We've faced a pandemic before. Influenza. 1919

The Influenza crisis made its presence felt in Australia from the time troops returned home from the war in Europe at the end of 1918. 

Our local area was not immune. 

In Brunswick, the Albert Street State School was used as an emergency hospital to begin with, but then, as the crisis deepened, the hospital moved to Broadmeadows where it was managed by the Brunswick Council.

Broadmeadows Influenza Hospital, No. 2 Ward, 1919. 

Courtesy Moreland City Libraries. Image O3.4.

Horse and drag transporting staff from the Emergency Influenza Hospital at Broadmeadows to Bell Street, Coburg, 1919. Courtesy Moreland City Libraries. Image O3.1.

I've written about the influenza epidemic in Coburg before and you can read about that here and here and here. 

As you can imagine, there were many deaths among returned servicemen and some were given an official military burial at Coburg Cemetery, even though they were not from the local area.

They were:

Died October 1918

4675 Pte William Henry Bullivant

2134 Pte John Burrell

5655 Pte Henry Matson

2893 Sgt R.W. Saunders

5199 Pte Francis Edward Sandie

Died January/February 1919

2913 Pte William Alfred Bushby

5658 Pte Albert Roy Butler

6382 Gnr Kevin McAloon

2536 Pte Wm G. Hefford

Died March/April 1919

2810 Sgt Robert Moore

4790 Pte Thomas F. Donnelly

3755 Cpl Henry Fitzpatrick

1399 Pte Percy Harold Ostler

Died in May/June 1919

2276 Pte Arthur O’Dell Lowes

24420 Driver Christopher M. McKinstry

506 Driver John Sandy

Died in July/August 1919

4559 Sgt Thomas Jones

5450 Pte James Joseph Cleary

367 Cpl Edgar Alfred Bell

3809 Cpl William Robert Fuller

2060 Tpr Athelstane Thomas Rowland

11815 Driver William Ness Law

6286 Pte George John Johnson

Sgt Charles Curtis Dedman (died Sep-Dec 1919)

2536 Pte William G. Hefford

The faces behind the naming of Harding Street, Coburg

This street was made in the very earliest days of Coburg (when it was still called Pentridge) but was first listed in a Sands and McDougall Street Directory as Harding Road in 1872. By 1911 it was known as Harding Street.

Street Names of Coburg tells us that the street was named for John Harding, listed in the 1868 Directory as a Sydney Road farmer located where the street began, so it's likely that it was an access road to his property in its very earliest days.

John Harding was a devout Methodist and a very early Sunday School teacher (as early as the mid-1840s, according to Richard Broome in his comprehensive history of Coburg).

I came across a photograph of this early Coburg pioneer taken in old age in a 1904 Jubilee History of the Methodist Church in Victoria and Tasmania. 

The volume also included photos of John's son Thomas and his wife Parysatis (nee Kendall), also stalwarts of the Coburg Methodist Church scene of the day.

At first I assumed that all three Harding family members were alive in 1904 when the church history was published, but this was not so.

John Harding died in December 1894 and is buried at Coburg Cemetery with his wife Elizabeth, who predeceased him. (She died in 1877.) They are buried in Methodist Section A, Grave 157.

Their son Thomas died in 1900 aged 69. He, too, is buried in the Methodist Section A (Grave 272) at Coburg Cemetery with his wife Parysatis, who died in 1910.

Parysatis Harding's unusual given name is spelled many different ways in the Victorian birth, death and marriage indexes. I can imagine that this was a constant cause of frustration for her. Parysatis was the name of a Queen of Ancient Persia. There were two of them - one was the mother of Cyrus the Younger and the other married Alexander the Great. I don't suppose there was anyone else in Coburg with that name, although the couple did call one of their daughters Parysatis and the name carried on for at least another generation.

Parysatis Harding was the daughter of another Coburg pioneer and member of the Coburg Methodist Church, John Buck Kendall, of whom I will write in a later blog entry.

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Even though I was looking through the Jubilee history for completely different reasons, I now have a gallery of photos of early residents of both Brunswick and Coburg. It is worth remembering that church attendance was almost universal in the 19th and early 20th centuries and that much rich local history material can be gleaned from the pages of church newsletters, histories such as this one and in newspaper articles.

I'll share some of my finds with you over the next few months and hopefully some of you reading this will recognise names and faces and can add to the stories of their lives.

 

Selling fish in Sydney Road, around 1914

Fish market, Coburg, ca 1914 – ca 1916. Accession number H2002.198/69. Courtesy Radley Collection, State Library of Victoria.

The photographer is identified as G.G.M. This is the second photograph taken in the Coburg area that I’ve found by this photographer, but it appears he wasn’t local – the State Library of Victoria has over a hundred of his photographs in its collection and they come from all over the wider Melbourne area. They’re all taken in much the same time period, though, and they’re mostly of scenery, although there are a few portraits as well.

This photograph of a fish market has been identified by the State Library as being in Coburg so at first I thought it might have been at the Coburg Market site, which seems a logical place to be selling fresh produce.

However, the fishmongers are displaying their wares out on the street in wooden carts. There are no buildings in the background, which makes it unlikely to be in Sydney Road, Coburg, which by then was much more built up than appears to be the case in the photograph.

There is only one connection to Coburg that is certain - the covered van in the background has Sydney Road, Coburg printed on it. But there is nothing to say that the location is actually Coburg. So I’m wondering whether it was actually taken at the Melbourne Fish Market.

There was an open air fish market on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets from the 1860s. (It’s the site where Flinders Street Station is now located.) But by the time this photo was taken it had moved from there to a five acre site stretching along Flinders Street as far as Spencer Street and as you can see from the photo below.

Flinders Street with old fish market, ca 1910 – ca 1914. Looking east down Flinders Street with the old fish market (demolished in 1956) in right foreground, showing spire and clock tower. Image H2008.105/31. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

If you’re interested, you can read a little more about the history of the various Melbourne fish markets here.

In the meantime, the location of this photograph remains  a mystery! Any suggestions anyone?