Elizabeth Parsons (1831-1897)

Elizabeth Parsons (1831 - 1897) was a professional artist, who created many delightful landscapes in water-colour, oil and drawings. The State Library of Victoria has around thirty of her works on-line, many of the St Kilda area (1) however Elizabeth also has a number of works of Berwick, which was then a country town and where the family stayed during summer.

View from Wilson's Hill, Berwick, 1878 by Elizabeth Parsons.

Image: National Gallery of Victoria A35-1976

This is a very short history of her life and works, most of which I have summarised from the book More than a memory: the art of Elizabeth Parsons by Veronica Filmer.  This is the catalogue of an exhibition of Elizabeth Parson's work held at the Geelong Gallery in 2004. The exhibition was also curated by Veronica Filmer. It's a lovely book, I found a copy at an on-line second-hand book seller and it is well worth tracking down, however the Geelong Galley has recently digitised the book and it is available on their website, here https://www.geelonggallery.org.au/whats-on/exhibitions/elizabeth-parsons

Elizabeth was born to William and Elizabeth (nee Keens) Warren on November 27, 1831.  The Keens were market gardeners and William and Elizabeth and their children lived on the family property after their marriage in 1820. Elizabeth (the younger) found employment as a governess and in the late 1850s began art lessons with instructors including Thomas Miles Richardson and James Duffield Harding.

Elizabeth Parson

The Age, December 10, 1932, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/204305272#

Her mother, who died in March 1867, left Elizabeth an annuity as long as she remained unmarried and this gave her some freedom to travel around England on sketching trips. It was on one of these trips that she met George Parsons (1830 - 1920) who was the manager of the Lizard Serpentine Marble Works.  George had trained as a surveyor and was a widower with two sons, George and Cecil. Elizabeth and George married on October 28, 1868. Elizabeth gave birth to  a daughter, Adeline, in August 1869. 1869 was also significant for Elizabeth as she exhibited seven works in the Society of Female Artists exhibition, her first major exhibition. Elizabeth exhibited under the name of Mrs George Parsons.

In 1870 the family decided to migrate to Australia and they arrived in Melbourne on May 20, 1870 and their son Henry was born the same year. In 1872 another son, Warren, was born followed by two more sons, Noel in 1875, Jonathon in 1876 and a still-born baby in 1879.   Elizabeth lost no time in establishing herself as an artist in her new country and she exhibited in the Victorian Academy of Art exhibition in November 1870. The Argus had a two part review of this exhibition, which you can read here and here. The Argus said that there were three water-colour landscapes of conspicuous merit by Mrs G. Parsons (2).

There was also a more detailed review of Elizabeth Parson's work in The Argus of December 26, 1870, which Ms Filmer quoted in her book (3) and I have reproduced, below.

Praise for Elizabeth Parson's work.

The Argus December 26, 1870 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5839972

Elizabeth commenced teaching in the early 1870s as well as continuing to exhibit works  depicting local landmarks such as the Carlton Gardens and Melbourne University. Around 1873, Elizabeth rented a studio in Flinders Lane and the next year the family moved to a house in Neptune Street, St Kilda. They later moved to Charnwood Road in the same suburb and then to 249 Carlisle Street in Balaclava.

The family also toured the State and scenes from areas such as Mornington, Geelong, Woodend and Berwick featured in Elizabeth's work. Ms Filmer writes that the family spent many summers in Berwick, where they had either leased or brought  a small holiday house. From here Elizabeth could make sketching trips into the surrounding district. (4)  The picture, below, shows  the back of the holiday house in Wilson lane (or Wilson Street as it was actually called). Ms Filmer also writes that from the Berwick house popular locations such as Harkaway and Koo Wee Rup were easily accessed (5).  I checked the Shire of Berwick Rate books and neither George or Elizabeth are listed as owning property at Berwick,  so they must have rented a house in Berwick. 

Wilson lane, Berwick, c. 1876 by Elizabeth Parsons.

Image: More than a memory: the art of Elizabeth Parsons by Veronica Filmer (Geelong Gallery, 2004)

Elizabeth's standing as an artist continued to grow and in December 1874, she was elected to the Victorian Academy of Art Council, which is all the more remarkable as there was much opposition to women taking up public positions of any kind and also that she had the responsibility of a  young family to care for and George was often away due to his job as inspector and auditor of the Seymour to Avenel section of the North Eastern railway line. Elizabeth also continued to exhibit and began painting in oils.

In the early 1880s, Elizabeth became more enterprising and published three books - the Drawing book of Australian Landscape - book one covered buildings, book two trees and book three landscapes. Books one and two have been digitised by the State Library of Victoria, here and here and Ms Filmer writes that no trace has been found of the third book, Landscapes (6) 

At Berwick, 1882, by Elizabeth Parsons. This illustration was originally published in her book, Drawing book of Australian Landscape - Part 1 - buildings.

Image: National Gallery of Australia Image NGA 86.1996.

The 1880s saw Elizabeth continue to exhibit in the annual Victorian Academy of Arts shows, the Sydney Art Society exhibition, Victorian Jubilee Exhibition of 1884, amongst other shows. In 1886 she joined the newly formed Australian Artist's Association along with other artists such as Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder. The first exhibition of this group was reported on in the Melbourne newspapers, see below and you can read Elizabeth's review, below.

Praise for Elizabeth Parson's work at the inaugural Australian Artist's Association exhibition.

The Argus September 7, 1886 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11571934

Elizabeth was also a member of two social clubs - the Buonarotti Club, whose members were mainly young artists (7) and the Stray Leaves Club, which was active from 1889 to 1892 and often met at the Parson's home in Balaclava. Emma Minnie Boyd (nee A'Beckett, 1858 - 1936) was also a member of the Stray Leaves Club.  Ms Filmer writes that Emma Minnie Boyd and Elizabeth Parsons, exhibited together from the mid 1870s, had stylistic similarities and that Elizabeth may have been something of  a mentor to Emma (8).  The A'Becketts owned The Grange property at Harkaway, the town just north of Berwick, so it is likely that they also socialised when the Parsons were at Berwick.

