Pio Vico Armati (1846 to 1923) - A Family History
A Family History
concerning Pio, his family and descendants
by
Peter McLean Armati
This is a family research document, and
copyright approval for the material used has not been sought from the
publishers of the various works used in the research. As a consequence, the
people who use this text should respect its special nature, and not copy it for
any reason other than further research and study.
The information contained in this Internet
file is a partial extract from the book of the same name published in
Please address any enquiries concerning this
document to the author, whose email address is armati@exemail.com.au
Chapter 1 Beginnings : 1846 to 1875
Chapter 2 Early Successes : 1875 to 1890
Chapter 3 The getting of Wisdom: 1890 to
1923
Chapter 4 Obituaries
and other writings
Chapter 6 Armati people
in history
Appendix C Chiaffredo
Venerano Fraire
Appendix D Ships and Shipping Lists
Appendix F Townsville
Grammar School
Appendix G Italian History 1870
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
bears all its sons away:
they fly, forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.
(Isaac Watts, 1674-1748: based on Psalm 90)
Pio Armati was born on Sunday August 23, 1846 and was baptised in the small town of Marino, Italy, fifteen miles south-east of Rome, in the Church of St. Barnabas the Apostle near the town's centre. According to the church's baptismal registry he was baptised Pius Antonius Francescus Maria Armati at that time, and not Pio Vico Armati. His father was stated on his birth certificate to be Giacomo Armati, and his mother, Giuditta Ungherini.
Pio
means "Pious" in Italian, and Vico means "alley, lane, village,
hamlet or region". Pio's use of "Vico" in his name appears to
have commenced about the time of his arrival in
Pio
was admitted to the Roman Pontifical Seminary at the age of eleven. A
certificate dated
A
Seminary was, at that time, the only serious school that young people could
attend, unless their families were wealthy enough to be able to afford
permanent live-in private tutors. Only a minority of children who were admitted
to the seminaries afterwards left as fully ordained priests. It would appear to
be highly unlikely that Pio was ever ordained.
Pio
studied at the Seminary from 1859 to 1867 studying Grammar, the Humanities,
Rhetoric, and Philosophy. He matriculated, and entered. the faculty of Philosophy on
He
studied at the
On
The
Pope is quoted by some writers as having addressed the following letter to the
commander of his forces, General Kanzler: " .... the
defence should only consist in such a protest as would testify to the violence
done to us, and nothing more; in other words, that negotiation for surrender
should be opened as soon as a breach should be made." In fact the
fighting lasted five hours, and, according to A. Gallenga, "The Pope
seemed to expect that the avenging angel might at any time appear, smite the
enemies, then turn upon him, God's vicar as he was, and reproach him for his
impatience and little faith." At last, after some nineteen Papal
soldiers and forty-nine Italians had been killed and Cadorna had made a breach
in the walls at Porta Pia, the Pope ordered the surrender.
What
happened next in Pio Armati's life is, at this stage, unclear. Pio had been a
member of the Pope's Voluntary Reserve Army in April 1869. This voluntary
formation of the Papal States' territorial army was involved not so much in
preventing the Italian army entering Rome, (as the city fell because of the
Pope's decision, effectively undefended), but in constraining the activities of
irregular units of Italian nationalists (sometime bandits operating as
patriots) during the 1860s.
Clearly,
senior members of this army (which the Certificate from the Pope's
Voluntary Reserve Army indicates Pio to have been), would not have been popular
with the new government controlling
It
would seem almost certainly that Pio met Bishop Quinn in
In
correspondence with the Brisbane Catholic Church Archivist, Father Denis
Martin, we have been advised that all Bishop Quinn's assisted emigrants were required
to attend school in
One
may speculate that Pio was fighting inside the walls of Rome against the
invading army of the King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel, not only to protect the
Pope and Rome, but also to protect the value of his Law Degree, which would not
be recognised by the newly emerging Italian state: that here in Rome he met
Bishop Quinn, (perhaps Pio was one of the wounded who was attended to by Bishop
Quinn), who suggested that Pio might do well to go to the new colony of
Queensland to make his fortune there. Bishop Quinn was actively recruiting both
clerics and laymen in
In his
book From Italy to Ingham, William Douglass asserts that Pio was
studying in
Armati was another Quinn recruit. Before immigrating
to Australia the bishop had founded St. Mary's College in Dublin, and it was
there that Armati, as a student, had met Quinn on one of the prelate's many
return visits to Ireland and was persuaded to accompany him back to Queensland.
He settled in Townsville where he founded a pharmacy, which remained his main
activity.
So it
was that this highly educated twenty-four-year-old citizen of
Father
Doctor Carmusci, who accompanied Pius Armati for over one hundred days in their
journey to
Two
months later than Pio, Bishop Quinn, his entourage, and many of the group of
Italian immigrants including nineteen year old Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire,
arrived in
In an
unpublished biography of Chiaffredo Fraire, Dr. D. J. Bean writes:
Young
Fraire had a rough time in some ways just at first. He made the usual mistake
of staying with some of his own countrymen who had arrived in
On
By
Where
Pio obtained the funds to purchase E. L. Kenway's shop in Flinders Street,
Townsville is not known, but if the story is true that Pio's father died in
Italy before Pio came to Australia and that he sold all his father's properties
giving much of the money to his sisters for dowries, it is quite possible that
he had some small wealth at the beginning of his time in Australia.
Pio
was listed as a chemist and druggist in Townsville in 1875 in Willmett's
Almanac 1876. He was advertising as a chemist and druggist in the Townsville
Times on
Townsville
was only a small, eleven year old town at that time, with unformed dirt roads.
Originally, Townsville was only a small port for pastoralists settled to the
west of Townsville; after 1867 it became the port for five major gold fields
and later the centre for rich sugar-growing districts to the north and south.
It was to grow rapidly. It was not a natural choice for a harbour, as it had a
river with a sand bar to the ocean and with no deep water close to the land.
Nevertheless, Townsville on
Over
the next twenty years the white population of
Riding
on the back of this period of rapid growth Pio was to find it relatively easy
to be successful. The slowing down of this phase of rapid growth would bring
surprises to many people, including Pio, Chiaffredo Fraire and Robert Philp.
Initially
it would have been very tough for Pio; he was starting up a business from
scratch in this primitive environment. Less than eleven years earlier, the
white immigrant pioneers had begun to occupy the land where Townsville was now
growing, apparently without any resistance from any aboriginals who were living
there. There are no accounts that the aboriginals were murdered, as had
occurred only two years previously in Bowen, one hundred miles to the south of
Townsville. These were tough, raw and wild pioneering days, not the comfortable
safe times in which we now live.
Over
the ensuing years, Pio, whilst appointed a chemist, also acted as a doctor,
dentist, optometrist and a veterinary surgeon, all in an unofficial capacity.
Pio was also authorised by the Government to supply opium to registered Chinese
opium addicts.
The
first church in Townsville, the Catholic Church of St. Joseph on the
We
must remember that Pio was only twenty-eight years old when he commenced as a
chemist in Townsville, and that he was educated in Italian, law and philosophy,
not English, commerce and pharmacology! He was used to the environment of
ancient
The Cleveland
Bay Express reported on
Pio
and others including James Burns, W. Aplin and Dr. Roche wrote letters to the
newspaper to encourage Mr. P. F. Hanran and Mr. Thankfull Willmett to nominate
for vacancies in the Townsville Municipal Council on
On
Christmas Day 1875 it is said that Pio's horse "Cossack" beat
O'Neill's "Shamrock" on the beach in a match for £ 10. That would
have been a most significant wager in those days.
Pio
swore an oath of allegiance "to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, as lawful
Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of this
Colony of Queensland" in Townsville on May 16, 1876.
Pio
was regularly received into Free Masonry in Townsville on
He was
reported to have been appointed as a member of the Burdekin and
On
The
Norris children had been born in
It may
seem to be an extraordinary change in behaviour, to move from being intimately
connected with the Roman Catholic Church, becoming a Mason, and then marrying
an Anglican woman, and subsequently adopting the faith of the Church of
England. To some large degree his involvement with the Masons could quite well
have been to ensure that business was directed to him, because the mateship
afforded by the Masons would have been a very important part of his business
network.
It is
noteworthy that at least two of the men who played an important part in Pio's
life were also Masons. These were Chiaffredo Fraire and Robert Philp. Mr.
Thankfull Willmett was also a Mason and was at one stage the Treasurer for the
Townsville branch. It seems almost certain that P. F. Hanran was also a Mason.
As can be noticed on the maps of towns where Pio later purchased land, these
names keep cropping up together. Robert Burns appears also to have been a
Mason.
It is
thought that as a consequence of Pio's marriage to
Pio
and Frances' marriage was to produce five children over the next twenty-four
years; Blanche (1877), Percy (1879), Leo Vincent (1882), Clive Vivian (1884),
and Rex Gordon (1899).
On
On
At a
School of Arts meeting held on March 17, 1877, Pio said that 'the fact that
we are about to occupy a fine building draws attention to the fact that the
books comprising the library do not occupy more than two shelves'. This
building, which is today the only 1870s timber building now left in Townsville,
had a concert hall seating 800 people. It is now
Blanche
Adelina Giuditta Bianca Armati was born on
On
On
Pio
was a also keen gardener, and recognising this, on
December 2, 1878 Pio, together with Mr. Burstall, was asked by the Townsville
Municipal Council to advise them on the layout and design of the Townsville
Botanical Gardens.
Percy
Edgar Armati was born
Pio
signed a petition on
In May
1879 Pio was advertising not only as a retail Chemist and Druggist, but also
wholesale. In addition he was supplying flowering plants, fruit trees and
garden seeds. On
In an
essay written by Guy Pearse (held by the
In
1996 Nancy Armati sold the land to the Department of Defence. The land had been
evaluated for minerals by Planet Exploration in the 1950s, and found not to
have any deposits of any value, even though the surrounding area is rich in
Nickel.
Pio
was appointed one of the founding trustees of the Queen's Park Trust on
The
chemist shop in Flinders Street Townsville which Pio had bought in 1875 from
Kenway was sold to Mr. Atkinson in 1881, who later in
the same year took in Frank Powell and continued to operate the pharmacy under
the name of Atkinson and Powell for some years.
Leo
Vincent Armati was born
The
Townsville Municipal Council records indicate that on
From
1881 until 1887, Pio was in a business partnership with Chiaffredo Venerano
Fraire. He appears to have accumulated a small fortune during these seven years
for he "retired" at the end of this period as a merchant at the age
of 41. During this period, Townsville's population grew from 5,410 people in
1881 to 11,454 in 1886.
We
read in Dr. Bean's biography of C. V. Fraire:-
Soon afterwards (1880), he [Fraire] and
a friend, Armati, bought out the Burns, Philp & Co. business at Townsville,
and carried it on successfully for a further seven years. During this time
Fraire again made a short trip to
And in
William Douglass' book "From Italy to Ingham":-
In 1879 Philp sent Fraire to
The Armati-Fraire drapery business lasted from 1880 to
1887, at which time Fraire sold his interest and went to
On
James
Burns had established a business in Townsville in 1873. He persuaded Robert
Philp to join him as a partner and manager in 1874. After the death of his wife
and also after Burns contracted malaria in
Burns'
large wooden store in Flinders Street retailed a great variety of commodities -
groceries, drapery, hardware, boots, wines and spirits and so on .
James
Burns was not happy about Philp's idea. Burns wrote to Philp in 1877:
You are well aware the wholesale and retail business
at Townsville are grafted into one another and if you lose the carriers and
public retail trade your business would get confined to a paper business almost
entirely and you would run large risks on small profits.
As a
Trustee of the Queen's Gardens, Pio inspected the twenty-one acres of garden
which had been cleared in the Queen's Park on
Pio's
birth certificate was authenticated by the British Consulate in
He
purchased a couple of acres of land in the Roseneath Subdivision Estate, on the
outskirts of Townsville, in 1884. It is thought that Pio bought this land to
make a "speculative killing", and that he had no intention to live or
develop the land there. During World War II the Army took over this land and
built reinforced-concrete bunkers on it. Clive Vivian Armati bequeathed this
land to his son Clive Hylton Armati, who eventually sold it to Mr. Gallaway. Mr. Gallaway converted the bunker into a house,
with some difficulty.
The
Post Office directory in 1884 listed Armati & Fraire as agents, clothiers.
They also were wine sellers.
Pio
was instructed in the mysteries of the Royal Arch Degree of Free Masonry on
In
1884 Pio gave most generously to the fund being collected to create the
In
July 1884, Pio and his family were living on the high side of Cleveland
Terrace, adjoining "The Rocks" site.
Clive
Vivian Armati was born on
On
On
On
The North
Queensland Telegraph reported on
The
1887 Valuation Records for Thuringowa show that Mr. J. Ahearne sold
As a
ratepayer, on
Pio
was actively engaged with the Townsville Show Society, and on
In
1887, Pio built the Queen's Building, in
The
North Queensland Telegraph reported on May 21, 1887 that P. V. Armati had built
premises in Flinders Street between Atkinson & Powell (thought to have
been very close to the site of the chemist shop which Pio had bought from
Kenway in 1875) and the Australian Joint Stock Bank (now the Bank
Nightclub) known as Queen's Building. The Architect was W. Howard Tunbridge. It
was a two storey building with Doric columns supporting the entablature. The
ground floor was 1,500 square feet, with glass to within a few inches of the
footpath. Upstairs was let as offices with a private stairway to the
ground.
Next
door, to the left of the Queen's Building in the photo below, is the premises
of the early chemists Atkinson & Powell. Designed by Willoughby Powell, it
is the only shop to retain part of its original beautiful shop-front.
Pio
was a very strong supporter of "The Northern Queensland Separation
League": Pio was a signatory to the petition to the British Colonial
Secretary in
On
On
In
1887 Fraire sold his interest in the Armati & Fraire partnership and went
overseas to
In
November 1887 Pio was a Director of the Roslyn Park Land Company Limited.
On
Prior
to moving south, Pio purchased land around Townsville. Two pieces of land (at
least) were purchased at Mingela, which lies 78 Kms. south west of Townsville,
on the way to the old gold-mining town of Ravenswood. Chiaffredo Fraire also
purchased a piece of land here. As it turned out, the town never developed.
This was one of the investments which Pio made which turned sour on him in the
events leading up to the Bank Crash in 1893. Pio also owned land in Argentine,
Ayr and in Roseneath and Albion Estate in Townsville.
In
1888 Pio moved to Elston in 40 Nicholson Street, Burwood in Sydney, New
South Wales, occupying the eastern half (number 40) of a duplex house 40 and 42
Nicholson Street. The entire property was owned by Compton South Miller of
Singleton, New South Wales from 1877 until 1947. This property lies on the
South side of Nicholson Street, between Bold Street and Wentworth Road. Each
property stood on land measuring 172 feet by 50 feet.
Today
the area is rather run down and depressed, although there are a number of
substantial mansions, almost palaces, dotted here and there amongst the modern
suburban nightmare. At the time that Pio rented there, from 1888 to 1890, the
area would have been very respectable; his neighbours were solicitors, and an
ironmonger. Burwood, and later, Strathfield, were suburbs which were developing
from virgin bush in the 1870s and 1880s. These suburbs of Sydney are built on
land which is slightly higher than the surrounding suburbs.
Presumably
he brought his entire family to Sydney. Blanche would have been 11, Percy 9,
Leo 7, and Clive 4 when they moved south. It would seem likely that whilst Pio
probably did indeed intend to retire from pharmacy, that it was his intention
to develop in some new direction in Sydney.
On
November 6, 1888, Pio purchased three adjoining blocks of land on Liverpool
Road, Enfield, Sydney, one block to the East of the Baker Street/Liverpool Road
intersection. He paid £ 637:10:0 for the three blocks of land. In total the
land amounted to 1 Acre and 5 Perches (45000 sq. feet). Each block was 300 feet
by 50 feet. At the time that he purchased this land he was described as a
'Gentleman' who lived in Burwood NSW.
