seemed to represent evil at its worst. They were shadowy figures never to be identified and obviously his pious hope was that none of his friends would ever be so diagnosed.
No doubt others will write from firsthand experience of the remarkable warmth of Sir Frank's ecumenical relationships, his encouragement of liberal theological thought, together with his marked influence on liturgical practice within his own diocese. Some have said that he sought to emulate his distinguished uncle Theodore Woods, sometime Bishop of Winchester, but whatever his model, he increased our indebtedness to the English Church by bringing to us a rich tradition of spirituality, flair, and a goodness which was uncontrived.
Archdeacon John Moroney
former Archdeacon of Melbourne
(Funeral address delivered by Archbishop Keith Rayner on December 4, 1992.)
The Most Reverent Frank Woods KBE, MA, DD, LLd. Born April 6, 1907 Died November 29, 1992
Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12).
There is a piece of advice which generally holds good: if you want a big funeral, die young. Frank Woods did not follow that advice. He died at the age of 85; he had been retired for 15 years. The presence of this great congregation today is eloquent testimony to a man who, though frail in body, in mind and spirit never grew old.
Great men leave many memories behind, and the stories accumulate as the years go by. All of us will have our memories of Frank Woods. My earliest recollection is more an impression than a memory. When he was enthroned as Archbishop of Melbourne in 1957 I was a young bush brother in southern Queensland. The Diocese of Melbourne, dare I say it?, was regarded by us Queenslanders as a hit stuffy then! But I still remember the thrill at reading Frank's enthronement sermon. To me in the Queensland bush it seemed a breath of fresh air. To those in this cathedral it must have been electrifying. Already it set the pattern for his episcopate: a strong biblical foundation, the context of a challenging world, a broad catholicity, the need for a pastoral, a praying and an educated priesthood, the importance of the laity, the call to ecumenism. It was all there; and Melbourne knew it had a spiritual leader and a true Father-in-God.
That impression from afar gives place to a vivid and more recent memory - the occasion of the consecration of Peter Hollingworth and Robert Butterss as bishops of the Church of God in 1985. Frank Woods had already been retired for eight years. He had suffered since retirement some severe setbacks to health; he was frail and already stooped. The old man laboriously climbed into the pulpit. And then the voice rang out, powerful and confident, with all the mental and spiritual vigor of a man half his years. When he finished, the cathedral erupted into spontaneous applause. Now I have to say that I have reservations about applause for sermons. It might be fine when the sermons are good, but I fear most sermons would be greeted with deafening silence! But that night, it was right.
What was it about that sermon? Partly, I think, the congregation sensed that this might he the last grand occasion of that kind for this great and beloved patriarch. But the sermon itself was vintage Frank
Woods. He spoke very plainly about things that were wrong in the world and in the Church. He was thoroughly realistic about the privatisation of religion and the marginalisation of the Church. But he did not stop there. He pointed to the signs of hope, the things, he said, which lifted him out of the despondency into which he sometimes fell. We all went away cheered and encouraged by this great-hearted servant of Christ who faced the agony, did not know all the answers, but looked to the future with confidence and hope. It was not simply the words, but the man who gave them life.
This was what his clergy and people found so encouraging about Frank. He did not look at the world through rose-colored spectacles. He had been a chaplain in the War, and he knew the depths of horror into which human beings can descend. He could not stand cant. He hated intellectual dishonesty. He did not pretend that there were pat answers to nagging and perplexing questions. He knew that "now I know only in part", and that "we walk by faith, not by sight". So he was always exploring, always pondering the Scriptures more deeply, always looking to be stimulated by the insights of some new book or the illuminating thoughts of an interesting companion.
Last week, just a few days before his death, I visited him at the hospital and said the office of evening prayer with him. The lesson set, from Revelation 20, was not one I would have chosen. It was the passage about death and Hades being thrown into the lake of fire, described as the second death. It is a difficult and puzzling passage. Frank was puzzled, and he said so. Puzzled, but not anxious. Even in his final weakness he was still searching: "Now I know in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known".
