Feminine Flourishes

In 1908, when Mabella Kirwan (1857-1920) accepted this illuminated address, it was very much a man’s world.

Mabella’s friends had invited her to a gathering at the Bathurst Golf House to show their respect and gratitude to their friend and piano teacher who was moving away to Wellington to live near her brother. But while the address was commissioned and signed only by her female friends, it was a man, Mr R.L. Gilmour, who presented it to her. And, it was another man, family friend Dr Brooke Moore, who spoke to the group to express thanks on her behalf.

Mabella Kirwan arrived in Bathurst in 1886, having travelled from Dublin, Ireland with her mother Maria and younger sister Marguerite. Mabella became a piano teacher at the Bathurst High School for Girls on Russell Street and lived just across the road.

Just a few days before Mabella received the illuminated address, she had attended another party at the stately mansion, Blair Athol. It had been hosted by the lady of the house, Mrs McPhillamy (her friend and mother of one of her piano students), and was attended by some of her students and friends. This had been a more feminine event – with green foliage and shamrock decorations, and green dresses in honour of their Irish guest. They presented Mabella with a silver clock ‘in remembrance of many happy hours’ spent with her.

Illuminated addresses were popular in the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, often elaborately painted, bearing sincere messages in fancy copperplate writing, and ornately framed to be presented to important people, usually men. So, this example is curious, because it was made for a woman by women.

Painted by an unknown artist, the address depicts symbols of the Bathurst district (Epacris, flannel flowers, pink Boronia, and an idyllic landscape view of the town) and Mabella’s Irish roots (shamrocks trailing down the page). It is a rare glimpse of how a women in this time was recognised for her community contributions.