MELBOURNE (1910 to 1949)
"Segovia", 424 Auburn Road, Hawthorn (c1910 to c1912)
Caroline Mary's father Thomas Mitchell Hale died in 1909. Herbert and family lived at "Segovia" with Caroline's stepmother until the house was sold in 1911. The house still stands and is now known as "Ercildoune".
From the Melbourne Mansions database: "Hawthorn Heritage Study Place Identification Form. House at 424 Auburn Rd. Segovia, then Ercildoune. Built for Thomas Mitchell Hale. First rated 1893. In 1911 purchased by John Greenwood Smith. Rooming house for some time then purchased in 1949 by Mrs Helen Katherine Shuter. Generally intact but cons, stables, summer house, coach house gone are some internal house details. Polychrome ss villa with fretted timber gable ends".3
Illawarra Road, Hawthorn (c1912 to c1915)
After the sale of Segovia Herbert and family moved a short distance to 23 Illawarra Road which runs off Riversdale Road close by Auburn Road. The 1904 MMBW map shows 23 as being on the northern corner of Montague Street which indicates that the street was renumbered at some stage, probably later than 1912. If this was the case then Herbert's house is the current number 19 and is still standing. The current number 23 is a c1940s house. Both appear below with two examples of nearby houses (from l -r current numbers 19, 26, 21 and 23).
A number of the houses in the street bear a strong similarity to a house appearing in two copies of a photograph featured prominently in Mary Shaw's albums and I thought for a while it might be the Illawarra Street house. This now now seems unlikely as Illawarra Street slopes for its whole length and the pictured house is set firmly on level ground.
"Halehurst", Mayfield Street, St Kilda (c1915 to c1945)
From Hawthorn the family moved to 15 Mayfield St, St Kilda. This was just around the corner from Herbert's childhood home "Hiawatha", still standing in 1915 on a much reduced block fronting The Avenue. It was also a five minute walk away from "Tutuila" in Inkerman Street, the home of his older brother, Alfred and his wife Charlotte Alice. "Tutuila" was remembered as a huge mansion by Herbert's grandaughter who as a small child visited the then widowed "Aunt Allee" with her mother and was was left to amuse herself in the kitchens with the servants.
The Mayfield Street house was renamed "Halehurst" and became the home of the family for the next thirty years. Considering the time they spent there the lack of photographs is a disappointment but with all the kids at maybe not surprising. Above left is the best photograph I have of Halehurst. It was taken after the wedding of my grandparents Jim and Annie Murray in 1929. There are a number of other photos of groups at Halehurst in the 1920s and 1930s but none show more than a sliver of the house. Based on the MMBW map and family recollections it was set in about an acre of garden and must have had a large garage as it was said that three cars were stored there during the petrol rationing of the war years. One was described as a "charabanc", possibly a relic of the time of the previous war and which by the 40s had become a nesting place for the chooks. Another of the cars was a "three wheeler" of forgotten make but considered to have been a collector's piece some years later. The garden apparently boasted a sign "Beware of the Agapanthus", adding to the its sense of wonderland for the grandchildren hiding under the verandah. Their great aunt Lavinia, by then about eighty and wandering the garden engrossed in conversation with herself must have further added to the other worldliness of this place.
Caroline died at Halehurst in 1945 and in 1947 the remaining family moved to O'Loughlan Street. "Halehurst" was sold to Caulfield Grammar School and in 1949 after much redevelopment it opened as the primary school with the new name of "Shaw House". It remained part of that school for thirty odd years after which it was sold to become part of the Mount Scopus College. More building work was carried out and by 2005 only a small portion of the rear of the original house remained (above right).
Dairy, Argyle Street, St Kilda (c1913 to c1930)
From 1913 Herbert ran a dairy at 107 Argyle St, St Kilda East. The remants of the dairy building have now been incorporated into the rear of a dwelling. This photograph was taken from the carpark behind it in 2005.
O'Loughlan St, Ormond, Melbourne (c1945 to 1950)
After their marriage in 1929 Jim and Annie Murray built a house at 6 O'Loughlan Street, Ormond (right c1940s, above c1970).
A few years later in about 1936 Jim's father, Donald Murray, built the house next door at number 4 (left) as a home for his wife Jessie and daughter Jenny, then already suffering from TB. Much of the carpentry work was carried out by his own company, Murrray Halket, and the construction was always considered to be of better than usual quality. Sadly Donald died shortly after its completion and Jessie and Jenny, unable to afford the house, moved next door with Jim and Annie. What had been the number 6 garage became a "sleep-out" providing the ventilation considered necessary for Jenny's illness. Jenny wasn't there for long, dying a few months after her father. Jessie lived on in the house for another ten years occupying the "second" bedroom (there wasn't a third).
When the Murrays moved number 4 was rented to Annie's brother Alf Shaw and then to a Keane family with their two children. In the late 1940s Annie's father moved from Halehurst to number 4 with daughters Mary and Bett. After his death in 1949 Mary and Bett were encouraged to buy the house and occupied it until Mary finally left for a nursing home in 199?. Early on for a short while a friend Grace Tattersall lodged with them but by ande by they were joined by Bett's friend Muriel McIntosh, "Auntie Mac", who was to stay with them until she joined Bett at her nursing home in 2000(?).
