Eric Finlason died in 1895 and he received a good obituary in the Aberdeen Weekly Journal of Thursday,
December 12, 1895:
DEATH OF AN ABERDONIAN IN AUSTRALIA
The
“Mount
Alexander
Mail”
records
the
death,
on
29th
October,
of
Mr
Eric
Finlason,
one
of
the
oldest
inhabitants
of
Castlemaine,
Victoria,
who
died
at
Ericsville,
his
residence
there
at
the
advanced
age
of
95
years.
Mr
Finlason,
who
was
a
native
of
Aberdeen,
was
born
in
1801,
and
commenced
his
business
career
in
the
city,
occupying
a
shop
in
Marischal
Street.
It
is
an
interesting
link
with
the
past
to
note
that,
as
Master
of
Hospital
of
the
Incorporated
Trades
at
the
time
of
the
Queen’s
marriage,
he
presided
at
the
banquet
given
on
that
occasion.
His
connection
with
the
“Trades”
so
early
begun,
lasted
for
over
70
years.
In
1850
Mr
Finlason
sailed
for
Australia,
and
landed
first
in
Adelaide.
Subsequently
he
went
to
Melbourne,
and
took
a
situation
in
a
merchant’s
office.
In
1851
deceased
left
for
the
Ballarat
goldfield,
but
not
being
successful
there,
went
to
Castlemaine,
and
took
the
first
census.
Afterwards
Mr
Finlason
went
to
Bendigo
and
other
diggings,
and
finally
settled
in
Castlemaine
in
1855.
Three
years
later
he
accepted
the
appointment
of
Secretary
of
the
Mechanics’
Institute,
and
retained
that
position
until
1883,
when
he
resigned.
Deceased,
however,
retained
his
agency
business
until
a
few
weeks
before
his
death,
having
for
a
very
lengthy
period,
been
the
local
agent
of
the
Australian
Mutual
Provident
Society.
Mr
Finlason
never
aspired
to
any
public
position,
but
always
took
a
keen
interest
in
mining,
which
industry
he
supported
for
some
time.
He
was
held
in
great
esteem
and
by
his
demise
the
borough
of
Castlemaine
has
lost
one
of
its
oldest
and
most
genial
pioneers
-
one
whose
ambition
was
always to further its best interests.
The first reports of gold being discovered while mining for copper in South Australia appeared in the
British Press in 1846. The initial enthusiasm is tempered by 1849 with the Aberdeen Press and Journal
reporting on the 7 February "It is still an open question whether digging for copper in South Australia, or for
gold in California, will prove the more profitable speculation. [...] Were these [Australian] gold diggings, in
which every man present might venture for himself as soon as he could command a day's food, a spade and
a basket, it is not difficult to perceive that the adventurers would be more numerous, the chances of very large
gains for any, though apparently greater, really much less, and the prospect of a loss in the aggregate much
more certain."
By May 1849 the papers could report that "one thing is certain that gold ore, in large masses, has found its
way into Melbourne [...] the town has gone mad; tradesmen, publicans and sinners, have shut up their places
of business and gone to seek for gold". The Scottish press appears to have taken a more cautious
approach, and concentrates its news items on gold in California and Central America, until 1851 when
the Aberdeen Press and Journal on the 24th September reports: "The intelligence of the newly-discovered
riches of Australia has not only been authenticated, but instead of being exaggerated, has been found to
come short of reality. The latest accounts describe the gold regions as far more productive of the precious ore
than could have been inferred from the first rumours." By this time however the bankrupt Eric Finlason
had already been in Australia for a year. He had sailed from London on the 1st June 1850 on the
Stebonheath and arrived in Port Adelaide on the 15th September.
It is not clear why Eric was declared bankrupt in April 1849; he was examined in the Aberdeen Sheriff's
Office on the 19th May, the creditors’ meeting was on the 7th June and the Edinburgh Gazette
announced that the first and final dividend was to be paid to creditors on 5th December 1851, though
there was another creditors’ meeting on the 12th January 1852.