At Berwick, 1882, by Elizabeth Parsons. This illustration was originally published in her book, Drawing book of Australian Landscape - Part 1 - buildings.

Image: National Gallery of Australia Image NGA 86.2250

From 1889 Elizabeth decided to retire and sold many of her works at a sale in 1890 and she held another sale in 1896. You can read the coverage of the 1896 sale in The Age of  July 17, 1896, here.  By this time Elizabeth was suffering from breast cancer and she died May 28, 1897. She is buried in the St Kilda Cemetery, as is her husband, George, who died January 19, 1920.

There were periodic exhibitions of Elizabeth Parson's works after her death, mainly instigated by her daughter Adeline, and also one in 1920, which Ms Filmer said reignited interest in Elizabeth and her art (9).  The Herald reviewed this exhibition, you can read it here and it is transcribed, below. 

The review of Elizabeth Parson's 1920 retrospective exhibition.

The Herald, March 15, 1920  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242159510

Mid-Victorian Memories by A. Colquhoun

An exhibition of 65 paintings in water-colors by the late Elizabeth Parsons (Mrs George Parsons) was opened today at the Decoration Galleries, Collins street. Mrs Parsons occupied a prominent place in Victorian art during the seventies and eighties, and her work was accepted not merely as that of a talented woman painter but as an equal of the leading professional artists of her time and environment. Her manner of using water-color was direct and forceful, free from tricky manipulation of any kind, and generally characterised by a uniform sincerity of purpose. In the present collection, which ranges over many years, the quality is naturally unequal, but there is no example shown which has not some claim to be considered on its merits as a work of art. Apart from their artistic worthy these pictures have overlooked, and they form, collectively or individually, an impressive record of the great changes which have taken place in Melbourne and its environs during the lust 40 years. Mrs Parsons, who was a woman of intellect and of attractive personality, died in 1897. The exhibition will remain open till March 20. (The Herald, March 15, 1920).

The man who wrote this review, Alexander Colquhoun (1966-1941), was an artist and the art critic who wrote for The Age, as well as The Herald (10).  In 1932, he profiled Elizabeth Parsons in his series Australian Artists of the Past for The Age (11).  It is an interesting look at her life which addresses the difficulties she face balancing raising a family as a professional artist. It also looks at some of the prejudice she faced initially as a woman, when the art world was dominated by men.

Australian Artists of the Past - Mrs Geo. Parsons. By A.C.

In reviewing the progress of the pioneer artists of Australia one is apt to think of it a a parade fit males only, and in the main the presumption is largely borne out by fact; for in those early colonial days woman had other things to do than fiddle about with paints and brushes; and though she had since amply justified her claim to recognition on a professional footing, the time was not yet ripe in the seventies for her acknowledgment as any thing more serious than a pretty dabbler in the arts. The woman who then sought to make art her vocation in life had many things to reckon with and overcome before attaining even a moderate grip on success, and only one of those was a popular conviction that her only credible sphere of action was in that shrine of early Victorian smugness - "the home."

The perfunctory lady amateur had rather a vogue in Queen Victoria's days but with Mrs. Parsons the case was different, for though the mother of a family and a domesticated woman in the true sense of the term, her art never fell to the level of a hobby or accomplishment, but was, from the first to last, the serious business of her life. She was born at Islesworth, on the Thames, and lived there until she married, at the age of thirty-five, her husband being a widower, whom she met while on a sketching trip in Cornwall, and with whom, a few years later she left England to settle in Australia. Mrs. Parsons, like Glover and Buvelot, brought with her to this country a record of past achievement. 

Before her marriage she was a pupil of Thomas Miles Richardson, a man of some note in his day as a painter, engraver and illustrator, and on various occasions an exhibitor at the Royal Academy exhibitions. His landscapes, in oils and water colors, were painted in a bold and original manner, and he had a special gift for "sunset effects," which had then a more popular appeal than in these sophisticated days. Her next mentor in art was James Duffield Harding, celebrated as a teacher, painter and lithographer, and who published several works relating to the practice of his profession, among them "Lessons in Art" and "The Principle and Practice of Art", both of which had a wide circulation. The teaching of this artist had a lasting influence on the work of Elizabeth Parsons, and though in the light of modern opinion some of his methods might be regarded as superficial, Ruskin, in his "Modern Painters," says of him: "Let us refresh ourselves for a moment by looking at the truth; we need not go to Turner - we will go to the man who, next in order, is unquestionably the greatest master of foliage in Europe - J. D. Harding." 

On her arrival in Melbourne, Mrs. Parsons lost no time in identifying herself with the art of the new land of her adoption. On 1st December, 1870, an exhibition of paintings by Victorian artists was opened by Viscount Canterbury at the Melbourne Public Library, in which 230 pictures were shown.

Among the artists represented were Buvelot, von Guerard, O.R. Campbell, Chester Earles; and three water colors, which were described as of conspicuous merit, were by Mrs. Geo. Parsons.

Working quietly but assiduously, she again came to the front in a mixed display of pictures held in a well-known art gallery situated somewhere in the doctors' quarters of Collins-street. This was in 

1872, and her water colors received further praise from the newspapers as being of outstanding quality. She had now become a recognised personage in the art life of Melbourne, and a constant contributor to the exhibitions of the Victorian Academy of Arts on Eastern Hill, in connection with which body she was elected a member of the council somewhere about 1873. Though voicing the restricted sentiment of the day, some of the sitting members strongly resented the intrusion of a female into their conclaves; probably on the grounds that her proper place was in the "home" minding her children and darning her husband's socks. These found, however, that they had an advance representative of the Australian new woman to deal with, and the interloper was not long in consolidating her position and making her influence felt in the raising of the standard in local art. 

