Ikerrin: Buying into the dream

The ‘Great Australian Dream’ conjures a picture of a home of one’s own, suburban security, a three-bedroom brick veneer, trimmed lawns and backyard barbeques. This collectively held aspiration for home ownership gained traction in media and literature from the 1960s.

The ‘Great Australian Dream’ grew in tandem with disposable income, government urban development policies and strong media narratives encouraging home ownership in suburban areas, during an era of prosperity following the Second World War.

Prior to the First World War, suburban expansion in Melbourne readily subscribed to the ideas and philosophies of garden cities where detached dwellings on larger lots encapsulated the idea of rus in urbe, the illusion of countryside in the city.[1]

Irrespective of the era, home ownership and buying into the dream brought status and pride to homeowners, and conversely, for those unable to afford the dream, it cast a stigma and a sense of inferiority.  However, neither side was exempt from financial stress.

Very Substantial Family Brick Villa

Auction notice for 69 Weinberg Road, Hawthorn 1911.

In September 1911, my great grandfather, John Sheehy Meagher, attended an auction and purchased a villa with wide verandahs, bathroom, pantry, scullery, washhouse and stabling set on land just short of an acre at 69 Weinberg Road, Hawthorn.[2]

John S Meagher with sons (left to right) Vincent, Jack and Wilbur at 69 Weinberg Road, Hawthorn c.1912.

The title for the commodious property was settled on 11 April 1912.[3] Six months prior to the auction, John had been widowed. He was 49 years old and had six of his seven children living at home.  The certificate of title does not detail a mortgage over the property, indicating John paid for the property in full.

The property in Weinberg Road (now known as Wattle Road) was located directly to the rear of the house John had rented for 14 years in Manningtree Road, Hawthorn. The upgrade was substantial; the new property on approximately 3640 square metres dwarfed the rental property, a double fronted Victorian cottage with eight rooms on a 646 square metre block. John named his new abode, Ikerrin. A romantic nod to the Irish barony of the Meagher clan.

It is easy to imagine John and his late wife Catherine Sophia (née Carden) saving what they could as they reared their children in their rented premises. Whilst home ownership wasn’t out of reach for the middle and labouring classes as it was to a large extent in Britain, the Melbourne property bust of the 1890s curtailed homeownership for a few decades. The percentage of tenancies in Hawthorn in 1911 was calculated to be approximately 64.1%,[4] whereas home ownership in metropolitan Melbourne was 37%.[5]

The large property provided a private place and garden for the bereaved Meagher family. Ample space for growing boys, dogs, chooks, fruit trees and a vegetable patch. It was a suburban sanctuary away from the stress in the city and John’s office at Selborne Chambers, where he worked as a barrister. A place to anchor the family down tight, a place to call their own.

John S Meagher (rear) with his youngest sons, Vincent and Jack in the backyard at 69 Weinberg Road, Hawthorn c.1912.

It could also cater for additional household staff; a necessity given John needed help with running the home whilst he maintained his responsibilities as the breadwinner. Eileen Chapman, a daughter of Catherine’s sister Fanny Chapman (née Carden), moved in with the family to help John in rearing the younger children.

Miss Eileen Chapman’s hand written calling card.

Grief and financial worries

John was not only consumed by his grief when he purchased Ikerrin. He was also very concerned about his financial affairs and providing for the youngest of the family.

On 31 January 1912, the registration of the Tongkah Sapam Tin Dredging Company (No Liability) under the Companies Act 1890 was advertised in the Age with John listed as one of five founding shareholders with 100 shares, valued at £1 each, requiring an outlay of £100.[6]

Newspaper advertisement for Tongkah Sapam Tin Dredging Company 1912.

In John’s first letter written from Ikerrin on 14 February 1912, to his eldest son, Lux, who was working as a journalist in Western Australia, John disclosed the pressures he was experiencing at the time. ‘With regard to sending you a cheque for a part of Hunters fees the fact is Luxie I am desperately in need of money myself. I am so harassed & encumbered that I don’t know where to turn. Price has been sending me some nasty letters for his bill and at present I am quite unable to pay even my life insurance practically the only thing upon which the younger children have to rely – I did promise to pay half, at present I am quite unable to do so, & the present prospects are gloomy in the extreme. Do what you can & if I possibly can I will help you.’ [7]

Despite the cheerless prospects John was keenly feeling, he was optimistic for his son’s prospects and wrote paternalistically in the same letter of budgets and a savings plans to pave the way for Lux’s future overseas travels:

‘I need hardly tell you that we are all highly delighted with your great good fortune. Just think of it, you will have nearly twice as much to keep yourself as a Bendigo miner has upon which to keep himself, a wife and family! Now seriously Luxie is this enormous colossal “rise” going to do you any good or not? Are you going to fritter away your salary in the hopeless casual way which is, I am sorry to say and as I think you must admit hitherto characteristic of you. If at the end of 6 months you will be no better off than you are now what benefit or advantage will this increase be to you? You have now a magnificent opportunity of doing something for yourself why not resolve to put by sufficient to enable you in a couple of years to take a trip around the world. If you are resolute I think you could live comfortably on 35/- a week. Say 18/- board 2/- laundry 7/- to clothe yourself 8/- pocket money and the rest to put in the bank. Why in 2 years’ time you would have £212 saved quite enough to enable you a modest way to see England Ireland and also part of Europe.

