William George Anslow

Citation by Peter Lovell

 

William was born on 9 March 1854 at his parents’ home in St Kilda, Melbourne. He probably received his more formative education in Clermont and Rockhampton in Queensland where his parents moved in 1861. His father, William Warner Anslow, was a native of Staffordshire in England where he was born in 1826. His mother, Peninnah Long was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire in England in December 1827. They married in Berkeley in 1848 and migrated to Melbourne in 1850. William Warner Anslow was an auctioneer and stock agent in Melbourne, Ballarat, Clermont and Rockhampton where he died in January 1869. Peninnah Anslow and her son then moved to Sydney.

This was a welcome move for William as he became very involved in rowing on Sydney Harbour, joining the Sydney Rowing Club, and was often mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper due to his involvement in club regattas and races as early as 1878. From 1879 until 1888, he was a member of the New South Wales Inter-Colonial Eight-Oared Rowing Team competing in other states. He was the NSW Captain of the Team competing in Melbourne in April 1880, an event that the Melbourne Argus newspaper reported “attracted immense crowds”.

He was employed by the Bank of New South Wales and later by the Commercial Bank. His marriage to Jessie Jeanette Prince took place on 15 September 1881 in St John’s Church in Darlinghurst, Sydney. She was the daughter of a respected and wealthy Sydney merchant, Henry Prince, who lived in ‘Craigend’ a large mansion with an extensive garden of over four acres, on the upper ridge in Darlinghurst near St. John’s Church.

They settled in Double Bay, then Woollahra, before moving in 1886 to Manly, possibly as William’s keen interest in rowing led him to seek a home close to the Harbour. William and Jessie had a family of three sons and one daughter. They were Guy Warner Anslow, born in 1882; Roy Anslow, born in 1884; Cicely Anslow, born in 1886; and Tom Prince Anslow, born in 1889. The family lived from 1890 in a house named ‘Altiora’ in Darley Road Manly.

William left the Banking industry in the mid 1880s to establish his own business as a stock and share broker operating from an office at 135 Pitt Street, Sydney. He admitted a partner, Henry Doyle to his business in 1889, which was then renamed Anslow and Doyle. His business expanded and the partners advertised their services widely in newspapers around Australia.

William had interests in community activities and in February 1889 he was elected to Manly Municipal Council as an alderman. He was mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald regarding participation at a meeting for a prospective Member of Parliament for the Warringah electorate, and was also a member of the Manly Tennis Club and instrumental in forming the Manly Swimming Club in 1893.

He resigned from Manly Council in mid 1892 due to business commitments as he was representing the Sydney Stock Exchange in new mining developments in South and Western Australia. He had travelled to Western Australia in 1894 to the Fairyland mine near Cue and returned to Sydney with gold samples creating strong interest in investment. It was on a later trip to Perth in 1895 that William died suddenly on 13 March as a result of typhoid fever and dysentery. He was buried in East Perth Cemetery.

His widow, Jessie Anslow, married for a second time on 5 September 1896 to William Henry Gordon German, at St. John’s pro-Cathedral in Brisbane. He was a former friend from Manly who had been an elected councillor at the same time as her husband and also served as Mayor of Manly Council. He died there in 1905 and the Anslow family returned to Sydney, living in Liverpool Road Enfield. Jessie died on 5 December 1931 at a private hospital in Mosman and
was buried in Northern Suburbs Cemetery (now named Macquarie Park Cemetery).