The Mayne Inheritance

by Rosamond Siemon

  In an effort to make Rosanna aware of the reality of religious life, the demands that would be put on her and the responsibility of the vows she would take, Dunne wrote to her from Toowoomba giving the example of what had happened to the two rebel sisters. He told her that to avoid a scandal he had been sent to the ship to make the rebels’ trip look like Bishop’s business. He was instructed to point out to them the illegality of their leaving, and to bring them back. Although the two women had the sympathy of several members of the Australian Catholic Church hierarchy, their fate on returning to Brisbane was more than admonishment. Mother McDermott was stripped of her authority and her companion rebel, Sister Cecelia McAuliffe, who was not strong enough to stand the stress, died within six months.

  Whether or not Rosanna gave any further thought to the serious matter of taking vows, the subject was dropped for some time.

  Mary’s attention had to centre more positively on the future of her sons. The replacement executor and trustee, John Petrie, was enrolling his son at the new Brisbane Grammar School at Roma Street. So was George Raff, the former executor. Apart from Petrie’s role as executor and guardian of the Mayne children, Mary had also employed his company to rebuild fire-damaged buildings. No doubt, with sons of similar age, they found time to discuss their lads’ futures. Along with the Petrie and Raff boys, William Mayne was among the first pupils enrolled at the Brisbane Grammar School in 1869.

  Schooldays at Grammar opened a window on a different world. William began mixing with the sons of privileged and socially accepted families, something new to the Maynes, who were not socially accepted. He discovered acceptance in the world of sport with its nineteenth-century public school gentleman’s code; without neglecting his studies he quickly shone at cricket and football. He played in the school teams for both sports, and in 1875 captained the cricket team. At Grammar, William began to shed some of the rough edges that had pervaded family life under Patrick’s rule. Accustomed to money, he had no real difficulty in fitting into a new life and absorbing what was then seen as the ideal of a public school boy. In a short time he was on the way to becoming the cultivated gentleman that was the man.

  By 1871, with Isaac articled to the solicitor Thomas Bunton for a fee of £105 a year, Rosanna a pupil-teacher (one of the few positions open to a colonial gentlewoman), and William being educated alongside the sons of the colony’s best families, Mary had cause to feel some satisfaction with her dual role as mother and businesswoman. Such satisfaction would have been a little dimmed by the end of the year, however. Thirteen-year-old Mary Emelia, who displayed neither drive nor ambition, was removed from All Hallows’. It was recommended that as she had no taste whatever for study, she should follow domestic pursuits. With no need to work and too much time on her hands, the attractive, non-studious teenager was regarded as ‘‘flighty’’. It was a time when her mother was fully involved in trying to save the children’s inheritance; even had there been time to devote to her daughter, the society for which they were financially eligible remained uninterested in opening its ranks to the Maynes. The environment of dusty, still down-at-heel Queen Street was no place for such a vulnerable young girl. At the end of a wasted year it seems her mother must have forgotten bluster and mustered considerable tact, for both her daughter and the redoubtable Mother Bridget Conlan were persuaded to try again. At the beginning of 1873, young Mary Emelia was packed back to All Hallows’, this time as a boarder, and remained there until she was nineteen. Her rebellious nature was not fully subdued but she was destined to spend the rest of her life doing as she was told.

  Unfortunately for her mother’s peace of mind, almost immediately the high-strung Rosanna’s sense of vocation surfaced again. On 4 March 1873, Fr Dunne once more wrote from Toowoomba, saying that he believed that ‘‘a lay woman could answer the call of holiness through teaching, daily prayer, spiritual reading and works of charity, without having to take religious vows’’. His doubts were well-founded. On one occasion, as a pupil-teacher at All Hallows’, Rosanna failed to take a class and gave no reason for her absence. When it was discovered that she had gone to the races at Ipswich, Mother Bridget’s reprimand was sharp and to the point. She warned Rosanna ‘‘that she was drifting rapidly, and explained to what’’. For the culprit it was probably an echo of those wild impulses that drove her father to some of his actions. It was a portent of what was to come, and Robert Dunne sensed this. His cautionary letter to Rosanna had little effect. She became a novice at All Hallows’ Convent, and within three months was a pawn in a new clash between Father Dunne and Bishop Quinn. The Bishop was backed by his protégé, Mother Bridget Conlan, who had earlier replaced the rebel Mother McDermott as Reverend Mother.

