Time Travellers in Essendon, Flemington and the Keilor Plains

 

Edith-Peard     Edith-Peard-3

 

Edith Peard: the making of a New Woman

 

Part 2

 

By Lenore Frost

 

 

Alberta Peard, the daughter of William’s brother Charles Harte Peard, was a popular pianoforte player at concerts and fundraisers in Moyhu. In 1882 she was mentioned in the Ovens and Murray Advertiser:  

 

“.... Miss Alberta Peard, of Moyhu, [presided] at the piano and organ. The whole programme, a very lengthy one, was fully and most creditably sustained through-out, and where each did so well it might be considered invidious to particularise, but we think that no one will begrudge special mention being made of Miss Peard, the pianiste and organist, who had the hardest part of the work  allotted to her, and performed it most admirably. This young lady exhibits great promise of becoming much more than an ordinary performer, and is quite a favorite through-out the district”.[1]

 

Alberta Peard was born in the same year as her cousin Kate Peard, both aged about 18 in 1882. Alberta continued being noticed in the newspapers until her marriage to Edmund Barker of Whorouly in 1885.  After this she disappeared from public notice until in 1897 when she played accompanist at a concert in Gapsted as Mrs E Barker.[2]

 

It was at Glenrowan where the Peard sisters Kate and Edith began to make their mark, beginning with a concert in 1887:

 

“THE CONCERT AND DANCE. The concert, which was held in the goods shed at night, and which was in aid of the Glenrowan Recreation Reserve, was a great success, the large iron building being crammed long before the entertain rose. The stage was well got up, the scenery being painted by some of the members of the Glenrowan Amateur Dramatic Club. The concert was opened by Miss E. Peard, who played very brilliantly the favorite fantasia  “Balmoral,” by Jules Sivrai………. [A] well-played piano forte duet by Miss Peard and Miss Lees concluded the first part of the programme……  Miss Kate Peard sang very sweetly “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep.”[3]

 

Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep is generally sung by males with bass voices.  Another song selected by Kate, In Happy Moments  from the opera Maritana[4] by William Vincent Wallace, was usually sung by a male baritone, so it would seem that Kate had a very low voice.  After leaving Glenrowan she was not reported again in a public performance. 

 

Alberta and Edith by the reckoning of the local reporters were playing piano at a good standard, which raises the question of how they came by their musical education. All manner of people joined the rush to the goldfields and it may be that a skilled teacher of music resided in the Moyhu district.  As members of the Irish gentry, their fathers would have been at pains to ensure their daughters had the requisite education and accomplishments of gentlewomen, in which music played a significant part. There seems to have been a Peard family musical culture – other Peard families in New South Wales also produced musical daughters.

 

The options for providing a good education for their daughters would have included receiving their education from their mother and father; from an unmarried woman of the family; banding together with other families of similar status to employ a governess or tutor, open a small ladies’ day school; or a boarding school.   They might have started their schooling at the local government school, but then ‘finished’ (for the girls) by someone suitable, possibly at a boarding school in Wangaratta, who would include music, art and needlework in their curriculum.  Both Edith and Kate, and later Kate’s daughter Charlotte Dawson, were noted for their fine needlework.

 

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An advertisement in The Age in 1890 is the first reference to the family being in the metropolitan area:

 

ASCOT Vale, Hopetoun-buildings.— Brick Shop, good stand for chemist, hair dresser, W. H. Peard, Hopetoun-buildings.[5]  

 

Another advertisement places the Hopetoun buildings in Mt Alexander Rd, Ascot Vale, but the exact location of the building is not known.  A handful of other advertisements suggests Peard was operating some form of agency which included employment and rental properties, but if he continued after 1890 it is not noticeable in newspaper advertisements, nor did he appear in the business section of the Sands & McDougall directories. 

 

C H Peard and family preceded that of his brother William to Melbourne, which would have acted as a pull-factor: 

 

C.H. Peard and Co. having Purchased the business of Messrs., Langford and Co.. No. 196 Elizabeth-street, Melbourne, have now Opened as  Wholesale and Retail Grocers, Wine and Spirit Merchants and Coffee Roasters. All orders promptly attended to, and delivered at shortest notice. [5A]

 

It is not certain what drew the W H Peard family south to the outskirts of Melbourne, but limited opportunities for his now grown children may have been a factor, and Peard himself had reached 60 years of age, having led a strenuous outdoor life as a pastoralist and contractor. The family also followed a broader population movement from regional Victoria to the outskirts of Melbourne as employment opportunities disappeared along with gold mining. 

