In January 1849, Moses Rintel, was appointed as the Reader of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation. Moses, born in Edinburgh, Scotland had arrived in Sydney in 1844 where he served the Sydney Congregation as the Principal of the Hebrew School. Even though, Rintel was not a professional clergyman before his arriving in Melbourne, he nevertheless, because of his upbringing and background, was well able to carry out the duties of a minister and few public men were to become better known in the city during his time as the 'Rabbi Rintel' as he was called (1). Rabbi Rintel, was described as a man with a colourful personality and picturesque character, [who] possessed a strong mind and a will of his own and combined it with a soft heart and natural ability (2). After some disputes Rabbi Rintel fell out with the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, whose Synagogue was in Bourke Street (3) and resigned as their Minister on April 1, 1857 (4). Very soon after he formed a new congregation with Henri John Hart, the brother of his wife, Elvina. This new congregation was called the Mikveh Yisrael Melbourne Synagogue, which was also known as the East Melbourne Congregation (5).
The Congregation met in a series of temporary premises, firstly to Spring Street, with successive relocations to Latrobe and Lonsdale Streets (6) until they were able to build their own Synagogue. Rabbi Rintel, on behalf of the Congregation, had applied for a Crown grant for a Hebrew School and this was granted May 17, 1859. The land was on the corner of Exhibition (then called Stephen Street ) and Little Lonsdale Streets, with trustees Rabbi Moses Rintel, Henri John Hart (7), Moritz Michaelis (8), Morris Nelson (9) and Abraham Woolf (10).
Notification in the Government Gazette about the land grant.
Victoria Government Gazette, May 20 1859
Even though the land was specifically granted for a school, the construction of an actual synagogue soon commenced, with the foundation stone laid on December 29, 1859 (11). The building was dedicated on March 29, 1863 and you can read a comprehensive account of this event, here (12). It was designed by Architects Knight and Kerr, who had designed a rather more grand building a few years earlier, Victoria's Parliament House which opened in 1856 (13). The Mikveh Yisrael Congregation spent less than twenty years in Exhibition Street and moved to a new Synagogue in Albert Street, the official opening of which took place on September 5, 1877 (14). The Exhibition Street building had already been sold for £2870 to the Education Department for a ragged school as The Herald called it (15). A ragged school was a free school to educate poor children, who generally had ragged clothes.
Rabbi Rintel's Synagogue in 1933 when it was the City Creche.
The signs on the buildings next door as for Union White Flash, a petroleum product, and Witch Soap, a J. Kitchen & Sons product.
City Creche [Cnr Exhibition & Little Lonsdale Streets, Melbourne], 1933. Photographer: John Kinmont Moir.
State Library of Victoria Image H4900.
On March 1 1878, this ragged school - State School No. 2030 - opened in the old Synagogue after the Department had spent £960 on additions and alterations (16). The school was in a slum area and this led to its closure just over ten years later. The District Inspector reported that it was as well to close this school. It is too distinctively a slum school to be of much moral good to the scholars and the Inspector General's report described many of the students as from the slums and poorly clad. The school was closed on December 20, 1889 (17).
It doesn't sound like it was a school where there was much joy or hope, however a past pupil wrote a letter to The Age in January 1938, under the pen-name 'Old Scholar' and shared his happy memories of his time there -
Sir, - I was a scholar of State school 2030, Exhibition-street (formerly old synagogue, now S. A. home). It was ably conducted by Mr. J. Cullin (the head master), and master Best (about
1883). Mr. Allen was singing master. The scholars were Selman, C. Herring, Nancy Watson, brother who hurt his leg at a circus; Miss Harris and Needham, Sister McHarg, Edwards (son of the grocer near the school), the Rosiers, Tuskins, Kennedy. As far as I can recollect, Miss Freeman was teacher of the Infant class. We had a few scholars who went to Hebrew; while Dr. Strong and his ladies conducted the scripture lessons. We sang some fine hymns in those times. We had a fine trip to Bendigo about the year 1887, and to the juvenile exhibition. I never thought I would live here for 40 years. We got on very well, but Mr. Cullin was very strict, and could use the cane expertly, which I do not forget. When I left I attended Mr. Brandon's school at night in Fitzroy. -
Yours, &c., Bendigo. OLD SCHOLAR. (18)
Interesting letter, especially the part about the singing of the fine hymns, given that the 1872 Education Act, which came into effect on January 1, 1873, stipulated that schooling in Victoria should be free, secular and compulsory for students of not less than six years nor more than fifteen years, but perhaps as the Act actually specified 'secular instruction' the hymn singing was considered to be entertainment. (19).
