On December 27, 1904, this postcard was sent from Torquay, in England, to Mrs Edgar Walker, Pen Bryn, Beaconsfield Upper. It is a delightful postcard - a self-portrait of Elisabeth Lebrun. Elisabeth (1755 - 1842) was a popular French portrait artist who painted Marie Antionette over 20 times.
So who is Mrs Edgar Walker and what is Pen Bryn? We will start with Pen Bryn (Welsh for top of the hill) - it is the name of a house in Beaconsfield Upper. The original building on the site was Beaconsfield House which was built by William Brisbane (1842 - 1910) in 1877, on the highest point in the town on what was to become St Georges Parade and Salisbury Road (1). Most of the building was destroyed by fire on the night of May 30, 1893 (2). Beaconsfield House was where the journalist, The Vagabond, based himself when he visited and wrote about Beaconsfield Upper in 1885, you can read his account in The Argus of November 28, 1885, here.
In 1902, David John Davies Bevan (1873 - 1954) built Pen Bryn on the site of Beaconsfield House. (3). David Bevan was a barrister and was appointed as a judge in the Northern Territory in May 1912; he held the position until September 1920 (4). On May 8, 1924 he was married at Pen Bryn to Doris Reed, the daughter of Joseph Reed, Victoria's Surveyor General (5) and they had two children, John and Doreen (6).
David was the son of the Reverend Doctor Llewellyn David Bevan (1842 - 1918) and his wife Louisa Jane (nee Willett, 1844 - 1933). Llewellyn, born in Wales, was a Congregational Minister, who had arrived with his family in Melbourne in 1886, to take up an appointment at the Independent Church in Collins Street. Dr Niel Gunson, who wrote Reverend Bevan's Australian Dictionary of Biography entry (read it here) said that he was a leader of Protestant intellectual life in Melbourne. The entry also includes information on Louisa.
Louisa was just as interesting, she wrote and illustrated hymns and was also involved in the National Council of Women (7). The National Council of Women in Victoria was formed in November 1901 at Clivenden in East Melbourne, the home of Janet Lady Clarke. Louisa Bevan was a foundation member and Vice President in 1903 to 1905 (8). There was an interesting report of the founding of this branch in the Arena on November 28, 1901, you can read it here. Amongst other things the article tells us what the women were wearing - Mrs Bevan was a most picturesque figure in black with Maltese lace draping her head and soldiers (9). It's a shame it didn't actually tell us what the aims and activities of the Council were, but they included the education and health of women and the suffrage issue. Two of the early issues the Council advocated for were prison reform including the provision of female warders (or 'police matrons' as they called them) in lock-ups and the establishment of an Epileptic Colony (10).
In 1904 when Mrs Bevan was Vice-President, Evelyn Gough was the International Secretary. Evelyn Gough (1854 - 1931) has an indirect connection to the Beaconsfield Upper area in that her daughter, Doris, married Merric Boyd, the potter. Merric was the son of Arthur Merric Boyd (1862 - 1940) and Emma Minnie A'Beckett (1858 - 1936). Emma was the daughter of William Arthur Callander A'Beckett, M.L.C., J.P. (1833-1901) and his wife Emma Mills (1838 - 1906) who built The Grange at Harkaway, the town next to Beaconsfield Upper (11).Back to the Bevans - Llewellyn and Louisa had eight children - the aforementioned David, who built Pen Byrn and Hopkin Llewellyn Willett (1871 - 1933), Louis Rhys Oxley (1874 - 1946), Penry Vaughan (1875 - 1913), Muriel Eliza Marienne (1876 - 1955), Hester Gwladys (1877 - 1968), Sibyl Ceredwyn (1879 - 1962) and an adopted daughter Dorothy Leigh Wilkins (1893 - 1970). (12)
It is Muriel who is the Mrs Edgar Walker to whom the postcard is addressed. Muriel married Edgar William Walker (1879 - 1942) on December 4, 1901. The service was conducted by her father, at the Independent Church in Collins Street. Hester, Sibyl and Dorothy were the bridesmaids and Mrs. Bevan broke tradition by adopting the unusual practice of giving her daughter away. The bride wore ivory crepe de chine, set off with a very handsome train of silvery brocade (13). You can read reports of the wedding here and here.
Charles Wilson, in his book Upper Beaconsfield: an early history says that Louisa Bevan took up residence at Pen Bryn after her husband died in 1918 and lived there until her death in 1933 (14). David and his wife Doris lived at Calembeen, the Reed family home, which is also in Upper Beaconsfield (15). As the postcard was addressed to Muriel at Pen Bryn in late 1904, it appears that she and Edgar were living there. They are listed in the 1905 Electoral Rolls at Beaconsfield Upper, but by 1909 they had moved to Camberwell. The couple had three children - Janet, David and Lois (16).
In 1954, 42 acres of the Bevan property was sold, leaving Pen Bryn on 8 acres. Pen Bryn was sold out of the Bevan family in 1960 (17).
Acknowledgement - The lovely post card was given to me by my postcard collecting friend, Isaac Hermann.
Footnotes
(1) Wilson, Charles Upper Beaconsfield: an early history by Charles W. Wilson (Upper Beaconsfield Association, 2013), p. 96.
(5) Marriage notice The Argus, June 14, 1924, see here. Doris' father - Joseph Martin Reed was appointed the Surveyor General in 1899. You can read his life in this article in the Weekly Times, August 19, 1899, here and his obituary in the Korumburra Great Southern Advocate of June 30, 1932, here.
(6) Children John and Doreen are listed in his death notice in The Age, October 4, 1954, see here.
