O Dolce Concento

I fear I have done Monsieur Gautrot a disservice by hoisting that question mark over his claim to have composed for the Theatre Royal in Campbell Street, Hobart Town, in May 1839, variations upon Mozart’s “O Dolce Concento.” That charming, brief ensemble piece was already famous, and the practice of transposing it for soprano and composing and performing variations upon it was by then well established. Today we know the piece not by the Italian titles of “O dolce concento,” “O dolce armonia,” or “O cara armonia,” which last iteration was chosen for the vocal score published in London in about 1813, but as “Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schön,” which is sung by Monostatos and a chorus of ridiculous slaves in Act I, sc. iii of Mozart’s last opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) (K. 620) (1791). On the other hand, there can be no better demonstration of the chaotic manner in which music and lyrics were randomly harvested for late Regency concert programs than this charming adaptation and set of variations (above) that is presumably rather similar to the kind of thing the Gautrots concocted for Sydney and Hobart in 1839: “O Dolce Concento, Sung by Madame Catalani, in the Opera of La [sic] Virtuose in Puntiglio, Composed by W. A. Mozart [sic], the variations by Madame Catalani, Arranged for the Harp or Pianoforte, by G. G. Ferrari. Philadelphia, printed for G. E. Blake.” In this instance, either Angelica Catalani (1780–1849) or Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari (1759–1842) were very muddled indeed, or laboring under a misapprehension, because the text of “Le Virtuose in Puntiglio: Or, The Punctilious Singers, A Comic Opera, in Two Acts, as represented at The King’s Theatre, in the Hay-Market, with additions, by S[erafino]. Buonaiuti,” was published in London in 1808, and made it absolutely clear that the composer was not Mozart at all, but Valentino Fioravanti (1799–1877). The aria devised for Madame Catalani survives in dozens of editions, published not just in Philadelphia, as in this case, but also in Paris, Edinburgh, London, Boston, Vienna, and Amsterdam, and as late as 1871 a fresh orchestration was arranged by Friedrich Kücken (1810–1882) and published in Leipzig by Bartholf Senff (1815–1900). The original variations may have been composed by Ferdinando Paër (1771–1839), because the earliest edition (Paris: Naderman, 1817) attributes to him the “variations chantées par Madame Catalani au Théâtre royal italien.” In fact in the fifty years following the first performance of The Magic Flute, dozens of other sets of variations on “Das klinget so herrlich, das klinget so schön” were composed, arranged, and performed. One translation into English began unpromisingly: “Away with melancholy, Nor doleful changes ring.” There were instrumental versions for bugle, bassoon, flute, harp, piano duet, harp and piano, solo piano, banjo, guitar, and harmonium. In London Felice Radicati (1775–1820) turned the melody into a “canone a tre voci” with chorus, orchestra, and harp. The flautist Louis Drouet (1792–1873) toured with his Variations brillantes et favorites...sur l’air de Mozart O dolce concento exécutées dans plusiers concerts à St. Petersbourg, Vienne, Munich, Milan, Berlin, Florence (Milan: Ricordi, ca. 1825), and an excitingly different “Variations brillantes sur O dolce concento” by Henri Herz (1803–1888) was in 1834 printed in Paris. There is a still different version by Charles Czerny (1791–1857), and an early arrangement for voice and guitar appears in the Entire New and Complete Instructions for the Guitar by a Professor (London: George Astor, ca. 1799). The theme also turns up as a temperance hymn by John Pierpont (1785–1866); as a fraternity glee for Bowdoin College (1839); as a tune for Scottish fiddle, as well as a “Masonick” song, which, of course, doubles back to the plot of The Magic Flute. This is the context in which Monsieur Gautrot made his own offering to the public of Hobart Town in May 1839. He must have been sure that his Tasmanian audience would recognize the real thing when Madame Gautrot sang it, and also appreciate the Janus-like, platypodic deftness of his own variations upon the original. (Besides being a violinist of note, M. Gautrot had an apparently charming light tenor voice.) However, neither he nor Madame can have anticipated the outrageousness with which that party of ladies and the indolent gentleman expropriated Sir John Franklin’s vice-regal box, the queer and opposite incident that caused such consternation and, thankfully, demonstrations of loyalty before Colonel Elliott’s band of the 51st struck up their ouverture militaire. Who were these defiant young people, and what presumably political axe did they seek to grind so publicly?

