User:E P Hobson/sandbox

Villa Alba, Kew, Australia

Located at 44 Walmer Street, Kew, Australia, Villa Alba is an historic mansion which was built in about 1882-83 for William Greenlaw, the General Manager of the Colonial Bank of Australasia. Villa Alba is of state and national significance being listed on the Victorian Heritage Register Number H0605 and the Register of the National Estate (Place ID	14210).

Villa Alba is open to the public on the first Sunday of each month from 1pm to 4pm. Group tours can be arranged at other times. Villa Alba is owned and maintained by Villa Alba Museum Inc, a community-based not-for-profit organisation.

Victorian Heritage Register
The Victoria Heritage Register states: "Villa Alba is of significance for the outstanding late Victorian painted decoration throughout its interior. The consistently high standard of design in the decoration, and high, and at times, superb quality of its execution, the variety of illustrative techniques, the variety of illusionist effects and the hierarchy of treatments between the rooms of the house all contribute to the significance. The decorative scheme is also of significance as a fine example of the work of the leading Melbourne decorators, the Paterson Brothers. It is one of their first interiors to depart totally from the use of pre-prepared wallpapers of repetitive designs and it is a rare and comprehensive extant example of their domestic work. The decorative schemes in the ground floor hall, the dining room, the drawing, the vestibule, the stair hall, the upper hall, bedroom 1 and the boudoir are also individually of significance as outstanding examples of Victorian decoration.

The property is of significance for its association with William Greenlaw during his most prosperous and prominent years. The scale and design of the house and its surrounding landscaping (of which some ancillary elements survive) are a reflection of the Greenlaw family's social role and aspirations."

Register of the National Estate
"The Villa Alba in Kew is significant for its elaborate interior decoration which demonstrates the taste of prosperous middle class society in the 1880s, and the confidence prevalent during the boom years of Victoria's economic growth. It is extremely rare to find a house which has such quality of decoration both in terms of integrity, design, quality of execution or variety of illustrative effects and techniques.

It is the interior of the house which is of particular significance as when the house was remodelled in 1883 Greenlaw employed Melbourne's foremost firm of artistic house painters and decorators, the Paterson Brothers (Charles, James and Hugh), to paint lavish finishes using stencils, gilding and hand painting on both ground and first floors. In The Villa Alba at least three main artists were employed and something like thirty different frieze patterns were used in the rooms. The painting schemes are both rich in tone with soft colours and delicate in detail with much use of stencilling rather than wallpapers. Much of the technique of painting used is very complex and included not only stencilling but also chalked pounce outlines with hand painting to merge colours. There are also large areas exhibiting freehand painting. There are a great variety of scenes with both stylised garlands, ribbons, festoons, ribbons and cherubs in the French style of art, as well as panoramic scenes of Sydney Harbour and Edinburgh, Scotland and references to Sir Walter Scott's novels. In the hall frieze, putti can be seen engaged in activities such as photography or cricket. The interior decoration includes ornamental pediments over the timber doors, ornate ceiling cornices, ceiling roses and tiled fireplaces with marble mantles. There is some use of parquet flooring. Complementary and luxurious furniture was also commissioned for the Villa Alba's decoration. Today the Villa Alba retains one of the most complete interior decorative schemes of the 1880s in Victoria. The ceilings are mainly intact, as are the friezes, marbled skirtings and doorframes. Some of the walls have been repainted but the original decorative treatments are recoverable, often under only one layer of modern paint. Although some other properties such as Mintaro, Werribee Park, Labassa and Mandeville Hall have similar painted interior finishes dating from the 1880s none exhibit the same extent of surviving decoration as Villa Alba."

The Greenlaw Family
William Greenlaw arrived in the Colony of Victoria in 1856 from Edinburgh, Scotland. Shortly after his arrival he got a job as an accounts clerk with a firm of solicitors. Later in 1856 he joined the Colonial Bank of Australasia as a clerk. (Argus obituary 16/2/1895)

In 1862 Greenlaw, then described as an accountant at the Colonial Bank, married Anna Maria McEvoy, the daughter of James McEvoy, a wealthy squatter who had moved to Melbourne from New South Wales.