 

“Between 1890 and 1893, a severe economic depression caused the closure and collapse of many banks. The Federal Bank of Australia ran out of money and closed. In April 1893 the Commercial Bank of Australia, one of Australia's largest banks, suspended operations. Twelve other banks soon followed. Those who had put their savings into building societies, as well as those who had borrowed heavily to fund their own speculative investments, found themselves in desperate straits. Businessmen, pastoralist farmers and land speculators weren't able to pay their overdrafts, and thousands of small and large investors were ruined.”[6]

 

Before the bank closures and building society failures, Peard may have decided to invest accumulated savings.  We don’t know.  His arrival in Ascot Vale by 1890 would have enabled him to invest just early enough to have been affected by the property crash shortly afterwards, or have lost funds in a bank account when the banks closed their doors.  In the next decade the Peards had to rely on their resourcefulness and capacity for hard work to weather Australia’s worst economic depression.

 

An advertisement seeking the return of a strayed bay pony mare in 1891 reveals that the Peards were by now at Royal Avenue, Essendon.[7]   In 1892 the house they were renting, on the corner of Cowper St,  was sold at a mortgagee auction – possibly as a result of banks calling in their debts:

 

“A WB cottage containing 7 rooms, bathroom, also stables and outhouses at rear, the whole standing on land having a frontage of 195 ft, to Royal-avenue by a depth of 130 ft. along Cooper-street. [sic] The property is now in the occupation of Mr. W. H. Peard, and is for absolute sale”.[8]

 

The family made a few moves around Essendon over the next few years.  Advertisements in the classifieds made by Charlotte indicate that she was running a poultry business, specialising in breeding and selling Andalusions, Brahmas, Minorcas, Plymouth Rocks and Leghorns.[9]  She advertised pullets in numbers up to 200, and once advertised 300 hens, chickens, ducks and ducklings for sale, indicating a fairly substantial poultry breeding operation.[10]

 

Some of  Charlotte Peard's favorite breeds in "Sketches from the Essendon Poultry & Dog Society's Annual Show in July 1899",  illustrated in The Weekly Times, 1 July 1899.  Courtesy of the Moonee Valley Library Service Heritage Collection, HER-00119.jpg.

 

 

Kate on the left and her mother Charlotte on the right at 'Glen Neath', Royal Ave, Essendon North, circa 1892.

 

Formerly ‘Glen Neath’,  ‘The Nook’, on this MMBW plan from 1929, shows some additions to the house that are not evident in the 1892 photo – extra rooms on the north side of the house, for instance - but the seven rooms with stables at the rear described in the advertisement was a comfortable family home.[11]

 

The last mentioned poultry sale found the family at 89 Buckley St, Essendon in 1896, on the north side between Daisy and Washington Streets.  The MMBW plan from 1906 shows only two homes built at that time.[12] 

 

Detail from a MMBW plan from 1906, showing Buckley Street in the foreground and Washington St to the left, and Daisy St to the right.  The Peards lived in the house on the left.  This house was demolished a few years ago, but the house on right is still standing.

 

By 1897 the Peard family had moved to a single-fronted brick Italianate villa in Robb Street, on the east side, close to Levien St.  Most likely the boys had left the family home by this time, if they had indeed come to Essendon at all.  Henry married in Bendigo in 1899.  In the same year Richard was in Gunnedah in New South Wales where he volunteered for the South African war.  He and his cousin William Ernest Peard, the son of Dick’s uncle Henry Turner Peard,  took the train to Sydney with some other volunteers to enlist in the 1st Australian Horse and departed for South Africa. Ernest embarked with the rank of corporal, suggesting he had some previous military training with a local militia or light horse.  Ernest returned wounded to Gunnedah in 1900.  In 1902 he married local girl, Sarah Mabel Hole.  In 1903 William Ernest Peard, farmer,  was listed in the Electoral Roll in Gunnedah.