Monsieur and Madame Gautrot

And what of the “grand” concert program assembled by M. and Mme. Henri Gautrot for the Theatre Royal, Hobart Town (above), on Tuesday, May 28, 1839? Fortunately it was published in great detail in the previous Friday’s issue of the Courier, exactly one week after the Gautrots’ arrival from Sydney aboard the Marian Watson (May 17), and is predictably behaviour-softening, and also Janus-like: “GRAND CONCERT. (UNDER DISTINGUISHED [i.e. vice-regal] PATRONAGE.) MONSIEUR AND MADAME GAUTROT HAVE the honour to announce that their Concert will take place on Tuesday next, the 28th May, 1839, at the Theatre Royal, Campbell-street. By the kind permission of Lieutenant-Colonel [the future General Sir William Henry] Elliott [K.C.B., 1792–1874], the Band of the 51st [2nd Yorkshire, West Riding, The Queen’s Own Light Infantry] Regiment will attend. PART I. Overture—Militaire. 1.—Air, Il Barbiere de Seviglia [sic, 1816]—‘Una voce [poco fa],’ [Gioacchino] Rossini: Madame Gautrot. 2.—Variations on the Violin, Gautrot: Monsieur Gautrot. 3.—Air from Tancredi [1913], Rossini: Madame Gautrot. 4.—Solo, Clarionet: M. [Joseph] Reichenberg [1790–1851]. 5.—Air, Français (‘Le Plaisir des Dames’), [Daniel-François-Esprit] Auber [1782–1871]: Madame Gautrot. PART II. Symphony—Militaire. 1.—‘O Dolce Concento,’ with variations, composed by Mons. Gautrot: Madame Gautrot. 2.—Quartette, Instrumental. 3. Air with variations, [Charles-Auguste] de Bériot [1802–1870]: Monsieur Gautrot. 4.—Air, Français, from [Le] Pré au Clercs, [Ferdinand] Hérold [1791–1833]: Monsieur and Madame Gautrot. Finale—‘Rule, Britannia!’ [by Thomas Arne, 1740]. Mr. Leffler will preside at the Pianoforte.” Janus-like, I suppose, because of the nice balance achieved by M. and Mme. Gautrot between martial and pastoral, Italian and French, new and old, vocal and instrumental, comic and tragic—Le Pré au clercs, with its cumbersome libretto by François-Antoine-Eugène de Planard (leaning heavily upon Prosper Mérimée’s Chronique du temps de Charles IX, 1829), deals with the massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy (1572), and its juxtaposition with the rousing, limitlessly popular verses of James Thomson in Arne’s setting of “Rule, Britannia!” could not be more pointed, or satisfactory. Not, I think, by coincidence did Mme. Gautrot perform the “andante de Mozart ‘O Dolce Concento’” at the Royal Victoria Theatre in Sydney two months earlier (March 22, 1839), which, opening as it does the second half of this program, hoists a conspicuous question mark over the words “composed by Mons. Gautrot,” though perhaps this referred to the variations and not to the aria. The instrumental “quartette” that follows is somewhat tantilizing, presumably for pianoforte (in fact Mrs. Logan stepped in for Mr. Leffler), violin (M. Gautrot), clarinet (instead of viola, Mr. Reichenberg), and almost certainly cello, but there is no clue as to the identity of the fourth player—perhaps this was one of Colonel Elliott’s supernumaries, or just possibly Madame Gautrot. Insomma, this is platypus programming, definitely queer, and deliberately, delightfully opposite.

All things are queer and opposite 3

Janus was the Roman god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings, and time. He was often represented with two heads, facing in opposite directions, generally east and west (above). Symbolically they were thought to look simultaneously into the future and the past, back at the last year and forward at the new.

This interpretation of Janus as the god of beginning and end, of past and future, and of transition, was explained etymologically: Ovid (Fasti, I.126–127), Macrobius (Saturnalia, I, 9, 11), and Cicero (De Natura Deorum, II.67) all suggested that the name Janus was ultimately derived from the Latin verb ire (to go), hence the concept of Janus the colonist, to which James Ross of Paraclete, Knocklofty, referred in his Hobart Town Almanack and Van Diemen’s Land Annual for 1835.

As well, it was widely understood from the Res Gestae and other ancient sources that by convention the doors of the Temple of Janus in the Roman Forum were closed in times of peace (a very unusual set of circumstances), and propped open in times of war. The Hobart Town Courier got into a slight muddle over this, when on Friday, May 24, 1839, it reported that “The Theatre [Royal, on the corner of Campbell and Sackville Streets], which has so long and so obstinately remained closed to amusement, is, we are happy to perceive, at length about to open its doors—like the Temple of Janus—to concord [sic]. This is promised to us next week by Mons[ieur]. and Madame Gautrot, two distinguished artistes, who have just arrived from Sydney, and who have announced their intention of giving a Concert next Tuesday. The lovers of vocal and instrumental music are promised a rich treat upon the occasion; and we are confident , that as such visits to our colony are like those of angels, ‘few and far between,’ [cfr. Thomas Campbell, 1777–1844, The Pleasures of Hope, Edinburgh: Printed for Mundell & Son; and for Longman & Rees, and J. Wright, London, 1799, ii.375: “What though my wingèd hours of bliss have been, / Like angel-visits, few and far between?”] the attendance will in every way correspond to the expectations of Mons[ieur]. Gautrot, whose reputation as a violin-player, is understood to be of the very highest order.”

The following week, an account of what took place at the concert took up and actually corrected the mistake about the doors of the Temple of Janus (Hobart Town Courier, Friday, May 31, 1839):