After the school closed it was used by the Salvation Army as Free Labour Bureau and then a refuge for the unemployed (20). In June 1897, the Salvation Army was given a seven year lease on the building for £1 per annum for use a refuge for destitute women. This was reported in The Age -
An old building in Exhibition-street, formerly used as a State school, was yesterday handed over by the Minister of Education to the Salvation Army, for the purpose of being made into a night shelter for destitute women. The building had been asked for by Mrs. Booth on behalf, as she expressed it, of "the gaol birds, who live between the prison cell and the beer shop; the poor old vagrant wanderers, the slaves of want and whisky, the dirty and degraded, the women who have ranked themselves amongst the company of the great unwanted and unwashed; the out of work women, who have nothing to hope for." A home of this kind was opened some time ago in Canada by Mrs. Booth, and proved of great service to the class for which it was designed. In granting the use of the building the Minister stipulated that it should be renovated and kept in good repair, and this condition was readily assented to (21).
The Salvation Army refuge was closed in July 1905 and the building was later leased to the Melbourne Central Mission, part of the Methodist Church. The Mission had been established in 1893 as a practical response to alleviate the impacts of the 1890s depression (22). A report from the Central Mission in the Methodist newspaper, the Spectator and Methodist Chronicle, in May 1918 looked back at this time -
In June 1908, the use of an old State school building, in Exhibition-street, near Wesley Church was granted to us. It was then known as 'Hope-Hall,' but since as the 'Central Mission Guild House.' With some assistance from the Education Department, we renovated the whole place, and it has been used for Mission services, for the home of the City Free Kindergarten, and for the meeting-place of our Junior and Senior Girls' Guilds (23).
The Free Kindergarten was opened by Lady Carmichael on August 15, 1910 (24). It was the first free kindergarten in the City, although there were others established in some suburbs. The role of the kindergarten was seen as a way to help 'slum' children rise out of poverty. A report of the opening confirms this -
Mr Edgar, M.L.C., said that the institution of free kindergartens within the city boundaries would in time probably solve the problem of the Melbourne slums. Dr Maloney, M. H. R., in seconding the motion, hoped that kindergartens would soon be established in every quarter of the city. A destitute woman should be able to go to the Government and say, "My child lacks clothes and food, and it is your duty to save this future unit of Australia." (25)
In May 1915 it was announced that the City Free Kindergarten Committee are opening a creche in connection with their kindergarten in the hall, corner of Exhibition and Little Lonsdale streets. All working mothers and guardians' are requested to communicate with Mrs. W. Ramsay, hon. sec., 80 Swanston street, or with the directress at the Kindergarten Hall (26).
The building in 1949.
City Free Kindergarten, 1949. Photographer: Colin Caldwell.
State Library of Victoria Image H84.276/1/50D
The City Creche as it was known served Melbourne until March 1948 (27), when it closed as it the building was deemed inadequate for its purpose. In fact it was described as a disgrace by the Secretary of the Association of Creches. Mrs L.T. Gedye (28). The building was still owned at the time by the Education Department. Melbourne City Council took over the building and after extensive renovations it reopened in June 1950 (29). In 1954, the City Creche was named the Ethel Nilsen Day Nursery in honour of Mrs Nilsen who for 17 years had been a non-stop and generous worker for the creche (30).
The building operated as a creche until at least 1989 when according to a report in The Age the tenants have been removed from the Ethel Nilsen Kindergarten, Exhibition Street with the Government non-committal as to what heritage protection it will impose, if any, once the building is sold (31). This was not the first threat to the building's existence as in May 1947 it was reported in The Age that the Chief architect of the Public Works Department (Mr. P. Everett) said a new building was intended for the site. At present, a multi-storied building was planned, with accommodation for a kindergarten and creche on the ground floor and an adult education centre on the floors above (32).
The building has survived and is currently used as a restaurant. Perhaps the prayers and good thoughts of Rabbi Rintel and his congregation and the folk of the Salvation Army and the Methodist Melbourne Mission, with the addition of the fine hymns sung by the scholars of the State School, No. 2030, are the reason that this small historic building still stands, despite the onslaught of progress that has wrought the destruction of so much of our city's built heritage.