He
sold this land fifteen years later to the Bank of North Queensland on June 1,
1903. We do not know why he sold the land to a Bank, but most likely it was to
urgently settle some indebtedness which he had to the Bank at that time.
The
land lies about one kilometre from where he was living in 40 Nicholson Street,
Burwood. The location of both properties is marked in black rectangles on the
map. The land is in an area now zoned for shops and commerce. It is in fact the
site of a large Roman Catholic Church and College today (St. Joseph's). Pio did
not sell the land to the Catholic Church himself, but to the bank. The Catholic
church did not purchase the land until many years later. In fact it belonged to
the wife of a Methodist Minister in Victoria at one stage, and she split it up
into its original three blocks, and sold them separately. One may speculate
that Pio rented the house in Nicholson Street, and bought land nearby in
Liverpool Road for investment purposes. It may have been that he intended to
develop the three blocks into a home and a shop or shops. We will never know.
On
April 9, 1889 Pio was registered as a Pharmaceutical Chemist under the Pharmacy
Act of 1884 .
The getting of Wisdom: 1890 to 1923
Unfortunately,
Pio lost so much of his money in the events leading up to the 1893 bank crash
that he found it necessary to revise his plans and return to work as a
pharmacist until the day of his death in 1923. On May 2, 1890 he arrived back
in Townsville from Sydney, to buy two pharmacies; one in Flinders Street West
and the other in Flinders Street to the left of the Queensland Hotel (looking
from Flinders Street). He purchased these two shops from Mr. D'Weske, another
chemist in Townsville.
On
June 24, 1891, Pio was advertising in the Townsville Herald "P. V. Armati,
late E. D'Weske's Chemist Shop - McKenzie'se Building". The Queensland
Post Office Directory for 1891 shows Pio operating both businesses. However by
1893 William Clayton is shown at the Flinders Street West End chemist shop,
across the road from the Carriers Arms Hotel, although by 1894-5 Clayton no
longer occupied this shop. At this time Pio was living on the right-hand side
of Walker Street between Stanley and Stokes Streets.
From
1892 until his death in 1923, Pio's Chemist business occupied only this
premises beside the Queensland Hotel.
(Like
Pio, C. V. Fraire also had difficulties and was declared bankrupt in 1899 for
£30,000; Robert Philp's speculations led to his resignation from the board of
Burns, Philp & Co. in May 1893, although he was appointed a minister in the
Queensland Parliament nine days later, with the Mines Portfolio.)
Pio
Vico Armati and Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire had become actively engaged in
encouraging and promoting Italian immigration during the early expansion of the
sugar industry in North Queensland.
On October 24, 1891, 333 Italians of whom 267 were
single men, sailed from Genoa on the "Jumna" for the North Queensland
Sugarcane fields and banana plantations, to replace the South Sea Islanders and
Javanese men.
The
ship arrived in Townsville in December 1891. C. V. Fraire had suggested this
idea to the Queensland Government, and it had been championed in the Parliament
by Mr. Philp, Chiaffredo's friend from his earliest days in Townsville.
Chiaffredo had himself gone to Italy to select the new settlers. This was his
third overseas trip since his arrival in Brisbane, his first trip was as a
buyer for Burns, Philp & Co., and his second in 1887, at the end of his
partnership with Pio.
There
are stories that Pio Vico was the honorary Italian Consul in Townsville. These
thoughts are to some extent supported by writings in Sotto La Croce del Sud:
At the Immigration Depot, Mr. J. A. Wallace, Assistant
Immigration Agent, was able to listen to the Italians' ups and downs "with
the kind assistance of Mr. P. V. Armati".
and
also
On one occasion the whole Armati family were invited
together with the Mayor of Townsville and other notables to spend an evening at
the home of the Japanese Consul in Townsville. They were met by the consul, Mr
Tayui, and his wife, and also by the consul's secretary, Mr. Sugimura, at the
entrance to the verandas. Mrs and Miss Tayui wore 'very handsome kimonos' while
the other ladies were 'all elegantly frocked'. Owing to the crowded state of
the rooms, there was little dancing. The supper, however, was 'a very sumptuous
affair' and during the evening:
"The band discoursed sweet music, and at
intervals some excellent vocal and instrumental numbers were given. Miss Tayui
entertained her guests by rendering an instrumental solo on a 'Koto' a peculiar
Japanese stringed instrument, she also sang a little Japanese song,
accompanying herself on the 'Koto'."
And:
We have already read about Mr. Wallace, the Assistant
Immigration Agent, who could find more information about the Italians'
whereabouts "with the kind assistance of Mr. P. V. Armati". Armati
was born at Marino near Rome, immigrated to Australia in 1874, and was
naturalised in 1876. In Townsville he established a chemist's shop in Flinders
Street. At one stage he entered into a partnership with Fraire, and they traded
as Armati Fraire & Coy., drapers, ironmongers, wine sellers and general
merchants until 1889 when the partnership was dissolved. Armati encouraged and
promoted Italian immigration.
In
March 1892 a Dr. Hunter Finlay was arrested for attempting to procure an
abortion for Annie Keogh, a servant girl. The next day the court was cleared.
The prescription had been made up by P. V. Armati.
In July
1896 there was a fire in the Market Reserve on Flinders Street. The flames were
so intense that they scorched the shops on the opposite side of Flinders
Street, fracturing the plate glass windows in McKimmin and Richardson's and P.
V. Armati's chemist shop.
Rex
was born on November 17, 1899. At that time Pio and Frances were still living
in Walker Street, Townsville, between Stokes and Stanley Streets on the
right-hand side from Denham Street. Pio and Frances were waiting for their new
house to be completed. They moved into 11 (now 23) Hale Street after Rex was
born. In the Queensland Post Office Directory 1901 they are shown as still
living in Walker Street, but the Post Office records for 1902 show Pio and his
family living in 11 Hale Street for the first time.
There
was a serious outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Townsville in 1902. There were
seven cases of Bubonic Plague, of which five died. All the patients were nursed
in a special "Plague Tent" in Gregory Street. Mr. Bartholomew Watt, a
tenant in one of Pio's properties, in Flinders Street East, died of the Plague
on 21 August 1902. The Council later burnt the house to the ground, as a
preventative measure. Pio and the Council haggled for some time about the
amount of compensation owing to Pio, and finally settled on £20 compensation.
A
letter in the Townsville Municipal Council's files ated 1903 gives the
impression that Pio and Frances were living in Flinders Street at that time,
which is highly unlikely. Whether this was the case, or simply that the letter
was written from Pio's chemist shop in Flinders Street is unclear. Most likely
the latter was the case.
Pio
trained his sons Percy Edgar and Clive Vivian Armati to be chemists. Clive was
indentured to Pio Vico to learn the art and mystery of a
Pharmaceutical Chemist after the manner of an Apprentice; to serve from the
First day of January 1903 until the full end and term of three years from
thence following. On January 1, 1906 Pio certified on the back of the
Indenture papers that Clive Vivian Armati had duly completed his
apprenticeship to me.
Nancy
Armati and Sue Thomas recall that Pio used a price code in his shop based on
the Latin 'Pro sua fide' (on behalf of his faith). This code worked as
follows:
P
R O S U A F I D E
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
So
2/10 (2 shillings and 10 pence - or two and ten pence) was coded R/PE. 1/3 (one
and threepence) was P/O and so on. This was general practice in retail shops in
those days and was continued right up to the time that the chemist shop was
closed down in 1966, at the time that decimal currency was being
introduced.
On
September 23, 1905 Leo Vincent Armati married Alice Mabel Ward, most probably
in Brisbane. Leo and Mabel's engagement was announced in Townsville in July,
1905, just prior to Leo's moving south to Brisbane to take up an appointment on
the staff of The Daily Mail. Their son, Louis Ward Armati, was born in
Brisbane on January 8, 1907. [Louis was later to change his name to Louis
Watts, after the failure of this marriage, and after his mother remarried, in
1921.]
Clive
qualified as a chemist on January 1, 1906 and in the same year Pio had a
telephone connected to his house.
Pio
owned four significant properties on Flinders Street in 1906. One of these was
a pair of adjacent properties on the west side of Flinders Street between
Blackwood and Stanley Streets, opposite the old Bulletin building, the
one-time Opus Night Club. The second was another pair of adjacent properties
running through from Flinders Street East to Melton Terrace beside the old Bank
of New South Wales on the corner of Flinders Street East and Wickham Street.
Blanche
married Harry Shepherd at St. James' Cathedral, Townsville on Easter Monday,
April 12. 1909 at 3:30 o'clock, the celebration of their marriage continued
afterwards in the Lounge, at the Queen's Hotel. (St. James' Cathedral is on
Cleveland Terrace, a few steps away from Armati Street.)
Percy
Edgar Armati married Isabel Florence McLean in Mackay, three hundred
and ninety five kilometres to the south of Townsville, on April 9, 1912. After
duxing Townsville Grammar, and being indentured to Pio, Percy had been a
chemist in Mackay for a few years at that stage, having earlier practised as a
chemist in Winton.
A
letter in the Townsville Municipal Council files dated June 23, 1913 indicates
that Pio was living on the corner of Hale and Stokes Streets at that
time.
On 12
October 1921 Rex Armati was diagnosed as having
contracted Bubonic Plague, which is said to have blinded him in one eye.
Pio
remained as a chemist in Townsville, with the later inclusion of Clive Vivian
Armati as a partner in the business, and Rex as an assistant, until his death
on Wednesday December 5, 1923.
When
Pio died, he had been living at "The Palms", 11 Hale Street, Stanton
Hill, Townsville. 11 Hale Street, Townsville (now re-numbered 23 Hale Street)
was the Armati family home. Clive and Rex were living in 11 Hale Street, as
well as Pio and Frances, at the time Pio died. The funeral left from "The
Palms" at
Pio
was buried on the same day that he died, in the Catholic section of the
Townsville Cemetery. He had a Roman Catholic burial, and he had been given the
last rites of the Catholic faith before his death, assisted by Mother Mary of
the Queensland Sisters of Mercy, and a Catholic Prelate.
To
help us uncover our true family history, we have indeed been fortunate that
there is a significant volume of public information about Pio and his family
available to assist us in verifying the facts. It has 'only' been a process of
digging it all up, out of the various archives around Australia, and to a
lesser extent around the world. There are many conflicting family (hi)stories;
facts seem to destroy quite a number of these as (romantic) anecdotes. This
book attempts to follow the truth.
Despite
this wealth of material, the public documents themselves are not always
accurate either. Witness the following (from My Life 1894-1987 by Lady
Phyllis Cilento)........
On Stanton Hill lived the Armatis. The Senior Armati
was the chief pharmacist in the town. He was a Count in Italy, and although he
did not use the title in Australia, we all knew he was of noble birth.
We have
absolutely no indication that Pio was of noble birth, nor that he was a Count
in Italy. He certainly was not The Chief Pharmacist in Townsville,
although he was undoubtedly one of its leading chemists.
As the
research which has been necessary to compile this family history unfolded, it
became abundantly clear that the newspapers of the day are of paramount
importance as a primary source of information, even though they are not
themselves totally accurate. Prior to this, I had never truly appreciated their
value as a historical record. Nor of how quickly paper turns to dust, and how
poor is the quality of some micro-fiche copies of these documents!
The
book Sotto la Croce del Sud probably contains more references to the
Armati family in Townsville than any other single book that I have come across.
It is not always accurate, of course:
There are also some comments made by Mrs Penna
regarding Fraire and Armati. She felt that the two established businessmen in
Townsville were not above suspicion in their dealings with their fellow
countrymen. She said 'Armati and Fraire were tough on them' and then went on to
explain that when the Italians got sick they used to go to Armati, a Townsville
chemist, and he gave the Italians a packet of Epsom salt. 'That', Mrs Penna
continued 'went for everything, whether it was dying, fever, ...he used to
charge them ten shillings; it was funny...In those days you could get a packet
of Epsom salt for about four or five pence'.
From the contemporary press, however it can be
inferred that there was a small group of Italians, namely Armati, Fraire and
Thomatis who had been accepted by the community already, and some of their
deeds shed light on how they perceived their social function in relation to
education, politics, and welfare. Mr P. V. Armati, the chief pharmacist in
Townsville, lived with his family on Stanton Hill. When the trustees of the
Townsville Grammar School were considering whether to admit girls or not, they
sent a circular to the parents of the boys, and Armati who was referred to as a
leading citizen had no objection to the admission of girls. Armati was a member
of the Townsville Chamber of Commerce, and was among the judges at the 15th Show
of the Townsville Pastoral and Agricultural Association for the horticultural
section.
Another avenue to social acceptance or importance was
sport. The name Clive Armati recurs constantly in the
sports pages: from playing ping-pong to participating in the 100 yards in the
athletic games held at the Townsville Grammar School. As the years go by Clive
Armati seemed to devote more time and energy to team games. He was selected to
represent Townsville in a match played against the Cairns Cricket team. Tennis,
however, was the sport Clive Armati played most frequently, in singles and
doubles. He was selected to represent Townsville and he was also appointed as a
member of the committee of the North Queensland Tennis Association.
The social life of Italians varied widely, ranging as
they did from prominent people to poor labourers. During the last decade of the
19th century and the first of the 20th century
the Armati and Fraire families were very active at most of the social functions
held in Townsville, particularly Mrs. Frances Armati and her daughter Blanche.
Mrs Armati seems to have been constantly engaged during the 1890s, and comes
across as a protagonist who lived in a whirl of fetes and congratulatory
functions. From the Zingari Club Dance, accompanied by her daughter, and
wearing black satin and lace, she moves to the School of Arts to be present at
the Benevolent Ball. On this occasion she is wearing black merveilleux with
black lace. She is also conspicuous at various hospital balls clad in black and
cerise, and innumerable other venues, and black affects one's senses as if it
had been her favourite colour. Mrs Armati reminding the writer of Coco Chanel's
most obvious trademark, her black dress, concludes the parade by gracing the
lawn and grandstand at the Townsville Annual Race Meeting where, among the
music, animation, and excitement, she looms in "black hat with
feathers".
Miss Blanche Armati, following
her mother's example, appears to have become during the first decade of the
century the epitome of the society girl leading a charmed life. She was invited
to dances and weddings, and spent the evenings at the homes of local prominent
citizens. She sings, she plays, and alternates looking "very sweet in a
lovely clinging pink dress" and looking "dainty in a flowing white
Indian muslin much befrilled". Indeed she really flitters and flutters
about, making life one huge joy. Even as children the Armatis and Fraires were
considered to be one of the prettiest sights at the Fancy Dress Balls, and as the
years go by Victor Fraire was noticed playing the piano at the Sacred Heart
Church, thus contributing to "enhancing the evening's enjoyment"
while at the Townsville Grammar School, a member of the Armati family gave
musical items.
From contemporary press, and from oral recollections,
it is evident that some Italians took a vacation, a recreational activity that
varied according to means or character. Just before the end of the 19th.
Century, it was reported in the Townsville press that Fraire, accompanied by his
daughter, Ethel, went to Atherton, an area that might have reminded him of his
native alpine valleys. The name of Armati recurs quite often, particularly in
relation to the Armati brothers, and their sister. In the pages of the local
press readers were informed, for instance, that Clive Armati, who had spent a
fortnight in Mackay, had returned to Townsville by the 'Leuuka',
while Percy Armati, who had been visiting his parents on Stanton Hill,
Townsville, returned to Mackay by the 'Wodonga'. Blanche Armati enjoyed the
balmy air of Charters Towers and also visited the southern colonies. It was
reported that Mrs Armati and Miss Armati had left Townsville for Brisbane
Sydney and Hobart, and returned to Townsville five months later.