 

The fact that Dick Peard was in Gunnedah with his cousin Ernest  when they enlisted suggests that he was there to help Ernest establishing his farm, perhaps building a house and sheds for him. In the South African war men could enlist for six or twelve months’ service, so it would not seem overly detrimental to future plans for Ernest to take 12 months away from his farm.

 

The older medal on the right is Dick Peard’s original Queen's South Africa medal

with campaign bars.  The one on the left is a replica based on Foster Dawson’s well

documented record. Dawson was to marry Dick's sister Kate Peard. Courtesy of Allan Williams.

 

Returning from South Africa, Dick continued to travel and put his carpentry skills to good use.  In 1905-06 he was in the New Zealand Electoral Roll in Martinborough, Wairarapa, and in 1911 at Broadway, Marton, Rangitikei, North Island;  in 1911 he was listed at Grose St, Leura, near Katoomba, NSW, and again at Leura in his father’s death notice in 1913; and in 1919 he was living in Daintree Street, Clermont in Queensland.   Carpenters were much in demand in Clermont where a cyclone and flood in 1917 had forced the town to move further up the hill and away from the river flats.  Sometime between 1919 and 1924 Dick returned to the family home in Essendon.

 

When asked if he knew about Dick’s time in New Zealand, Allan said "Yes, I did but not any detail of his being in NZ, other than he shot big deer over there and the stuffed head used to hang in the hallway (entrance)  to 28 Robb St, and it was his pride and joy,  we gave it away when the house was sold as it had become “moth eaten” Quite scary to me and other kids as I remember."[13]

 

HARMONY AND COUNTERPOINT

 

In the meantime the Peard family with two pretty daughters had established themselves with the leading social set of Essendon, those families who lived in large houses and provided the Councillors and Justices of the Peace for the local community, and whose doings were reported in the daily papers or the social columns of Table Talk.

“Mr and Miss Peard”  attended a Silver Wedding Anniversary in 1896 for Mr and Mrs Alexander E Duguid of Laluma, Essendon. Duguid was an architect and surveyor.  One hundred and ten guests were invited, and a marquee erected in the grounds, decorated with flags and pot plants, communicating with the corridors of the house which was decorated with yellow chrysanthemums.[14]

 

In 1897:

 

The mayoress of Essendon, Mrs. G. R.  Leith, held a reception in the town-hall, Moonee Ponds, on Wednesday. Upwards of 250 visitors called. The walls were draped with coloured muslin. The stage was a mass of pot-plants, kindly lent by Mr. Oliver, curator of Essendon gardens. Other-wise the hall was furnished as a drawing-room, with screens, lounges, draped easels, and tiny bamboo tables for refreshments.  The whole was furnished by Nunan Bros. Music was provided by Miss Etchells, Miss Stuart, Miss Peard, Miss Atherton, Miss Nathalie Dawson, Mr. Foster, and Miss Notman.[15]

 

A report of a concert held at the Upper Athenaeum Hall in December 1898 reveals more of Edith’s path to independence.  The concert was arranged by J D Coutts for his pupils. Coutts one of the earliest Bachelors of Music from the University of Melbourne. One of his pupils was Edith Peard. 

 

“In a programme of such uniform excellence it is hard to single out, but, perhaps, in different styles of such classical music, the most appreciated of all were Miss Gosman for her soulful and feeling rendering of Bach's "Prelude and Fugue in F minor," the artistic and technically excellent "Rondo" (Beethoven) by Miss Edith Peard, and the easy and attractive rendering by Miss Marion Benson from memory, of a difficult work from the pen of Schumann…”.[16]

 

J D Coutts offered private lessons at Allans in Collins St, and at 105 Hotham St, East Melbourne, and  was also a teacher at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in pianoforte and theory.[17]  An advertisement in The Argus spelt out in detail opportunities at the Conservatorium for further study in music, but also indicated that scholarships were available.[18] These scholarships offered huge opportunities for middle class women, and they were seized by women like Edith with limited opportunities for employment commensurate with their education and which did not cause them to lose social status as ladies.  Women greatly outnumbered men in the University music results while Edith was there.

