"Almondsbury House" and the Williams & Vincent Families - Chasing Our Past At Home (Transcription)

Melanie: Good evening and welcome to tonight's Chasing Our Past At Home. My name is Melanie, and I'm the Digital Archivist and Historian with Picture Ipswich.  We want to thank you all very much for joining us this evening for Chasing Our Past at Home.  We would like to commence this evening by acknowledging the traditional custodians on whose land we gather today, and pay respect to elders, past, present and emerging. 

Tonight we have the pleasure of hearing from Laura Whitmore, who is the direct descendant of George and Georgina Williams whose family home Almondsbury House in Park Street played an important part in her early childhood, until it was sold out of the Williams family in 1962. 

Laura lived in Ipswich for the first 20 years of her life, attending Central Girls and Infant State School, and then Bremer High before graduating from the University of Queensland with a degree in speech therapy. Following her retirement in 2014 Laura has had time to follow her interest in history and uncover more about her family and the contributions they made in shaping the society in which they lived. So, I will now hand you over to Laura.

Laura: Thank you very much Melanie for inviting me to speak this evening.  You know, I still find it hard to believe it's been almost 60 years since I last visited Almondsbury as a member of the family. Although I've continued to feel a strong connection to the house, it has only been in recent years that I've had the luxury of time to discover so much more about my family's links with Almondsbury, and their contributions in not only shaping Ipswich but more broadly Queensland.  This evening I'm going to briefly tell the stories of those who lived in the house from when it was built, through the subsequent decades, concluding with my childhood memories before Almondsbury was sold out of the family in the early 1960s.

My great-grandfather, George Williams, was 28 when he arrived in Queensland in June 1874, with his wife Georgina and four small children - Clara aged four, Frank (two), Alfred (one), and their new baby Harry who had been born on board the Ramsey, the ship that they had sailed on from England.  They were traveling to Australia with 20 other members of their extended Williams family, taking the opportunity offered to them to seek better working conditions and opportunities for their children in a new land.  Five other members of the Williams family had arrived in Queensland the year before, including George's widowed mother, Mary Anne.

When George and his family first arrived, they moved to the west of Ipswich and settled at Warrell Creek, then moved to Gregors Creek which was at the northern extremity of Crestbrook Station.  As a boy, he had been apprenticed to his father Charles Williams, a stonemason who had been a very well-known identity in the building trade in Gloucestershire. 

And so, George decided to move from Gregors Creek to Goodna where he was determined to put his building skills to good use.  He worked on the foundations of the government asylum at Goodna and also the foundations of the government buildings at Sandy Gallop in Ipswich around 1878.  He and his family's final move was to Ipswich in the early 1880s.  With the help of his three eldest sons, Frank, Alfred, and a very youthful Harry, George embarked on the building of his forever family home on the corner of Park and MacAlister Streets.

His Gothic Revival Almondsbury house was constructed from brick as well as sandstone blocks that were brought from a quarry close by with the help of a cart drawn by a big brown billy goat.  In addition, the story that I was told was that each of the blocks had the letter “W” chiselled into it to prevent theft.  The house was built on three levels - a ground level which housed George's office, a billiard room, a wine cellar, and a bathroom. The next floor included the large kitchen, scullery, formal dining room, and four bedrooms, and was surrounded by a veranda on three sides.  The attic was divided into two large bedrooms.  George named his house after the small village of Almondsbury in Gloucestershire near where he had been born in 1846.
By the time the family moved into their newly built home around 1883 it had increased from 4 to 8 children. George and Georgina would eventually have 13 children - eight sons and five daughters. Unfortunately one daughter, Ellen, died at just two months of age in January 1880 before the final move to their home in Ipswich, but miraculously for the time the other 12 children survived to adulthood.

Almondsbury was also to become the final home for George's mother, Mary Ann Williams, who lived with them for six years before her death in 1899 at the age of 86. Now, I found this photo in my father's collection and I'm pretty confident that this is of George Williams's mother, Mary Ann Williams, taken in the 1890s at Almondsbury during the last years of her life.  And the little boy is possibly her youngest grandson, Albert.

After working as a journeyman builder George Williams accepted the position of foreman working for Peter Brown, who was a well-established local building contractor and who held the position of mayor of Ipswich for many years.  Some of the buildings George helped to construct included the well-known but now demolished Ipswich mansion Brynhyfryd, the residence of Louis Thomas, the North Star Hotel on the corner of Brisbane and Ellenborough Streets (also now sadly demolished), and much of the railway workshops. Other examples of his brickwork can still be seen at the F. Goleby & Sons building on the corner of Brisbane and West Streets which was completed in 1895, and the Ipswich Technical College in Limestone Street which opened in 1901.

Although George, along with many others, was affected by the Great Financial Depression of the early 1890s, with the return of more prosperous times he became one of the major building contractors in Ipswich through hard work and determination to succeed until he retired in 1910.  In December 1914 after being approached by ratepayers following the death of Alderman Stevenson, he stood for nomination for the vacant seat, promising in his speech to do all that he could in their interests.  He had no axe to grind and he was not a talker but he had always been a worker. He was successfully elected for a term as an alderman for the south ward of the Ipswich Council.

George and Georgina both loved their garden.  A very large vegetable plot was tended with great care and provided the household with fresh produce.  The terraces, running along the east side of the house (the MacAlister Street side), and the garden at the front (the Park Street side) were always ablaze with flowers.  Judging by these photos, they gave both of them immense pleasure.  I remember these gardens still full of flowers in my day, especially dahlias. And remnants of the terraces were still visible when I last passed by the house several years ago. 

In September 1919 Almondsbury was the scene of a large gathering of George and Georgina's extended family and friends helping them celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.  The dinner was laid out on the side veranda which was decorated with flags and flowers, and a huge wedding bell of golden flowers was suspended above the chairs of the two guests of honour.  It was obvious from George's speech of thanks, which followed the many toasts of congratulations to the happy couple, that he was extremely proud of his children. On looking round the company, he said, he saw nothing to be ashamed of but rather much to be proud of.  There was an old saying that there is always a black sheep in the family, but he had not found the black sheep in his family yet and never expected to.

