This is the story of the Lady Talbot Milk Institute and George Hope's Caulfield Model dairy, which suppled pure milk to the Institute. In 1912, George moved his operation to Mayfield at Cranbourne. The Hope family sold their property in 1949 to Frederick Spottiswood who renamed it Nirvana Park. Fred had established the Nirvana Dairy on the corner of Waverley Road and Belgrave Road in Malvern East in the 1930s.
On Monday, April 11 in 1927, Lady Stonehaven, the wife of the Governor General, Lord Stonehaven, visited the Caulfield Model Dairy Farm at Cranbourne. She was accompanied by Dr Vera Scantlebury (1), the Director of Infant Welfare and Sister Peck (2), Assistant Director of the Victorian Health Centres. The party was shown the milk production process by the proprietor, Mr George Hope. He explained the production process from milking, cooling, bottling and sealing to the final act of packing the milk in ice-lined cases for delivery to the railway station for distribution in Melbourne (3). 400 gallons (around 1800 litres) was produced daily at this dairy in the 1920s, principally for the Lady Talbot Milk Institute, which then distributed this special milk to around 1,600 babies (4). The milk from George Hope's farm was regularly checked by laboratories at the University of Melbourne for contamination, the cows were checked Government veterinary officers to ensure they were free from tuberculosis and the farm employees also needed to have medical checks (5). These checks were done to ensure the milk was pure and safe for the babies
Early in the 1900s there was concern about the high infant mortality rate, and various schemes were introduced in order to improve the life of mothers and babies. Lillias Skene (6) a welfare worker and women’s activist, suggested the establishment of a safe milk supply and this led to the foundation of the Lady Talbot Milk Institute in 1908. The inaugural meeting was held on June 24, 1908 where the motion That an institute for the supply of safe clean milk to be called the Lady Talbot Milk Institute be established as a charitable institution in Melbourne was passed (7). Lady Talbot was the wife of the Victorian Governor (8). Dr Jeffreys Wood (9), who moved the motion said that those medical men in particular who had had to work at the Children's Hospital, had felt the utter hopelessness of treating children as the result of drinking stale milk and sending them back home to drink the same milk. Absolutely fresh milk would do an immense amount of good for the poorer children of the state (10). The Children's Hospital also used Talbot Institute milk for the infants in their care (11).
The role of the Lady Talbot Milk Institute was to supply pure bottled milk to infants to reduce deaths caused by unsanitary milk. Before refrigeration and pasteurization, coupled with generally low standards of hygiene and germ control, unsanitary milk was a major cause of infant death and illness. Contaminated milk could cause tuberculosis, gastric upsets, diarrhoea and typhoid. The process of pasteurisation was invented by Louis Pasteur in the 1860s, and it was being used in Victoria from the 1890s but did not become compulsory in Victoria until after the Second World War (12). Interestingly, even in 1927 the milk from George Hope’s farm was not pasteurised, and its purity came from the stringent handling methods (13).
The Lady Talbot Milk Institute supplied milk, with an ice chest, to ‘deserving’ cases. Families had to apply through Infant Welfare Centres, the local council or be recommended by their doctor and the milk was subsidised by a combination of the local council, the State Government and Institute funds. In an Annual report around 1910 the City of Prahran noted Splendid work has been done in this city through the agency of the Talbot Milk Institute, towards which the Council contributed £100. During the year 90 babies have received the special milk, the mothers in most cases paying the market price for it, viz., 2d. per pint, although the cost to the Institute is about 4½d. The nurses in charge of the district have taken considerable trouble to keep in touch with the babies receiving the milk, advising mothers in respect to the general treatment of young children, feed, nursing, etc. (14).
The Argus reported in 1923 - The value of Talbot milk as an infant food is shown by figures, supplied by Dr Jeffreys Wood, who, in a report to the association, stated that of 386 babies housed on the milk during last summer only five died, while only nine suffered illness. The mortality rate for the Commonwealth is 53 deaths per thousand infants (15). The Lady Talbot Milk Institute was still in existence in 1940, but I have no information when it ceased operation.