The Concert of Monsieur and Madame Gautrot took place at the Theatre on Tuesday evening last, and as if to punish us for making a mistake about his temple and to vindicate his offended deity, that two-headed gentleman Janus had nearly afforded us a practical illustration of the absence of concord, which we had predicted as likely to attend upon the doors of the Theatre being thrown open, and convinced us that a more safe remedy to have produced any such effect would (in one sense at least) have been to have kept them closed. We were led to this conclusion by a very extraordinary scene which was enacted in the boxes previously to the commencement of the performance. The plot was as follows:— The box appropriated for the reception of the Governor [Sir John Franklin] and his party was one in the centre of the tier, the front row of which a party of young ladies, disappointed in procuring seats in another part of the Theatre, unhesitatingly took possession. The circumstance excited some slight surprise, and when at length it was announced that His Excellency had arrived, all eyes were most anxiously directed to the fair objects of attraction, who were determined to dispute the possession of the Governor’s box. In vain were the luminaries borne before the Lieutenant-Governor—in vain did Monsieur Gautrot herald His Excellency with all that innate politeness which distinguishes the French character, while unspeakable surprise agitated his features—in vain the imploring looks of the Aide-de-Camp and the ardent solicitations of friends—all were exhausted upon the tacit indifference of the party who remained in the full pride of the victory which they had so gracefully achieved. We are informed that there was a gentleman of the party also in the box, who exhibited a similar spirit of independence and indifference to all entreaty. As if to make the conduct the more conspicuous, on the box itself was seen the inscription ‘EMOLLIT MORES’ in large letters, which we may translate for the benefit of those whom it most concerns, into the REFINEMENT of manners! After pausing for some time at the top of the box, with Lady Pedder [wife of Chief-Justice Sir John Pedder] on his arm, His Excellency turned round to a different part of the Theatre, when, after some little confusion, and a clatter of seats, we had at length the satisfaction of seeing him occupy a position whence he acknowledged the warm greetings of the audience. We are willing to believe that some unfortunate mistake must have occurred, for otherwise a more outrageous insult was never offered to the representative of royalty. Had His Excellency left the Theatre, we are quite sure he would have been accompanied by the majority of persons present; but not wishing to prejudice the interests of Monsieur and Madame Gautrot, he consented to take his seat in another box, and in so doing showed himself superior to any feeling of temporary annoyance, which so gross a violation of all decorum was calculated to excite. The vulgar triumph was thus disappointed, and the audience evinced their sense of the treatment by most enthusiastically and repeatedly cheering His Excellency at the close of the evening’s entertainment. There was but one sentiment pervading all present, whether politically opposed, or otherwise, to His Excellency’s government; and if we lament that such an occurrence took place, our regret is materially diminished by the universal expression of public feeling which it called forth. The exception is said to prove the rule, and it never did more effectually than in the present instance. Thus much concerning this part of the performance. We are happy to revert with more satisfaction to the voice of Madame and the violin of Monsieur Gautrot. Madame sings with great taste, but the compass of her voice is too powerful for a small theatre. Some of the tones are exceedingly rich, but as she proceeds it seems to want more melody and modulation, and its great power in so limited a space astonishes sometimes more than it delights. We were, however, much gratified by several of her performances, which we hope to see repeated before her departure from this colony, as they serve to remind us that we are not altogether excluded from the excellencies of the old world. Madame Gautrot was applauded enthusiastically throughout the evening, and one or two airs which she sung were vigorously encored. With regard to Monsieur Gautrot—in his case, music may be said most fairly to be married to song. His execution on the violin is rapid, and at the same time possessing that ease which denotes a thorough command over the instrument. We must not omit to mention, that in the absence of Mr. Leffler, who was to have presided over the pianoforte, Mrs. Logan consented at once to relieve Monsieur and Madame Gautrot from the embarrassment in which they must otherwise have been placed. The audience failed not to appreciate the kindness, and she was led on the stage amidst universal applause. Through the courtesy of Lieutenant-Colonel [the future General Sir William Henry] Elliott [K.C.B., 1792–1874], the fine band of the 51st [2nd Yorkshire, West Riding, The Queen’s Own Light Infantry Regiment] was permitted to be present, and relieved the interludes with several delightful pieces of music.

“Emollit mores,” I need hardly add, is a motto plucked directly from Ovid (Pontics, II.9.48): “Adde quod ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes / emollit mores nec sinit esse feros,” that is, “[Add that] faithful application to the arts softens behaviour, and does not permit barbarism.” Readers of the Hobart Town Courier who knew their Roman religion and their Ovid so well could not have been surprised, nor fazed, but only delighted by the decision in 1839 of the fledgling Tasmanian Society of Natural History to adopt the distinctly Janus-like platypus as its emblem, together with the Ovid-leaning motto “Quocunque aspicias hic paradoxus erit, ” for, as is now wholly clear, all things Vandiemonian were definitely queer, and determinedly opposite.

All things are queer and opposite 2

Two stray references in the Vandiemonian press from the 1830s cast a ray of light upon the imminence of Ovid in colonial letters—and may suggest contexts in which to place the Latin motto of the Tasmanian Society of Natural History, “Quocunque aspicias hic paradoxus erit,” and its choice of emblem, the curious platypus. The first occurs towards the end of a long article entitled “Van Diemen’s Land, Viewed as a Penal Colony,” that was published in the Hobart Town Courier on Saturday, June 26, 1830. That article sought to correct the false impression circulating at home in England according to which a sentence of Transportation was apparently regarded as more of a blessing than a punishment. As a corrective, the author sketched in considerable detail the conditions of life endured by convicts, concluding thus:

“If he forgets himself at the close of day and is absent but for a few minutes, he is put in a dark cell and tried for the omission next morning before the magistrate. But if by some means he is able to indulge in the vicious appetite for drink, under the pretence of driving from his memory the incessant recurrence of former days, of cooling for a season the yearnings after those that are absent, in the fumes of inebriation, he is forthwith visited with punishment commensurate with his crime. But if he fall into the habit of drinking, (for it wants but a beginning) in addition to the slow but sure and fatal effect of the internal poison, he has to endure the repeated infliction of corporeal pain, and the exaction of toil when his wasted and diseased frame is least able to bear its fatigue. Let no one believe that this picture is exaggerated or unreal. Since the most remote times it has been the failing of weak minds in distress to fly to stimulants for relief. Ovid in the beautifully plaintive elegies which he wrote during his banishment, describes himself, even with his enlightened mind, as falling into the same error, and drinking whenever he could obtain the means of indulging in it, at the cost even of his life, to drown the recollection of home:— ‘Hos ego qui patriae faciant oblivia, succos / Parte meae vitae, si modo denture, emam’ [Epistulae ex Ponto, IV.10.19–20]. How wretched then must he be, who purchases a momentary forgetfulness of his condition at so dear a price, and however well deserved no one who reflects upon it will deny, that to him at least transportation to Van Diemen’s Land is indeed a punishment.”

Though the temperance standpoint is striking, this and the rest of the account is not without compassion, and it is striking therefore that the author explicitly refers to the Epistulae ex Ponto, as indeed the compositor of “Quocunque aspicias hic paradoxus erit” seems to allude to the Tristia.