For Frank Woods there were always new questions to be asked, new depths of the ultimate mystery to be plumbed. Most of us do our really creative thinking while we are young, and live on the capital as we grow old. Not so with Frank. Some of his freshest and finest addresses were given in his retirement. One he gave in a retreat which I attended, entitled 'Jesus the Layman'. It really stemmed from his experience of being stripped of the trappings of office as archbishop. In effect, in daily life, he found himself for the first time since he was a young man a layman again. In reflecting on this experience of losing the props and trappings of high office he awoke to the significance of Jesus the layman.
There are some, not least among the clergy, who start life being fresh and creative, even radical. They come to a certain point,usually in early middle age, and get stuck there. Their early freshness and openness becomes a hardened conservatism. The world goes on, but they become bogged down and backward-looking. There are not many of us who go on, creative and forward looking, to the end. Frank Woods was one of those; and that was why he could inspire and encourage the young as well as the old all through his life.
If we can learn from Frank Woods the secret of this, we shall have learned something very precious about life. I think the secret was that he was firmly rooted in the really essential things. In a way, he was an unlikely archbishop for modern Australia. He was so English, so rooted in the traditions of ecclesiastical aristocracy with a father, an uncle and eventually a brother as bishops, so shaped by the classic formation of a bishop for the Established Church that he could hardly be right for the rough-and-tumble and the supposed egalitarianism of Australian life. It was the classic English pattern: curate at Portsea, that training ground for English bishops; chaplain at Trinity College, Cambridge; vice-principal of Wells Theological College, chaplain to the Forces, vicar of the large parish of Huddersfield, chaplain to the King and finally suffragan bishop of Middleton. Yet he loved Australia. He identified with this country. It became home for him and his family, and he chose to retire and to die here.
In all this he was deeply rooted, but he was rooted in the essence of things, not in their outward trappings. He was rooted in a deep personal faith in Jesus Christ, so he could afford to question and explore the faith without fear of losing hold. He was quintessentially Anglican, so he could afford without anxiety to be thoroughly ecumenical. His English identity was secure, so he could afford to become enthusiastically Australian. He was grounded in the liturgy, so he could afford to be free and spontaneous in new forms of worship and at the same time to reject liturgical fussiness. He loved peace and hated the horrors of war, so he could afford to march on Anzac Day with old comrades without fear of being classed a warmonger. He was immersed in the great tradition of the catholic faith, so he could afford to be open to the new and, for example, to champion the cause of the ordination of women. I suspect that at the end he could let go peacefully knowing that the ordination of his daughter was free to proceed.
We saw in Frank Woods a man who was deeply secure. He did not need to be flattered or humored; there was no arrogance or vanity in him; there was no necessity to stay safely in a narrow rut. He could find the routine of administration tiresome and there were real problems in this area in his early years. lie could he impatient with hypocrisy or narrow-mindedness. He had no time for ecclesiastical politics. He knew there were many questions to which he had no answers. But he had no doubt about the God whom he trusted, or the certainty of his vocation as priest and bishop, or the responsibility to try to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ come alive not only for the people in the pew but for the whole world out there. We thank God for that 20 years he was given to us as a great Archbishop of Melbourne and for six years as a notable Primate of Australia.
But Frank Woods was not just a great archbishop. First and foremost he was a man, a Christian, a servant of the Lord. He was a devoted husband, sharing with Jean his life, his ministry, his love. Despite the frantic and constant busyness of his public life his family was always at the heart of his life. As a son devoted to his parents, as a husband giving of himself to his wife, as a father and grandfather delighting in his children and their children. Even as we thank God today for a life that was so rich in content and full in years, so that we would not want to hold him back within a body that could no longer serve his active and questing spirit, we share with his loved ones the grief of separation which death involves. To Jean, Theodore, David and Elizabeth, Richenda and Ian, Clemente and Stewart and all the family we offer our sympathy as we share your grief; and we surround you with our love which is but a pale reflection of the much greater love of our Lord and God.
