A Portrait Of Belle: The Story of Isabel Alice Green O.B.E. - The Female Menzies

By Annabelle Dennehy

Isabel Alice Menzies
An amazing woman ahead of her time. Brought up in a family of high-achieving men, Belle rose against adversity to be one of the most outstanding women in Australia. With great determination and organisational skills she also had exceptional vision coupled with groundbreaking ideas. Against a backdrop of 2 World Wars and The Great Depression she went from the lone pioneer woman amongst 600 men in the outback to hosting Royalty in Melbourne and Canberras’ great halls. Throughout her life Belle showed great compassion for others and was rightly rewarded an O.B.E. for her community services.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9780987581013

Book preview

1907

PART I

Chapter 1

The Menzies Establishment In Ballarat

She was an attractive child. Her high spirits reflected in the mischievous twinkle in her clear blue eyes which were offset by a perfect peaches and cream complexion. Her long chestnut curls seemed to have a life of their own and defied all attempts by her mother to restrain them. She was her fathers’ darling girl – and she broke his heart!

The only daughter born to parents James and Kate Menzies on May 9 1893 in Ballarat, Isabel Alice Menzies was always known as Belle to her family and friends. She was a vivacious fun loving girl, with a quick wit and keen intelligence which would serve her well in the years to come. She had the grit and determination of her forebears, Scottish and Cornish immigrants who were hard working and determined to make their way in the ‘New World’.

This story begins on a crisp cold morning in November 1853, when the 900 ton ship, the ‘Thomas Fielden’ slipped quietly from its moorings. With sails snapping in the wind and seagulls crying overhead, she sailed sedately out of Liverpool harbour bound for the New World. Aboard was Belle’s grandfather, Robert Menzies, a short and sturdy seaman of 22 years, who with no compelling reason to stay in Scotland, had signed on as crew. During the long tedious weeks of the sea voyage to Australia, Robert Menzies would form lasting friendships with some of the passengers, one of whom, Robert Band, was destined to play an important role in his future.

Robert Menzies ‘jumped ship’ when the ‘Thomas Fielden’ arrived at the port in Melbourne in March 1854, as did many a young sailor eager to make their way to the rich gold fields. Whether this was his intention all along, or a spur of the moment decision we will never know. However it was not an unusual occurrence and there were times when the harbours were a forest of swaying masts while the owners looked in vain for replacement crews. With the lure of the goldfields these could be very hard to find indeed.

Robert Band, also sailing aboard the ‘Thomas Fielden’ was a cobbler from Fife, Scotland, travelling with his wife Isabella and five of his children. He was hoping if not to find gold, at least to keep the gold diggers in footwear. Band had left two of his daughters, Elizabeth and Isabella, to follow a few months later so the girls accompanied their widowed uncle David and their young cousins as two of the 349 Assisted Passengers to Australia aboard the ‘SS Stamboul’. The emigrants never knew how long the voyage would take. It could be an enjoyable three months or a nightmare if the weather turned stormy. Only the wealthy could afford cabins, while those in the steerage accommodations suffered greatly from lack of ventilation, dampness and poor light when the hatches were battened down. There were often deaths, particularly of children, during these voyages, and the sound of ‘Land ho’ would have been very welcome indeed.

When Elizabeth Band first arrived in Australia in August 1854 and was reunited with her father Robert and her siblings at Collingwood, she met Robert Menzies when he came to visit. She was rather taken with this spirited young sailor. Menzies, no doubt eager to get to the Ballarat gold fields and make his fortune, made short work of his courtship of Elizabeth. He was 24 years old when they married in 1855. Elizabeth three years his junior, was also of short statue like him, and would in later years become quite stout. Not unattractive with her striking pale blue eyes and long light brown hair worn in a coronet of plaits, she was devoutly Presbyterian and had a rather serious nature.

The newlyweds then set off to Ballarat where they lived for a time in a canvas tent on the crowded banks overlooking the Yarrowee Creek, which may not have been the home Elizabeth was looking forward to. With one child already on the way they moved into a small cottage on Dana Street, opposite what was in those days was called The Ballarat Benevolent Asylum. Sweetly scented roses soon enhanced the small front garden like many of their neighbours. Large Plane trees lined the wide street where they lived and gave cool shade in the hot summers, then dropped all their leaves in autumn to let the warm sun shine through. Nine children were born in this small overcrowded house, 3 girls and six boys, the first, a girl in 1956.

