Addie Caroline Clapp (1871-1936)

Early HSV member

Addie Clapp joined the Historical Society of Victoria on 11 February 1936. Her motivation for joining is not known and she was a member for such a short period that there was no time for her to make her mark, if that had been her intention. Eight months after she joined the Society she died at her home, Cobb Cottage, Frankston. She was 65 and the daughter of American-born businessman Francis Boardman Clapp and his wife Isabella Pennock Pierce.

Addie Clapp’s father arrived in Victoria in 1853, during gold-fever days, and was soon operating coach company Cobb &Co’s Melbourne to Ballarat line. His business interests expanded and in the late 1860s, with others, he established the Melbourne Omnibus Company. Not content with that, he lobbied for the introduction of tramways and in 1885 established Melbourne’s first cable tramway. His wealth increased alongside his expanding business interests, which included the manufacture of rolling stock. He faced setbacks in the 1890s Depression but remained involved, despite being blind for his final twelve years.

Addie Clapp was one of seven children (four daughters and three sons) born at St Kilda between 1869 and 1885. They later lived at ‘Airlie’ then ‘Endion’, Domain Road, South Yarra. She was used to a ‘high society’ lifestyle. Her brothers were educated at Melbourne Grammar School and went on to careers of some note. She matriculated in January 1888 but had no need to work.

During the 1890s, despite the Depression, Addie and her siblings moved in high society. They attended Vice-Regal balls, entertainments and parties at venues such as Cliveden and the Melbourne Club. They took their place at charity balls and charity events. Their social peers included Miss à Beckett (later Edith Harrison Moore) and Ada Armytage and her sisters. (Ada Armytage and Edith Harrison Moore were both HSV members.)

Addie travelled extensively. In 1890, aged 20, she and her sister June set off for England, just as the decade of ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ was giving way to years of Depression. Ten years later, as a new century dawned, she and debutante Ivy Chirnside, two ‘well-known society girls’, left for a two year visit to Europe. (Ivy, the granddaughter of Andrew Chirnside of Werribee Park, married in London in December 1901 and died as a result of childbirth five years later.)

On her return to Australia, Addie rejoined the family enclave at South Yarra where she and her sisters June and Mary lived with their parents. June was described in electoral rolls as a dressmaker and Mary as a designer. It was a little more upmarket than it seemed. Up until 1921 when they dissolved their business, they had their own fashion label ‘Sorelle’ [Sisters], with premises in Flinders Lane, Melbourne and in Sydney.

Throughout the early 1900s Addie visited England regularly, sometimes with June and sometimes with Mary. June married Hector McDonald in 1913. Their younger sister Bell married Dr Arthur Langley the following year. The sisters continued to live in close proximity to one another and when Bell’s husband died of meningitis soon after their marriage she moved in with the McDonalds.

Addie’s father Francis Boardman Clapp died in September 1920 at his home in South Yarra. Her mother died in Paris in November 1921 while travelling with Addie and her widowed sister Bell. With the death of their parents, their life in Domain Road was at an end.

References to Cobb Cottage, Frankston began to appear in newspapers in December 1919 and it was at this time that Addie moved to Frankston to live, at least in the summer months. She continued to travel and her Melbourne address was given as Wilton House, Park Street, South Yarra where she lived with her unmarried sister Mary, at least until their return from England in 1924 when it seems they took up permanent residence at Cobb Cottage.

Addie and Mary took one last trip to England in 1928 then returned to Frankston where Addie died at Cobb Cottage in 1936 aged 65 and Mary died in 1955 aged 86.

Was Addie interested in wider historical matters? It seems not. However, the name they gave their Frankston home – Cobb Cottage – speaks to their appreciation of their heritage and their father’s business interests that made their lifestyle possible.

Cheryl Griffin, 2 November 2023

Sources:
RHSV membership records
Victorian Birth, Death Marriage indexes.
Victorian electoral rolls
TROVE collection of online newspapers
UK Outward shipping records
Ancestry family tree
Father’s biographical entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/clapp-francis-boardman-3209
Brother Harold Winthrop Clapp’s entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/clapp-sir-harold-winthrop-5657