The first Margaret – history of a picture

For many people, a major goal of genealogy is to trace their male line back.  Following the female line can be just as interesting and will lead your research in a completely different direction.

In a dark corner of the corridor in grandpop’s home was a table which held the heavy Bakelite phone. Above it on the wall was a small portrait of ‘the first Margaret’. It had been handed from the first Margaret to each successive first daughter who was named Margaret. My mother’s sister, Margaret, was the last in the line as she had no children.

Mum had been aware of the portrait all her life and could recite the surnames in order; Thomson (‘without the p’), Swan, Bald, Ker and finally Marsh.  So, who were these women and how did the tradition get started?

Margaret Thomson was born in 1795 to Alexander Thomas near Edinburgh. Her mother’s name was not Margaret, but doubtless, there would have been Margaret’s in her ancestry. Obviously, she was not the first Margaret ever! At the moment though I don’t know much about her female ancestors other than her mother’s name which was Abigail Eddie, also an Edinburgh lass, who married Alexander Thomson in 1782.

Margaret has been a popular Scottish name since the Catholic canonisation of Margaret of Scotland.

Margaret (1046 – 16 November 1093) was an English princess of the House of Wessex who fled with her family to Scotland following the Norman conquest of England of 1066. Around 1070 Margaret married Malcolm III of Scotland. She was a pious woman, credited with bringing a civilising influence to her husband and his kingdom by reading him Bible stories and initiating many charitable works including a ferry across the Firth of Forth for pilgrims travelling to Dunfermline Abbey. According to the Life of Saint Margaret, she died at Edinburgh Castle in 1093, just days after receiving the news of her husband's death in battle.

St Margaret's Chapel, in Edinburgh Castle, is the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Saint Margaret.
Detail from the 1922 stained-glass window by Douglas Strachan.
Picture by Kjetil Bjørnsrud New York via
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=781637

Margret Thomson married the slightly younger Joseph Swan in 1817 and travelled with him from Edinburgh to Glasgow where he set about building a profitable engraving business. Together they had eight children. Amongst them was her first daughter named Margaret. The first Margaret died in 1836 at about the age of 40. Although the circumstances of her death are not known, it was a tragedy for Joseph. The couple had also lost three of their children before Margaret’s death. 

Margaret Swan nee Thomson (1795-1836)
as portrayed in the famous family miniature.

Swan himself was a significant figure in Glasgow at this time and my guess is that it was on the death of his wife that the famous family miniature became significant. It shows a pious woman probably holding a Bible in her hand. The background may refer to a specific place and the colours suggest autumn. The clothing and hairstyle suggest a date of about 1830.

Margaret Swan and her younger sister Janet were married in 1850 to their respective spouses, grain merchant William Ker and marble cutter Alexander Penman, in their father’s home by a relative, the missionary and anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Swan. Thomas had worked in India and had some disagreements with Baptist missions’ founder William Carey over methods. The new Mrs Ker remembered many contacts with missionaries and preachers from her childhood and lived a long, happy and productive life. 

She also enjoyed the piano from childhood and passed that interest and some of her music to her daughter Margaret.

Margaret Ker nee Swan (1827-1911)

Margaret Ker (nee Swan) retired to Oban in the west of Scotland after the death of her husband in 1891 to live with her younger daughter Mrs Agnes Fleming and her son-in-law journalist Ned. She took with her a bound book of music presented to her by a Swan relative. It contained a number of songs mostly by ‘Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’. Mendelssohn wrote many romantic songs with piano, a number of which became popular in Scotland. Her eldest daughter, Margaret, shared her love of the piano. Oban seems to have become a hub for family reunions the last being at the time of her death in 1911.

In 1885, Margaret Ker married the engineer and tea-planter Claud Bald, who had come back from India for the marriage, was some eight years her senior. Again, they married in a relative’s home in Glasgow. This time it was the home of Charles Arthur who had married Isobel Swan her mother’s youngest sister.  Links between the descendants of the three sisters, Margaret Swan, Janet Penman and Isobel Arthur, remained strong for a couple of generations. 

Soon after her marriage, the new Mrs Bald set off with her husband to the Tukvar Tea plantation where Claud was an established identity. Presumably, she took her piano music – and the portrait the first Margaret with her.

Margaret Bald nee Ker (1861-1935) with her music.

Margaret Bald was apparently happy to repeat the story that her Ker line descended from the Earls of Roxburgh. An attempt by the last Margaret to find this connection was unsuccessful. However, the relevant fact is that descent could pass through the female line. And there's a story for another day...

