Helen Elizabeth Macvean’s Photo Album

Since starting this blog I have been so incredibly lucky with the connections that I have made around the world. (I know, it is crazy being able to say that) People just stumbling onto the site and then revealing themselves as a long lost unknown family member. Not to mention the people who aren’t even related. Then to take the time to share anecdotes, family stories and the holy grail of family history ephemera and photos, that is such a gift.

As you might have guessed from the title of this post, I have been lucky again and I want to share with you now the story of another such gift that was given to me.

Funnily enough this story doesn’t start with the Blog this time but rather with the website, “Find a Grave”.

I have had an account with them for about 5 years and in that time have been updating family members details when they have come up in my research. The site provides the opportunity of emailing other members to update information or make requests for photos of grave sites.

What I didn’t realise was, that other users can send messages to you anonymously. I received this message at the beginning of last month.

Yep, my scammer detector was going off and I just dismissed it. I happened to mentioned the email to Alex that night when we were watching TV and she looked it up on the spot and said it looked legit. I jumped online and this is what came up.

Douglas Stewart Fine Books (DSFB) It did look legit. I checked out the positive feedback section which had nothing but great things to say about them. I then Googled the shop. They were located at High Street, Armadale in Victoria.

These are the items they had listed with the Macvean tagline.

Figure 5: Courtesy of Douglas Stewart Fine Books on ebay.com.au

Wow! I couldn’t believe it. So I recognised the bearded bloke on the right straight away. That is my 3x great-granduncle, John Macvean brother to my 3x great-grandfather John Hugh Macvean. The excitement levels were building at that stage, as I only have one, original Macvean photo in my collection. That photo was sent to me recently by someone else who did find me through the blog. I will share that story in the next post.

I did a bit more digging and this is the description that the store had on the photo of John Macvean.

Yay!, We had hit the jackpot. Dr Peter Macvean was brother to John and my 3x great-grandfather, John Hugh Macvean.

And Helen Elizabeth Macvean née Griffith, his wife, I knew of. I had done a bit of research on her a few years ago for another post when I found her burial place in Albury Pioneer Cemetery. Helen and Peter were married on the 3rd of July 1867 in Wedderburn.

Alex, the boys and I had the opportunity to visit Helen’s grave site to pay our respects and lay some flowers back in 2018 when we were doing a family history tour of the area. ( I know, that sounds so nerdy but trust me we did have a great time. We were definitely pushing our luck though. Both the boys were early teens and I think this trip gave them the strength to say “…no, enough is enough with the dead people already.”)

Helen had been resting there since 1911 and the weather had all but destroyed the inscription over the intervening 107 years. This is what was written on top.

So all the details were lining up and both Alex and I were confident it wasn’t a scam, so I bought the six photos on offer. I then received a message from the seller informing me, that they had more Macvean photos and that they wanted me to have the first option on them as they wanted to see them go to a family member.

What are you serious! I stammer read the message to Alex and asked if she would be OK with me finding out. She of course said yes. I sent off an expression of interest and the next morning I received this offer.

1. Presentation inscription from front of album, to Helen from the congregation of Holy Trinity Church, Wedderburn. 

2. 10 cabinet photos (165 x 110 mm format), including one of Wedderburn church interior and one of a church in nearby St. Arnaud, & others from Melbourne and Geelong studios. 1880s-90s.

3. 34 carte de visite portraits (105 x 65 mm format). Melbourne, St. Arnaud, Dublin, Glasgow, Edinburgh (and even Cardiff) studios, a few without location. 1860s-1890s

4. 4 larger format “Paris Panel” portraits from a later period (1900-1930).

DSFB informed me that only a small number of the photos had sitters identified but hoped there would be enough information for further research on my part. They offered all this above for $250. That was 48 photos of my family for roughly $5.21 a piece. Alex was amazing, and agreed we had to buy them.

Wow! I just remember I was so excited at the chance of seeing some photos of my family that I had never seen before. (Great up-selling skills by the way DSFB!)

DSFB informed me that they were really happy that Helen’s photo’s would be reunited with the family. They also shared that they purchased the album from a dealer in Tasmania but that was it, there was no other information known about the album.

Apparently the album was all mildewed and falling apart and that there was significant water damage in sections. There were some photographs in the album that were so badly water damaged that they had be thrown out and some photos from the collection had already been sold but they too had no names written on them.

I sent Anonymous at Find a Grave a message.

And I received a reply from Anonymous.

Well I wasn’t expecting that. So a huge thank you to you Harriet, for taking the time to email me and for not being a scammer.

The following photos are the ones that had already sold from the collection that DSFB so generously shared with me. Unfortunately I don’t have the actual physical photos but at least we have a digital copy to keep with the rest of Helen’s collection, which is wonderful. (Thanks so much DSFB)

Now this next photo is particularly interesting. DSFB confirmed for me that it was a photo of the property known as Hauteville in Albury, New South Wales. This is the last property that my 3x great-grandfather owned before he died in 1894.

The man sitting on the balcony holding the baby looks like my 2x great-grandfather, Alexander Macvean. This could be him visiting his parents, Hannah and John Hugh with his children.

I sent DSFB an email.

DSFB informed me that the photo of the four children were taken by Burton Bros of Albury and that the house was taken by Farrell and Martin, who were traveling photographers up in the northeast of Victoria. This lead them to believe the photo of the house was of Hauteville, the property belonging to John Hugh Macvean. They also said that they would pass on my contact details to the other buyers of Helen’s photos but of course there were no guarantees.

At the time of putting this post together, I’ve heard nothing from the other buyers which is disappointing but understandable.

