His cards

These days there is no limit to the amount of information we cram onto our business cards, as they are known—visiting cards as people used to call them—and an infinite array of design possibilities, front and back, vertical and horizontal. However, for most of his professional life as a city solicitor in Melbourne, and sometime senior partner of the old firm of Mallesons, my father used this one—a symphony of plainness, the ne plus ultra of minimalism, entirely bereft of supplementary information. In fact the version to which he adhered with his customary scrupulousness was in scale and quality of embossing largely the form in which the gentleman’s visiting card existed at the end of the nineteenth century. (Ladies’ were significantly larger.) Perhaps the persistence of the old-style “card” in Australia was no more than a persistence of imperial usage until the end of the 1960s, a process of gentle drift. In fact present arrangements are, in a way, a reversion to more inventive, and certainly more decorative, eighteenth-century progenitors. This is made clear by the anonymous author of a leading article in Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art (fifth series, Vol. 13, No. 664, Saturday, September 19, 1896, pp. 593–94):

The visiting-card as we know it is barely a century old. Like most other every-day articles of use and ornament, it is the result of a gradual process of evolution; and the form which the card now universally takes is by no means so attractive as those which it took in some of the earlier stages of its history. Of late years, indeed, there have been whispers of a new departure in cards. A revolt from the prevailing monotony in “paste-boards” has more than once been threatened; and the great army of those who suffer from collector-mania have been tantalized with the prospect of new worlds to conquer, in the shape of visiting-cards ornamented with elaborately engraved devices. The idea of those who mooted the change was to give the visiting-card a touch of individuality, so that each card, like a book-plate, should be a witness to its owner’s individual taste and inclinations, and not a mere machine-made reproduction of a universal pattern. But nothing came of the proposal, and the present-day visiting-card still wears its uniform of plain black and white. Had the proposed change been carried out, however, it would simply have been a revival of a fashion that prevailed more than a hundred years ago.

Visiting cards were a development from the old style of message and invitation cards. Throughout the greater part of the last century it was customary to write messages and invitations on the backs of used playing-cards. The particular card used was often chosen at random; but occasionally it was picked out with an eye to the delicate suggestiveness of some one suit. This sometimes gave the recipient an opportunity for airing his or her wit…

From the use of such cards simply for invitations and other messages it was an easy transition to their use for visiting purposes. At first the person who so used them simply wrote his name across the back of a card. Dr. Doran, in one of his pleasant books of gossip, declares that it was in Paris, about the year 1770, that the custom was introduced of visiting en blanc, as it was called, that is by leaving a card. Old-fashioned folks, he says, who loved to visit in state and display their costumes, called this fashion fantastic, and strongly opposed it. But, of course, opposition of this kind was bound to fail. The ceremonial leaving of a card as equivalent to a visit may have begun in 1770, but the writing of a name on a card and leaving it when the person called upon was not at home was certainly practiced somewhat earlier…

Writing the name on the back of a card was soon found to be too simple a matter, and it became the practice to write the name either on the backs of playing-cards, or on the face of cards adorned with engraved devices. Classical ruins and the like designs were highly fashionable. Cards so engraved appear to have been sold in packs, with assorted views; for two or more cards have been found bearing the same name written across them, but with quite different pictures as backgrounds. The practice of writing the name seems to have been soon superseded by engraving the name as well as the background. Much artistic ability and ingenuity was devoted to these cards…

Visiting-cards seem to have been known by various names. Madame d’Arblay in her Diary uses the term “name-card.” They were often spoken of as “tickets.”…

No solicitors

I’ve been looking through the albums. How very lucky we are to have them.

Whenever they traveled to the United States of America, which was not often, Dad rarely lost an opportunity to have himself and/or Mum (as in this instance) photographed inspecting those little signs on the front door of Upper East Side apartment and other buildings that say “NO SOLICITORS.”

