Australian Bandstands in the Federation Era

Who in the blogging world might be interested in Victorian-era bandstands? Leaves of Grass blog has the most amazing coll­ection of Brasil’s bandstands I've seen. They had various shapes, colours and building materials, one more splendid than the next. Alas she did not include any building dates. Carol­ine's Miscellany examined the source of Taunton (1895) and Bridgwater (1908)’s late 19th century Bandstands. Her examination of British sites inspired my search for Australian equivalents. Clueless in Boston presented a truly lovely image of Parkman Bandstand 1912 in Boston Common.

The best collection of British Edwardian band stands is in Rose C'est La Vie blog. Rose loved the bandstands because "they're whimsical in design, sometimes oriental, sometimes wedding cakey, and evocative of the innocent pleasures of promenading on a fine day and settling down on a deckchair to listen to a very jolly brass band, a military orchestra, local musicians."

In my state, Victoria, Johnstone Park Geelong was created in March 1872. In December that year, the first band concert was held by a local military band. Then an octagonal wooden bandstand was built right in centre of the park as early as November 1873. As soon as WW1 ended, a war memorial was built in the centre of the park as a memorial to the fine young men killed in battle, and the old bandstand was modernised.

Geelong, Johnstone Park

The late 1870s saw the discovery of deep leads of gold in the Creswick region and these underground mines brought further wealth to the town. This enabled solid public buildings to be constructed, as well as the development of public open spaces, like Park Lake. Creswick Jubilee Bandstand 1879 was erected to celebrate Queen Victor­ia's Diamond Jubilee. It dominated the town's open area in the centre.

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Creswick Jubilee Bandstand

Oppos­ite the Beaufort gardens was an octagonal band rotunda 1903, build to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Reign. The Beaufort rotunda was crowned by an octagonal lantern with iron-grille décor­ation and a four-faced clock. Queen Victoria’s death created a virtual cottage industry. The rotunda built as her memorial and opened in Buninyong in 1901 was the earliest memorial in this state, and preceded the band­stands built in Beaufort 1903, Bendigo 1903, Geelong 1904 and Melbourne 1907.

An attractive and slightly differently shaped bandstand was built in Burra in 1911. This small South Australian town wanted to honour King Edward VII.

Beaufort Rotunda

Sturt St Ballarat already had beautiful blue gums, grown for 45 years before the first bandstand was designed. By 1905 the cent­re of Sturt St looked like an interlinked group of lovely gardens. The position was perfect. Queen Alexander Bandstand 1908 was named by the Duke of York after his mother, wife of King Edward VII. It was an innovative bandstand de­sign, using a polygonal form surmounted by a Moor­ish onion dome. The bandstand had very fine wrought iron decoration that, approp­riat­e­ly, included musical motifs. Built during the heyday of the band move­ment, it is now one of the few remaining examples of Edwardian band­stands in Victoria and reminds us of a popular form of outdoor entertainment.

For an amazing bandstand that looks like small Edwardian house, examine New Farm Park in Brisabne in Your Brisbane blog. The park was taken over in 1913 by the Council, and they added this handsome bandstand and a kiosk. It has more gables and more timber lace work than my grandmother's house.

Ballarat's Titanic Memorial Bandstand 1915 was another unusual example of creative bandstand design in rural Australia, an exotic composition with orientalist roofs. Designed by local architect, GW Clegg and man­u­factured at a local foundry, the Titanic Bandstand has survived well. It was created as a memorial to the SS Titanic disaster, in particular to those musicians who heroically continued playing as the unsinkable ship sunk.

Ballarat, Queen Alexander (left) and Titanic Memorial (right) bandstands *

Since the royals were 15,000 ks away and there were very few Australians lost on the Titanic, we might ask why there was a rush to spend community money on bandstands? Listening to music played by the town band was a popular form of amusement in the Edwardian period and most municip­alities thought the money would be well spent. And perhaps there was a pride in nationalism, in quietly and democratically uniting the Australian states into one Federation.

Or the connection to WW1. The Port Melbourne war memorial is an octagonal brick band stand with a metal roof and steps on the north side. An inlaid marble tablet from the Port Melbourne Women's Welcome Home Committee honours the gallant Australians who fought in the Great War 1914 - 1918.

The only bandstand and park image I have from the turn of the century was taken in Hyde Park Sydney.

Sydney, Hyde Park

These late Victorian and Edwardian structures, within their well-developed gardens, have now been given heritage protection. At the time, the bandstands, iron seating and garden displays must have given great pleasure to ordinary families, every summer.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Undershaw story

In 1885 Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) married Louisa Hawkins, a quiet woman who seemed happy to support her very ambitious doctor-author husband. At that stage, Conan Doyle did not see himself as a full time detective story writer – presumably he wanted to write “respectable” literature like his successful historical novel, Micah Clarke 1889. He returned to short stories and detective novels only because the publishers irresistibly offered him more money and more overseas trips.

In 1889 and 1892 Arthur and Louis were delighted to welcome two children, but the pleasure soon turned to pain. In 1893, while their children were still toddlers, Louisa Conan Doyle was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a disease that was almost inevitably terminal. Another difficulty, although not necessarily a tragedy, was that Conan Doyle’s medical practice was failing dismally.

Undershaw in its garden setting

Conan Doyle had his new house, Undershaw, built in the small Surrey town of Hindhead because of Louise’s TB. It seems very likely that the fresh air, better climate and lack of city filth meant medical practitioners would recommend this beautiful but slightly remote region for the family home. If a TB patient had the energy, brisk country walks were warmly recommended.

Undershaw was built in 1897 to Conan Doyle’s own plan but it was the architect Joseph Henry Ball who created this very large and very handsome home. The red brick, three-storey home had eleven bedrooms, huge dining room, book-lined study, wood-panelled drawing room, billiard room, grand staircase and servants’ quarters. Also on the grounds were a power plant for electricity, stable for six horses, coach house, garage and an outdoor games area. The large south-facing windows were specifically designed to provide a light and cheerful indoor environment.

However he wasn’t in Surrey all the time. The Boer War began in Oct 1899 and by the end of that year, the British military was already suffering major military reverses at the hands of an army of farmers in South Africa. A sudden wave of patriotism impelled Conan Doyle to volunteer for South Africa. When he saw a chance for him to work as a military doctor, he was delighted to pay for his own ticket and for the medical equipment he would need in South Africa.