The second reference is more garrulous, but no less intriguing. It is contained in an announcement by James Ross of Paraclete, Knocklofty (1786–1838), of the publication of his Hobart Town Almanack and Van Diemen’s Land Annual for 1835 (Hobart Town Courier, Friday, January 30, 1835):

“I consider it my duty to explain the lines I have extracted in my title page, from my esteemed friend Ovid (I like to esteem my friends, and to have friends to esteem), I mean as a poet—‘Judge favourably,’ he says, (that is I say) ‘of my unassuming labours, which I have been induced to undertake, not for the sake of fame or reputation, but in order to be useful, and as a duty I owe to my countrymen.’ The same author has well described the colonist Janus [Fasti, I]—the tutelar saint of January—as having two faces, one looking on the past, and the other on the future, and he might, I think, with equal propriety, have gone on to fill up the lineaments of the one with joy, and of the other with sorrow, for who is not touched by these mingled emotions at the commencement of a new year, contiguous as it is with the blessed nativity, full of joy and poignant commiseration? The lapse of time is ever a serious thought, while we rejoice at the opportunity it affords us to begin a new and reformed era. Good and evil are mixed with every thing mortal—we must pass over the one as lightly as possible, while we dwell upon and make the most of the advantages of the other. And this is exactly the case with the following pages—the candid reader will overlook their imperfections, availing himself of whatever information or amusement they, at the same time contain.”

Ross’s reference to Ovid’s Janus/January at the beginning of the Fasti is a conceit tied primarily to the calendar, but it is tempting to point to its push-me-pull-you quality, its front-and-back, past-and-future dualities of conditions in Van Diemen’s Land as neatly congruent with the lingering puzzlement over the physical attributes of what was still known as Ornithorhyncus paradoxus. And, sure enough, there he is, dangling intriguingly at the very end of the table of contents that follows Mr. Ross’s chatty advertorial: an article about the self-same platypus. There is a copy in the Library of Congress, so to Washington, D.C., obviously I must go.

All things are queer and opposite

When I saw him lately in Melbourne, my colleague David Hansen, formerly senior curator of art at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart, gave me a reproduction of this marvelous drawing of a slightly squashed-looking duck-billed platypus with, looping over it, the neat longhand inscription: “All things are queer and opposite.” This was inscribed on the cover of the first minute book of the Tasmanian Society of Natural History, the direct institutional ancestor (via the Royal Society of Tasmania [1843]) of the T.M.A.G. At its foundation in 1839, the first society chose as its emblem the platypus, originally classified in 1800 as Ornithorhyncus paradoxus by the perplexed Johann Blumenbach, on the basis of a specimen furnished by Sir Joseph Banks—a term eventually altered to Ornithorhynchus anatinus, which means literally duck-like, bird-snouted creature. (Platypus, from the Greek, means flat-footed.) To this platypus emblem the society added a Latin motto: Quocunque aspicias hic paradoxus erit.

Upon returning to New Haven, Conn., I tried to find out where this motto originated, in what if any Classical source, or else adapted from what ancient, medieval, or even Renaissance model. None appears ever to have been proposed, so I made discreet inquiries. My learned colleagues Tristan Taylor and John Dillon, formerly of the Yale Department of Classics, have now proffered excellent advice which, with their permission, I am delighted to pass on here.

Quocunque aspicias hic paradoxus erit is certainly not a Classical quotation. Only one ancient author, the Augustan poet Ovid (43 B.C.–A.D. 17/18), is known to have combined the words “quocunque aspicias” or “quocunque aspiceres,” and he used the phrase twice in describing Tomis, from A.D. 8 his bleak place of exile in Scythia Minor on the Black Sea (modern Rumania): “quocunque aspicio nihil est, nisi Pontus et aer / fluctibus hic tumidus, nubibus ille minax,” that is, “In whatever direction I look, there is nothing except sea and air, one swollen with waves, the other menacing with clouds” (Tristia, 1.2.23–24), and “quocumque aspicias, campi cultore carentes / vastaque quae nemo vindicat arva iacent,” that is, “in whatever direction you look, fields lie lacking cultivation and vast fields no one claims” (Epistulae ex Ponto, 1.3.55–56). If the Tasmanian Society of Natural History composed its motto as a conscious allusion to Ovid—and the Vandiemonian setting might indeed suggest logical, if rather gloomy grounds for alluding to Tomis—they did it very well indeed, because Quocunque aspicias hic paradoxus erit parses in elegiac meter; specifically as the second line of a carefully crafted couplet. The long and short syllables of the motto are: _ _ _ . . _ _ . . _ . . _ (provided we elide the -que with asp-, and treat them as one syllable, specifically the third long one.) This is skilled Latin poetic composition.

As for the translation, paradoxus is masculine, so it must refer to the platypus itself because a paradox in Latin is otherwise neuter, i.e. paradoxum. It follows, then, that the word hic is not an adverb meaning “here” but a masculine singular demonstrative pronoun, “this (creature),” referring to the platypus, agreeing thus with paradoxus. Literally, then, the motto translates as “Whichever way you look [at it], this [creature] is baffling,” that is, from the front or from the back. Smoothing out the awkward English, and taking into account the fact that the Classical Latin adjective paradoxus means something closer to baffling, strange, or surprising than literally paradoxical, a neater translation might be: “Whichever way you look at him, this fellow will surprise.” So who on earth in Hobart Town was the composer of this fragment of Latin elegy, and possibly a clever pasticheur of Ovid as well? One should never underestimate the sophistication of nineteenth-century British colonists’ Latin, nor indeed that of the estimable Tristan Taylor and John Dillon, to whom I am indebted for these insights. Even so: All things are queer and opposite, so let us be gay.

