Famous Australian Art

FAMOUS AUSTRALIAN ART FOR AUCTION 

JULY 2022 

 

FAMOUS AUSTRALIAN ART 

Dame Edith Walker - Philanthropy And Charitie - Concord West - Sydney

 

Dame Edith Walker -

Eadith Campbell Walker was born on the 18th September 1861 @ The Rocks & she died on the 8th October 1937. 

Eadith was the only child of Thomas Walker, A Merchant and Her Mother Was Nee Jane Hart. 

They moved to "Yaralla", An Italiante Mansion On the Parramatta River At Concord West. 

During her lifetime she was Appointed Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire, & Dame Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire for her work in Philanthropy and Charities. 

She died on October 8th 1937, unmarried & childless. She was cremated @ Rookwood, & her ashes were buried in the family grave at St John's Ashfield. 

She left an estate of 265,000 Pounds. One third of the Residue of the Estate went to The Returned Soldiers & Sailors Imperial League Of Australia, & the real estate went to the Red Cross. 

Before WW1 Eadith  had a flair for Organizing lavish balls, and parties on a grand scale, fetes and charitable functions at her home.... her Guests included Royalty and other important people. 

She was widely travelled and interested in music and art...
She Built an Indian Room to house some of her treasures she had picked up in New Dehli for the 1903 Coronation Dunbar, She Enjoyed reading & collected an extensive library which she bequeathed to the Women's  College at the University of Sydney.
She collected valuable glass, porcelin, paintings and antique furniture. She was a founder of the Queens Club (1912) and a life Member Of The Royal Art Society Of New South Wales. 



She was a part of many charitable organisations including 
- The Women's Industrial Guild
- Queen Jubilee Fund
- Royal Alexandra Hospital For Children 
- The Royal Hospital For Women - Paddington

Eadith also supported religious, educational institutions, 
She maintained her staff in their old age and built cottages for needy men . 


Eadith never got married. Her Aunt Joanna Had instilled in her the fear of fortune Hunters. She was a shy, but strong and capable woman who disliked Publicity, & spent most of her later years  at "The Astor" - Macquarie Street. She died in 1937, with her dog Cobber beside her. 
Returned Servicemen & Scouts lined the Approach to the Chapel at Rookwood where she was cremated. Her estate sworn for Probate at 265,345 Pounds was disposed of in accordance with the terms of her fathers will after the Walker Trust Act was passed in 1939.

 

Beatrice Miles - Known As Bea Miles - Infamous Sydney Eccentric

 

Thomas Shakespeare - And Condobolin NSW

 

The Great Country Town Of Condobolin NSW

In 1899, The Founding Editor Of Condobolin's Second Newspaper Published A Ghastly Recipe To Destroy Crows Extracting A Heavy Toll On Sheep. 

Thomas Shakespeare Considered Crows, Which Killed ByPlucking  Eyes From Sheep And Young Lambs Bellies, As Too Cunning To Take Poison & Too Fast To Be Shot When He Shared A Recipe Used By The Graziers Around Forbes, Where The Young Editor Had Served His Apprenticeship. 

It Involved Mixing A Half " Stick Of Phosphorous. In 6 pounds Of Fat, Then Pour Over Boiling Water. 

"Take The Poisoned Fat & Spread It On Green Skins, Or Take Out The Eyes Of Dead Sheep, And Fill Up The Sockets With The Mixture, Spreading It Well Over Tidbits That Crows Delight To Feast On" He a Wrote.  The Birds Will Certainly Eat The Fat & succumb

With reports During The 1897 Drought Of Sheep's Deaths "Made Horrible By Crows Eating Their Eyes Out Long Before Death Relieves The Poor Brutes", Control Measures Included  A Twopence Payment For Crows Heads By Condobolin's Stock Board. The Pastures Protection Board Paid  Over 2000 Crow Heads In 1912. 

Surveyor George Evans Explored And Named The  Upper Lachlan River Area in 1815, With a Surveyor John Oxley's Following In 1817. Thomas Mitchell Camped On The Town Site As He attacked The Lachlan In 1836. English Stockbroker Benjamin Boyd Held More Than A Million Acres In The Riverina By 1845, While William Lee Took Up About 19,200 Acres On The Lachlan, Naming It For Wiradjuri Word Cundabullen In 1848. A Town On The Junction  Of The Lachlan And Goobang Creek - Almost In The Centre Of NSW With "Inexhaustible Supplies If Water" - Was Gazetted In 1859. 