By contrast, the annual holiday of Giovanni Beccaris
as related by his daughter, Mrs Penna, was to travel to Ravenswood and Charters
Towers to visit other Italian pioneers. Some of the Italian pioneers, once they
got established, were also able to go to Italy on holiday. It was reported that
D. Scarie, from Ayr, perhaps Domenico Scarsi who arrived in 1891 at the age of
25, was leaving for the south, on his way to Italy on a nine months' trip. This
happened in 1910.
In
May, 1896 the North Queensland Herald gives a description of the Café
Chantant Moonlight Kiosk, with Chinese lanterns, and with matrons serving
coffee and cakes to people seated at small gipsy tables. In attendance were
Mesdames Wilkie, Armati etc. assisted by Misses Grose, Rodgers, Armati
etc..
This
next article, an obituary from the Townsville Bulletin, contains a
number of gross inaccuracies, but is included for its historical value.
PERSONAL
The death of Mr. P. V. Armati has removed one who was
connected with Townsville from its earliest days. Born in Rome 77 years ago,
Mr. Armati had a particularly brilliant scholastic career. He was very young
when he graduated to the University at Rome, and long before he attained his
majority Mr. Armati had gained the following very creditable list of degrees:
Bachelor and Licentiate of Law, Doctor of Philosophy, (civil and
ecclesiastical), Bachelor of Arts and Licentiate of Arts, Master of
Arts, Bachelor of Law
These were the days when Garibaldi was a powerful
figure in Italian affairs and the young collegiate joined the ranks of the
great soldier, and after a stirring period he left the country.
He proceeded to Ireland and studied for a little time
at St Mary's College, Dublin, and here he met Bishop Quinn, who was about to
sail for Australia. The long voyage to this country appealed to his daring
spirit and he threw in his lot with the Bishop and soon found himself outward
bound seeking fortune.
Almost immediately after landing Mr. Armati found his
way to Townsville - just 56 years ago - and here he saw an opening which he lost
no time in grasping. Big of heart and with rare ability it was not surprising
that he prospered and he soon had a flourishing Chemist's business and this
continued to grow. Then he saw possibilities in the mercantile world and it was
not long before the firm of Armati and Fraire was a very prosperous one. Their
business premises stood on the site of Burns, Philp & Co.'s big warehouse
of today.
Mr. Armati left the north to live at Burwood, Sydney,
but those were eventful days in Australia. The big bank smash came, the smash
which affected so many of the sturdy pioneers, and Mr. Armati came back to the
scene of his earlier success, back to Townsville and to his old calling as a
pharmaceutical chemist and has remained here since. Ten years ago his son Clive
was taken in as a partner in the firm, but right to the end the senior partner
took an active interest in the business and the day before his death he spent a
couple of hours in the shop in the afternoon as usual.
Death was due to heart failure, the old gentleman
passing out in his sleep. Deceased leaves many friends, who will ever have a
kindly thought for a sympathetic adviser and a courteous gentleman. He leaves a
widow, one daughter, Mrs. Shepherd, and four sons, Messrs. Clive V, Leo, who is
attached to the literary staff of the Melbourne "Sun", Percy, who is
practising as a chemist in Mackay, and Rex.
The
significant inaccuracies are that Pio almost certainly fought on the side of
the Pope, not Garibaldi. In any event, Garibaldi was under siege from the
Sardinian Navy on Isola Caprera, the island on which he lived off the
north-East coast of Sardinia, in September 1870 when Rome fell to the forces
unifying Italy led by Nino Bixio (under orders from King Victor Emmanuel).
Bishop Quinn was Bishop of Queensland, and had been in Italy gathering bright
young Italians to take with him from Italy. Fraire was another of his converts,
and in the same period. Fraire was born in Piedmont and was six years younger
than Pio.
Pio
had no Arts degrees whatsoever, as far as we are aware.
Whether
or not there is any truth in one old family story that Pio was exiled by the
forces unifying Italy, and that the Pope sent him to Queensland to start a
Roman Catholic School we do not know, but it would seem unlikely. Another
family story was that Pio Vico Armati demanded money from the Pope to repay his
outlays and that as a consequence he was ex-communicated, seems totally
incorrect because:-
1- He was buried as a Catholic in Townsville Cemetery,
and took the last rites of the Catholic Church, (despite having been an
Anglican, and even a Mason in Townsville almost all his married life). It is
probable that he was temporarily ex-communicated when he married Frances, and
it may well have been because he broke some commitment made earlier to Bishop
Quinn.
2- He commenced to practise as a chemist almost
immediately after his arrival in Australia.
Another
article, in this case by the Townsville City Council Town Planner :
1846 -
1923
Born at Marino near Rome, and educated in a seminary
in Rome. Emigrated to Australia in 1874 [in fact 1872] and settled in Bowen,
moving to Townsville in 1875/6, after his registration as a pharmaceutical
chemist on 5th. March, 1874 (Registration No. 3) by the Queensland Medical
Board. He was naturalised in 1876.
He married an English girl, Frances Abigail Norris,
and they had five children; Blanche, Percy Edgar, Clive, Leo and Rex.
In Townsville he established a Chemist's shop in
Flinders Street near the present premises of David Jones Limited but sold the
shop to Mr. Atkinson in 1881, who later the same year took in Mr. Frank Powell
and continued to operate the pharmacy under the name of Atkinson and Powell for
some years.
In 1882 Mr. P. V. Armati entered into partnership with
Mr. Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire and they traded as Armati, Fraire & Coy.,
drapers, ironmongers, wine sellers and general merchants until 1889. In this
year the partnership was dissolved. and C. V. Fraire continued in business as a
draper on his own account, whilst the firm of Munro Boulay & Coy took over
the partnership business and included in their advertising "late Armati
& Fraire & Coy".
Mr. Armati retired to Sydney, but was bankrupted
during the bank crash of 1890. Returning to Townsville he opened another
chemist shop in 1891 in Flinders Street West, near the Railway Station. He
continued in business on this site for many years, but later took premises in
Flinders Street near the Denham Street intersection.
During his residence in Townsville, Mr. Armati lived
in different homes on Stanton and Melton Hills, the two main ones being in Hale
Street and Cleveland Terrace.
In 1896 he was living in Walker Street between Stokes
and Stanley Streets, on the side nearer Stanton Hill.
He was a keen gardener and, recognising this, the
Townsville Municipal Council sought his advice in 1878 on the design and layout
of the Townsville Botanical Gardens - Queen's Park North Ward. On 2nd July,
1880, he was appointed one of the founding trustees of the Queen's Park Trust.
Mr. Armati was also among the earliest subscribers to
the Townsville Grammar School, donating 30 Guineas in 1884.
Apart from these interests, he had a head marked for
phrenology readings in the pharmacy.
One of his sons (Rex) was stricken
during the 1902 outbreak of Bubonic plague in Townsville and the tenant Mr.
Watt of the original Armati home died of plague. [This seems now to be in
error. Mr. Watt had been living in one of Pio's properties on Flinders Street.
Refer to report of his death on Thursday 21 August 1902 (in the plague tent at
the back of Reception House Gregory Street) in the North Queensland Herald 23
August 1902 page 38 "It appears that (Bartholomew) Watt, who was engaged
as a lumper in connection with the loading of the Buteshire and other
vessels at the eastern breakwater jetty, was in good health when he returned to
rest last Saturday night at his house, a small structure situated at the back
of T. W. Willmett and Son's printing establishment [in Flinders Street East
- ed.]." and North Queensland Herald 20 September 1902 page 7 we read
"The cottage at the rear of some building in Flinders Street East, which
was occupied by the plague patient Watt, was on Tuesday night destroyed by
fire." Joint Epidemic Board Minute book p.146 "Action Mayor destroyed
house Watt died confirmed." The Mayor at that time was Thankfull
Willmett.] The dwelling was burnt by the Council as a preventative measure
and there was prolonged argument about the compensation payable. The Council
offered £12.10.00 whilst Mr. Armati claimed £25. Compensation of £20 was
finally paid.
Mr. Armati was actively engaged with his former
partner, Mr. C. V. Fraire, in encouraging and promoting Italian immigration
during the early expansion of the Sugar industry in North Queensland.
He died in December, 1923 and was buried in
Townsville's West End Cemetery. (Burial Number 6219).
Armati Street, Melton Hill, Townsville is named after
Pio Vico Armati.
His eldest son, Percy Edgar Armati moved to Mackay and
opened a pharmacy there. Like his father he was a keen gardener and bequeathed
an extensive Caladium collection to the Mackay City Council on his death in
1949. His sons Roy and Leo were doctors; Roy worked for many years at Prince
Alfred Hospital, Sydney.
Don
Dignan writes of Pio, in his excellent study of the life of Chiaffredo Venerano
Fraire:
Within
a year he [C. V. Fraire] decided that there was more future in trading than in
mining. Moving south to Townsville he found employment with James Burns, a
Scottish immigrant who had established a drapery business that boomed as
Townsville became the supply port for the goldfields of Charters Towers and
Ravenswood. These proved to be much richer and longer lasting than the Palmer
fields. After the death of his wife Burns moved to Sydney, where he established
a larger branch of his diversifying firm, leaving the management of the
Townsville store to his former secretary Robert Philp. So was born the large
and enduring Burns, Philp & Company.
In
1879 Philp sent Fraire to England to make purchases for the Townsville branch.
He gave him the option of returning to Townsville after the completion of his
commission or of repatriating himself to his Piedmontese passe as had been his
original intention on emigrating. However, after several months in his native
land, Fraire, who had become naturalised a year previously in 1878, did return
to Townsville in 1880. Deciding to set up his own drapery business he entered
into partnership with Pio Vico Armati, the son of a landowner of Marino in the
Castelli Romani (Alban Hills) just outside Rome. The firm traded as Fraire and
Armati until 1887.
Armati
was a graduate in philosophy, law and letters from the pontifical university of
Rome. His obituary in 1923 [in the North Queensland Register,
December 10, 1923, p.6] claimed that he had served as a Garibaldian
legionnaire, supposedly in the disastrous Mentana campaign of 1867 against the
occupying imperial French garrison in Rome. After that he had gone to study
English in Dublin at St Mary's College, an institution founded by Quinn before
he became bishop of Queensland. Meeting the prelate on one of his home visits
to Ireland, Armati was persuaded to accompany him back to the colony, where the
young Roman graduate was adventurous enough to go directly to the infant
Townsville and establish a pharmacy. Despite his business partnership with
Fraire, pharmacy became Armati's own lifelong occupation. Even as late as the
census of 1891, taken shortly before the arrival of the Jumna Fraire and
Armati were two of a tiny group of pioneering Italians who numbered only ten in
the whole of the Townsville district. They were clearly prominent north
Queensland citizens by then but indubitably still Italo-Australian notabili.
For
seven years, from 1880 to 1887, Fraire and Armati conducted a very successful
drapery business in the former Burns-Philp premises, when Fraire decided to
sell his share and go back to Italy for a second visit. On his return to
Townsville at the end of 1888 he re-established himself in the drapery business
in his own right and continued in the trade until 1899, when he was bankrupted
by debts in excess of £ 30,000. Like so many Australians in a period
of optimistic expansionism not to be parallelled again until the 1960s, Fraire
had speculated heavily in the land boom of the late 1880s that burst suddenly
with the collapse of a large number of banks in 1893.
In
Gateway to a Golden Land, we read:
During the 1870s there was much change in the mercantile
field. A number of the old firms survived, but Towns & Co. had disappeared
by 1871. Hanran, Clifton & Aplin Bros. and Brodziak & Rodgers continued
in business; Blitz and Walker also remained, but were no longer associated with
their original businesses. Many new firms had commenced; of these the best
known were Burns, Philp & Co., Willmett & Co., Samuel Allen and Sons,
Hollis Hopkins & Co., Armati & Fraire and MacPherson & Co.
In
this same book we read how these businessmen had to contend with bad roads and
lack of drainage:
The road over Melton Hill from Denham Street to Oxley
Street had become a "perfect quarry", and "a decent approach to
town from the interior" was sadly needed.
The
Council tried its hardest. The roadway in front of the Queens and Criterion
Hotels, previously merely a sand surface, was turned into good solid road, the
gullies in Flinders Street were bridged and some drainage work undertaken. This
produced its own spate of complaints that it was a "dustbowl now it was
drained, and needed a watercart"; shopkeepers Stewart & Lucas and Armati installed curtaining to their awnings to keep out
the dust. It seemed that the Council could not win, but work continued.
Culverts were installed over gullies in Walker Street and Sturt, between Stokes
Street and Stanley Street, with these streets being formed to Stanley Street. A
new cutting was made over Melton Hill, at this time called School Hill, the
road to German Gardens was put in order and the level of Flinders Street was
raised as far as Blackwood Street. Roads were continually being extended and
new roads were cleared, but road maintenance remained an intractable problem,
as the Queenslander emphasised in 1882: "The traffic has increased to such
an extent that the corporation will have to employ a strong staff of men to
keep the main street in repair". It was a never-ending job as traffic
increased, and the streets remained gravel-surfaced with inadequate drainage.
The lack of drainage was a source of many complaints
regarding the unutterable foul smells, which, together with the aroma from
obnoxious privies and filthy back premises and the smell from the fish-curing
establishment - enough to create pestilence and poison the whole block from
Denham Street to Stokes Street, did not improve Townsville's charms. A
subterranean drainage scheme was considered, but found to be too costly in
direct opposition to the Health Board, who recommend the system as essential
for the preservation of health in a tropical climate. So, by 1884, although the
fish-curing establishment no longer tainted the air, "sanitary
arrangements" were still a source of perplexity to the councillors and
"a well defined system of drainage" remained an urgent need.
"Rotten potatoes and fish ... refuse in gutters opposite the butcher's
shops, spread its perfume around" and the mud of Ross Creek was .......
And in
Appendix F of Gateway to a Golden Land:
Townsville Businesses: (Brief notes
on the activities of some of Townsville's prominent businesses):
.....
Pio Vico Armati and Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire
acquired the retail drapery department of
Burns, Philp & Co. in 1881. Both were of Italian descent. The business was
purchased by Munro, Boulay & Co. in 1887.
And in
Alind's Profiles:
Atkinson and Powell
Chemists and Druggists, Flinders Street, have a
business which is, if not one of the oldest in the district, one of the most
important.. It was purchased by the senior member of the firm in 1881, and in
1883 Mr. Frank Powell was admitted as a partner. In 1886 the business had so
increased as to necessitate removal to larger premises, and the present
extensive building was erected and a removal made thereto. These possess
considerable architectural beauty and cover an area of forty feet by
twenty-four feet.....
Joseph George Atkinson was born in 1852 in Lancaster,
and received his education at the Friends' School in that city, where he also
studied for his profession. The latter he practised in several large English
cities and arrived in Brisbane in 1874. In 1881 he settled in Townsville and
purchased his present business from Mr. P. V. Armati. Frank Powell was born at
Cheltenham, England, in 1854, and received his education and studied for his
profession in that town. He arrived in Australia in 1873, and landed at
Brisbane. He established a business for himself in Ipswich in 1875, and this he
carried on for about five years. He arrived in Townsville in 1881, and within a
few months became connected with the business under notice, in which he became
a partner in 1883. In 1886 Mr. Powell visited the southern colonies to study
mechanical dentistry, and since his return has taken over the management of
this department.
In
"Letters to the Editor" on January 27, 1990, the Townsville
Bulletin published the following letter:
High rise a tragedy
With
reference to the article "high rise ban a recipe for slums: expert",
I would like to know what special expertise Mr. Davis brings to back his views,
apart from being a "real estate consultant". Has he town planning
qualifications, has he architectural training, has he a knowledge of
Townsville's architectural history?
He
recommends the development of high-rise on Melton Hill and Stanton Hill to
"take the pressure off Mundingburra and "those beautiful houses in
Railway Estate".
