Elsie Margaret Traill (1876-1946)

Elsie Margaret Traill was the third of five daughters born to Jessie Francis Montague (née Neilley) and George Hamilton Traill, manager of the Melbourne branch of the Oriental Bank of London.

Elsie’s parents were married in 1868 at the Neilley family home, ‘Rostella’, in the East Tamar district north of Launceston. Jessie, aged 20, was the youngest of eight children and seventeen years younger than George, a widower. The pair had been introduced by Jessie’s brother-in-law William Anderson, one of George’s colleagues at the Oriental Bank. Another of her brothers-in-law, the Reverend Henry Plow Kane MA, officiated at the wedding.

The couple made their home at ‘Westra’ in Brighton Beach, which in the 1870s was quite a small settlement that grew up around the railway line. Steam trains serviced the district that was primarily bushland, farms with dairying and market gardens, but would expand into a thriving beach suburb over coming decades.

The first of the Traill daughters, Fanny, was born at home in 1870, but she died only five months later. Kathleen arrived in 1874, Elsie in 1876, Minna in 1878, with the baby of the family, Jessie Constance, in 1881. The siblings remained close, and, as their mother kept in constant contact with her Neilley sisters and the girls maintained strong relationships with aunts, uncles and cousins. George seems a little more remote and suffered bouts of depression throughout his life, which was thought to be linked to the drowning of his first wife and son during a storm at sea in the Bay of Biscay. However, if he was disappointed by the lack of a male heir, it did not diminish his encouragement of his daughters’ education, their ‘cultural accomplishments’ and support for their wider interests.

The collapse of the London Oriental Bank in May 1884 inevitably had repercussions for the Melbourne branch; despite the good health of the Australian business, it entered liquidation. At the time of the public announcement, George Traill was travelling back from England and arrived in Sydney to find himself ‘considerably non-plussed by the state of affairs’, however his good name prevailed, and he was appointed chief of staff of the New Oriental Bank Corporation in September the same year. It would prove to be only a reprieve as business was again suspended in June 1892, one of many banking businesses to close its doors in the early 1890s as Melbourne’s ‘Boom’ years crashed and burned. The circumstances of the 1890s economic depression and George’s retirement do not seem to have appreciably impacted on family life and they continued to live comfortably and to travel overseas as in the past.

From early in the Traill marriage overseas voyages were regular occurrences, even when Jessie Constance was still a baby and Elsie seven years old. In 1890, the family lived in Lausanne while Kathleen and her London-based cousins, Mary and Constance Anderson, attended a Swiss finishing school. Elsie was a bright student and already showing her writing ability too, when a story was accepted for the monthly children’s book, Little Folks, published in London by Cassell & Co in 1892, by which time the family was again in London.

Elsie’s scholastic achievements continued after they returned to Melbourne and in her final school year, 1893, she was awarded the prize for Dux of Brighton High School along with the prizes for English, French and Physiology. This was an astonishing achievement at a time of emotional turmoil; on 1 October that year, her mother Jessie died at home aged only 45. It must have been a severe blow to George and all his daughters, but nineteen-year-old Kathleen appears to have taken on the running of the household admirably, while the younger girls continued their schooling. The following year, Minna received the top prize in the sub-Matriculation examination and, not for the first time, the artistic and talented Jessie, took out the top prize for Drawing in her year.

Elsie entered the University of Melbourne in 1895, and became the 35^th woman resident at Janet Clarke Hall, one of only a few female students at the university. Beginning as a small hostel for women attached to the Anglican Trinity College in 1886, it was the first university in Australia to accommodate women on site, albeit in dispersed accommodation around the campus. With the substantial funding of Janet, Lady Clarke, a new Trinity College Hostel building opened in 1891, which, according to the Principal, Miss Emily Hensley, was intended ‘as a centre for sound learning, true refinement and real culture’. It was not until 1921 that it was renamed Janet Clarke Hall.

Elsie took on all aspects of university life as espoused by Miss Hensley, receiving the Florence Coles Stanbridge Scholarship in 1897, becoming the Senior Student in her final year and one of the victorious JCH Tennis team that beat Ormond College in a close and exciting match. Her fine scholarship was maintained throughout and in her final residential year, 1898, she obtained first class honours in English and Logic and took out the Exhibition in Logic; Elsie graduated Bachelor of Arts the next year and was awarded the 1899 Cobden Club medal.

Far from ending her association with JCH however, she became one of a small band that took up Miss Hensley’s suggestion to form the Trinity Women’s Society in 1899. It was typical of Elsie that she took an active and often leading role, serving on the inaugural committee, and as President from 1934-36, which coincided with JCH Jubilee celebrations in 1935. However, she is possibly best remembered for her substantial gift to her old college that enabled a new wing to be opened in 1930, the E M Traill wing. After Melbourne’s Archbishop Head dedicated the extension, Elsie was invited to open the building with a gold key, which is now part of the Janet Clarke Hall historical collection. Part of her short speech was reported in Melbourne’s Argus: ‘Anything I can do is but a small contribution towards repaying the debt I owe, and my wish to all future students is not merely for success in games or honours in work, but for the spirit which finds its highest ideal in service’.

Not simply rhetoric, Elsie’s high ideals of service were carried into all areas of her life. She was a founding member of Melbourne’s Lyceum Club and, after attending the inaugural gathering of women at Melbourne Town Hall on 4 June 1910, she acted as honorary secretary to the small organising committee. Her detailed report of the initial meeting was circulated widely, received enthusiastically, and ultimately culminated in the official formation of the Club on 21 March 1912. Elsie was one of the office-bearers and committee members who served under the Club’s first President, Pattie Deakin.