Arriving In Condobolin In 1894, Shakespeare's Opposition Dubbed Him "The Beardless Boy"  When The First Edition Of His  Lachlander Appeared The Day After His 21st Birthday.  Leaving To Pursue Politics In 1894, Shakespeare And His Two Sons Later For filled An Ambition To Found A Newspaper To Serve Australia's Capital, Publishing The First Canberra Times In 1926

Sister Elizabeth Kenny - (20 Sept 1880 - 30 Nov 1952) - Medical Pioneer

 

Sister Elizabeth Kenny - Medical Pioneer 

Sister Elizabeth Kenny (20 September 1880 – 30 November 1952) was a self-trained Australian bush nurse who developed a new approach for treating victims of poliomyelitis, which was controversial at the time.

Her method, which she promoted internationally while working in Australia, Europe and the United States, differed from the then conventional medical practice which called for placing affected limbs in plaster casts. Instead Kenny applied hot compresses to affected parts of patients' bodies followed by passive movement of those areas to reduce what she called "Spasm".

Kenny's principles of muscle rehabilitation became the foundation of physical therapy, or physiotherapy.

•••Early life

Elizabeth Kenny was born in Warialda, New South Wales, in 1880,[3] the daughter of Australian-born Mary Kenny, née Moore, and Michael Kenny, a farmer from Ireland.

She was called "Lisa" by her family and was home-schooled by her mother before attending schools in Guyra, New South Wales, and Nobby, Queensland.

At age 17, she broke her wrist in a fall from a horse. Her father took her to Aeneas McDonnell, a medical doctor in Toowoomba, where she remained during her convalescence. While there, Kenny studied McDonnell's anatomy books and model skeleton.

This began a lifelong association with McDonnell, who became her mentor and advisor. Kenny later asserted that she became interested in how muscles worked while convalescing from her accident.

Instead of using a model skeleton, since they were available for medical students only, she made her own.

Having become a self-taught and good pianist she listed herself as "Teacher of Music" and taught music a few hours a week.

In 1907, Kenny returned to Guyra, New South Wales, first living with her grandmother and then with her cousin Minnie Bell.

She soon became a successful broker of agricultural sales between Guyra farmers and northern markets in Brisbane. Following that she worked in the kitchen in "Scotia", local midwife's cottage hospital and local Dr. Harris gave her a letter of recommendation.

With part of her savings from her brokerage work she paid a local seamstress to make her a nurse's uniform.

With that, and the observations she had at Scotia and from her time with Dr. Harris she returned to Nobby to offer her services as a Bush Nurse.

At that time she was known as Nurse Kenny; she earned the title "Sister" while nursing on cargo ships which carried soldiers to and from Australia and England during WW I.

In Britain and Commonwealth countries, "Sister" as a title of courtesy applies not only to members of a religious order but also to a more highly qualified nurse, one grade below "Matron".

Instead of settling down at home as a spinster caring for her mother, Kenny continued to work as a nurse from their home.

Her neighbor Stan Kuhn took her to her patients in his motorcycle sidecar or automobile.

When his younger sister Sylvia fell into the path of his horse-drawn plow, he carried her home and called Kenny.

She quickly improvised a stretcher from a cupboard door for badly injured Sylvia, carefully secured her to it and rode with her in the local ambulance 26 miles to Dr McDonnell's office.

He helped Sylvia recover, and credited Kenny for her stretcher and her careful care.

She improved the stretcher for use by local ambulance services and, for the next three years, marketed it as the "Sylvia Stretcher" in Australia, Europe and the United States.

She turned the profits over to the Country Women's Association, which administered its sales and manufacturing.

At that time Kenny, because she would be traveling selling the Stretcher, adopted eight year old Mary Stewart to be a companion for Mother Kenny. Mary later became one of Sister Kenny's best "technicians".

•••Polio treatment

When sales of the Sylvia Stretcher declined, Kenny returned to Nobby to again work as a nurse.

During one of her sales journeys she met the Rollinson family who owned a Station west of Townsville. In 1931, during a trip to visit her brother Will, Kenny telephoned them.

They promptly asked her to care for their niece Maude, who was disabled by polio.

After 18 months under Kenny's care Maude was able to walk, return to Townsville, marry and conceive a child.

The newspapers in Townsville took up the story, referring to it as a cure. In 1932, Queensland suffered its highest number of polio cases in 30 years; the following year, several local people helped Kenny set up a rudimentary polio-treatment facility under canopies behind the Queens Hotel in Townsville.

In a few months (after further success with local children), she moved into the bottom floor of the hotel.

The first official evaluation of Sister Kenny's work took place in Townsville in 1934, under the auspices of the Queensland Health Department.

Her success working with polio victims led to the establishment of Kenny clinics in several cities in Australia.

The Sister Kenny Clinic in the Outpatients Building of the Rockhampton Base Hospital is now listed on the Queensland Heritage Register.

During these years, Kenny developed her clinical method and gained recognition in Australia.