Much of her time was spent in teaching, and in this branch of her many activities she established a reputation for method and scrupulous sincerity of purpose which did not tend to lighten her labors. One of her scrupulosities - which is worthy of imitation - was a rigid taboo of all impermanent colors, however brilliant, and as a result pictures painted by her party of fifty years ago still retain their freshness of yesterday, which is a matter for consideration by young artists with a possible fifty years of life still before them.

In the Colonial and Indian Exhibitions held in London in 1886, we read in the Magazine of Art an article by R.A.L. Stevenson, who, after speaking of J. Ford Paterson, refers appreciatively to a painting by Mrs. Parson entitled The Red Bluff as "another work inspired by study of good schools, it is composed and arranged with taste and method, and the color is laid on in good broad washes." In this number of the magazine the pictures reproduced are On the Lerderderg, by John Ford Paterson; The Red Bluff, by E. Parsons; and Luck at Last, by G. K. Ashton. For her work in this exhibition the artist was also warmly commended in a letter from Peter Graham.

While the standard she aimed at and reached was normally a high one, her art was, as is the case with every capable painter, liable to variations and reactions to environment and conditions. Perhaps the best things she produced belong to her mid-Australian period, and her daughter, Adeline, speaking of this, says she believes there was a slight falling off while her children were little and requiring constant care, but it revived later, and almost up to the year of her death, in 1897, kept pace with the progress and development of the times. 

Besides contributing freely to general exhibitions, she was one of the first exponents of the "One-Man Show" in Melbourne, one successful display being made about 1885, and another - her latest public demonstration - in 1896. Though a prolific worker conditions did not, as a rule, admit of her travelling very far afield in search of subject matter, and indirectly owing to this a special interest attaches to many of her pictures of near-by rural spots which are to-day marked by tram lines and busy suburban streets.

A pianist of more than average ability she was, in company with John Longstaff, Fred McGubbin, J. G. Gibbs, the writer and other artists of the then younger generation, a member of the then Buonarotti Club, which, with Cyrus Mason as president, was a source of semi-Bohemian culture in the Melbourne of the late eighties, and, when after some years of activity it ceased to function, Mrs Parsons, who rather leant to functions, and liked to have people about her, started a new society, happily named the "Stray Leaves' primarily designed to bring together and encourage young people interested in art, which purpose it served helpfully for a time when going the way of all such organisations.

Perhaps the happiest lime of the artist's life was when she was associated with the old Academy of Arts, and was one of the group of enthusiasts who, in the face of much that was discouraging, kept the door of art open in this country in the interests of the coming generations. The building, described as "a large bluestone room lit at the top by skylights," was opened in 1874, and cost £800 - an unpretentious beginning, perhaps - but it has borne fruit, and tribute is due from this generation to the memory of the pioneers. Among whom besides Mrs. Parsons were the Hon. H. T. T. a'Beckett, grandfather of the late Penleigh Boyd, J. A. Panton, F, Mackennell, father of Sir Bertram Mackennell ; Buvelot, von Guerard and Chester Earles.

To excite interest in the cause of art which, in those days, seems to have wanted a good deal of tickling, an art union was arranged in connection with the academy, and Mrs. Parsons had the honor of having her work chosen and sent to Tasmania, where it was well received. So it will be seen that, though like others who served in the burden and heat, her name has become little more than a memory - she was not without honor in her day, and honor, fairly earned, is a thing that dies hard. (The Age, December 10, 1932, see here)

We will finish this post on Elizabeth Parsons once again quoting Veronica Filmer - Through persistence and hard work Elizabeth Parsons reached a prominent position in the Victorian art world and was an inspiration to many around her who aspired to do the same. (11)

Acknowledgement
Much of this post I have summarised from Veronica Filmer's essay on the life and work of Elizabeth Parsons, which was published in More than a memory: the art of Elizabeth Parsons (Geelong Gallery, 2004). It is of course a much more comprehensive, scholarly and detailed study of Elizabeth's life and work than what you read here. Here is the link to the work again from the Geelong Gallery website https://www.geelonggallery.org.au/whats-on/exhibitions/elizabeth-parsons Even though you can view it on-line, as I said before, if you ever come across a copy of the book, it is still worth buying. I've scanned the cover, so you will recognise it if you see it. It has 40 of her works reproduced, it's just a delight. I found out about Elizabeth Parsons, her connection to Berwick and Veronica Filmer's book, from my fellow historian, Isaac Hermann.

Footnotes
(1) As well as the Elizabeth Parson works which are on-line at the State Library of Victoria, www.slv.vic.gov.au you can view some of her works on the Geelong Gallery website, https://www.geelonggallery.org.au/. The National Gallery of Victoria has three of her works, on-line, https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/ The National Gallery of Australia has nine of her works on-line https://nga.gov.au/

(2) The Argus December 1, 1870, see here.  
(3) Filmer, Veronica More than a memory: the art of Elizabeth Parsons (Geelong Gallery, 2004) page 15.
(4) Filmer, page 17
(5) Filmer, page 28
(6) Filmer, page 24
(7) Filmer, page 33
(8) Filmer, page 33. Ms Filmer was alerted to the possible connections between Elizabeth Parsons and Emma Minnie Boyd by Jennifer Phipps of the National Gallery of Victoria (footnote 79, page 33)
(9) Filmer, page 35
(10) The Age, February 15, 1941, see here.

(11)  The Age, December 10, 1932, see here.
(12) Filmer, page 37

A version of this post, which I wrote and researched, appears on my work blog, Casey Cardinia Links to our Past. 

Identical Post Offices - Berwick, Murtoa and Donald

The Berwick Post and Telegraph Office and Court House was opened in 1885. It was designed by Public Works Department architect, John Thomas Kelleher. Victoria had two other Post Offices of near identical design to Berwick, one at Murtoa, which opened in 1882 and the other at Donald, which opened in 1884 (1).  The Berwick Post Office is as described as predominatly neo-Gothic, with Venetian influence in the pointed windows, loggia and polychrome brickwork. Red-brown brick with white tuck pointing is decorated with cream brick courses at impost level and red and cream bricks in the Lombardic arch heads at the windows (2).

