Servants and Workers

Authors: Denise Noack

‘There’s a stunning number of people that used to work here in the early days,’1 says local landowner and historian Martin Smith. Martindale Hall and its large property required the labour of many people and generated employment opportunities and prosperity in the town of Mintaro and its surrounds. Even the building of the Hall required a substantial local workforce to support the reported fifty tradesmen brought from England. The Bowman and Mortlock families were incredibly wealthy and could then afford to employ many staff to keep the Hall and the property running. From the earliest days of the Hall there are newspaper articles seeking employment for cooks, laundresses, butlers, housekeepers, domestic servants, grooms and coachmen, and gardeners.

Some stories from the descendants of these workers live on and give us insight into life at the mid-north mansion. Along with the general cooking, cleaning and maintenance work for the Hall, other tasks included those only required for affluent pastoral squires, such as maintaining polo and cricket grounds and caring for horses and hounds for hunting. Legend holds that one of Edmund Bowman’s groomsmen was responsible for galloping ahead of Bowman’s coach, blowing a horn to signal the imminent arrival of his boss. A running joke for the gardener with the job of pruning the hedge that lined the Martindale driveway was that it was so long that by the time he got to one end, it was time to start pruning again in the other direction.

Read their stories

photograph of a woman

Elizabeth Byron

Ena Doswell

three people and a stingray

Frank Kent

man balancing on a log

Ernest Scarfe

Portrait of a man in an oval frame

Samuel Scott

man on fence

Rowley Woods

Black and white photo of Jeff Thrum

Jeffrey Thrum

While Mortlock was seen as a good employer, he did not like organised labour. When the South Australian Labor Party won government in April 1930, he commented, ‘Hear State Election Results … Most disastrous … Well, we must be ruled by the stinking proletariat for the next three years, I suppose.’

Ena Mabel Doswell and Ranson Mortlock. Ena started working for the Mortlocks at Martindale Hall in 1902. The Mortlocks purchased a house for her in North Adelaide where she had the role of ‘hostess’ to Ranson when he came to town. Reproduced courtesy of State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.
Reginald Jeffrey Thrum, chauffeur for Jack Mortlock 1929–1941. Thrum photograph album. Reproduced courtesy of State Library of South Australia, Adelaide.

There are no records yet revealed of Ngadjuri people working at Martindale, although the Mortlocks are known to have had Aboriginal workers on other properties. An 1860s photograph of William Tennant Mortlock as an infant being held by an Aboriginal servant is currently displayed prominently in the Hall.

There are few accounts from workers during the Bowman era (1879-1890), with most stories coming from those who worked for the Mortlocks, and then those that maintained Martindale for Dorothy Mortlock after Jack died in 1950. Dorothy had been a worker herself for the Mortlocks before becoming a wife, as secretary to Ernest Scarfe, who was business manager for Jack Mortlock.

Butlers at Martindale Hall, c. 1930s. William (Bill) Bass is the butler on the left. While working at the Hall as a butler, Bill met Vera Garrard and they then married in the early 1940s. Photo reproduced from Gerald Lally, Landmark of Faith: Church of the Immaculate Conception Mintaro and Its Parishioners, 1856-2006 (pub. by author, 2006).
Samuel Scott worked for William Ransom Mortlock on Eyre Peninsula, then worked for his son William Tennant Mortlock as station manager of Martindale from the year of the Mortlock purchase in 1891 until Scott’s death in 1902. Samuel Scott is the only staff member to have their portrait on the walls in Martindale Hall.

Martindale was able to pay better wages than other businesses such as the local quarry, and employment at the Hall in the Mortlock era does not seem to have been overly impacted by adverse economic conditions brought by drought and the Depression. Many of the Mortlock employees worked for the family for lengthy periods of time. As can be expected, there are some contradictory opinions of their Martindale employers. A manager in Dorothy Mortlock’s time interpreted the Mortlock motto of ‘Hic Labour Hoc Opus’ as ‘make the Bastards work’, while Jack Mortlock’s devoted chauffeur proclaimed him ‘a wonderful boss’.

While Mortlock was generally seen as a good employer, he did not like organised labour. When the South Australian Labor Party decisively won government in April 1930, he commented in his diary, ‘Hear State Election Results … Most disastrous … Well, we must be ruled by the stinking proletariat for the next three years, I suppose.’2 Mortlock’s opinion of his workers is little documented but sometimes less favourable, as recorded in his diary: ‘Find cook has run away, being in the family way, as is not unusual in the lower orders.’3 There is much evidence that there were many workers Mortlock relied on to maintain his properties, business ventures and extravagant lifestyle.

Footnotes

  1. Martin Smith, Mintaro Historical Society, 7 November 2023, Oral History, Flinders University Archaeology Field School, Martindale Hall. ↩︎
  2. J. A. T. Mortlock Diary, 6 April 1930, Tumby Bay Museum, National Trust of South Australia. ↩︎
  3. J. A. T. Mortlock Diary, 2 March, 1930, Tumby Bay Museum, National Trust of South Australia. ↩︎