Dad was a solicitor, but not the kind that bother us here. In the British legal system from which the Australian was derived, solicitors were attorneys who dealt with any legal matter, including certain minor court proceedings. However, by universal convention solicitors engaged learned barristers to argue their clients’ cases in the higher courts, and until recently defendants or litigants had no choice but to consult a solicitor in the first instance. It was very much a two-tiered system: suave barristers above, and humble city solicitors below. Indeed before the First World War it was not unusual for Australian solicitors not to have a law degree; barristers invariably did. When our grandfather was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Victoria, the law in Australia was in the process of rapidly professionalizing. Thenceforth solicitors invariably took law degrees before being articled to a senior solicitor. They then had the option of reading for the bar (to become a barrister), or not. Judges were almost invariably chosen from the pool of senior barristers. Dad graduated from the University of Melbourne on December 18, 1948, was shortly afterwards admitted to practice as a solicitor, and did so for the rest of his professional life.

In America, the sign “NO SOLICITORS” is meant to ward off door-to-door salesmen, hawkers, canvassers, etc., but Dad and Mum were always tickled by the notion that this could be read as an outrageous rebuke aimed at respectable partners of the old Melbourne firm of Mallesons. God, how I miss them both!

Dad Again

When, in accordance with the partnership agreement he cheerfully signed in 1966, Dad retired from Mallesons shortly before his sixty-fifth birthday (January 31, 1986), he was invited to write a series of light articles for the Journal of the Law Institute of Victoria on, as he put it, “the psychological disturbances occasioned by my recent retirement as a practising solicitor, and the assumption of my role as consultant to thirty-one inexerienced practitioners who now face an uncertain future with deep apprehension.”

This is one of the photographs that were shot by Nick’s old friend Bop Colvin to accompany those whimsical and self-deprecating articles.

The idea was that, now he had retired, Dad’s office in the Rialto Building at 525 Collins Street, Melbourne, would appear forlornly vacant. (The Rialto was designed by Gerard de Preu and Partners, in association with Perrott Lyon Mathieson, and built between 1982 and 1986 by an organisation that rejoices in the name of Grocon.)

However, a rather more mogul-like effect was attained by accident, and the editor wisely decided on a friendlier, less intimidating shot.

In the end, I think Dad quite liked this one, and, in fact, he had not yet moved in. For many years Dad’s Mallesons office was on the second floor of the more discreet St. James Building at 121 William Street, adjacent to the A.M.P. Tower.

This commanding view from the 27th floor gives the impression of a vast, Texas-like hinterland, rich in mineral resources, commercial promise, and potentially intricate legal matters upon which Dad might reasonably expect to be consulted.

In fact it is the glum, yet-to-be-transformed docklands of West Melbourne and Footscray.

Dad

My dear father, Peter Campbell Trumble, was the eldest of the four sons of Tom Compson Trumble and Iona Heather Campbell (Nona), and was born at home in Cowper Street, Sandringham (Melbourne), on January 31, 1922.

He went to school at Grimwade House in 1930, and in 1936 to the St. Kilda Road campus of the Melbourne Church of England Grammar School.

Having toyed with the idea of becoming an architect, Peter decided instead to follow his father and grandfather (J. W. Trumble) into the legal profession. In 1940, he joined the firm of Malleson, Stewart and Co., as it was then known, and was articled to the late Roy McArthur.

With the outbreak of war in the Pacific, Peter interrupted his four-year clerkship and joined the Royal Australian Navy, serving between 1942 and 1946 as an able seaman aboard H.M.A.S. Warramunga, H.M.A.S. Nizam, H.M.A.S. Quadrant, and H.M.A.M.L. 424, a patrol boat working along the coast of Papua New Guinea, where he contracted malaria. On September 2, 1945, he was present in Tokyo Bay when Japan formally surrendered to the allied powers aboard the U.S.S. Missouri.

After the war, Peter enrolled at the University of Melbourne, graduating Bachelor of Laws on the same day as his brother Colin in 1948. During that time he lived at home at 17, Huntingtower Road, Armadale, and appeared in a number of university revues, singing “I’m a Flaming Beaut’ in Me Bathing Suit,” a performance which remains etched upon the minds of those fortunate enough to have witnessed it.

