Millar Buzzard

2.2
The Millar Family in Victoria

John Millar apparently emigrated to Victoria as the gold rush demanded that Melbourne’s public infrastructure be improved, and he landed a lucrative and important appointment to bring water to Melbourne from the Plenty River, just outside the city. [28]

In 1860 he proposed extending the CBD of Melbourne. The Melbourne CBD square bordered by Flinders Street, Spring Street, La Trobe Street and Spencer Street is known as the Hoddle Grid. This grid was laid out when there were fewer than 200 settlers but is now the centre for a city of nearly five million people. Numerous proposals in the late 19th century aimed to extend the Hoddle Grid. These often focused on repurposing the West Melbourne swamp (a large saltwater lagoon to the immediate west of the city which was fully drained in 1890) to join the Yarra River to accommodate a network of shipping canals.

John proposed to extend the grid westward into Port Melbourne (then called Sandridge). Most famously this proposal is remembered for Millar’s idea to redevelop the swamp (which had already been partially drained) into a botanical garden to resemble the British Isles. The intention was to preserve and cultivate plants native to England, Scotland and Ireland.

John Millar’s Drawing of Developing Canals in Melbourne CBD [29]

John returned to England in 1855 and on his voyage back to Australia, was shipwrecked, on the “Schomberg”, off the western coast of Victoria. On 27th December 1855, the “Schomberg” ran aground on a sandbar and rocks and was in peril of breaking up in rough seas. By chance, all passengers were transferred onto the steamer “Queen”, which fortunately was sailing past and saw the distress signals of the “Schomberg”. For his heroic deeds in getting passengers safely off the shipwreck, John Millar was awarded a gold medal by the Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society. [30]

There is an account of the Shipwreck of the “Schomberg” and an Eyewitness Account of John Millar’s exploits onboard at the time.

In 1857 John was appointed Engineer-in-Chief to the Water Supply and Sewerage Commission of Geelong, and performed in Melbourne, Brighton, and Hotham.

In 1863 he went to Dunedin, New Zealand as the City Engineer but he was dismissed by his employers in 1864, reinstated and dismissed again. In October 1864, he lost all his possessions when his house burnt down. Between 1866 to 1870 he was in private practice but then become a public servant again and moved to Nelson. Here controversy, caused by a disagreement with his employers caused a “mental illness” which saw his demise in Nelson on 15th November 1876. His official cause of death was “hepatic disease, dropsy and exhaustion”.

John’s two sons, Charles Gibson and Edwin Millar remained in Victoria, when their parents went to New Zealand. They followed in their father’s engineering footsteps and formed a company for contracting to supply timber needed for the many railways being built in Victoria.

They also owned tramways, gold mines (one being Gold Estates Australia Ltd), sheep stations, timber forests, vineyards and other properties. They secured large concessions of land, to fell timber in the South of Western Australia, and they operated many timber mills with their company called Karri and Jarrah Forests Ltd. The timber was exported throughout the world, but it was primarily used in the construction of bridges and sleepers for Australia’s rapidly expanding rail network.

One railway they built, for the West Australian Land Company, was the Great Southern Railway. Read the history of this important railway in Western Australia. [31]

Great Southern Railway (Beverley to Albany)

Charles Gibson was also a keen sailor and owned many high-class vessels; the cutter “Naiad” 12 tons, cutter “Secret” 26 tons, schooner “Red Gauntlet” 135 tons, the steam ship “Saide” (previously “Star of the Sea”) 383 tons, the schooner “Verena” 316 tons and finally the famous ocean-going auxiliary, barque-rigged yacht, “White Heather” 635 tons.

He was elected without ballot, in what seemed to be highly unusual circumstances, to the Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS) at Cowes, England, on 10th May 189. His proposer being the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria’s eldest son who became, on Victoria’s death, George VII, King of England from 1901 to 1910. Every year after he was elected, he gave a trophy valued at £50, called the Australian Cup, which was sailed for at the Cowes regatta. He himself was generally known at home as “the Australian yachtsman”.

Shortly after he gained membership of the RYS, Elizabeth Mary Millar, Charles Gibson’s mother, commissioned the construction of a peal of bells (10 in all), by Taylor’s of Loughborough in 1892. They were installed for the opening of the Imperial Institute, London on 10th May 1893, in commemoration of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. Mrs. Millar was awarded a jubilee medal and, it was reported, the Prince of Wales sent an autographed letter expressing his pleasure and that of Her Majesty, at the gift. It was noted in a Melbourne newspaper (the Gossip column), that “it can be said that the family basks in Royal favour”. [32]

Appendix 3.0 has an account about The Alexandra Peal of Bells.

By 1894, Charles Gibson Millar was such a celebrity, that Vanity Fair had a portrait done of him and it now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of Australia.

Charles Gibson Millar – Vanity Fair [33]

The life story of the Millar family and how Charles Gibson and Edwin Millar gained their wealth through the company Millars’ Karri and Jarrah Forests Limited, and other enterprises, is a story in its own, and will not be covered any further here.

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[28] Evening Star (New Zealand) , 28 November 1876, p 4
[29] Architecture and Design - Drawing inspiration from imaginative planners past
[30] Gippsland Times (Vic.: 1861 - 1954), Friday 24 November 1876, page 3
[31] Lost Katanning – WA Land Company
[32] Melbourne Punch (Vic.: 1855 - 1900), Thursday 2 March 1893, page 13
[33] National Portrait Gallery – “Saide, R.Y.S.” Charles Gibson Millar. Image plate from Vanity Fair 1894