  The clash in 1873 was over a little group of sisters who were to be sent to Toowoomba to set up a new centre. They were to live at St Saviour’s, a rented house in James Street, and they were expected to earn money both by teaching at the new St Patrick’s School and taking in students as boarders. They were also to open an orphanage, an asylum for needy women, and to act as hospital and gaol visitors. Dunne had very definite ideas about education. He believed that the ideal Catholic school was one in which a nun’s religious vocation and her role as a Catholic educator were clearly differentiated. This he perceived to be a great flaw in the convent system. When he learned of the proposed transfer of nuns, he stood his own ground as much as he could and claimed the right to regulate and direct the work of the sisters according to his judgment. Only then would he accept a situation for which he had not asked and which was thrust on him by Bishop Quinn. The nuns at All Hallows’ Convent were aware of Dunne’s attitudes. No sisters volunteered to go to Toowoomba and those nominated begged not to be sent.

  In July, Mother Rose Flanagan, Sister Evangelist Kearney, and the postulant, Rosanna Mayne, arrived in Toowoomba. The surprise inclusion was Rosanna. It was most unusual in those times for a postulant to be sent to the founding of a new centre, and most unwise to send a girl with her unpredictable temperament. Dunne made it known that they would be permitted to teach on a trial basis only. They would work under the direction of the lay head teacher, Kate Reordan, and there would be no review of the situation until the sisters had demonstrated their ability to cope with the schoolwork. Apart from Dunne’s concern for the mental health of twenty-three year old Rosanna, he knew that the load which all the Toowoomba sisters were trying to carry was far too heavy. Rosanna was still training as a pupil-teacher, and among her extra duties she was required to give music lessons. It left her too little time to study for the Board of General Education Examinations. She was not coping very well and Dunne, knowing her family history, worried about possible consequences of nervous strain which might result from overwork. Much more was expected of the sisters than of the rural priests, and within a few months the health of Mother Rose, the Superior at Toowoomba, was also causing concern. Dunne believed that in this situation, not enough attention could be given to Rosanna’s needs. His concern was such that after watching her for fifteen months, he wrote to her mother advising her to get a court order, if necessary, to remove Rosanna from the convent in Toowoomba.

  During nine years of problems and decision-making, Mary had learned to exercise control over her affairs. It had fortified her to handle emergencies and deal with people in authority in a very able manner. She was well able to speak for herself. This crisis was far more serious than getting Mary Emelia re-enrolled at school. Rosanna was the responsibility of the Sisters of Mercy. Mary’s determination, set against the heavy-handed Bishop Quinn and the austere Mother Bridget Conlan, is indicated by the fact that Rosanna was quickly returned to All Hallows’ in Brisbane, where she was given a lighter load, teaching music and general subjects to the sisters. Dunne’s belief that the novice needed a quieter environment was proved correct. For some years her strong religious conviction and her calm life within the religious order in Brisbane held her darker forces at bay.

  It is typical of the times that althoug
h Fr Dunne’s letter was addressed to Mrs Mayne, it is everywhere accepted and written that ‘‘Rosie was transferred at the request of her father who was one of the most influential Catholic business men in Brisbane’’. He had been dead for nine years.

