Journal of the C. J. La Trobe Society Inc. Vol 20, No 1, March 2021 ISSN 1447‑4026 La Trobeana Journal of the C J La Trobe Society Inc Vol 20, No 1, March 2021 ISSN 1447‑4026 The C J La Trobe Society Inc was formed in 2001 to promote understanding and appreciation of the life, work and times of Charles Joseph La Trobe, Victoria’s first Lieutenant‑Governor. www.latrobesociety.org.au La Trobeana is published three times a year: in March, July and November. The journal publishes peer‑reviewed articles, as well as other written contributions, that explore themes in the life and times of Charles Joseph La Trobe, aspects of the colonial period of Victoria’s history, and the wider La Trobe family. Editorial Committee Helen Armstrong and Dianne Reilly (Honorary Editors) Helen Botham, Loreen Chambers, Susan Priestley, Fay Woodhouse Picture Editor John Botham Designer Michael Owen [email protected] For copies of guidelines for contributors and subscription enquiries contact: The Honorary Secretary: Dr Dianne Reilly AM The C J La Trobe Society P O Box 65 Port Melbourne Vic 3207 Phone: 9646 2112 Email: [email protected] FRONT COVER Thomas Woolner, 1825‑1892, sculptor Charles Joseph La Trobe, 1853 Bronze portrait medallion showing the left profile of Charles Joseph La Trobe, diam. 24cm. Signature and date incised in bronze l.r.: T. Woolner Sc. 1853: / M La Trobe, Charles Joseph, 1801‑1875. Accessioned 1894 Pictures Collection, State Library Victoria, H5489 2 • Journal of the C J La Trobe Society Contents 4 A Word from the President Reports and Notices Articles 50 Forthcoming events 5 Susan Priestley 51 Contributions welcome The Lieutenant-Governor’s Goldfields Tours, 1851-1853 19 Dianne Reilly ‘The High Ground’: Robert Russell, artist, architect and surveyor 30 Peter Hiscock Patricius William Welsh: a man of high hopes and ambition 39 Tim Gatehouse ‘Charterisville’: the home of David Charteris McArthur 45 Helen Armstrong ‘Driving S. in my Drag’: glimpses of La Trobe’s carriage – a research report Vol. 20, No. 1 • March 2021 • 3 A Word from the President est New Year’s wishes for health and from Van Diemen’s Land in October 1838. happiness in the year ahead to all our Bmembers! After the past year which Tim Gatehouse has pursued his interest inspired such a mix of fear and confusion in the in Victorian colonial architecture in the study community, I am sure that we all hope that 2021 ’Charterisville: the home of David Charteris will be a very successful one for our Society. McArthur’. The house was built in 1840 by McArthur, and still stands in Burke Road, East This first edition of La Trobeana for this Ivanhoe. Tim provides much detail on the life year will give lots of reading pleasure. and work of McArthur, Melbourne’s first bank manager, who was one of five original trustees Susan Priestley brings her extensive of the Public Library of Victoria in 1853, and knowledge of Victorian history to bear in the President of Trustees of the Public Library, article, ‘The Lieutenant‑Governor’s goldfields Museums and National Gallery of Victoria tours, 1851‑1853’. Using La Trobe’s own from 1880 to 1883. A prominent figure in the manuscript notebooks she has traced his far‑ commercial and public life of Victoria, he was ranging travels on horseback to the numerous a close friend and confidant of Charles Joseph goldfields in Victoria, firstly in Spring 1851 just La Trobe, and an executor of his estate. three months after the initial discoveries of gold, and finally in Autumn 1853. Her biographical Helen Armstrong, inspired editor of research skills provide valuable identification of La Trobeana, pursued a personal interest in people he met and the names of places along the developing her research report ‘“Driving S. in routes followed. my Drag”: glimpses of La Trobe’s carriage’. This fascinating study analyses the differences Dianne Reilly’s article ‘“The High between the horse‑drawn vehicles used by Ground”: Robert Russell, artist, architect and La Trobe during his tenure in Victoria. The clear surveyor’ is an edited and expanded version of and informative images included demonstrate her presentation in February last year at State how these vehicles were constructed. Library Victoria at a special preview of one of the Library’s newest and most valuable acquisitions: Government health advice permitting, a hitherto unknown album of sixty‑five the first date for the La Trobe Society calendar drawings by Russell, pioneering surveyor of the this year will be a gala celebration on Saturday Port Phillip District, and an accomplished artist 20 March of two major milestones: the 20th and architect. anniversary of the founding of the La Trobe Society, and the 220th birthday of Charles Research for Peter Hiscock’s study of Joseph La Trobe. The charming venue for the ‘Patricius William Welsh: a man of high hopes function will be the Cowen Gallery at State and ambition’ originated from his deep interest Library Victoria. Invitations for members and in the early history of Buninyong