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4 International Dignitaries and Their Impressions of Coranderrk

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4 International Dignitaries and Their Impressions of Coranderrk 4 International Dignitaries and Their Impressions of Coranderrk Coranderrk was the site of many visits from international dignitaries, including royalty, and members of the political elite. This chapter looks at 14 of these visitors as diverse as media baron Lord Northcliffe to acclaimed English historian James Froude. Unfortunately we do not have details of the nature of every visit – in some cases we just have a matter-of-fact newspaper account that a visit took place. In other cases we have both newspaper accounts and published accounts from the dignitary. Where we have some detail we are able to reconstruct the performances the Cor- anderrk residents arranged for the visitors. Typically, these performances included boomerang throwing, spear throwing, and fire making. On some occasions the visi- tors were given gifts of baskets and clubs. On one very special occasion the visiting party was given a specially-made basket and some nicely carved emu eggs as gifts for the Queen. When the Victorian Governor Lord Brassey visited Coranderrk in late 1897, William Barak presented him with a picture of a corroboree painted in black on yellow on a slab of wood about 3 ft long by 2 ft high. When the new Anglican Bishop of Melbourne visited in October 1904 the Coranderrk people performed a corroboree with singing. In June 1910, artist Hugh Fisher of the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office visited Coranderrk to collect information and photographs and make paintings to be used in the preparation of educational lectures on Australia. At Coranderrk Fisher made a sketch of Anthony Anderson. Fisher’s personal diary of his visit is published here for the first time. In 1912 the Governor General Lord Denman visited Healesville as part of a special planting ceremony of oaks especially sent from the Queen. The Coranderrk residents participated in the celebrations, and other than boomerang throwing and fire lighting they presented Lord Denman with an ornamental boomerang with gold inscription plate, and Lady Denman with a native basket. 4.1 Sir William Henry Gregory, Former Governor of Ceylon, February 1877 One of the first international dignitaries to take ‘a peep’ at Coranderrk was Sir William Henry Gregory (1817–1892), an Anglo-Irish writer and politician. The South Australian Register, (22/2/1877) described him as ‘an archaeologist of acknowledged reputation’. He was appointed Governor of Ceylon in 1872. He resigned in 1877 and visited Austra- lia en route to England. The Hobart Mercury (8/1/1877) announced his intention to visit NSW Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson, in Sydney, and stated that he would probably be ‘taking a peep in passing at the other Australian colonies’.66 The Argus (26/2/1877) reported that Sir William made an overnight visit to the Yarra Ranges, visiting Steav- James Anthony Froude, February 1885 109 enson Falls and Marysville, and ‘on the way back made a short stay at the Aborigi- nal station, Coranderrk, where the natives were busily engaged in hop picking’.67 He returned to Melbourne tired but much pleased with his excursion.6667 4.2 James Anthony Froude, February 1885 James Anthony Froude (1818–1894), an English historian and biographer, visited Aus- tralia from January to February 1885 (see Figure 4.1). He spent three weeks in Victoria and travelled with his son Ashley Anthony Froude (1863–1949) and William Elphin- stone (1828–1893), 15th Lord Elphinstone, who kept a portfolio of sketches, which Froude used when he published Oceana, his account of his travels. In the preface to this work, Froude (1886: iii) explained that the ‘object of my voyage was not only to see the Colonies themselves, but to hear the views of all classes of people there on the subject in which I was principally interested’. He spent four weeks in Victoria which included a stay at Mt. Macedon and tours of the Ballarat and Bendigo gold districts. The Argus (21/1/1885) considered he ‘is the most eminent man of letters that has ever visited our shores’. Blainey (1985: v) agreed: ‘He was probably the most famous intellectual to come to Britain’s southern colonies in the second half of the nineteenth century’. In early February 1885, the Governor of Victoria Sir Henry Loch accompanied Froude, his party, and Sir George Verdon on a tour of the Healesville district. They visited Coranderrk ‘where the Blacks gave the visitors a treat in some boomerang throwing (Evelyn Observer and South and East Bourke Record, 13/2/1885)’.68 The Aus- tralasian (7/2/1885) reported on the Coranderrk visit: While sojourning in the Upper Yarra district His Excellency, with Lord Elphinstone and Mr. Froude, the historian, was the guest of Mr. H. de Castella, at St Hubert’s vineyard. On Wednesday the party were driven through Healesville and Fernshaw to the Black Spur in a special coach … On the return journey they called at Coranderrk, and saw an exhibition of boomerang-throwing by the blacks. Froude (1886: 128) alluded to the visit in Oceana. Froude was visiting de Castella’s St Hubert vineyards near Healesville: On the way home we turned aside to see a native settlement – a native school, &c. – very hopel- ess, but the best that could be done for a dying race. The poor creatures were clothed, but not in their right minds, if minds they had ever possessed. The faces of the children were hardly supe- 66 Presumably he also visited the memorial in Melbourne to his cousin, Robert O’Hara Burke (Freeman’s Journal, 26/3/1892). 