A Fortuna family circle

IN the 15th article in her series about Bendigo’s Fortuna Villa, Lansell family historian Beverley Carter looks at the Fortuna family circle, with particular focus on the children. It is said that a wealthy man without an heir is incomplete. When the man is, by nature, a family man, the absence of children must, indeed, be an exquisite anguish. George Lansell doted on his 18 nieces and nephews, the eldest of whom had reached adulthood by the time their new cousins began to appear. The birth of a son in 1883, as he approached his 60th birthday, was, for George Lansell, an occasion for jubilation.In the mid-1870s, resigned to their childlessness, George Lansell and his wife Bedelia had considered adoption. Family lore has it that he was especially fond of Eva, youngest daughter of his brother Wootton, and arrangements were made for the child to live at Fortuna. The idea was abandoned, however, following the feisty Eva’s spirited protest! It was a despondent George Lansell who had sailed for England in 1880. The miners’ strike of 1879, the death of Bedelia, and the macabre episode of the coffin in the courtyard, had taken their toll. Back in London, he took rooms in a “good” hotel, visited his sister and other relations in Kent, and renewed contact with old friends and colleagues.Among Bendigonians visiting London in the early 1880s were Mrs Sarah Bassford and two of her daughters, Edith and Charlotte. Both young ladies would return to Sandhurst with rich husbands. (The story of the romance and marriage of George Lansell and Edith Bassford was told in an earlier article in this series.) When they came home to Fortuna in 1887, George and Edith Lansell were accompanied by three heirs - George Victor, Edith Fortuna Victoria, and Horace Vernon - and the children’s English nurse. A third son, Leonard Vivian was born at Fortuna in October 1888. Two more boys, Eric Vere (born 1891) and Cyril Vane (born 1893), followed. Eric died as a child.In 1896, Miss Annie Lansell, eldest daughter of George Lansell’s brother, William, joined the household. Fondly known within the family as Aunt Nancy, Miss Annie was a companion to Edith, and an informal governess to her young cousins. She lived at Fortuna until Edith’s death in 1934. Celebrating her 100th birthday at her home in Barkly Place in 1961, Miss Annie looked back on her years at Fortuna, recalling her enjoyment of riding in the open carriage behind George Lansell’s handsome piebalds. She also remembered riding in a much less elegant contraption, owned by the children, and known as “the governess’s cart”! Family photos, including those of her parents - William and Jane Lansell - and of her young charges, adorned the walls of Aunt Nancy’s bedroom at Fortuna.The modern term “adventure playground” aptly describes the myriad attractions available to a child growing up at - or paying a visit to - Fortuna. Children’s parties were “red letter days to young Bendigonians” wrote Lily McGillivray in a magazine article in 1929. On his own birthday (August 24) each year, George Lansell gave away substantial sums of money. One memorable birthday began rather badly, when early in the morning he discovered his stable yard crowded with children, each of whom was leading a goat. Lansell had a particular horror of goats, and was outraged at the invasion. Apparently, some mischief-maker who was aware of his phobia had placed an advertisement in the Bendigo Advertiser announcing that anyone with a goat for sale should be at Fortuna at 7am. When he realised that the children were as much a victim of the hoax as he was, Lansell told them to take their goats home and to return at 5 o’clock that evening. When they did so, he was waiting with a bag of silver coins, and counted five shillings into the hand of each goat-owner.Numerous cousins made regular visits to Fortuna, including the family of Thomas and Ada Lansell of Myrtle Villa, Leichardt. Tom Lansell was George Lansell’s nephew, and Ada was a first cousin of Edith, so their children were double cousins. Years later, family members recalled entering Fortuna on Sunday afternoons via gates off Marong Road, near Sterry’s Gold Mines Hotel. This access to Fortuna was closed following Edith’s death. For children gathered en masse at Fortuna, eluding the maids was a favorite sport. Roller-skating around the balconies was a popular pastime, along with climbing the two sequoia gigantes at the front of the house, and swimming in the Roman bath. There was also tennis, gymnastics, picnics, and rowing on the lakes. Indoor activities included games, reading, and music. The boys were given pocket money for working in the stamper battery adjoining the house. Family pets at one stage included a rhesus monkey.The Lansell brothers attended Melbourne Grammar school. Their sister Edith went to Girton, as did their cousin, Florence Gwendoline (Gwen) Frew, who, in 1910, married George Victor Lansell. Another Edith Lansell - Edith Jean, daughter of William Lansell’s son, George Wootton Lansell - was a senior girl at Girton in 1916-17. Reginald Lansell (Lance) Frew was a `Girton boy’ from 1899 to 1901, before going on to Melbourne Grammar. Lila Anthony, who married Cyril Lansell, attended Girton, as did Leonard Lansell’s wife, Geraldine Orme. Friends from school were frequent visitors to Fortuna.In the 1980s, former Girton student, Dr Violet Young, recalled a Ladies At Home Day in the early 1900s: “When my mother called on Mrs Lansell at Fortuna, she was asked if she would like to bring (my sister) Olga and me. It was the highlight of our lives. We went in the buggy and Mrs Lansell would tell mother to send the groom home and we’d go home in her car. . . it was a very rare vehicle and a Rolls Royce I think, complete with chauffeur”. Violet was especially taken with the indoor swimming pool at Fortuna, which she thought “quite unique”.Edith Lansell and her sister Lottie Frew were great benefactresses of Girton, and continued to support the school long after their children had grown up. Lieutenant Lance Frew was KIA at Ypres in September 1917. Portraits of Lance Frew and his mother, painted by Miss Marion Jones, hang today in Glendure House at Girton.An important member of the close family circle at Fortuna was Mrs Laura Abbott, another of Edith’s sisters. Their mother, Mrs Sarah Bassford, divided her time between Fortuna and Sunnysides, the Lansell residence in St Kilda Road, Melbourne. Following George Lansell’s death in 1906, Mrs Bassford lived mostly at Fortuna.The last Lansell child to `grow up’ at Fortuna was Peter Norbury, adopted son of Edith Fortuna Victoria and her husband, Robert Norbury. The Norburys paid an extended visit to Bendigo in the late 1920s. By then, grandmother Edith Lan sell was almost bedridden, and life at the mansion was, for a solitary boy, rather dull. He spent hours playing the Angelus pianola in the billiard room, and listening to Aunt Nancy’s stories of Bendigo’s early days. But on the whole, he wrote, years later, Ettrick Lodge - his mother’s property at Serpentine - was much more fun. In last week’s Fortuna Glimpses the word `Queen’ was inserted into a paragraph about the state of Victoria’s anniversary celebrations. The paragraph should have read: “During Victoria’s 150th anniversary celebrations, A Primrose From England was featured in an exhibition of Victorian era paintings from regional galleries.” The mistake was made by a sub-editor.Beverley Carter is a retired secondary school teacher, and a part-time journalist, reviewer, and editor. A member of Bendigo’s Lansell family, she is currently writing a comprehensive history of her family. Next week: George Lansell and the Moving Picture Machine.