James McEvoy had purchased land at Studley Park in 1860. This land had been owned by John Hodgson, a former Mayor of Melbourne and member of the legislative Council(wikipedia entry). Included in the purchase was a two-storey residence in the Classical Revival style called "Studley House".

As a wedding gift, McEvoy placed part of his Studley Park property in trust for his daughter. The property placed in trust was about 1/3 hectare (over ¾ acre) with frontages to Walmer Street and what is now known as Nolan Street and included a single story residence called "Studley Villa" which had been built in about 1860.

In 1870 Mrs and Mrs Greenlaw changed the name of their house from "Studley Villa" to "Villa Alba".

On 11 January 1871, Greenlaw became the Acting General Manager of the Colonial Bank and in February 1872 Greenlaw became the General Manager of the Colonial Bank (Argus 17/11/1873.

In the 1880s Melbourne experienced a rapid and uncontrolled period of real estate inflation and speculation known to contemporaries and later historians as the "land boom".

About 1882 the Greenlaw family apparently demolished the existing single-storey house and built the two-storey Italianate mansion we see today. The house was elaborately decorated by Paterson Brothers, who introduced realistic and illusionistic elements into their work which included grand scale murals. To complement the decoration the house brimmed with the latest Aesthetic and Artistic furnishings and luxurious bric-a-brac.

(Contemporary description in talk of the town).

From 1885 onwards Greenlaw sought private capital to enable him to participate the flood of speculation that was sweeping Melbourne. In 1885 Greenlaw approached the Federal Bank which gave him an overdraft of ₤3,000. In 1887 Greenlaw had dealings with B.J.Fink over certain properties who arranged for Greenlaw to get a ₤30,000 overdraft from the Bank of Melbourne. Greenlaw then obtained a loan of ₤24,000 from the Mercantile Bank. Next came the Bank of Victoria with a loan of ₤22,000.( Michael Cannon The Land Boomers -the Complete Illustrated History 1986 edn. p192)

Greenlaw was a director of the Bay Excursion Company Limited which built and brought out to the Colony in 1885 a fast steamer, the Ozone, for the excursion trade to Queenscliff and Sorrento. (Hobart Mercury 1 July 1885 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/9107256) In 1887 the Australasian Sketcher published a cartoon "Faces at the Seaside" which had caricatures of well-known Melbourne identities at the beach including William Greenlaw sitting astride the Ozone (http:/​/​www.slv.vic.gov.au/​miscpics/​gid/​slv-pic-aaa07574/​1/​mp009924 ). In 1888 the Melbourne Argus reported a "Steamboat Race Down The Bay" between the Ozone and the Courier from the rival Huddart Parker company with Greenlaw offering to bet ₤1,000 that the Ozone was the faster boat. (argus 20/2/1888).

In 1889 Greenlaw was sued along with Charles Paterson, a principal of the firm of decorators who had decorated Villa Alba, as a member of the Fern Tree Gully syndicate for making misrepresentations to the purchaser, Hay, when selling land at Ferntree Gully. Although the Court decided that on the evidence Greenlaw was not a member of the syndicate, the Judge made severe remarks about the conduct of Greenlaw. Mr Justice Hodges expressed concern about the way that Greenlaw was mixing himself up in a land transaction with a customer and how Greenlaw was manipulating cheques between himself and Paterson in such a way that the manipulation was concealed from the directors of the Bank. (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/62245580 Gippsland Times 14 August 1889).

In the early 1890s the land boom burst and Victoria was plunged into a severe depression which led to the bank crashes of 1893. On 6 April the Commercial Bank of Australia closed. Another five banks closed before the Colonial Bank was forced to close on 6 May 1893. A further six banks had closed by the middle of May.

In April 1893 Greenlaw made a secret composition when his debts reached ₤115,000 paying his creditors 6₫ in the ₤ ( Michael Cannon The Land Boomers -the Complete Illustrated History 1986 edn. p190). As Villa Alba was not in Greenlaw's name, it was not part of his insolvent estate and was not available to his creditors. This meant that the Greenlaws were able to continue living at Villa Alba.

