A portrait of Carlo Catani

I went to a meeting of the Berwick Pakenham Historical Society last night and I am sitting there during the meeting looking at the pictures they have on the wall and  I think 'that looks like Carlo' and I have a closer look as soon as the meeting was over and it was Carlo! To say I was excited is an understatement.

This is the portrait  of Carlo. The Berwick Pakenham Historical Society meet in the old Shire Offices in Pakenham and this is hanging in the Council Chambers which has a really high vaulted ceiling and the portrait was about fifteen feet from the floor and I only had my phone, so it was hard to take  a good photo. Thank you to Paul Caine for improving and adjusting the image. There is a photo at the bottom of this post which shows all the frame.

This is the caption  - 

C. CATANI, C.E.

Late Chief Engineer

Public Works Department

Presented to the Iona & District Pioneers Association by

Geo. Clowser, J.P. Secretary for Public Works

6 July 1923

I knew about the existence of this portrait as I had come across a reference to it in Trove

George Clowser presents a portrait of Carlo Catani to the Pioneers' Association of Iona.

The Argus, December 1 1923  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1982329

The short newspaper report reads - At the annual banquet of the Pioneers' Association of Iona an enlarged  framed photograph of the late Mr Catani was presented to the hall committee by Mr G. Clowser, secretary for public works, who was formerly pay-master of the settlement when the swamp was first opened up, and Mr Catani was the engineer. Mr O. Kavanagh (president) accepted the gift on behalf on the committee. It is interesting that the date on the portrait appears to be 6  July 1923 and the article is from December 1923, so if the newspaper report is correct it took a few months for the portrait to actually be presented.  George Clowser died  very shortly after he made this presentation at Iona, he passed away January 22, 1924 at only 61 years of age, so perhaps his ill health caused the delay in the presentation. As the pay-master for the Public Works Department, George had a connection to many of Carlo Catani's project and obviously held him in high esteem. I plan to do a blog post on George Clowser in the future.

The next question is why is this portrait at the Berwick Pakenham Historical Society? We will start with a short history of the Society. The Berwick Pakenham Historical Society was formed in 1962 as the Historical Society of Berwick Shire and when the Berwick Shire split in 1973 to form the City of Berwick and the Shire of Pakenham they changed their name to the Berwick Pakenham Historical Society. The old Berwick Shire  covered the area from the Dandenong Creek all the way east along the railway line through to Bunyip, north to Narre Warren North, Harkaway, Cockatoo and Gembrook etc and south of the line to a small section of the old Koo Wee Rup Swamp - Nar Nar Goon South, Cora Lynn, Vervale and Iona. Iona, of course, being the location where George Clowser presented the portrait.

Iona was a Village Settlement on the Koo Wee Rup Swamp. The Village Settlement concept was introduced to the newly drained Swamp by Carlo Catani.  The 1890s was a time of economic depression in Australia and various Government Schemes were implemented to provide employment and to stop the drift of the unemployed to the city. One of these schemes was the Village Settlement Scheme. The aim was for the settlers to find employment outside the city and to boost their income from the sale of produce from their farms. Under this Scheme, all workers had to be married, accept a 20 acre (8 hectares) block and spend a fortnight working on the drains for wages and a fortnight improving their block and maintaining adjoining drains. The villages were Koo Wee Rup, Five Mile, Cora Lynn, Vervale, Iona and Yallock. The first 103 blocks under this scheme were allocated in April 1893.  

Iona soon developed into a small community and the Pioneers' Hall was opened on April 26, 1895 (1) and it was in this Hall that the portrait of Carlo Catani resided. I  have written a history of the Pioneers' Hall, here. I am unsure when the Hall was demolished - maybe the 1940s or a bit earlier.  Anyway,  my theory is that the portrait was stored somewhere after the hall was demolished and donated to the Historical Society of Berwick Shire after its formation in 1962.

The Pioneers' Hall at Iona where the portrait of Carlo resided after  it was presented by George Clowser. 

The Advocate, November 16, 1922  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page20363246

The Iona Pioneers' Hall Committee. Mr O. Kavanagh, who was President of the hall committee is seated in the middle in the front (see footnote 2 for the other names) 

It was Mr Kavanagh who accepted the portrait of Carlo from George Clowser.

The Advocate, November 16, 1922  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page20363246

Who was the photographer? I don't know that but the same portrait was published in the The Herald of February 15, 1917, see below. The paper had a tribute to Carlo, who had just announced his retirement from the Public Works Department, read it here.  The headline of the tribute was Works of use and beauty will be his monument. He brought Italy's charm to bear on service here.

Portrait of Carlo Catani.

The Herald February 15, 1917. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242453435

Coming across this framed portrait of Carlo at Berwick Pakenham Historical Society has also solved another mystery as we have this same photograph at the Koo Wee Rup Swamp Historical Society and I didn't know where it came from as it seemed to be the only portrait of Carlo in a public collection.  I have used the Koo Wee Rup photo before in this blog (and some of my other blogs)  and more recently it has been used by CO. AS. IT, the Italian Historical Society in their exhibition Carlo Catani: Visionary, Creator, Genius, which was on display from December 2018 until March 2019 and  the City of Port Phillip on their interpretive sign in the Catani Gardens, see here. The Koo Wee Rup Swamp Historical Society was formed in 1974 and one of the co-founders, Jack Mills, was a very good photographer and I believe he would have taken a photo of the framed portrait and reproduced it for the Koo Wee Rup collection. 

This is the version of the photograph which we have at the Koo Wee Rup Swamp Historical Society.

My original photo, you can see all the frame. 

Footnotes

(1)  Call of the Bunyip: history of Bunyip, Iona and Tonimbuk, 1847-1900 by Denise Nest (Bunyip History Committee, 1900)

(2) The men in the hall committee photograph are - back row - left to right - W. Kraft, J. Dowd, W. Browne and C. Grummich. Front row seated - R. Grummich, O. Kavanagh and C.J. Donald. Source: The Advocate November 16, 1922, see here.