Frank has passed from our sight, and death is real. But for the Christian it is never the final reality. In one of his Easter sermons, Frank spoke of "life's diminishments", "the gradual stripping from us of all self-reliance in order that we may be centred wholly upon God". Thankfully, Frank was in mind and spirit alert to the end. He had his last communion just an hour or two before his death. But his body had worn out; his strength was stripped away. We would not want to hold him like that. Rather we can rejoice that in the resurrection life, which is so central to his faith and the faith of the Church, all that is partial and imperfect is done away, the questions are answered, the mystery is made plain. "Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known". Today we rejoice that Frank Woods, Christian, bishop, knight of the realm, seeker for truth, knows even as he is known.
Keith Rayner
Archbishop of Melbourne
Sir Frank and Lady Woods pictured after the service celebrating Sir Frank's 80th birthday at St Paul's Cathedral - Courtesy Herald & Weekly TimesFrank Woods was a pioneer in many fields. He led Victoria's six dioceses into becoming a genuine province of the Australian Anglican Church, in spite of serious obstacles of law and personalities. Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo. Wangaratta, Gippsland and St Arnaud did very few things together in 1957.
He invited the diocesan and assistant bishops to meet with him for one or two days at least once a year. He offered the other dioceses access to several facilities which Melbourne provided. For example, we were invited to send newly-ordained clergy to Melbourne for post-ordination training. Similarly he made it possible for his newly-ordained men to have a few years' experience in rural ministry, with no strings attached. If the country diocese wished to retain them and they wished to stay, that was provided for in the plan.
The 'bush' was also invited to send candidates for ordination to his selection conferences, which was another innovation in Australia. This helped greatly to break down the wicked notion that someone rejected by the city might be 'good enough for the country'. He realised that the boot might even be on the other foot. The country priest, isolated by distance from his brother clergy, has to handle, or fail to do so, all the problems of ministry, without the help of close neighbors, whereas the city priest is surrounded by possible helpers.
Country bishops and clergy were invited to the new departmental opportunities which he brought into existence. For too long Australian Anglicans had relied on England to supply their bishops and other leaders. Though very English himself, he drew the sting of that fact, by becoming thoroughly at home in Australia. When he became Primate in 1971, he travelled very widely to all our dioceses, and also to other countries of the Pacific area. He made the Primacy a servant of the whole Australian Church.
This did not mean that he was only the servant of Anglicans. From the first, he stood for the vital importance of the ecumenical movement.
He quickly saw the importance of the eucharistic congress of the Roman Catholic Church in Melbourne in 1973. His personal relationship with the Roman Archbishop of Melbourne was warm and friendly. He joined in organising a representative meeting in the Melbourne Town Hall at the time of the congress and took a positive part in the seminar on ecumenism at Monash University.
The Town Hall meeting was packed. The night was stiflingly hot. The audience relied on ceaseless movement of their fans to keep awake. The effect of this was mesmeric to those on the platform. The Cardinal was the chief speaker and he spoke for over an hour. Frank discarded his own notes and spoke crisply and informally for about ten minutes. He created great interest when he asked the Roman Catholics present to raise their hands. They were greatly outnumbered by the rest of us. He commented that this showed that we now had an opportunity to know and achieve a greater catholicity than we had ever known before. Enthusiastic and prolonged applause greeted this observation.
The warmth of his personality was illustrated on Spencer Street Station one evening, when he discovered that he and one of our daughters were boarding the same Sydney train. "What fun!" he exclaimed. In our family that became his affectionate alias.
In some ways he was a conservative, but quickly saw the most urgent needs and took well-considered action to meet them. However, he did not dictate the way that others should act. The day before he consecrated me as a bishop, I asked him for advice for a new-boy bishop. But he disclaimed any ability to do so. Later when I asked him his opinion on a plan for co-operation with the Methodist Church in the scattered area of Cann River, he encouraged me to proceed. Some months later he wrote again saying that he advised caution and delay. Since an appointment had already been made, I rang him at once and told him so. He laughed heartily and accepted the situation.