The Berwick Post Office.

Image: Berwick Nostalgia: a pictorial history of Berwick

(Berwick Pakenham Historical Society, 2001)

I cannot find the exact date that the Post Office complex at Berwick opened, but it was late in 1885, because an advertisement (see below) for a tender for furniture and fittings for the building was published in early October, 1885. You will notice that the Commissioner of Public Works at the time was Alfred Deakin, Australia's second Prime Minister who served from September 1903 until April 1904 and later served for two more terms (3). 

Tender for the fit-out of the Berwick Post Office complex, signed by Alfred Deakin

South Bourke & Mornington Journal October 7, 1885

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/70391028

The Architect, John Thomas Kelleher, was born in Sydney in 1844 to Jeremiah and Mary Kelleher (4).  The family moved to Melbourne in 1848 and they lived in Elizabeth Street, opposite where the old General Post Office is located. He spent his entire career in the Public Works Department of Victoria and reached the position of the Eastern District Architect (5).  His other works include the Fitzroy Post Office, the Benalla Post Office and the Traralgon Post Office and Court House (6).  John was forced to retire on a pension in April 1894. These forced retirements were usually due to the fact that the officers of the Public Service had reached the compulsory retirement age of 60, even though John was only 50, and it appears that his retirement was due to the retrenchment and reorganisation scheme of the Public Works Department (7). 

John had married Florence Athole Todd (nee Edwards) on December 5, 1889. She was a 26 year old widow and he was 45 years old (8). They had one daughter, Kareen, in 1900. The family lived at Athole in Poplar Grove, Murumbeena (9). Kareen married William Norman Fysh in 1923, the year after her mother died. John died in 1928. The Electoral Rolls show that Kareen and William lived in Poplar Grove, until at least 1980 (10). Kareen was fortunate the house was still standing as in 1907 Poplar Grove was the location of a sensational incident, which was reported in The Age of November 28, 1907.

The Age November 28, 1907 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204996746

SEVERE THUNDERSTORM
SENSATIONAL INCIDENT AT MURRUMBEENA.
HOUSE STRUCK BY A THUNDER BOLT.
Several of the residents of Murrumbeena met with a thrilling experience during a remarkable electrical disturbance accompanying a thunder storm of great violence which burst over that suburb in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Mr. J. T. Kelleher, who resides not far front the Murrumbeena railway station, states that shortly after 5 a.m. he was awakened by a most awful din, accompanied by a confused feeling of being shaken up all over. His wife and little daughter, who were sleeping in the next room, rushed in to him, in a panic stricken condition. Immediately afterwards a little boy from the next house came running in stating that his mother wanted him (Mr. Kelleher) at once, as their house had been struck by lightning. On hurrying to the spot Mr, Kelleher found that the whole of the chimney stuck of a house occupied by Mrs. Pierson had been knocked clean over, from top to bottom. The falling bricks, which were scattered in all directions, had greatly damaged the roof and gutters. A quantity of the iron piping had also been fused, and some furniture and ornaments in one of the rooms had been knocked down and broken. Mrs. Pierson and the children were uninjured, but the former has suffered severely since from nervous shock. Mr. Kelleher said it was a matter of astonishment to him why the lightning had missed his chimneys fully 20 feet, higher, and picked out the smallest and most secluded house on the spot. 

Mr. George, a retired senior constable, who lives in an adjacent house, gives an interesting account of his experience during the storm which did the damage just described. He states that he was working in his garden, as was his custom about day break. when he saw a huge fire ball making straight for Mr. Kelleher's and Mrs. Pierson's houses, accompanied by the most awful clap of thunder. He confessed to being so terrified at the awesome sight that he bolted panic stricken into his own house. Hearing the noise of the thunder bolt striking Mrs. Pierson's house recalled him to his right senses, and he ran out in time to see the bricks of the chimney stack being scattered in all directions (11).

Berwick Post Office and Court House, opened 1885.

Berwick Post Office and Courthouse, November 19, 1967. Photographer: John T. Collins.

State Library of Victoria Image H90.100/1961

The Berwick Post Office was used until 1983, when a new facility in High Street was built and the Court House closed in 1990 (12). The buildings still exist and have a City of Casey Heritage overlay (13).  

The Murtoa Post Office, which was on Marma Street, has been demolished. The existing Post Office on the corner of Haby Lane and McDonald Street was built in 1959 (14).  The Donald Post Office is still there and is still in use. There are photos of the Murtoa and Donald buildings, below.

Murtoa Post Office and Court House, opened 1882.

Courthouse and Post Office Murtoa, 1883. State Library of Victoria Image H9027

Murtoa Post Office, c. 1920s.

State Library of Victoria Image H89.105/167

Donald Post Office and Court House, opened 1884.

Donald - Post Office and Courthouse, c. 1898. Photographer: Sands and McDougall.

State Library of Victoria Image H27288/3f

Donald Post Office, c. 1920s.

State Library of Victoria Image H89.105/75

Donald residents welcome home Private Hornsby and Private Moyle, soldiers from the Boer War, 1900.

Photographer: A E Petsche Studio. 

Museums Victoria https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/773995

I have also written about the Elwood and Pakenham/Pakenham East Post Offices, another set of identical buildings, see here. 

Footnotes
(1) Context P/L Heritage of the City of Berwick: identifying and caring for important places (City of Berwick, 1993), p. 322.
(2) Context P/L, op. cit. p. 323.
(3) Alfred Deakin, read his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry by R. Norris, here.
(4) John's parents were Jeremiah Barry Kelleher and Mary Winter (although his father is called John on John's marriage certificate). Jeremiah, whose mother's maiden name was Barry, died in 1905, aged 90. Mary died in 1857, her death notice is below.

The Age January 7, 1857 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/154821552

(5) These details about John's life are from his obituary which is reproduced, below.

