VICTORIAN PHANTOM HUNTERS

Nested in a glade at the top of a small rise on the outskirts of Frankston is a double-storey white cottage built in a French farmhouse-style. Modest by today’s standards, it must have looked impressive to the locals when first erected in 1855, as most of the ‘townsfolk’ were still living in wattle and daub huts or tents. In some respects, this is entirely apt, for Ballam Park’s initial owners were themselves a pioneering family whose first accommodation in Victoria was itself a tent on the beach at Sandridge, now known as Port Melbourne.  This family was the Liardet’s and their grand patriarch was Wilbraham Frank Evelyn Liardet (1799-1878).

Although the family’s origins were French, Wilbraham’s relatives relocated to Switzerland in the mid-17th century until moving to join other relatives in England in 1761. These English cousins were, in turn, descendants of the English diarist, John Evelyn, whose family seat wasWotton Hall in Surrey. On 5 January 1822, the 22 year old Wilbraham married his French cousin Caroline Frederica (1802-1882). Caroline’s mother was Countess Perpetue Liardet neé de Paul de Lamanon d’Albe, whose family had connections to French nobility. Following his schooling, Wilbraham had joined the Royal Navy for a short period but “found naval life uncongenial” and purchased a commission as a cornet in the Oxford Blues (now the Royal Horse Guards) rising to the rank of Captain.

In 1826, he inherited £30,000 and resigned his commission, but within a short period of time the money was gone. Seeking new horizons (and with the financial assistance of his family, no doubt exasperated by his spendthrift ways), Wilbraham, Caroline, their nine children2 and African-American servant Adam Orange travelled to Australia on the William Metcalfe arriving in Port Phillip Bay on 15 November 1839. For all his earlier extravagance, Wilbraham proved himself to be incredibly resourceful in his new country. The couple’s tents were soon replaced by log huts, then by an extensive wooden building that gradually developed into Port Melbourne’s first hotel The Pier ‘Brighton on the Beach’.3 The family also constructed the first rough jetty of ti-tree poles. It is sobering to register that, as their daughter Josephine recounted some years later, the land from the beach to the township of Melbourne was completely covered in wildflowers and teeming with birds, cicadas, and mosquitos.

In 1840, Wilbraham was awarded the first Government contract to cart mail and goods into Melbourne, an activity maintained by the family for some 18 years. No doubt, it was through this service that he met Benjamin Baxter (or Bagster), Port Phillip’s first postmaster, who was granted preemptive right to the Carrup Carrup pastoral run, not far from the future Frankston, in 1839 (Carrup Carrup was known as Mornington until 1911 when it was re-named Baxter in his honour). Wilbraham’s various business activities were not always successful and he was declared bankrupt in 1845. This did not dampen his entrepreneurial spirit and, being an amateur artist, Wilbraham later executed a series of views of the foundation years of early Melbourne, full of incidental detail, which he attempted to sell via private commission. This was also an unsuccessful venture, but the images were later donated by the family to the State Library of Victoria, and collected into a comprehensive volume published in 1972.

Ballam Park

By the early 1840s, land in the regions around Frankston were already being settled by various pioneering families, with Schnapper Point (Mornington) and environs soon supplying fish and other supplies for the Melbourne markets. The Liardet family would also purchase a ‘broken-winded paddler’, the Agenoria, to ply the waters of Port Phillip Bay from 1854, retitling it a RoyalMail steamer as a consequence of their mail contracts Following their initial lease from 1839, Benjamin and Martha Baxter, Melbourne’s Post Master and Mistress, purchased the Carrup Carrup pastoral run in 1842, which allowed them a further pre-emptive right to any land up to the area now defined by Cranbourne Road. Their friendship with the Liardet family no doubt encouraged the eldest son Frank (1822-1889) to strike out in the vicinity on his own, as he appears in some accounts to have been the lessee of the Ballam Park pastoral lease from September 1843 to April 1850.

The 1855 Foot Survey notes “old cultivation” across the site of the present homestead, apparently marking an area where Frank had once attempted to cultivate wheat. It is against this background, and following the official Government land sales of 1854, that younger brother Frederick Liardet (1823-1888) purchased the 320-acre property in May 1855, then listed as Allotment 3 of Section 6, Frankston North. As its name implies, Ballam Park contained two springs and a creek ran through its northern reaches4, hence the usage of the indigenous term. The homestead was completed by January 1856 of brick, possibly to one of Wilbraham’s designs, and rendered to look like stone (the Liardet family in England possessed a patent for house rendering). Built by Thomas Allchin, who was also responsible for noted colonial buildings such as Sutton Grange in Mornington, it was the first substantial brick residence in the area, with these materials being sourced from Allchin’s own pits and kilns as well as clay dug out of the Ballam Park grounds near its southern boundary. As concrete for foundations was scarce in the early colony, a huge pit was dug instead, lined with large boulders, and then stacked with stones of decreasing size until the hole was filled. Finally, beams were laid across, and the house built directly onto these.