And there was fire within his wiry frame. At a meeting of Victorian bishops, other clergy and laity, to discuss the syllabus of the Council for Christian Education in Schools, one of the bishops was caustic about its 'moralising' content and language, which he sweepingly dismissed as "that stuff'". Frank sprang to his feet and indignantly reminded the meeting that the syllabus included the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the Apostles' Creed. Did the bishop describe them as "that stuff'"? The pentecostal fire was in his spirit too.
So was courage. He was severely injured when knocked down by a tram in Collins Street. He and his family lost much of his library and personal possessions when the Beaconsfield house was destroyed in a bushfire – a baptism by fire indeed.
David Garnsey
Bishop of Gippsland, 1957-1974
Leaving St Patrick's Cathedral after preaching there in April 1976, Archbishops Woods and Little share something of the Joy of the occasion. - Courtesy The Age
There was a time when the Church of England in Australia almost always looked for its bishops from England. Anglican schools similarly looked for headmasters overseas. This is no longer the case. As one of the last of the transported English headmasters, I am proud to write of one of the last of the English bishops.
Frank was one of those Englishman who immediately liked Australia and accommodated himself to it. In consequence he was almost immediately liked and trusted and even loved. Melbourne is a large and diverse diocese with many parishes and many Anglican schools. With the schools he felt himself particularly at home and enjoyed his visits to them. He inherited from his predecessors a well ordered organisation and a loyal community. His openness and natural friendliness, his simplicity and complete lack of pomposity, his readiness to listen even when he did not agree and the recognition that there was strength behind his humility, laid the basis for a great episcopate.
They were turbulent times, the '60s and '70s. It was a period of great social change and of moral values. He disliked some of what was happening, he disapproved of much of the laxness, but he never faltered or failed in sympathy. Loyalty was basic to him and remained so throughout his life.
The times were explosive. Population increased with the influx of new immigrants largely from Europe: Greeks, Italians and Dutch, as well as British. Numerically and in prestige the old dominance of the Church of England weakened, but new suburbs grew rapidly and had to be served. With the increasing prosperity and the demographic changes in age proportions, the demands of youth to be heard became strident and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the old world were passing away, never to return, or so it seemed. It was hard for those who had lived in and enjoyed the past, to adjust. It was particularly hard for one who bore responsibility for leadership in the church. There followed the dramatic change of view in the role of women in the community, a change not yet fully recognised, and especially significant in the demand for the ordination of women.
There were other questions too. The church, which had generally seemed to be the bastion of conservatism and establishment, was called upon as never before to lead in social reform in the battle against racial discrimination in the defence and support of underprivileged people all over a world brought closer by the dramatic developments of communication. The commitment to practical help inevitably brought the churches in touch with revolutionary political movements. Many Christians disliked and feared the association.
All these problems and more were what he had to face. He did not satisfy everyone; he even faced some criticism, but what he did was lasting, for he brought to the task himself. Above everything else he was the servant of Christ.
He was also blessed with his qualities of a good man through and through. I have mentioned humility. He never was even tempted to assume the superiority which his position might be thought to justify. He was loyal to Christ, to the Church, to his colleagues and to those others who relied on him, though they did not know him, as his friends knew him.
Finally he had courage. In the last several years of his life he was destined to suffer again and again continually. He endured the diminishing powers of his body and, at times, severe pain. He never let it defeat him: he never complained of the injustice of it: he drove himself to work in spite of it.
When Mr Valiant for Truth came to the river which we all must cross, he could say in certain faith: "My marks and scars I carry with me to be a witness for me that I fought this brother who now will be my redeemer." So be it.
Sir James Darling
Headmaster Geelong Grammar School
A right royal occasion. Sir Frank is pictured on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral - Courtesy Herald & Weekly Times
Frank Woods' appointment to Melbourne was unexpected. A majority of the Board of Electors was committed to the appointment of an Australian. But, when agreement could not be reached on a local candidate, Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher was asked to suggest some English possibilities. Fisher had made an extended tour of the Australian Church in 1950 and had been shocked by its narrow diocesanism. He made only one recommendation, that of the Bishop of Middleton, and this to its eternal credit, the board accepted.