I received confirmation a couple of days after my last email from DSFB that the parcel of family history gold was on its way.

DSFB confirmed that they unfortunately hadn’t taken a photo of the album when it came in from the Tasmanian dealer or the damaged photos, they were all too far gone. They were however able to save the title page that had the dedication written on it for Helen. It was presented to her from the members of the congregation of the Holy Trinity Church in Wedderburn in 1886.

The Church still stands today. Its foundation stone was laid in 1866, just 20 years before the presentation of Helen’s album. Here is a fantastic shot of the church from 2019, thanks to Aussie Col who shared it on his travel blog.

It took five days for the parcel to get to me, which was fantastic but it was still a long wait. I kept thinking of all the things that could go wrong with the delivery but had to trust that the photos had lasted the last 140 odd years and that they would make it this last couple of days to get to me.

When I think about the journey these photos have been on, that is the fascinating story that we will never know. Helen passed away in 1911 in Albury and somehow they survive the better part of 100 years bouncing around, god knows where, to end up with an antiques dealer in Tasmania until they then end up in a consignment shipped back to the mainland, to Douglas Stewart Fine Books in Melbourne.

And now they are with me, a 3x great nephew of Helen and her husband, Peter Macvean.

DSFB, did an amazing job of ensuring the photos were packed safely and securely.

So without any further a do, I will now present the photos below. Please feel free to take copies if any interest you, just reference back to this blog. And please if you can identify any of those that are unknown please send me a message and let me know, that would be most appreciated. If I have any luck in getting any identified myself, I will of course update this post.

I have high quality scans of all the photos so if you want one of those please get in touch and I will be more than happy to share. I hope you enjoy.

I’m fairly sure that Mrs D. C. Macvean is Helen Begg (1850-1889) married to the Rev. Duncan Cameron Macvean, brother to John Hugh, John and Hugh mentioned above. Duncan and Helen were married on the 8th September 1871 in Strontian in Argyllshire, Scotland. Duncan and two other brothers, Alexander and Donald were the only ones out of the twelve siblings who remained in Scotland and did not follow the rest of the family out to Australia.

The photographer was John McLaren from Larbert a town in Falkirk between Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland.

Donald Alexander Macvean is Helen and Duncan’s only son. He was born on the 26th Aug 1875 at Salachan House, Ardgour, Argyllshire, Scotland. This was the house of his grandparents, Alexander Macvean and Margaret Macvean née Cameron.

Donald was 16 years of age in 1891, which matches perfectly with the fact that he was having his photograph taken by Alexander Ayton at 43N Bruntsfield Place Edinburgh as he was living with his aunt at the time. Margaret Begg, at 14 Hartington Place, Edinburgh.

And you can see that it wasn’t only Donald living with Margaret but also Donald’s sister, Margaret Cameron Macvean was with them as well. The property they were living in is still standing.

Donald was finishing high school at the time, getting ready to enroll in medicine at the University of Edinburgh.

I can’t find a graduation date for Donald but he definitely finishes his studies and becomes a Doctor. He marries a Clara Margaret Sanders on the 11th of December 1899 in Hertford, England. He then travels out to Australia on the 5th of July 1906 but Clara is not on the passenger list with him.

I found one small mention of Donald in an article from the “Morning Bulletin” in Rockhampton in Queensland telling us what he was up to.

Boulia, I had never heard of it and this is why, look at where the hell it is.

Just the distance from Barcaldine, which the article states that Donald would be in that week of the article being printed, is 550kms to the west. That is 342 miles travel in a horse drawn coach.

The State Library of Queensland had a photo of the hospital from exactly the time that Donald was there.

Donald was stationed here for two months and then this happens.

Wow, cold as. Donald was only 30 years of age when he passed away. By the way I scanned the temperature records in Trove for that summer of 1907, average shade temperature was 105degF which is 42.7C.

Next, we have my 3x great-grandfather, John Hugh Macvean, brother to Donald’s father, Rev. Duncan Cameron Macvean.

The next photo is of John Macvean, brother of John Hugh, Duncan, Hugh and Peter.

All of these photos are incredible but this one is particularly fantastic, it is Maffra William Bushby Macvean aged 2 months.

In his late 20s Maffra or Jack as he was known goes on to fight in World War One at Gallipoli, where he is severely wounded, and then returns once recovered to head up the evacuation of troops off the Peninsula. He is then sent to France and is involved in the battle at Pozieres and severely wounded for a second time, this time ending his war service. He is awarded the Military Cross in January 1917.

We are down to the last two named photos and this one is phenomenal. I have only just started delving into the name and who it has thrown up is a real surprise.

That reads, the Rt Hon James Whiteside or Right Honourable James Whiteside and the back of the picture shows that it was taken by a photographer of the name of T. Granfield at 115 Grafton Street in Dublin, Ireland.

I put that all into Google and I can confirm that Thomas Granfield was a photographer and operated at the Grafton Street address from 1850 – 1878.https://irishhistorichouses.com/category/bewleys-grafton-street-dublin/

And this is the result I got for James.

The Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. What the hell is he doing in Helen’s photo album and what is the link? Will we ever know? How fascinating. And if the sculpture isn’t enough to convince you then I think this next engraving confirms it is indeed the correct James.

The final named photograph of the collection and it is beautiful.

Is that Alex and Eve? Is it 25/12/99 or 25/12/97? And why are they in Perth Western Australia? Coming back from the old country or going on a journey, honeymoon?

So I have just realised that I will have to split this post into two parts. The processor wont cope with another 40 photos being inserted. This seems like a good spot to change over, from the named photos to the unknown in Part Two. Hopefully some of those unknowns will not stay that way.