The Argus, September 8, 1928 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3955661

(6) Context P/L., op. cit, p.232.
(7) The Age reported on his retirement on March 26, 1894 and the subsequent re-arrangment of the Architectural staff of the Public Works Department. The report also says that this will complete the retrenchment and reorganisation scheme of the Public Works Department. Four years ago the wages sheet of the professional branch amounted to £23,000 per annum, and it has been reduced to £11,000. Read The Age article, here. The retirements were even announced in the Adelaide papers, see below.

Adelaide Evening Journal, February 7, 1894. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/200767112

(8) This information is from their marriage certificate.
(9) The Poplar Grove address is from the Electoral Roll available on Ancestry. From 1903 until 1912, they lived at Poplar Street and then in 1913 this changed to Poplar Grove, Murrumbeena. The street is now part of Carnegie.
(10) Florence died March 27, 1922. She was the daughter of Richard James and Annie (nee Smith) Edwards. John died September 5, 1928, see death notice below.

The Argus September 7, 1928 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3955144

There is a report of Kareen's wedding to William Norman Fysh, which took place at St Anthony's Church, Grange Road, Glenhuntly on February 10, 1923 in Table Talk, here. William came from Mile End Road, East Caulfield (now called Carnegie) about a five minute walk from Poplar Grove. Interestingly his parent's surname was spelt as Fish in the Electoral Roll and Kareen and William have their surname as Fish in the Electoral roll from 1924 until 1980 (the last year of the rolls on Ancestry) and they were at 18 Poplar Grove the entire time.
(11) The Age November 28, 1907, see here.
(12) The date of closure of the Post Office comes from the Context P/L report, page 322. The date of the closure of the Court comes from here https://researchdata.edu.au/children039s-court-registers/155646
(13) Read the Victorian Heritage Database citation, here.
(14) Information supplied by Wayne Degenhardt. Wayne is connected to Fred and Gustav Degenhardt, who are amongst the earliest European settlers in the Murtoa area.

A version of this post, which I wrote and researched, also appears on my work blog, Casey Cardinia Links to our past. 

Identical Post Offices - Pakenham East and Elwood

In this post we will look at two identical Post Offices, both of which opened in 1925 - Pakenham East and Elwood.

Pakenham East Post Office, 1920s

State Library of Victoria Image H89.105/186

This was the fourth Post Office in Pakenham, or Pakenham East as it was then called. The Back to Pakenham souvenir booklet from 1951 tell us that the post office for Pakenham was originally at the railway station. It moved to the site of what is now Mr J. Lia's butcher's shop , then to the site occupied by the cafe next to the picture theatre, and thence to the present site (1). The building was in Main Street, where the existing (the fifth) Post Office is today. The original Pakenham township was on the Princes Highway near Bourke's Hotel on the Toomuc Creek and the Pakenham East township developed around the railway station which opened in October 1877. There was much confusion between the towns, as this article  from 1912, below, tells us.

Confusion between the Pakenham and Pakenham East Post Offices

The Argus July 17, 1912 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/10508789

Great confusion occurs in regard to the post offices here. The Pakenham Post-office is situated 1½ miles from the Pakenham railway station while the post-office at the railway end is called East Pakenham. Nearly the whole of the business people reside at East Pakenham. The shire buildings and public hall are also there. During one week over 600 letters addressed to Pakenham belonged to Pakenham East. The postmistress at the latter office has just been notified that £10 per annum is to be taken from her salary and given to the other office for the purpose of carrying the mail to and from the station (The Argus July 17, 1912)

It wasn't just the Post Offices which were rivals as in the early days there was keen rivalry between the 'old' and 'new' towns. Happily that feeling gradually faded away with the passing of the years, With the steady expansion of building along the Highway, Pakenham and Pakenham East are today to all intents and purposes the one town - geographically and in outlook (2). This was written in 1962 and the use of name of Pakenham East faded from the 1970s (3). The Post Office building was demolished in the 1990s (4). 

This photo from the 1980s shows the Post Office when it was called Pakenham, 

with the postcode 3810.

Image: Casey Cardinia Libraries.

The identical Post Office that was built at Pakenham East was, as we said, the fourth building there, but in Elwood, it was their first Post Office. The locals had been agitating for  a few years for a Post Office (5) and in 1923 land was purchased on the corner of Glenhuntly road and The Broadway, Elwood for the building (6). It is interesting that Elwood and Pakenham East both had the same Post Office because at the time Elwood had a much larger and growing population. In October 1923,  the Mayor of St Kilda, Cr Allen,  had spoken of the need for a Post Office in the area because  in nine years the population of Elwood had increased from 5,509 to 9,469, and the number of houses from 1,339 to 2,608....At present the nearest post-office to Elwood was more than a mile away, many residents had to pay porterage on their telegrams. It was estimated that at least 2,100 houses would be served by the proposed post-office (7).  Compare this to Pakenham East which had a population in 1921 of  324 people and Pakenham of 608. Even twelve years later in 1933, Pakenham East's population was 850 and the old town of Pakenham was 406, still many times less than Elwood's population (8).

The tenders for the  construction of the  Pakenham East and Elwood Post Offices were advertised in April 1925.

Tenders are invited for the erection of the Elwood and Pakenham East Post Offices. 

The Argus April 18, 1925 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2081894

The Elwood Post Office

Image: The History of St Kilda from its first settlement to a City and after, 1840 - 1930, v. 2 (9).

The contract for the Pakenham East Post Office was awarded to the builders, Cant & Bennett of Footscray on May 6, 1925 and it was to be completed by  August 26, 1925. The cost was £2,330. The Elwood Post Office tender was awarded to W. Simmins of Auburn on April 27, 1925, the completion date was September 14, 1925 and cost was £1,835. 

Contracts accepted for a number of projects including the Pakenham East and Elwood Post Offices.