The
national Trust of Queensland has recognised Melton Hill as having some of
Townsville's most significant and historic houses. The precinct is already
listed by the National Trust.
Also
Stanton Hill possesses a number of houses of great significance to the city,
notably 'Kardinia' (the former Japanese Consulate), the former Bartlam house
and the Armati house, and perhaps another yet to be identified. High-rise near
such historic properties has been detrimental in other parts of the world - why
inflict it on these wonderful living exhibits of Townsville's former and future
glory? There is plenty of room for high-rise development in less sensitive
parts of the city.
Furthermore,
at present Townsville is recognised all over the world for its magnificent
"stone-age" monument - Castle Hill. High-rise buildings on eminences
such as Stanton Hill, and Melton Hill would diminish its dominance and destroy
the wonderful view of the rugged face of Castle Hill from the sea and from many
parts of the city. The loss of such a vista would be a very great tragedy to
our city which is rapidly becoming one of the most attractive regional cities
in Australia.
DOROTHY
M. GIBSON-WILDE.
Chairman.
National Trust of Queensland. (Townsville Branch).
The
Townsville Bulletin Saturday April 4, 1987 reported [This article by
Marion Hudson is in error. The land on which Warringa is built was purchased
from the estate of Robert Towns by Laurence Munro on 23 April 1881 (Certificate
of Title 22422 - Vol N21/174). It was never owned by Pio Vico Armati - Pio
owned lots 3 and 4 (the two blocks of land next door to the land on which
Warringa now stands). Further, the house on this land was not the house which was
destroyed by the council in 1902 by fire after the death of Mr. Watt. Dr.
Conway Savis purchased the land which Pio once owned in July 1976.]:
The
private home of "Warringa" on Cleveland Terrace was built in 1912 for
Swiss solicitor Jacob Leu from Roberts, Leu and North which is still operating
in Townsville.
The
site at Cleveland Terrace was originally part of the hilltop estate of one of
Townsville's founders, John Melton Black. It was built on the site of the first
house on the estate which was built for P. V. Armati, one of the earliest
Italian settlers in North Queensland, who still has descendants living in the
region.
"Warringa"
was built after the house built for Mr. Armati burnt down and it was considered
one of the finest examples of colonial domestic architecture in North
Queensland: it was noted for its excellence of construction and cast iron
decoration.
Armati people in history
Table of
Contents
The
Armati surname is exceptionally rare, even in Italy. I estimate that there are
about 844 Armatis around the world..... 570 in Italy, 108 in France, 78 in
Switzerland, 25 in the USA, 5 in the UK and 58 in Australia. How it is that
there are not more Armati people on earth is interesting to consider,
especially in the light of the current population explosion of the Armati name!
Religious postings would terminate a number of male lines. Quite a few of the
male Armatis in the Marino graveyard died during times of war performing acts
of outstanding bravery. Who knows why? Our male to female child ratio does not
appear to be unusual. Maybe we have a (fatal) fanatical streak?
For
interest, included in this history are a number of Armati histories from years past.
Maybe we are related to them, maybe not....... we will never know. It is highly
likely that we are, given the rarity of our name, but it is not likely that we
will ever be able to prove the linkage; almost certainly not in our life-times.
Salvino
Armati ( ? - 1317) - inventor of the
spectacle lens
In the
church of the Santa Maria Maggiore in Florence, there is the
sepulchre of an
Armati from 1317, stating that he was the inventor of the spectacle lens.
"Here lies Salvino D'Armato degli Armati of Florence, Inventor of
eyeglasses. May God Forgive his sins. Year 1317" [this is also
referred to in the National Geographic Vol 146 Number page 649 (November
1974)]. His impressive tomb, with a mould of
his body on its top and the above
inscription, may be seen in the church.
On a
visit to Marino in 1994, I spoke with Filiberto Armati. His father's name was
Giuseppe. Filiberto had no knowledge of a Pio or a Giacomo Armati. "All
the Armatis in Marino were descendants of Giuseppe", I understood him to
say. The main family member seemed to be Doctor Franco Armati. Filiberto
arranged for his daughter go to town and have a photocopy taken of a
computer-produced 'Your Family Name's origin' document. This was for 'Armati',
and it speaks about Montegibbio-Bartolomeo 1513. "Conti e Patrizi.... Bartolomeo del comune di Montegibbio nel
1513". It goes on to talk about the first Bishop of Carpi (north of Florence),
a Franciscan Jesuit also called Armati. Also an Armati featured in the court of
the Duke of Modena in 1777. There was a coat of arms of a gold crown above a
shield of azure with a goat on its hind legs and a red band crossing the shield
from top left to bottom right.
I
cannot describe well enough to you the frustration I felt as I attempted to
find information about our Armati roots in Italy. Every Armati door was locked
and barred, and there appears generally to be a great suspicion of any
stranger, especially when that stranger wants to talk to them about their family!
There are electronic devices on almost every gate way and every door to which I
expected to gain access, and frequently a maid answers the intercom. She does
not speak English, and disconnects the intercom immediately she hears a strange
accent.
Even
to speak with Filiberto Armati took over one hour to get to sit down in his
sitting room. He came outside the entrance to his own apartment block himself
and pretended to be a stranger, himself wishing to gain access to the
apartments, just to check me out. His wife was at the same time peeping through
the hawthorn hedge beside their apartment looking me over!
Wandering
through the Marino graveyard, we took many photographs of the photographs on
the tombstones of the Armatis buried there. Eventually the custodian of the
graveyard asked us to leave. Two black-robed women had complained to him that
we were not being sufficiently respectful of the dead (I think).
Sergio Bartolini in Rome told me that the most famous
Armati in Rome at present is the Chief Prosecutor for the Italian Justice
System, who is prosecuting the politicians who have been corrupted by the Mafia
and others. Naturally enough his name is not in the telephone book! Another
well respected Armati is a senior partner in one of Italy's principal Law
firms, in Rome. Sergio is himself having problems in helping us research our
Armati family history:
I have called a
few Armati listed in the Rome phone directory, but so far I have not been
lucky. Some are not interested in finding out about their family tree, others
could not even go farther back than their grand-parents. Unfortunately in Italy
there is not a great interest in finding out one's own origins. There is also
the added difficulty of finding records. As you know up to the end of 1870 our
country was made out of several little sovereign states, each with its own
bureaucratic system. In some, records were kept by the parish priest; in
another, by notary public, and so on.
As each
separate state became part of a united Italy, records were passed on to the
local authorities, which in many cases were previously non-existent. Many
records were lost in the process, many just disappeared. The great migrations
following unity, both within the country and overseas, caused a break up of family
links, so that memories were lost as well as records.
I will keep on
calling and will let you know if I come across anyone interested in helping
you.
Leo Vivian Armati, Percy's son, recalls that
just before World War Two Leo Vincent Armati and his wife Pat went to Europe in
1938 and were fêted in Rome by our relations there. One of them was an Air
Marshall and another was a Major General in the Army. One of them lived next
door to Mussolini, and regularly dined together with him. They were directly related
to us. Leo used to think about this when he was in the desert, being bombed by
Italian planes and fighting against Italian troops in World War Two.
Mark Armati (USA, 1996) has this story to
tell:
Concerning the Italian Air
Force: on the first day of a job I once had with the U. S. Federal Government,
my new boss came up to me and said, quite casually, "Oh, I once roomed
with an Armati", as if there were millions of us abroad in the land.
Politely I responded that this was very unlikely because there were so few of
us, but he added that he had roomed with an Armati while stationed in Italy
with the U. S. Air Force, and that his room-mate was a member of the Italian
Air Force. Leo's story (above) means that probably my boss was right, after
all. Ironically, until meeting first Patsy, and then making contact with your
brother and you, this was the biggest "other Armati" story any of us
over here ever had.
Whilst visiting Italy in October 1992, I
visited Todi myself. My brother Douglas had been there the previous year and
had written to me about Bishop Armati of Todi. The translation commencing at
the bottom of the next page resulted from that visit of Doug's. Eventually,
after considerable wanderings through this delightful and somewhat backward 13th
Century hill-top town to the North-West of Rome, we came to the Tempio di
San Fortunato. Here, buried in the crypt, is Jacopone da Todi (1228-1306)
who is believed to have written Stabat mater dolorosa. We found the
crypt, and there on an adjoining wall was a plaque commemorating the work done
by Bishop Niccolo Armati in 1301:
"He has been recognised for transporting the bodies of Saint Fortunato, Callisto and Cassiano to the new grand temple of San Fortunato, and five years later he also transported the bodies of Saint Degna and Romana."
Rather excited, I went to find someone who
spoke English, who could tell me more about Bishop Armati. I asked one priest.
He pointed to another man who was overseeing the hanging of a religious
painting in the Church.
I approached this man, but he waved me away.
I approached him again, with my passport open at the page which showed my name.
He stopped from his work to read my passport and then said: "Armati
.... That's an Italian name.........Armati !!!...." then excitedly,
he grabbed me by my shoulder and took me through the church, through the
adjoining monastery and down under the church, into his office. He explained
that there were three kilometres of archives in tunnels under Todi. His work
was to translate (some of ) these records into Italian. He was very excited,
because my name was Armati. He showed me lots of writings from the time of
Bishop Niccolo Armati (1297 and later). Then he disappeared on the floor under
a table and fished around in pigeon-holes there. He produced an original
manuscript written by Pope Bonifacio VIII to Bishop Niccolo Armati.
The manuscript was written on a hide, and
still had the Papal Seal attached to it.
Then he opened a thick book and showed me a sketch of Bishop Armati. Every Bishop of Todi had been sketched: the book contained the sketch of every one of them, including as far back as 1297, when Bishop Niccolo Armati was ordained as Bishop Nicolaus Armatus Canonicus Rothomagen, as he was called, means that Niccolo Armati had previously been the Canon of Rothomagen. The Archivist of Todi told me that Rothomagen was in France.
"Bishop
Niccolo Armati ( ? - 1325)
Armati
Niccolo, originated from the family name Nicolaus Armatus Canonicus
Rothomagen, was elected Bishop with special reserve from Pope Bonifacio
VIII to the city of Todi on 24 April 1296. (Notice of this can be found at the
Vatican City, Register 48, Folio 35). He was elected Bishop of Todi 20 days
after the death of his predecessor.
The
Pope gave the new Bishop the power to collect all money from the Kingdom of the
two Sicilies, and from the county of Spolentino and the Bishop of Perugia and
the city of Castello. He was well loved by the Pope to give him so much
importance. In fact the Bishop Armati kept nothing for himself (which was his
right) but sent everything to the Bishop Angelo of the county of Nepi. Bishop
Armati Niccolo was in favour with the Pope to such an extent that he invited
him to his house in Todi and for this he received so many favours from the
Pope. He especially has been recognised for the work he has done to transport
the bodies of Saint Fortunato, Callisto and Cassiano to the new grand temple of
San Fortunato, and five years later he also transported the bodies of Saint
Degna and Romana. This was on 19 August 1301, with the help of Matthew of
Acquasparta. In January 1298, by order of Pope Bonifacio VIII, Bishop Armati
gave to Nerio of Zaccaria all the Welfare that had been confiscated from the
rebel Cardinal, Peter Collanna; and in April 1298, he gave to the Cathedral of
Terni everything which had been confiscated from the Arroni Calonnesi family.
The
activity of Bishop Armati in effect was the unification of religion and
politics for Bonifacio VIII. In fact, because he was afraid and preoccupied
that someone could take away his position of the head of state in the region
from him (such as those mentioned above), he appointed himself the head of
government. As head of government, he contributed greatly to the economics and
culture of Todi and he was instrumental in the establishment of peace between
Todi and Orvieto, at the request of the Pope.
During
his life as a Bishop, Armati in 1297 gave the members of Penitenza order of
Todi numerous indulgences. In the month of May 1298, he was in Rome with other
Italian Bishops and Archbishops, whereby he gave the indulgence of 40 days for
all those visitors in the church of Saint Francis Ascoli Piceno. In 1305, he
was instrumental in the construction of the new convent of Saint Benedetto in
the locality of Comaiano, not far from Todi. Three years after he gave the
church of Saint Prassede to the order of Saint Agastino and in 1317 he
transported the body of Saint Filipo Benizzi to the church of Saint Mark.
He did
a lot, and intervened in the life of politics and civil in his city, especially
after the death of Pope Bonifacio VIII [Pope from 1294-1303, when he died as
a (tortured) prisoner of the French army sent by Philip IV (1268-1314) at
Anagni.] After the death of the Pope, the people of Todi were divided on
religion to the extent that civil war broke out. In 1311, Bishop Armati went to
Avignon [in France, which is where Philip IV's stooge Pope Clement (1307-?)
had moved the Papal seat in 1309 after the (murder) of Pope Boniface VIII. The
Papal seat remained in Avignon until 1377], as a representative of the Pope
with the head of the Todi whose name was Iacopo, to ask for help from the
Spoletini people against the people of Perugia. In 1318, because another member
was placed as head of the church of Saint Peter of Rome he started to lose much
of his power. From 1320 to 1322 he made numerous protests against the new
order, which was taking all the autonomy which he had previously enjoyed from
him.
He
died 22 November 1325; his successor, the youngest Bishop called Ranuccio of
Atti, was elected on the same day. Ranucius (25/6/1326-1356) was succeeded by
Andreas (de Aptis) 1/4/1356. Bishop Niccolo Armati followed Bishop Nicolaus
(13/4/1282-1296)."
Bishop
James Quinn, the first Bishop of Brisbane and all the
On
October 13, 1869, he left for Rome together with Bishop Sheil (Bishop of
Adelaide) and attended the first Vatican Œcumenical Council, called by Pius IX,
in Rome. This council reached the decision in July 1870 that the Pope was
infallible. He attended the wounded at Porta Pia during the 'defence of Rome'
against the forces of the risorgimento in September 1870.
Whilst
he was in Europe at this time, for a period of in excess of two years (from
December 1869 until January 26, 1872), he was also seeking out priests and well
educated laymen for Queensland. When he arrived in Brisbane in 1861 there were
only two priests in all Queensland. Unfortunately he was not able to attract
Irish priests to come out to Queensland, for he had a fiery disposition which
had brought him into conflict with his priests, and this reputation had
preceded his arrival in Ireland on his mission there to recruit priests for
Queensland. As a consequence, he had to seek priests from Italy and elsewhere
in continental Europe.
By all
accounts Bishop Quinn was also concerned to bring out to Queensland European
Catholics of good intelligence and background, often connected with education
and the arts, to improve the stock of lay people in the colony.
Bishop
James Quinn and his brother Bishop of Bathurst, Matthew Quinn together with
other men in the clergy had a difficult relationship with Mother Mary MacKillop
of the Sisters of St. Joseph which ultimately led to the withdrawal of the
Sisters of St. Joseph from Townsville, and their replacement by the Sisters of
Mercy (one of whom later attended Pio Armati at the time of his death).
There
appeared to be ongoing strain between the male and female ministry within the
Catholic Church in Australia at that time, and Mother Mary bore the brunt of
the conflict. In 1871 Sister Mary MacKillop was excommunicated by Bishop Sheil;
he removed the excommunication just prior to his death in 1872 and expressed sorrow
for his action, which he said had been based on false accusations.
The
pressures which Bishop James Quinn placed on Sister Mary MacKillop were most
considerable. He threatened to have her removed from her office within twelve
months and he publicly preached against her and her sex.. He maintained this
position despite a number of appeals and personal visits to Brisbane from
Adelaide by Sister Mary, over a number of years.
Bishop
Quinn, (in 1875 he changed his name to O'Quinn as a sign of his solidarity with
the sentiment evoked in Ireland by the O'Connell Centenary), was an Irish
Bishop determined to see a Church built in Queensland on the Irish model.
