A testament to a father’s love

On 28 August 2001, 23 years ago today, this unusual structure near the intersection of Market and Phillimore Streets and Elder Place, Fremantle – across from the Fremantle Railway Station – was entered on the Heritage Register of Western Australia.

Some will know it well, and its backstory, but perhaps many more of us – like our Editor – often wander past it and wonder just why it’s there.

So we did some digging!

In telling the story of the structure – more formally known as the Taylor Memorial Drinking Fountain and Horse Trough – we draw directly on the documentary evidence for the physical structure compiled by Alan Kelsall, Kelsall Binet Architects, back at the turn of this century to support it’s entry on the State Heritage Register. All the original information that the State heritage process relied on can be found here, including detailed notes, footnotes and references. For ease of reading, we haven’t included most of these notes, footnotes and references. They show Alan Kelsall did a huge amount of research into the Taylor Memorial in preparing his report.

While in official documents the structure is known as the Taylor Memorial Drinking Fountain and Horse Trough, here we refer to it simply as the Taylor Memorial or Memorial.

As the photos show, the Memorial was constructed in 1905 on the behalf of John Taylor of London in memory of his sons Ernest and Peter.

John Taylor was a ship owner with the London firm Bethell and Company, which had a frequent steamship service from England to Australia. He visited Western Australia on a number of occasions establishing business interests in the State and became a well-known member of the Fremantle merchant class.

Three of John Taylor’s ten children, John Foulkes Taylor, Ernest Baines Taylor and Peter Southern Taylor, also travelled to Western Australia. It is to Ernest Baines Taylor and to Peter Southern Taylor that the Taylor Memorial was built in memoriam.

Ernest Baines Taylor arrived in Western Australia aboard one of his father’s ships in November 1884. In 1885, Ernest became a purser on the SS Natal. After reported ill health, Ernest, aged 21 years, collapsed and died while visiting the home of WD (William Dalgety) Moore on 18 September 1885. WD Moore is well known to Fremantle people today, especially because of the ‘Moores Building’ in Henry Street. He was one of the leading ‘Merchant Princes’ of Fremantle in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th. Dalgety Street in East Fremantle owes its name to WD.

Peter Southern Taylor arrived in Western Australia aboard his father’s ship the Elderslie in 1887 and worked as an agent for his father. Peter, also aged 21 years, ‘allegedly’ died on an expedition through Noonkambah in the Kimberley region, after being speared by local Aboriginal people for walking on sacred ground. His death certificate records that Peter died on 19 March 1890 at Henry River Station in the Kimberley, a station partly owned by his father, John Taylor. (We aren’t sure exactly where this station was located. There isn’t any record of a ‘Henry River Station’. But there are or were a number of stations near the Henry River in the Pilbara region, including the old Hooley Station.)

It appears the deaths of John Taylor’s sons was cause for much speculation for a number of years. Respectively, reports claimed that the sons had died of thirst in the north of Western Australia; that the sons had been killed by Chinese seamen; and, that the sons had been trampled to death by a herd of camels. Descendants of the Taylor family tell the story that John Foulkes Taylor had in fact nearly died from thirst during an expedition with John Forrest through the Kimberley region in 1883. Apart from that, the speculation was speculation based on myth!

John Taylor died in England circa 1904/1905. In his will, Taylor left instructions to the executors of his local estate, Samuel Phillips and WD Moore, to sell his shares in the Fremantle Gas Company with the proceeds to go towards the commissioning and erection of a memorial to his two sons who had died young and far from their home in England.

It is commonly believed that Taylor intended the memorial to take the form of a drinking fountain for all living creatures, providing facilities for humans, a horse trough, a bird bath, and a water tray for cats and dogs.

In September 1904, it was reported that the Fremantle Council was happy to accept the gift of the drinking fountain as there were few in the town and a number of sites were considered for its location, including the grounds of the Church of England and the then new Esplanade.

In October 1904, it was reported that WD Moore had commissioned local architect JH Eales to design the structure, which was said to have an estimated cost of £175 to £200. However, the information in the newspaper article suggesting this is believed to have been incorrect.

Rather, John Taylor appears to have arranged the construction of the structure in England, prior to his death. It is believed that Taylor ordered his structure from a late nineteenth century catalogue by the firm Doulton and Company Ltd (the Royal Doulton people), in which a drawing for a similar fountain appeared. The glazed stoneware ‘Drinking Fountain and Horse Trough’ was advertised in the catalogue at a cost of £110, with an option to supply two additional dog basins at £15. The Taylor Memorial was constructed in Lambeth in London.

The boxes containing the pieces of the structure, ready for assembly, arrived in Fremantle from London in October 1905. Soon after its arrival, it was decided that the Memorial would be erected opposite the newly constructed Freo railway station.

Fremantle local Jack Bradley recalled helping his father, builder B Bradley, reassemble the Taylor Memorial in 1905, under the supervision of local architect James McNeece. But problems soon arose on the project when it was realized that no plans or instructions had accompanied the six boxes of pieces, and it was eventually decided to erect only part of the structure – the drinking fountain and horse trough.

It is thought that most of the remaining pieces, of what had been quite an elaborate structure, were discarded, although one of the two bird baths was apparently still standing in the front garden of the Bradley home in 1981!

By 1976, unfortunately, the Taylor Memorial had fallen into disrepair. Sketches and photographs from the 1970s and 1980s show that the structure had been partially boarded up and a timber cover and rails had been constructed to protect the horse trough and elevations.

A survey of Taylor Memorial was completed in 1978. The report identified foundation problems and stated that the structure was sinking and appeared to lean on an angle. At the time, it was recommended that urgent works be undertaken.

Three years later, in June 1981, it was announced that the City of Fremantle had received a grant of $8, 500 for the restoration of the Taylor Memorial from the National Estate Grants Program. Marble masons were commissioned to number and dismantle the structure, piece by piece, during the restoration process. Prominent local potter, Joan Campbell reconstructed missing pieces of the structure, also reproducing the green glaze of the tiles to match the original.

The Taylor Memorial was also moved approximately two metres from its original site onto a new concrete foundation – where it stands today. (Works showed that the original timber and rubble foundation had been giving away under the weight of the terracotta horse trough.) Restoration of the structure was completed in August 1983 – 41 years ago as we speak.

As of February 2001, when the heritage assessment was completed, the Taylor Memorial Drinking Fountain and Horse Trough continued to be used as a drinking fountain. And indeed it still is today. Horses however haven’t been seen in a long time, if they ever drank from the trough.

So there you are. The Taylor Memorial Drinking Fountain and Horse Trough – a relic of Empire, a reminder of Colonial history, but most of all a testament to a father’s love.

By Michael Barker, Editor, Fremantle Shipping News

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