George's eldest son Frank was born in 1872, and at the age of 11 he began his apprenticeship with Ernest Greenway, a great nephew of the early Sydney architect, Francis Greenway.  Ernest Greenway had set up a successful masonry business in Ipswich in 1882.  Also, around this time he was helping his father with the construction of Almondsbury, as mentioned earlier.  In 1888 while still an apprentice, Frank helped his uncle, Thomas Williams, also a stonemason, with the additions to Stonehouse at Moore owned by another uncle, Robert Williams.

In 1901 Frank, along with his brother Harry, set up his own monumental masonry firm of F. Williams & Co, at a prominent position in the centre of town on the corner of Limestone and East Streets, which I'm sure many of you will remember.

Over the years he was assisted by other family members including his two sons. However, sometime between 1917 and 1919 Frank's most celebrated assistant was the sculptor Daphne Mayo who came to Frank to be trained in stone carving.  Daphne Mayo was to become a significant 20th century Australian artist, most notably known for her work in sculpture, particularly the well-known triangle of decorative carvings over the portico of the Brisbane City Hall, and the Women's War Memorial in Anzac Square.

Frank Williams left an outstanding legacy. He was innovative in his purchase of state-of-the-art machinery, installing a compressed air plant in 1907, which enabled him to operate his chisels by pneumatic power instead of by hand.  The ease in which marble and other stones could now be worked was like cutting cheese. In 1911 Frank was the first in Australia to install a diamond-set circular saw on a travelling bed, which enabled cutting through stone and marble to be almost as easy as a circular saw cutting through wood.  These innovations helped in assisting Ipswich's development as a business centre.

In the same year, he won a major contract to design the memorial in the Toowong Cemetery for J.F. Thallon who had been the Commissioner of Railways.  This was erected in 1912 and is one of Frank's best-known cemetery monuments. In 1919 he made the marble altar and communion rail at St Mary's Church in Ipswich, the first to be made in Queensland and possibly the first ever in Australia. Previously they had to be imported from Italy.  He was also responsible for the altars at other Catholic churches including South Brisbane, Nundah, Warwick, and Innisfail. 

Between 1917 and 1932 he was responsible for 15 very distinctive First World War memorials within southeast Queensland, more than 237 Queensland war graves for the Commonwealth, and the Ipswich Cemetery Cenotaph.  You may be familiar with his war memorial in Cameron Park, Booval, which was erected in 1919, and the beautiful Weeping Mother Memorial in Gatton erected around 1922. 

During the depression of 1929, Frank, who was also well known for his philanthropy, donated the foundation stone of the new Department of Pathology and X-ray for the Ipswich General Hospital. Frank Williams’ monuments outnumber all others in the Ipswich Cemetery.  They are also common throughout the Moreton, Brisbane Valley and Darling Downs regions, and south to Beaudesert and Boonah. 

As well as being president and foundation member of the Ipswich Bowls Club he was a foundation member of many other community and business organizations established in Ipswich including the Central Methodist Church, Saint Paul's Day School, the Ipswich Orchestral Society, Ipswich City Vice Regal Band, and he was president of the Ipswich Chamber of Commerce.

Frank married Georgina Burgess in 1898, and moved from Almondsbury into his new family home called “Tockington” in Thorn Street. He would later build a home in the 1920s in the same street which exemplified his painstaking skills and which he called “Dougleen”.  He sold his business in 1945, but the name F. Williams & Company remained for several more decades until the business closed in 1980 and was demolished to make way for the new courthouse in 1981.

George Williams’ second son, Alfred, was exactly a year younger than Frank, and initially joined his elder brother's monumental works, but because of an injury to his arm he was not able to continue in his occupation. He subsequently went contracting with his father George, after which he became apprenticed to a leather worker, as a leather worker to Fred Goleby, the local Ipswich saddler. 

Soon after, Alfred accompanied by his friend Roley (Roland) Walker, travelled widely in the west of the state in a wagonette drawn by four grey horses. It was virtually a saddler's workshop on wheels.  After his return Alfred set up his own saddlery business in Boonah. He had previously worked for the local Boonah saddle maker Mr Alf Gadsby in 1901, helping him to make saddles for use in the Boer War.  In 1921, Alfred received a commission for a military saddle from General Birdwood, who at the time was a revered household name. He was a British General who commanded the Australian forces on the western front throughout most of the First World War and was now stationed in India.  Alfred was extremely proud of this commission, and apparently always kept the framed letter of acknowledgement suspended on the wall of his shop for all to see.  Alfred married Kate Smith in 1903.

Harry Oakhill Williams was the son who had been born on board ship in 1874.  As mentioned previously, Harry joined his brother Frank in establishing the F. Williams & Company monumental mason business in 1901, but subsequently withdrew from the business in 1906.  Both men were talented sculptors.

Along with brother Frank, Harry had developed a keen interest in photography, and in 1901 he became a founding member of the Ipswich Amateur Photographic Society.  In August 1911, after 15 years as an amateur photographer and having been awarded numerous prizes at the meetings and annual exhibitions of the society, Harry Williams finally decided to turn professional.  He opened his Bijou Studio in new premises in Union Street nearly opposite the railway station. By the end of 1912 Harry was able to expand his business by buying out the Messrs. Shelton Bros.’ photographic studio in Greenham’s Chambers on Nicholas Street.

These are a couple of photos taken by Harry Williams that I have in my collection.  I love this first one which is a very informal grouping of three of his nephews eating slices of watermelon.  This would have been taken about 1914.  On the left is my uncle Walter, in the middle is my very young father George, and my uncle Hubert on the right.  And I clearly remember this photo hanging on a wall of the enclosed veranda of Almondsbury.

This is a lovely example of my great uncle's work.  The upper torso and arms are a photograph which has been tinted and highlighted while the rest of the picture is painted.  I would love to know if the lady in the picture was part of the Williams family.  The fact that she is gathering red poppies (symbol of remembrance) is intriguing.

