Go Back

Toohey And Welby Family, And Port Kembla Property Development [NSW]

c1878–1999. Collection of seven hundred and thirty-six (736) items including photographs, documents, newspaper clippings and a land division poster, many items annotated with dates or identifying family members, sizes range from 9 x 5.5cm to 80.1 x 50.5cm. Old folds, creases and tears, slight stains and foxing.

This collection is an in-depth archive created by Lola Davies, née Toohey, the daughter of Sydney couple Francis (Frank) Toohey (1894–1956), real estate agent, and Lola Welby (1895–1981), a Tivoli dancer. The Toohey family lived in a Mosman mansion, Ardagh, from 1913 to 1918, where Frank and his father William (real estate agent and former mayor of Footscray, Victoria) started another real estate business “Toohey & Toohey.” By 1927 Frank Toohey had moved his office to Pitt Street and was trading under “F.J. Toohey.” He became the vendor for Lake Heights Estate on the shores of Lake Illawarra, Port Kembla. Material in this collection includes the land division poster for Lake Heights Estate; many photographs surveying the land and surrounding steel works, which appear on the poster and in a circa 1927 booklet entitled Fires of Opportunity, espousing the investment opportunities of buying land at Lake Heights Estate (including the development of the nearby Hoskins Steel Works and a newly completed rail line); and a Torrens title contract by Francis Toohey of land sale to a Cecily Hodson in the Estate.

Also included are photographs and documents relating to Lola Welby, stage name Lola Dowie. She was part of Harry Rickards’ Tivoli Follies from 1914 until about 1919, when Frank Toohey and Lola married. Items include her 1914 contract to the Tivoli Theatres; a 1915 group photograph of Lola with fellow Follies actors and dancers welcoming James J. Corbett, the American boxer and vaudeville actor; modelling photographs of Lola for Grace Bros, and as the cover model for The Model Trader, the Grace Bros catalogue for 1918; and four photographs of Lola posed with flowers, which were taken at a Melbourne studio where one was later used without her permission to adorn a chocolate box. A letter to the “Talma Studio, Melbourne” threatens legal action if the boxes are not withdrawn or if the studio refuses to pay Lola £10 for use of the photograph is included. Other documents and photographs in this collection explore a rich history of both the Welby and Toohey families, including of one Welby family member who became an Australian prisoner of war in Germany in 1942. There are also family trees, convict links, May Moore studio portraits, and family albums. Ref: Mosman Council, Trove, Wiki.

.
Item #CL198-27

Price (AUD): $9,900.00  other currencies