The Bookish Baker of Maldon
As my family and friends know, while waiting to move into my new home I’ve spent several weeks staying in private accommodation attached to the McArthur Building adjacent to the well-known McArthur Bakery here in Maldon, Victoria, and it occurred to me aspects of its history might be of interest to them and others.
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| McArthurs Corner, Maldon, (own photo) |
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| Side view from rear courtyard, McArthur Building (own photo) |
Others far more qualified than me have researched and written about the McArthurs at length, so I won’t duplicate all of that here but have provided links below.
For the best history, please do read the article by Hilary Maddocks. Her family had a close association with the McArthurs and it is comprehensive and includes several contemporary photographs.
Those photos of the family were taken at another property around the corner in High Street, which was the family’s residence, whereas the building I am currently resident in was built for commercial purposes at the end of the Nineteenth Century.
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| Unique ornate brickwork features at the front of McArthur's home in High Street (own photos) |
George McArthur (1842-1903) was born in Scotland and
immigrated to Australia as a child. He was largely
self-educated, an example of the type of slightly eccentric individual who flourished during the Victorian era. He had an interest in philanthropy and languages and all manner
of other subjects. In later life, he became an avid world traveller and collector of numerous artefacts,
including weapons, coins and curios, but he is mostly remembered for his books.
He had accumulated around 2,500 individual titles and bequeathed all of them to
the University of Melbourne Library. As Hilary
Maddocks says in her article, “this was the University Library’s first
significant bequest and at the time represented ten per cent of its holdings”.
The collection includes rare books on exploration, mining and printing, plus many Scottish works such as early editions of Robert Burns, also the Border Ballads. Rare books from as long ago as the Fifteenth Century are some of the treasures in the Baillieu Library’s Special Collection.
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| George McArthur (Maddocks article) |
Sadly, George suffered from episodes of melancholy (perhaps what we’d call bipolar today) and committed suicide by drowning in 1903. Newspapers obituaries said it was depression after a bout of influenza left him "tired of life", but it also might have been compounded by his opposition to the Boer War after he’d travelled to South Africa and witnessed the carnage and bad treatment meted out to the local population. Maldon citizens loyal to the British Empire, however, were angered by his unpatriotic opinions and some louts painted his dog red, white and blue, and it is this that may have contributed to his downward mental spiral.
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| Road to the South British mine dam where George drowned (own photo) |
He left no descendants of his own, but a quirky fact that caught my notice is that late in life he married an Irishwoman, Mary Burke, widow of a
Patrick Burke, of whom little is known. My daughter who now runs Tansley &
Co, Vintage Merchants, in the McArthur Building has Burke ancestors from County Mayo on her
father’s side, many of them with the first names of
Patrick and Mary. (Plus a mother who has a passion for certain antiquarian books, although
only on a minor scale … mind, if I had the resources and space, it could easily
get out of control!)
Do visit my daughter's fascinating store in the McArthur Building if you ever drive to Maldon. Tansley & Co, Vintage Merchants, are open on Saturdays and/or Sundays from spring through to autumn, occasional weekends in the winter months and at various other times when there are major events on in the area or in peak holiday periods. Before you travel, please first check current opening days on the website or Facebook or Instagram pages to be sure!
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| Visit Maldon! |
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