The township of Ballarat was a bustling and prosperous place due to the gold mining boom, rapidly expanding with some fine public buildings being erected, many of blue stone or brick. The Mining exchange on Lydiard Street was one of the most impressive buildings and a place that saw much frenetic activity, with share brokers and mining agents selling shares in the goldmines. Finding alluvial gold soon became considerably more difficult, so deeper mines needed to be established. Miners from Cornwall who had experience in this area were much in demand and were welcomed in the town.

Robert Menzies realized within a year or two that rather than mining himself, there was a much better living to be made selling equipment to the other miners, many of whom had not given up their hope of finding their Eldorado. Forming a partnership with a gentleman named Josiah Pawsey, son of a Congregational Minister; they became machinery & iron merchants, setting up shop in premises only a few doors away from the house where Robert and Elizabeth lived. This proved to be a wise decision and the business prospered for many years, supporting this large family. During those years the Menzies became well known and respected in the town. Involvement with the Presbyterian Church and charitable works became Elizabeth’s main focus so she would have been very proud that her eldest daughter became a missionary and one son Francis, a minister of the church.

This advertisement for Robert Menzies’s business appeared in the West Coast Times on 9 May, 1876.

PAWSEY, MENZIES, & CO.

Large stock of New and Secondhand Mining Machinery of all descriptions.

Rates Moderate.

Every care taken in forwarding in good order.

Inspection invited.

Estimates given for Plants

14-20 Dana Street, Ballarat, Victoria

In 1879 Robert caught a cold, a simple thing really, but then it tragically escalated to become pneumonia, and despite Elizabeth’s careful ministrations he died, leaving a devastated family of nine children the youngest 5 years of age. Such was the respect this hard working Scot had earned in the town over the years, several of Ballarat’s leading companies closed in his honour so that staff could attend his funeral and scores joined the cortege to the Cemetery. The Phoenix Foundry erected the tall marble obelisk which stands proudly in the Old Cemetery, quite near to the monument to the fallen at the Eureka Stockade.

Standing: John, Francis, James, Willie, Hugh, Seated: Mary, Elizabeth Menzies, Margaret, Isabella, and Hendry on rug.

This photo of Elizabeth Menzies and her children was taken about three years after Robert Menzies died. She was happily married for 25years and would be sadly widowed for 32.

Upon the death of their father the older sons had no choice but to become the breadwinners. James Menzies who had shown a particular talent during his coach painting apprenticeship had a strong family sense of honour and now approached his employer at the Phoenix Foundry with a plan. His suggestion was that instead of wages he could be paid at piece work rates. A schedule of rates was therefore settled upon, and this proved to be a very successful idea financially but resulted in many, many long hours of work. His meticulous work had impressed his friend Hugh McKay, inventor of the Sunshine Harvester, so much so, that he commissioned him to paint the first Harvester produced and many more after.

An intense and driven man, with the piercing blue eyes inherited from his mother and a luxurious handlebar moustache, James was a man who commanded attention. As a young man however his good looks had not gone unnoticed by a young lady called Kate, a gentle, slim girl full of compassion and good humour, the daughter of John and Mary Sampson. It was on a hot Christmas day in 1889 that James Menzies married Kate.

This photo treasured by Belle, is thought to be her mother Kate Sampson as a young woman.

Kate had been little more than a toddler of 6 years when her mother Mary died in 1871. Her father John Sampson urgently needing a mother for his many children married a widow named Besemeres who was matron of the Creswick Hospital. She had four children of her own and when two daughters were born to John Sampson this brought the total of children under this one small roof to 13. It is not surprising that the boys left at an early age to earn their own way in the world. Kate would have been only too happy to marry young James Menzies, a home of her own would be heaven after the overcrowded house she shared with her many siblings.

A year after their marriage in 1890 their first child James Leslie was born, named for his father but always called Les. A second son soon followed named Frank Gladstone (after W. E. Gladstone the great Liberal Prime Minister of England). Children born this close together were often referred to as Irish Twins and these two certainly felt a special closeness because of their age. The next to be born was the only daughter, Isabel Alice (Belle) in 1893. The third son Robert Gordon was born in 1894 (destined to become Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister.

Chapter 2

Childhood Pursuits In Jeparit

Kate spent the next few years anxiously watching her husband James’ health deteriorate due to working the exhausting long hours at the Foundry, and realized it could not continue. A change was clearly needed. Sydney Sampson, Kate’s brother, owned a business that printed the local paper in Jeparit, a town in the Wimmera region of Western Victoria. He saw an