  During this period of her eldest daughter’s difficulty, Mary had sold the butchery, but the family remained in their Queen Street home adjoining the shop. It was large, brick, comfortable and central. Like Patrick, Mary had preferred to work from the hub of things. Now she had more time for her children, but during those earlier, more difficult years, the eldest three had been busy building their own lives. Isaac, twenty-two and man of the house, had high hopes of getting approval for registration as a solicitor, Rosanna was soon to be professed as a nun with the Sisters of Mercy, William, with good scholastic results, had plans to further his education at the University of Sydney. The household had shrunk to Mary, her sister-in-law Ann Mayne and her three sons. Only young James still needed her supervision. Patrick’s estate was not yet finalised. The rents, property maintenance and the debt repayment were time-consuming, but without the shop, the load was a great deal lighter. It was time for a change. Queen Street was no longer suitable for Mary or the children’s future.

  There were several rented houses in Patrick’s estate, and in 1874 Mary decided to move the family to one of them at Milton, where the estate held quite a lot of land. None of it had a river frontage, but with the rapid expansion of Brisbane, Milton was a coming suburb. Several very substantial homes were being erected in the area. Some of the Mayne land had been intersected by resumptions for the new Brisbane to Ipswich railway line. It is possible they moved to the hill behind their river-fronted neighbours, John Markwell and the Kents, who rented grazier J.F. McDougall’s two-storied ‘‘Milton House’’. McDougall’s land stretched almost from Cribb Street, Milton, to what is now Chasely Street, Auchenflower. Markwell, a Queen Street ironmonger, owned a charming low-set bungalow with wide shady verandas around which spread a wilderness of shrubs and flowers. It was called ‘‘Moorlands Villa’’, and his land stretched upstream from Chasely Street to the shallow Langsville Creek, which meandered by what is now Patrick Lane, Toowong.

  The move to Milton was probably about mid-year, for, at the beginning of the third term, Mary’s youngest child, the quiet, introspective twelve-year-old James, finished at St Stephen’s primary school and joined his brother at Brisbane Grammar. Unlike William, James did not excel at sport. He quietly got on with his studies and left no mark of his passing.

  Life settled into some sort of normalcy at Milton and by late 1877 the end of all their financial problems was in sight. There was, however, no end to their other problem. Although Patrick’s death was well behind them, the public memory of his life still imposed an undeclared persecution. With the building of the new St Stephen’s Cathedral in 1875, Mary had offered reparation for her husband’s sins by donating one of the beautiful stained-glass windows on the side wall. A memorial to Patrick, it portrays a fallen soldier at the feet of a merciful Christ. But that gift made no difference to people’s attitude. The innocent members of the family continued to pay a price. Whispered stories were kept alive and the family drew in on itself. To this day, the aging offspring of old-timers still say: ‘‘Oh yes, I remember that family. We knew they were there, but we wouldn’t have taken tea with them.’’ Some even point out that it was not for reasons of class; among those they called on was a successful family of O’Sheas whose pioneering mother was a washerwoman.

  The Maynes had a justifiable pride in achievement, and out of that grew a quiet dignity, a tangible barrier with a soft gentleness which has been a remembered quality in the three youngest. It hid a lot of unhappiness, but was so well disciplined that it remained intact through all the horror that was to come. There was little hint of this in 1877. Rosanna was professed as a nun at All Hallows’, taking the name of Sister Mary Mel. Isaac had been registered as a solicitor the year before and remained with his employer, Thomas Bunton, in Queen Street. William was in his second year of an Arts course at the University of Sydney, and at nineteen, Mary Emelia had absorbed as much education as she found interesting and was allowed to leave school. She was tall, with a lively, wide-eyed, open face, full of life and restless. Their mother, with more time on her hands than she had ever had before, was bored with suburbia. The isolation and discrimination had barely impinged on her busy life as a butcher; now it became obvious. She was fifty-seven, independent and hardworking; like Patrick, she did not take kindly to being slighted. Thanks to the way she had kept the business going, since 1868, they had each drawn a living allowance. Those who could get away would now travel to Europe. They were Mary, Patrick’s sister Ann Mayne, young Mary Emelia, and Isaac, who was quite happy to take leave and escort them. James was at a crucial stage of his secondary education, so at the beginning of 1878 he was transferred from Brisbane Grammar School to board at the Catholic St Killian’s College at South Brisbane. It was regarded as the right school for boys who were likely prospects for the priesthood, and to that end he studied history, geography, French and Latin. The arrangement was also convenient for his Catholic guardian, Joseph Darragh of Kangaroo Point, whose eldest son joined the holiday-makers as a companion for Isaac.