The fights between priests and bishops in Queensland
were constant and often public. One of the problems seems to have been that
Quinn, by temperament, enjoyed a fight. The situation grew so serious that in
1866 Archbishop Polding wrote from Sydney to Cardinal Barnabo in Rome, that he
had grave reason to fear that the state of Brisbane was deplorable; excellent,
local priests were saying that religion was suffering gravely. When Quinn went
to Rome in 1870 and thence to Ireland in the hope of recruiting priests for the
diocese, not one priest or seminarian could be found in all Ireland to volunteer,
such was the reputation that had preceded Quinn in letters home from his
clergy. Instead he had to turn to recruits from France, Italy and Germany, of
whom Quinn's obituarist would write in 1881, "'twould have been better far
he had nothing whatever to do with that element".
In
January 1872, the European Mail reported Bishop Quinn's return to
Australia.
Rev. Dr. Quinn
The Right Rev. Dr. Quinn, Roman Catholic Bishop of
Brisbane (says the European Mail), is a passenger by the Silver
Eagle, which sailed on January 24. His Lordship was accompanied by
Archdeacon Rigney, of Sydney, two other clergymen, about twelve Sisters of
Mercy, and ten lay preachers. During the lengthened stay of Dr. Quinn in Europe
he spent some time in Rome, where he assisted at the Œcumenical Council up to
its final sitting, and celebrated Mass at the last congregation which was held
in that city. During the bombardment of the capital, his Lordship was busily
occupied visiting the various stations of the Pontifical troops and hearing
confessions. Since that period, his time has been much occupied procuring the
personnel for the requirements of his diocese. The company which has just left
England with the Bishop is, we are informed, the fifth which his Lordship has
despatched for his distant mission since his return to Europe: and he has made
arrangements for two more to follow at an early date. The following is a list
of the passengers for Silver Eagle:- Rev. Dr. Quinn (Bishop of
Brisbane), Rev. Archdeacon Rigney, Mr. Michael Antonio, Mr. Peter Caepra, Miss
Florence H. O'Reilly, Misses Coran, Higgins, Kerr, Rafter, Daley, Desmond,
McGillicuddy, O'Neill, Farrell, Cummings, Maria Osborne, Maria Ellen Osborne,
Louisa Morgan, Kate Nile, Ann Gaynor, Maria Antonio, Lucia Antonio, Teresa
Antonio, Mrs. O'Reilly, Elizabeth O'Reilly, Mary O'Reilly, Margaret Murphy,
Catherine O'Dowd, and Messrs. Juo. H. Ball, Thos. Jos. Osborn, Charles James
Osborn, John Baptist Antonio, Peter Gagliardi, Dominica Gagliardi, Joseph
Canali, Achille Simonetti, Jules Amniti, Alexander Carpi, John Healy, Thos.
O'Hagen, Thos. Fitzpatrick, Michael Backley, Julius Corozzie, Bernard Rinaldi
and Chiaffredo Fraire.
The Silver
Eagle was by all accounts a beautiful vessel. She was built in Clyde in
1861 by the Portland Shipbuilding Co. for her owners, Messrs. Somes Bros. and
was of 895 tons. She was very fast, being able to make the journey to Melbourne
on one occasion in 70 days, and another time to Auckland in 81 days. She had
brought 346 troops from Torbay in England to New Zealand in 1864. On this
particular voyage, she had headwinds almost all the way from England to
Australia and the journey was uncharacteristically slow, being 116 days.
The Silver
Eagle left London on January 25 or 26, 1872 and arrived in Sydney on May
20, 1872. On May 22, 1872 at
The
following newspaper cutting shows the arrival from Sydney (at
In the
newspaper shipping arrival notice for Lady Young, there is no mention
made of Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire. He may have been in steerage, or he may not
have been.
Two
days after his arrival back from Europe on Sunday May 26, 1872, Bishop Quinn
was congratulated upon his return after the celebration of High Mass at St.
Stephen's Church in Brisbane, in the School-room attached to the Church. In his
reply, the Bishop spoke at length about his visit to Europe, and of the
Œcumenical Council proceedings which he had attended. He made no mention, at
least in the newspaper report of his speech, of the people whom he had brought
back from Europe. Nor was it reported that he had tended the wounded in Rome
during the fall of Rome in September, 1870; nor that Bishop Quinn had a strong
hand in the formation of the Catholic University in Dublin. [At that time until
1937, all Ireland including Dublin was a part of the British Isles, and was
controlled from Westminster].
The
Catholic Archivist in Brisbane (Father Denis Martin) sent us a copy of the
Catholic Advocate from April 2, 1931, which, in addition to containing an
obituary to C. V. Fraire, included the four photographs of seven of the people
whom Bishop Quinn brought out from Europe.
Bishop Quinn arrived in Brisbane in May 1861 and found
it a 'cultural desert'. He was a great admirer of Italian culture after his
years in the Irish College in Rome. He had to return to Rome for the Vatican 1
Council in 1869, and perhaps because of the troubled times there, he was able to
encourage quite a number of Priests and talented Italians to return to
Australia with him. Some came back on the boat with him in 1872, others came in
1871 and others followed. I cannot find exactly when Signor Armati arrived.
These ships I did check on (and not including Armati as a passenger), the Silver Eagle
and the Storm King, both sailed from London.
In
subsequent letter from Reverend Father Denis Martin, after we advised him of
Nancy Armati's discovery that Pio had arrived on the George Crowshaw, he
wrote:
A
lot of work needs to be done here on our earlier Italian immigrants. It would
make a most valuable historical lecture, "if only I had time". What
you have sent me is a great help too.
Now,
I thought you were enquiring if Pius Armati was "Father", but I have
to be sensitive in these matters. However, I have to say, I have never found
any evidence in archives or elsewhere to prove to the contrary. Even last night
I phoned our retired Archbishop Rush (originally from Townsville) to ask if he had
ever heard anything. No. He knew the name Armati well and thought your father
may have been Clive.
I
do have quite a bit of Quinn's Italians of the 1870s --- four out of the five
(or seven?) ships so far:- the Storm King
(1871), the Silver Eagle (1872 - it terminated in Sydney), the Polmaise
(1871), and now the George Crowshaw (1872). About half were Priests and
half 'clever' laymen. I can account for all the Priests except a Father
Bergeretti.
I
presume Pio Armati was single when he arrived in Brisbane. I can assure you
Bishop Quinn never ordained anyone of that name. I might add Bishop Quinn was
fond of excommunicating anyone, priest or layman, who did not "respect his
sacred person". The possibilities are that Pio
Armati was ordained into some minor orders at least, in Rome, or perhaps Dublin
(unlikely).
Like
you, I take little notice of the shipping list describing him as "Rev. Mr.
Almati". I wonder if he came out as a deacon or sub-deacon, intending to
be ordained by Bishop Quinn here, but then married, perhaps without
dispensation, which would temporarily excommunicate him. I think the answer
would lie in the Roman records. If you could give me some details of his
marriage and death date it could be of some help too.
Archbishop
Rush told me Fraire and Armati were largely responsible for bringing out many
Italians to work on the cane fields in the 1920s and someone has written a book
"From Italy to Ingham". Incidentally, Father (Doctor) Carmusci was a
great musician, connected with the Sistine Chapel Choir.
Just
reflecting, before signing off, the marriage certificate should tell: if he was
in minor orders it could not have been performed by a Priest unless there was
proof of dispensation from vows etc. It is intriguing. Please let me know if
you find any other information.
And,
finally, the most recent letter from Father
Denis Martin:
The documents put his age in focus (c.24 years of age
on arrival) and show the crucial years of investigation to be
between May 1872 (Quinn's arrival back) and June 1876
("Congregational" marriage). So I'll keep my eyes alert when going
through letters of that period.
Pio was not a priest when he left Rome (or your
relative, the Monsignor, would have known) and I'm sure he was not ordained by
Quinn, or we would have a record of it. My own opinion is this. Quinn enticed
him to emigrate, and as was the custom, they (all who were to come to
Queensland) went to Ireland to wait for shipping to
be arranged and to learn to speak English a little.
At this point Pio Armati could have been in minor
orders and perhaps intended to continue his studies for the priesthood under
Quinn and be ordained here in Brisbane. This happened with Canali who came as a teacher and was ordained a little later. Now
Quinn perhaps paid the fare out and all expenses on the understanding that the
money was to be paid back within a year or two, usually by the immigrant
surrendering his land grant of one acre (Government grant) to Quinn as whole or
part payment.
Perhaps Pio Armati then decided to keep the land grant
- and possibly quarrelled with Quinn and didn't pay back the money! For this he
would have been excommunicated by Quinn - it happened to others (and you would
have to know something of Quinn's character to comprehend this type of behaviour,
but that was the man). This would explain the "Congregational"
marriage and later reconciliation.
So, what do you make of that? It's interesting and as
I say, I'll keep working on it also.
Chiaffredo
Venerano Fraire played quite some part in the first half of Pio Vico Armati's
life. Their lives were inter-twined to quite an extent. Both Pio and Chiaffredo
came out from Italy at Bishop Quinn's suggestion, and both found their separate
ways to Townsville in North Queensland. Both were Masons and both had been
Catholics previously. Both married women with a Church of England background.
Both were friends with Robert Philp (not to make mention of the other Masons
with whom they invested in speculative ventures).
A
seven year long business partnership together made them both their fortunes.
Together, and separately, they invested heavily in speculative land
developments and mining ventures in the Townsville region, without any success.
They both subsequently lost much of their fortunes, although neither was
totally crippled financially as a consequence.
They
both became naturalised citizens of Australia within a year and a half of each
other, and each of them was married before commencing their business
partnership in 1881. Both of them was happy to have made the move to Australia,
and they both actively supported and encouraged other Italians to make the move
to Australia.
Both
of them can be said to have been noteworthy and outstanding members of their
society, to have made a mark for themselves and their descendants in Australian
history, and to have led upright lives amongst their fellow countrymen.
There
were also considerable differences between them. Chiaffredo was nowhere near as
well educated as Pio, and was six years Pio's junior. Pio was never involved in
Theosophy, which became Chiaffredo's life passion. Pio never achieved the
publicity that was afforded Chiaffredo as the consequence of his 'mission' to
bring a shipload of 320 or so Italian farmers out from Northern Italy to work
the sugar cane fields in place of the Pacific Islanders who were at that time
doing this tough work. There were undoubtedly other considerable differences.
A
number of writings and extracts concerning Chiaffredo's life follow.
FRAIRE,
Chiaffredo Venerano, born
22/10/1852 Envie, Nr. Cuneo, Piedmont Italy. Arrived in Australia 24/5/1872
Brisbane Silver Eagle. Arrived North Queensland: about 1873 by ship.
Occupation: Co-owner Armati & Fraire Store. Died 5/1/1931 at Rockhampton,
QLD. Buried North Rockhampton Cemetery. Married 27/7/1880 in Townsville. Sarah
Ann SHEKELTON (who died 23/10/1906 in Brisbane). Children: Victor Albert 1881.
Emily Beatrice 26/9/1882, Ethel Venerana Jane 20/10/1884, Florence Helen
31/7/1886. All born in Townsville. Parents:
Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire & Giovanna Maria Bovo. (Contact Donald
Twigg, 26 Queen Street, Rockhampton QLD. 4700).
A.
V. Fraire was
one of the laymen brought out to Brisbane from Italy by Bishop Quinn in 1872;
later he worked on the Palmer, then in Townsville for a time with Robert Philp.
JCU Vertical file 441.
Signor C. V. Fraire, himself a Piedmontese from
northern Italy, convinced the Townsville Chamber of Commerce that northern
Italian peasant labourers would work successfully in the neighbouring shire's
cane-fields. Fraire's return to Italy resulted in the arrival, in December
1891, of 355 Italian immigrants, most of them male; 113 of them went to the
Herbert River District; 153 to Ayr, and 69 to the Wide Bay District. This
intake of Italian migrants marked the beginning of a 'chain migration' to North
Queensland of families and friends whose effect could still be seen and
commented upon in the 1920s.
In the
book The Italians, from the
Again, it was the Catholic missionary hierarchy which,
first and foremost, realised the need and the urgency to populate and to
exploit the empty spaces of the Northern Australian frontier. In 1873 Bishop
Quinn, who had experienced difficulties in securing Irish priests for the new
colony of Queensland, went to Rome for assistance. Here he got his Irish
priests, and at the same time induced a number of young middle-class Italians
to emigrate down South. They were the first group of Italians to set foot in
North Queensland, and many shared exceptional intellectual qualifications.
Among them were the sculptor Achille Simonetti, the astronomer Canali, the
musician Benvenuti, the educationist Papi, the botanist Ricci, the businessmen
Fraire and Armati, the already mentioned Reverend Dr Antini.
Two Italians, Armati and Fraire, who had businesses in
Townsville, were despatched to Italy - to Piedmont and Lombardy - to contract
labourers, and the first batch of three hundred and thirty-five arrived at
Townsville in 1891, indentured by the Queensland Government. The Italians were
paid about one pound a week and there seemed little chance of their rising
above their role as labourers. But gradually, as family members followed each
other to Australia, they began buying farms themselves.
From 1891, when there were only four hundred and
thirty-eight Italians in Queensland, their numbers grew to about two thousand
by 1925. This was certainly not a great number but during that period they had
managed to buy almost one third of the entire register of cane farms. Of about
one hundred and fifty plantations in Queensland, fifty-two were Italian-owned.
Yet, not all migrants were peasants or miners.
The
following extract from How Theosophy came to Australia and New
Zealand sheds some light on Pio's arrival from Europe and also gives
further insight into Padre (as he was affectionately known) Fraire's character:
I cannot leave the subject of the New Race without
mention of the fact that it was an Italian Theosophist of Australia who was
instrumental in bringing the first shipload of his countrymen to Queensland, Mr.
C. V. Fraire.
Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire was born at Envie,
Piedmont, North Italy, in 1852. His Christian names were those of the two
"household saints" (relics of the old Roman "lares") who,
from their niches on the sides of the portico, guarded the Fraire home. Fraire
is a well-known and honoured name in Envie. C. V. Fraire came to Australia at
the age of twenty, under the following circumstances. Bishop Quinn of
Queensland, had had difficulty in getting a sufficient number of Irish priests
for the new Colony, and went to Rome for assistance. Returning, he also induced
a number of eligible young Italians to accompany him back to Australia. They
were all of high intellectual standard and included Signor Achille Simonetti
(famous sculptor), Canali (astronomer), Benvenuti (musician), Papi, who
attained a high position in the Education Department, and Fraire and Armati,
who engaged in commercial work. The last two joined J. J. Burns, of Burns,
Philp Coy., and went to Townsville, Queensland.
In his commercial travels young Fraire saw vast
stretches of forest land, unoccupied and unused, and he became convinced that
sugarcane, grapes and other tropical products would thrive there. Remembering
the capable and industrious farmers, vine and silk growers of Piedmont, the
project formed in his mind of bringing some of them to this virgin land. Once
convinced, he left no stone unturned. He wrote and spoke to Government
Officials, interviewed people interested in developing the land, and
contributed a stream of articles to the press. Finally, with the help of Robert
Philp who was then Premier of Queensland, the Government was persuaded to pay
for the voyage of a certain number of Italian immigrants to work on the sugar
plantations.
Landing in Italy in 1891, Mr. Fraire as Queensland's
agent, found his difficulties by no means over. Italy was distrustful of
unknown immigration agents, and not at all anxious that her best citizens
should leave their Motherland for a distant Colony of which little was then
known. Fraire himself interviewed and selected the 350 men, every one of whom
had to furnish a certificate of good conduct, good health, suitable age, and
knowledge of agriculture. They landed at Townsville. The first few years were
trying; but soon they sent for their families and induced friends to come. A
Queensland newspaper stated:
"When these 350 immigrants arrived, the guileless
planters imagined they were going to replace Kanaka (New Guinea) workers. The
newcomers settled down to work on the conditions offered which were far below
current rates of pay, and continued to work till they had saved a little money
By that time they had discovered the conditions under which they could obtain
land in Queensland. Instead of striking, as the present worker would do, a number
of them selected land and the others remained in employment financing their
friends, and in this manner they kept on till all were settlers on the
land."