Who was George Hope? George had commenced his Model Dairy on 60 acres in Kooyong Road in Caulfield. In 1909, his farm was the subject of an article in the Weekly Times which started with There is a property in the Melbourne metropolitan area which is fast becoming one of the show farms of Victoria. A report a year earlier described his new concrete silos which could conserve up to 400 tons of silage (16). In 1912, George Hope purchased 592 acres (240 hectares) at Cranbourne and moved his Caulfield Model Farm to this new location. This land was the Mayfield pre-emptive right, originally owned by Alexander Cameron (17). George had been supplying milk to the Lady Talbot Milk Institute since 1908 and this continued at Cranbourne (18).
George was protective of his milk’s reputation and in November 1925 he went to court to seek an injunction to stop other dairies using the milk bottles with the Lady Talbot Milk Institute label and filling them with ordinary milk. A public advertisement, see below, appeared in The Argus of December 5, 1925 warning dairymen against the use of the specially labelled bottles.
George Hope (1865-1941) had married Mary Elizabeth Robinson (1867-1948) in 1900 and they had four children - Elizabeth (1901), George Robinson (1903), James Haworth (1906) and David Dickson (1911). James died in 1916 at the age of ten and is buried in the same grave as his parents at Cranbourne Cemetery. Elizabeth married Noel Sumner Nash in November 1935, he was the first cousin of Maie Casey, the wife of Lord Casey, engineer, politician and Governor General of Australia from 1965-1969. George married Edna Josephine Warburton in 1939 and the same year David married Thirza 'Jill' Cargill in New South Wales. Both George, David and their brother-in-law, Noel, served in World War Two - George and Noel in the Army and David in the Air Force (19).
In 1945, George and David held a clearing sale as they were giving up dairying - they had close to 380 head of cattle on offer, mainly Illawarra-Ayrshire cross and all guaranteed to be tuberculosis free (20). The property was then sold in 1949 to Fred Spottiswood, of Nirvana Park, Camms Road, in Cranbourne, where he operated a Illawarra cattle stud. Mr Spottiswood was a Shire of Cranbourne Councillor from 1949 until 1955 and he was Shire President from 1951 to 1952. He was also on the Committee of the Cranbourne Turf Club and Chairman in 1951/52. Before he came to live full-time on his farm in Cranbourne in 1946, Mr Spottiswood operated the Nirvana Dairy (hence the name of his farm) on the corner of Waverley Road and Belgrave Road in Malvern East (21). An article in the Kiama Reporter of July 4, 1945 noted that Mr Spottiswood who has achieved distinction for the extensive milk retailing business he has built up in Malvern and in a similar manner to the model business thus established, he aspired to the creation of a model stud farm with the noted Australian Illawarra Shorthorns the breed to be utilised (22).
I am not sure when Fred Spottiswood started the Nirvana Dairy, the earliest reference I can find to it is in November 1934 when the Dairy won a prize for the best 'four wheeled light delivery turnout' in a parade of business vehicles held in Malvern (23). Nirvana Dairies opened a new building on October 28, 1938. It was opened by the Minister of Agriculture, and the newspaper report said It must be a great comfort to mothers to know that milk is clean and pure," Mr. Hogan said. "To achieve cleanliness and purity it is necessary that dairies should be sanitary, with durable Interiors, ample space, arrangements for expeditious handling, and good lighting, ventilation, and drainage" (24).
Fred Spottiswood sold the Nirvana Dairy in 1946 and the family, as we said before, moved to Nirvana Park in Cranbourne (25). The 1945/46 Shire of Cranbourne Rate Books list about 60 acres in various parcels owned by Fred Spottiswood and also show that he leased land from the Crown and the Railways - the railway land was from the Railway line, north to Camms Road, with High Street/South Gippsland Highway being the western boundary and Narre Warren Cranbourne Road, being the eastern boundary. In 1954, the Spottiswoods moved again, this time to a new house they had built on the site of the old Mayfield homestead. Spottiswood then renamed the property from Mayfield to Nirvana Park. (26).
Frederick David Spottiswood (1903-1992) married widow, Vevers Lorna Hemsworth (nee Lasslett, 1915-1999) in 1942. There were two sons from the marriage and Vevers had a daughter from her previous marriage. Fred and Vevers Spottiswood are listed in the Electoral Rolls in Cranbourne until 1968 and by 1972 they are in Frankston. They are both interred at the Bribie Island Memorial Garden in Queensland, his plaque describes him as always optimistic and her plaque describes her as stylish and witty (27).