  On 28 March 1878, they sailed for Marseilles on the R.M.S. Bowen. It was not a very large ship (884 tons) and had only three other European passengers. It was, however, crammed with a large number of Chinese returning to Singapore and Hong Kong via four northern Queensland ports and Thursday Island. Their exodus was due, no doubt, to the new Chinese Immigration Act and the Gold Fields Amendment Act, brought in when it was realised that on the Palmer goldfields in North Queensland there were 17,000 Chinese, outnumbering Europeans by twelve to one. For the Maynes it was a sensible choice of ship. It gave them an opportunity to experience something of the Orient, and avoided the popular ships which took the southern route to England and were patronised by those whose gossip could have dampened the family’s pleasure.

  Those few months before they sailed were the last time the entire family was to have much time together. In 1879, once the debt was cleared and the estate could be finalised, the young adult Maynes began receiving their inheritance of property. Good regular rents allowed the boys to step out into the world. William lived comfortably in Sydney, later to be joined by James. After gaining his Bachelor of Arts degree, William remained in Sydney to study for a Master’s degree. He was still there when James arrived in 1880. Both graduated in 1884, at which time James left for postgraduate study at University College Hospital in London. At home, Isaac assumed nominal headship of the family, but it was a home dominated by two women, his mother, and Aunt Ann, and disturbed by the frustrated wilfulness of Mary Emelia. Nevertheless, it was to Isaac that Fr Dunne wrote when next he tried to help Rosanna.

  Dunne’s troubles with Bishop Quinn came to a head in 1880, when the Bishop chose to interpret an application for holiday leave as a resignation. Protests failed, so on 11 March 1881 Dunne sailed for London. Although he had worked in Toowoomba for more than twelve years, he had not forgotten his pastoral care of several of his earlier charges, including the Maynes. He still corresponded with them. Rosanna’s state of mental health in 1881 is not known, but Dunne and her family were well aware of its continued fragility. While in Sydney, on board ship, and in Ireland, he kept in contact with her, bolstering her spirit and suggesting ways of living a calm life. In some half-dozen letters to her he wrote of the contemplative life of nineteenth-century monks and their detachment from material things. He noted a similar detachment in good missionaries, and from Dublin he described how he found the genuine joy of monastic solitude at Mt Melleray Abbey.

  During his travels he was never far from news of Queensland. He was saddened by Bishop Quinn’s illness and death in August, and disturbed by news that some Brisbane Sisters of Mercy might be sent hundreds of miles north to the fledgling see of Rockhampton. On 8 September he wrote two letters, one to Rosanna e
xplaining some difficulties in the secular life in Brisbane, and a second to her brother, Isaac, warning him that if young Brisbane Sisters of Mercy were sent to Rockhampton and the Queensland diocese was subsequently divided, they would be lost to Brisbane forever. Isaac acted on the warning. Rosanna (Sister Mary Mel) was not in the contingent that went to Rockhampton.

  Robert Dunne’s subsequent return to Queensland in March 1882 to become the new Bishop of Brisbane was a source of satisfaction to Mary. The now financially and intellectually independent Maynes no longer needed him, but the valuable friendship remained. Despite the fact that her children were staunch, churchgoing Catholics, Protestant Mary never converted to their faith. That was no reflection on her high regard for Bishop Dunne. She admired him and respected his wise and comforting advice. At All Hallows’, Rosanna’s mental health began a sharp decline, with an intermittent need to control her in a strait-jacket. At such times, Dunne’s compassion must have gone a long way to easing Mary’s mind about her daughter’s welfare. In the light of Patrick’s psychopathic behaviour, Rosanna’s future was cause for considerable anxiety. No longer able to teach, she was relieved of that work; on her good days she was allowed to act as secretary to Mother Vincent. Those good days were to become fewer and farther apart.