Conan Doyle’s war in South Africa ended with the capture of the Boer capital of Pretoria, three months later. He then wrote an eye witness report of the war called The Great Boer War, and had the book published when he eventually sailed home to Britain. It became very popular.

Conan Doyle reading in the Undershaw drawing room

This doctor-author-adventurer joined the conservative Unionist party because it was the party that had the policies most sympathetic to Conan Doyle’s views on Empire. He stood for Parliament in the 1900 and the 1906 general elections, choosing an Edinburgh seat because that was really his “home town”. And quite rightly, he focused on the issues that concerned him most - military reforms, national defence and the Empire. Conan Doyle did not get into Parliament, but my question actually concerns Louise and Undershaw. Where did his sick wife and their two small children live while Conan Doyle was in South Africa and in Scotland? If they remained in the Surrey home, did they have medical staff in the house to assist Louise and all the household staff?

Conan Doyle stayed in the Undershaw house until 1907, a year after Louise died. During his 10 year stay, he wrote thirteen Sherlock Holmes stories. This was the home in which the author brought Holmes back from the dead in The Adventure of the Empty House, published in 1903.

But he didn’t sell the four-acre property. From late 1907 until 1921 Conan Doyle rented out the home, hoping his son Kingsley would eventually use it for the next generation of Conan Doyles. Alas Kingsley died so Conan Doyle sold Undershaw, and in 1927 it became an hotel. The hotel finally closed for business in 2004 and the property was sold to a development company, in a dilapidated and tragic condition. Planning permission to demolish Undershaw in order to build a block of flats, and to destroy the gardens, was granted by Waverley Borough Council but was overturned in the High Court in London in May 2012.

Is that the final decision? As the Undershaw Alliance has argued, what more appropriate place could there be for a Conan Doyle Museum and Centre for British and Irish Crime Writing? A renovated Undershaw would affirm its cultural value and Conan Doyle's place in the literary heritage of Great Britain and Ireland. It would be open to the public all year round (incl school visits), with a library, conference facilities, crime writing courses and a writer in residence.

If only!

Hotel Lutetia Paris - Belle Epoque or Art Deco?

Paris' Hotel Lutetia, built in 1910, is now over 100 years old. From the first details of the 1907 commission, the facade was supposed to set the tone and reflect the hotel’s prestigious character. Note the elaborate sculpture created by Léon Binet and the stained glass windows. Slightly decadent, to be sure, and very Belle Epoque.

This ornate building is located on 45 Blv Raspail in the 6th Arrondissement. Undoubtedly pre-World War One visitors would have loved the Saint-Germain-des-Pres district, the River Seine, Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower. In fact 1910 was the very year that the hotel's neighbour, Le Bon Marche department store, began selling classy fashions to those who could afford them.

Hotel Lutetia, Saint-Germain-des-Pres

In its own historical documents, the hotel records that the famous brasseries and cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, such as Le Procope, Le Lipp, Café de Flore and Les Deux Magots, became a melting pot of intellectual debate. Café society started in the late C19th and continued to blossom in the C20th. This Left Bank area become the centre for Bohemian literary, musical and artistic types, including Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Dancer Josephine Baker, who moved to Paris in 1925 to perform at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, made Hotel Lutetia her second home. Picasso painted Guernica in his atelier in Rue des Grands Augustins. Baldaccini César's sculpture of Gustave Eiffel was added to the hotel interior, to stress the connection between the hotel and its Saint-Germain-des-Prés artiness.

Eventually the good times came to an end in Paris. The French government evacuated Paris in June 1940 and Hotel Lutetia was one of the hotels requisitioned by the Gestapo during Germany's occupation of the city. Hotel Lutetia was not the only famous hotel taken over by the German forces - Hotel Meurice on the Right Bank, for example, was the site allocated to the German military. I am not familiar with this murky part of the Lutetia’s history, so I recommend you read Quazen. After Paris was liberated, the Lutetia clearly had a more optimistic and helpful role to play; it became a centre for family searches and reunions.

Hotel Lutetia, Deco bar and lounge today

Eventually the Lutetia returned to its real role in history as a splendid hotel.

In the late 1980s, designer Sonia Rykiel opened a boutique in the building, and supervised a major redesign of the interior, restoring the splendid Art Deco of earlier decades. Athletic, naked Deco women in bronze hold up lamps; the Lalique crystal chandeliers are classy; and plush red velvet furniture looks intimate. Hundreds of art objects were placed throughout the hotel’s public spaces and 231 rooms.  And like the Radisson Blu Le Dokhan’s Hotel in Paris, cabinets displaying Louis Vuitton accessories are placed alongside the reception desk.

The centenary celebrations in 2010 were very colourful! Now only one question remains. The hotel was opened for business in 1910 and Art Deco was not popular until 1925 and throughout the 1930s. So what did the interior of Hotel Lutetia really look like, in its original state?

Carlo Catani: planning Melbourne's foreshores

Carlo Catani (1852-1918) was born in Florence where he learned engineering at the Technical Institute. After graduation he was employed in railway con­struction. Early in 1876 Catani and two of his colleagues decided to move to New Zealand. They sailed out of Europe but on arriving in New Zealand, they found no professional work for the new arrivals. Catani and his friends decided instead to push on to Melbourne.

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Within a few weeks all three had joined the Department of Lands and Survey as draftsmen. In 1880 Catani was registered as a surveyor under the Land Act. Two years later he and his friends were transferred to the Public Works Dept, where they were employed as engin­eer­ing draughtsmen preparing plans for harbours, jetties and coast works, and by early 1886 they were assistant engineers. Melbourne was booming and needed keen, young, skilled men.

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Catani Gardens, main path looking towards the rotunda/bandstand built for the 1988 bi-centenary.

This Italian civil engineer supervised many significant projects in and around Melbourne. Casey Cardinia blog wrote that Carlo Catani was one of the Engineers in charge of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp Drainage scheme just outside Melbourne and was Catani also responsible for the first mechanical equipment used on the Swamp. This transformed the area into prime farmland.
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Catani’s other work with the Public Works Dept included flood mitigation works on the Yarra River. He was responsible for planting the now-magnificent elm trees along Alexandra Avenue. And he designed the Morrell bridge.

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St Kilda Council created a foreshore committee in 1906. By that year Catani, who was Chief Engineer of the Public Works Dept, was con­tract­ed to reclaim and beautify the foreshore from St Kilda south-wards down the bay. His successful plan resulted in our famous strolling district, leaving space for beach facilities that became core parts of Melbourne’s foreshore incl Luna Park 1912, the Palais Theatre and Palais de Danse 1926 and just before World War 2, St Moritz Ice Rink 1939. As a result, several landmarks along the fore­shore were his creations. The gardens he designed at the end of Fitzroy Street were named after him, as was the Catani arch bridge on the St Kilda foreshore.