 

It was probably Coutts who encouraged Edith to work towards acquiring both a qualification to teach music, and to win a scholarship to pay for the tuition.  She was already acquainted with Coutts in 1898 as the concert reveals, but she did not enrol in the Conservatorium until 1901, commencing her studies there in 1902, suggesting that in the interim she was working hard to gain entry to the Conservatorium; or perhaps persuading her parents that she needed to seize this opportunity.  By 1901 her eldest sister was 35 and unmarried, and Edith herself was 32 and unmarried.  They both would have been regarded as ‘on the shelf’ a decade earlier. 

 

Although attractive young women, they may have been victims of the economic hardship which prevented many marriages in the 1890s.  The marriage rate had grown slowly throughout the 1880s from 6.81 per 1,000  of the mean population, to it’s highest point of 8.42 in 1889, but thereafter the rate slid back to a low point of 5.97 marriages per 1,000 in in 1894, and was still only 6.97 in 1900.[19]  Or perhaps they were simply not inclined to marry.

 

During this period Edith had watched her mother build up a small business, probably with the assistance of her daughters.  It was a dirty business and hard work, and it must have seemed to Edith that independence lay in developing her musical talent and qualifying as a teacher.  Music lessons with the best teachers were expensive, and whether the family finances had recovered to the extent that her family could help with the cost, or whether Edith took a job in this period to pay for her own lessons we don’t know.

 

Evidence of Edith’s determination and hard work can be seen in the University examination results for 1902. Edith won an Equal Third Ormond Exhibition with Eleanor Henry, for First Year Diploma of Music.[20]   It is very likely Edith received a scholarship to study at the University though no specific mention of this has been found.

 

During the period of her training at the Conservatorium, Edith had opportunities to perform with other students and at private functions.  As well as musical training, the Conservatorium enabled her to broaden her social and business networks. The Age of 9 July 1903 reported:

 

The usual Wednesday afternoon Students' Concert was given at the University Conservatorium yesterday afternoon before a large audience. The violin solos, included Svensden's Romance (Miss Jervis), Papini's Tarantelle (Miss Jaques), and a Corelli Sonata- (Miss Hartrick); for the pianoforte  the numbers were Beethoven's Emperor Concerto (Miss Lyhane), and his Sonata in E flat, op. 7 (Miss Peard); with Chopin's Fantaisi Impromptu (Miss Crawcour) and C sharp minor study (Miss Francis). Miss Williams and Miss Nightingale sang Mendelssohn's duet, Oh Would That My Love, and Miss Hinman contributed Lassen's  song, Mit deinen blauen Augen. The box plan for the half yearly concert on 16th  inst. was opened at Allans yesterday morning,- is already almost fully  booked.[21]

 

In December 1903 the venue was ‘Norla’ in Toorak, the home of Mrs Jose, the former Miss Fanny Charlesworth, a well-known vocal soloist.

 

An invitation concert was given by Mrs Jose (Miss Fanny Charlesworth) on the […] December, which proved a very brilliant success, over two hundred and fifty being present.  A very enjoyable programme of songs and instrumental music was contributed as follows:—Songs were, given by Mrs. Percy Hedges, Mrs. Jose, the Misses E. Peard, T. Knox, R Lovering, A. M'Gillivray, S. Strongman, D. Blair, F. Slater, N. Harston, M. M'Gillivray and Mr. W. J. Thomson. Mrs. Jose was presented with a beautiful posy from her pupils. The students all give evidence of sound and cultured training. An agreeable change in the programme was given by Misses Peard and Knox in pianoforte numbers. The accompanists were Mrs. Arthur Patten, Misses Ada M'Beath and Berta Gosman.[22]

 

In her second year of study Edith achieved Third Class Honours.[23]  She was awarded a Diploma of Music Associate in 1904.[24]  The graduation ceremony took place in April 1905:

 

The following students were admitted to the  diplomas of education and music respectfully: [sic] —  Diploma of Education: Elizabeth Whyte. Diploma in Music: Elsie Vaughan Christopher, Mabel Mary Hailes Lush, Edith Fleetwood Peard, Irene Victoria Seward.[25]

 

This photo shows the four Peard siblings, from left, Richard Hawke Peard, Edith Fleetwood Peard,

Kate Lizzie Dawson nee Peard and Henry Kent Peard, circa 1905.  It may have been taken at the

first Robb St address on the occasion of Edith’s graduation in April 1905. Courtesy of Craig Williams.

