Time Travellers in Essendon, Flemington and the Keilor Plains

 

Race for a vaccine  

Death or Disfigurement

Many Moonee Ponds Medicos

 

 

Ardconnell c 1980. Photo from a private collection. The house was painted green

 

Dr Edward Ernest Spring

1915-1927

 

During his last illness Dr Dickinson was attended to by Dr J F Spring.

 

 

Dr Frank Spring lived with his parents and siblings at 43 Nicholson St, Essendon. The family had been Ballarat-based but moved to Melbourne in 1890 as household head William was advanced through the ranks of the Education Department. In 1895 he was promoted from being Head Teacher at Moonee Ponds West to Kensington State School.

 

William was a Tipperary man and the family were loyal parishioners of St Monica’s. The Spring family had an unusual distinction in that all four sons qualified as Medical Practitioners.

 

In late November 1915 Dr Edward Ernest Spring, the youngest son, took over the Ardconnell practice. Dr Ed was 26 years old,  had received his Melbourne University medical degree in 1910 and completed his residency at the Melbourne Hospital. In October 1914 he married Margaret Rennick and took up practice in Gippsland before returning to Moonee Ponds.  

 

All photos with permission and courtesy of Clare Spring

 

Apart from wartime St Johns first aid classes at the Town Hall, Dr Ed concentrated on the practice and paying off the £2400 mortgage held by Mary Dickinson. He and Madge also had four children, the two sons born at Ardconnell 1917-1919, both becoming doctors. The family became embedded in the community, as testified to by their six year old daughter Madge being a trainbearer at the 1922 society wedding of Ruth Madden of Travancore.

 

Dr Frank Spring was very active in the community, being involved with the Essendon Football Club (VFA), Essendon Bowling Club and as President of the Essendon Progress Association.    

 

 

Photo credit Benalla Family History Research Group newspaper.

 

Dr J A D Nish

1927-1940

 

When Dr Duncan Turner had established his medical practice in 1877, the population of the municipality had been 3000 in 600 households. Fifty years on it was over 40,000 in 10,000 households. Mt Alexander Road was no longer the retail and commercial hub, and with the coming of the trams and automobiles, was noisier and busier. Motor mechanics had moved into coachbuilders’ premises. James Alexander David Nish was born in Bendigo in 1875, the son of a prominent Scots Presbyterian Minister. He qualified in 1901 and took up practice in 1903 at Benalla where he married Hans Victoria Thwaites in 1904. He became very involved with community life there, being particularly influential in the founding of the High School and growth of the Presbyterian church. After he recovered from severe illness in 1926 the family left Benalla and moved to Ardconnell  in June 1927. Their daughter Margaret was married from the house in 1930.

 

Margaret Nish married at Scots Church, honeymooned in Europe and settled in Tasmania. One of her

brothers, John Noel, became a prominent surgeon in the UK. Photo The Australasian Feb 1930.

 

The Nish family bred and displayed dogs and would have been attracted to the canine run at Ardconnell, a legacy from Dr Dickinson. They imported many animals and at one stage had 28 dogs at home, though they averaged seven. They exhibited widely, winning many awards.  

 

In 1934 the Nish family imported two Corgis from the same kennels as had supplied the Princess Elizabeth’s

pet dogs. These were the first of their kind in Australia and the ship’s Chief Officer had charge of them on the

voyage. Ian Nish established Benfro Kennels at Ardconnell. Photo: The Herald 11 July 1934.

 

Dr Nish was an active Freemason and in 1937 became Grand Master of Victorian Freemasons in the United Grand Lodge of Mark Master.

 

 

Dr Clifford Scholfield Mallalieu

1940-1948

 

Wartime brought another change with Dr Mallalieu purchasing the practice. He had been born in 1898  in Ballarat and after attending Wesley College undertook medical studies in 1917, qualifying in 1922. He enlisted in October 1918 but was never called into service. After graduation he worked in Western Australia, returning to Victoria to marry  Alice Emma England in 1925. In 1939 ill health forced him to leave his long term practice at Euroa. He came to Moonee Ponds, already having connections with this area - a brother Heber and wife Mary Ann Mallalieu being resident in the area since 1930.

 

Also resident at Ardconnell was Dr Clifford’s father, the Rev Paul Edwin Mallalieu, an English born Methodist Minister with associations with the South Essendon Methodist Church. Clifford’s and Alice’s daughter Margaret initially attended Melbourne Ladies College, but transferred to Lowther Hall, marrying a doctor in 1952. Their son Alan became a chemist and settled in country Victoria.  After Dr Mallalieu, JP sold the practice he continued, it appears, to provide medical services from Ardconnell. He retained many associations with the district, in the 1950s becoming President of the Essendon Club at Windy Hill, President of Essendon Bowling Club and Essendon Tennis Club. Dr Mallalieu officially opened the new clubhouse at the Tennis club in April 1955.

 

Essendon

Margaret (Fourth from left) competing in School athletics 1944. Photo

 

Arnold Ashley Finks

1948-1953

 

Although he was not long in the district, Dr Finks was consulted by Essendon Royalty. Photo: The Age, August 1951

 

 

Arnold Ashley Finks had been born in 1923 in Carlton, his father Norman a colourful local identity. Dr Finks graduated from Melbourne in July 1947 and married Freda Gerber in the Toorak Synagogue two weeks later. Twelve months on he purchased the Moonee Ponds business. In 1951 he took in a partner, Dr Graeme Paul Jeffree. Jeffree was  Ballarat born in 1911, qualified in 1935 and had worked in a number of metropolitan and rural settings, including Sunshine and Stawell. On one of his rural postings he married nurse Sister Doris Frost. Dr Jeffree was also  an enthusiastic sportsman.