Her first daughter was named Margaret Evelyn Ker Bald. However, with a preponderance of Margarets she became known as ‘Evelyn’. Evelyn took her music very seriously and gained a Licentiate from the Royal Schools of Music (LRSM). Her tastes were strong forceful pieces, Mendelsohn, Beethoven  -and she had the hands to do them justice. Evelyn was apparently a confident performer. On one extended visit to Scotland at about the age of 18, she played the organ for services at the Helensburgh Baptist Church and back in Darjeeling regularly performed at the Mount Hermon School and at other public events.  

The Helensburgh church had some connection to India through the missionary work of its member Mrs Elizabeth Sale, the first missionary to obtain access to the Zenanas of India. Evelyn married the slightly younger Australian protégé of her father’s Frederick Marsh in Darjeeling in 1917. Marsh was an Australian who had come to India partly because his sometimes-unwell sister had preceded him as a missionary. 

Sometime before she retired to England in 1919, Margaret Bald passed the portrait to her daughter, now Mrs Marsh.

Lounge at Phoobsering Tea Estate, Darjeeling, home for Fred and Evelyn, in about 1940 showing the first Margaret’s portrait to the left.

Evelyn had only two children, Margaret Evelyn Mary Marsh and Joan Kathleen (my mother). Margaret inherited the portrait but Joan inherited her mother’s musical ability, though her tastes were different again. Joan also obtained an LRSM and like her mother played the piano for church services, as well as ballet classes, but also enjoyed teaching. Margaret and Joan settled in Melbourne in 1937 while their parents remained in India. Their parents joined them in 1948 bringing the portrait with them. The last Margaret was an enthusiastic photographer and we are lucky that a number of her pictures survive.

Left to right: Joan, Evelyn and Margaret Marsh
on an English street in 1937.

Comments are welcome below.

Jottings of interest: August 2017

The Sabbath Sentinel published a slightly different version of my article ‘The Seventh Day Men Part 1: The Sabbath under James I & Charles I’ under the title ‘The Seventh Day Men’ in their May-June 2017 edition, pp17-19.  I’m hoping they may publish all three in due course. The magazine is published by the Bible Sabbath Association, a non-denominational organisation, whose main purpose is to promote cooperation between Sabbath-keepers from a number of groups.

oOo

Victor Perton, the energetic Editor of the Australian Leadership Project, published a short interview with me in June, based on my reflections about leadership. The only error in the piece is that he described my previous employer as my current – I don’t know who would be more offended.

oOo

Speaking of La Trobe, the University… 

I’ve now read From the Paddock to the Agora – Fifty Years of La Trobe University, spruiked as featuring ‘candid essays from six commissioned authors, as well as a collection of iconic photos and images’. The line-up is impressive; author and speechwriter Don Watson; historian, author and broadcaster Clare Wright; public intellectual Robert Manne; writer and political commentator Dennis Altman; scientist Marilyn Anderson; and Bendigo Honorary Associate Penny Davies.

I had been expecting a follow-up to Building La Trobe University: reflections on the first 25 years, 1964-1989, a thoughtful anthology published by La Trobe University Press in 1989, but was disappointed.

You’ll notice a slight difference in chronology here. Building starts from ‘conception’ in 1964 when the La Trobe University Act was passed by the Victorian Parliament whereas From the Paddock counts 50 years from the ‘birth’ on 8 March 1967. The cows had gone by 1967, but not the paddock.

From the Paddock is an easy, one-sitting, read with Don Watson’s item resonating most. He is the only author to also feature in Building La Trobe and clearly did some research for the current book. I learned that Kathleen Fitzpatrick was a member of ‘The Third University Committee’, and the person who proposed naming the new university after Victoria’s first Lieutenant-Governor Charles Joseph La Trobe. Nice to know that she taught 17^th Century English history too - not enough people do now.

The book is reminiscences rather than history and in one place seems to rake over internal disputes perhaps better left forgotten. (Some of my reminiscences, with no raking, are in earlier blog items.)

I wondered why some of the authors were chosen until Clare Wright’s piece indicated that she and most of the others were part of The Age top 20 Australian intellectuals in April 2005. The missing authors were Inga Clendennin (who passed away in 2016) and Tim Flannery – what would his memories be?

Watson’s reflective descriptions of student life also gave a better view of the ‘radical days’ than some recent two-dimensional views of ‘radical’. The experience was a maturing one and thoughtful staff recognised it as such. La Trobe was for me a marketplace of ideas – an Agora for the mind.