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Catani clock tower, with Catani's bust

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The clock tower is a very fine copper domed, classical construction that stands with pride on the StKilda esplanade/foreshore. Carlo Catani’s bust, as you can see in the photo, still appears on the Clock tower and it is this monument to a young Italian adventurer that I knew best. Alas, as Melbourne Heritage Watch wrote, the Catani Clock was stopped by rats.

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The hot sea baths and hotel on St Kilda main beach in 1910, which replaced the 1862 Gymnasium Baths. In time, the hot sea baths themselves burned down

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I was surprised and delighted to read that the Afrilog Construction, Kenya blog, in CON­STRUCTION NEWS AROUND AUST­RAL­IA, urged that the design of any new development in St Kilda (still being debated in 2009) should remain true to Federation-era legacy of Carlo Catani. Of course our Kenyan blogger colleague is quite correct.

Kadir Cup: champion pig stickers in India

Colonial Film talked about the romantic excitement in which the British Raj held pig-sticking, noting that this kingly sport in India began only in the early 1800s, and grew out of the decline in bear-sticking and bear hunting with dogs.  Under pressure of hunting the bears retired to the heavy forest, with wild boar quickly replacing them as the game of choice, being both plentiful and good sport. Strong, fast and aggressive when threatened, the characteristics of wild boar rendered it ideal game, both from a sporting and moral point of view – the boar was a combination of speed, cunning and ferocity who fought to the end with the utmost courage…a very brave opponent.

The hunters on horse back with their spears

In introducing the imperial sport of pig-sticking, The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum has amazing footage of the annual Raj sporting event, the Kadir Cup Meeting. The museum suggested that the earliest of the pig-sticking tent clubs seems to be the Poona club, founded early in the C19th. And as the century progressed, the event was held annually in Meerut near Delhi, taking place over three days and drawing increasingly large and excited crowds. Country Life magazine called pig-sticking a national obsession in the British Raj, the Wimbledon of its sport.

Each hunter on horseback carried a 6' spear which was grasped near the butt-end and used overhand, driven down at close quarters into the hog. Umpires supervised the hunt and the first rider to hold up a bloodied spear progressed to the next round in the competition.

The most famous winner (in 1883) of the Kadir Cup was Sir Robert Baden-Powell who wrote a book on the sport called Pig-Sticking or Hog-Hunting: A Complete Account for Sportsmen - And Others, published in 1924. Lord Baden-Powell was a lieutenant-general in the British Army in India and Africa, and was the founder of the Scout Movement in 1906. People took notice of his opinions.

One of his chapters was titled Pig-Sticking’s Value to the Indian Civil Service. Here the author suggested that the sport offered a model of the panacea that the Raj might need, for on the pig-sticking field it could be shown that the white man and the Indian can be mutually good friends and comrades where they have a sport in common. The Indians could learn about teamwork, authority, planning and responsibility. The Indians, in return, could share their knowledge of local geography and of local wildlife.

The British Empire and Commonwealth Museum noted that the sport was associated with the higher echelons of the military and colonial administration, and was seen as an ideal pastime to aid in the improvement of the colonial classes. In colonial India, in particular, young officers out of Britain had to get accustomed to the heat. Pig sticking discouraged young men from the "morally deleterious escape to higher altitudes" in the hot season, so that the long, hot nightmare season became instead the healthiest and happiest part of the year.  And this sport took the young civilian out into his district, allowing him to enter into ‘friendship with his headmen, which cannot be got through official correspondence and chuprassies’.

The grand prize, Kadir Cup, with a wild boar on the cover

The 1934 footage from Colonial Film acknowledged that while the more serious literature showed how quickly a fun pastime could be invested with the utmost symbolic gravity, the purely hunterly writing about the sport was more straightforward about the other connected pleasures. The film provided a less varnished picture of the sport in its Imperial context, providing evidence of the luxuries the pig-sticking set expected to enjoy when at a hunt meet or just out for sport with a riding mate.

Wonderful photos of the post-hunt moment are available in Africa Hunting. The men are beautifully groomed, fully dressed and lined up in proud rows. The vanquished animals lie in a row in the front of each photo, trophies from a very successful day out. So which was the most important moment of the entire day - the preparations, the event's starting horn, the frantic chase or the first kill? I would suggest the post-hunt photos, complete with trophies.

I found this post difficult to write because I do not even eat meat, let alone spear wild boar for sport. Yet it is important for us to understand the practice. And its meaning in colonial India.

Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Baden-Powell

India, 1897

Mona Lisa - stolen in 1911 and retrieved

Mona Lisa was always a special painting. Leonardo da Vinci began the painting in Italy in 1503, but then when he moved to France in 1516 for the last few years of his life, he sold it to his host, King Francois I. The king placed his treasure in the Louvre where it safely rested and enthralled the crowds for centuries. Note the date when the picture went to France - 1516; it will be important!

Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo da Vinci, between 1503-16

Then in August 1911, a crisis occurred – France’s beloved Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. Guards who noticed that the painting was missing assumed it had been removed to be photographed. Once museum officials realised the truth, the Louvre was shut down. Dozens of police arrived to question the staff, re-enact the crime and dust for fingerprints. All employees, past and present, were interrogated and fingerprinted, including the eventual thief. But they were all cleared.

The French border was sealed, and departing ships and trains searched. By the time the museum re-opened nine days later, the theft was front-page news around the world. What could have happened? Jennifer Rosenberg noted that some Frenchmen blamed the Germans, believing the theft a ploy to demoralise their country. And some Germans thought it was a ploy by the French to distract French citizens from international concerns.

Richard Lacayo noted that the newspaper Paris-Journal was offering a reward for information about the crime. A petty thief said he had previously worked as secretary for Guillaume Apollinaire, the poet who was Picasso's constant supporter in the public skirmishes over modern art in the French press. Before long, the thief had implicated Apollinaire. When police arrested Apollinaire, he admitted under pressure that the thief had sold the pilfered works to none other than Picasso. Thinking they had found their way into a crime ring that might be behind the Mona Lisa case, the police then questioned Picasso. Picasso was Spanish citizen and any serious criminal problem could get him deported. And he had reason to be worried, since he almost certainly had dealt with the thief in the past. However there was no evidence against Picasso.