Click on this link https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232530228 to see the original document on Trove.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, June 4, 1925

There were issues with place names for Pakenham and Pakenham East, as even in 1912 people were addressing letters to Pakenham which should have been addressed to Pakenham East. Pakenham East people seemed to be content with their Pakenham address; though the erection of the Post Office in Elwood had the opposite effect, and was the source of some consternation.

The Age reported in November 1925 that  Residents of South St. Kilda are at present up in arms against the proposal of the Post Office to include portion of their district, from the Elwood Canal to Dickens-street, in the new postal district of Elwood. To consider the matter a meeting of nearly a hundred indignant South St. Kilda residents, lasting nearly two hours, hotly debated the proposal at the Congregational Hall, Mitford-street, St. Kilda. Cr. Dawkins, in moving a motion of protest, said Elwood was a name associated with a swamp, and no one wanted to live near a place where a swamp formerly existed.  The application of the name to portion of South St. Kilda would cause the value of property there to deteriorate in value (10). In the end the locals were allowed to continue using their South St Kilda address, but the mail came from the new Elwood Post Office (11).  The area is now called Elwood. The Elwood Post Office building is still standing and is used as a cafe.

Elwood Post Office, c. 1920s.

State Library of Victoria Image H89.105/84

I have also written about another set of identical Post Offices - Berwick, Donald and Murtoa, see here.

Trove list
I have created a short list on Trove of articles relating to the construction of the Pakenham East and Elwood Post Office. Access the list, here.

Footnotes
(1) Back to Pakenham March 3-10, 1951 Souvenir Booklet. The booklet was compiled by W.J. Stephenson on behalf of the 'Back to Pakenham' Committee.
(2) From Bullock Tracks to Bitumen: a brief history of the Shire of Berwick, p. 76-77. This book was published in 1962 by the Historical Society of Berwick Shire.
(3) Use of the name Pakenham East, these two examples of advertising from N. N. Webster, Pakenham Real Estate Agents, who had an office on Main Street tell the story of the use of the name Pakenham East in the 1970s. Source: Newspapers by Ancestry.

The Age March 14, 1970.

The Age February 15, 1975

(4) The Post Office was still there in November 1985 as the aerial below was taken then.

Aerial of Pakenham, 1985. The Post Office is circled.

Image: Casey Cardinia Libraries.

However, by the nineties the corporatised Post Office was in the business of leasing back Post Offices rather than building a community facility. The advertisement from September 1997, below,  tells us that the Post Office was now in 'Pakenham Post Office Arcade' which is on the site of the 1925 building, so it had been demolished by then.

The Age September 20, 1997

Source: Newspapers by Ancestry.

(5) The Herald, October 2, 1923, see here.
(6) The Herald, October 11, 1923, see here.
(7) Prahran Telegraph, October 19, 1923, see here.
(8) Pakenham and Pakenham East population figures from the Victorian Places website https://www.victorianplaces.com.au/pakenham
(9) Cooper, John Butler The History of St Kilda from its first settlement to a City and after, 1840 - 1930, v. 2 (City of St Kilda, 1931), photo is opposite page 116. Thank you to my fellow historian, Isaac Hermann, for supplying me with the photograph. I was looking through this book and I saw this photo of the Elwood Post Office and immediately recognised it as the twin of Pakenham East.
(10) The Age November 18, 1925, see here.
(11) The Prahran Telegraph, December 11, 1925, see here.

A version of this post, which I wrote and researched, also appears on my work blog, Casey Cardinia Links to our past. 

Where does Gippsland start?

I grew up in Cora Lynn and went to school at Pakenham Consolidated School and Koo Wee Rup High, so I consider I grew up in West Gippsland, which to my mind started a bit west of Pakenham and finished a bit east of Warragul, after that you get into the La Trobe Valley.  South Gippsland, on the other hand started around Loch or wherever the hills started after leaving the flat plains of the Koo Wee Rup Swamp and the Lang Lang area. Koo Wee Rup and Lang Lang were thus not part of Gippsland at all, according to my opinion, not sure where I thought they belonged, but I associate South Gippsland with steep hills. So I thought I would find some sources of information, with varying levels of authority, to tell us where the western boundary of Gippsland is. Incidentally, Gippsland was named in honour of Sir George Gipps, Governor of New South Wales from 1838 to 1846.

The book In the wake of the Pack Tracks: a history of the Shire of Berwick (1) says that Bowman's Hotel established in the early 1850s on the Cardinia Creek and the Gippsland Road, at what is now Beaconsfield, was also known as the Gippsland Hotel because Cardinia Creek was the border between the Port Phillip District and Gippsland. When the Bunyip River was later proclaimed the boundary the hotel name was changed (2). The Gippsland Hotel is now known as the Central Hotel. So this source puts the Gippsland Border at the Cardinia Creek and later the Bunyip River.  

Charles Daley, in his book The story of Gippsland (3) has this to say about the western boundary the boundary on the west was the Alps and a line drawn southward to Anderson's Inlet, in proximity to the Bunyip River. Approximately this last boundary would be the present county of Mornington as the limit westward (4). This definition means that the Koo Wee Rup Swamp area and the Bass Valley area would not be part of Gippsland.

  

County of Mornington, 1874.

Creator: F. E. Hiscocks & Co. State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/119519

Mr Daley has a chapter on the Gippsland Shires and Boroughs Development Association, formed in 1912 with the object of furthering the progress of Gippsland and Mornington County (5) and both the Berwick Shire and the Cranbourne Shire are members as are the Fern Tree Gully Shire and Dandenong Shire (both of which have part of their area in the County of Mornington). 

A map of the Murray and Gipps Land District, 1866.

State Library of Victoria   http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/120583

The map, above, shows the Murray and Gipps Land Districts and the western border of the Gippsland district is the partially the Bunyip River, and then south to Cape Patterson.  So it does seem that there is a consensus (amongst some)  that the Bunyip River is the western border.