We
read, with a somewhat different perspective, in G. C. Bolton's A Thousand
Miles Away:
Coordinated through Robert Philp's agency, the
Burdekin and Herbert planters agreed in September 1890 to send C. V. Fraire, of
Townsville, to Italy, where he would indent labourers for the cane-fields from
the farming districts of Lombardy and Piedmont. (There was a longstanding
prejudice that these people made better settlers than Southern Italians.) After
two years' service, the Italians would be entitled to lease or purchase a
smallholding, and could set up as cane-growers under an assured contract to the
mill. The planters were anxious to unload their estates, and their mood was
well expressed by Charles Young of Kalamia, near Ayr:
We hardly expect the Piedmontese to be a success as
'gang' labourers while they work for us, whatever they may be afterwards when
working for themselves; but we hope that when they understand plantation work
they may be induced to import the cheap and reliable labour necessary to work
the mill properly, and to grow cane at a price per ton that will enable the
factory to pay working expenses and interest.
It took Fraire a considerable time to recruit
emigrants to the required number, and it was December 1891 before the Jumna
landed 320 Italians at Townsville. The experiment met with no great success.
The Italians disliked their working conditions - and they had arrived just in
time for the wet season. Unsettled by reports that wages of ten to twelve
shillings a day could be had in Townsville and Charters Towers, while their
indentures bound them to eighteen shillings a week and keep for each married
couple, some broke their engagements and went elsewhere; one dogged group
tramped 150 miles to Cairns, where they were succoured by a local doctor ( An
established Italian sugarcane farmer, 'Dr'. David Thomatis. Ed). All found a
hostile reception from local working men, whose spokesmen objected to 'a horde
of Italians .... being brought here in a democratic country at the people's
expense to please the banking and monopolistic syndicate who are living on
interest and care little by what means their bank balances increase'. Their
intolerance was understandable, though deplorable; in August of that year a
strike of miners at the Etheridge had been broken by the employment of Italians
as non-union labour at lower wages. Fear that Italian competition would
undercut existing standards made the Labour movement as hostile to the
newcomers as they had been to the Pacific Islanders. An equally unpleasant
narrow-mindedness on another side was shown by a Cairns paper, which in
campaigning for the restoration of Pacific Island labour, lumped the Italians
with Chinese, Malays and Javanese as 'objectionable elements' in the community.
By the time (Premier) Griffith arrived on a cabinet tour of North Queensland
during the Christmas vacation of 1891, the Italian experiment seemed doomed to
failure, if only because working-class opposition was so vocal that the Italian
Government was reluctant to encourage further immigration.
Griffith and his ministers had an instructive tour. At
Cooktown the wharf labourers hooted and heckled them about the Italians.
Elsewhere they were met by several deputations of farmers, who bemoaned their
hardships and urged the restoration of Pacific Island labour. Cowley, now
Minister for Lands, had to give a discouraging answer. No one could be more
sympathetic, but the majority of Queensland voters had spoken against the
traffic, and its resumption could not be expected. Griffith said nothing,
although a boatload of Herbert River farmers, who rowed out to beard him on
board the official steamer, were thoroughly primed with whisky and sent home
with lavish assurances of goodwill. Then, on 12 February, 1892, within a month
of his return to Brisbane, he issued a startling manifesto proposing the
resumption of Pacific Island labour under stronger safeguards than previously.
In
William A. Douglass' brilliant study of Italians in North Queensland, we read:
On 5 September 1890, Mr. Robert Philp, partner in a
major business concern in Townsville and representative of that area in the Queensland
Parliament, informed the chief secretary that he had just discussed with
Premier Griffith a plan to indent Piedmontese agricultural labourers for the
sugar plantations. He noted that the planters were behind the scheme and that
they had commissioned an Italian, Mr. C. V. Fraire of Townsville, to go to the
continent and act as their agent. Philp remarked, "I have known Mr. Fraire
for a number of years, and feel sure he will be a most desirable man to go home
and select suitable emigrants for the Colony".
Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire was indeed well qualified
for the task. Born in 1852 and a native of Envie on the Piedmontese-Swiss
border, Fraire had joined Bishop Quinn's Italian contingent and travelled to
Australia with the prelate on the Silver Eagle, arriving in Sydney on 22 May,
1872. It is likely that the twenty-year-old son of a Piedmontese landowner was
attracted to the venture by Michele Antonini, one of Bishop Quinn's sixteen
priests and himself a native of Envie..
After his arrival in Brisbane, Fraire became a
draper's apprentice and a year later was earning £1 per week at the trade. In
1873 he joined the rush to the Palmer goldfield in extreme northern Queensland.
There he was employed as a clerk in a tent store. Within the year he had moved
to Townsville where he found employment with the drapers firm of James Burns.
When Burns later moved to Sydney to establish a new branch of the business he
left his secretary, Robert Philp, in charge of the Townsville store.
In 1879 Philp sent Fraire to England on a buying trip.
Fraire then continued on to his native land. It had been his intention to spend
seven years in Australia before returning permanently to Piedmont, but in 1878
he had become a naturalised Australian citizen. After spending several months
of 1880 in Italy he returned to Townsville, where he opened a drapery store (in
the former Burns-Philp premises) in partnership with Pio Vico Armati, an
Italian from near Rome.
Armati was another Quinn recruit. Before immigrating
to Australia the bishop had founded St. Mary's College in Dublin, and it was
here that Armati, as a student, had met Quinn on one of the prelate's many
return visits to Ireland and was persuaded to accompany him back to Queensland.
He settled in Townsville where he founded a pharmacy, which remained his main
activity.
The Armati Fraire drapery business lasted from 1880 to
1887, at which time Fraire sold his interest and went to Italy for another
visit. When he returned to Townsville in 1888 he established his own drapery
firm. Late that year he toured the coastal districts from Townsville to
Cooktown and became convinced that Piedmontese peasants would prosper there.
It was this conviction that prompted Fraire to
approach several sugar planters with the proposal to recruit Piedmontese for
work in Queensland. In conjunction with the Philp recommendation he provided
the Queensland Government with a telegram which stated that the planters had
agreed to lease or sell land to the Italians at the end of a period of indenture,
in accordance with the provisions of the 1884 Immigration Amendment Act. The
following week the owners of Macknade plantation in the Herbert district, and
Seaforth, Drysdale and Kalamia plantations in the Burdekin district all
forwarded letters assuring the chief secretary that it was their intention to
comply with the condition, although they did not consider themselves obligated
to do so. In a particularly candid letter, Charles Young of Kalamia noted that
the plantation was interested in the Piedmontese for the following reasons:
that they [the planters] cannot make the place pay
except when worked by cheap and reliable labourers who will work in gangs ...
...that cheap and reliable coloured "gang"
labour is to be stopped soon.
....that it would be better and cheaper to close the
plantation at once and face the terrible loss that would be entailed by so
doing than to attempt to carry on operations with any white labourers presently
available in the Colony.
....that Piedmontese labourers may take kindly to
sugar-growing, and may be able to supply themselves with cheap and reliable
"gang" labour in the shape of their own women-kind and children.
....that Piedmontese labourers may, after they have
seen a season's operations carried out, take the land on terms and eventually
buy it, and so enable the present owners to get out of sugar-growing
altogether.
Charles Young of the Kalamia plantation near Ayr
viewed the whole endeavour with a jaundiced eye, noting, "we hardly expect
the Piedmontese to be a success as gang labourers while they work for us,
whatever they may be afterwards when working for themselves". Charles
Young, saw little alternative, "to get rid of the land to men who will
make use of cheap and reliable gang labour in the shape of women and children
seems to be the best way of getting out of sugar-growing with the least
possible loss".
Despite the dubious ethics evidenced in this depiction
of the scheme, the chief secretary ordered the agent-general to direct a query
to the Italian Government through the British Colonial Office on its position
regarding indented emigration for Queensland. The prompt reply was to the
effect that Italian officials wanted more details regarding conditions in the
colony before proceeding. The Colonial Office informed the agent-general that
it was "to be apprehended that difficulties might arise if Italians or
Germans, engaged under indenture, were on arrival required to do, within the
tropics, work which has hitherto been done by coloured labourers, and which Colonial
white labourers do not undertake".
A
biography written by Dr. D. J. Bean after Chiaffredo's death gives us further
insight into Mr. Fraire's personality and life:
Chiaffredo Venerano Fraire was born at Envie,
Piedmont, Italy in 1852. His Christian names were those of two "household
saints" (relic of the old Roman Lares) who, from their niches on either
side of the portico, guarded the Fraire homestead. Fraire is a name well-known
and honoured in the Commune of Envie, but almost entirely localised to that
district. The Fraires are an old yeoman family and have been agriculturists,
viticulturists, and silk-worm cultivators round and about Envie for hundreds of
years.
The Fraires had a fine old homestead and a comfortable
estate, to which Chiaffredo, as eldest son, was heir. His mother was a widow,
which enabled young Fraire to escape military conscription, and thus allowed
him to satisfy his thirst for adventure. The lure of life and enterprise in
distant lands called him, and he waived his entitlement to the estate, and
accepted instead the "younger brother's portion", a small sum in
cash. Equipped with this and a sound secondary school education, he landed in
Brisbane on May 24, 1872, as part of a small Italian expedition under the
leadership of Bishop Quinn, who had met him whilst travelling in Italy to
collect suitable immigrants for Queensland.
Young Fraire had a rough time in some ways just at
first. He made the usual mistake of staying with some of his own countrymen who
had arrived in Brisbane a few months previously, instead of plunging right into
the life of the country, and becoming adept at English. Among others he met at
this time, Signori Simonetti and Anevitti, who later on made names for
themselves in Australia as painters and sculptors. For eight months Fraire was
without work, but at last a Brisbane drapery merchant consented to give him
employment without pay. After two months he began to be paid, 10/- per week,
and a few months later, £1 per week. Just then was the time of the Gold Rush to
Palmer, North Queensland. Sailing to Townsville and trans-shipped to Cooktown,
young Fraire joined the stream of wealth-seekers who toiled and staggered along
the difficult track from Cooktown, at that time a town of tents, to Palmer.
Fever was rife, people were dying along the road, and scenes of horror and
misery were seen on all sides. Young Fraire, lonely and homesick, no doubt had
hoped to make a fortune outright, and then return to Italy.
But the tragedies enacted for the sake of
wealth-getting which he witnessed in this rush at Palmer, and the life there,
sickened him. He didn't work in the mines but took employment in the main
store-tent at Palmer. At night he used to sleep on the beach. Very soon he had
had enough of it, and returned to Townsville.
Here he worked for James Burns, in his drapery store.
Burns was beginning to do business in a big way in consequence of the opening
up of the gold-mines at Charters Towers and Ravenswood, and the discovery of
the Palmer's field. Losing his wife at Townsville (1876), Burns shortly left
for Sydney, and Mr. Robert Philp, who had been his secretary, assumed charge of
the Townsville branch. Both branches, Sydney and Townsville, after this forged
ahead so rapidly that in only a few years the firm of Burns, Philp & Co.
became a substantial nucleus of the great world-wide (business) house it is
today.
Fraire lived in the same house as Robert Philp, and
thus got to know him intimately. [This was to stand him in good stead later,
for it was with the loyal backing of Sir Robert Philp, then Premier of
Queensland, that he carried through the outstanding achievements of his life,
that is, the introduction to North Queensland of 350 hand-picked Italian
agriculturalists (a few from Switzerland over the border, the rest from North
Italy)].
Mr. R. Philp commissioned Fraire to buy goods for him
in England for the Townsville business and gratefully promised to retain his
position, should he desire to return. After seeing through this commission, and
a stay of several months in Italy, Fraire again returned to Townsville in 1880.
Soon afterwards he and a friend, Armati, bought out the Burns, Philp & Co.
business at Townsville, and carried it on successfully for a further seven
years. During this time he again made a short trip to Italy, and on his return
had opportunities of visiting the forest lands and fertile scrub between
Townsville and Cooktown. He availed himself of these chances with enthusiasm,
and as a result gained the conviction that sugar cane and various other
tropical products could be successfully grown there. In his own words,
"Knowing the sturdy and industrious peasants of my native country, I felt
so confident that they would do well in such lands, if only they had the opportunity
to work it, that I determined to do everything possible in my limited power to
see the experiment carried out".
After years of repeated and intensive efforts,
speaking on the subject, writing to Government officials and to the Press,
interviewing many of those interested in sugar cane and so forth, he at last
succeeded. With the help of Sir Robert Philp, the then Premier, the Queensland
Government and some sugar cane planters agreed to make a trial of a small party
of Italian labourers to work on the plantations. The whole project was most
wisely and soundly planned to bring to this country only Italians entirely
suitable as colonists, and who would at once "get on to the land".
.... he paid his second visit home to Italy, the one
before the "immigration" visit of 1891, after several years of work
as "Fraire and Armati". Before leaving he sold out his share of the
business, but on his return at the end of 1888 took up a drapery business on
his own. For years he prospered, bought land very largely indeed, and, if his
speculations had succeeded, would have been quite one of the wealthiest men in
Queensland. In his land speculations he over-reached himself, however, and
failed for some £ 30,000 or more. He took his discharge in
bankruptcy in Townsville in June, 1899. In spite of this disastrous ending to
his long life in Townsville, Mr. Fraire's memory will be cherished there
because of his good citizenship and his outstanding personal qualities. One of
the streets there, in Hermit Park, bears his name as a mark of public esteem.
The following, taken from the "Credential"
letter given him by William Clayton, Mayor of Townsville, when he was leaving
for his "immigration-trip" (1891) to Italy, speaks for itself. It
states that:
for a period of sixteen years, he has been a most
prominent citizen of Townsville ... and has occupied an important commercial
and social position as head of one of the leading and most flourishing
businesses in North Queensland, as a proprietor of landed estates ... and as one
of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the Colony of Queensland.
By dint of perseverance, strict probity and unswerving
straightforwardness, Mr. Fraire has not only acquired an independence, but has
also commanded the universal esteem and respect of his fellow-townsmen, while
his genial disposition and courteous deportment as a gentleman, have gained him
the attachment and regard of those who have been brought into social contact
with him.
In his public capacity Mr. Fraire has identified
himself with the local institutions and devoted his best energies to the
promotion of the welfare and advancement of this city. His departure from this
scene of so many years' residence will be greatly deplored by his friends, and
will inflict a loss in the community which can ill afford to dispense with one
of its most public-spirited citizens.
Mr. Fraire transferred with his family to Brisbane and
there, probably some time in the year 1900, first contacted Theosophy. ....
With characteristic enthusiasm and one-pointedness, Fraire at once became
absorbed by Theosophy, and for some time, during his earlier years of
membership, he somewhat lost his balance over it. .... Born a Catholic, he
hadn't followed it up for many years, though never definitely quarrelling with his
Church.
[A little later] .... He was living most of this time
in Rockhampton as agent for Thomas Brown, a large General Provision firm for
whom he ran a Show and Sample room. For a time he did similar work in
Maryborough, I think for Patterson, Laing & Bruce. He managed for a short
time a drapery business in Cairns.
Mostly, since about 1903, Mr. Fraire had headquarters
in Rockhampton, though travelling sometimes about the State. .... He wrote numerous,
almost weekly articles (if not more often) which he contributed for some years
under the pen name of "Vigour", to the Rockhampton Bulletin. ... The
articles were on every conceivable phase of Theosophy, including the Liberal
Catholic Church, "Star", Co-Masonry, and so forth. .... His efforts
started the Co-Masonic Lodge in Rockhampton, and the Theosophical Hall there is
quite his creation. Long before this he had joined the Craft Masons, taking his
Mark and Master Mason's certificate in the Grand Lodge of Ireland in 1878; his
Royal Arch Degree of Scotland in June, 1884, and proceeding to the Third Degree
in September 1894. He became affiliated to the Rockhampton Co-Masonic Lodge,
Droit Humain, No. 413, in the degree of Master Mason in September, 1919.