Presumbly it was thought that that modernist enemies of traditional art might have taken the Mona Lisa. But why - to destroy it? to make an art historical-political point?

Vincenzo Peruggia, police documentation, 1913

Two years went by before the real thief was discovered and then only because the man acknowledged his part in the theft. An Italian petty criminal called Vincenzo Peruggia had moved to Paris in 1908 and had worked at the Louvre for a time. He was no criminal master mind but apparently he walked with the painting under a smock and quietly took it to his lodgings in Paris.

Peruggia travelled to Florence by train the following month, taking the Mona Lisa in a trunk with a false bottom. Eventually in Florence he took the painting to an art gallery where the owner, Alfredo Geri, persuaded him to leave it for expert examination. In 1913, the Italian police could finally arrest the thief.

According to Richard Cavendish, Peruggia apparently believed that the Mona Lisa had been stolen from Florence by Napoleon. The thief never planned to damage or destroy the painting; he believed that he was only doing his patriotic duty, by returning the painting to its true home in Italy. In fact Peruggia's patriotic rationale really DID make him a hero in the Italian press. And many Italians really did joyously welcome the masterpiece home at the Uffizi and the Borghese Galleries, Villa Medici, Farnese Palace and the Brera Museum. But we need to remember that Mona Lisa had never been part of Napoleon’s art collection, so I wonder why Peruggia’s gaol sentence was relatively minor.

modern security for Mona Lisa, the Louvre

After the painting’s triumphal tour of Italy, the Mona Lisa was returned to the Louvre and has mostly remained there, in its rightful spot, ever since. Security these days is, needless to say, rather tight.

Literary pilgrimage: Kipling's dream home in Sussex

Whenever I have been on literary pilgrimages, the greatest pleasure has usually been found in the private home of the Great Man or Great Woman. Libraries, museums, galleries, churches and theatres have been wonderful sources of information about literary heroes, but it was at home that the writer could be at his/her most intimate, domestic, sociable, comfortable and even idiosyncratic. It was also the place where the writer’s own taste in architecture, furniture, decorative arts and landscape gardening could be best examined.

Rudyard and Carrie Kipling moved into an impressive Jacobean home, Bateman's, near Burwash in rural East Sussex, in 1902. We know when the house was built; the date over the porch says 1634.

Bateman's in East Sussex, built in 1634

Kipling received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907 and was both the first English language writer to receive a Nobel Prize and its youngest recipient ever. So we can assume that many of his important books were written inside the peaceful oak beams and mullioned windows of Bateman’s.

The book-packed study still holds all his writing paraphernalia. He was very fussy about his schedule and punctually, each morning, he went to his study to write. The Indian rugs that reminded him of his boyhood home in Mumbai are still there, along with an English walnut chair, his French walnut table, blotter, a pewter ink pot, a rather cheap pin box and a more expensive pen tray for the ink brushes. I rather expected Kipling to return from lunch at any moment, to rest and read on his oak day bed.

Rudyard Kipling's study

In fact there is an eastern flavour in other parts of the house as well, travel mementos from when he got his first job in India as a young journalist. There are blue and white dishes and vases, decorated boxes and Kipling's collection of miniature Indian, Chinese and Japanese deities that he called his household gods. You can see internal photos from the house in Period Property UK.  But part of the house is not exactly as the Kiplings left it. Today Rudyard and Carrie’s bedroom functions more explicitly as a house-museum, with many of the collectables that made Kipling happy, including some Admiral Nelson mementos.

When the Kiplings bought the estate in 1902, it already had 33 acres of land, a lovely river, an 18th century working mill, outbuildings, an orchard and a wild garden. The acreage was added to, as Rudyard Kipling made more money from his book sales and prize money, and the pond, rose garden and the yew hedges were all laid out according to his own design. His great pride and joy were classic cars, including a Rolls Royce Phantom I.

Pear garden

Although Kipling died in 1936, his wife lived at Bateman’s for another three years until she, too, passed away. The estate was later bequeathed to the National Trust by daughter Elsie and is now a public museum dedicated to the author. A lovely a portrait of Mrs Kipling, painted by Rudyard’s 1st cousin Sir Philip Burne-Jones (Sir Edward's son), can be seen above the main fireplace.

How did the Kiplings come to be related to the Burne-Jones? There were four MacDonald sisters who were clearly an impressive lot – one married Edward Burne-Jones and became a close friend of George Eliot, one married the artist Sir Edward Poynter, one married Alfred Baldwin and became the mother of the Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and the fourth sister became the mother of Rudyard Kipling. Thus Sir Edward Burne-Jones was Rudyard Kipling's uncle.

A Circle of Sisters: Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin by Judith Flanders (published by WW Norton in 2005) is interesting, particularly on the family's connection with the Pre-Raphaelites.

Rudyard Kipling and his beloved books, date?

First Australian-born governor-general: Sir Isaac Isaacs' homes

Isaac Isaacs (1855–1948) was a talented man. He spoke Russian, Yiddish and English equally fluently and graduated Law in 1880, followed by a Master of Laws degree in 1883. 

In the 1892 Victorian state election, Isaacs was elected to the Legislative Assembly as the member for a rural seat. His political programme was impressive: introduction of income taxation rather than indirect taxes which put the load on low income earners, reform of company law, conciliation machinery to resolution industrial disputes, railway reform and support for Federation.

Inevitably he became a major participant in the framing of the country's constitution at the Constitutional Convention of the late 1890s. So it was not a surprise that Isaacs was elected to the very first federal Parliament in 1901, straight after the declaration of the Commonwealth of Australia.

The Isaacs' Edwardian family home, Hawthorn, 1905

Isaacs was not totally behind Australia’s first prime minister, Edmund Barton, and his protectionist policies. Isaaces was one of a group of backbenchers pushing for more radical policies, but apparently he was difficult to get along with because of his personality, not his politics.

The second prime minister of Australia, Alfred Deakin, appointed Isaacs Attorney-General in 1905, even though Isaacs remained a difficult colleague. But Isaacs did give strong support to his prime minister for the Judicary Act that established the High Court of Australia... and needed to be thanked. Deakin was keen to get him out of politics anyway, so he pushed him upstairs; Isaacs was appointed to the High Court bench.