That would be worth saving for indeed. Again you must remember that you will never again – unless you are exceptionally fortunate – have such a proportionally big salary and unless you now resolutely make up your mind to save something you will never be able to do it. Your existence will always be a precarious one living from hand to mouth and always involved with trouble debt and especially with never a feather to fly with. Why I know many clerks in the Civil Service who have been there for more than 20 years, who have passed their exams and are only getting their £200 a year many of them with wives and families – so I beg of you Luxie start saving something substantial right away & open an [account] in the Savings Bank.’

Releasing the pressure

Excerpt of John S. Meagher’s letter to Lux Meagher 1914.

Despite having paid for the property outright in February, John released the pressure valve on his own financial affairs on 24 May 1912. [8] He took out a mortgage to the value of £750 against Ikerrin from Susannah Duerdin (a private mortgagor) at 5% interest.[9]

In early 1914, prospects had brightened considerably for John; his investment in tin mining had proven to be a good move. John wrote as much in his correspondence to Lux in April.

No I am not going to become a Magnate. I shall spend a little run ___ but I shall take more pleasure in hoarding, not for myself but so that you and the rest of them may have a better start than I had and I will try to arrange matters if I have any money to leave – which is problematical because after all mining is ____ – So that the hoarded money may not be squandered notoriously and suddenly … Jack doesn’t understand that and “we struck it”, but Vin does.

In July of the same year, John signed off his letter with:

By the way I was examined on behalf of the National Mutual Society for a policy of £1000, on my life the other day. I passed the examination & paid the yearly premium 46 on which a policy will in a day ____ I feel first rate in health thank God, though not altogether easy in mind.

Dark clouds on the horizon

As John alluded to with his statement in the letter written in July, there was much to worry about. In the same letter, he wrote. The outbreak of war, between Austria and Serbia has set all stocks a rocking & if a European war becomes general goodness knows where it is to stop.

A few months later in October 1914, his worries escalated again when Lux expressed his interest in signing up to the war effort. John was bereft and sent an emotional letter to Lux arguing vehemently against Lux’s enlistment, finishing his case with this heart wrenching explanation, ‘There is another reason which I am diffident in putting forward and it is this. All dividends have stopped, money is tight at the Bank, it will take me a desperate struggle to find money to answer my commitments with regards to Trongs. Your 30/- a week which was a trifle to me three months ago will in future help to keep things going. All of our fortunes Vins & Jacks & Mary’s & Wilbur’s, yours and mine are all in Trong. I have no doubt whatever that in the end we will do well & will be handsomely provided for but in the meantime there will be many a dark and anxious hour for me.’

Achieving rus in urbe

L-R Frank Meagher, Vin Meagher (facing camera), Lux Meagher (rear), Jack Meagher (front), Tufty the fox terrier and John S Meagher c.1917.

In 1917 John discharged the mortgage after Duerdin died. Whilst he was free of the financial burden of a mortgage, the worries of the War were not over. His son, Leo had been at the front since late 1915 and, another son, Frank was preparing to take up the cause the following year. Lux did not enlist in the end and returned to Melbourne to study medicine.

Certificate of title excerpt for 69 Weinberg Road, Hawthorn.

John’s candid correspondence tells us of his efforts to secure the future prosperity for his children and the worries associated with these efforts. He alludes to his early struggles, which can be read about here, an experience he seeks to shield his children from. The home doubles as a safe haven for his boys to grow up in, and a place to return to from the War in Europe.

I had thought of having the garden in royal order for Leo’s arrival but that imposter clone who started in December half- finished it, has not yet come back. So things are not as shapely as they might be. Nevertheless there’s a new lawn, beautifully green opposite the windows of the morning room & the roses are glorious. J S Meagher letter to Frank Meagher 7^th April, 1919.

John’s investment in the property in Weinberg Road predates the aspirations of the ‘Great Australian Dream’ as we know it, but it provided a much-needed family home and solid anchor during the unsettling years of bereavement and the First World War. It cannot be said that John was consciously pursuing the rus in urbe ideal, but the place did bring him and the family immense pride, and their little piece of countryside in the city was beautifully captured in a watercolour painting of Ikerrin by artist Victor Cobb.

[1] Graeme Davison, The Rise and Fall of Marvellous Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, Second edition, 2004, p.170

[2] ‘Advertising’ in The Age, Wednesday 13 September 1911, p.2.

[3] Certificate of Title, Vol. 3562/394, 69 Weinberg Road, Hawthorn.

[4] Dingle, A.E & Merrett, D.T., ‘Home Owners and Tenants in Melbourne 1891-1911’ in Australian Economic History Review, vol.12, no.1. Mar 1972, pp.21-35.

[5] Andrea Gaynor, ‘Harvest of the Suburbs: An Environmental history of growing food in the Australian Cities’ University of Western Australia Press, 2006, p.6.

[6] ‘Advertising’ in The Age, 31 January 1912, p.16.

[7] Letter JS Meagher to Lux Meagher, 14 February, 1912.

[8] The principal of loan adjusted for inflation was equivalent to $1500.00 in 1990. Certificate of Title, Vol. 3562/394, 69 Weinberg Road 24 May 1912

[9] S.D.Duerdin, Wills and Probate, VPRS 28/P3/ unit 700, item 149/376 page 28 list of mortgages and mortgagees.