Ballam Park Homestead is built in a French farmhouse-style, facing north in the crib of a hill and the ground floor has a slight inclined midway to allow for this. It was originally erected to a Tshaped plan over two levels, with five or six main rooms. Its steeply gabled main roof, with exposed rafter ends and attic window casements, is clad in corrugated iron though evidence exists to suggest it was originally shingled. A lantern was often hung in the northern upstairs window to act as a beacon for travellers. The magnificent staircase and two upstairs leadlight windows were brought out from France, as was the original front door (lost in the 1994 fire). Initially, the kitchen had a large fireplace with tripodsupported cauldrons for cooking, until this was replaced with an early cast iron stove during a subsequent family’s tenure. Many of the property’s Heritagelisted trees were planted by the Liardets, including the magnificent oak (possibly Victoria’s oldest) and a row of eight olive trees reputedly struck from Georgiana McCrae’s own stock. McCrae’s own trees, said to be the first in Victoria, have subsequently died but the Ballam Park examples are still producing fruit to this day.

In 1859, Frederick bought Allotment 2, which almost doubled his holdings, with the new boundaries being determined by McClelland Drive (then Boundary Road), McMahons Road (off Cranbourne Road), and northwards halfway to Skye Road. After a downturn in the family businesses (and following a new survey of Allotments 2 and 3 to allow for the re-alignment of Cranbourne Road) Frederick sold Ballam Park in 1863 to Daniel Rutter Long, then moved to Raratonga near the Cook Islands becoming (unsuccessfully) a planter. He relocated again, this time to NSW working as a stationmaster at MacDonaldtown where he died in 1889. Three Liardet brothers went to New Zealand, Hector, seeking gold, and St Clere as a naturalist and explorer (both would subsequently run a taxidermy business there). Frank was also induced to visit but returned to Victoria where he died in Rosedale in 1888. It was in New Zealand that both parents died – Wilbraham at Vogeltown in 1878, and Caroline at Wellington in 1882 – having moved there to join their sons.

In 1840, Daniel Rutter Long (1804-1886), his wife Helen (1804- 1906) and their six children arrived in Melbourne from England on the barque Himalaya. The were accompanied on the journey by Mrs Long’s brother Henry Gilbert Jones and her nephew William R Hinks. The family landed at Sandridge (now Port Melbourne) and were rowed ashore by Wilbraham Liardet in his whaling boat ‘ferry’. Helen’s brother, Henry was to become medical dispenser to the aboriginals of Melbourne (or Western Port District) and also produced a remarkable suite of 12 etchings around 1841 – probably the first in Victoria – showing various views of early Melbourne.

The son of a chemist and druggist, Daniel Rutter Long had completed a seven year apprenticeship with fellow Quaker Jacob Bell, founder of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. In Melbourne, he worked first as a surgeon’s assistant in Collingwood and, by 1841, was managing the pharmacy of Dr Wimott, the first coroner in Port Phillip. Long was also an artist of “inconsiderable talent who painted hundreds of scenes in oils” of Victoria and surrounding colonies. In 1843, he established his own pharmacy in Bourke Street where Governor LaTrobe’s family were among his clientele.

In 1850 Daniel Rutter Long built premises on the corner of Bourke and Stephens (now Exhibition) streets in Melbourne, comprising a pharmacy on the ground floor with a residence above. In 1856, he put the business into the hands of his son Henry and surgeon James Edward Neild (who had been employed to sit in the pharmacy and give free consultations) and moved to his residence at Hampden Villa, Malvern. However, this was by no means an early retirement for Long, who soon became the main chemist in Prahran and was appointed Chairman of the Prahran Council in 1858. Later elected Mayor, he was instrumental in building the magnificent Prahran Town Hall, laying its foundation stone and presiding at the opening.