Isaacs, 1906

Examine Isaac's home in the photo above. Edwardian homes in Melbourne had front verandas with decorative timber features, tiling on the patio floor and entry paths. The brickwork was usually a deep red. The roofs were typically terracotta tiles with decorative gables, motifs, timber features, tall chimneys and fretwork. Decorative leadlight windows were also common. Isaac Isaacs lived in this lovely Edwardian house in Hawthorn throughout the years before and after Federation. When he left politics in 1906 for the High Court, the family continued to live in this home.

He was knighted in 1928.

In 1930 Labour Prime Minister James Scullin appointed a now rather elderly Sir Isaac Isaacs to the position of Chief Justice. But he wasn’t in the position for a year when Scullin radically decided to appoint an Australian citizen, any suitable Australian, into the vice-regal position of Governor-General. A politician could come from any background, but since the GG personally represented the king or queen in Australia,  every Governor-General in our history had to have been British!

Scullin offered the post to Isaacs. Isaacs reflected or promoted the developing nationalism and centralism in Australia; he influenced the balance of power towards the Commonwealth and away from the individual states. It was a wonderful time to be an Australian, but Conservatives were not well pleased with the appointment. Neither was King George V who thought that only a British G-G could represent the crown.

Government House Canberra, 1927

The new Governor-General and his family left Melbourne and moved to the national capital, Canberra.

Only a few years earlier (January 1925), the Federal Cabinet had finally agreed to fit out the existing homestead at Yarralumla as a vice-regal residence in Canberra. The first enlargement consisted of the addition of another three-storey block, which you can see in the photo, behind the one already there. The two parts were connected by a wide hallway and a new entrance was created between the gables of the old south front. The results were decent enough to allow the Duke and Duchess of York to stay there when they came to open the new Houses of Parliament in May 1927.

The interiors of the refurbished house, along with much of their furniture, were designed by Ruth Lane Poole, of the Federal Capital Commission. They were in keeping with the prevailing "stripped-classical style", with more formal interiors provided for the official reception rooms, and a lighter scheme prevailing in the private residential rooms. Although the house was set amid 54 hectares of parkland, the house was still small in comparison to Government House in Melbourne where the governor-generals had lived prior to the move to Canberra.

Lord Stonehaven had been the first governor-general to live for part of his term in Government House Canberra aka Yarralumla, but in January 1931 Sir Isaac Isaacs achieved three important honours. Firstly he became the first Australian-born Governor General. Secondly he was the first governor-general to live at Government House in Canberra for his entire 5-year term (1931-6). Thirdly he was the first Jewish vice-regal representative in the whole British Empire, an empire that covered a third of the globe.

Many vice-regal families mumbled and grumbled about the space available for official entertaining. But plans for a much grander and more permanent home for the governor general didn’t become real until much later, given the terrible economic times during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the even greater threats Australia's security during WW2.

Sir Isaac Isaacs died in 1948 and was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.

Fabergé paper knives - elegant, expensive art objects

The House of Fabergé was founded in 1842 by Gustav Fabergé in a basement shop in St Petersburg. The information about the first Fabergé generation is scatty, but there is far more to say about the second generation. Gustav's son, Peter Carl Fabergé took over and expanded the family firm until it was an empire employing 700 workers. No one made art objects as stunningly beautiful and rich as the House of Fabergé in the later 19th century.

When Carl Fabergé took over the running of the business in 1882, its output increased so rapidly that he (and his brother Agathon) could not fulfil all the commissions themselves. They therefore decided to establish independent workshops. A Fabergé workmaster was a craftsman who owned his own workshop and created art objects for Fabergé. There were two elements of quality control. Firstly the workmasters were committed to work exclusively for the House of Fabergé. Secondly Fabergé would accept not art objects until those objects had been approved by Carl or by his personal representative.

Spaniel head, Kollin, 1896

Let me mention just three of these workmasters. Gabriel Niukkanen was a Finnish craftsman who had his own independent workshop in St Petersburg during the 1870s and didn’t become a workmaster for Fabergé until 1885. He specialised in small silver and gold art objects.

Erik August Kollin (1836-1901) was born in Finland, where he qualified before travelling across the border into Russia in 1868. By 1870 he had opened his own workshop in St Petersburg. Kollin joined the Peter Carl Fabergé empire and by 1872 was put in charge of all Fabergé workshops, so he must have been hugely talented. He was Fabergé's first chief jeweller, mostly using gold and silver. The initials EK will be found on each artefact, alongside the Fabergé hallmark. Kollin’s most famous work include art objects made for the German Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, which were passed on to her daughter Queen Mary and her British son-in-law, King George V.

Anders Nevalainen was a third goldworker born and apprenticed in Finland in 1858. Nevalainen had moved to St Petersburg by 1874 and was a master goldsmith in 1885. A master first working in the jewellery workshop of August Holmström, Nevalainen soon became as head of workshop under exclusive contract with Fabergé. Look for his initials A.N, used with the Fabergé mark.

Sword shaped, Niukkanen, 1886

Fellows Auction House had two special Fabergé paper knives. Examine a parcel-gilt, enamel and nephrite paper knife, 21.5cm long. The handle terminal was modelled as a spaniel's head with red gem eyes, above a short cylindrical column in lime green guilloché enamel. It led to a foliate mounted nephrite jade blade, post 1896 mark for Erik August Kollin of St Petersburg. The estimate for this lot was £5,000-£8,000.

Nephrite jade is a calcium-magnesium silicate that can be translucent or opaque, and can appear as green, grey or off white, depending on the minerals in the material. Diamond is the hardest mineral i.e the most resistent to scratching, but nephrite is the toughest i.e the least brittle.

Another Fabergé paper knife from Fellows was 23cm long. The slightly later date and large size did not detract from the parcel-gilt, enamel and nephrite material which had the handle terminal modelled as a swan's head with red gem eyes. It ended a cylindrical column in royal blue guilloché enamel, mounted with cabochon garnets and classical motif giltwork. And it led to a scrolling foliate mounted nephrite jade blade. The workmaster's mark was for Henrik Wigström and the estimate for this lot was £8,000-£12,000 (USA$12,600-19,000).

Swan’s head, Wigstrom, c1900

The most beautiful paper knife, dated after 1886, was made from nephrite, gold, rose diamonds and cabochon sapphires. This paper knife was produced in the workshop of the workmaster Gabriel Niukkanen, St Petersburg and was 15 cm long. But note the more complex shape. The translucent nephrite blade was created in the form of a sword; the openwork gold pommel was set with rose-cut diamonds and cabochon rubies, with a gold suspension loop. Auctioned by Christie’s in New York, the estimate was USA$10,000-15,000.