Footnotes:
(1) Goldman, Lazarus Morris The Jews in Victoria in the Nineteenth Century (published by the Author, 1954). p. 62. You can read Rintel's entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, here. I have written about his son, Henri, here, and Footnote 2 - has some information about the Rabbi's family.
(2) Goldman, op. cit., p. 267.
(3) Bourke Street Synagogue - the foundation stone was laid in 1847. It was demolished in 1930 as the Congregation had moved to a new Synagogue in South Yarra.
(4) Goldman, op. cit., p. 133. Goldman writes about the various disputes between Rintel and the Melbourne Congregation in chapters 11 - Immigrants and 12 - A new Congregation.
(5) Goldman, op. cit. p. 133 and 135.
(6) Goldman, op. cit. p. 135.
(7) Henri John Hart (1820 - 1884) You can read about Henri's life in his informative obituary in the Jewish Herald, May 2, 1884, here.
(8) Moritz Michaelis (1820 - 1902) - the founder of the Michaelis, Hallenstein Tannery at Footscray, read about that here. Read his obituary in the Jewish Herald of December 2, 1902, here. Goldman describes him as the Acting Prussian Consul (p. 136).
(9) Morris Nelson - laid the foundation stone of the Exhibition Street Synagogue (Goldman, p. 137). I believe he was a merchant, part of the firm of Nelson Brothers of Orange, who died July 5, 1877 at the age of 58 at his home in Sydney (death notice in the Sydney Mail, July 14, 1877, see here.)
(10) Abraham Woolf - I cannot confirm any other information about Mr Woolf.
(11) There is a short report in The Argus, December 29, 1859, here [middle of third column] and Goldman, p. 137. The newspaper report says Rabbi Rintel laid the stone, Goldman says Morris Nelson laid it.
(12) The Herald, March 30, 1863, see here.
(13) You can read about the process of designing Parliament House on their website, here. John George Knight (1826 - 1892), read his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, here. Peter Kerr (1820 - 1912), read his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, here. I became aware of the architects of the Synagogue through the Victorian Heritage Database citation, here.
(14) The Age, September 6, 1877, see here. The Albert Street Synagogue, still serves the community, https://www.melbournecitysynagogue.com/
(15) The Herald, September 4, 1877, see here. Read more about ragged schools here on Culture Victoria.
(16) Blake, L. J (editor) Vision and Realisation: a centenary history of State Education in Victoria, (Education Department of Victoria, 1973), vol. 3. p. 79.
(17) Blake, op. cit., vol. 3. p. 79.
(18) The Age, January 29, 1938, see here.
(19) Read the Education Act here (it is only 6 pages long) http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/hist_act/tea1872134/
(20) Blake, op. cit., vol. 3. p. 79.
(21) The Age, June 10, 1897, see here. The Mrs Booth referred to is, I believe, the wife of Bramwell Booth, the General of the Salvation Army from 1912 to 1929 and the son of the founders William and Catherine Booth. Catherine had died in 1890. Read more about the Booths here, on the Salvation Army website.
(22) Later called Wesley Central Mission and now called Wesley Mission.
(23) Spectator and Methodist Chronicle, May 15, 1918, see here.
(24) The Argus, August 16, 1910, see here. Lady Carmichael (nee Mary Nugent), was the wife of Sir Thomas Carmichael, the Governor of Victoria from 1908 to 1911.
(25) The Argus, August 16, 1910, see here. Mr Edgar, M. L. C., - William Haslam Edgar (1858-1948), see here. Dr Maloney is William Robert Maloney - Doctor, Politician and Humanitarian, read his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry here.
(26) The Argus, May 5, 1915, see here.
(27) The Age, June 30, 1950, see here.
(28) The Age, May 20, 1947, see here. Mrs L. T. Gedye was Mrs Leonard Talford Gedye (nee Ethel Rose Heydt). She spent years raising funds for and awareness of the need for creches, I will write about her one day, she's worth more than a footnote.
(29) The Age, June 30, 1950, see here.
(30) The Argus, August 24, 1954, see here. Ethel (nee Williams) was the wife of Oliver John Nilsen, who started the radio station 3UZ. You can read his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, here.
(31) The Age, July 19, 1989 - accessed on Newspapers Plus - an add-on to Ancestry.
(32) The Age, May 20, 1947, see here.