In a moot court on July 7, 1946, Peter Rufus Trumble was found guilty of bigamy after damning evidence was given by Hepzibah Abigail Trumble (née Paton) and Simone Simone Trumble (née Turnturtle). He was sentenced to celibacy for life. Some days later at a party he met Helen Borthwick of Noble Street, Geelong, who rather boldly said that she was prepared to wait. Luckily she didn’t have to wait quite that long. They were married on June 9, 1949, in the chapel of St. Peter at Melbourne Grammar.

Peter and Helen first settled in Sandringham, and their family grew rapidly. Nick was born in 1950; Simon followed in 1952; Hamish in 1956, and, after a long, regenerative pause for reflection, I arrived in 1964. Our photograph was taken about six months later.

Peter was admitted to legal practice in 1949, and, with Colin, rejoined Mallesons, which remained his professional home until his retirement. He was a partner in the firm from 1953 to 1985, and senior partner – as his father had been before him – for the last nine of those years. He remained as consultant to the firm after 1985, a role in which he always responded to requests for help, although, as he put it, “those making requests have been reluctant to say, when I enquire, whether they feel bound by my learned opinion.”

His professional, corporate, and charitable activities were numerous. He was president of the Law Institute of Victoria (1963–64); director of the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation (1965–75); honorary treasurer (1966–78), then president of the Medico-Legal Society of Victoria (1978–81); a member of the Victorian Law Foundation; a member of the board of management of the Royal Melbourne Hospital (1970–85), then its vice-president (1978–82) and president (1982–85); president of the Victorian committee of the Commercial Law Association; chairman of the board of governors of the Windermere Hospital Foundation; member of the council of Lincoln Institute, and director of many public companies including Kleinwort Benson Holdings, Ltd. (1982–86), Containers, Ltd. (1975–81), Australian Carbon Black, Pty. Ltd. (1975–84), the Collier Custodian Corporation (1975–1989), and Hill, Norman, and Beard, Pty. Ltd. (1970–1989), of which he was also chairman.

He was a director (from 1975) then chairman (1983–89) of the board of the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Ltd., in which role he was made an honorary chieftain in Fiji. Peter was a member of the Interstate Corporate Affairs Commission; president of the Victorian Society of Notaries (1978–80); chairman of the Victorian Auditors’ Board (1978–82); a director (from 1976) then chairman (1979–85) of the Victorian Solicitors’ Superannuation Fund, and president of the Australian Club. He was made a Notary Public in an enormous document, handwritten on parchment, signed and sealed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In a series of humorous articles he wrote in 1986 for the Law Institute Journal, Peter reflected on the breadth and variety of matters he encountered in his legal career:

I was and have remained the only partner [at Mallesons] recognised as a compleat lawyer... articled clerks and junior solicitors would occasionally knock on my door about some matter, excusing the interruption by saying that their responsible partner had said “ask P. C. T., he’s tried everything.”

Peter recalled an occasion in the 1950s when a sole country solicitor practicing in South Gippsland died suddenly. He recalled the experience thus:

The staff consisted of a married woman who acted as receptionist, telephonist, and typist. She had no knowledge of shorthand, the solicitor had no tape recorder, and the phone was bolted to the wall dividing the office from the public bar of the hotel of which the office was part. Mallesons had acted for many years as the late solicitor’s city agent. He had appointed some of us as his executors, and it was absolutely essential that his practice be kept going until it could be sold, particularly as it was the only one in the town. For three months I ran the practice with the assistance of one of our elderly clerks who was experienced in conveyancing.

I soon discovered that there is really no such thing as a compleat lawyer, for in that period I had to deal with matters of which I had no previous experience or knowledge, including local government (because the testator was the shire solicitor); commercial matters relating to village shopkeepers, inn-keepers, car dealers, horse dealers, stock and station agents, and a butter factory; the bowling club; drunks; tarts; bad debtors; clergymen; appearances in petty sessions as both prosecutor and counsel for the defense; the Dog Act, and, of course, the filing of hundreds of tax returns for local farmers and others in the district, many of whom tried to put it over me, and many more who undoubtedly did. When we eventually sold it, I felt a great deal of satisfaction in realizing for the widow the full value of the practice at her husband’s death. (LIJ, May 1986, p. 423.)