and his quest guests to this very special event have already for information about the man who built the been mailed. I look forward to seeing you at house where Peter and his family have lived for this celebration. the past forty years. This article reveals much previously unknown information about the Diane Gardiner AM ambitious young man, his many successes and Hon. President occasional failures, who arrived in Melbourne C J La Trobe Society 4 • Journal of the C J La Trobe Society The Lieutenant-Governor’s Goldfields Tours, 1851-1853 By Susan Priestley Susan Priestley MA (Melb), RHSV Fellow and committee member of the La Trobe Society, is a practising historian with an interest in recovering lives and solving enigmas about people. Her eleven published histories embrace aspects of places, people and institutions in Victoria. An inspiration for this article and a major in order to expand the brevities and set them in primary source were La Trobe’s two manuscript context has been greatly facilitated by the Trove notebooks ‘Memoranda of Journeys, Excursions collection of Australian digitised newspapers and Absences’, which are reproduced in Charles and its pointers to biography and local history. Joseph La Trobe: Australian Notes 1839-1854 Confirmation and clarification of people and (2006).1 There may well have been a double place names, and correction of some misread purpose behind these scrawled notes, a reminder handwriting, was done through reference works, of names and matters needing further attention, particularly Australian Dictionary of Biography and and as memoranda for a travel book‑cum‑history Victorian Government Gazette, together with cross‑ that he planned for his retirement. For today’s referenced personal and run names in Billis and readers, they afford some glimmers of insight Kenyon’s Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip,2 digitised into his persona, his reaction to the country sources from Ancestry.com, and monograph and and people of the new ‘golden age’. Research journal studies of Victorian history. Part 1, Responding to the onset of gold and its consequences Spring 1851 Exford – & breakfast. On to Synnot’s, Griffin’s (Woolleys), Sharpe’s. Magnificent day. Reach hree months after the initial gold Buninyong 9p.m. – 89 miles’ (143 km). Their discoveries, Lieutenant‑Governor route apparently traversed unfenced pastoral TLa Trobe made a rare underlining in his stations in a generally westerly direction. Exford notebook: First visit to the Goldfields. That visit was Simon Staunton’s run on the River Exe comprised a bare three days at Buninyong and (later the Werribee), Synnott’s was Mowyang on Ballarat, spanning Thursday 2nd to Saturday the Little River, Griffin’s (Woolleys) was likely 4th October 1851. His travelling companions Anakie with the Woolley family as partners or at the start were aide‑de‑camp Edward Bell, managers, and Sharpe’s was probably Moranghurk who had been his private secretary since 1849, on the upper Moorabool; the travellers’ and Charles John Pitfield Lydiard after whom destination at Buninyong was then generally the Ballarat street was named in 1852, when northwards. La Trobe may have been sounding he was just starting a long colonial career in out the run‑holders for recruitment into an the Victorian and New South Wales police interim goldfields administration. forces.3 The notes indicate a long day starting early on the Thursday: ‘Drove tandem with Since August local administration of the Bell, Roger [a favourite horse] leading, to evolving population hubs had been designated Vol. 20, No. 1 • March 2021 • 5 Samuel Thomas Gill, 1818-1880, artist Mount Alexander gold escort on road to Melbourne, 1869 Watercolour Pictures Collection, State Library Victoria, H86.7/34 Inscribed ‘Victorian Gold Fields 1852‑53’ to the charge of goldfields commissioners, some Ballarat field with the town’s (now city’s) main of whom had also been district crown lands street named for him.4 He and Lydiard shared the commissioners and magistrates, whether for given name of Pitfield, which possibly indicates Victoria as a whole or confined to the more a common ancestor. La Trobe and Bell’s return densely populated counties of Bourke centred journey took another three days, travelling via around Melbourne or Grant around Geelong. A. F. Cunningham’s Mount Mercer cattle station, Continuing tasks for crown lands commissioners the Ormond run Piggoreet, and Geelong. It seems included resolving boundary, stock disease that Bell then drove the tandem overland to and employment disputes among pastoral run Melbourne while La Trobe took the bay steamer. holders, as well as smaller licensees like timber cutters and dairymen/women. In similar fashion Two weeks later ‘at noon [on a] beautiful gold commissioners adjudicated disputes among day’, he set off on horseback on another brief the burgeoning class of mining claim holders visit, this time to the new Mount Alexander and administered the evolving licensing system field.