FRANCIS EDWARD GILBERT (1820-1879)

Francis (Frank) Edward Gilbert was born in Chichester in Sussex, England the second son and fourth child of ten to Joseph Gilbert and Jane SneLLING. Joseph was an artist and had exhibited at the Royal Academy 1813 and in following years. It appears that Frank and his brother George were also taught art. George was an artist who was a painter, printmaker and draughtsman and also taught art. Frank also taught art and was a map maker.

Frank arrived in Port Phillip in 1841 aboard the Diamond with his brother George and George’s wife Anne Brerley, and two of Anne’s children from a previous marriage. Frank was engaged as a tutor to Joseph Docker, a clergyman turned squatter and taught Joseph’s children at his property Bontharambo in the Ovens Valley until 1846, when the children went onto school. Following his return to Melbourne Frank met John Cotton a pastoralist and naturalist, of Doogallook Station on the Goulburn River. John employed Frank as a resident tutor to his children. When Cotton died in 1849 Frank returned to Melbourne where he married Mary Bruford (1822-1905) in 1850 in St Peter`s Church in Melbourne.

Frank found employment in the Survey Department and later he would use that experience to teach surveying at Geelong Grammar School. Frank and Mary lived first in Melbourne then moved to Geelong in the mid-1850s. In 1863 Frank was announced as having a surveyors licensed to act under the Real Property Act. In 1864 Frank and Mary were living with their five children in a rented house in Germantown. They purchased the house and named it Bexley House.

Frank gained some local recognition as an amateur artist. Several of his pictures were included in the first art exhibition held in Geelong (1857) at the Mechanic’s Institute, and by the 1870s he was locally becoming ‘recognised as an accomplished artist’. Frank in 1875 presented a collective exhibition of work by members of the Gilbert family.

In 1974 Frank offered his house Bexley House for sale or rent and was to be auctioned not long before he died suddenly in Hawthorn in 1879 at the age of 58. He is buried at the Boroondara Cemetery.

Gilbert Street in Torquay

Gilbert Street is named for Frank Gilbert who drew the earliest map of Torquay in 1857 as the government surveyor; Country Lots in the Parish of Puebla. The area was divided into Sections of between 100 and 300 acres. Section 66 was south of Anderson Street and was considered the township area. Section 65 was north of Anderson Street and divided into 25 allotments and it was considered the suburbs.

In 1866 when allotments in Section 65 were sold Frank purchased an allotment in the township on the corner of Bell Street and The Esplanade. Later that year allotments were sold in Section 66 and Frank purchased allotments 21 and 22. Six months later Frank sold allotment 21 to the John Bracebridge Wilson the headmaster of Geelong Grammar School. Wilson held the land for many years and then subdivided it into 22 allotments and created a central road called Gilbert Street.

Early owners of land in Gilbert Street

References:

Baulch, C. (2018). First township land sales. History Matters. 3(2). pp 8-10

Bowman, M. (2014). Cultured colonists: George Alexander Gilbert and his family, settlers in Port Phillip. Australian Scholarly Publishing: North Melbourne. Brown, P. L. (1976). John Bracebridge Wilson (1828–1895). Australian Dictionary of Biography Online. Design & Art Australia Online. (2011). George Gilbert.

Geelong Art Gallery

PROV maps Samuel, H. J (2006). Joseph Docker (1793–1865). Australian Dictionary of Biography Online.

The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.: 1848 – 1957) Wed 13 May 1863 Page 5

Vic BDM Register

West Sussex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1920