In this case however, secrecy had the opposite effect to that intended. Rumours about Greenlaw's composition were passed around the city, its magnitude was greatly exaggerated. Public suspicion intensified, and with it the run on the Bank's deposits increased until the Bank had no alternative but to close its doors. JB Were’s “Official Schemes of Reconstruction “ 1894 says that the bank “attributed the necessity for suspending payment on May 6, 1893, to the feeling of distrust which had arisen among its customers immediately after the suspension of other institutions.” Six other banks had suspended before the Colonial did. Certainly Greenlaw’s composition would not have helped.

The Colonial Bank closed for 65 days before re-opening on 10 July 1893. Michael Cannon in his book incorrectly states that "Greenlaw was later dismissed and disappeared into obscurity". Greenlaw who had been general manager, was appointed as Chief Branch Inspector of the reconstructed Bank on a salary of £2000 per annum (later reduced to £400 per annum in May 1894). He retained this position until his death on 14 February 1895, after having been seriously ill with lung disease for two years (Argus 16 February 1895.

Following her husband’s death, Mrs. Greenlaw sold the contents of the house in a two-day sale in 1897 and leased the house until her death in 1918. The tenants were Colonel Ballenger, the head brewer at Carlton Brewing Company,(Jubilee History of Kew by FGA Barnard page 42)and then Samuel Fripp who purchased the property after Mrs Greenlaw's death. Fripp was the managing director of Rocke, Tompsitt & Co and a director of the Herald & Weekly Times Ltd.

Various Hospitals
In 1950 Villa Alba was purchased by the Royal Women’s Hospital from the Fripp family. It was initially used as a home for nurses and much of the major interior decoration was over-painted.

By the mid-1950s the Henry Pride Wing of the Women’s post-natal hospital for mothers and babies gradually covered the site.

The transfer of ownership of the Henry Pride Wing at Kew from the Royal Women's Hospital to Mount Royal in 1973 and in 1991 the Hospital shifted its geographic focus to the western and northern suburbs of Melbourne. As a consequence, responsibility for the Henry Pride Centre was transferred to the St. Georges and Inner East Geriatric Centre in 1991 http://www.mh.org.au/royal_melbourne_hospital/rmh-royal-park-campus-150-years-of-history/w1/i1001589/

The R J Hamer Memorial Garden
Almost nothing remained of Villa Alba’s original garden. Under the hospital ownership the garden was progressively destroyed. Numerous buildings were built on the garden which was reformed with garden beds flanking the hospital buildings. After the hospital buildings were demolished, the land was used as a site office and access for Xavier College’s building program next door. In 2001 Sydney landscape architect and conservator, Dr. James Broadbent, was appointed to develop a late 19th century landscape plan which would enhance and complement the house at Villa Alba. Although the garden is a reconstruction, in its design it is as accurate to its late 19th century form as the available evidence and Xavier College’s requirements, allowed.

Obtaining evidence of the design of Villa Alba's late 19th century garden was a painstaking process. There were archaeological investigations, which located the site and remains of one of the gatehouses on Nolan Avenue, the outlines of garden beds and one complete garden bed edging tile. This tile has provided the template for the reinstatement of jarrah edging tiles around the garden beds.

As well as the archaeological investigations, Dr. Broadbent examined surveyors' field notebooks of 1894 and 1911, 20th century aerial surveys, a 19th century Greenlaw family photograph, Fripp family photographs from about 1945; Public Works Department photographs of 1950 and transcripts of oral history interviews. He supplemented the analysis of this evidence by reference to contemporary practice of garden design, detail and planting. Little evidence as to the original planting of the garden has been found. The only tree that may possibly have survived from the Greenlaws’ time is a fruiting fig against the western wall along Walmer Street. In the absence of specific evidence it was decided to ‘furnish’ the reconstructed layout only with plants that could be verified as being available in the late 19th century in Melbourne. The plants are mostly new, and selected from 19th century nurserymen's catalogues and other records, because they were popular at the time.

The reconstructed garden is named in honour in Sir Rupert James Hamer, the Premier of Victoria from 1972 to 1981, who was the inaugural Chairman and Patron of the Villa Alba Preservation Society.