In the
last years of his life, Chiaffredo was quite dedicated to the Theosophical
movement. He also was planning to move to South America. To this end he
earnestly studied French and Spanish.
Dr.
Bean, who was Chiaffredo's friend over many years writes:
No one could have been humbler, more single-hearted,
or less self-conscious than Fraire. ... His will-power was amazing, and to his
own weaknesses and physical failings he was ruthless, but always tender and
considerate towards others. .... C. V. Fraire's life and character cannot be
better epitomised nor commented on than in those words of the Old Book:-
"Whatsoever
thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might!"
This
obituary for Chiafreddo Venerano Fraire comes from the Catholic Advocate:
Many
friends, both in North and South Queensland, will regret to learn of the death
of Mr: C. V. Fraire, which occurred at Rockhampton at the age of 78 years. Mr.
Fraire was the last of a brilliant batch of young Italian immigrants who came
to Queensland in the year 1873. They were the first Italians to come to
Queensland and the late Bishop Quinn was instrumental in bringing them.
At that time the Bishop had difficulty in securing
Irish priests for the new Colony of Queensland, and went to Rome for
assistance. Here he obtained the number required at the same time induced a
number of eligible young Italians to make the trip. They were all of a high
intellectual standard and included the following: Signor Achille Simonetti (famous
sculptor, whose works afterwards became known throughout Australia), Canali (an
astronomer, who obtained an important position in the Government service, and
later became the well known and much loved Father Canali of Brisbane; Benvenuti
(a musician); Papi, who obtained a high position in the Education Department;
Dr. Ricci (Government Botanist); and Fraire and Armati, who engaged in
commercial work.
Messrs. Fraire and Armati joined J. J. Burns and went
to Townsville, where they established an extensive business. Mr Robert Philp
joined the Burns Company and formed the present prosperous business of Burns,
Philp and Co., whilst Fraire and Armati took over the retail business and
prospered. Later they retired but Mr. Armati re-entered business a chemist in
Brisbane, and afterwards went North again.
Mr. Fraire was induced by Mr. Philp to visit Italy in
1890 and returned with a batch of immigrants numbering 300, and the successful
Italian settlement in North Queensland owes its origin to Mr. Fraire's mission
to his native land.
When these 300 immigrants arrived, the guileless
Planters in North Queensland imagined that they were going to replace the
kanaka workers. The newcomers settled down to work on the conditions offered
which were far below current rates of pay and continued to work until they had
saved a little money. By that time they had discovered the conditions under
which they could obtain land in Queensland. Instead of striking as the present
workers do, a number of them selected land, and the others remained in
employment financing their friends, and in this manner, kept on until all were
settled on the land and their success is now is too well known to need further
mention.
Never in the history of Queensland has this young
country received in one batch such a brilliant group of men, all of whom
succeeded, and whose descendants are a credit to the country.
The late Mr. Fraire was a conversant linguist and for
many years wrote interesting articles under the Pen-name of 'Vigour'. Retiring from
business ten years ago, he has since lived with his daughter, Mrs. E. Stacey.
Another daughter is Mrs. L. Twigg, of Rockhampton. -- R. I. P."
It has
been with considerable difficulty, and more than one hundred hours searching,
that we have eventually discovered the ship on which Pio arrived in Australia.
Bishop Quinn sent a number of consignments of people to Queensland. Five (or
even more) ships were involved in these movements. Not knowing this, I was
confounded when I eventually tracked down the ship on which Bishop Quinn
returned to Australia, only to discover that there was no mention made of Pio
Vico Armati. Yes, there was Chiaffredo Fraire, but not Pio! Even this tracking
was difficult as the ship came into Sydney, and Bishop Quinn then took a
coastal passenger ship to Moreton Bay.
It was
Nancy Armati who tracked Pio's ship down, with help from Mr. John Weir, a
direct descendant of Mr. Thankfull Willmett who was Pio's one time fellow Mason
friend and Mayor of Townsville. Pio arrived as Reverend Mr. Pius Almati on a
small cargo ship carrying mostly horses and dogs. No wonder it was difficult to
track down his arrival.
The
following are extracts from the Brisbane Courier March 16 and 18, 1872:
The brig "Jane" left Adelaide on February
18, with a strong south wind, which kept up until she reached Cape
Northumberland. From there she had a fine run to Kent's Group. She experienced
strong N. N. E. winds and heavy weather, the barometer falling to 30.30 for
eight days from Kent's Group to Cape Howe. From Cape Howe to Cape Moreton had
made a good run of four days. There was a very heavy sea along the coast, with
a strong current to the southward. The brig arrived at Cape Moreton on
Wednesday evening, and anchored in the Bay on Thursday morning. She came up to
the Bar on Thursday night, and arrived at the wharf at 3 p.m. yesterday.
She spoke the "George Crowshaw", from London
to Brisbane, 98 days out, on Sunday last, in latitude 34 degs. 40 mins.,
longitude 153 degs. 57 mins. The vessel reported all well on board.
The "George Crowshaw", which left London on
December 3 (1871) for Brisbane, is now 103 days out, and may therefore be said
to be overdue. The brig "Jane", which arrived yesterday, reports
having spoken this vessel off Newcastle, on Monday last, and she reported all
well on board. It is rather extraordinary that the brig arrived before her, but
as there was very heavy weather on the coast, the ship may have thought it
necessary to keep well out to sea, which would account for her non-appearance.
Her arrival, however, may be hourly looked for. A ship signalled yesterday at
Cape Moreton, from the South, which may turn out to be her. The "George
Crowshaw" has a large general cargo, and has also on board a valuable
blood horse and some greyhounds.
The "City of Brisbane, SS", left Sydney
Heads on Wednesday, at 6:15 p.m. She had fresh northerly winds to Seal Rocks;
light, variable winds thence to the Clarence River, and a moderate southerly
and south-easterly winds and fine weather the remainder of the passage,
arriving at the A.S.N. Company's wharf at
In the "George Crowshaw", which arrived on
Saturday in this port, are two of the best bred fillies, the pedigrees of which
our sporting contributor purposes giving in a few days. A draught stallion and
twenty-two superior dogs of almost every description, have also arrived in good
order per the same ship.
The
passenger list is extremely difficult to read as the copy sent to us by the
Queensland State Archives is of poor quality. The fourteen passengers as best
can be deciphered were: Charles P. Bellamy (23), Mr Norman and Mrs. Deborah
Darcy (28 and 25 respectively), Mary Darcy (21), Eleanor C. Darcy (19), Pius Almati (24), Dominick Carmusci (45), Miss
Jones (32). All these were Saloon Passengers. In the Second Cabin were: Mr.
Robert (39) and Mrs. Polly (29) Roberts, Mr. Charles (49) and Mrs. Jessie (39)
Moss, James Walker (31) and Frederick Carding (20). There were three married
couples, five single men and three single women.
The
following is the passenger List for the "Silver Eagle" which
arrived in Sydney on 22 May, 1872 from London. Bishop Quinn's name is clearly
visible as the first entry, and Chiaffredo Fraire's name is marked three
quarters of the way down the list.
The
date recorded for her arrival on the Immigration list was May 20, 1872. I believe
that this date is correct. The date for the boat's arrival on the Passenger
List is May 22, 1872. This date cannot be correct, because the Lady Young
left Sydney at 7 p.m. on May 22, 1872. There would not be enough time to
transfer all the passengers and their baggage. The Silver Eagle sailed
from London on January 25 or 26, 1872. In this passenger list, in addition to
Bishop Quinn and Chiaffredo Fraire, are many names of people in Bishop Quinn's
entourage. As a matter of interest there were 87 single females listed on the
three pages of the passenger list following this page (in alphabetical order,
which is unusual). These women were not nuns, but were part of a contingent of
107 people immigrating to Australia, mostly were working-class people starting
a new life in Australia.
The
paying passengers were of no special interest to the Ship's Captain apparently.
Their fare was paid to the ship's owners. The names of 47 of these appear in
the List of Passengers who arrived. There were 15 First Class Passengers, and
32 Second Class passengers. As there were 166 passengers on the Silver Eagle,
and there were 107 immigrants, there must have been twelve fare-paying
passengers who were not listed (probably travelling steerage).
Of
specific importance to the Captain were the immigrants. The list of Immigrants
prepared by the ship's Captain, Mr. George Case, indicates that there were 7
married couples, 87 single women, four boys less than 12 years of age, 1 girl
less than 12 years of age and one male older than 11 but still classified as a
child. In the Recapitulation at the end of the report is written: "These
107 souls equals 1031/2 Statute Adults". The ship was paid so much for
each Statute Adult brought out to Australia apparently! There were no births or
deaths on the four month voyage. The Surgeon's name was Gerald Molloy Esq. R.N.
Other Items
The 60 acres which Pio and Chiaffredo purchased at The
Argentine in 1881 was not, as it transpired, a sound investment. Silver
prices, which were around 4s 6d. per oz. in 1880 began to fall in 1883, and
remained low until 1890, when there was a big, but short-lived, revival in silver
prices. There was some recovery at that time, but subsequently silver mining in
the area stopped by 1894.
In
1883, we read that:
The Star Silver Field, as it is very
appropriately named, has within twelve months risen into very considerable
importance. A large number of companies have been formed for working and
developing the silver lodes - notably the "Colorado" which was
floated in Sydney with a capital of £ 45,000 in
45,000 shares of £ 1 each. Messrs Parkes and Marshall, the well
known brokers, have also successfully floated a smelting company, the shares
being entirely taken up by Townsville men. Operations are to commence
immediately the works - now in the course of construction - are completed. A
bright future may safely be predicted for the Star Silver field as
the numerous lodes in mostly all cases have assayed splendidly.
In the
same year, 1883, Phillip W. Pears, in his Wardens Report wrote:
"This town (Argentine) is now
almost completely deserted: most of the people (some thirty all told) are only
awaiting an opportunity to leave. During the year a certain quantity of ore was
sent from here ... in one instance ten tons of ore shipped to Sydney at a cost
of £12 per ton, only realised £2 per ton when sold ... I fear the holders of
most of the selections have neither inclination nor means to spare any further
trials at present."
Other
notable businessmen in Townsville also took up land in The Argentine
mining area.
It is no surprise to find the names of Pio Vico
Armati, Chiaffredo Fraire, Robert Philp, John Hanran, William Evans, H. B. Le
T. Hubert, David Thomatis, Brodziak & Rodgers and others among the earliest
investors at Argentine; their names appear as the earliest investors in other
North Queensland towns established from the late 1860s to the 1880s. Men like
Arthur Bundock, who is recorded as exporting silver ore from Argentine
from 1884-8 no doubt bought their town blocks in the hope that a future boom
would provide even better opportunities for business, such as those being
enjoyed at Charters Towers and Ravenswood.
There could be little progress without a great deal
more work going on at the mines. R. L. Jack's 1886 report emphasises this
point:
"... the work done has been of a most perfunctory
character, having for its object the bare fulfilment of the 'improvement
conditions' under the act. Many of the 'mines' taken up 'to sell' have never
yielded ore beyond the 'specimens' carried to Townsville, Sydney or Brisbane,
for the benefit of purchasers of shares: nay, if some tales are to be believed,
some of them did not even yield these."
And we
read in G. C. Bolton's book, A Thousand Miles Away:
"... the most promising silver-lead deposits in
the Ravenswood mining district were at Argentine, on the old Star
goldfield. From 1881 this was the scene of a hectic rush, which ended suddenly
early in 1883, after the failure of a locally capitalised smelting works caused
many disgruntled claim holders to quit. (The failure was largely their own
fault. Investigating the field a little later, the geologist Logan Jack was
mildly astonished at the careless way in which many consignments of ore had
been sent to the smelter mixed with masses of ironstone and other
rubbish)."
Dangers in Pio's shop beside the
Queensland Hotel
Dorothy
Gibson-Wilde, writing of the Queensland Hotel in Townsville:
In
June 1890, Aleck Mackenzie retired and Frederick 'Fred' Brookhouse took the
licence. It was during his residence that the hotel's association with amusing 'Animal
anecdotes' started. In those days it was the custom to keep cows in hotel yards
to provide a continuous milk supply. Brookhouse purchased a new cow from
Molloy's dairy in 1891; after enjoying the green pastures of German (now
Belgian) Gardens, the cow found life in the hotel yard uninteresting. She
escaped one day to sample the delights of Flinders Street; Armati's chemist
shop, next to the hotel, was irresistible. Amicably she wandered into the shop,
turning Armati and his assistants to statues, afraid to move lest they startled
her into panic, causing terrible damage. Casually the cow sniffed the goods on
the counter and inspected the shop, then turned around and walked just as
casually out to the street to be captured shortly afterwards. Wits in the town
made much of this incident, generally agreeing that if everywhere else they had
'bulls in china shops', Townsville went one better - it had 'a cow in a chemist
shop'!
In
1893 Matthias 'Matt' Jenkin purchased the lease. 'Well known in Charters Towers
as the manager of quartz-cutting batteries', he had come north from Daylesford
in Victoria with his parents about 1876. Jenkin and his wife, a delightful
woman, turned the Queensland into one of the most popular hotels in
Townsville.
Carrying
on the tradition set by Brookhouse's cow, the Jenkin's pet goat entertained the
town. Billy was a fine specimen of a goat, beloved by the Jenkin children whose
goat cart it pulled sedately. Unfortunately Billy developed an insatiable
thirst for beer! Very cunningly, he also worked out a way of cadging drinks:
peering from the lane way beside the hotel, he selected a victim, then followed
him to the bar. There he gently nudged the 'selected one' and, rearing on his
hind legs, placed his forelegs on the counter. Most customers found these
antics irresistible, though whether from terror or amusement is hard to tell.
Billy then watched with eyes aglow until his beer was served, drinking with
appreciation about four times as fast as his human friends. He then selected another
victim until, 'three sheets in the wind', he staggered outside to sleep,
snoring loudly.
Billy's
unfortunate habit was a source of amusement to the many seamen visiting the
port. They would drink with Billy until all were merry, then attempt to ride
him along the footpath, which Billy would not tolerate. This palling, they
would hold goat fights, in the manner of Spanish bull fights, when Billy was
goaded into trying to butt them. He was known as 'Townsville's Boozing
Billy-goat' from Hong Kong to Rio.
Jenkin
was usually tolerant of horseplay with his goat; he even had the animal's
portrait painted and hung beside the bar at the Queensland. His
tolerance did not extend, however, to the prankster who painted Billy in red,
white and blue stripes. Jenkin swore terrible vengeance for this assault; the
paint could not be removed but had to be left to wear off. Billy's 'love of the
bottle' was his undoing. Like Brookhouse's cow, he wandered into Armati's
chemist shop but, unlike the cow, sampled the contents of an amber bottle; it
was not his favourite fluid, but poison. So ended Billy's remarkable career.
Born
in Scotland in 1851, Robert emigrated with his parents in 1862. After two years
of schooling in Brisbane, he went to work for Bright Bros., shipping agents and
merchants, with whom he stayed until 1874. The industrious apprentice then
grasped the opportunity of moving to Townsville to become the junior and
resident partner of Burns, Philp and Company. Between 1874 and 1890 the firm
prospered, to become the commercial Leviathan of north Queensland, multifarious
in its activities. Burns, Philp & Co. were agents and provisioners for many
of the inland sheep and cattle stations and for most of the coastal sugar
planters. They dominated the Townsville lighter fleet and imported scores of
Pacific Island labourers for the cane-fields. They invested in gold,
silver-lead, and tin mining propositions. They bought bêche-de-mer from trepang
fishermen, and cedar from the Atherton Tableland timber-cutters. They pioneered
Australian trade in New Guinea and became a force in coastal shipping. They
were among the founders of the North Queensland Insurance Company and the Bank
of North Queensland. They grew to be a nation-wide firm with headquarters in
Sydney. Beyond question, they were the heart of capitalism in North Queensland
and Philp was the firm's local representative and visible presence in the
district.