The opposite end of the student spectrum was taken by the late Andrew Armstrong (d 2008) who enjoyed being seen as radical for being conservative. I got to know him when he was a Convocation member of the University Council. See his item LURC Early History - my part in your being.  

An interesting item would be to compare the formal portraits of successive Vice-Chancellors (and Chancellors) with their characters. Johnson blends into the environment with his coffee, Osborne is lonely, Scott is penetrating and thoughtful and a happy Myers clouded in the smoke of his pipe. 

The lack of captions for the photos was also a disappointment. I wonder whether the inclusion of a picture of John Scott and his wife is an accident or a recognition that his decision to recommend the amalgamation with the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences was a significant turning point for La Trobe. Professor Peter Karmel had advised that not to do so may mean the end of the University. 

It’s a pity that there hasn’t been something written with a historical perspective to describe and assess the changes over the last 28 years and perhaps reassess the developments of the earlier period. 

Themes would include the Lincoln amalgamation and how it changed the University, engaging with TAFE and vocational teaching, more reflection on the University's rural mission and the challenges of a multi-campus institution, the role of international activities (there from day one but with ever-increasing significance), the change in academic mix including the loss of some areas such as music or geology and the balance between being inward-looking and outward looking.

From the Paddock is not quite a coffee-table book – indeed it might be a ‘coffee-table book lite’ or an ‘instant-coffee table book’. A coaster.

oOo

At last! Comments are now enabled - and certainly welcomed - on this blog. 

Joseph Swan: engraver, publisher and supporter of the arts

One of my more respectable ancestors is Joseph Swan. He was born on 11 November 1796 in Manchester England to Thomas Swan and Janet Russell. 

This outline of his life demonstrates his connections with and support for the arts in Glasgow and his contribution to the art of engraving in particular.

He started his career in what had become his hometown of Edinburgh as an apprentice to engraver John Beugo and worked with other engravers. In August 1817 he married Margaret Thomson in Edinburgh before setting off to Glasgow. He took over the engraving business established by Charles Dearie, who died on 28 November 1818.

Swan was one of a number of engravers and printers in Glasgow whose business encompassed pictures, portraits, maps, bookplates, plans invoices, bills, bank notes, and silverwork. One of his commissions was to illustrate rare plants in the collection of the Royal Botanic Institute of Glasgow. 

In 1836 Swan was one of the first to apply steam to the lithographic printing process. He employed staff who specialised in a particular area such as pictures, letters and seal engraving. They included Robert Charles Bell who, like Swan, had worked with John Beugo in Edinburgh and Thomas Annan, later known for his photographic work.

Swan's reputation was established by his engraved illustrations of Scottish towns and landscapes which were based on pictures by contemporary Scottish artists such as John Fleming, John Knox,  Andrew Donaldson, James Stewart and William Brown.

The first major work, Views of Scotland and its environs, appeared in 1826 with accompanying text by John Leighton and sold at five shillings and sixpence for fine proof impressions on India paper and four shillings and sixpence for common impressions.

To ensure the commercial success of such a project, subscribers were required to make payments in advance of publication to ensure that the work could proceed. Subscribers for the Views of Glasgow included the Duchess of Montrose, the Lord Provost of Glasgow and Archibald McLellan, a founder of the civic art collection. The engravings were made from pictures produced by Greenock-based John Fleming, Glasgow’s John Knox and Swan himself. The thirty-three plates include views of the city from different vantage points, the leading thoroughfares, buildings, and districts. Contemporary newspapers praised the work both for its choice of subjects and the quality of workmanship.

Following the success of the Select Views of Glasgow, Swan published part one of the Select Views on the River Clyde in February 1828. The engravings for the series were taken from pictures by John Fleming and Andrew Donaldson. They were larger than the Glasgow set and the price rose accordingly. By February 1830 the series was complete and included views of country houses such as Blythswood, Carstairs, Erskine and Hamilton Place plus Helensburgh, Greenock, Rothesay, and Campbelltown.

Then followed Views of the lakes of Scotland, the first part of which was published in 1830. Swan was keen to point out to potential subscribers and purchasers that the work was of national importance as it was the first to group together Highland and Lowland lochs and included many of the lesser-known ones. He attracted well over 1000 subscribers from throughout Britain. All the engravings were based on pictures by John Fleming and the text was by Leighton with an introduction by Professor Wilson. From 1832 to 1836 Swan’s entry in the Post Office Directory shows him as ‘engraver and publisher of the Lakes of Scotland’.

Two works by Charles Mackie, Historical Description of the Abbey and Town of Paisley, 1835 and Historical Description of the Town of Dundee, 1836, contain Swans engravings. The Paisley views were all based on Swan’s own artwork while the Dundee volume contains both his work and that of James Stewart.