The diocese to which Frank Woods succeeded in 1957 was well served by its clergy and specialised agencies. Though lacking the massive endowments of its Sydney sister, its resources had been well husbanded. However, its latent energy needed to be released and focussed. The new archbishop, fresh from involvement with the most forward looking elements in the Church of England, was peculiarly fitted to fulfil this role.
A survey of the diocese identified potential growth areas and a diocesan-wide 'forward move' was launched. A good financial response was achieved which allowed expenditure to be increased on clergy training, new area parishes and hospital and institutional chaplaincies. In tandem with this went a four-year study program entitled 'Forward-in-Depth'. Woods' episcopate was also marked by growth in ecumenical understanding and joint action. It saw increased participation in the Australian Council of Churches, and new ventures in industrial mission and in theological education through the United Faculty of Theology, and in personal and theological dialogue with Roman Catholics.
Woods' episcopate saw the Church move from its traditional role of 'hallowing the establishment' and providing care and carers through its institutions, to one of offering a more radical critique of society. On issues such as capital punishment, poverty, and Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, the Church in Melbourne, officially at least, was in the vanguard of public opinion.
Ecumenically, overseas influences were apparent as the impact of Vatican II was felt. Theologically, John Robinson's questionings in Honest to God were echoed in the 1967 episode of the 'Melbourne Agnostics'. Parochially, the Parish and People Movement influenced the course of liturgical change and the development of new pastoral strategies, especially in Christian initiation. The 1970s saw a decline in Sunday school enrolments, in formal youth work and in nominal adherents. But this was paralleled by a greater commitment at every level by those who continued to identify themselves as Anglicans.
Intellectually, theologically, ecumenically, pastorally and spiritually, he contended for an 'open' position. He encouraged a similar stance among his clergy through his ordination and retreat addresses, through a series of notable synod charges, and through sponsoring visits by leading contemporary theologians. And despite his essential Englishness he won and held the affection and trust of his diocese and community.
He retired in 1977, but continued an active ministry in demand as a preacher and retreat conductor. Always a forward thinker, he grew more radical with age and supported strongly the ordination of women to the priesthood. He will be remembered within the Australian Church for his ecumenical initiatives, his national outlook and his modelling of a relevant contemporary episcopacy: pastoral, collegiate and community orientated.
In adding a more personal appreciation of Frank Woods, I freely acknowledge its subjectivity. I was ordained by him; I served as his chaplain for four wonderfully happy and fulfilling years; and I was nominated and consecrated bishop by him. He was a dear friend and constant inspiration and remains the dominant influence in my ministerial formation.
As has often been remarked, "Frank Woods was a natural aristocrat: the son, nephew and brother of English diocesan bishops." This was perfectly true and in addition he was endowed with many and great natural gifts. He could, and did, relate easily and naturally to the Establishment: he spoke their language; he was one of them.
But at the same time, there was in him no trace of arrogance; he could relate just as easily to the brash youngster, the frail elderly, the outback battler or the homesick migrant. Nowhere was this capacity more obvious than in his parish visitations, for which he was universally sought and at which he was eagerly welcomed. He commended himself by his evident interest, his enthusiastic engagement and his ready sense of humor. His integrity and his strong but uncomplicated faith, based on the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer were clear. Not surprisingly, his friendships were legion among both clergy and laity.
The archbishop's first experience of ministry was between school and university when he spent some time in Cairo with his godfather, Bishop Gwynne, and taught at the diocesan grammar school. He might well have taken up teaching as his life's work. Instead, he opted for ordained ministry, but within his ministry it is for his pastoring, his teaching and his preaching that he will surely be best remembered.
His view of creation as the embodiment of God's love and humanity as its crowning glory sustained in him an abiding interest in, enjoyment of, and concern for nature, science, the arts; the whole range of human endeavour. He was a great encourager, a great sharer and, in trouble, sickness or grief a strong rock.
His intercession book was always full and he made time to pray systematically for all sorts and conditions. Two incidents illustrate his approach. On one occasion meeting a new ordinand for the first time, he floored him by saying, "You know I pray for you", as indeed he did. Again, when a lay reader prayed for "The Aboriginal Problem" he said, "Oh no, not the problem, but the people who create the problem and those affected by it."