A different nephrite jade paper knife had silver decoration, with a garnet and diamond in the snake head. The Fabergé mark showed a date after 1896 and before 1910, but there was no maker’s mark. Fabergé made a lot of decorative art objects as accessories for desks and the estimate here was USA $10,000-20,000.

Snake’s head, no maker’s mark, 1896-1910

Christie’s had a gold-mounted nephrite paper knife by Fabergé, with the workmaster's mark of Michael Perchin, St Petersburg 1896-1903. The elongated flattened nephrite blade with a striated cage work handle with leaf-chased border. Altogether it was 14.9 cm long. As Kollin was replaced by Michael Perchin in 1886, Kollin’s hallmark should be limited to the era 1872-86. Perchin’s hallmark would be limited to any time after 1886.

Cage work handle, Perchin, 1896-1903

Examine the longest (17 cm long) and most modern (1908-1917) of the paper knives that I could find. Along side the Fabergé mark was the workmaster's mark of Anders Nevalainen St Petersburg. The flattened nephrite blade really did resemble a knife. The tapering gold handle was enamelled in translucent white over a guilloché ground, within gold stylised foliate borders. It terminated with a reeded finial.

I can only imagine how splendid one of these paper knives would have looked on a large, polished desk top, alongside a nephrite and silver desk seal,  or perhaps a nephrite and silver desk clock.

Knife shape, Nevalainen, 1908-1917

Federation Edwardian domestic architecture

Before the terrible financial crash of 1891, Australian homes were most likely to be built in classical, Victorian taste. The houses were symmetrical, built from locally quarried stone, had gently slop­ing roofs and classical proportions in the handling of doors and windows. If the family made money after the gold rush ended, the home would have two storeys; otherwise it would be a single storey cott­age. Inside was one main passage from front door to the back kitchen, with com­part­mentalised rooms off that passage.

Victorian cottage, symmetrical, bullnosed corrugated iron veranda

The Victorian home was made thoroughly Australian by the addition of a tiled veranda on two of the four sides, with wrought iron poles and lacework on the veranda. Slate was chosen for the main roof, and galvanised corrugated iron covered the veranda.

After WW1 ended, hundreds of thousands of ex-servicemen wanted to marry and settle their children on free-standing suburban blocks of land. They wanted a small home that a] they could afford and b] did not need staff to help maintain the inside or out. No space was wasted on a passage, but vegetable plots and chicken coops in the garden were considered important. The Californian Bungalow: Australia's Favourite Interwar Home, was perfectly adapted for Australian suburbs.

But what happened architecturally in Australian cities and towns in between, from 1895-1914?

This period was not flush with gold rush wealth, but it was a time of: Federation excitement (before and after January 1901), the dev­el­opment of national identity and of maturity in the brand new century. Railways had extended from the centre of each state capital city to the most distant suburbs, making it sensible for families to build away from the bustle and dirt of the inner cities. As I discussed in an early post, the passion for planned Garden Cities and suburbs, so beloved in London and the Home Counties, was perfectly suited for Australian families.


Very large Federation home in South Yarra, with steep roof lines, low tower and conical top, half timbered gables, red bricks.

Edwardian domestic architecture from Britain emerged in Australia during the 1890s. Gently sloping roofs, bluestone building material, wrought iron pillars and lacework all disappeared. Symmetry was con­sidered outdated. Instead what emerged was Federation-Edwardian-Queen Anne taste that popularised red bricks; low towers with conical tops; steep, complex and non-symmetrical roofs; multiple gables with half timber decoration in them; timber posts and fancy timber brackets; and prominent and narrow brick chimneys with terracotta pots on top.

Sydney Daily Photo blog mentioned extra defining features in a post called Series: Local Domestic Architecture Part 3: Federation: tuck-pointed brick work, leadlight and stained or glass windows, and red Marseilles-style terracotta tiles. The colours changed from pale Victorian options to Brunswick green and deep Indian red. Images of the rising sun or of Australian flora and fauna represented a new pride in national identity.

Federation home in Ivanhoe. Note Brunswick green colour, terracotta roof tiles, timber decorative elements. dormer windows matching the gables

Inside, Federation homes were somewhat more open planned than earlier homes had been. They often had built-in furniture, bay windows with casement window openings, veranda space for outdoor living, simple use of mater­ials and timber panelling.
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Glyn, Federation living room, timber panelling, open planned rooms
Arts and Crafts homes were also built during the 1895-1914 era but they were not quite as popular as Queen Anne. What differentiated the Arts and Crafts homes was a concern for comfort and for honest expression of function.

Entire suburbs, newly developed after 1900, emerged with Federation homes and public buildings. They were often centred around the newly built railway station, Federation pub and Federation fire station. Federation Details blog in Federation Queen Anne style and Sydney Eye blog in Federation detailing are visually delightful sites. They suggest we examine the development of Federation homes in Burwood, Haberfield, Rozelle and Strathfield. Now I wonder why all the blogs I that located and cited have been Sydney-based, not Melbourne-based.

Saving a historical industrial site in Brisbane

We know a lot about the heritage-listed Colonial Sugar Refinery 1893 in New Farm Brisbane, thanks to the State Department of Environment and Resource Management.
 
Founded in Sydney in 1855, the Colonial Sugar Refining Co (CSR) started to dominate the Australian sugar industry in a time of enormous change in the history of sugar; it fuelled the growth of sugar as a new industry in places with suitable growing conditions i.e Queensland. Technological advances in the refining process transformed sugar from a luxury item to a staple food, at least in western countries.

The Refinery and wharf, 2011, Brisbane

Attempts at growing sugar cane had already been made in Queensland prior to statehood, but new government encouragement of the growing of sugar cane in the colony strengthened in the 1860s. Plantations in new areas along the north coast quickly opened up in the 1870s, including in the Maryborough, Bundaberg and Mackay districts.

By 1874, Queensland was exporting sugar to the other Australian colonies. CSR moved north and acquired large tracts of land for sugar growing near Mackay. In total CSR established 3 large mills in Nth Queensland where  Pacific Islanders comprised the majority of the workforce.

By the 1890s, the plantation system was no longer dominant; the industry increasingly required large companies. CSR needed to concentrate more on the value adding end of the market i.e. milling and refining. CSR's Brisbane refinery was the 4th in a chain of refineries that they established in Australia's capital cities; refineries were opened in Sydney (Pyrmont 1878 Australia’s largest), Melbourne (Yarraville c1875), and Adelaide (Glanville 1891).