Mrs. Jones or M. Galland?

Upon further reflection overnight, it seems to me that the lamington could easily have been invented, along with other “dainties,” by Lord and Lady Lamington’s sometime chef de cuisine Mrs. Jones (who, as we have seen, was apparently still en poste in August 1899), or else by her successor, the Frenchman Armand Galland, whom they poached from Admiral Pearson after 1898. If, as seems to be the general consensus of opinion, we accept the latter view, some clarifying flecks of detail emerge from the brief obituary for Mrs. Cladie Galland, which appeared in the Brisbane Courier-Mail on Saturday June 23, 1934, a notice that bleakly adheres to the bad old habit of talking almost entirely about the subject’s late husband (who died in September 1923 and is buried in the South Brisbane cemetery), and hardly at all about the lady herself: “Mrs. Cladie Galland, who died in the Mater Misericordiae Hospital last night, was the widow of the late Mr. Armand Galland, well-known in Brisbane as a chef and wine merchant. Mrs. Galland was born in France 68 years ago, and came to Australia in 1897[–98] with her husband, who was then chef to [Rear-]Admiral [Hugo Lewis] Pearson [Commander-in-Chief of the Australian station], in the Royal Arthur [the “Australian” flagship {above}]. Mr. Galland afterwards became chef to Lord Lamington, Governor of Queensland, but later founded the wine business in Melbourne Street, South Brisbane, at present conducted by his son, Mr. Marcel Galland. During the visit of the present King [George V], then Duke of [Cornwall and] York, to Australia [to open the Federal Parliament in Melbourne, May 1901], Mr. Armand Galland acted as his chef, and went to New Zealand with the Royal party. Mr. Galland also acted as chef for the Prince of Wales during his visit to Queensland [in July 1920]. Mrs. Galland leaves one son, Mr. Marcel Galland.” What the Courier-Mail does not mention is that after the departure of Lord and Lady Lamington in 1901 and M. Galland decided to go freelance—“MONSIEUR Armand Galland (late Chef de Cuisine to his Excellency Lord Lamington) is open for Engagement to do Luncheon, Afternoon Tea, or Dinner Parties, in private houses. Address, 137 George-street, City” (Brisbane Courier, Tuesday, July 23, 1901, N.B. no mention of any exciting lamington speciality). Ultimately switching to the wine and spirits business in Melbourne Street, M. Galland was some years later (in August 1906) convicted of Sunday trading in the South Brisbane Police Court, and fined £2, with 4s 6d costs. This presumably reflected a degree of Gallic contempt for the local licensing laws. If M. Galland had in fact invented the lamington, or claimed credit for it, it is hard to imagine that hugely important detail being omitted from his widow’s obituary, or any ambitious post-Government House advertorial. In 1902 we find him serving as an examiner in cookery at the Technical College (“late chef de cuisine to his Excellency”). In July 1906 we find him catering for the Children’s Hospital Benefit Euchre party in the Protestant Hall, and between 1907 and 1909 he evidently enjoyed a cosy relationship with Rex stoves: “In connection with the late Austral Festival [in Toowoomba] it is announced that Monsieur Galland, adjudicator for the cookery competition, expressed himself highly delighted with the Rex stove used by the competitors” (Brisbane Courier, Saturday, November 20, 1909, cfr. Saturday, November 16, 1907). Perhaps M. Galland regarded the lamington as beneath his dignity. Certainly we need to know more about the relatively unsung Mrs. Jones.

Further Lamington

The domestic arrangements of Lord and Lady Lamington (above, with their pet sulphur-crested cockatoos) at Old Government House in Brisbane were mentioned often in the local press, and although their chef de cuisine was in August 1899 explicitly identified as “Mrs. Jones,” the picture is less clear a little more than twelve months earlier when on Saturday, July 30, 1898, the Queenslander, referring to the first vice-regal ball of that season, reported: “The whole of the supper provisioning was the work of the Government House chef and his assistants [my italics, presumably referring to M. Armand Galland]. The following menu du bal will no doubt prove interesting:— ‘Government House, Brisbane. Menu du Bal. 20 Juillet 1898. Bouchées aux huitres. Mayonnaise de poisson. Petits pates de volailles. Côtelettes d’agneau à la russe. Cailles à la St. Hubert. Galantine de dinde truffée. Poulets découpés au jambon. Petites timbales de foie gras en aspic. Gelée [de] macédoine. Charlottes russes. Gelée au Champagne. Crèmes bavaroises. Glaces assorties. Gâteaux varies. Gauffrettes. Meringues Chantilly.’” Interesting, indeed, for its ambition and flamboyance, although I do wonder if an early iteration of the canonical “lamington cake” found its way into those gâteaux varies, a tactful nod towards His Excellency’s comparatively recent expedition to British New Guinea, during which the enormous potential for cocoanut plantations was frequently noted, despite certain challenges presented by inhospitable jungle terrain and the excessively tropical climate, unsuitable for ladies.

The Lamington again

I have lately heard from a kind reader in Brisbane, Kerry Raymond, who with exquisite tact provides valuable new information about the Edwardian and vice-regal origins of the lamington, that staple of the Australian afternoon tea table. With her permission, I am delighted to provide particulars.

The earliest reference to the lamington, roughly coinciding with the relinquishment of the Government of Queensland by Lord Lamington, and his departure with Lady Lamington and their children from Brisbane on June 20, 1901, comes in the women’s section of the Queenslander the following December 14, where “Native Born” inquires: “Have not heard of a recipe for ‘Lamington cake.’ Can you give some clue to the appearance and ingredients of the cake?”

