Aunt Maida

To my astonishment—and this seems so right, so neat, and so symmetrical—Uncle Roy’s wedding in 1920 to Aunt Maida brought the surviving Pearsons of Kilmany Park into direct alliance with the remarkable Dowling family of Tasmania. As we have seen, Maida Frances Blood Dowling was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Aubin Dowling, formerly of Talgai West in the Darling Downs of southern Queensland. She was therefore the granddaughter of John Leonard Dowling, grazier of Ellerslie, Fairfield, and his wife, Cecilia Ann (1821–1905), the daughter of Major Thomas Daunt Lord (1783–1865). John Leonard Dowling was, in turn, the son of the Reverend Henry Dowling (1780–1869), and Elizabeth, née Drake (1782–1853), whose mother Susanna, Mrs. Drake of Gloucester was intimate with Selena, Countess of Huntingdon, the revivalist, Methodist luminary, confidante of John and Charles Wesley, and sex kitten. The Reverend Henry Dowling was not only a famous Vandiemonian divine, whose chapel stood for many years in York Street, Launceston, and who performed innumerable baptisms in freezing rivers all over Tasmania, but he was also the father of Robert Hawker Dowling (1827–1886), the distinguished Tasmanian portrait painter, whose wonderful 1856 Mrs. Adolphus Sceales with Black Jimmie on Merrang Station (above) now hangs prominently in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. In other words, the painter Robert Dowling was Aunt Maida’s great-uncle, though she never knew him. Her paternal grandmother, however, Cecilia Ann, Mrs. John Leonard Dowling, lived to the very great age of eighty-four, and died on October 19, 1905, at her residence St. Leonard’s (naturally) in Launceston. It is possible that Aunt Maida did meet Grannie Dowling once or twice, although the journey from Brisbane to Devonport (and vice versa) was long and difficult; indeed old Mrs. Dowling may well have been disinclined to attempt long sea voyages because in 1857 her sister-in-law (her husband’s sister) Hannah Maria Waller was, together with Mr. Waller and all six of their children, drowned horribly in the wreck of the Dunbar at Sydney Heads. Anyway, Grandmother Dowling’s connection to Van Diemen’s Land was almost as long as it was possible to be. She was the daughter of Major Thomas Daunt Lord, and his bride Susan Greenslade of the Bahamas. Major and Mrs. Lord were married in 1810 at Nassau, when Major Lord was serving in the second West India Regiment. In the early 1820s he became embroiled in the so-called Bradley–Arthur wrongful imprisonment affair in Honduras, and as a consequence decided to sell his commission and sail to Van Diemen’s Land. He arrived at Hobart Town aboard the Cumberland in January 1825, when Cecilia Ann was just three and a half. His main occupation through much of the next decade was serving as commandant of the severe and isolated Maria Island penal settlement, where he was regularly accused of misappropriating government stores and other forms of theft, but consistently avoided prosecution. Indeed following each indictment Major Lord visited terrible, terrible pain upon his accusers. After the closure of Maria Island in 1832, he was appointed to the police magistracy at Waterloo Point (Swansea) and in the two years following managed to get himself acquitted of stealing still more government property, although eventually he did forfeit his Commission of the Peace. Mrs. Lord died on September 7, 1849, at Okehampton, Spring Bay (Triabunna), and the Major followed suit on April 23, 1865. He was considered to be “as great a villain as any in Van Diemen’s Land,” but I assume marriage to John Leonard Dowling of Ellerslie, Fairfield, effectively removed Cecilia Ann from the unwholesome domestic criminal environment in which she spent her childhood—indeed it is quite possible that Aunt Maida was never made aware of those Regency peccadilloes, any more than Uncle Roy faced up to the shocking massacres through the 1840s of the Aboriginal men, women, and children of East Gippsland.

"Commotion" 2

“Commotion,” the 22-acre property where Uncle Roy and Aunt Maida lived for two or three years between their marriage and his death in 1923, was sold at auction at Scott’s Hotel, 444 Collins Street, Melbourne, on Thursday, September 4, 1924, at 2.30 p.m. According to an advertisement in the previous Saturday’s issue of the Argus, (August 30, p. 2), “the house is a spacious brick and W[eather]. B[oard]. structure, containing 12 rooms, wired-in verandahs, pantries, laundry, and conveniences, manager’s cottage, garage, stable, and farm outbuildings. In addition to the house orchard are 5 acres under full-bearing apples. Also beautiful flower gardens and lawns. Situated in an elevated position in the Kilsyth hills above Croydon, and commanding a beautiful outlook, Commotion is an ideal and complete gentleman’s country residence.” The terms were £500 deposit, the balance payable over 6 years with interest fixed at 6%. No doubt in due course somebody made a fortune by subdividing it, but my recollection is that Aunt Maida never needed to worry too much about money. Gran was still visiting her in Toowoomba in the late 1960s.