The lives of many babies were saved over the years due to women such as Lilias Skene advocating for a clean milk supply and dairy men like George Hope and Fred Spottiswood providing the pure milk and clean processing plants required for its distribution.
Trove lists - I have created a list of articles on the Lady Talbot Milk Institute and George Hope's Model Dairy, access it here; and a list of articles on Nirvana Park and Fred Spottiswood, here.
Footnotes
(1) Vera Scantlebury Brown (1889-1946), read her Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, here.
(2) Muriel Peck (1882-1947), read her obituary in The Herald of May 21, 1947, here and a tribute to her in the Gippsland Times of June 5, 1947, here. Sister Peck was instrumental in the establishment of Baby Health Centres, I have written about this here. Sister Peck also visited many country towns on the Better Farming Train and gave valuable advice to many rural mothers. I have written about the Better Farming Train, here.
(4) The Argus, October 22, 1923, see here.
(5) The Argus, April 12, 1927, see here.
(7) The Argus, June 25, 1908, see here.
(8) Lady Talbot - The Institute was named for Lady Talbot, the wife of the Governor of Victoria, Sir Reginald Talbot. Lady Talbot, born Margaret Jane Stuart-Wortley in 1855, married Sir Reginald in 1877. Sir Reginald was Governor of Victoria from 1904 until 1908 and during this time Lady Talbot promoted many charitable ventures including the Talbot Colony for Epileptics, which later became the Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre.
(9) Arthur Jeffreys Wood (1861-1937), read his obituary in The Herald, April 13, 1937, here.
(10) The Argus, June 25, 1908, see here.
(12) There was a report in 1898 of David Mitchell (famous as the father of Nellie Melba) pasteurising his milk in The Age January 1, 1898, here; The Milk Pasteurisation Bill finally passed Victorian Parliament in December 1949, but still wasn't implemented a year later, see The Age January 8, 1951, here.
(13) The Argus, April 14, 1927, see here.
(14) Cooper, John Butler The history of Prahran from its first settlement to a City (Prahran Council, 1912) pp., 313-314
(15) The Argus, October 22, 1923, see here.
(17) Shire of Cranbourne Rate Books. In March 1851, Alexander Cameron (1815 - 1881) took up the lease of the Mayune Run and a few years later at the Government land sales he purchased 592 acres, the Mayfield Pre-emptive Right, on the corner of what is now Cameron Street and the South Gippsland Highway. The Cranbourne Road Board was proclaimed in June 1860 and Cameron was elected in 1863 and served until 1867. He was married to Margaret (nee Donaldson, 1822-1895) and they had seven children (The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire by Niel Gunson ( Cheshire, 1968)
(18) The Australasian, June 27, 1914, see here.
(19) Family information - Indexes to the Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages; personal advertisements in the newspapers and WW2 Nominal Roll. Noel Sumner Nash was the son of Albert and Mary Maud Nash, of Ballarto, Cranbourne. Maud was the daughter of Theodotus Sumner and his wife Sarah (nee Peers). Her sister Annie was married to James Grice, who was the brother of Richard Grice, land owner in Berwick and Cranbourne, after whom Grice's Road is name. Another sister, Alice, married Charles Ryan, they were the parents of Lady Casey who owned Edrington at Berwick. In spite of being socially well connected it doesn't seem like it was 'happy families' all the time as there was a family dispute over Theodotus Sumner's will - you can read about this here.
(20) Dandenong Journal, December 5 1945, see here.
(21) Cranbourne Shire Rate books; The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire by Niel Gunson (Cheshire, 1968); The Dandenong Journal, March 6, 1946, see here.
(23) The Argus, November 15, 1934, see here.
(24) The Argus, October 29, 1938, see here.
This post is an updated, expanded and much improved version of two posts I wrote and researched on my work blog, Casey Cardinia Links to our Past. I wrote the Lady Talbot Milk Institute post in 2009 and the post on Nirvana Park in 2014.
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