But
was he such a model of prudence and calculation as his official biography would
suggest? To contemporaries Philp sometimes seemed a far less demure and
discreet personality, not without conviviality and a distinct streak of the
gambler. In 1877 his senior partner James Burns (writing from Sydney)
could be found shaking his head sagely: "I confess I am a little
bewildered at your proneness to speculation and wish you would hold to the old
grooves .... till time gives you more bottom to work on."
He
joined a Masonic lodge as a young man, rose high in the craft, and valued his
membership. .... He married twice, once in 1878 and again in 1890, and fathered
two sons and five daughters. His wives were cousins, linking him with the
Campbells, Forsyths and other pillars of the Queensland Scottish mercantile
community. His sons became pastoralists. Three of his daughters remained
unmarried, but one of them was among Queensland's first female medical
practitioners.
James
Burns was looking for a reliable manager who could take responsibility for the
Townsville store which he had established in 1873, whilst he built up wider
connections. Philp, with whom Burns had developed a friendship after meeting
Philp when playing cricket for Gympie, against a visiting Brisbane side which
included Philp, had twice visited Townsville, and twice refused Burns' offer.
But the Palmer gold rush was booming, Charters Towers was gaining ground, and
the sugar industry was just beginning to recover from a period of recession;
and when in December 1874 Burns improved his terms to an annual salary of £250
with use of a cottage, Philp could no longer refuse.
In
1876, Burns contracted malaria in the newly opened settlement at Cairns, and
was obliged to leave North Queensland more or less permanently. His role was to
build up the Sydney office, which opened for business in April 1877. He thought
so well of Philp that he offered him a partnership, and when it turned out that
Philp had only £1,000 of his own Burns advanced him another £4,000, mostly in
stock.
The North
Queensland boom lasted until 1883, with gold, sugar, silver-lead, and a
reviving pastoral industry all making their contribution. Philp must have been
prodigiously busy in those years. He was the father of a young and growing
family. Increasingly he was venturing into his own private speculations,
sometimes in mining - he had a flutter in the short-lived Star River (The
Argentine) silver rush of 1883, and later lost money in the Comet
gold-mining company on the Palmer. More remuneratively he sent the firm's less
sturdy freighters across the South Pacific to ship labourers for the sugar
plantations.
Philp,
in common with most of the leading businessmen in Townsville had from time to
time been a member of the Townsville Municipal Council. He was a Presbyterian
and a Freemason. Initially he was strongly anti-catholic, but by 1883 he was
happily a very close friend with an Irish Catholic, Glasgow-educated like
Philp, John Macrossan, Member of Parliament for Townsville.
In
1883 world sugar prices fell to what was to be a twenty-year slump.
Philp
was elected to Parliament in 1886 as member for Musgrave. This seat disappeared
in the re-distribution preceding the 1888 election. Philp won the seat of
Townsville in 1888, and remained member for Townsville until his retirement
from politics in 1908. He was knighted a few years later.
Philp
showed a particular concern for the sugar industry, which in those years was on
parlous times. For with the cessation of Pacific Island labour due in 1892,
many of the large plantations were collapsing from the weight of their
overdrafts, while the smallholders in whom Premier Griffith had trusted as an
alternative to the plantations were in their turn calling for the restoration
of the traffic in Pacific Islanders. ... In August 1889 Philp made the longest
speech of his career to that stage, insisting that the industry was organising
itself more efficiently and could survive, and asserting a little
optimistically that even working men in North Queensland accepted that Pacific
Islanders were in no way competitive with white men. At other times he claimed
that machinery would be the salvation of the sugar industry rather that black
labour or small farmers. When Griffith coalesced with McIllwraith to become
premier again in 1890, Philp found it easy to support his expedient for
importing Italian labourers, not least because his firm was the local agent for
the scheme. Working-class opposition and the chance of better wages in other
industries proved too much for the Italians and by February 1892, to Philp's
unconcealed relief, Griffith conceded that the import of Pacific Islanders
would have to be resumed.
This
change of heart came too late to avert the recession which now touched nearly
every phase of economic activity in Queensland. Philp's business affairs were
in serious trouble by 1892. The details are not entirely clear, but he had
over-extended himself during the recent real estate boom in Townsville, and his
mining speculations in gold and silver-lead were also badly hit. Although he
had benefited when his relatives, the Forsyths, floated the Great Cumberland
mine on the London market, he probably burnt his fingers badly in the
subsequent slump on the Etheridge field and it was also told of him that he
once refused to pay £120 for a half-share in the Day Dawn mine at
Charters Towers, preferring to invest the money in a horse and buggy. The Day
Dawn was to yield £638,000 in dividends by 1903 - he had bought an
expensive horse and buggy. What is certain is that by April 1892 he was unable
to meet a debt to the firm of Burns, Philp & Co. of £2,657 and despite a
personal guarantee from Burns, the amount went on increasing during the
following months. In February 1893, having ceased to hold enough shares to
qualify as a director, Philp was obliged to retire from the board of the firm
which bore his name. "It must have been very hard upon Mr. Philp to
lose the substance for the shadow, so to speak", commented Burns.
"Mines, mortgaged properties and such specs are very chimerical."
He was
Secretary for Mines and Public Works 1893-1896 and 1899-1903, and also held
many other senior ministerial positions over the years. He was Premier of
Queensland from 1899-1903, and again briefly in 1907-8.
Sir
Robert Philp died on June 17, 1922.
Townsville
Grammar was founded by Robert Philp (later Sir Robert) of Burns, Philp and Co.,
in 1884, although not without considerable controversy both with respect to the
site of the School in North Ward and concerning Robert Philp's rejection by the
Queensland Government as a Trustee for the School. All Pio's sons attended
Townsville Grammar. Pio was a generous subscriber in 1884 when Robert Philp
launched a campaign to raise £2,000 in funds to create the school, as were Mr.
Philp himself, the Bishop of Queensland (the Anglican one); Edwin Norris, C. V.
Fraire and the Armati & Fraire business also contributed. Also contributing
were S. F. Walker, T. Willmett and P.F. Hanran. Whilst small in numbers,
Townsville Grammar School boasted two Rhodes Scholars in its early days, one in
1910 and another in 1938. Girls were first enrolled in 1892.
Many
Armatis have attended Townsville Grammar over the years, (the school was
coeducational from 1892):
|
Year of Enrolment |
Name |
|
1890 |
Percy Edgar Armati |
|
1894 |
Victor Albert Fraire (not an Armati, but recorded for interest) |
|
1895 |
Leo Vincent Armati |
|
1898 |
Clive Vivian Armati |
|
1910 |
Rex Gordon Armati |
|
1937 |
Clive Hylton Armati |
|
1942 |
Suzette Vivienne Armati |
|
1944 |
Nancy Dorothea Brazier (not an Armati, but Nancy married Clive Hylton Armati, Clive Vivian's son.) |
Percy was
dux of the school in 1895. Clive Vivian was a Prefect in 1902, Clive Hylton
Armati is recorded on the roll of honour for air service in the Second World
War; Nancy Brazier was later a staff member of the school, after being a
student. Nancy's father, Felix Howard Brazier was a Trustee of the school from
1954 to 1973 and Chairman from 1970-72.
From
old Townsville Grammar School magazines we discover:
All
four Armati boys attended Townsville Grammar School. Percy, who was a
Foundation Scholar, entered the school on 21 July 1890. He successfully
completed the Sydney Junior Examination in 1894 and two years later the Senior
Examination. He left on 11 December 1896 having won the Gold Medal for Dux in
1895.
Leo
who was enrolled on 5 February 1895 left after he had completed Junior on 1
November 1897.
Clive
was at the school between January 1898 and 1902 and was a Prefect in his last
year during which he completed his Pharmaceutical Primary.
Percy
and Clive seem to have been keen cricketers, Percy particularly. He played for
the Old Boys in the First Eleven, as it was called, from the time he left
school until he went to Winton in 1903 where he is reported as seeming "to
prefer tennis".
Both
Clive and Percy were commended for their batting and bowling.
In
1899, Percy was written up in the School Magazine:
Armati,
P. Plays with a good straight bat and scored well at the beginning of the
season, but through want of practice did not do himself justice at the end.
Slow to medium-paced bowler with good length and slight leg-break. Hard-working
reliable field.
In
the Old Boys Notes in 1900, he is reported as having passed "his
[Pharmacy] exam with great éclat, securing 72% of the possible marks." ....
And his return to his father's pharmacy was welcomed because "his
reappearance will add considerably to the strength of the First Eleven."
An
item in the June 1905 magazine mentions that Percy "was laid up in
February last with Typhoid fever. He appears to have had a very bad time of it,
but is now well again."
Clive's
name appears in the magazine in programs for special occasions such as Speech
Nights and House Suppers. As well as playing violin solos he appeared in roles
as different as the March Hare in The Mad Hatter's Tea Party from Lewis
Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland", Hortensio in Shakespeare's
"Taming of the Shrew" and Henry V in the Agincourt scene from
"Henry V."
Like
Percy, he kept up his association with the School through the Old Boys and is
mentioned as one of those whose musical items were "acceptably given"
at the Annual Dinner in 1909.
Rex
attended the school between 1910 and 1913.
The
As Pio
grew up, he was surrounded by a state of endless wars and skirmishes. It must
have had a very unsettling effect on the young man, and significantly coloured
his thoughts about his future life.
The
following historical records of the events leading up to and after the fall of
Rome in September 1870 help us understand the environment in which Pio
completed his final scholastic training:
On 8th December 1869, the First Vatican Council, a
meeting of all the bishops and cardinals of the Catholic Church assembled. [Bishop Quinn of
Brisbane attended this Πcuminical Council meeting.] On 20th July 1870 it
issued its most significant statement, and one which was hardly calculated to
make the Church more popular: the doctrine of Papal infallibility. "When
the Roman Pontiff, in the fulfilment of his mission as the first teacher of all
Christians, defines that which ought to be observed in matters of faith and
morals, he cannot err."
The Pope's secular power in Rome was, however, already
coming to an end. On 2nd August 1870, because of the Franco-Prussian War, the
Rome garrison was recalled to France. The terms of the September Convention
were brought into force for the second time. However, one phrase in the
Convention gave Italy the loophole she needed: "In the case of
extraordinary events both the contracting parties would resume their freedom of
action." Four days later an "extraordinary event" materialised -
the crushing defeat of Napoleon III's army, and its surrender to the Prussians
at Sedan in Lorraine. [Author's note: The French army had been protecting
the Pope in Rome from the forces of the risorgimento for many years.
When France found herself in serious trouble defending herself from Germany in
1870, a revolt in Paris resulted in the withdrawal of the French army from
Rome, thus leaving the way clear for Victor Emmanuel's risorgimento
forces to take Rome, and complete the creation of a unified Italy.]
A last-minute appeal to avoid bloodshed was made by
Victor Emmanuel. He sent an envoy who said to the Pope, "Most Holy Father
I address myself, as before to Your Holiness' heart, with the affection of a
son, the faith of a Catholic, the spirit of an Italian" . . . The last
sixteen words were but a poor plagiarism of King Charles Albert's when
he introduced his constitution in 1847, and must have sounded like mockery to
the Pope. Victor Emmanuel gave as his reason for wanting the Italian army to
enter Rome the need to keep order throughout the Rome peninsula owing to the
Franco-Prussian War. The Pope was angry, since with 13,000 of his own troops he
was in no danger in Rome. He told the envoy that his masters were "white
sepulchres and vipers" and that neither he nor his friends would enter
Rome. Pius in fact realised that the end of his temporal rule was near and
called back the retreating envoy and said with a smile, "but that
assurance is not infallible!" In fact he had made it clear that he would
yield only to violence and reserved the right to make at least a formal
resistance to the Italian army.
On 12th September, General Raphaele Cadorna's troops
crossed the frontier (of the Papal States) and by the 20th were at the gates of
Rome. Until the last moment the Italian government hoped for a popular rising
in the city as an excuse for entry, but the Roman people did nothing.
The Pope is quoted by some writers as having addressed
the commander of his forces, General Kanzler: . . . "the defence should
only consist in such a protest as would testify to the violence done to us, and
nothing more; in other words, that negotiation for surrender should be opened
as soon as a breach should be made." In fact the fighting lasted for five
hours, and, according to A. Gallenga, "The Pope seemed to expect that the
avenging angel might at any time appear, smite the enemies, and then turn upon
him, God's vicar as he was, and reproach him for his impatience and little
faith." At last, after some nineteen Papal soldiers and forty-nine
Italians had been killed and Cadorna had made a breach in the walls at Porta
Pia, the Pope ordered the surrender.
Although the Italians had hoped for a popular
uprising, Garibaldi and Mazzini had been kept under supervision to make sure
that they did not intervene. Now it was essential to prove that the Romans had
wanted unification. Plebiscites were held in the conquered territory, and an
overwhelming majority (133,681 for, as against 1,507) voted in favour of
annexation. The defeated side's view of this procedure is given by the Count of
Beaufort, one of the Papal Zouaves writing of the plebiscite in Rome: "The
walls were plastered with notices proclaiming in gigantic letters: 'Yes We Want
Annexation'. Through out the whole day of 1st. October, voting cards
were distributed marked with the annexationist Yes; and in the Corso, a French
engineer attached to the Acqua Maria works was arrested and detained for an
hour at the police station for having dared to ask out loud for a card marked
'No.' No close check was kept on the system of voting. To deposit a voting
paper one had to show an elector's card; but besides the fact that this card
was given indiscriminately to all who asked for it, even to foreigners, it was not
withdrawn when voting had taken place" . . This meant that a number of
enthusiasts were able to deposit unlawful Yes votes in the ballot boxes of as
many places as their legs could carry them.
In July 1871, Rome became the official capital of
Italy. The Law of Guarantees, passed in 1870, applied Cavour's principle of a
"free church in a free state." It allowed the Pope full sovereignty
within the Vatican City, the part of Rome containing St. Peter's Cathedral and
the main church buildings. He was also offered an annual payment of more than
three million lire as compensation for the loss of his temporal sovereignty in
the former Papal territories. The Pope however refused this and stubbornly
refused to accept his new status, exhorting all Italian Catholics not to take
part in politics as deputies or even as voters. Pius IX died in 1878 but his
attitude towards the new Italy was maintained by his successors. For the
politicians, it was not urgent to find a solution to the "Roman
Question" now that its power in the city had been secured. For many
Italian Catholics, however, it meant that they could never give undivided
loyalty to the new state. Thus the position of the government was still a
precarious one.
Italy still faced serious economic and political
problems. New industries were encouraged, but it was the already-prosperous
northern cities which gained most from these. Weak leadership and the existence
of many different political parties led to an unstable system of government,
which was constantly dependent on coalitions and unable to pursue any
continuous policy. People in the south complained increasingly the government
showed no concern with their problems of poverty and backwardness, but in
reality these were geographical rather than political problems. And although
democracy had been one of the aims of many leaders of the Risorgimento, it was
not until 1912 that all men over thirty were given the vote.
Italy tried to establish her importance by joining in
the manoeuvring of the Great Powers, and in 1882 joined the Triple Alliance
with Germany and Austria. When the First World War eventually took place,
however and there seemed to be an opportunity to gain territory from Austria,
Italy joined in on the side of Britain, France and Russia. She gained the
Southern Tyrol and Venezia Giulia, areas with Italian-speaking majorities.
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