She was adamantly opposed to immobilising children's bodies with plaster casts or braces. At this time, Kenny requested that she be permitted to treat children during the acute stage of the disease with hot compresses (as she claimed to have done in Clifton before the war).

However, doctors would not allow her to treat patients until after the acute stage of the disease, or until "tightness" (Kenny used the word "spasm" much later) subsided.

She instituted a carefully designed regimen of passive "exercises" designed to recall function in unaffected neural pathways (much as she had done with Maude).

On her own, she began treatment of a patient in the acute stage in her George Street Clinic in Brisbane, afterwards transferring her to the Ward 7 Polio Clinic in Brisbane General Hospital.

That child (and others) recovered with fewer aftereffects than those placed in braces. In 1937, she published an introductory book about her work and began another,

The Treatment of Infantile Paralysis in The Acute Stage, known as The Green Book which was later published in the United States.

The most comprehensive appraisal of her methods, "The Kenny Concept of Infantile Paralyses And Its Treatment," was published in collaboration with Dr. John Pohl in 1943, and was known as "The Red Book.".

•••In the U.S

In 1940, the New South Wales government sent Kenny (and her adopted daughter Mary, who had become an expert in Kenny's method) to America to present her clinical method for treating polio victims to American doctors.

After a sea journey from Sydney to Los Angeles and by railway to San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, back to Chicago and to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, she was given a chance to demonstrate her work in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Doctors Miland Knapp and John Pohl (who headed polio treatment centres there) were impressed, and told her that she should stay.

They found an apartment for Kenny and Mary; several years later, the city of Minneapolis gave them a house.

The city was Kenny's base in America for 11 years. In a 1943 letter to the British Medical Journal, Kenny noted that "there have been upwards of 300 doctors attending the classes at the University of Minnesota".

During this time several Kenny treatment centers were opened throughout America; the best-known were the Sister Kenny Institute in Minneapolis (opened 17 December 1942;

now Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute), a facility in the New Jersey Medical Center and her favorite, the Ruth Home in El Monte, California.

She received honorary degrees from Rutgers University and the University of Rochester. She joined U.S. President Roosevelt (whose paralytic illness was believed to be polio) for lunch, discussing his treatment at Warm Springs.

In 1951, Kenny topped Gallup's most admired man and woman poll as the only woman in the first 10 years of the annual list to displace Eleanor Roosevelt for the #1 spot

The Sister Kenny Foundation was established in Minneapolis to support her and her work throughout the United States.

Some doctors changed their initial professional skepticism when they saw the effects Kenny's method had on her patients (both children and adults).

Many American magazines covered her work. In 1975 Victor Cohn wrote the first detailed biography of her life and work.

During her first year in Minneapolis, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) paid her personal expenses and financed trials of her work.

That support ceased, however, after a series of disagreements with the NFIP Director. Kenny was a determined and outspoken woman, which harmed her relationship with the medical profession.

Nevertheless, her method continued to be used and helped hundreds of people suffering from polio.

In recognition of her work, in February 1950 President Harry Truman signed a Congressional bill giving Kenny the right to enter and leave the US as she wished without a visa.

This honour had only been granted once before, to French marquis Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, who was a leader in the American War of Independence.

•••Final years

Kenny filled her final years with extensive journeys in America, to Europe and Australia in an effort to gain further acceptance of her method.

She tried, unsuccessfully, to have medical researchers agree with her that Polio was a systemic disease.

She attended the second International Congress about polio in Copenhagen.

There she was shunned and unable to participate.

Suffering from Parkinson's disease, on her way home she stopped in Melbourne to meet privately with internationally respected virologist Sir Macfarlane Burnet.

He wrote about the visit in his autobiography.

In a desperate attempt to save her life, Dr Irving Innerfield of New York sent his new experimental drug, Trypsin by air mail to Brisbane. It was then rushed by car to Toowoomba.

Although the drug was administered on 29 November 1952, her doctor believed Kenny was too close to death to benefit from it, and she died the following day.

Kenny's funeral was held on 1 December 1952 at the Neil Street Methodist Church in Toowoomba, and was recorded for transmission in other parts of Australia and in the United States of America.

The funeral cortege from the church to Nobby Cemetery was one of the largest seen in Toowoomba. Kenny was buried beside her mother in Nobby Cemetery.

•••Polio patients treated with the Sister Kenny method

Joy McKean, singer, was recovered from polio after being treated by Sister Kenny.

Below are famous people whose polio was treated with the method developed by Kenny, but not by Kenny herself.

Alan Alda, American actor

Peg Kehret (née Schulze), American author

Marjorie Lawrence, Australian opera singer, who regained only partial use of her legs

Rosalind Russell's American nephew

Martin Sheen, American actor

Dinah Shore, American singer

Robert Anton Wilson, American writer

 

A Sing Song Of Bushland