Harry's business continued during the war years 1914 to 1918, and by early 1918 he had completed some alterations to his studio which allowed him ample space for taking group photos.  He continued with his photographic business after the war, but by June 1923 Harry decided to close his photography business and returned to the building trade.  However, he did not give up his involvement with photography altogether, being elected temporary president of the newly revived Ipswich Amateur Photographic Society in November 1924. Harry married Katarina Mayer in 1914.

George Williams’ fourth son, Charles, was the only one of his children who moved permanently away from the Ipswich area.  He completed his schooling at the Ipswich Grammar School, before heading to the University of Melbourne where he graduated in 1901 with a medical degree with first class honours.  He moved to Mackay as a young doctor in 1902, and in 1905 he became the medical superintendent of the Mackay District Hospital, now the base hospital.  In 1911 he established Mackay's first private hospital, the Ormond Hospital, which he sold in 1927 to the Sisters of Mercy.  It went on to become the Mater Hospital. 

Charles was also a keen sportsman, who was an A-grade cricketer, and was founding president of the Mackay Amateur Race Club.  He was also a very keen lawn bowler like others in his family and was a founding member of the Mackay Bowling Club in 1906.  He was the driving force behind the establishment of the City Bowls Club in Mackay in 1923 and was president of the club for a record 31 years, followed by 11 years as patron.  His book, entitled “Bowls: how to play the game, correct style and delivery”, was immensely popular and ran to three editions.  Charles was awarded the Order of the British Empire, the OBE, in 1960 for service to the Mackay community.  He married Evie McLean in Mackay in April 1905.

The fifth son of the family was named after his father George, and like his father, worked in the building trade in Ipswich.  He married Marion Scott Foote in September 1909.

Walter was the sixth son and was a well-known and highly respected teacher in Ipswich. In December 1952, he celebrated over 52 years’ service with the Department of Public Instruction, as it was known then.  He married Natalie Bugler in April 1912, and they and their family lived next door to Almondsbury at 15 MacAlister Street, another of George Williams' houses.  This is the only one of his houses still remaining in the family.

The seventh son was Herbert, and I will be talking about him in more detail in a few minutes.

The eighth and youngest son, Albert, was born in 1893.  During World War One he joined the AIF in July 1915 and gave his occupation as a bank clerk.  He saw military service in France in 1916 where he was wounded but returned safely to Australia after the war in 1919.  He married Vera Lindsey in April 1920.

But what about George and Georgina's daughters? Their second daughter, Louisa or Lou as she was known, was born in 1875 and married Roley Walker (her brother Alfred's traveling companion) in January 1901.  She was a very keen croquet player, and you can't miss my great auntie Lou in this photo. She is front and centre.

Mary Ellen, known to us as Auntie Nellie, married Sydney May in April 1910, and she and her husband and family lived across the road from Almondsbury in the house her father built for them called “To-Me-Ree”. Sydney May was the organist and choir master at the Ipswich Central Congregational Church which great auntie Nellie had also been a member of, and he was there from 1905 until 1920. He taught piano and music theory privately, and by 1924 he was a member of the University of Queensland music advisory board. Sydney May was proud of his achievements in promoting a conservatorium of music in Queensland and in permanently establishing the Australian Music Examinations Board (the AMEB) examination system in music and speech and drama in the state.  I certainly remember as a child labouring over his music theory question books.

Dora Williams was born in 1884 and married James Patterson Reed in January 1907. He became a partner of the well-known undertaking firm of J. & H. Reed which had been initially established in Ipswich in 1869 by his father, J. W. Reed.  Sadly, in 1926 and at the age of 42, Dora died after a brief illness, leaving behind four daughters and one son. Her son, Jack Reed, eventually took over from his father to become the funeral director at the J. & H. Reed funeral home in Nicholas Street until he retired in the 1970s.  I knew him very well. He had a wonderful sense of humour.  After he retired, he somehow managed to find the longest station wagon he could buy, which he always drove very, very, slowly especially round corners.

The 1920s saw great changes at Almondsbury.  Georgina Williams died in December 1924 at the age of 75, her funeral service held at the house before moving to the Ipswich Cemetery.  Just over a year later, on the 30th of January 1926, George Williams passed away at the age of 80.  For many of George's extended Williams family, life at Almondsbury house would never be the same again, but the deaths of George and Georgina did not mean that there were no longer any members of the immediate family living in the house. 

Their second youngest child and seventh son Herbert, always known to us as uncle Herb or Uncle Herbie, was the only one of their children who never married, and who remained living at home.  Apparently his had been a difficult birth that had left him with a permanent hearing impairment, which in those days must have made life quite challenging for him.

It was also around this time that the eldest child of the family, my grandmother Clara, moved with her family and her husband back to Almondsbury.  Clara had married my grandfather Frank Vincent, in Ipswich in September 1895. Frank was a carpenter and joiner employed as a coach builder at the Ipswich Railway workshops.  He was the son of Charles, who had settled in Dugandan near Boonah after arriving in Australia from England in 1885 with his wife and most of his children.  Charles was to become a well-known and respected builder in Boonah and Dugandan.

After their marriage Clara and Frank initially lived in a house in Ellenborough Street, but by 1903 they were living down the road in Park Street near Almondsbury in a house they called “Lamington”, named after the town in England where Frank was born.  I'm not exactly sure where the house was but my cousin Max is pretty certain it was three or four houses up from Lowe's shop on the corner of Park Street and Warwick Road.  I'd love to know exactly where the house had been.

By the time Clara and Frank Vincent moved into Almondsbury they were the parents of six children - five boys and one girl.  Once again Almondsbury was buzzing with the comings and goings of a large family and their relatives and friends. 

Their eldest son, Lloyd, who was born in 1896, was a bricklayer and had served in the First World War in the Tenth Field Engineers.  He was shot in the arm in October 1917 during the Passchendaele campaign in Flanders but returned safely to Australia in 1919.  I asked my cousin Max whether his father ever mentioned his war experiences.  Apparently, he had said virtually nothing to him about the war, but my cousin once overheard him telling another returned soldier that he chose to carry the longest handle pair of wire cutting pliers in the northern hemisphere. This remark could be explained by his jobs, including the deactivation of demolition charges which the retreating German forces laid under innumerable French bridges in 1918.  Lloyd married Rose Hine in November 1927 and moved to his newly built house in York Street.