The original red face bricks

Brisbane was rapidly growing. In 1892 CSR acquired a riverside site of 3.5 hectares on the New Farm peninsular by buying up allotments on a recently sub-divided estate. The location had two major advantages: it enabled access for large ships and was also close to the city's markets. So the wharf (1893), on the river in the front of the main building, became a central part of the plan.

The 1893 complex consisted of the refinery building comprising char house, cistern house, pan house and refined sugar store; raw sugar store; melt house; boiler house; workshop; a two storied building containing offices, laboratory and hessian rooms; and the wharf. Most of the original machinery was made in Scotland. The char house, by the way, was middle step in the sugar refining process, in between the melting stage and the crystallisation stage.

Built during a time of economic depression, the Brisbane refinery was important in demonstrating the company's dominance of both the Queensland and Australian sugar industry for over a century. This was thanks, one assumes, to the Queensland Government's protectionist trade policies in the decade prior to Federation.

New Farm was already the industrial and warehousing district of Brisbane. But CSR added something new; they successfully lobbied for the building of the Bulimba branch railway (completed 1897). Later development of the area benefited from the availability of both wharfs and rail facilities, and included the woolstores (1909) and the New Farm Power House (1928).

The Refinery’s main building (1893) was a long narrow structure, facing the river. The walls were composed of face bricks laid in English bond, around a combination of timber and cast iron framework. It was four storeys high at the southern end and five storeys at the northern end. Rising above the corrugated iron roof line was a hexagonal shaped tower, originally used for the storage of char.

But nothing stays the same. In 1988, the residence was removed from the site; in 1989 the rail link to the refinery was closed; and CSR totally ceased operations at the New Farm refinery in 1998. The buildings fell into ruination.

Industrial feel to the apartment interiors

Now the exterior of The Refinery has been totally restored; the transformed interior now houses 30 apartments, thus converting a large industrial processing building to a residential use. And saving it. The main 1893 refining building still demonstrates the principal characteristics of a C19th industrial building, including use of fully visible face bricks, restrained embellishment and a narrow, vertical form. Note the char tower with its decorative brackets and finial, the grassed banks, fence, wharf and river. Directly behind the central core is the raw sugar store, flanked by warehouses on the southern side and ancillary buildings.

Internally many modifications have been made, resulting in some alterations to the floor levels, most notably in the char house. The framing in the southern end (refined sugar store and pan house) is timber, whilst that in the northern end (cistern and char house) is of cast iron. The renovated interiors retain this industrial image.

The refinery is now one of the last surviving industrial sites on the inner city reaches of the Brisbane river and one of the last to retain its wharf. So it is important. It had to be saved, and it was!

River frontage

Questions to ask, as a result of this experience:

1. Do important industrial sites deserve heritage protection, like churches and historical homes?

2. If the original industrial architecture was not aesthetically pleasing, can it be tarted up?

3. Should a preservation order cover the industrial building's interiors as well?

4. Do the outbuildings in industrial sites need to be protected? 

Two exhibitions of British landscapes

It is a truism to say that the first half of the C20th witnessed some of the most destructive and yet creative decades in Europe’s history. These were eventful and brutal years! But they were also exciting times for artists, with the inter-war generation responding to changing social, political and religious values, as well as responding to the Empire’s military exigencies.

Two British art galleries have just held special exhibitions that a] examined the nation’s response to tough financial times and b] went some way to display the spiritual quality of landscapes.

Sir Alfred Munnings, The Caravan, 1910, Art Museum at Castle House Dedham

Falmouth Art Gallery in Cornwall recently finished a major project called British Impressionism. The location was appropriate, since Cornwall played a major role in 20th century British Impressionism, arguably one of the most popular movements in British art. The exhibition featured important loans from Cornish collections and included works by Dame Laura Knight, Sir Alfred Munnings, Henry Scott Tuke and John T Richardson.

As Richard Moss noted, Cornwall’s pleasant climate offered the chance to capture the local landscape in impressionist paintings which relished bold colour and highly visible brushstrokes, both before and after WW1. The artists were soon producing boat and harbour scenes around Falmouth Bay, a place that captured the frailty of the English sun and the way it played upon the sea.

Together with scenes of pastoral and coastal harmony, the everyday figurative elements of Cornish Impressionism were shown in works such as The Caravan by Alfred Munnings c1910 and Abbey Slip by Stanhope Forbes 1921. Hazy, romantic and harmonious – with hindsight, interesting responses to a time of rapid social change and war.

Stanhope Forbes, Abbey Slip, 1921. Penlee House Gallery & Museum

Restless Times, Art in Britain 1914-45 was curated by Museums Sheffield as part of the Great British Art Debate. After Norwich Castle Museum, the exhibition moved to Tate Britain where it stayed open to the public until Nov 2011.

The exhibition told the story of what would become a turning point in the history of Modern British Art. Again with hindsight, the inter-war era was a period defined by the devastating experience of two world wars, an era that saw fundamental changes in British society. During the mass upheavals, Britain became a destination for displaced people from across Europe. This migration brought foreign artists from across the continent and with them, an influx of new and influential ideas.

Exploring the impact of this remarkable cultural exchange, Restless Times considered how artists sought to redefine the changing face of the nation -  from the horrific impact of war and a retreat from the harsh realities of life, to the celebration of the pastoral idyll and the embracing of new ideas and technologies. The exhibition examined how artists engaged with both the uncertainties and possibilities of the time, especially Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious, Barbara Hepworth, Cyril Power, Percy Wyndham Lewis, Christopher Nevinson, Vanessa Bell and Henry Moore.

Following my previous post on Inter-war landscapes in general and the South Downs in particular, I was delighted to see The Cornfield painted by John Nash in 1918. The Tate said that The Cornfield was the first painting he made after WWW1 which did not depict the subject of war.

John Nash, The Cornfield 1918, 94 x 101cm, Tate (Country Life 23/3/2011). 

In its ordered view of the landscape and geometric treatment of the corn stooks, The Cornfield  prefigured his brother Paul's landscapes. As That’s How The Light Gets In explained, John and his brother Paul used to paint for their own pleasure only after 6 PM, when their work as war artists was over for the day. Hence the long shadows cast by the evening sun across the field in the centre of the painting. It is difficult for me to remember that The Cornfield was painted as early as 1918 – a full decade or more before by South Downs landscape artists were painting in a similar style.