In February 1863, Daniel Rutter Long entered into negotiations to purchase Ballam Park from Frederick Liardet. Long’s daughter Caroline (the family’s eighth child born in 1844) noted in her diary:

 “‘Hampden Villa’, Malvern. Today to our very great surprise Papa purchased ‘Balem (sic) Park’ about thirty miles from Melbourne and eight miles from Schnapper Point [Mornington]! We shall most likely go and live there. It is 525 acres of ground and an eight roomed stone6 house for £700 odd.”7 By late April, various family members had moved in. Caroline’s diary again: “For the first time I write in my diary at ‘Balam (sic) Park’. [We] arrived about 6 o’clock. We left Melbourne in the dog cart at 10 o’clock this morning ... We rested at Mordialloc and had some lunch. ... coming along the 9 mile beach we met Mrs McKenzie’s carriage and four gray horses, it looked splendid ... they were going through the water. Once we had to get out for Dan [Caroline’s brother] found we were sinking slightly in the driftsand.”

(Monday, 27 April [1863]) This excerpt gives a vivid description of the difficulties faced in the period when traversing the route from Melbourne to Frankston. Until the Carrum Swamp was drained by the Paterson Cut in 1879 the direct route from Mordialloc to Frankston was along the hard-packed beach sand. The only alternatives were to go by sea or the much longer journey via Dandenong.

“We are delighted with ‘Balam (sic) Park’ it’s such a pretty place, the house is very nice also, the rooms so large.”

(Tuesday, 28 April 1863) This may be so, but in a later entry whilst visiting the property, Caroline reveals a more churlish side, refusing to come down to the dining room for breakfast until the cow was removed after milking in the dairy adjoining the kitchen as she “cannot abide the smell”. She also mentions a vineyard on the property, which was run by Long’s third son Thomas, assisted by his brother Daniel (junior). Over the years, Thomas was to become closely involved with St Paul’s Anglican Church in Frankston.

In 1865, Ballam Park is listed in the Rate Book as having six rooms, and by 1876, the house had eight with a separate two-roomed cottage, stables and outbuildings. Around this time, the open fireplace in the kitchen was replaced with a cast iron stove with a water boiler on one side. An orchard was established and a row of pines planted along the back of the house(unfortunately, these have had to be removed in recent years as they were deemed to be dangerous). The homestead’s present garden south of the path (or drive) and to the west was also laid during the Long’s tenure, although it was probably initially planted by the Liardet’s.

With the death of Daniel Rutter Long at Hampden Villa in 1886, Ballam Park passed into the care of Trustees, and his son Thomas left the property. Long and his wife Helen are buried under a monumental obelisk in the St Kilda Cemetery. Daniel (junior, 1841-1906) is buried alongside, as is Helen Long’s brother Henry Gilbert Jones (died 1888).8 The descendants of Caroline Long later donated her little rocking chair to the homestead and it now forms part of the permanent display in the upstairs nursery.

The following years (1890-1902) saw a variety of lessees for the property according to the following list:

1890-1891: Property leased to Kemp and Sheehan

1891-1892: Leased to John Jenkins

1896: leased to Alex M Ross

1898-1899: leased to Joseph G Despard

1899-1901: leased to Thomas Crisp

1900: House threatened by bushfires but escapes

1902: Crown Allotment 2 subdivided into 14 lots,

now known as ‘The Ballam Park Estate’.

Crown Allotment 3 sold to Cyril Gower Williams

of ‘Mayfield’, Toorak

Only the barest facts are known about Ballam Park’s next owner, Cyril Gower Voss Williams. He was born in Penmaen, Glamorgan, Wales in 1860, and married Grace Wight (born Kensington, Victoria in 1865) in Melbourne in 1896. Following the subdivision of Crown Allotment 2 into 14 lots (now known as ‘The Ballam Park Estate’), Gower Williams, then of ‘Mayfield’, Toorak, purchased Crown Allotment 3, which included Ballam Park Homestead. Between 1916 and 1926, Williams subdivided the property and sold lots totalling approximately 132 acres, gradually reducing the overall area to 189 acres (76.1 hectares). About 1925, two two-bedroom cottages were erected on the property, one as a gate-lodge on Cranbourne Roadnear the present entrance to the playgrounds. This was then relocated to form the basis of the Housekeeper’s Quarters. By 1927, it seems that Williams no longer lived at Ballam Park. It was leased first to Cyril J. Johnson then to Dr and Mrs Dennis in 1928, who bought it outright in 1946. Cyril Gower VossWilliams died in 1949 and Grace Williams in 1951, both at Toorak.