The Vincent’s only daughter, my auntie Hilda, was born in 1900.  She was a noted pianist and taught piano in Ipswich until her marriage in December 1928.  Hilda had been a pupil of Sydney May, and at the age of 22 was the first candidate in Queensland and possibly in Australia to gain the Diploma of the Fellowship of the Trinity College of Music, London (the FTCL).  According to a family story, around 1926 one of her brothers, most probably my father George, invited a young teacher from the Ipswich Grammar School home to Almondsbury to play billiards.  This was when Hilda Vincent first met her future husband Harry Roberts.  Over the following years Harry progressed in his teaching career, finally succeeding Canon Morris as headmaster of the then Church of England Grammar School in Brisbane (or Churchie, as it is still known today) in 1947, a position he held until he retired in 1967.

By this time the three oldest sons of the Vincent family, Lloyd, Norman (born in 1898), and Hubert (born in 1901), were all making the way in the building industry.  Towards the end of the 1920s Norm Vincent was a partner in a building and contracting firm called Harper & Vincent, which was starting to win contracts for building work in Ipswich.

My father, George Williams Vincent, was born in 1909 and was the youngest child of the family.  He attended the Ipswich Grammar School, where he became a prefect and was especially during his years as a pupil there that he wholeheartedly embraced the two sports he loved - cricket and tennis, and he was on the teams of the school.  However, it was tennis that he really excelled at, and in January 1929 was representing Queensland as the junior state tennis champion at the Australia-wide Linton Cup competition held in Adelaide.  Now, my father is on the left - he can't be missed.

After completing his senior exams in 1927 my father enrolled at the Dental School in Brisbane, and was registered as a dentist with the Queensland Dental Board in March 1932. In May that year he set up his first dental surgery and one of the downstairs rooms at Almondsbury, which had been his grandfather's old office.  After several years running his dental practice from Almondsbury my father travelled to the United States in August 1936, where he studied at the University of Minnesota gaining his Doctorate in Dental Surgery degree in August 1937.  From the States he travelled to England where he completed further studies at Guys Hospital in London before returning home to Australia in the mid-1938.  In June of that year the first Apex Club in Queensland was formed in Ipswich and my father became a foundation member.  In January 1939 he set up his practice again, this time in the Commercial Bank Chambers in Nicholas Street.  After the war he remained in private practice until he was appointed superintendent of the Ipswich Dental Hospital in April 1967.  He also continued to actively participate in the community life of Ipswich, serving on the committees of both the Central Boys and Central Girls schools, becoming a patron of the newly established kindergarten in Milford Street, and Vice President of the Ipswich Arts Society.  He was also a foundation member of the Australian College of Dental Surgeons in the 1960s.

During the 1930s my uncle Norm's building company of Harper & Vincent was doing very well.  By the end of the decade they were winning major contracts including the building renovations of the Queensland Time Building on the corner of Ellenborough and Brisbane Streets working under the Ipswich architect George Brockwell-Gill.  Norm Vincent's uncle George Williams Jr was responsible for the brickwork.  The newly renovated building was completed in the latter part of 1939 in time to celebrate the 80th year of publication of the newspaper.

During this decade Almondsbury continued to be the focus of gatherings and visits by family, and these photographs showed Clara in the garden with her daughter Hilda, and sister Nellie, on one of their many visits.  Like so many other families during the 1940s the upheavals caused by yet another world war brought about more changes for those living at Almondsbury. Great uncle Herb and uncle Norm were too old to enlist in the military services but my father George, and his two older brothers, Hubert and Walter, all enlisted; dad as a surgeon lieutenant in the navy, while his brothers joined the army.  It was also during the war years that three of Clara's four sons, still calling Almondsbury home, were married.

In 1942 my father was just about to leave Ipswich for the navy when he met my mother Salme Perkman, a doctor newly arrived at the Ipswich General Hospital.  She had graduated several years earlier from the University of Sydney and came to Ipswich in April 1942 after successfully applying for the position of a Resident Medical Officer.  It was fate that she met my father at the hospital where he was performing dental surgery one day soon after her arrival.  They were married in Sydney in October the same year, a whirlwind war romance that lasted a lifetime. 

At the end of 1943, and in quick succession both my Uncle Hubert and Uncle Walter married local Ipswich girls Joan Davidson and Doreen or Dorrie Colthup respectively.  My Uncle Hubert and Auntie Joan’s final home was at 3 Lion Street, and in the 1970s they ran a very successful party and wedding reception venue in the back garden of their house called Cabana Gardens.  Dorrie Colthup was the daughter of James Colthup, whose company ran a very profitable furniture and household goods business in Nicholas street.  She lived in their lovely family home at 39 Thorn Street, now an aged care facility called Carinity Colthup Manor.  After their marriage uncle Walter and auntie Dorrie's eventual family home was at 29 Park Street just down the hill from Almondsbury.

Although Herb Williams and Norm Vincent were too old for active service, they were both kept very busy.  Uncle Herb in a letter he wrote to my mother in May 1943, mentioned that he had been occupied for at least six months building air raids shelters at the woollen mills in North Ipswich, and that uncle Norm was also working on a project there, as well as at the new air force base at Amberley.  Many years later in the garden at Almondsbury my brother Trevor found an odd concrete structure poking out of the ground against the fence bordering the neighbouring Williams house.  Apparently, this was the remains of an old air raid shelter that had been filled in after the war.  I wonder if Uncle Herb and Uncle Norm had put their skills to good use back home. Certainly by 1942 many householders in Ipswich were putting their considerable ingenuity and originality in the construction of air raid shelters, according to a newspaper article published in the QT in February that year.  Uncle Norm's contracting business of Harper & Vincent was also kept busy during the war years, winning a number of contracts, including the building alterations and additions to the town hall, and for the construction of flats, houses and other necessary buildings required by the council.

Before and throughout the war Clara and Frank Vincent family and friends would drop in for meals at Almondsbury on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.  The dining table was laden with the fruits and vegetables from the well-tended garden, and the chickens and ducks the family raised.  For example, on New Year's Day of 1945, 19 people sat round the table at tea-time and the two lovely ducks were demolished by them in no time, I'm sure. 