Stewart provided the artwork for the History of the County of Fyfe (1840), Sir William Hooker’s Perthshire Illustrated (1843), also has Swan’s engravings after Stewart, William Brown, Andrew Donaldson and D. MacKenzie. Swan’s engravings appear in further works including Strathclutha; or the Beauties of Clyde (1839), which combines views from the Glasgow and Clyde series; The Topographical, Statistical and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland (1845); and the new edition of James Browne’s, A History of the Highlands and of the Highland Clans.

Joseph Swan was a committee member and for some time treasurer of the Glasgow Mechanics’ Institution which was founded in 1832. From January 1824, the institution published a very successful magazine which included many of his engravings such as portraits of James Watt and John Anderson, founder of Anderson’s institution, and the numerous mechanical inventions and improvements discussed in the text.

A key figure in Glasgow’s art world, Swan co-founded the Glasgow Dilettanti Society in 1825 to promote interest in the fine arts among the city’s artists, art collectors and connoisseurs. He was an honorary member of the West of Scotland Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1841, to which his firms supplied printed material. In the same year, he was on the management committee and treasurer of the newly founded Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts, an art union.

Swan operated his business from a number of locations throughout his career. These included different addresses in the Trongate between 1818 and 1841 when he relocated to St Vincent Street, adjacent to the Western Club. Other premises were at Exchange Square, Bothwell Street, Buchannan Street, and Parliamentary Road where the renowned Swan’s Universal Copy Books were manufactured for use in schools worldwide. He was listed in the Post Office Directory as an engraver and lithographer into the 1860s.

Joseph Swan in later life. Date unknown.

He lived with his family at various locations in the city between 1818 and his death in 1872. Some survive such as the villa at 114 Hill Street, Garnethill and 21 Sandyforth Place, Sauchiehall Street, where he died on 22 September 1872. His first wife with whom he had eight children, Margaret Thomson, died in 1836 and he married Helen Gourlay Cumming with whom he had seven children.

He was buried at the Glasgow Necropolis where his monument stands. The monument is a valuable record of his family including nine of his children who predeceased him. It does not include the names of the four daughters who survived him.

The marriages of three of his daughters are recorded in the Glasgow Herald and are worth mentioning because the sisters and their descendants kept in close touch.

14th June 1850 - marriages

At 114 Hill Street, Garnet Hill, on the 13th instant, by the Rev. Thomas Swan of Birmingham, Mr William Ker, grain merchant, Glasgow, to Margaret Thomson, eldest [surviving] daughter of Joseph Swan Esq.

At 114 Hill Street, Garnet Hill, on the 13th instant, by the Rev. Thomas Swan of Birmingham, Mr Alexander Penman, marble-cutter, Glasgow, to Janet Russell, second daughter of Joseph Swan Esq.

It’s interesting to note that these sisters were married on the same day in their home by their uncle Rev. Thomas Swan who had travelled from Birmingham for the event. Rev. Swan was Joseph's older brother, born in 1795 while their parents were working in Manchester. They returned to Edinburgh in about 1802. Thomas studied at the Bristol Baptist Academy from 1821–24, ahead of missionary service in India and after a disagreement with William Carey returned to England via the United States where he encountered slavery and resolved to work against it. Joseph supported his brother's work and overseas missions, something which was a strong interest of his daughter Margaret and her daughter and son-in-law Claud Bald.

11th March 1853 -marriages

At 114 Hill Street, Garnet Hill, Glasgow, on the 9th instant, by the Rev. Andrew Arthur, Edinburgh, Mr Charles Arthur, Verrefield Pottery, to Isabella, third daughter of Joseph Swan Esq. 

Again, it sounds like the minister may be a relative. He was based in Edinburgh and was a member of the dissenting churches.

Updated: 29 April 2023.

Comments are welcome below.

Translating Trump: troosers and the emperor’s new clothes

Roger Paxton performed his variation of Donald where's yer troosers on 21 January 2017 at the North Berwick Drama Circle Burns Supper 2017 on Saturday 21 January 2017 –  the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45^th President of the United States.

The event was held at the Glen Golf Club, North Berwick, east of Edinburgh, Scotland.  The video of the song has allegedly become ‘the largest audience to ever witness a post-inauguration Burns Night appearance’.

The video shows that those who heard the song enjoyed it very much, but the accent is hard for non-Scots to comprehend. So, what’s needed is a transcript of the whole poem I thought.  Turns out there is one already online. A problem with that is that some of the references are obscure as well. So I have added a few linsk and comments.

