The Mayne Inheritance (18 page)

The University boatshed was then at the Domain, near the city bend of the river at the George Street campus. After lectures, the crew usually rowed upstream in the evening light, and it was one of James' late-life pleasures to hear the swish of oars and watch the silhouette as they glided along the metal-dark water past ‘‘Moorlands''. Fred,
their coach, was always close behind in a sleek speedboat, an acquisition which was also thought to have been financed by James.

On Saturday 6 March 1937, James and Mary Emelia took their final public curtain: the laying of the University of Queensland's foundation stone at St Lucia. It was a bright sunny afternoon and both the ailing Maynes rose splendidly to the occasion. James was formal in silk top hat and morning suit with a white
boutonnière,
his large diamond pin flashing on his cravat, and a heavy gold chain anchoring his fob watch. His sister was encased in black, from the froth of ostrich feathers encircling her hat to the black lace coat fastened over her long black dress by her exquisite gold-and-diamond winged heart. It was the same Marian symbol that was carved into their staircase, on James' portrait and many of his belongings, and now apparently also cherished by Mary Emelia. She, too, wore white flowers and flourished her gold-and-diamond bracelet as they sat in state on a dais erected on the vast treeless hillside. Harrison Bryan recorded that the stone was laid by the Premier, W. Forgan Smith, with the encouragement of the Chancellor, the assistance of Mr J. Hennessy the architect, and the blessing of Dr J. O'Neil Mayne, the donor. The leading figures in the ceremony had celebrated rather too freely beforehand; Bryan notes that as a result, the proceedings were somewhat more spirited than had been expected.

It is commonly accepted that as a result of those high spirits the foundation stone was set in the wrong place and
had to be shifted overnight. And there were those who remembered that as the area cleared of celebrants and staff, the stone was left isolated, pathetic and indistinguishable in the empty acres of grassland. The stone certainly was moved, but the official story is that it was due to a later decision to change the alignment of the Forgan Smith building.

Although the munificence of both the Maynes provided the land and they were guests of honour at the ceremony, their name does not appear among the many others on the foundation stone. The purist James may not have minded the omission, for the geologists on the staff at that time (among whom were Harrison Bryan's father and Dr Fred Whitehouse) did not approve of that first stone of what they hoped would be noble buildings. Harrison Bryan recalls, ‘‘it is an ersatz object produced by a company called Benedict Stone in which the Senate member, Archbishop Duhig, was known to have a considerable holding.''

In his last years James was unable to walk the distance to St Lucia to enjoy the peace or dream of the University buildings which would rise there. He may have been too disheartened to care. The Government, burdened with loans, a deep economic depression, and a huge unemployed workforce, tightened its purse. The diehard opponents of St Lucia raised the site issue again. But theirs was a swan song. In March 1938, a year after the celebratory stone-laying, work began. James was now a very ill man, rarely leaving his room. He may never have seen the first
fruits of his and Mary Emelia's generosity as the blocks of delicately coloured sandstone were shaped to form the first building. He would, however, have been kept informed of progress by Fred Whitehouse.

One warm January day, two weeks before he died, James asked to be taken to Sandgate so that he could have a last look at the beach resort where he had run barefoot as a boy. In his long troubled life that had been a rare and short time when he had been carefree and happy. They had great difficulty getting him into the car, but he insisted. He died on 31 January 1939.

As James had feared, a severely demented Mary Emelia survived him, but the two had made their plans as watertight as they could. Responsible to the end, he had been determined to leave the name of Mayne in high regard with the community. In December 1937 he had ensured they made identical wills, leaving everything to the University. James left £113,334 gross to the Medical School. When his sister died on 12 August 1940, her estate, which included their home ‘‘Moorlands'' and a collection of costly furniture and family treasures, brought their joint benefit to the Medical Faculty to almost £200,000. The money was for equipment, to establish and maintain chairs of medicine and surgery, to endow medical research, and grant scholarships within the medical school.

Much of their income-bearing estate lay in city and
Arcade, which remains in the estate, continues to return an income. The enormous cedar dining-room suite at ‘‘Moorlands'' became the Senate table and chairs, and the Steinway grand piano was used by the music students. Some furniture was later used in the Chancellor's robing room; the rest found its way into the offices of senior staff, most of whom appreciated their decorative treasures. Today, very little, if any of it, survives on campus. Similarly, ‘‘Moorlands'' is no longer a University property. The Senate could find no use for it and overruled James' and Mary Emelia's expressed wish that it should remain part of the University. It was sold in 1944.

However, James would have approved the eventual use of his home and gardens as part of Wesley Hospital, serving the people. Yet he and his sister had been denied the intention behind that gift. Like the other benefactions, they hoped it would stand as a permanent reminder to the community that despite malicious gossip, all but two of the Mayne family were worthy, decent people. With the exception of Rosanna's share of her father's will, the entire Mayne fortune, held together and expanded by their mother, Mary, then further expanded by her four youngest children, passed to the University of Queensland.