This cri de coeur suggests that by the end of 1901 word of the discovery had spread some considerable distance and generated much interest, although the delicacy had evidently not been sampled or even much seen outside Old Government House, where Lord and Lady Lamington’s chef de cuisine, M. Armand Galland, presided over the catering arrangements—although I see that one account of the second vice-regal ball of the season that was given by the Lamingtons in August 1899 explicitly mentions that “all the dainties so lavishly provided for the supper were prepared under the supervision of Government House chef de cuisine Mrs. Jones,” so I am not quite sure where this leaves us.

Anyhow, after the hiatus of Christmas and the New Year, on January 4, 1902, so prompted by “Native Born,” the Queenslander furnished the following recipe: “Lamington Cake (from a Subscriber). The weight of two eggs in butter, sugar, and flour, two eggs, half-teaspoonful of baking powder. Beat the butter to a cream, add the sugar and yolks of eggs, one by one, then the whites beaten stiff, lastly add gradually flour and baking powder. Bake in a moderate oven. When cold cut the cake like a sandwich and put the white mixture between, then cut into small pieces and cover on all sides with the chocolate mixture. Dip the cakes into grated cocoanut and put in a cool place. The Mixture.—2 oz. butter, 6 oz. icing sugar, beat to a cream, and divide equally in two basins, and to one half add one and a half teaspoonful cocoa (to be had in small tins) dissolved in three teaspoons boiling water. Beat well.”

There is a commonsense air to these instructions that points to a colonial mastermind, and not so much to the specialist patissier temporarily transplanted to the tropics, even one searching for new and exciting, even flamboyant uses for grated coconut, so if pressed I would hazard a guess that the canonical lamington (with filling) was the brainchild of Mrs. Jones and perhaps not M. Galland. It seems certain, meanwhile, that unlike the pavlova, New Zealand’s premier cultural export, the lamington is a bona fide Australian discovery, now satisfactorily documented to not later than 1901, the year of Federation.

Old Mrs. Wallen 4

“...A merchant in Dominica and friend of my father’s arrived in London and stopped at my brother’s house (Captain Garraway who traded in Dominica). He got Mrs. Garraway to call on me and invite me there for a few days. They lived at Mile End. He planned a day’s sight-seeing for my benefit, and invited a Portuguese lady, a friend of Mrs. G.’s and we started directly after breakfast. He engaged a coach for the day. We went to Westminster Abbey, the British Museum, the Automatons, Miss Linwood’s exhibition of pictures done in needlework [in Leicester Square]—then we had lunch—and after that we went to the Tower. Had to go there in a boat. We saw the crown jewels, the Armory room, the instruments of torture taken from the Inquisition—figures of Queen Elizabeth, her Page, her horse and her pillion, all with the very dresses they wore—stops and other things, very small, carved by the prisoners from the bones they had with their meals, even the ropes and sail so beautifully done. They are kept in a glass case, there is no charge for seeing these things but you are told that everyone is supposed to give what they like to the caretakers in each room. We went to see a panorama of the Battle of Trafalgar, and then we had tea and went to the theatre and I think it was to see Paul Pry acting [sic, Paul Pry was the title of an opera by John Poole. The first production took place in Haymarket in 1825, and Madame Vestris sang in it—this is presumably the performance Mrs. Wallen recalled here twice]. Next day Mrs. G. got a hackney coach and took me to school. Miss Fellowes took the biggest girls every 6 months to the theatre. Once it was to Covent Garden to see Miss [Maria] Foote as Lady Teazle in “The School for Scandal.” All the principal actors were good but I forget their names. Once we went to see [Charles] Mathews At Home, the old Mathews [at the Adelphi]. He had just returned from America and the performance was something quite new as he personated a number of different characters and so well. We went several times to Sadler’s Wells, saw the Pantomime, and went to [Philip] Astley’s [Royal Amphitheatre of Equestrian Arts, i.e. the circus]. Went with Miss Fellowes to a concert and heard Miss [Mary Anne] Paton (Lady [William] Lennox) sing, also [William] Broadhurst and [Henry] Phillips [bass] and Miss [Katherine] Stephen[s], all good singers. When I was 15 my mother wrote to say she wished Miss Twigg to take my likeness as she had done my cousin Mary Ann and my aunt’s pictures so well, so I went to stay there for part of my holidays while she did my miniature. Soon after it was done I had a visit from my brother Charles. He said a lady from Trinidad was going back there with her two daughters and wd. take me under her care and my mother was to make all arrangements. Before doing so my aunt John arrived from St. Vincent to take my cousin from school. She and my brother thought I had better go with them, so my aunt ordered all my fit-out and I left school and London in the James Cruikshank (Capt. Young). She was a small vessel, only two other lady passengers. We had fine weather all the way and a quick passage. My father and mother had gone to Trinidad to meet me, and were staying at my sister’s house. As soon as my father heard of my arrival he chartered a sloop at once and went to St. Vincent to meet me and take me to Trinidad. He brought a respectable woman accustomed to the sea to attend me—so in a few days I was again on the water, and oh! so sick. We arrived in the evening and being a small vessel entered between 2 very high rocks, and when through it was a lovely moonlight night and the Bay is beautiful, but we did not get up to Port of Spain until next day. There was great rejoicing. Gratton was 6 months old and my sister would not have him christened until I arrived that night to be his godfather [sic]. We had visitors all day and some nice young men in the evenings—the Agonistes (brothers, Corsicans), Goanatti (Italians), O’Connor (an officer), and Wallen, his visits were every evening. The Judge (Johnston) gave a dinner party, a very select one, for me. Bushe and his wife and my father and mother and self went to it. Tony was not invited. The Judge did not approve of his style. He was very handsome and went about with only shirt, white trousers, no waistcoat, turned-down collar. The French and Spanish girls liked his society…[missing pages]…Island of St. Vincent. My father’s sister and she were married the same day. My mother’s own sister married a Mr. Geoffrey. They lived in England. He was drowned in a mail packet coming out to the W. Indies. My mother had other sisters. One answered to Mrs. Bordeaux and lived in France, one to a Mrs. Hopley, a Frenchman who went by the name of “L’Empereur” as he dressed well and did nothing. His children might have starved but for his wife’s industry and cleverness. She had nine children. Her daughter (2nd) Matilda was very handsome, her 1st Catherine, her eldest son married a colored girl and my aunt considered it such a disgrace she could not bear to remain on the island and took the whole family to Canada—having so many sons, thought they wd. do well there—Their sufferings in the winter were great, and she was obliged to return to St. Vincent after losing everything, but commenced a little business with Martinique by which she made a living and was patronized by everyone, especially the Governor, Sir Charles Brisbane, who always got his champagne by the dozen. Both her daughters married gentlemen of moderate means and went to live in England….[missing pages]…to see Netley Abbey, such a beautiful old ruin, the walls all covered with ivy and such a beautiful old ruin and immense beautiful trees and the names of people cut on them with the dates so long ago. We took our lunch and spent the whole day there. As there was only a small church Miss Fellowes went out with her mother but didn’t take us. Her brother was an officer in the customs at the London docks, had come to stay for a few days and did not go to church. Miss Cadell and myself were reading in the little drawing room. There was before the fire-place cut out in a pattern hung before it made of tissue paper. It was white. Mr. Fellowes came into the room with a little book and read for a little while. Then he took a cushion off the sofa and threw it at me, so I picked it up and threw it back. Instead of striking him, however, it went against the fireplace and tore it. I was in such a fright, however directly Miss Fellowes arrived from church. I told her I did it. She said the landlady’s daughter had cut it out, and the mother wd. be very angry. I said I was sorry it happened and wd. pay for it, and I did, about twice its value. Miss F. let me, about twice its value, 10/- I paid. Another summer Miss F. took a house at Hereford, close to the river. Miss Cadell and I took long walks, one to one to Wordsworth we liked best, such a pretty country village and old church, and epitaphs on the old tombstones, very funny, always in rhyme, some written by the blacksmith. It was very neglected, grass and weeds all over the walks.”