So before sharing the song, three things need to be unpacked. 

What’s a ‘Burns supper’?  It’s nothing to do with a hot toddy – necessarily. It is an annual commemoration of Robert Burns (1759-1756) Scotland’s most famous poet. After Burns death, the tradition of the Burns supper quickly developed in Scotland and spread internationally.

Burns most famous poem is Address To the Haggis - first recited to me by La Trobe registrar D D Neilson in a demonstration of the value of his education at Scots College. The centre piece of the Burns supper evening is the traditional Scottish delicacy - haggis.

What is haggis? The haggis is ‘piped in’: accompanied by a bagpipe player. During the procession, guests clap in time to the music until the haggis reaches the table where it will be carved. The speaker then recites the Address To the Haggis. The first verse starts off with the following lines – into which I have [inserted] a couple of ‘translations’ …

Fair fa’ [good luck to] your honest, sonsie [chubby] face,

Great chieftain o the puddin’ [sausage] race!

Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish, best not described in too much detail. Although its ingredients may seem to be mysterious, it is the king of sausages; the great chieftain of the puddin’ [sausage] race! Its taste is apparently improved by the accompaniment of whisky. I tried a slice of haggis in a hamburger in Edinburgh in 2014 so I know it was authentic – and I might give it a miss next time.

You also need to know that the last verse of Mr Paxton’s Troosers song starts with an adaptation of Burns’ Address to a Haggis. His audience would have heard the ‘real thing’ earlier in the evening.

Donald Where’s Your Troosers [trousers]? This is a comic song. The original 1960 hit song by Andy Stewart (1933-1993), is about the adventures of a rustic Scotsman who wears the kilt in defiance of the shock this causes to polite society to the south - such as well-spoken ladies on the London Underground.  It begins with the line ‘I've just come down from the Isle of Skye’...

The Island of Skye is 50 miles long and the largest of the Inner Hebrides on Scotland’s western coast.

So here is Paxton’s song in the video.  You can follow along with the words below with a few [comments] by me.

Donald where's yer troosers by Roger Paxton

I've just come down from the Isle of Skye,

I'd a Mom from some place real close by 

[Trump’s mother’s family were from the north-western islands of Scotland],

Now I've blown democracy sky-high

And trumped those lib'ral losers.

Let the wind blow high, let the wind blow low,

Down the pan see Clinton go,

The working classes shout "Hello!

Donald wears the troosers."

I've a king-sized ego to massage,

So I've packed my team with rednecks large.

(Still looking for a job for my friend Farage -

Well, beggars can't be choosers.)

Let the CIA guys bow down low,

To the Oval Office watch me go,

Where my young Ivanka shouts "Hello!

Let's see who wears the troosers."

The immigrants are all to blame,

But making deals is what made my name.

Free trade with Scotland I'll proclaim,

And there will be no losers.

I'll keep those tariffs way down low

To buy Hadrian's Wall for Mexico:

Hispanic folk will shout "Oh no!

Donald wears the trousers!"

I'm king of the Scottish golfing scene,

I'm its leading light from tee to green,

Trump Turnberry to Aberdeen,

And the taxmen are the losers.

I've paid top dollar for my latest gain -

That fine old course in East Gul-lane 

[home to Muirfield Golf Club];

For a song the Glen I'll now obtain...

My chequebook's in my troosers.

Robbie Burns and I both think the same:

The fairer sex are our favourite game.

"Respect all women" - that's our aim,

And protect them from abusers.

But let romance out the window go,

I'm not John Anderson Your Jo 

[John Anderson My Jo – sweetheart - is a romantic poem by Burns],

I grab the lassies Down Below!

Donald wears the troosers!

Fair fall my orange sonsie face!

I'm chieftain of the human race!

Aboon you all I'll tack my place -

So kiss my ass, you losers!

But since yesterday my world's gone flat:

I've been grabbed where it hurts by the White House cat.

They've called it Pussy's tit-for-tat!

Thank God I'm wearing troosers...

Some others have tried similar things though with less humour and wit than the above song.

A quite different sort of ‘translation’ of Trump was made recently by Australian political reporter Chris Uhlmann. He provided an analysis following President Donald Trump's performance at the G20 talks in Hamburg, Germany.

Uhlmann apparently had a few minutes to prepare – about the same time as it took Andy Stewart to write ‘Donald Where’s yer troosers’, but it also had wit and credibility, and became an immediate hit.

These items are very different 'translations' of how Donald is seen. One is a comic song about a witless lad who doesn’t care about how he is seen, the other is a re-telling of the old story about the emperor with no clothes.