During the war years Clara also sold her ducks to Bill Berry for his shop in Nicholas Street.  Berry’s was the place to buy high quality poultry and hams.  The Berry family were neighbours of theirs, living in Park Street in a house called Glen Raven.  Cooking these weekday dinners and Sunday night teas were an institution at Almondsbury which continued well after the war finished.  By 1947 a very thankful Clara and Frank had all three sons back safely again in Ipswich, but sadly in October that year my grandfather passed away, leaving my grandmother with just her brother Herb and son Norm still living at home.

The 1950s was another decade of change within the family.  In April 1950 Clara celebrated her 80th birthday with a large gathering of her family at Almondsbury.  This photo shows my grandmother Clara cutting her cake, surrounded by some of her invited family.  The party is being held in the large dining room at Almondsbury.  In the background you can make out trophies on the shelves, many for tennis and cricket won by my father.  And the small framed photo underneath and to the right is of my brother John as a small child.  On the wall behind is a large framed photograph of Clara's eldest child, my Uncle Lloyd, taken in his First World War uniform.  The large photos of her other children graced two walls of this big room.

Clara and her guests are all standing beside the long-seated dining table, obscured in this photo by numerous dishes of really delicious looking food.  When not in use for dinners I remember that the table was always covered in a dark red velvet cloth decorated around its edges with long fringing of the same colour.  The story we were told about this table was that our great grandfather George Williams had bought it from Old Government House in Brisbane, possibly when the table was being disposed of in 1886 to make way for new furniture that was being specifically made for Old Government House at the time.  My great-grandfather then proceeded to cut the table down to fit his own dining room.  If true, it must’ve originally been a very long table as it is still 2.7 metres long and 1.17 metres wide.  At least 14 people can sit around it very comfortably.  My brother Trevor now uses it for his family gatherings.

Clara still enjoyed cooking and sharing meals with family, and Sunday night tea at Almondsbury continued to be a regular event.  She also started the tradition of Wednesday night dinners for my brother John and sister Julie.  In December 1953, 40 guests were invited to a Christmas party hosted by my grandmother along with her daughter Hilda, and her three daughters-in-law - Joan, Dorrie, and my mother Salme.  A brightly illuminated Christmas tree dominated the dining room and carols sung around it was one of the highlights of the evening.  My cousin Max remembered the Christmas parties and recalled great uncle Herb dressing up as Santa and distributing presents.

Sadly, my grandmother Clara passed away in January 1954, the year I was born, so I have no memories of her except for the frequent mentions by family of her kindness and generosity.  It was during the mid to late 1950s before my brother Trevor and I started school that we were each looked after in turns by our uncle Norm Vincent and great uncle Herb Williams at Almondsbury during the day, while our mother was working.  Our uncles also continued the Wednesday night dinners for us all that my grandmother had started, and these we all remember very well.  They were great times for us to explore the house, the gardens, and the old stables. 

The sketch on the screen at the moment was drawn as I remembered it at this time.  The best room at the front of the house was to the left as you entered from Park Street via the gate under the white lattice pergola covered in yellow flowered allamanda, and through the front door.  This room was always bathed in a soft bluish lavender light, the result of sunshine streaming through the tinted glass panels of the french doors which led onto the veranda.  I thought it was magical.  It was definitely the good room, furnished more like a parlour and never really used by us.

It was here that Uncle Norm Vincent had set up a music stand ready for his corner to practice.  Like his brothers, sister, uncles, and aunts, he was very musical and was a long-term member of the Ipswich Model Band.  Straight ahead was an imposing cedar staircase which led up to the attic rooms.  These were rather gloomy and contained several beds and a huge collection of assorted Williams and Vincent family bits and pieces.  I remember Uncle Herbie would sometimes stand at the top of these stairs and beckoned to my brother and me to come up to the attic, but we were both rather frightened to go up, as hanging on the wall of the landing was a very large framed print of a battle scene - dying or dead soldiers lying in awkward positions on the ground, mounted soldiers on distressed horses, smoke from cannons - all quite terrifying.
Thinking about it now, it was most probably a famous scene from the Crimean war of 1853 to 1856.  The story that has been handed down in the Williams family was that George's eldest brother James was a drummer boy in the British Army, and had died on the Crimean Peninsula around 1854, at the age of 16. Possibly this picture was hung there to remember him. 

In a small room under the house at the bottom of the internal kitchen stairs leading from the pantry was Uncle Norm's sturdy table saw with a naked saw blade on top - another scary item.  The saw table faced the downstairs porch entrance.  Joining this area was the small room that dad had used as his dental surgery back in the 1930s, but was now filled with dusty old furniture and books and timber.  Deeper under the house was the old billiard room, where a stuffed fox's head and some deer antlers were mounted on the wall.  We didn't spend much time there.

Outside the old stables were a great place for us to be creative.  The horses were long gone of course, and our Uncle Norm had converted most of the space into his carpentry workshop, with a lot of adjacent areas for storing yet more timber.  My brother and I would often pop in there on a Wednesday afternoon before we were called in for dinner, and I remember him toiling away at some wooden creation, while I laboured with my own. Uncle Norm was most encouraging, letting us use his hammers and saws and small nails on little bits of wood, with a “careful of the glue” pot when he left us to our own devices.  He still used horse glue and sometimes had a pot of it heating up over a small wood chip fire on the grass.

If we weren't in the stables, we were most probably in the vast vegetable garden which ran down from the back of the house towards the dividing wall with the Williams house on the corner.  To get there we had to pass a fine chook pen with vines of sweet grapes growing on the roof.  Turning left we would come across rows of vegetables -  green beans and broad beans, kohlrabi, broccoli, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and I clearly remember once raiding a long row of peas and hoping they weren't needed for our dinner that night.  At that time Almondsbury was situated on a much bigger block of land.  The chickens and the vegetable and flower gardens were definitely Uncle Herbie's domain. 