Elsie interest in golf, which her father enjoyed, would gradually replace her earlier enthusiasm for tennis. Royal Melbourne Golf Club admitted women as Associates only a year after the club was formed under the leadership of none other than Janet, Lady Clarke. Elsie Margaret was among the early members and the Associates’ honorary secretary for ten years, until 1917, when the women presented her with a gold wristwatch, in recognition of her ‘tireless energy and assiduous attention to the affairs of the club’.

In the 1920s and 1930s she was active in the patriotic Victoria League, an organisation devoted to promotion of the Empire. Not only did she attend the wide variety of lectures by eminent speakers, but she assisted the organisation of social and cultural events and especially through the collection, cleaning, rebinding of books and magazines for distribution to bush schools and libraries, which was a major drive, particularly during the inter-war period.

Service was ingrained in the Traill sisters from an early age and the family attended Anglican services at Cheltenham, Sandringham and St Andrew’s, Brighton and when the family moved further south to ‘Glenmore’’ in Black Rock in 1889, Mrs Traill set up a Sunday School to redress the lack of religious education for children in the district. The school grew steadily under Mrs Traill’s guidance until her untimely death in 1893.

George’s strong, life-long Anglicanism extended to giving land in Black Rock for a small church that was named St Agnes’ by-the-Sea, built in 1899. Kathleen made the altar cloth in fine needlework, George Traill gifted a cross and, a short time after the church opened, he commissioned the Melbourne stained-glass artist, William Montgomery to design and make two windows for the sanctuary as a tribute to his wife, Jessie. One depicted The Blessed Virgin, based on a popular painting, Virgin and Child (1890) by William Adolphe Bouguereau and the other of St Agnes, the church’s patron and an early virgin martyr of Rome. When George Traill died unexpectedly in Rome in 1907 while touring with Minna and Jessie, his daughters installed St Simeon in the nave to honour his memory; it was unveiled in December 1908. The Anglican church proved central to Kathleen and Minna’s service and Kathleen was admitted as a deaconess by the Archbishop of Melbourne in 1904, to serve the Mission to Streets and Lanes, later renamed the Community of the Holy Name. Minna also expressed her wish to join the Order but, in deference to her father’s wishes, refrained from this step until 1910, well after her father’s death.

One torrid summer day in 1913 a bushfire swept up through the ti-tree scrub from the bay shore and razed the little timber church. Undeterred, the congregation, with significant help from the Traill sisters, rebuilt a new church to J S Gawler’s original design, but using bricks this time. Elsie laid the foundation stone on 2 November 1913 and commissioned William Montgomery to remake the three memorial windows to their parents. Elsie contributed more than financial assistance; over time she carved panelling for the nave, chancel and pulpit in Tasmanian oak, as well as the head of the hymn board, brackets for the altar rails and credence; the joinery of the rood screen was enhanced with small carved motifs and inset panels, all in her personal interpretation of Arts and Crafts style.

All Soul’s, Sandringham holds similar carvings by Elsie Traill, some in Australian blackwood. A desk for the Anglican Children’s Home in Brighton, now in the Community of the Holy Name chapel in Cheltenham, had carved doves of the Holy Spirit that must have appealed to children and were less formal than the set of four Canons’ chairs with saints’ names carved across the backboards for Melbourne’s St Paul’s Cathedral (no longer extant). A plaque with the Trinity College coat of arms and ‘Verdon Library’ carved into the timber is installed at Janet Clarke Hall, as well as a similar Arts and Crafts style plaque announcing details of the E M Traill wing in 1930.

Unlike her well-known sister the artist Jessie C A Traill, she rarely, if ever, exhibited her work publicly, although she participated in social activities at the Victorian Artists’ Society from time to time. Most of her woodcarving was specifically for churches or church organisations, with the known only exceptions for the Sandringham home she and Jessie built after the sale of ‘Glenmore’ (and its subdivision into 42 building lots) in 1910; a timber nameplate for the front gate announced the home as ‘Stronsa’, and a newel post in solid blackwood enhanced the interior banister.

Within a few years of the move to ‘Stronsa’, the world would be at war and Elsie and Jessie would contribute to Australia’s war effort in different ways. The Australian Branch of the Red Cross Society was formed in 1914, and both became members. Jessie joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and at the end of 1914 she sailed for England and period of training before spending the next years in France. At home, Elsie worked tirelessly on the Red Cross Home Hospitals committee and was a significant contributor to the Sandringham Military Hospital that accepted its first patients in August 1915. Once again, she was honorary secretary and a quietly efficient organiser, ensuring that all occasions went without a hitch. In November 1915, she welcomed the Red Cross President, Lady Helen Ferguson to open a new recreation room for convalescent soldiers, comfortably furnished by local members. She is also credited with starting the first Red Cross Handicrafts shop in Sandringham, a outlet for returned men to sell their work, and a report in the Melbourne Age in April 1937, noted her handbag being snatched with the proceeds of the takings (£17) from the Red Cross frock shop that was near the Soldiers’ Rest Home in Wirth’s Park.

It was only in the last few years of her life that Elsie Margaret Traill became a member of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. Her reason for joining the group is not clear, especially as she he already had a very full life, including service on the male-dominated Trinity College Council until her death in 1946. It is clear however that she made significant contributions to Melbourne’s social, church, sporting and educational organisations, not only as a philanthropist but as a hands-on worker throughout her adult life.

Bronwyn Hughes, May 2023