Henry and Mary Marsh: Coomandook and retirement

The last post left Henry and Mary in Adelaide as a well-established family touched by some tragedy but with Henry’s business growing.

Edith, Henry’s eldest daughter described him as an immaculately presented and confident man.

Her son Bob Clark knew a very different man two decades later; ‘non-descript, down at the heel and poorly dressed’, with limited income, whose views ‘no one listened to’. His ‘grown-up family revolved around their radiant mother’ Mary.

Everyone seems to have admired Mary and many remembered her support and advice to her children. 

So, how did the change in Henry’s fortunes occur? Was he entirely to blame for his fate?

His ‘descent’ commenced in 1905. Overconfidence, hasty decisions, and unwise investments all contributed, but it was also external factors in particular Federation of the Australian States in 1901 that ruined him. 

Prior to that, South Australia, with its enclave dependency of Broken Hill, had been an island protected from competition by the moat of tariff and customs barriers at the border. That was the reason why in the 1890s Kitchens started an independent business in South Australia with Henry Marsh as an equal partner. The need for such a business collapsed with Federation.

It was not until 1905, with a new generation of the Kitchen family on the Board of Directors, knowing they could now supply South Australia and Broken Hill from the factory in Melbourne, that it proposed the soap and candle business of H Marsh and Co be merged into the Kitchen business.

William Essex, Marsh’s partner and friend was not only willing but eager. Marsh refused. Kitchen thereupon dismissed him as Managing Director. Essex soon returned to England and Henry was left to face the competition of Kitchen and other businesses such as Burford’s alone. Although flourishing, Marsh’s business was still smaller than either Kitchen's or Burford's.

Without the energetic Essex at the head of his department, Henry was stretched too far. Marsh and Co fell into trouble and the inevitable happened. Kitchen's eventually purchased the business, now much reduced, at their own price. Henry was left with only The Imperial Preserving Co and an inadequate amount of money.

Quorn Mercury, Tuesday 9 August 1904.

Imperial Preserving mounted a steady newspaper advertising campaign between about 1897-1904, but after that smaller advertisements appear aiming to sell horses and drays and vinegar containers and purchase farming equipment and 100 redgum fence posts as the business declined and Henry looked to the bush.

Advertiser, Monday 26 December 1910, page 9.

James Thomas Brown was a successful building contractor in Adelaide and a business acquaintance of Henry. Brown had built or would build the Public Library and Museum buildings on North Terrance, the Nurses Home and the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the Education Building on Flinders Street and St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral. His elder son Leslie would marry Henry and Mary’s daughter Alice in 1918.

In 1909 Henry was persuaded by Brown to take an interest in the new Murray Mallee land being opened for settlement at Coomandook on the Ninety Mile Desert. Henry bought the sections on either side of the road to Peak where it branched from the track to Melbourne along the railway line and, eventually selling out what remained of his reduced fortunes in Adelaide, went there to live and become a farmer.

It was his final mistake. He was no farmer and, no fault of Henry’s, the land itself turned out to be unproductive – it was in need of trace elements of copper and zinc and without that apparently good for one crop only.

It would be 50 years before that particular issue would be resolved through a scheme of mass clearing and scientific development, which transformed over a quarter of a million acres of mallee scrub in South Australia into rich pasture holdings. The project, recorded in the film Desert Conquest was focused on Coonalypn to the southwest of Coomandook.

Henry and his family were, however, enthusiastic members of their community and at least two of his sons, Fred and Wally, as well as several other locals, were involved in building the Parkin Memorial Congregational Hall which became a meeting house for the Congregational Church and a School.  

The Hall was named after William Parkin (1801–1889) a benefactor of the South Australian Congregational Church. He founded the Parkin Trust for training Congregational ministers, building churches and schools, and supporting widows of ministers.

The opening of the Parkin Memorial Hall 1911. Members of the Marsh family were in attendance though cannot be identified in this blurry photo. Doreen Marsh attended school there.

Wednesday 15 February 1911 - Opening of “Parkin Memorial Congregational Hall” (named after William Parkin). Senator Joseph Vardon, an active member of the Congregational Church, officiated and Parkin's widow was in attendance.

Two days later Fred Marsh was appointed a deacon of the Congregational Church along with A S Chapman and W W Brown. The following month, a ‘Christian Endeavour Society’ was formed and the teenage Frank Marsh was named as one of the young men from the Society who ‘conducted services‘ at nearby Ki Ki under the guidance of Rev J E Creswell minister of the Congregational Church in Flinders Street, Adelaide. 