His property in Chapel Street was sold by auction in July 1851 and it is described as follows: That piece
of ground, with the HOUSES erected thereon, measuring 25 feet in front along the east side of Chapel Street,
formerly belonging, and in part possessed, by Eric Finlason, sometime Tailor in Aberdeen, and now belonging
to the Trustee on his Sequestered Estate. The Rental of the property is £20; the Yearly Feu-duty is £2 2s 8d; and
the Upset price will be £120. [Aberdeen Press and Journal 18 June 1851]
The appointed trustee of his sequestered estate was Edward Fiddes, who was secretary to the North of
Scotland Banking Company, and Eric is listed as one of the many “persons of whom the company or
partnership consists” in the returns made in February 1846, 1847, and 1848. In the bankruptcy process
Eric is described as “tailor and banker”, but how long his involvement with the bank had been is difficult
to judge, as the list was only produced as a result of an act of Parliament passed in 1845; the Bank itself
had been in existence since 1836.
Born in 1801 in Aberdeen, Eric, like his father and his brothers Robert and John, was a merchant tailor.
He held important posts in the Incorporated Trades: he was Boxmaster for the Tailors in 1835, Deacon
the following year and Master of Hospital in the early 1840s. In 1846, when the foundation stone for the
new Trades Hall was laid, his name appears among the Tailors’ representatives on the attached brass
plate.
It is possible to chart the progress of the Finlasons through the Aberdeen directories available on the
National Library of Scotland website and on FindMyPast, and also in the Aberdeen newspapers. The
earliest directory available, from 1824, gives these details:
Finlason, John & Son, tailors, 12, Guestrow, H. Chapel-st.
Finlason, Eric, tailor, 3, St. Catherine's-wynd, H. Chapel-st
Finlason, John, jun. tailor, H. 97, Shiprow
Finlason, Robert, tailor, H. Chapel-st.
From the same year this appears:
Nicol & Finlason, tailors. Concert Court, Broad-st.
Nicol, William, tailor. Concert Court, Broad-st.
A notice from the Aberdeen Press and Journal on the 5th of
November 1823 confirms that the partnership is between
William Nicol and “ROBERT FINLAYSON, a young man,
regularly bred to the newest and most approved methods of
Cutting and Making up, in one of the first shops in LONDON”.
Robert married Elspet Mary Randall in Aberdeen on the
15th August 1825; Elspet, however had been born in
London: her father William Randall was a tailor, born in
Aberdeen but working in Pimlico, which must be where
Robert learnt his London methods. I can’t find a baptism
for William Randall - or any Randalls - in Aberdeen, the nearest I have found for his approximate year of
birth, 1783, is a William Randall born on Shapinsay in Orkney … but I am always looking for Orkney
connections! Robert and Elspet Finlason had three children born in Aberdeen: William Randall (1826),
Margaret (1827) and Mary (1834). Robert died in 1835, and although his appearances in the directories
are not always consistent, his wife appears in her own right in 1831 running an Academy for Young
Ladies in Donald’s-court, 20 Schoolhill. After his death she appears again, but now providing lodgings at
50 Chapel-street. Elspet died in 1854, and all three of their children ended up on the other side of the
world: William Randall in New Zealand, and Margaret and Mary in Castlemaine, Victoria with their uncle
Eric, where they were also later joined at Ericsville by two of William Randall Finlason’s sons.
At some stage the Nicol & Finlason partnership became one
between Eric Finlason and William Nicol, for after William Nicol’s
death in October 1827, Eric refers to himself in advertisements
as “Tailor (late Nicol & Finlason)”. According to the directories he
was expanding his business to “tailor, clothier & glover” (1835),
and “tailor, clothier & hatter” (1848) and still describing himself
as “late of Nicol & Finlason”. His father John died in 1844, but
his brother John continued to work as a tailor in Aberdeen until
his death in 1871 at the age of 75. He died intestate, but an
inventory can be found on the ScotlandsPeople website and his
personal estate amounted to £63 1s 2d.; cash in the house
came to 7d.; the sale of his household goods raised just over £20, and his silver plate was
valued at £4 10s. He received £12 10s from the Tailors Incorporation, and had about £25 in
savings; it doesn’t seem a lot for a lifetime’s work. Perhaps this is a clue to the reason for Eric’s
bankruptcy: there wasn’t much money to be made in tailoring, one minor error of judgement could
easily tip you over the edge.
Apart from his work as a tailor, and for the Incorporated Trades, Eric’s interests in the 1840s seem to
have turned to horticulture. He was appointed president of the Hortus Club in December 1846, and he
was on the Club Committee in 1847 when he won prizes for a bouquet, and for the second best “three
polyanthus”; in 1848 he won a prize for his fashionable auriculas. In October 1847 he had also been
elected a member of the Aberdeenshire Horticultural Society. At the meetings of these societies he
would have also come across his fellow tailor Alexander Robb “the poet-laureate of the club”, and the
cousin of his future wife, who would be prevailed upon to sing one of his songs.