 

In May 1952 the doctors moved the practice to Keilor Road, Essendon, expanding the business in subsequent years. In 1952 Dr Leslie P Gill also joined the partnership. Leslie Pejsach Gill had been born on the Polish Russian border in 1906. He had arrived in Australia in the late 1930s. Dr Gill qualified at Melbourne University in 1943 and served as a Captain in the Australian Army Medical Corp. He and his wife Esther lived in North Melbourne. In 1953 Dr Finks sold the practice while he went onto a very different and more lucrative medical career with Margaret Berman 

 

William Henry Mackenzie

1953-1964

 

The family arrived on the Mooltan: Diane 12 months, John 5 and Richard 2.

Photo Adelaide News 26 Jan 1949.

 

Seventy years after Dr Duncan’s arrival the wheel turned full circle. The MacKenzie family had arrived as migrants in 1949 and settled in Caulfield. Dr MacKenzie had qualified in medicine in Edinburgh in 1940 and worked in England. Drs Gill and Jeffree continued to be partners in the business which MacKenzie took on in 1953.

 

 

 

 

William Sutherland Lawrence

 

 

Fittingly, the last practitioner to use Ardconnell as his base was one born into a family well established in the district. Both sets of Bill Lawrence’s grandparents had lived in Moonee Ponds and were adherents of the Baptist Church. His father Dr Arthur P Lawrence had attended Ascot Vale State School then after medical studies had had given distinguished service in the Great War.

 

Born in 1923, Bill had unsuccessfully tried to enlist. He returned to his medical studies and then qualified as a physician in 1946.  He took up postings in Western Australia where he married Grace Elfreda Hughes in 1950. The family returned to Victoria and lived in Stawell till the mid-1950s, when Dr Lawrence purchased the Ardconnell practice. The family lived at the address for a time before settling in Park Street. The upper floor of Ardconnell was sub-divided into flats. The family continues their association with the district through the services of Dr Bill Lawrence's son, Moonee Valley Councillor Richard Lawrence. He recalls Prime Minster John Gorton visiting Ardconnell in about 1969.

 

Dr Lawrence sold the building in the mid-1970s to set up medical practices in Flemington and Ascot Vale.

 

Smallpox was declared eradicated from the world in 1980.  

 

Ardconnell was demolished in 1981.

 

Photo courtesy Lawrence Family History

 

 

©M Kenny 2020

******

 

Acknowledgments For their generous and substantial assistance at this difficult time

Alex Bragiola, Peter Willoughby, Lenore Frost, Bob Mckay,

Clare Spring, Emma @ Archives Royal Children’s Hospital, Steven Haby, Secretary Librarian Prahran Mechanics Institute,  Moonee Valley Councillor Richard Lawrence.

References

Due to the 2020 Pandemic most primary sources were not available to be consulted.

Cahill M The Grand Mansions of Essendon and Flemington Essendon Historical Society 2013 

Cameron-Kennedy; D. F. The Oaklands Hunt, 1888-1988: a chronicle of events. Melbourne 1989

Chalmers R Annals of Essendon Essendon Historical Society 1998

Clarke M Big Clarke Queensberry Hill Press Carlton 1980

Cousen N The smallpox on Ballarat Provenance-2018 Public Record Office Victoria

Cumpston J H The History of Smallpox in Australia 1925 Government Printer Melbourne

Frew C 'Marriage to a Deceased Wife’s Sister in Australia and England 1835-1907'. Ph D thesis

Frost L (Ed) Federation Times in Essendon and Flemington Essendon Historical Society 2001

Frost L (Ed) The Fine Homes of Essendon & District Essendon Historical Society 2010

Haigh G  The Racket: How Abortion Became Legal in Australia MUP 2008

Lemon A Broadmeadows The Forgotten History. Executive Media Pty Ltd 1982

Gregory A The Ever Open Door- History of the Royal Melbourne Hospital Macquarie University Sydney 1998

McWhirter R: Lymph or Liberty: Responses to Smallpox Vaccination in the Eastern Australian Colonies, 2008 PhD thesis, University of Tasmania.

Parsons I Graham Mitchell Pioneer Veterinarian Australian Veterinary History Record No 39 Feb 2004

Peck H Memoirs of a Stockman Stock & Co, Australia 1972

 

Pensabene T. S.  The Rise of the Medical Practitioner in Victoria Monograph. Australian National University 1980

 

Victorian Parliamentary Papers Data base

Select Committee on the Vaccination Law 1881,

Select Committee up on the Efficacy of the Vaccination Laws 1915.

Annual Reports Board of Health

 

Victorian Municipal Directories

 

Australian Dictionary of Biography

 

PROV Series VPRS 3654 Registers of Vaccinations Record Description List

Inquests, Wills and Probates, Shipping Lists

 

NAA B 2455 Service Records

 

State Library of Victoria- Sands and McDougall Directories, MMBW Plans, Victorian Government Gazettes

 

Newspapers Multiple including Essendon Gazette, The Australasian, The Advertiser, North Melbourne, The Advocate, Age, Argus,,  Weekly Times, Table Talk, Punch, WA Record.

 

Victorian BDM, Cemetery Records

 

Web Sites

Lawrence Family History http://www. alawrencefamily. net/home. shtml

Spring Family History  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Spring-583

https://www. friendsofwilliamstownwetlands. org. au/index. php/paisley-challis-wetlands/89-cut-paw-paw-sanatorium

Wikipedia