In the 1860s, had anyone asked the wealthy businessman Patrick Mayne what he had inherited, he would have proudly answered, ‘‘Nothing. I'm a self-made man, my children will be the inheritors.'' They were, in every sense
of the word. His genetic inheritance, potent and insidious, provided a legacy for his children which wrecked their lives mentally, morally and socially. No law exacted retribution from the criminals affected by that wilful gene, so freely handed on. That price was paid by the three youngest and innocent members of the family, persecuted by a vengeful public. Their memory remains besmirched today, almost sixty years after the death of the last member of the family. It is time their name was removed from the mire and given the place of honour which they deserve.

How strange is life? Patrick Mayne, one of Brisbane's first aldermen and a confessed murderer, is commemorated by Mayne Road and Mayne Junction, both at Mayne between the eastern suburbs of Bowen Hills and Albion. Just beyond Lang Park, on the western side of the city, two more streets carry his name, and a nearby street that of his unstable eldest son. They are Mayneview Street, Patrick Street and Isaac Street, all lying between Given Terrace and Milton Road, where Patrick had one of his many stock-holding yards and where his herdsman, Jacob Schelling, came to an untimely end. Both father and son are also remembered by superb stained-glass windows in St Stephen's Cathedral.

Although the last two innocent members of the Mayne family died over fifty years ago and gave their large fortune to benefit the people of Queensland, where were their names honoured? Until recently the slate was almost blank.

Until now their name has never been cleared. Countless false, lurid stories of male rape and murder still exist. So common is the story of the Maynes' bizarre past that in 1975 the Taringa-based Popular Theatre Group sought details of the gory rumours in order to re-enact them as history. There is no evidence that the exercise ever got off the ground.

Over the years the force of the Maynes' unsavoury reputation appeared to pose a difficulty for the University of Queensland in the matter of adequately honouring them. In recent times it has been further exacerbated. There is a widespread current story that James made his fortune as Brisbane's chief abortionist. This, too, is a fabrication. Abortion is unlikely to have been much of a money-making practice in 1904, when James handed his resignation to the Hospital Board, nor would it in the early 1900s have made the sort of money the Maynes enjoyed. This story completely ignores the fact that as Resident Medical Officer and as Hospital Superintendent, James Mayne gave every penny of his salary to benefit the Brisbane General Hospital. In 1904 the responsible, humane James ceased to practise because he feared that if the family's genetic mental instability should manifest itself in him, he might harm someone. The hope that one day he might, with confidence, resume his career led him to keep current his medical registration. That day did not come; he never again used his professional skills.

Archbishop Duhig, who failed to gain a share of the fortune for the Church, nevertheless acknowledged the genuine, benign man who was the real James Mayne. In delivering the panegyric at St Stephen's Cathedral on 2 February 1939, he spoke of James as a noble and unselfish citizen who had given his professional services without monetary fee or reward, and whom he, personally, had known to perform many unpublished acts of kindness and generosity. On that occasion Mary Emelia, touched by Duhig's unexpected warmth, rewarded the Archbishop with £100.

It must never be forgotten that the Mayne gifts to the University of Queensland came from two people; James provided two-thirds and Mary Emelia one-third of the total. She was a very willing partner in the drawing-up of the identical wills. Nevertheless, she was not the initiator. It was James who conceived the idea of benefiting the people through the University. He did all the planning and with her agreement made the execution of his plan sufficiently watertight so that their estates still provide great annual wealth for the Medical School. Mary Emelia's diminished intellect and lack of interaction with the community made her easily forgotten as a benefactor—but James Mayne, the man whom the public knew and who continually spread largess, is almost equally neglected.

At the time of James' death, when his bequests were made known, the Chancellor of the University, Sir James Blair, stated that James was the University's best friend. A spokesman for the University said: ‘‘The Senate will consider naming an outstanding section of the new university buildings after Dr Mayne'' and added that they may place a life-sized portrait on the wall facing the entrance to the Great Hall, where all meetings would be held. Another stated: ‘‘James' monument is the University buildings at St Lucia.''

These fine eulogic words were rapidly forgotten by all but two loyal friends, Dr Fred Whitehouse and William Jolly. During the following years both men voiced their anger and disappointment at the University's continued lack of recognition of the Maynes. There was nothing at the University to connect the name with the gift. The protests of the ageing William Jolly, no longer in politics, were of little avail. In 1954 Dr E.S. Meyers requested that recognition be given to the Maynes, and in 1959 the long-time Mayor of Brisbane, Sir John Chandler, added his public protest about the failure to honour them. University senators remained deaf.