Dandenong used to promote itself as the 'gateway to Gippsland.' The first mention I can find is in April 1919 when in a  report of a Government grant being given to the Shire of Dandenong and the Shire President, Cr Abbot, said it was to be spent in beautifying the 'gateway to Gippsland' (6) Does this mean then that the next Council the old Shire of Berwick, which started at the Dandenong Creek, was Gippsland? 

The Weekly Times featured a double page spread of photographs of Dandenong in their November 20, 1926 issue with this headline - Dandenong may be referred to as the Gateway to Gippsland.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223842996

I have been doing a lot of research into soldiers in the local area and it is interesting to see who used Gippsland as an address. As you might  expect some soldiers from Beaconsfield, Officer, Pakenham and all stops down the railway line to Bunyip used their hometown plus Gippsland as part of their address as did men from Cora Lynn, Iona  and Koo Wee Rup. Less expected was the information that  Sydney Eversley Ferres (SN - Service Number 194) had his address as Emerald, Gippsland as did Thomas Walker (SN 872) whose address is Macclesfield, near Emerald, Gippsland.  Robert Hill (SN 1591) and Francis Joseph Seymour (SN 2391) both have Hallam's Road, Gippsland as their address (Hallam's Road is now called Hallam).  Narre Warren and Narre Warren North are also listed as Gippsland on enrolment papers.  I am surprised that Emerald, Hallam,  Narre Warren or Narre Warren North would be considered Gippsland, but some people thought so 100 years ago.

Back to my dilemma as to where South Gippsland starts - William Lester  Lyons (SN 655) has his address listed on his enrolment paper as Cranbourne, Gippsland and yet Arthur Bell (SN 6956) is Cranbourne, South Gippsland. There are also have examples of Clyde, Yanathan, Tooradin and Lang Lang being listed as both Gippsland and South Gippsland and one example of Dalmore being called South Gippsland.

To add to the mix there are also references to North Gippsland in the enlistment papers of soldiers - these men mostly come from Heyfield, Maffra, Fernbank region but there is  a photograph held at the State Library of Victoria called Bunnyip Hotel, North Gippsland taken by Fred Kruger in the 1880s. This Hotel established by David Connor, around 1867, was on the Bunyip River and the Gippsland Road (Princes Highway) - not what I would consider to be Gippsland North. 

The Bunnip Hotel, described by the photographer, Fred Kruger, as being at Gippsland North.

Bunnyip Hotel, North Gippsland c. 1880s Photographer: Fred Kruger.

State Library of Victoria Image H41138/11

In April 1965, the Pakenham Gazette reported on the upcoming football season and the West Gippsland League included the following teams - Bunyip, Catani, Cora Lynn, Drouin, Garfield, Lang Lang, Longwarry, Koo Wee Rup, Nar Nar Goon,  Pakenham and Yarragon. In my mind a fairly logical range of towns to represent West Gippsland. Yet the South-West Gippsland League had the following teams - Beaconsfield, Berwick, Cranbourne, Doveton, Lyndhurst-Hampton Park, Keysborough, Narre Warren, Officer, Rythdale-Cardinia and  Tooradin-Dalmore - a far less logical name for the League as even though some of these towns could perhaps claim to be West Gippsland, they aren't even remotely South Gippsland. 

The Victorian Places website (6) says that you could define Gippsland by water catchment areas -  From east to west the catchments comprise East Gippsland, Snowy, Tambo, Mitchell, Thomson, Latrobe, South Gippsland and Bunyip. The last one, the Bunyip catchment, consists of several streams that flow into Western Port Bay, as well as the Dandenong Creek which enters Port Phillip Bay at Carrum. With the Dandenong Creek omitted, the balance of the Bunyip catchment (ie eastwards of Cardinia Creek) includes most of Gippsland West (7).  So now we are basically back to our original boundary, the Cardinia Creek, which we started with when we spoke about the location of the Gippsland Hotel at Beaconsfield on the Cardinia Creek.

In summary - with all this evidence coming from various sources, some authoritative and some less so, I'm happy to go with the Cardinia Creek as the (unofficial) boundary of Gippsland.   Firstly, it was the original boundary and secondly, the fact that on a social level, many people in the old Shires pf Berwick and Cranbourne (basically today's City of Casey and Shire of Cardinia) have identified as belonging to Gippsland - even if it was for something as 'trivial' as sport or on a more serious basis, they had it recorded as their address on their World War One enlistment papers.  

Footnotes
(1) In the wake of the Pack Tracks: a history of the Shire of Berwick (Berwick Pakenham Historical Society, 1982)
(2) In the wake of the Pack Tracks, op. cit., pp. 37-38
(3) Daley, Charles The Story of Gippsland (Whitcombe & Tombs P/L, 1960),
(4) Daley, op. cit., p. 170.
(5) Daley, op. cit., p. 193
(6) South Bourke & Mornington Journal, April 3, 1919, see here. 
(7) www.victorianplaces.com.au
(8) www.victorianplaces.com.au/gippsland

A previous version of this post, which I wrote and researched appears on the Casey Cardinia  Links to our Past Blog. 

Fred Tuckfield - the maker of Ty-nee Tip tea and bird cards

I love birds and I believe my interest in birds came from the fact that my mother collected Tuckfield Ty-nee Tips Tea bird cards. They used to be in Tuckfields Tea - Mum and Dad were  prolific tea drinkers, they made teapot tea (tea with loose tea, not teabag tea) and every pack of tea had one card, and they were then placed into albums, which we used to look through as children. This was in the the 1960s and 1970s. My Aunty also collected the cards, so that was a source of 'swaps'.

Tuckfields' Bird Card Album for cards No. 1 to 96.

Some time ago, a friend of mine gave me a set of the Tuckfield albums that he had came across, and I was quite thrilled about that for both the connection to my childhood and my love of birds. 

