Suburban Bicycle Club

While working on a little project on the photographers who operated in Essendon, Moonee Ponds, Flemington, etc, I came upon this one, taken in the studio of H C Edwards, Kensington. It is from the collection of the State Library of Victoria, item number H2005.34/1181.   They seemed to me to be attired as cyclists, so I went back to the SLV catalogue to see if I could find some other cycling clubs, and located another one identified as the Suburban Bicycle Club, 1892, item number H6265. 

This photo had a number of the faces in the crowd named, though the number of names doesn't match the number of faces, so it is a little unclear what names belong where.  But I did notice a number of names associated with Flemington.  There were three Councillors named, for instance, all of whom served on the Flemington and Kensington Borough Council.  W K Barmby was licensee at the Flemington Hotel for a period in the 1890s.  A race sponsored by Barmby commenced at the Newmarket Railway Bridge, to Keilor and return.

The cap badges in the top photo seem to match some of those in the bottom photo, and I think I can recognise three of the men in the top photo in the second photo.  The three have cloth badges on their sleeves indicating - Secretary, Captain and Sub-Captain.  The man standing behind the back wheel of the right-hand bicycle has a badge on his sleeve, which I think is Captain, and thus is presumably F J Speakman.  (You can download a high resolution image from the State Library to have a closer look).

See the Time Travellers website for the list of names.  If anyone can help with identification of any of the men in the two photos, please get in touch. 

Update to the Essendon & District Local History Book Index

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

There is a minor addition to the Essendon & District Local History Book Index, which is Janet McCalman's book  A hundred years at Bank Street: Ascot Vale State School, 1885-1985.

The index now includes 17 titles. A list of the titles is included with the index.

The Moonee Ponds Post Office

The new Moonee Ponds Post Office a few years after construction in 1906.  Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria. H89.105/158

In the 1916 Sands & McDougall Directory, Mrs Ethel May  Knowles ran the Confectionary and Tea Room next to the Post Office, and George Oswald Leighton Marrison was the chemist further west. These two business persons were residing in Puckle St next to the post office as early as 1909 in the Electoral Roll.

Marilyn Kenny has tracked down the incredible machinations behind the effort to get a suitable  post office for the district (ie, one that could accommodate more than two people at a time buying stamps).  Despite the will of the people to have the post office in Mount Alexander Road, which was then the main business thoroughfare, other business interests dragged out the proceedings.

Marilyn says

The matter of selecting a site for a Moonee Ponds Post and Telegraph office was in 1890 already an Ancient question having been on the agenda since 1882. However the issue still had another remarkable sixteen years to run, consuming the energy, interest and passion of the community. 

Read the whole story on the Time Travellers website.

Mason's Hygienic Library, Puckle Street, 1960s

Every so often a relic of of a subscription library turns up, in this case a novel from Mason's Hygienic Library, or Mason's Book Club as one of its stamps depicts.  Lorraine Rogers wrote an account of her mother's experiences in the circulating library at 45 The Crescent Ascot Vale which she called "Threepence a Book", which was the going rate in the 1940s.  By the 1960s Mason's was charging eightpence a book, as their schedule shows.

Preparation of the books to go on the shelf would have kept a librarian very busy between borrowers.  The dustjacket was removed and cut down, the front illustration pasted onto the front cover of the book and the blurb, which described the contents, pasted inside the book.  A white pen was used on this book to write C  ROM on the spine, indicating that the books were shelved by the initial letter of the author's surnames in sections - in this case ROM for Romance section. 

Two labels were pasted onto the book, the schedule of fees shown above on the inside cover, and an ownership label on the outside back cover, which declared "All Books Sterilized", and borrowers should "Choose your Author as you would a friend".  

In addition to the two labels were a further four separate stamps, one of which was a large one into which the borrowing dates were stamped with a further date stamp.  When the book was taken out of circulation, a Cancelled stamp was added. 

The Elusive Quest was published in 1965.  The dates stamped to indicate the return date run from 1965 to 1969.  It was most likely taken out of circulation after that, as there was still room for further stamps, perhaps indicating a declining interest.  Considering how poorly constructed a romance it is, it is a wonder it lasted that long on the shelves. 

You can see the rest of the stamps on the Time Travellers website.