Frank Woods valued and enjoyed his public Ministry of the Word. He ascribed a high priority to it in his program and he took great pains with his preparation for it. His enthronement sermons set a standard which was maintained throughout his whole episcopate and after.
"An inspiring leader", "a leader who responded to challenges", "a visionary". These are three of the characteristics highlighted in press notices. They are all appropriate. I would want to add some others.
His capacity to be one step ahead – in modern terminology he was pro-active rather than reactive. He was prepared to take risks, especially with people. To the consternation of his staff he would often come up with come maverick candidate who more often than not justified the risk he had taken. He was enthusiastic – "Oh, let's" was a normal reaction in all sorts of situations, enhancing occasions or retrieving looming disasters.
He said, once, with perfect justification, that there was no one he hated. But he had some pet aversions: dogmatic illiberals, persistent raisers of points of order in synod, the faceless men who organised the election tickets for the synod factions.
He was a better administrator than he was prepared to admit, but his episcopate was most effective when he worked in tandem with Geoffrey Sambell and Bob Dann and the other regional bishops.
Mention has frequently been made of the importance of his family in his Christian formation. Just as central to his ministry was his own home base. The episcopal "household" was a reality and we ought never to underestimate how necessary was the support he received from Jean and his children and how willingly and generously this was given.
Asked on one occasion what he thought the primary tasks of a bishop was, Archbishop Michael Ramsey suggested, "bringing the people to a knowledge of God, helping the people to grasp the meaning of the Christian faith, witnessing to Christian principles in some of the conflicts of the day, leading the people in the way of prayer, helping in the cause of Christian unity."
Whether Frank Woods ever read this statement is doubtful. But as a summation of what he achieved in his ministry in this diocese and Church, it can hardly be bettered.
Bishop James Grant
The Woods family arrive in Australia on December 11, 1957. Pictured above are Archbishop-elect Woods with his wife Jean and younger daughters Clemence and Richenda - Courtesy The Age
This tribute to the late Archbishop Sir Frank Woods is adapted, with permission, from an essay first published in Church Scene on June 2, 1977 to mark his retirement. The essay was written by Dr Robin Sharwood, using material gathered for this purpose by the editor of Church Scene. The essay is printed in full in the book Frank Woods: Sermons And Addresses (JBCE 1987).
First and perhaps foremost, is the archbishop's family. The family, and especially his own family, was the foundation upon which he built everything else.
But the archbishop's concern was not merely with his own immediate family, his wife and children. The Woods family is extraordinarily close-knit and spans the generations. The archbishop was conscious of all those generations and proud of them.
Well he might have been. He derived from a splendid Anglican family tradition. From both his parents Frank Woods received a rich Christian inheritance. When he first moved into Bishopscourt, forbidding and rather second-rate portraits of his Melbourne predecessors hung over the dining-room sideboard. After a decent interval Frank Woods replaced them with framed family engravings of the two famous Gurney sisters – his kinswomen, Elizabeth Fry and Hannah, Lady Buxton.
Following the example of his father, and supported by a wife whose commitment to the idea was as firm as his own, Frank Woods made Bishopscourt, Melbourne, a homely place, in the best sense, to all who visited it, and welcomed those visitors with unselfconscious ease and warmth into the life of his family, whatever that life happened to be when they called; having tea, perhaps, or playing tennis, or watering the garden, or discussing what next to do at the cottage in Upper Beaconsfield.
Whenever possible, the archbishop preferred callers to see him at home, rather than in his rather sombre little room at the cathedral (he insisted on giving over a much finer room to the dean). The interview might take place anywhere – in the study, over a pot of Twinings Earl Grey (his favourite tea); in the morning room, before the fire, with a tray of sherry; in the garden with the dogs. If any other member of the family were at home, the caller would almost certainly meet them too and, perhaps at the end of the discussion, the archbishop would take his visitor into the chapel "to say a prayer". It was a marvellous way to be a Father in God, even if it sometimes drove orderly secretaries to despair (especially when clergy began to discover that they could "beat the system" by presenting themselves at the door of Bishopscourt instead of making appointments through the office).