We will start off by looking at the bird cards - there was a very detailed and scholarly study of the bird cards on a website called Tuckfields Birds and other cards: types, variants, chronology, exchange tokens, albums, and miscellany by Mark Calabretta and Cheryl Ridge (1) They tell us that the cards commenced in 1959 and stopped in 2008, there were five series in all which featured 480 birds. The albums also had 'notes for birdwatchers' which included good bird watching locations,  a list of Bird Observer Clubs, the second album included a foreword by Graham Pizzey, the noted ornithologist. The study talks about card types, printing, variants, storage, identifies differences between particular editions of the bird card albums, lists every card and also talks about the other collectibles such as tea caddies and tea spoons, as well as Mr Tuckfield's career, his passion for camellia growing and personal life.  It is an amazing tribute to the bird cards and Fred Tuckfield.

If the Tuckfield Ty-nee Tips Tea bird cards were not part of your childhood, then this is what the album looks like  - these are birds number 1 to 4 - the Red-plumed Bird of Paradise, the Lonely Little King Bird of Paradise; the Helmeted Honeyeater and the Rufous Fantail.

Fred and his wife, Hilda, originally lived in  a house in Manor Grove in North Caulfield, where they grew many camellias. My friend and I visited Fred Tuckfield's house in Manor Grove in March 2019 and the homeowner kindly allowed us to take some photos of the camellias in the garden, including this lovely specimen, below. There are 15 to 20 camellias, still in the garden and we were told that when they moved into the house around 20 years ago, the back yard was full of camellias - all Fred Tuckfield's work!

One of Fred Tuckfield's camellias in his old house in Manor Grove.

Image: Isaac Hermann

Fred Tuckfield eventually run out of space for his camellias and so he and his wife, Hilda, moved to a property on Manuka Road in Berwick; the house was was built around 1891 for the Greaves family; it then had  a series of owners until 1956 (2) when Mr Tuckfield purchased it. It was named Clover Cottage in the 1930s and was situated on eight acres of land.  In 1974, John and Engelina Chipperfield and their business partner, Trevor Burr,  purchased the property from the Tuckfield Estate and from 1979 to early 2017 operated the Clover Cottage restaurant in a purpose built building on the site (3).

For more information on the  Clover Cottage property we turn to Dr Cristina Dyson of Context and her report on the property for the City of Casey in 2018 (4).  Mr Tuckfield engaged  John Stevens, a landscape consultant, to design his garden. Dr Dyson, says the garden represents one of Stevens earliest large scale residential designs, and is interesting as it demonstrates the two great interests of Tuckfield at the time, his camellia collection and his passion for the environment. From the 1950s onward, Tuckfield encouraged innovative gardening techniques, which would now be considered ‘environmentally friendly’. These included use of trickly watering systems, mulching, banning of pesticides and insecticides and other chemicals. He made a number of passionate public appeals against the indiscriminate use of pesticides, which he believed was rapidly destroying the balance of nature.   Stevens also designed landscapes for a number of prominent architectural firms in Melbourne, including Bates Smart McCutcheon, Roy Grounds, Robin Boyd, Stephenson & Turner. 

Mr Tuckfield's camellia, The Czar, won best bloom at the Royal Horticultural Society's camellia show in August 1952.

The Age, August 22, 1952 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206222316

The garden at Berwick had both a camellia plantation and an area for native plants. Mr Tuckfield was very involved in the Australia Camellia Research Society, he was at one time the President and developed 25 camellia cultivars at the Clover Cottage property (5).

In this advertisement from Ty-nee Tips Teas of 1973, Fred Tuckfield tells us 

that few people realise that the tea bush is related to the camellia. 

The Age August 14, 1973.

Frederick Stevens Tuckfield was born in Sale in 1898 to Fred and Ada (nee Page) Tuckfield. He married Hilda Cader in 1924 and she passed away in 1958. The next year he married Vera Sanders, who died in 1961. He remarried in 1962 to Muriel Dennis (6). Fred began a wholesale business selling tea in 1936, having previously worked for Rolfe & Co Ltd, wholesale grocers. By 1940 he was selling Ty-nee Tips tea. The business expanded in the 1950s and 1959 he introduced the bird cards (7)  which were such a lovely and memorable part of my childhood. Fred Tuckfield died September 19, 1973. 

My friend, Audrey, told me this story about Fred Tuckfield - when she was 17 she worked at Ty-nee Tips Tea in, I think it was Prahran, and Mr Tuckfield came in everyday, would mix with everyone and knew everyone by name. That was around 1953. Audrey also said she earnt 4 pounds, 7 shillings and 6 pence a week and her mother took 4 pounds a week for board!

This is Volume 2 - for cards No. 97 to No. 192.

Footnotes

(1) Tuckfields Birds and other cards: types, variants, chronology, exchange tokens, albums, and miscellany by Mark Calabretta and Cheryl Ridge - the original links no longer work but this gets you part way there  https://www.pbase.com/chezzyr/image/151541586

(2)  Frederick and Hilda Tuckfield are first listed in the Shire of Berwick Rate Books in 1955/1956 year, when they purchased the property of 8 acres with  a house. The date of transfer was 3/6/1956 and the price listed was £5,500.
(3) The information about the Clover Cottage restaurant comes from Berwick Star News November 2, 2016 https://berwicknews.starcommunity.com.au/news/2016-11-02/cottage-restaurant-closes-shop/
(4) Clover Cottage and Garden, 54 Manuka Road, Berwick: Statement of Evidence, Casey Planning Scheme Amendment C231, 2 March 2018 by Dr Cristina Dyson, Context. https://www.casey.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files-public/user-files/1.%20Dr-C-Dyson_Statement-of-Evidence_Clover-Cottage-and-Garden-and-Appendix-A-2mar2018.pdf

(5) ibid. 
(6) Information about his birth, marriages and death from Residents of Upper Beaconsfield: Upper Beaconsfield One Place Study by Marianne Rocke -  https://upperbeaconsfieldhistory.au/
(7) Information about Fred Tuckfield's business career comes from the Mark Calabretta and Cheryl Ridge article, see Footnote 1.