As his newspaper obituary makes clear, whether or not gold had been his original motivation in
emigrating, it soon took his interest. Why, though did he choose Australia over New Zealand where his
nephew, William Randell Finlason, was involved in copper mining? It is possible that he felt he had more
useful contacts in South Australia; and the Australian newspapers were very enthusiastic about the
"native" gold discoveries from 1846 onwards. This is from the Adelaide Observer of Saturday 11 Apr
1846:
NATIVE GOLD OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA. The existence of the most precious of all the metals in this province, has
often been asserted in this journal [...] but it was only seven days ago that surmise and hypothesis gave place
to certainty, and the demonstrative fact that we may rank gold amongst our mineral riches - existing, too - as
repeated assays and analyses have subsequently shown, in a state of native purity unsurpassable, if not
unequalled.
Although his obituary says that he “never aspired to any public position”, his “keen interest in mining”
led him in 1858 to stand for election to the Castlemaine division of the Mining Board.
Mr. Finlason is another candidate. He has resided on the Creek a considerable length of time, is well
acquainted with mining, possesses a more than usual share of shrewdness and common sense, but has
not hitherto taken any share in public affairs, which may probably tell against his election, seeing that
within the past four year there have been numerous opportunities for rendering assistance, whether by
advice or example though without emolument, or even honor. It is to be hoped, however, that the miners
will endeavour to choose the men best adapted to follow up a liberal and enlightened policy, without
respect to their former shortcomings. (Mount Alexander Mail, Friday 19 Feb 1858)
Eric responded to this rather negative newspaper description by
placing an advert with his election address stressing his personal
strengths. He wasn’t successful however, with just 28 votes he
came ninth out of the ten candidates, with just the top three
taking their places on the board.
Less than three months later he was
appointed “Secretary, Collector, and
Librarian” at the Castlemaine
Mechanics Institute. with “a salary of £25
per annum and commission, sufficient to enable him to devote the whole of his
time to the affairs of the Institute. This was another wise departure, for in three
months after his appointment Mr Finlason had added 80 additional names to the
subscribers' list.” (Mount Alexander Mail Friday 19 May 1905); though this same
article suggests that at the time the idea of a Free Public Library was not
generally popular with the Committee! Eric stayed in this post for 25 years
until he resigned in 1883 with a glowing testimonial from the Committee that
would hang on the wall of his house. Regret was expressed that they could
not give him something of a more costly nature, but the Committee - as usual
- was in debt. (Mount Alexander Mail Thu 22 Mar 1883)
Eric’s nieces, his brother Robert’s daughters, Margaret and Mary, who had arrived in Australia on
board the Champion of the Seas on 25th October 1862, both performed in concerts at the Institute; the
sisters’ usual vocal and piano performances on one occasion being augmented by “some Highland
pibroch music. This produced a laughable incident, for some of our Gaelic friends were apparently affected by
a musico-biological influence, and commenced dancing, or rather beating time with their feet, in a manner
which led to apprehensions of an unrehearsed effect in an involuntary reel or strathspey.” (Mount Alexander
Mail Wed 20 Apr 1864).
Margaret married William Swan Urquhart in 1866, and Mary turned her interests to spiritualism,
lecturing at the Institute and holding seances at Ericsville, events which received somewhat sceptical
reporting in the local press. Eric, himself, was named as Treasurer of the Castlemaine Spiritualists in a
case concerning a will that came to court in 1910. James Shaw, of Castlemaine, who had died in 1882,
had left “a quarter of his estate in trust in the name of Eric Finlason, treasurer for the Spiritualists of
Castlemaine, for a children’s lyceum or lecture hall for the Spiritualists’ congregation of Castlemaine.” As by
this time both Eric and his niece Mary Finlason - who was executor of the will - were dead, and nothing
had been, or was intended to be, built, the judge decided that Spiritualists as a class had ceased to exist
in the town, and that the funds held in trust should be distributed among the other beneficiaries.
(Bendigo Advertiser Tue 13 Dec 1910)
He was held in great esteem, and by his demise the borough loses one of its oldest and most genial pioneers
— one whose ambition was always to further its best interests.
Eric Finlason: 1801 - 29 October 1895
Murray families: Eric Finlason
Click on the clippings to enlarge
Aberdeen Press and Journal 8 Jun 1831
Mount Alexander Mail Mon 22 Feb 1858
Mount Alexander Mail Wed 19 May 1858