67 Hugh Halliday was in charge of Coranderrk in February 1877. 68 William Goodall was superintendent of Coranderrk at this time. 110 International Dignitaries and Their Impressions of Coranderrk Figure 4.1: James Anthony Froude (Author’s picture collection). rior to those of apes, and showed less life and vigour. The men threw boomerangs and lances for us, but could not do it well. The manliness of the wild state had gone out of them, and nothing had come in its place or could come. One old fellow had been a chief in the district when Mr Castella first came to settle there. It was pathetic to see the affection which they still felt for each other in their changed relations. Blainey’s (1985: 67) annotation of this passage in his abridged edition is that ‘Froude’s harsh, rather Darwinian, comment was typical of the era. The old Aboriginal whom Hubert de Castella greeted warmly was almost certainly William Barak (1824–1903), born before the British arrived’. Froude’s visit to Coranderrk was his only encounter with Australian Indigenous people. Later in New Zealand in an entry on the Maori he would write: ‘The Maori, like every other aboriginal people with whom we have come in contact, learn our vices faster than our virtues. They have been ruined phy- sically, they have been demoralised in character, by drink’ (Froude, 1886: 223) – yet although he considered them ‘a sad, shameful, and miserable spectacle’ at Rotorua, they were ‘the noblest of the savage races with whom we have ever been brought in contact’ (Froude, 1886: 233). ‘Those only will survive who can domesticate themselves into servants of the modern forms of social development. … The negro submits to the The Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, Viscount Tarbat, November 1886 111 conditions, becomes useful, and rises to a higher level. The Red Indian and the Maori pine away as in a cage, sink first into apathy and moral degradation, and then vanish’ (Froude 1886: 257–8). Froude’s view of non-Anglo-Saxon races was that they were inferior and infantile. In contrast Anglo-Saxons ‘possessed superior physical and moral virtue and Froude never doubted their right to subjugate other peoples; in fact, the subjugation of other races became something of an obligation’ (Thompson, 1987: 210). British rule for subject races was for their own good, and if necessary should be imposed through military force – but Froude did not condone genocide. Thompson (1987: 4) stresses that a nuanced understanding of Froude’s racial chauvinism is necessary, for he never ruled out the possibility that given the time and opportunity other races might attain a moral and intellectual level equal to the Anglo-Saxon – suggesting the inher- ent equality of races rather than their inherent inferiority. Froude has largely been ignored in the historiography of Coranderrk. John Stanley James, aka The Vagabond, when discussing Healesville, is one of the very few who has referred to his visit (The Australasian, 30/5/1885). 4.3 The Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, Viscount Tarbat, November 1886 The Marquis and Marchioness of Stafford, and Viscount Tarbat visited Coranderrk on 30 November 1886.69 The Marquis of Stafford (Cromartie Sutherland-Leveson- Gower) (20/7/1851–27/6/1913), was a London-born Peer and politician, educated at Eton.70 His spouse, the Marchioness of Stafford (Lady Millicent Fanny St Clair-Ers- kine) (20/10/1867 – 20/8/1955) (they married on 20/10/1884 when Lady Erskine was 17 years of age) was a society hostess, social reformer, author, journalist, and play- wright and often used the pseudonym ‘Erskine Gower’ (Freeman’s Journal, 14/12/1901) (see Figure 4.2). Viscount Tarbat (Francis Mackenzie Sutherland-Leveson-Gower) (3/8/1852–24/11/1893), the Second Earl of Cromartie, was the younger brother of the Marquis of Stafford. They arrived in Melbourne on 20 November and were guests of Victorian Governor Henry Brougham Loch. They were taken on excursions to Mt Macedon, Marysville, Fernshaw, and Healesville where they visited Coranderrk. The Argus (29/11/1886) announced their proposed visit to Healesville. Marchioness Stafford (Millicent Stafford) published an account of her travels in 1889 entitled How I spent my Twentieth Year Being a Short Record of a Tour Round the World 1886–87.
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