(Ena) Mabel Doswell
b. 1877 – d. 1961
Governess at Martindale Hall (1902–1908), hostess for Ranson Mortlock (1924–1936)
Author: Denise Noack
Ena Mabel Doswell, known as Mabel or Dosie, was the eldest daughter of Morris and Emma Doswell. She was born at Barton Terrace, North Adelaide, on 14 November 1877. Mabel’s mother, Emma Cornelia Harriet ‘Ena’ Denton was born in South Australia on 12 May 1853. Mabel’s father, Morris Doswell, was born in 1837 Southampton, Hampshire, England, and came to Australia in about 1851. Morris and Ena were married in North Adelaide on 22 February 1877. After Mabel there were two girls and two boys born over the next decade: Marion Gertrude, Ernest Charles Henry, Frederick John and Lucy Alice.
Mabel’s father, Morris, was described as an accomplished athlete, an early and long-standing member of the Adelaide Rowing Club, and a successful amateur swimmer. He was a prominent churchman and spent forty-eight years working in the Lands Office in a variety of roles, including government land auctioneer, deputy surveyor-general and registrar, retiring in 1913. He died in October 1914 at his Buckingham Street residence, Gilberton, South Australia.1 Morris and his wife mixed in some of the same circles as W. R. Mortlock and W. T. and Rosye Mortlock, often reported at significant state events such as the inaugural Governor’s Levee in 1873 and Queen’s Birthday Celebrations in 1885.2
Not much is known about Mabel’s early years. She lived a comfortable life in a comfortable inner-city suburb and in her early teens attended Miss Brown’s school on Northcote Terrace, Medindie (this went on to become Wilderness School). In September 1891 Mabel’s name was published as one of 194 successful applicants who took the University of Adelaide preliminary examination.3 In November 1893 she received a second-class pass in the junior public examination in the theory of music after studying at the Adelaide College of Music.4
Mabel commenced her position as governess at Martindale Hall on 26 June 1902, where she seems to have been embraced by the Mortlocks more like a family member, not necessarily having to use the backstairs entrance with the other servants. Mabel’s name appears in Rosye Mortlock’s autograph book as a participant in the Martindale Hall events and she is reported in the newspaper social pages as attending events and being involved in fundraising events with Mrs Mortlock.5 W. T. and Rosye Mortlock were confident enough in her skills to spend six months on a holiday abroad in the year following her appointment, from May to October 1903, leaving the children behind.
It is unclear how long Mabel had the role of governess at Martindale Hall and there is little documented of her time at the Hall beyond the record in Rosye’s autograph book. A piece of sheet music for the song ‘Teasing’ was found in one of the cupboards in the Smoking Room at Martindale Hall, inscribed ‘To Ranson from E. M. Doswell, January 1907’.
After the death of the Mortlocks’ young son Valentine, and with Jack heading to St Peter’s College in 1906, Mabel’s role would have changed considerably. On 15 July 1908 there is a new advertisement from Martindale Hall for ‘a nursery governess to teach one child’, so presumably Mabel was leaving or had left the governess role. Mabel may still have been at Martindale Hall in 1909 when her sister Lucy is recorded in the Martindale Hall visitor book. Mabel is definitely back at the family home in Gilberton by December 1911, running musical evenings with Lucy.6 This was not the end of Mabel’s connection to the Mortlock family.
In the 1913 census, Mabel is at Gilberton with her parents, sister Gertrude, and two brothers. Her occupation is given as ‘home duties’. By this time, her sister Lucy had married Edward Jordan on 3 January 1912 and moved to Sydney. Her brother Ernest married in December 1912 and also headed to Sydney. Mabel’s father died on 12 October 1914, her mother on 2 October 1915, and her brother Frederick in France in the First World War on 28 September 1918. In this difficult time, Mabel is reported as attending the ‘jolly dinner party’ held at the South Australian Hotel on 30 March 1915 for Jack Mortlock’s twenty-first birthday, where her presence among mainly family members is reported.7
Mabel’s father died on 12 October 1914, her mother 2 October 1915, and her brother Frederick in France in the First World War on 28 September 1918.
From the 1920s, Mabel spends time with Rosye, Jack and Ranson at various social events from the Easter races to Adelaide theatre productions.8
In May 1924 Rosye Mortlock purchased a house in Palmer Place, North Adelaide, with Martindale Hall no longer her primary residence. In the same year, the Mortlock family also purchased a house in Mintaro for Frederick and 23 Kingston Terrace, Medindie, for Mabel. In return for the house, Mabel is described as providing ‘hostess services’ for Ranson when he was in Adelaide. From 1930 Mabel lived in this house with her companion, Rita Templer. A simple entry in Rita’s scrapbook states, ‘Home with E. M. Doswell, Jan. 1930-1936.’9 Rita’s name does not appear in any of the newspaper articles documenting Mabel’s attendance at the numerous social events she attended.
It is unclear what services Mabel provided for Ranson until his death by drowning in Colombo, Ceylon, while returning to Adelaide from Europe in 1936. According to historian Peter Last, Ranson ‘never married, was said to be an alcoholic, and there was gossip that he was murdered by a steward who was blackmailing him’.10 There are many stories documenting the extent of drinking by both Ranson and Jack Mortlock.
It is reported that Mabel continued to live at Kingston Terrace with Rita until 1938. After Ranson’s death, Rita went to work at the South Australian Archives until 1940, before heading to Melbourne for employment. Mabel was one of a handful of non-family beneficiaries in Jack Mortlock’s will, receiving £500 in 1950.11
In April 1953 Mabel placed an advertisement for ‘companion help, semi-invalid, woman alone’, and she is reported to have stayed in the house until 1954 when she moved to Magill. On 4 July 1956, 23 Kingston Terrace was sold, and Mabel died in 1961. Mabel’s will left all her estate to her nieces and nephews, the Anglican Church and Wyatt Foundation.
Footnotes
- Advertiser, 14 October 1914, 6. ↩︎
- Adelaide Observer, 14 June 1873, 4; South Australian Register, 26 May 1885, 6. ↩︎
- Express and Telegraph, 21 September 1891, 2. ↩︎
- Express and Telegraph, 11 November 1893, 6. ↩︎
- Advertiser, 7 August 1905, 6. ↩︎
- Chronicle, 30 December 1911, 51. ↩︎
- Journal, 3 April 1915, 19. ↩︎
- Critic, 3 March 1920, 4; Mail, 18 September 1920, 3; Mail, 2 April 1921, 13; Mail, 16 September 1922, 21; Register, 10 September 1927, 14. ↩︎
- Rita Templer scrapbook, D7511, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide. ↩︎
- Peter Last, ‘A Hall, a Library, Better Crops, Orchids, a Professor—And a Celebrated Vessel’, Squadron Quarterly, September 1994, 24–29. ↩︎
- George Charles Hawker, PRG 847, box 23, State Library of South Australia, Adelaide. ↩︎