George Henry, Hikers at Goodwood Downs, 1930s, Graves Gallery Sheffield

Hikers at Goodwood Downs, by George Henry (1858-1943), dated from the 1930s and showed ramblers enjoying Goodwood Downs in West Sussex. Rambling was a fashionable pastime during the 1930s, particularly amongst the working classes, since the activity was both free and health-giving. At weekends hundreds of walkers would leave the city to explore their rural surroundings. The Restless Times exhibition was showing that art and social history were almost indistinguishable.

James Russell's book, published 2011

Readers might like to locate the book Ravilious in Pictures: The War Paintings 2011. Written by James Russell and published by The Mainstone Press, the book celebrated and commemorated the wartime career of Eric Ravilious, until he tragically died in 1942. The images created a vivid portrait of life in the wartime Britain, including coastal defences, observation posts and rolling countryside filled with the detritus of war.

James Joyce - the great years in Trieste

James Joyce

I have had a great deal of pleasure writing up the life and times of important authors and artists for this blog eg Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, Rudyard Kipling, Sigmund Freud and Dylan Thomas. But writing about Irishman James Joyce (1882–1941), who lived happily in Trieste for most of the years between 1904-20, proved to be more difficult.

Had he chosen to live in Venice, Florence, Rome, Milan, Florence etc, I would have felt right at home. But James Joyce lived in Trieste, 116 ks NE of Venice.

Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the Habsburg Monarchy from the high Middle Ages until the end of WW1. And it had been a very beautiful Adriatic port. So in his years there, Joyce witnessed the last years of the city's Austro-Hungarian glory and saw the impressive buildings that had belonged to prosperous Habsburg merchants.

Presumably because of its unique location, Trieste was a cosmopolitan city loved by Bohemian artists and writers.

Bronze statue of Joyce, canal bridge in Trieste

Joyce met Nora Barnacle in 1904 in Dublin, just before the writer was attracted to Trieste. The couple arrived there in 1904, an impoverished Joyce apparently planning to fund some time on the Continent by teaching English.

map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Trieste is marked with a cross

Joyce and Nora didn’t marry until many years later (1931), although they had two children (in 1905 and 1907). James didn’t sound like a reliable family man; in fact his family probably would not have been properly fed and clothed without the help of his younger brother Stanislaus who also moved to Trieste. Despite the brother, James Joyce’s many moves between flats seemed to have occurred because the rents were rarely paid on time and rarely paid in full. Perhaps endless boozing was responsible.

When James did manage to make a regular income, it was because he was working for the daily paper, Il Piccolo. At other times, he worked as an English teacher at the Berlitz language school and was an English tutor to some wealthy Triestine families.

Joyce breakfasted on presnitz at the Pasticceria Caffè Pirona

This was a creative and productive period. While living in this city, Joyce wrote most of the stories in Dubliners, first published in 1914. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was also written in Trieste and was serialised in The Egoist  magazine in 1914 and 1915. Portrait was not published in book form until the Egoist Press published it in 1917.

Now there is a Literary Trail. Modern visitors can walk between the eight houses that Joyce lived in during his Trieste life and to dozens of his favourite haunts. His happiest years were spent in #4 Via Bramante, near some elegant steps leading to the Basevi Gardens. The upper floors of a different palazzo have been converted into a hotel called Hotel Victoria, recently opened. It is described as a "literary hotel" because Joyce was once a tenant there.

Trieste's funicular tram

Joyce was a good walker, despite Trieste having steep hills. A funicular tramway had already opened before Joyce and Nora arrived, and operates still, offering magnificent views over the harbour.

Joyce loved high bourgeois coffeehouses like the Caffè San Marco, still evocative of Viennese elegance, and the Caffè Stella Polare near the Canal Grande. Pasticceria Caffè Pirona was Joyce’s breakfast place of choice, an historic Art Nouveau bakery still in business.  Apparently Joyce was passionate about presnitz, a horseshoe-shaped pastry stuffed with raisins and walnuts—a house specialty since Alberto Pirona founded the shop in 1900.

Via San Nicolò was where the Joyces lived above the Berlitz School which employed Joyce. Next door is the Umberto Saba Antiquarian bookshop, still in business.

I was not surprised to read that Joyce frequented the Teatro Verdi to watch opera, but alas he was limited to the cheapest seats. What WAS surprising was that Joyce enjoyed different centres of religious architecture. As the main port of the mighty Austro-Hungarian empire, Trieste embraced many different cultures. One of Joyce's favourites was the exotic Greek-Orthodox church of San Nicolò with its twin towers facing the sea. Many of his most friends and students were from the even more exotic Jewish community, which was confident enough to open a beautiful synagogue in Via San Francesco d'Assisi. Joyce's timing was perfect - he could watch every step of the synagogue's construction process (1908-12).

Trieste synagogue, built between 1908 and 1912

Susan Griffiths’ article provided very helpful information. She mentioned The Hotel James Joyce which is located in the colourful historical area of old Trieste, and I would love to know whether Joyce was ever a guest there. She also noted 45 plaques around the city that mark places of Joycean interest. One of these plaques highlights the red light district of the Città Vecchia quarter, including a brothel at 7 via della Pescheria. Another helpful suggestion was the guide book James Joyce: Triestine Itineraries by Renzo Crivelli. A bridge over the canal has a distinctive bronze statue of the ex-pat Irishman, sunning himself in this old Austro-Hungarian-Italian city.

World War One must have been a difficult time. Although Joyce was too old to be a soldier himself, it must have been galling for him when his students were called up to fight in a war between Italy (and the Allied Powers) versus Austria-Hungary (and the Central Powers). So in 1915 the Joyces moved to Zurich, a neutral city that became home to exiles and artists from across Europe. They didn't return to Trieste till 1918.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire did not dissolve until the end of the war and many of its border areas were disputed among its successor states. In November 1918, a treaty was signed to end hostilities between Italy and Austria-Hungary. Trieste was occupied by the Italian Army and the city was formally absorbed into Italy.

James Joyce died in Zurich in 1941 and was buried there. Nora died in 1951 and was buried alongside her husband. Stanislaus died in Trieste in 1955, and was buried in the Trieste cemetery. None of the bodies was repatriated back to Ireland.

Despite our perhaps preconceived ideas, Literary Traveller said it was Trieste that claimed James Joyce. Trieste was more significant than Dublin, which Joyce immortalised in Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses; more than Zurich where he was buried; more than Paris where he wrote Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. I have not read John McCourt’s book The Years of Bloom: James Joyce in Trieste 1904-1920, but it may be very helpful.

James Joyce Hotel, Trieste