Talgai West

Uncle Roy and Aunt Maida were married in Toowoomba on Wednesday, September 1, 1920, and a full account of the event appeared in the social pages of the following morning’s Brisbane Courier (p. 11): “An interesting wedding was celebrated at St. James’ Church, Toowoomba, yesterday morning [September 1], the Rev. A. Davies officiating. The bride, Miss Maida Dowling, is the second daughter of the late Mr. Aubin Dowling (Talgai West) and Mrs. Dowling (Toowoomba)”. Talgai West (above), formerly Ellenthorpe, belonged to the Scottish Australian Investment Company, and Aubin Dowling was its manager. Maida and her sister were born there. In his The Garden of Queensland: Darling Downs (Toowoomba: J. H. Robertson & Co., 1899, p. 42) George Essex Evans described Mr. Dowling as “a prince of managers.” The run consisted of 22,000 acres, about half rolling downs, and the other half lightly timbered loamy ridges. It carried about 1,000 cattle, 70 horses, and 12,000 sheep, chiefly studs, and was purchased by the company for supplying their vast western stations with flock rams. Aubin Dowling originally brought the sheep from Tasmania, where on September 4, 1849, he was born at Campbelltown, the son of John Leonard Dowling, grazier of Ellerslie, Fairfield, and Cecilia Ann, the daughter of Major Thomas Daunt Lord. “The bridegroom, Lieut. Roy Pearson, M.C.,” continued the Brisbane Courier, “is the only son by the late Hon. William Pearson and Mrs. Pearson (Kilmeny [sic] Park, Sale, Victoria). The church was decorated by the girl friends of the bride with a profusion of spring flowers. The bride, who was given away by Mr. Clarke (Talgai), wore a simply cut gown of ivory satin, with overdress of old Limerick lace. A bridal veil of Limerick, lent by Mrs. Tyrwhit, was also worn, and was held in place by a wreath of orange blossom. The bridal bouquet was set in an old-fashioned silver holder. Miss Marjorie Dowling (the bride’s sister, was bridesmaid, and wore a frock of lemon coloured georgette, and a hat of coarse straw in the same shade, set with French posies. Miss Dorothea Walker (the bride’s niece [presumably a daughter of Maida’s half-sister Dorothea; Mr. Dowling evidently married twice]) was also in attendance, wearing a frilled frock of lemon georgette, and small hat with ribbon streamers in a darker shade. They each carried a bouquet tied with the bridegroom’s regimental colours. The bridegroom, who was attended by Colonel Crowther, D.S.O., wore the uniform of the King’s Own Yorkshire Mounted [sic] Infantry, to which regiment he was attached during the war. After the ceremony, Mrs. Dowling entertained the wedding party, which was confined to relatives and a few intimate friends, at tea at the Western Hotel, Toowoomba, where bowls of stock and sweet peas decorated the tables. On leaving for the South, en route to Europe, Mrs. Pearson wore a coat and skirt of fine navy blue serge, and a toque of black straw touched with gold.” I wonder how Uncle Roy earned that Military Cross, to which I have never seen any other printed reference.

Surfers Paradise

For several successive September school holidays in the mid- to late 1960s, Mum and Dad took the whole family up to Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast in Queensland, about an hour’s drive south-east of Brisbane. It was a three day journey by car.

My earliest recollection of Surfers Paradise is of sitting in a high-chair in the kitchen at the back of a pretty little clapboard Queenslander in a leafy street, a little way from the ocean beach, much like parts of Key West, Fla., today. Mum is telling to me eat up my chopped tomato, and I am not cooperating.

Later on we stayed in a cheap blocks of flats right on the ocean front, in the midst of what was rapidly turning into a booming tourist strip, dotted with high-rise developments.