Most Wednesday afternoons after school we would walk up Denmark Hill from our house in Court Street, past the magnificent Walker house “Gooloowan”, and finally down to Almondsbury.  We didn't use the impressive front entrance but would slip down the side of the house, climb up the stone steps, and cross the veranda to the door which led straight into the large kitchen.  This is where we always ate dinner. 
The kitchen was a very large room with a huge ornate mirrored sideboard on one wall which held the serving bowls, tureens, and dishes.  Near the veranda windows were large wooden bins to hold flour, rice, sugar and so on, the contents of which would have been bought by the sackful when the house was full of family.  The long kitchen table ran down the centre of the room.  Our Uncle Norm, with help from Uncle Herb, would have spent the afternoon preparing plain but delicious food with fresh vegetables and fruit straight from the garden and all cooked to perfection using fine old metal early cooker gas stove.  Uncle Norm was a wonderful cook and I still remember the taste of his delicious puddings, both yorkshire with roast beef, or rice for dessert. 

After dinner we children would gather around the long table in the formal dining room next door while Uncle Herb would sit in his large armchair close to the old valve radio and Uncle Norm would take to the chaise longue, and we would try very hard to be quiet while they listened to the ABC news at seven o'clock.  As we were usually playing competitive games of dominoes, checkers or cards we often heard a sudden “shush”, especially from Uncle Herb.  Finally, we were driven home over the hill in Uncle Norm's old canvas-top green 1930s Chevrolet which we rudely called “the bomb”. 

So, it came as a terrible shock to learn that our dear Great-uncle Herbie had passed away peacefully in his sleep on the 11th of November 1961, a week before my seventh birthday.  A further shock was to find out that the house was to be sold.  A few pieces of furniture went to the other family members, but my parents ended up with a good deal which they used to furnish a recently bought beach house, and this is why my brother and I still have some Almondsbury furniture today. 

But once again this was not yet the end of a member of the family living on Almondsbury land.  If you look closely at this photograph you can see a very modest but solid purple 1960 style house downhill to the left of Almondsbury.  This house was owner-built on the site of the old vegetable garden by my uncle Norm Vincent after Almondsbury was sold in 1962, and where he lived very happily until he passed away in 1981.  And the Wednesday night dinners continued in his new home right through to the end of my high school years.

Almondsbury house was an important gathering place for generations of family.  The Williams and Vincents, who lived there like many other Ipswich families of their time, helped to shape the economic cultural and social life of Ipswich and further afield.  Almondsbury and the other associated family houses nearby stands as an eloquent testimony to the contribution of these families over more than a century. 

Finally I am so very grateful to Brenda Williams, Walter Williams's daughter-in-law, for giving me copies many years ago of her detailed research of the very complicated Williams family trees, which first inspired me to delve deeper into the history of the family.  To the noted Queensland historian Dr Judith Mackay who very kindly gave me access to her research notes on Frank Williams and my family.  In particular, my brother Trevor and cousin Max Vincent for providing me with their memories of both the house and our history.  Thank you for joining me this evening.

Melanie: Thank you so much Laura. That was … I really loved how you told the story of the house, and you were sort of interweaving the story of the house and the family together.

Laura: Well I was trying to make Almondsbury … it is the centre, it was the centre for the family for generations… yes, still is really.  Actually you know, our spare bedroom here, our guest bedroom we call the Almondsbury room because it is furnished with Almondsbury furniture, which is why I think about the house every day - where I look I've got pieces all through the house, and so it's always it's always there in my mind.

Melanie: Well it's nice to know.  For those who aren't aware Laura is actually living in Canberra, so thank you very much for joining us.

Laura:  That's that's fine. That's good.

Melanie:  …from your chilly home in Canberra.

Laura: No, it’s beautifully heated.  We've got the heater going full blast at the moment.

Melanie: But it's also nice to know that you've got just that touch of Ipswich still … um your connection in your home there.  How did you actually (just whilst we're waiting for people to add their questions to the chat - so please anybody if you have any questions for Laura, please add them to the chat section.)  So, whilst we're waiting for some of them to come in, how did you get started with your family history?

Laura:  Well I started with family history on my mother's side because my mother has so few … I mean on my mother's side I have one cousin and her two daughters, that's it.  That and because they migrated to Australia, all the rest of the family was left overseas, so I never knew them.  So, I started with my mother because I thought once she goes, I'm not going to know anything. 

Unfortunately, of course, I forgot about the other side of the family - the Vincent and William side, and my father died when I was 17. And you know at that age you don't … you think okay, and then later on I thought oh yes, the Vincents … I really should know a bit more about the Williams and Vincents side. 

One of the relations had written a book called the Williams of Stonehouse and lent a copy to my brother, and of course he finally got (this my brother John, not my brother Trevor) and he finally got around to letting me read it, and I thought - I didn't realize there were so many members in the family.  I didn't understand at this point how many children George and Georgina had, and for some reason … I don't know why, people always sent my older two brothers information, and Brenda Williams had sent him copies of all the research work that she had done.  This would have been … oh gosh, we've just moved to Canberra, so it would have been early 1990s.  And she sent him these copies of all the Williams family trees that she had laboriously worked over and finally he let me see them (after he'd held on them for a year), and she had asked him questions about it, so I answered the questions that she wanted to know and when I  looked at all that, I thought, “My goodness there are a lot of people I need to know about”.

And, of course you know, you're very busy with all the children and moving interstate, moving countries, working full-time.  When I retired, I just randomly put my father's name into the search engine and up came Trove, and I was hooked.  I thought, “This is brilliant” - there was so much information in there and then of course the internet is the most wonderful tool, used wisely, and that’s really what inspired me – I had the time then to sit down and work out who all the people were, but unfortunately I keep thinking – “ but I knew these people; I knew uncle Norm, I knew Jack Reed.  Why didn't I ask them at the time?”  And I think it is a lesson to everybody to please ask when you're younger, when people are still around, to try and get the family stories.  But people … you know a lot of the Williams family have done a lot of the information which is wonderful, but it is a huge family and my mum always used to say, “Look there's at least 300 relatives living in Ipswich alone, so you're never going to meet them all”, so there we go. 

Melanie:  I was going to ask you, what advice you would give to other people wanting to research their family?  As an old historian myself I think that advice … you're just asking people. 