As a young girl, Alice Aileen Hamilton (who was born at Hawthorn in 1885) visited the homestead at Ballam Park and in one of those prescient childhood moments, vowed to own it one day. Descended from pioneer pastoralist families, her grandfather Alexander Thompson, MD, who arrived in Port Phillip in February 1836, is rumoured to have ‘started’ the village of Geelong, though this has not been reliably confirmed. In 1908, Alice married Charles Edgar Dennis who had been born in 1879 at Terang in Victoria. Dennis was a World War I war hero, mentioned in despatches, who was honoured with an OBE (military) for his bravery. One of the initial lecturers in Melbourne University’s radiology course, commencing 1922, he eventually rose to the position of Hon. Radiologist to the Eye and Ear Hospital and Caulfield Repatriation Hospital.

Twenty years after her marriage, and in a realisation of her childhood wish, Alice Dennis leased the house property of Ballam Park in 1928 and the adjacent block was let to her doctor husband. During their tenure in the 1930s, various internal modifications were completed, including the division into two of the upstairs south-facing room and the installation of a bathroom into one of the new halves. New leadlight cabinets, troughs, built-in robes and plumbing (including a long-overdue hot water service) were also constructed in the bedrooms, dining room, kitchen and scullery.

Alice Dennis is featured in an article in Woman’s World magazine titled, ‘Cattle and Stud Farms run by Australian Women’ (1 November 1937). In it, Ballam Park is described as a “successful Jersey stud farm”, with a herd of 19 pure-bred cows and two bulls, Polwarth sheep, Beagles and breeding pigs. At the time of writing, Mrs Dennis was also the Secretary for the Peninsula Herd Testing Association. During the war years, the property played host to the Girls’ Land Army and in 1944 the old stables were destroyed by a bushfire.

The brick garage Dr Dennis built to replace them now forms the basis of the present Historical Society museum. Until the mid-1940s, the underground tank outside the kitchen window had a hand pump and wooden cover, which Dr Dennis replaced with a concrete slab. In recent years the slab has been replaced with a concrete dome and a new hand pump installed. Two small outhouses are also believed to have been built during the Dennis period, one being a laundry and the other referred to as ‘the kiosk’.

In 1946, Dr and Mrs Dennis purchased the freehold to the property and undertook a further subdivision. During this period, Mr and Mrs Harold Walker rented the Housekeeper’s Quarters from Dr Dennis (this building, added in the 1930s, now houses the Liardet Room, plus storage and administration facilities for the Historical Society). In the early 1950s, electricity was finally connected to the homestead and a television arrived in time for the Olympics. The son of the resident farm manager remembers the Dennis’ as a very religious couple, strict royalists who insisted that all who came for dinner should stand for the national anthem before saying Grace. Dr Charles Dennis died at Frankston in 1960 and, in 1963, Alice Dennis left Ballam Park for good. She was Ballam Park Homestead’s last private owner, and died in 1970 at Glen Waverley.

Following Mrs Dennis’ departure in 1963, Ballam Park passed first into the hands of the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, before it was purchased for the people of Frankston by the local City Council. In 1967, the Frankston Historical Society9 requested to use it as their headquarters, and this was granted at pepper-corn rent with some financial support in return for maintaining the upkeep of the house, a task performed by volunteers ever since. This continuous maintenance was no easy task as the original pit and stone system used in the house foundations settled in an unstable manner, causing considerable cracking and, in one case, partial collapse of a wall. To remedy this, John Sawyer (a previous President of the Frankston Historical Society) supervised the jacking of the house up “two feet at a time”, and laid proper concrete footings around the walls. In spite of the house now having steel reinforcing pins inserted through the upstairs level, there is still trouble with the back wall due to the water table running past the old well near the kitchen, and connecting with the (now dried up) creek which ran from the east across the northern line of property and through what is now Karingal.

The present entrance and drive were made by Frankston City Council after the property’s acquisition in 1964, and the extensive adjoining parklands fronting onto Cranbourne Road now contain playgrounds, barbecues and a small amphitheatre. Also located here are the training grounds for the Peninsula Junior Soccer Club, and the homes of the Long Island and Karingal cricket clubs. On 11 August 1982 a purpose built resource centre was opened (named after the Grahams), the brick garage was extended to become the museum, and a blacksmith’s shop and buggy shed were added. Future plans for the Historical Society include gaining a new bus entrance and visitor car park, and establishing a comprehensive database for all administration and artefacts.

Today, the Ballam Park Homestead occupies only 13 of the Liardet’s original 320 acres. Suburbia may have inevitably intruded, but the little double-storey house stands much as originally built and still under its own oak tree. A witness to more than 150 years of the elements, bushfire, arson and change, Ballam Park Homestead is a living connection back to the earliest days of European settlement in Victoria.

 GHOSTS OF BALLAM PARK