Tennis? My serve.

Here is a nice photo of the St John's Tennis Club.  Otto Reiher is the man on the far left. Photo courtesy of Ian Reiher.    If you go to the website you will see another photo of the club, both featuring the bluestone walls of the original St John's Prebyterian Church, Essendon.

I have created a page of links for the sports clubs, and plan to be adding more club photos in the next week, so keep an eye out.    If your relatives lived in the vicinity of Essendon and Flemington, and were sporty types you may be able to find them in a club photo.  Please let me know if you do.

Did your aunty play for Kensington Meths?

Kensington Methodist Basket Ball Team, circa 1930s, courtesy of the Kelvin Edwards Collection, State Library of Victoria Collection.

The Kensington Methodist Basket Ball Club fielded two teams in the Methodist Basketball League from the early 1930s.   Two further photos of the teams can be found on the Time Travellers website, one of which includes the initials and surnames of the Premiership Team of  1935.  The surnames included Cox (3), Smith, Hocking, Thomson, Williamson and Cameron. The sport is now more familiarly known as netball.

If you can't find your relatives in the Kensington Methodist teams, you might try the Ascot Vale West Basket Ball Club of 1928 and 1928, or  the Flemington Basket Ball Team of 1937.

Any identifications welcome. Please get in touch.

WW2 brothel in Essendon

Which early and well-known Essendon property was used as a brothel for American servicemen in WW2?    Find out at the Time Travellers website.

Flemington Lacrosse Club, 1896

Flemington Lacrosse Club, courtesy of the State Library of Victoria.

This sharply dressed team of lacrosse players from Flemington won the B Division Championship in 1896, the first year in which they played in the Victorian Lacrosse Association competition.  The short-cropped ties and the dinky little peak caps set off their spiffy attire.  Their home ground was in Royal Park.  If anyone can identify the buildings in the background of this photo, please get in touch.  Does anyone know who the players were?

You can see a further photo of the club from 1897 on the Time Travellers website.

Circulating libraries in Kensington and Moonee Ponds

I have added two photos of shops with circulating libraries, one in Macaulay Road to the Flemington and Kensington list, and the other in Pascoe Vale Road to the Moonee Ponds list.

Agnes Thomson, photographer

'Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild', &c. (Agnes Thomson, Ascot Vale).

THE VICTORIAN AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHIC ASSOCIATION'S EXHIBITION. (1905, February 18). Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918), p. 35. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198171601 

Agnes Scott Thomson's father was a commercial traveller called Murray Thomson.  Murray was born in Edinburghshire in 1843, and was an older man of 37 when he wed Susannie Jones, 27, in Lancashire in 1880. They had two daughters, Susannie Manley and Agnes Scott before emigrating to Victoria.   

The date of their arrival in Victoria is not certain, but they were here in time for the whole family to be included in the 1903 Electoral Roll.  Agnes Thompson (sic) was an “artist”, and her sister Susannie  was  recorded as a “milliner”.   

Agnes' particular interest lay in photography, and her name appears in many newspaper accounts of photographic exhibitions and competitions.  She was often a prize-winner of competitions and can be regarded as a leading amateur photographer in the early part of the nineteenth century. 

Agnes first began being noticed as a prize winner in photographic competitions was in 1903, competing in interstate competitions as well as in Victoria.  Her particular genre included still lifes of fruit and flowers, animals and children, and landscapes and seascapes.

By about 1907 Agnes had begun to operate as a commercial photographer, from a studio at her parents home in Milton Street, and later North Street, Ascot Vale.  In 1910 she was the President of the Victorian Ladies' Photographic Association.

To see  a fuller account of Agnes's photographic business, go to Agnes Thomson, Photographer.

SCENE FROM "THE GEISHA," RECENTLY PRODUCED BY ESSEND0N OPERATIC SOCIETY

Photo by Agnes Thomson, Ascot Vale,  Punch (Melbourne,1909, April 15 ), p. 27. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article176024165

Photo by Agnes Thomson. Ascot Vale. BRIDAL GROUP AT THE MARRIAGE OF MR. V. H. COOPER TO MISS F. R. TROTMAN. Celebrated at St. Thomas's Church, Moonee Ponds, on 2nd November, and afterwards at "Shelton,", Moonee Ponds, the residence of Mr. John Beale.

Seventy-seven in one class at Essendon State School!

Ah, the good old days, when there were seventy-seven children in one class!   Essendon State School, Grade 6, circa 1915-16.   From the Moonee Valley Library Service Heritage Collection, HER-00182.  The venerable old peppercorns in this photo have lately come tumbling down to accommodate building works.    You can see this and other monster class sizes on the Time Travellers website.