Laura: Yes, could I just say one more thing about this.  Quite a few of the photos that I found were negatives.  I was searching downstairs at Court Street once - I was fiddling around under the house, and there was an old cupboard and then there were a stack of negatives.  And my husband developed them, and they were of Almondsbury, a lot of people, and in 19… it must have been 1987, we had a little reunion at my auntie Hilda's house, and one of dad's cousins, Fitz Vincent was there, and I thought, “Oh I'll show him these photos because I think that's him in the photo”, and he wasn't interested until I showed him the photo, and he said, “Good Lord, that's me!”  Now foolishly I said, “Would you take these photos with you and put the names on the back?” 12 months later his son knocked at our door and said, “Oh I found these photographs”.  His father had died, the photographs were still on his bedside table, and there were no names.  So, my advice is to sit with someone and get them to tell you the names, and you write them on the back.  Otherwise it sometimes doesn't happen. 

Melanie: Well, as a photo historian I agree because it is so frustrating when we get photos in the collection and we want to give everybody a name…

Laura: Yes

Melanie: … and not being able to do that.  But it was actually through photos that we first met - when you asked … you were looking for photos by Harry Williams …

Laura: That's right.

Melanie: … the photographer.  I do actually have one …

Laura: Oh, do you?

Melanie: … here, which is of my great-grandmother …

Laura: Yes.

Melanie: … in William's studio - so for those who are keen-eyed you will notice the chairs - it wasn't just the Whitehead studio that had those wonderful chairs…
Laura:  No, because I have a group photograph of the Vincent family, and my grandmother is sitting in one of those buried chairs, yes.

Well we're getting some … a lot of comments coming through, so I'll just read a couple to you.  Andrea says, “That was wonderful, thank you”.  Sandra says, “Thank you so much.  Loved hearing the story.  My great great grandfather is Fitzwilliam Williams, one of Marianne's sons”.  Louise writes, “Thank you.  Very informative, especially to hear about the Stonemasons”.  I think that's also interesting to have the Stonemasons based right in the centre of the town.

Laura: It was fantastic.  It was fantastic. I used to love it.

Melanie: I know you've been following our Facebook page … Picture Ipswich’s Facebook page … for the last week or so when we've been putting up Williams’ connected photos, and there have been some wonderful comments of people's memories of walking past the stonemason.

Laura: Oh, it was fascinating.  I mean it was … I suppose in hindsight now it would be strange to have it in the middle of Ipswich, but it was wonderful and that moving table I remember walking past, and the noise of it all.  And when you look very closely at that photograph did you notice the rickety electric wiring at the top?  I hadn't really appreciated it and I'm thinking, “Goodness! Okay”… we'll put that down to the people who bought it out of the family.

Melanie: Okay.  Trevor says, “Well done, he's learned a lot”. (Yes).  Justin wants to know if the current owners of Almondsbury have any interest in its Williams family history.

Laura: I don't know.  I don't know.  The last time I went past it, it looked … Well I've got a little story.  My daughter-in-law is Swedish, and they … my son took her up to the “Lakemba” open day which was a couple of years ago I think.  And it was a grey day and “Lakemba” was one of my brother John's houses, and my son remembers it very well.  He wanted to take his wife to show her … he said, “I'll take you down the hill and I'll show you Almondsbury”.  Well it was all closed up, and it was a grey day and she said, “That is the spookiest house I've ever seen.”  She really didn't take to it and I thought … that made me sad because I thought, “But it was not like that.  It was always, you know, full of fun and people” and … but you know people buy houses and I'm not sure whether you know - if you buy a house where everyone's poking their nose like I am over the fence, maybe you don't want so many people walking past. 

But it would be a real shame to see it, you know, to see it not looked after, because it really is an important house, and I think the architecture is important as well, because it's very it's very much of the Gothic Victorian housing that was being built around Gloucestershire.  I mean, that was the style and I can see why when my great-grandfather arrived and he went. “Oh yes, I can do this with sandstone blocks.  There they are up the road.  I can make something that I'm familiar with”.  However, he also added the veranda to make it far more for the climate of Ipswich rather than having the traditional without, because there aren't many houses with verandas in England, I found out. 

But yes, but his family, I mean the Stonehouse … I don't know people are familiar with that on the D’Aguilar Highway.  That's another very important Williams house where the stagecoaches used to stop.  There's a very big Williams family connection there as well.  The funny thing about that house … it's called Stonehouse, but it's not because it's made of stone, it's because it's Stonehouse after the little village of Stonehouse - which is near Almondsbury, which is now Thornbury, which is I think the 15 MacAlister Street. Back of my mind I thought that was called Thornbury, but I wasn't 100 percent sure, but they tended to call the houses after villages of course that they came from, except “To-Me-Ree” which was aboriginal.  I think Sydney May was very much into aboriginal names and he called it that, but yes.

Melanie: Well, we have some more comments coming in.  The Shannon family have all said that, “We've always known this beautiful home by sight.  Delighted to hear of the families who have lived there.  Thank you, Laura, for a well-researched presentation”.

Laura: That’s lovely. Well I would like people to go past the house now and actually think, “Oh … oh, you can still see the terraces if you peek over the fence you know!”  Well I can't help it.  The aerial view actually showed it better, but I'm not sure people saw that. But if you look on Google Map for Park Street you can see the terraces.  They're still there - they just need some flowers in them.

Melanie: It's Ipswich - people have got to get used to us looking at everybody else's house.  Well that's what we do. 

Laura: Well I think we all do that.

Melanie: Mel Forbes says that she's heard you speak of so many members of your family over the many years that you've been friends, and it was lovely to hear how they have all tied together.

Laura: Oh that's lovely.  Thank you Mel.

Melanie:  Andrea says thank you again, and oh she doesn't mean to be rude but she has to leave because children need to be put to bed so she gives you all the best.

Laura: Well it is a difficult time.  I was actually hoping my daughter in Amsterdam would hear it but I'm thinking, “Oh I don't think so”.

Melanie: We can share the video with her.  She’ll still be able to hear it.

Laura: That's very true, yes.