Surely one of the most indisputable aspects of the archbishop's life and ministry among us was the degree to which he was able, over a period of time, to identify himself deeply and genuinely with the Australian community. He remained an Englishman by birth and upbringing, by accent, manners, habits of speech and so on, but he had become an Australian by what he has termed "conversion" and recognised himself as such.
Both the archbishop and his wife developed a genuine love for the richness and variety of the Australian landscape. They travelled it from coast to coast, visiting almost every diocese. Here in Victoria, their country cottage at Upper Beaconsfield was very dear to them. The "conversion" process did not take place overnight. It was a long time maturing.
The archbishop once told one of his close associates that it was at Cambridge where he first met "the Church and the world".
He had been away to boarding school (Marlborough, his father's school), but it was Cambridge which opened his eyes. He became an undergraduate at Trinity College in 1926, and, in due course, after theological studies and ordination, its chaplain and a Fellow. A Trinity don of the day remembers him as a tall, elegant young man –"very decorative". His father, uncle and grandfather had all been Trinity men before him.
Frank Woods "met the Church" in Cambridge in two different but complementary ways: he discovered the breadth and richness of Anglicanism, and he was first brought into close contact with other major streams in the Christian tradition.
The faith he had been brought up in, at home and by inheritance, lay in the great line of Anglican evangelicalism, with its emphasis upon personal piety (in the best sense) and individual salvation. At Cambridge, he began to appreciate that there were other great traditions in Anglicanism as well. On the Catholic side he was especially influenced by Eric Milner-White of the Oratory of the Good Shepherd and F.R. Barry, the Bishop of Southwell, through his SCM connections. At home, the faith was very Protestant, and very English – perhaps too English, the archbishop himself once commented. At Cambridge, he met men and women of other churches whose doctrinal bases were more often to be found on the continent of Europe.
From his SCM involvement he accepted the commitment to social causes which, in an unobtrusive way, was to become a mark of his Australian episcopate.
It is often said that the archbishop showed great flexibility in matters of faith and doctrine. This is best explained by Archbishop Rayner, who, after commenting on Frank Woods' "openness of mind and his absolute honesty and integrity", described his faith as one "which is firm and secure on the basic essentials, firm enough indeed to be able to probe and question the secondary matters of faith without the fear that the whole structure would collapse."
It followed from this openness – which allowed a wide measure of liturgical experimentation – that the archbishop was never greatly fussed by the controversial issues of "churchmanship". "He had no divisive church "principles" regarding copes or candles or canonical litigation, all of which have plagued the Anglican Church in Australia", wrote Bishop Housden. "He was just as much at home in churches of different traditions because he did not worship a narrow God.
The concern for others which grew out of and was reflected in his life of prayer made him sought after as a counsellor and loved as a friend. All who have had the privilege of knowing him, or even of coming into quite casual contact with him, testify to this. Tributes gathered for the purposes of this essay are full of the warmest references to his friendliness – a friendliness touched with a lively humour and a genuine concern which brightened every moment of it and lightened every load.
The most profound summing up of all this which I have heard came from one of the archbishop's intimate friends and colleagues: "In him the Kingdom of God is present."
There is a sense in which the archbishop always remained a true "innocent" – a holy innocent one might dare to say. The unworldliness of his upbringing, as he himself described it, left its mark. It is doubtful if he even knew a crisis of belief, a time of agonising doubt. His innocence, his simplicity, his genuine humility, his obvious goodness – such qualities, perhaps, were above all at the heart of his success. Yet these very virtues on occasion brought him close to disaster. Frank Woods may have been a good man, but he was seldom a shrewd man and could never engage in "politicking" even when a touch of politicking might have been in the interests of a worthy cause.
Although he would have made no claim to be a theologian, the archbishop always read widely and kept himself abreast of current thinking. He was a very early riser and much of his serious reading was done before breakfast, in association with his morning papers.
Only a man of real learning and intellectual originality would have been capable of those courageous and sometimes startling changes of mind which the archbishop would occasionally announce. The instance most often quoted occurred at the General Synod of 1973, when he let it be known that he had become persuaded that, in certain circumstances at least, the remarriage of divorced persons should be allowed. Such decisions as these were not made without cost.