In February 1969, thirty years after James' death, Dr Fred Whitehouse put angry pen to paper. He wrote to Convocation requesting that ‘‘the Senate of the University be asked to establish, within its precincts at St Lucia, a fitting memorial to the late Dr J. O'Neil Mayne and Miss Mayne''. In his long, hard-hitting letter he also reminded the Senate that after the war the Committee of the Boat Club had decided to call the new boatshed the Mayne Boat Shed. When the Senate erected the new shed, without any reference to the Boat Club it was named the ‘‘Eric Freeman''. Similarly, the Council of the Men Graduates Association of the University had proposed that some ornamental gates into the University grounds be erected as a memorial to Dr and Miss Mayne. This, too, was never done.

After a distinguished career at the University and an exceptionally distinguished military career in the Second World War, Associate Professor Whitehouse had unfortunately fallen foul of the law and had been dismissed from the University in November 1955. His protest on the Maynes' behalf appeared to have carried little weight. On the other hand, Whitehouse was a strategist. It is likely he was doing what he had done in
Galmahra
in 1927, raising a matter when there was a possibility of success.

Nine years earlier (1960) an appeal for funds had been launched to build the University a Great Hall. It had foundered for lack of support and the initial donors had seen nothing for their money. With the new Vice Chancellor, Professor Zelman Cowen at the helm, the project was revived and there was strong hope for the Hall's completion. Whitehouse's letter of protest was timely. In 1972, thirty-three years after the press was told that a building would be named after the Maynes, the new Hall was honoured by the name Mayne Hall. It is a most appropriate building to bear the name. Unfortunately, at all levels of the community it is generally thought to be the ‘‘Main'' hall. Many buildings on the campus honour distinguished academics and carry the first and the family name of the person so honoured: Gordon Greenwood, Hartley Teakle, Zelman Cowen, J.D. Story and so on. With Mayne Hall, a simple change to James Mayne Hall would confirm that it is an honour name and prompt the question ‘‘Who was he?'', thereby perpetuating a vital facet of the University's history.

Mayne Hall is an architectural statement and its wide expanse of glass does not easily lend itself to portraits or any other embellishment. In 1981, in an effort to mollify those who believed the Maynes were not sufficiently recognised, a small bronze plaque with the supposed profiles of James and Mary Emelia was placed in Mayne Hall. As with the excellent portrait of James until recently tucked away in the Customs House, it is far from view and recognition, placed high in a small, dimly lit seating bay on the far side of the entrance to the auditorium. Few have ever noticed it. In 1974, when the new Mayne Hall proved very suitable for concerts, a Mayne String Quartet featuring leading Brisbane musicians was formed. In 1980 it became the Mayne String Trio, but was disbanded in 1986. The honour name died with it.

At the Medical School at Herston, the large annual income from the Mayne Bequest continues to help make the Faculty a viable entity. Some of that money finances two professorial chairs, one for medicine and one for surgery. Each originally bore the name Mayne Professor but by the mid 1980s the name Mayne had been dropped from both.

Until now it has been true to say that at the University of Queensland and for some 160,000 men and women who, to date, have studied at the St Lucia campus, the name Mayne has little significance. The majority would never have heard of the family. Nor is there anything to tell the thousands of citizens who at weekends enjoy sport, long walks, or relaxing in the magnificent riverside grounds, who it was that provided what must be one of the most splendid university sites in Australia. James and Mary Emelia would have taken great pride in the way the campus has been developed. No one, it seemed, had the courage to be proud of them. 1995 saw some change in that. The Senate of the University resolved that James' and Mary Emelia's significant contribution to the Medical Faculty would be recognised by calling the School at Herston the Mayne Medical School. It was so named at a ceremony in December 1996. By April 2001 James' portrait, recently damaged, had still not been displayed in a place of honour for all to see on the St Lucia campus.

The University Library holds a sealed file, not to be opened before early in the twenty-first century. It is understood to contain the memoirs of several Brisbane medical men and may contain some material concerning James Mayne. It is to be hoped that those men who wrote for posterity personally knew their man, eschewed rumour and had a care for fact.

The false stories have been researched and shown to be what they are—cruel fabrications. It is a sad commentary on society that the good spread by James and Mary Emelia Mayne in their lifetime, which continues long after their deaths, took so long to be proudly proclaimed. The fact that some members of their family inherited a rogue gene and were driven by forces they could not control does not mean that the money donated by James and Mary Emelia Mayne is tainted. They gave to the University of Queensland its main campus at St Lucia, the large Veterinary Farm at Moggill, the valuable site of ‘‘Moorlands'' and an income which by 1995 had grown to almost $1M a year to support the Faculty of Medicine.

James Mayne, the man who directed that generosity, should now be remembered by the words of William Jolly who spoke truly and sincerely when he said at James' funeral, ‘‘In him the community lost a good friend.''