Melanie:  Thank you from Jocelyn who says it's very enlightening.  Anthony – “Wonderful presentation”, and he wants to know if it still looks similar, Almondsbury house today compared with how you remembered in the past. 

Laura: Well it looks similar, but of course you do … I mean I'm sure everyone realizes it's … there's two gables that have been put up.  Yeah … they were put on in the 1970s by the Waldies.  I remember when they went in and we all looked at the stick-on brick (because that was really big in the 70s, the fake stick-on brick) and we thought, “How could you put stick-on brick there?”  Apart from the garden and the pergola not being there, and of course the vegetable garden is gone.  I mean it is fairly similar.  The veranda was filled in fairly early on, I think.  I can't recall now whether that's been … I think someone took the filled in veranda at the end there, that came off the dining room. You'd walk out the dining room french doors and into this filled-in veranda so that you could sit out there in all weathers, and that's where a lot of photographs were put up on the walls.  But it is still, you know, apart from those new gables, it is still pretty much how it was, yes.

Melanie: Beth Johnson has written a comment which I'm finding actually quite distressing.  So, he says Keith Williams, one of Walter's sons, once told her that he was looking for glass to press some plants because he was interested in botany.  He found some old glass plate negatives under the house.  He cleaned them off to get the glass.  This would have been around 1993.  He then said, “They were photos around Ipswich.  I suppose people would have been interested in them now”. 

Laura: Yes.  Because I have a feeling my dear brother John … he meant well, but somebody actually contacted him and said, “We found all these glass negatives, do you want them?” and he didn't get around to doing anything about it.  And we weren't living in Queensland, and I'm busy, and this … oh well, there we go.  Because I think quite a few of them also were the actual building of the house.  Good oh!

Melanie: As a photo historian, again, I really didn't need to hear that.

Laura: I know.  Oh dear!  But you know, it is of the time… I mean the 1970s was really when the National Trust in Queensland really got started, because my husband worked … that was his first job - was working for the National Trust, and it got started after the Bellevue Hotel was demolished in Brisbane.  And the National Trust started, you know, started getting going, but the 1970 well the 1970s wasn't a good decade.  The 1960s wasn't a good decade.  The 1950s wasn't a good decade either, really.  (1980s) … well that wasn't so good either.

Melanie: We have another question.  So, did your husband Mark … did he sketch the house? 

Laura: He did.  That's why it's as I remembered it, because I stood over his shoulder back in 1992 and said you've got to do that, and you've got to make sure you've got the allamanda growing on the … yes that's why it is as I remembered it, because he sketched it.  It was actually a Christmas present for my brother John, and uh yes and so we now have it at our house.

Melanie: Okay, well that question came from Kim Mensforth.

Laura:  Oh Kim.  Yes, Mark did that.

Melanie: Ruby says, “Thank you, very interesting”.  Bev Johnson says that the pace family have Almondsbury rented to a friend.  We have a comment from Sue and Sean Cassidy.  So, they actually live in Dougleen and are always looking for information on Frank Williams’ family.  (Right) So they're thankful and you have made them more curious.

Laura:  Ah, well I do have a lot more information about Frank Williams, because as I say Judith Mackay back a while ago was having to get a lot of information about Frank Williams, to get his monuments onto the register.  So, she very kindly gave me all her research notes which was wonderful.  So, I do have a lot of information but it was a very brief talk tonight.  If I did everything I know about everybody you'd still be there, like another few hours I would imagine.

Melanie: Well a few more comments that are coming in but they're all thanking you for tonight's presentation, so I'm going to thank you as well for the presentation very much. All enjoyed it and it was just this incredible contribution that the Williams and the Vincent families have made to Ipswich, through both obviously photography, the buildings, the stone mason, the sculpture, their business photography. I've mentioned photography a few times now. Music, everything … sport - it's been a really great contribution and I love hearing about the different families, of how they have helped to shape Ipswich, so thank you very much again for tonight, Laura.

Laura:  Thank you, I've enjoyed it.  I'll go and research some other members now.

Melanie: And everybody.  So, in attendance, we would really appreciate your feedback on tonight's event. So, De will be sending out a short survey very soon and if you could complete that and return that we would appreciate it.

Now for our next “Chasing Our Past at Home” we are going to be continuing the building theme as we look at “Building Ipswich” and three very important Ipswich architects.  So, we are very fortunate to have three of Ipswich's great prominent historians, Dr Margaret Cook, Judith Nissen and Dr Toni Risson. All three of them together, discussing their contribution to Ipswich by the three architects - George Brockwell-Gill, my personal favourite - Will Haenke, and Bruce Buchanan.  So, this will be a big important event - we've got with all three historians.  They're also going to be discussing their research process as well, to identify the works by these architects.  So, you can register for our next “Chasing Our Past at Home”, which will be on the 8th of June.  You can register for that on the Ipswich Libraries website. 

I’ve also got some breaking news to announce of some future talks that are coming up.  On Wednesday the 9th of June from 6 30 pm to 7 30 pm we have another zoom presentation by Ipswich Libraries, and this one is with David Koch. So, for those who are up early enough in the morning David is a co-host of Sunrise and one of Australia's most well-known experts on business and finance, and he will explore how you can make your personal finance work for you.  So that is Wednesday the 9th of June.  Please book online at Ipswich Libraries.  David has a very impressive career as one of Australia's leading finance journalists and commentators. He's had several finance related career highlights including founding the personal investment magazine launching Money Magazine in the United Kingdom and founding Australia's biggest selling small business magazine “My Business”. Prior to Sunrise he was a Seven network's finance editor and hosted the daily Sky Business report.  So, registrations are open for that. 

And registrations are very soon going to be opening for a talk at Springfield Central Library on Thursday the 17th of June with Liz Ellis.  So three events coming up in June - Chasing Our Past At Home on the 8th of June, David Koch on the 9th of June, and the 17th of June Liz Ellis, so please register and keep an eye out for other future events by Ipswich Libraries via our usual social media and direct emails. 

So, thank you again Laura for joining us, and thank you everybody else for joining us this evening as well.  I noticed we've gone a little bit over time so I think we will leave it there for tonight.  Thank you very much, take care of yourselves and enjoy the rest of your evening.