As a preacher, expositor and teacher, Frank Woods could be splendid. He was at his best when had time to prepare thoroughly beforehand. But he was equally good extempore, in situations which called for a short and simple meditation on scripture and informal prayer.
I doubt if many people would see Archbishop Woods as a "social gospel" man, or a fighter for community causes. Somehow, he seems temperamentally unsuited for such a ministry.
Yet in his own distinctive way, Frank Woods had in fact done much in the interest of the general welfare of our community. Writing of him in The Age (April 7, 1977) Mark Baker placed particular emphasis upon this aspect of his episcopate: "He will be remembered as a prelate who wouldn't shy from a political row, but recognised the need for the Church to stand up and fight for its point of view. He has been, almost from the first day of his arrival from England, a battler for social justice. He was an outspoken critic of the White Australia policy and apartheid from the outset, and an early campaigner for a national health scheme and the poverty enquiry. He has provoked controversies with his calls for relaxation of the laws against homosexuals and his attacks on political strikes and abortion on demand."
In areas such as these, the archbishop knew he needed informed advice and actually sought it out. He invited people to brief him privately on the questions of the day – perhaps over lunch in a little downstairs tavern in Degraves Street referred to affectionately by him as "the dive" and heavily patronised by Anglican dignitaries (Felix Arnott had discovered it). He relied much on his diocesan Social Questions Committee, which, with his support and under the admirable chairmanship of Finlay Patrick, produced a series of notable papers.
Melbourne was Frank Woods' first and only See. What did he make of the role of a diocesan?
It is often said today that a diocesan bishop must be a good administrator, even if this quality cannot be ranked as a scriptural or canonical requirement. Was Frank Woods a good administrator?
He himself always firmly said that he was not and that he depended heavily upon good co-adjutors, archdeacons, deans, chairmen of committees, registrars, secretaries and so on. From one point of view many of his associates would agree with his own judgement of himself. But there is another side to the story.
No one ever doubted his capacity for hard work and his readiness to tackle any job which fell to him to do, as archbishop, metropolitan or Primate. Finlay Patrick put it this way: "To say that what he has done has been done with infinite skill is possibly misleading. It might be thought to imply a process of calculated working out of techniques to achieve a carefully formulated objective. I do not think, though I may be wrong, that the archbishop worked like that. I think rather that he simply put his hand and mind to every task as it appeared."
One of the things which worried the archbishop was the fear that the council of the diocese, including as it did leaders of the community not only in the church but in civic life and business, who were accustomed to being decision makers at a high level, should be irked by the numerous small administrative decisions which appeared persistently on its agenda or, alternatively, by the frequency with which it is asked to accept recommendations from its standing committee.
If willingness to delegate is one mark of a good administrator, as surely it must be, then the archbishop certainly met that test. The exercise of authority through delegation came easily and naturally to the archbishop, not only through parental example but also because those personal qualities which we have noted enabled him to develop excellent relationships with all those with whom he worked. Even if it is concluded that the archbishop lacked some administrative gifts, there was an obverse to the coin. He may not always have been a great organiser, but he could be a brilliant, even an inspired, improviser, as so many can testify.
In any case, there are more important things than administration in its narrowest sense. To the archbishop, and properly so, it was never more than an aspect of his later role as the Father in God to his people and the "pastor pastorum" of his clergy. In this larger role, he was superb. He sought to share the joys and sorrows of all his people. Visiting and counselling untiringly, writing countless personal notes in his own hand. Above all, as one always knew, constant in prayer.
Frank Woods believed himself to have been greatly blessed in his family, his friends and his work. All his life he was able to build positively and constructively upon his experiences, even those which may have been painful to him.
It is surely a measure of his serene and simple faith path, at the end of the day, in the last weeks of his life, when he was desperately frail and knew he was dying, he was able to confirm, with the utmost sincerity and conviction: "God has been very good to me. I am greatly blessed."
Dr Robin Sharwood