 

Kate Peard seized an opportunity to marry Robert Foster Dawson (known as Foster) of Inglewood, a returned serviceman who had served and suffered a long and arduous campaign in South Africa with the 2nd Victorian Mounted Rifles, returning home ill with enteric fever in 1901. Kate and Foster married in August 1902 at St Thomas’ Church, Moonee Ponds, the ceremony being performed by a minister from Inglewood.[26] Kate and Foster returned to Inglewood to establish a home.  Kate by this time was aged 36 and Foster 32.

 

Their cousins Alberta and Edmund Barker had also left the north east and were living at 56 Railway Place, Flemington, Alberta listed in the 1903 Electoral Roll as a dressmaker and Edmund as a labourer.

 

Continued at Edith-Peard-3

 

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[1] ST. PAUL'S CHURCH OF ENGLAND, OXLEY. (1882, November 2). Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic. : 1855 -1918), p. 8. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article207178037

[2] VAE VICTIS. (1897, May 29). Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic. : 1855 -1918), p. 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article200529329

[3] THE GLENROWAN PICNIC. (1887, October 15). Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic. : 1855 -1918), p. 9.  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198652282

[4] ODDFELLOWS' ANNIVERSARY. (1887, October 29). Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic. : 1855 -1918), , p. 8.  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198650481

[5]  Advertising. (1890, May 13). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 7. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196963598.

[5A] Advertising (1886, March 13). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 16 (FIRST EDITION).   http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199449835

[6] My Place for Teachers: Australia in the 1890s: Depression. [website]    Retrieved 7 May 2016. http://www.myplace.edu.au/decades_timeline/1890/decade_landing_11.html?tabRank=2&subTabRank=2

[7] Advertising (1891, October 10). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), , p. 5. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193414099

[8] Advertising. (1892, August 6). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article199339904.

[9] "Advertising" The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954) 4 February 1893: 9. Web. 12 Mar 2016 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193442818; Advertising (1894, May 19). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), , p. 7. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197466246 . ”Advertising" The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954) 29 April 1893: 7.  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193434588; Advertising (1893, February 11). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), , p. 10. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193436477

[10] Advertising (1895, November 9). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), , p. 4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197201378

[11] Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works detail plan. 3431, Municipality of Keilor, 1929. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/132103.

[12] Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works detail plan. 1680, Town of Essendon 1906.  http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/125714. 

[13] Email from Craig Williams, 20 Apr 2016.

[14] Silver Wedding. (1896, May 1). Table Talk (Melbourne, Vic. : 1885 - 1939), , p. 14.  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145921569

[15] SOCIAL NOTES. (1897, October 23). The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), p. 46.  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article138629472

[16] Social (1898, December 23). Table Talk (Melbourne, Vic. : 1885 - 1939), , p. 25. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article145862852

[17] Advertising (1897, January 30). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), , p. 16. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9159707

[18] Ibid.

[19] Victorian Year Book 1973: Centenary edition.  V H Arnold (ed), Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Victorian Office, 1973,  p 1052.

[20] University of Melbourne Calendar 1903,  p 76.   https://digitised-collections.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/23474 Search for Peard

[21] AMUSEMENTS. (1903, July 9). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), p. 9.  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197212289

[22] No. 18—SENATOR SIMON FRASER, " Norla," Irving-road, Toorak. (1903, December 17). Punch (Melbourne, Vic. : 1900 - 1918; 1925), , p. 24. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article175404235

[23]  University of Melbourne Calendar 1904, p 366.  http://hdl.handle.net/11343/23455

[24]  UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE. (1904, November 28). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), , p. 6. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article189428405;  University of Melbourne Calendar 1910,  p 667.

[25] MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY. (1905, April 10). The Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), , p. 9. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article192226783.

[26] OUR COUNTRY SERVICE. (1902, August 22). Bendigo Advertiser (Vic. : 1855 - 1918), p. 3. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article89484205