And that is all that three-times great grandmother Catherine Wallen has left us, from the middle years of the reign of King George IV. We shall assume that with, I suppose, admirable duty, but perhaps not a little regret, she foreswore the attractions of “Tony,” with “only shirt, white trousers, no waistcoat, turned-down collar,” and, resolving not to follow the slightly questionable but deeply interesting paths followed by certain of her Audibert relations, went ahead and married “Wallen,” the candidate apparently preferred by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Gibbons Hobson. Old Mrs. Hobson is a shadow, a mystery: was the striking distance between mother and daughter nothing more complicated than the obstacle of Mrs. Hobson’s very imperfect English? And then there are those twin phenomena in the education of Regency women: (1) inertia: two whole hours spent daily perambulating in Cadogan Square, and such lessons as they got flowed at the dizzying rate of once or twice a week; and (2) that constant, overriding concern about money. Fortunately, thanks to her father and his colleague Mr. Constable, Catherine Anne Hobson had plenty, and ultimately it propelled her and her family (via Northern Ireland) to Australia Felix.

Old Mrs. Wallen 3

“...One of my schoolfellows, a daughter of Dr. Gordon in Jamaica, was a relation of Westmacott the sculptor, and she got him to select and purchase a present for the Babingtons. It was a very solid silver inkstand and an inscription under the candlestick, The night it was presented they gave us a supper. When the Miss Rawlings had been about six months they made the pupils discontented by making a good many changes and there was much grumbling about it and my cousin and many others left. She was placed at Miss Fellowes who only took twelve young ladies, and they were treated as if they were her own family. I was made to sleep with a girl that was sickly and that I did not like. A friend of Uncle John’s, a Mr. Panton, brought his wife and children to England to place his little daughter at school. He had known me at St. Vincent and I had often been at his house. He called to see me and invited me to stay with them on a visit, and my cousin and also with her brother Tony. They were very kind, took us out one day to see the different sights—the British Museum, Panoramas, and in the evenings to Astleys and Sadlers Wells. I told Mrs. Panton how I hated the school since my cousin left and she advised me to write to my father and ask him to let me be at school with my cousin. My letters, of course, were always read by my schoolmistress, so I took Mrs. P.’s advice and wrote to my father about it, and he at once made arrangements with Mr. Constable to place me with Miss Fellowes. So I was invited to his father’s house for a week after leaving Whitelands before I went to Miss Fellowes in Cadogan Place. She had a French mistress who was always with us, French master twice a week, English master for writing and arithmetic and the use of the Globes and reading. A dancing mistress, daughter of Oscar Byrne, an African dancer—a music master, Krailmark, a composer, twice a week, singing mistress once a week. My cousin had lessons on the harp and I on the Guitar. We were sent to walk in the Square for two hours every day with the governess unless it rained heavily. I got a prize from the English master, the only one he gave, and also the French master had never given any but me, two volumes handsomely bound of Fontaine’s plays which I gave Sam Wallen when he left for Trinidad as he was going to study French on the voyage. My aunt John arrived in London to take her 2 eldest boys from school. Charles Fox from Winchester and Tony from school at Chelsea. She had my cousin and myself for a few days before they left for St. Vincent. I was very fond of Anthony. He was such a handsome merry fellow and he came every 2nd Sunday to see us at school. Colonel Jackson (Militia) Tatelle’s godfather (who gave her a present of a little black girl) called at my aunt’s lodgings and insisted on taking us all to one of the theatres. My aunt thought it was not one of the best theatres but did not wish to offend him, so we went and enjoyed ourselves very much. My aunt was shopping all day, taking out beautiful things to my cousins. Miss Fellowes took me to the Isle of Wight for my summer holidays. She went with her mother and sister and a Miss Cadett, whose father was a planter in Trinidad and had been at the school for a great many years. The lodgings were at Ryde. I preferred leaving my allowance andgetting it all when the holidays commenced. Poor Miss C. never got any, alth’ her father was very rich. We two went every morning to the Beach. I wd. buy biscuits or bread and cheese, and we had books from the library. I had engaged a machine to bathe sometimes. I persuaded Miss C. to come to bathe. She did not like me paying for her. She was very proud and so clever. She was white, only her hair a little curly but I was told her mother was black. We sometimes went to the woods we called Apley, such a lovely place. One day Miss Fellowes got a conveyance and took us to see the ruins of Carisbrooke Castle, and we had lunch at a farm near there. Another day we went to Netley Abbey. In the winter holidays Miss Fellowes [went] to her father’s house in Aldergate St. In the city it was anything but pretty and cheerful, but Miss Fellowes allowed us to go to a Library and