It is typical of him that – as well as his work for such varied clients as the late Miss Edith Hughes-Jones; the Country Women’s Association (at whose well-attended annual general meetings in the Dallas Brooks Hall he was usually the only man present; Jean McCaughey will appreciate the awesome significance of this curious fact), and the Toorak branch of the Returned Servicemen’s League (unofficially known as the Heroes’ Club) – that the memory of that brief experience as a country solicitor continued to give Peter particular pleasure long after he had helped to establish his firm as a giant in resources law.

He spent several years in the 1960s and early 1970s representing Cleveland Cliffs in the huge Robe River iron ore joint venture project in Western Australia. A little later he also acted for the Australian Bankers’ Association in the setting up of the first Australian credit card scheme, known as Bankcard.

Around 1960, Peter started building with his bare hands a house at Metung in East Gippsland, in which his family enjoyed many idyllic holidays. He also helped to build the original Belmore Ski Club hut at Mt. Buller. The Belmore hut is now gone; the house at Metung is almost finished.

Peter took an eccentric pleasure in unreliable French motor cars (possibly stimulated in that direction by gramophone recordings by Charles Trenet, Jean Sablon, and other stars of the French cabaret), including an old black Citroën with the charming registration “GAY 900.”

He was also attracted to extremely slow sailing boats, most notably an 18 ft. Jubilee-class yacht that was invented in 1935 after a particularly severe gale damaged many small boats moored in Port Phillip Bay. Intended specifically to withstand heavy seas and hard weather, the Jubilee was evidently designed (by W. D. Higgins and Charles Peel, at the instigation of J. A. Linacre, Commodore of Royal Brighton Yacht Club) without the slightest consideration of human comfort. With characteristic optimism, Peter named it Sirocco.

Peter was also a talented draftsman and painter in oils and watercolours. On one occasion he was so pleased to find one of his legal cartoons for sale at a Collins Street art gallery that he bought it.

He was an equally able composer of light verses, usually describing ridiculous occurrences on holidays abroad, or (when inspired by visits to gloomy Scottish glens) bloodthirsty clashes between his mother’s Campbell ancestors and rival clans – often sending the latter back to the office in airmail envelopes decorated with outrageously embarrassing, instantly recognizable cartoons of his law partner, the late, long-suffering, but good-humoured Ross Macdonald.

In about 1989 the first signs of what would later be identified as Alzheimer’s Disease were noticed by Peter’s family, friends, and colleagues. The condition progressed gradually but steadily, making ever increasing physical and emotional demands upon him and Helen in the retirement to which they had both looked forward.

Despite the heavy demands made upon him by work, Peter was always first and foremost a husband and father.

The latter role cannot always have been easy, because his four sons were in many ways even more eccentric than he was (although, unlike him, none of us ever wore sock-suspenders). However, he never allowed his distaste for cuffless trousers, blue suede shoes, long hair, or lack of prowess at golf (except for Simon, who obviously inherited that gene) to overshadow his pride in Helen’s achievements – Mum graduated B.A. from the University of Melbourne in 1982 – and those of his sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, nor the pleasure he took from their company.

Peter Trumble died at Carnsworth (Garoopna) in Kew (Melbourne) on October 3, 2000.

Acknowledgment: This is a fusion of four separate addresses delivered by each of his sons at Peter’s funeral at St. George’s Church, Malvern, on October 9, 2000, and an obituary written by Peter and Helen’s old friend Kenneth Aitken which appeared in The Age newspaper (Melbourne) on November 20, 2000.

This beautiful photograph by Ronald Esler of Howey Court, off Flinders Lane in Melbourne, was taken sixty years ago, at the time of Peter and Helen’s engagement in 1948.