Creswell led a remarkable life, travelling across the globe as a missionary as well as a humanitarian relief worker focusing on the children of the Armenian genocide of World War I.

Frank would return 50 years later on 19 February 1961 as Rev Frank Marsh, President General of the Baptist Union of Australia, to preach at the memorial service and speak at the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon as part of the Parkin Hall’s jubilee celebration service.

On 17 April 1911, a branch of the - Liberal Union was formed at Coomandook.  Rev J McIntyre, the pastor of the Congregational Church, addressed the group, A S Chapman was elected President and FGM as Secretary. The Liberal Union was a South Australian political party formed as a response to Labor's success in South Australia's 1910 election. The Liberal Union lasted until 1923 when it became the Liberal Federation.

The commitment to service exemplified by the Marsh children is a tribute, in part, to the example of their parents. And while Mary is credited with supporting and developing them overtly, Henry's example, however reserved, did the same.

Mary Marsh, third from left, looks bright with the other ladies at Coomandook.

Henry exerted some leadership in Coomandook with regard to seeking Government support in 1914 following a disastrous drought. However, his appeals on behalf of the local ‘Vigilance Committee’ fell on deaf ministerial ears which would have further weakened his damaged self-esteem. In his previous Adelaide life, he may well have been able to get the ear of such a person when he needed to.

In 1920, Henry leased the farm to his son-in-law, Les Brown, and sank what ready money he could find in the house at 42 South Terrace, Adelaide.

His eldest grandson, Bob Clark, felt that Henry’s mistake was in concentrating on business and money to the exclusion of almost all else and having failed there he had nothing left. Bob wrote; 'He was in mute contrast with my other grandfather, Stanley Clark, who had never aspired at any time in his life to earn more than a steady income as an employee and whose horizons were limited to his work, his family and his religion. Yet he remained in old age a rich though narrow personality which no one could ignore and which held the respect of his children and caught the interest of all who met him.’

This seemed to be a common impression of Henry with a universally admiring view of Mary. However, with further hindsight, it may be an unduly unsympathetic view. Henry may well have limited his focus to business but would probably have been severely tested by the death of two of his sons and the failure of his business and farm due to what may have seemed to him to be circumstances beyond his control. He clearly worked very hard and apart from the competition also had some responsibilities to his staff.

Henry Marsh with his daughter-in-law Evelyn and granddaughters Margaret and Joan in 1924.
Joan takes note of Mary's black cat.

On 26 February 1935, Henry passed away. He was 77. Six months later to the day, on 26 August 1935, Mary died. She was 77. They were buried in Adelaide West Terrace Cemetery with their son Dick who had been buried there 36 years before. Their major legacy was a large family who benefitted their communities in a variety of ways including, nursing, the military, missionary work and tea planting. 

Another was velvet soap.

Henry and Mary Marsh establish themselves in Adelaide

After Henry and Mary arrived in Adelaide from Melbourne, they settled in Sturt Street, which was then a residential area. It was not far from 42 South Terrace, where they would end their lives fifty years later.

Business is good

Henry remained with W. H. Burford and Son, whose offer of a job had enticed him to Adelaide, for only three years.

Burford’s soap and candle-making had been founded in Adelaide in 1840 by William Henville Burford (1807–1895), an English butcher who arrived in the new colony in 1838. It was one of Australia's earliest soap makers and expanded in the late 1800s and early 20th century, under son William Burford (1845 – 1925) accompanied by a number of takeovers. 

Much later, it would become the dominant soap manufacturer in South Australia and Western Australia (WA). Later again, W. H. Burford and Son would, in turn, be taken over by J. Kitchen & Sons, Marsh’s original employer.  

In 1890, Henry Marsh started out in the same line of business with two other Burford employees – William Essex and a Mr Schram, under the name of H. Marsh and Co. Their factory was in Winwood Street, Southwark, and Henry moved with his growing family (Henry was born in 1888 and Philippa in 1889) to a house in nearby Phillip Street.

But back in Melbourne, Kitchens had not forgotten him nor his value to their business and during the nineties, he joined Kitchens again, but this time on equal terms as a proprietor. By the end of the century, he was managing director of the new business of J H Kitchen & Son and Marsh and Co Ltd. He dictated his own terms, continuing his own partnership business of H Marsh and Co at Winwood Street, though by this 1900 Essex was his only partner.