One year, some crisis arose in the office that prevented Dad from leaving Melbourne the next day as originally planned, and Mum had no choice but to drive the whole way, in our large station wagon, which was crammed with provisions, teenaged children, teenaged children’s friends, and one six year-old, me.

I cannot now recall whether any or all of these disasters occurred on that same journey, but I do remember leaving Denham Place well before dawn, picking up Philip Maxwell from Dr. and Mrs. Maxwell’s house on the corner of Russell Street and Hopetoun Road; being waved off by Joan Maxwell, who was wearing a sensible flannel nightie and dressing-gown, and driving all the way to Albury. There we spent the first night in a motel.

The second day we drove the interminable leg to Parkes via Narrandera, West Wyalong, and Forbes, in central New South Wales.

At Parkes, Mum decided that it would be educational for the boys make a long detour off the to go and see the radio telescope, which was famous because of its essential role in the N.A.S.A. space program, and the moon landings, which had either just occurred or were pending.

There, in a completely deserted parking lot, in the ne plus ultra of the middle of nowhere, the car key somehow got locked inside the car.

Fortunately, at length it was retrieved by a grudging duty scientist or astronomer, who emerged from a remote outbuilding to do the honors. One sensed that this was not the first time he had been obliged to come to the aid of distressed townies.

Elsewhere, on a remote stretch of highway, a colossal truck traveling in the opposite direction swept past, threw up a decent-sized piece of road metal, and shattered the windscreen, which had to be replaced by a mechanic in Dubbo.

I seem to recall consulting the useful strip maps supplied by the R.A.C.V., which turned your journey, however twisting or circuitous, into a vertical straight line, set out in page-long “sectors.” Even at that early age I found this peculiarly disorienting.

The third day’s drive brought us up through Coonabarabran, Gunnedah, and Tamworth, to Armidale and New England and thence by way of Grafton and Lismore to within easy reach of “Surfers,” as it is known for short.

I do not know how Mum did it. Nor can I think why she and Dad did not opt for the prettier, easier, safer, admittedly less direct but in every respect more enjoyable coastal route. Perhaps the answer is somehow concealed in the question.

One year Granny joined us at Surfers, but sensibly chose to fly into Coolangatta by T.A.A., or Ansett.

The main purpose of Granny’s holiday was, I think, to stay with her elderly sister-in-law, Aunt Maida, the childless widow of her brother Roy, who lived in some comfort in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.

Another time, or maybe it was the same year, Brian and June Harrod, the parents of Hamish’s great school friend Richard, were also holidaying at Surfers, and I remember being thrilled to join Mrs. Harrod on the dance floor at the old El Rancho, an enormous, rambling Tex-Mex-themed restaurant and “night club,” with live music, and an extensive patio overlooking the ocean.

The menu was breathtakingly exotic, and I remember being allowed to order “Chicken Maryland,” which, not knowing any better, then as now, Australians generally pronounce Mary-Land, not Merrilyn like the natives.

June Harrod had an exciting helmet of glossily orange hair, spectacularly big, and “done” in the height of fashion.

Poor Mum and Dad were brilliant at keeping all their troops entertained, and I remember wonderful visits to the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary, where the brightly-colored feral parrots like to sit on your head, and to the performing dolphins who, I think, then jumped to music in and out of a depressing swimming pool at Southport, or maybe South Stradbroke Island.

My friend Lynne Truss could never tolerate a visit to Surfers Paradise, because it is an apostrophe free zone.

In 1917, a Brisbane realtor, Arthur Blackwood, marketed the original subdivision of land as the “Surfers’ Paradise Estate,” but the apostrophe seems to have died of natural causes soon afterwards, and now seems as preposterously irrelevant there as snow shoes, or a top hat.

Nick, Simon, Hamish, and their friends must have entertained themselves with surfing, girls, girls, and surfing. Girls also. I seem to recall that they scattered as soon as we arrived, and only reappeared at dinner time. It was the era of candy-colored board-shorts, side-burns, bare feet, and long hair.

In fact, the cloud of teenage hormones hovering over the Trumble flat must have been for Mum and Dad not merely daunting and heady, but completely exhausting, though with admirable sang-froid, somewhat unusual for the period, they managed somehow to go with the flow, and I do not recall a cross word ever being said, or even so much as a note of tension.

On the contrary, peels of full-throated laughter are what still echo in my head forty years on.

We were so lucky.