choose books, but I do not think we selected very desirable ones. We had “The Children of the Abbey,” and I don’t know how many volumes, “The Castle of Otranto,” etc. Old Mrs. F. was very kind and gave us good dinners. Another winter, Miss F. took a house out of London in partnership with her father, mother, and sister. They had purchased everything nice for Xmas dinner and all was left in a larder outside the house. On Christmas morning it was found broken into and everything robbed during the night. It was with much difficulty anything was got for our dinner. One day we were summoned to the drawing room and it was to see my sister and my cousin Clarissa and Scott Busche, about ten months old in the arms of a black nurse called Peggy Fox. She must have been quite six feet in height and very stout. My brother-in-law had brought my sister to introduce her to his family in Ireland. They stopped at Hackett’s Hotel but only remained a fortnight in London. We went to spend a day with them once. My little brother called Robert Busche, died suddenly. I went into mourning. Bushe’s eldest sister was married to Mr. Scott, Dean of Lismore. They had no family so Bushe had been adopted by her when a little child, so they went there when they went to Ireland and then visited all their friends. Clarissa was very much admired. She could have been married to a Mr. Langrush, a wealthy bachelor in Dublin. Mr. Congreve was devoted to her and she liked him very much. He had a splendid property and two sisters lived with him; she was on a visit to them for some weeks. My sister said the sisters wd. not let him marry. So nothing came of it. Dean Scott was suffering from cataract so Mrs. Scott arranged with my sister to go to London with her to consult a celebrated London doctor named Alexander who said an operation wd. have to be performed to remove it, but not ready yet, and he was to go to Bath to drink the waters. So my sister and Mrs. Scott took a large furnished house in South Parade, Bath. Mrs. Scott sent for her housekeepr. They had the Dean’s man servant and they went to Bath and arranged that my cousin Mary Anne and her brother Johnny and my brother Edward and myself shd. All go to Bath and spend the Xmas holidays with them. We were to go for a night to Miss Twiggs and my brother Charles, who was keeping his terms at the Temple, was to see us to the coach. We arrived in the evening. My sister had all the lower part of the house, Peggy Fox and Scott one above that. The Scots housekeeper came every morning to know what we four wd. have for dinner. We were allowed to choose and dined early by ourselves. We all agreed oftenest in having roast pork and apples and dined early by ourselves. Ambrose Power, after Archdeacon, came to Bath for a short time, also his brother Gervase, a Captain in the army, about to go to India. They were with us every evening. We had a piano in my sister’s sitting-room. After dinner they came down and so did Cla and we sang and danced and had games and had such a merry time. We four went off every morning and climbed the hills and after our dinner went off to the Pump Room where the band played and my cousin Mary Anne had weak ankles and the Dr. ordered very hot water to be pumped on them and then cold. The Dean could not see my cousin very well and he always called her his lamb, and Mrs. Scott thought her beautiful, and said she was like Psyche. Maria Burke had taught Peggy Fox to read while they were in Ireland so she could read her Bible. She had always been a great Methodist. She took Scott to the Chapel with her. My sister left him entirely in her care. She came from St. Vincent when she was about 16 years old, in Trinidad to see him—must have cost her a good bit for the passage, but she was comfortably off. You [Robert Wallen] were about seven months old and ill from teething and wouldn’t eat anything. She put down a chicken and boiled it to a jelly, then she danced you about and slipt in a spoonful in your mouth now and again—in fact you got better directly. When our 6 weeks holiday ended we wanted to remain one day more, then to stay that day and go by the night coach. We had a dreadful night. It snowed all the way, but we were inside. When we got off for tea a man was frozen and unconscious, and a poor woman with a baby was nearly so, only the coachman and some gentlemen covered them with their own coats. We arrived at Bedford St., London, where Miss Twigg lived at 6 o’clock in the morning. My brother took us to our various schools but the night before we begged him to take us to the theatre. He said he could not afford it. We suggested that he could if we went to the Pitt. He said that was out of the question. At any rate we gave him no peace, and went to the Haymarket and saw Madame Vestris’ first appearance, and after herself the Beggar’s Opera in which she acted herself. An acquaintance of my sister’s in the Boxes recognized me and my brother and came down to us. We did not feel pleased as he was well off and always dressed in the height of fashion. He was with a party of ladies. He was glad to see us and remained a short time chatting. Next day we all went to school. Shortly after this my brother Edward was sent for to come to Dominica and came to bid me good-bye. I never saw him again after. He was very steady, in fact very religious, and helped my mother to read the Bible in English when able to do so. She [understood] it much better then in French.”