Wolstenholme memorial
Tucked away between Robins Oval and the netball courts in Maitland Park is a monument to James Wolstenholme (1855-1910), a Maitland businessman and philanthropist. It was designed as a water fountain and was erected in 1913 by Thomas Browne, a prominent local stonemason, on the corner of High St and Church St. The unveiling was performed by West Maitland Mayor William McLauchlin in front of a crowd of dignitaries including the Mayoress, aldermen, the town clerk, at least one Member of Parliament and numerous other residents.
Click on images for slide shows and captions.
The Wolstenholmes
James Wolstenholme was a prominent member of the Maitland community, well known for charitable acts designed to help those in need and regarded as being always ready to support projects which would promote the advancement of Maitland. His father, also James, had arrived in Maitland from England in about 1842 with his wife Eliza and forged a career that included many business interests. Most significant among these was sawmilling: he established a mill and a timber yard in High St.
James Sr was also a civic figure in West Maitland. He was a long-term alderman on the West Maitland Borough Council and the mayor in 1877. When he died in 1886, the Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser called him ‘one of the worthiest of the older residents of Maitland’. His business interests were passed on to his two sons, one of whom was James Jr who established other enterprises including an ice-making facility.
In 1910 James Jr was building another sawmill near the railway line at Main Creek, Dingadee (north of Dungog) when he died suddenly, probably of a heart attack. He was 55 years old. At the time he headed the firm of James Wolstenholme Ltd, timber merchants and cordial manufacturers.
Photographs of the Wolstenholme premises and timber mill.
(Shared by Peter F Smith on the Facebook page You know you’re from Maitland when… on 16 May 2019.)
Wolstenholme Timber Yard, St Andrew St, West Maitland, c 1911.
The Memorial
The Wolstenholme memorial was constructed of Carrara white marble from Tuscany in northern Italy. It was fixed to a concrete foundation and consisted of a round basin and a polished plain column stretching about two metres in height above the basin. It functioned as a drinking fountain. Two swans graced its base and the column was originally topped by a powerful gas lamp. In all likelihood it would have cost several hundred pounds to construct in Italy and transport to Australia. In today’s terms the cost of building and transporting it across the world and erecting it in Maitland would probably have been at least $10,000.
The Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate on January 13, 1913 described the monument as ‘beautiful’ and ‘artistic’. It noted ‘The necks [of the swans] are gracefully carved while the open wings, skilfully cut, meet around the column.’
The inscription reads ‘Memorial erected by the friends of the late James Wolstenholme, 1912’. The friends were honouring the man’s charitable deeds. In his speech at the unveiling, the Mayor said the monument was both ornamental and a reminder of the uncertainties of life.
Carrara white marble is of very high quality and it has been used in the building of many famous monuments and sculptures around the world. They include Michelangelo’s David in Florence, the Pantheon and the Column of Marcus Aurelius in Rome, London’s Marble Arch, the statue of Robbie Burns in Dumfries (Scotland), the Manila Cathedral in the Philippines and the buildings of the Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Right: Venere di Canova, a Carrara marble statue in Adelaide and said to be the city’s first street state.
(Wikipedia)
It appears as though in its original location the Wolstenholme monument may have been to some extent in the way of the trams which turned off High St onto the spur line to the Maitland Railway Station, though as far as is known it was not an actual impediment to trams passing it. In 1926 (ironically, just after the trams had ceased to operate) it was moved to a site near the station where some time later it was knocked over by a truck and badly damaged.
The memorial outside the Maitland Railway Station, and (right) the damaged memorial.
The memorial was moved again, in 1992, to its present location in Maitland Park. The gas lamp and the water fountain no longer exist, the circular basin is broken and the column itself has become rather tarnished. In its present state the structure is a reminder of the state into which items of public interest can fall if they are not actively cared for: this is also the fate of many graves in cemeteries.
James Wolstenholme Jr is not well known to the people of today’s Maitland, but a number of his descendants still live in the Maitland area.
References
Dark, Graham, ‘Our past: column in memory of James Wolstenholme’, Maitland Mercury, 4 March 2022.
McDonald, Janece and Henderson, Lawrie, Timbergetters, Sawmills and Sawmillers 1800-2011, Maitland region, Janece McDonald, East Maitland, 2011.
Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, 4 July 1886.
Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (NSW), 23 January 1913.