Henry’s fortunes flourished through the 1890s and into the first years of the twentieth century. The Broken Hill mines appetite for candles seemed insatiable. Chartered sailing ketches took loads of candle across the Gulf of St Vincent around the foot of Yorke Peninsula and to the Spencer Gulf to Port Pirie, where the candles were railed in Broken Hill. On the return trip, the ketches were laden with mallee roots, the only fuel available for the factories. 

Henry opened a branch of J H Kitchen Son Marsh and Co Ltd in WA, travelling to Albany by ship and then to Perth by train, to supply candles for the new Kalgoorlie mines.

The reference to the branch in WA is worth highlighting because it’s easily forgotten given that the focus of his life and business was Adelaide. Marsh’s business covered the same territory as his old and larger employer Buford’s; South Australia and WA. 

The following is the only picture I can find which shows the Marsh name on a business – pity it’s slightly obscured.

The Marsh Candle Factory, Hilton, City of Freemantle.

H. Marsh and Company began operations in Russell Street, Fremantle in 1896. A factory was established in 1898 on the south side of South Street on an allotment surrounded by dense dryandra thicket. ‘Marsh's extract of soap’ was a detergent of the period. Towards the end of 1901, the firm name in WA changed to Kitchen & Sons and Marsh and various types of soap were produced until the factory closed in 1908.

Operations were resumed after Marsh was bought out of the company a new factory opened in Napier Street, North Fremantle; Kitchen and Sons held a large portion of the WA market with ‘Velvet’ and ‘Witch’ soaps and ‘Electrine’ candles which they were producing in Melbourne when Marsh had worked for them. Kitchen’s also became local agents for MacRobertsons Confectionery and after 1928 operations combined with W.H. Burford and Sons

In addition to the business interests already mentioned, Henry had a flourishing sideline in the Imperial Preserving Company with premises in Winwood Street opposite H Marsh and Co where, as a distiller, he made almost anything out of anything – tomato sauce out of pumpkins, citrus juice out of apples, cordials, vinegar and other consumables out of cheap but ‘excellent quality’ raw materials.

His skill as a chemist is demonstrated by the fact that Velvet Soap, originally marketed by Kitchen’s, and now by Pental, was his basic formula. As an employee, he had no further legal claim on the formula or the name but nonetheless remains his lasting contribution. I remember my mother many years later recommended it to everyone!

South Australian Register, 31 May 1898 Page 5

The family: growth and tragedy

Meanwhile, the family continued to grow, Fred my grandfather was born in 1891, Walter in 1893, Alice in 1894, Frank in 1897 and the last Doreen would be born in November 1899. 

Perhaps Henry was hoping that one of his sons would follow him into the business, but that was not to be.

On Friday 23 June 1899, tragedy struck again when their eldest son Henry William, known as ‘Dick’, died. He was probably named after his father with his middle name the same as their first son William who had died in Melbourne some 12 years before.

My grandfather mentioned to me that his older brother had ‘drowned’ but didn’t give any details. I imagined it was an accident at the beach. In fact, Henry suffered from epilepsy. At about 6:30 am that morning he left the house to walk the short distance to the factory with the intention of joining the factory’s delivery dray for the day. The ground was wet after rain and Henry suffered an epileptic seizure. He fell to the ground face down in a puddle and suffocated as the result of breathing water and mud into his lungs. He was found at 7:20 am lying in James Street just outside the side gate of his home which faced Phillip Street.

His seizures had begun about 18 months before and in March 1899 his parents had taken him to Sydney for treatment. 

His last sight may have been the Southwark Baptist Church which was opposite his home and in the direction he was headed.

He was buried the following afternoon at Adelaide’s West Terrace cemetery. In the press, the ‘elder scholars’ of the Southwark Baptist Sunday School were invited to follow the cortege from the Marsh home to the burial service.

The loss of a second son may have encouraged Henry to throw himself ever more fully into his business activities. Did he also have conflicting thoughts about the enervating routine of the business? His expanding business also meant responsibilities for employees and defending himself in a number of legal disputes and a coroner's inquest after the death, by misadventure, of an employee.

Whatever his thoughts may have been, Henry was certainly at the peak of his career, a notable, highly respected businessman, self-made. His eldest daughter Edith later remembered him at this period as immaculately dressed and erect with a silver-topped cane, proudly leading his handsome wife and brood of eight children down the aisle of the Southwark Baptist Church to his private pew.

Henry and Mary Marsh and their children at home in Phillip Street, Thebarton, Adelaide early 1900s. 
Standing (l to r): Edith, Phillipa, Elsie.
Seated (l to r): Walter, Alice, Henry, Fred (my grandfather), Doreen, Mary & Frank

 The next item will cover Henry and Mary's move to Coomandook.