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(her sight was going) may have wondered when she would join him.
More than likely she wore widow's weeds from then on. She sold Femside and moved into an
old-fashioned wooden house in Geelong. Situated at 65 Skene St, on the corner of Manning St,
it had rooms in the loft and a pleasant garden. She called her last home 'Roslyn'.
Jane lived on for another 10 years and was remembered later as being 'a sweet old lady, very
small'. She lived at Roslyn with a servant-companion, Ellen Ross, who was probably almost as
old as Jane and may have been the daughter or widow of Joseph Ross, the bootmaker and
committee member of the Wesleyan church at Highton in 1868.
Seven months after Lawrence's death, at midnight on 31 December 1899, Geelong moved into
the twentieth century and the six colonies of the island continent became the Commonwealth of
Australia.
A year later, on 22 January 1901, Queen Victoria died. There was universal mourning in the
state that bore her name. The Queen had seemed immortal. She had reigned since June 1837,
since the first sheep-farmers came to Corio Bay from Van Diemen's Land and took over the
land, and was queen before David Fisher built his first house by the Barwon, before Geelong
existed or bore any name.
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Jane Mountjoy was almost as old as the queen. The new century would hold little interest for
her. Only the war in South Africa, in which Australians were involved, would disturb her
thoughts, especially as three of her brother Richard's sons were there.
What did she make of the latest invention, the motor car? Did she view with distaste this noisy
contraption, made in America, that appeared in the streets of Geelong in the month that Victoria
died? Or did she not go out much, except to church?
Perhaps she was taken to see the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (the future King
George V and Queen Mary), when they visited Geelong on 13 May, 1901, after arriving in
Melbourne on the SS Ophir. a passenger ship chartered by the Admiralty in Britain.
Harold Nicolson's King George V describes the scene when the royal couple, both in their mid-
thirties, entered Melbourne on 6 May in state.
'The glistening landau was drawn by four horses, mounted by bewigged postillions clad in the
royal liveries of scarlet and gold. Beside the carriage rode two aides-de-camp, their helmets and
cuirasses flashing in the fleeting sun. Along the route of the procession triumphal arches and high
stands had been erected; the ladies of Melbourne were still dressed in deep mourning for Queen
Victoria; the handkerchiefs which they waved were little spots of white against a sombre
monochrome. On 9 May, in a huge exhibition building, similar to the Alexandra Palace, the
Duke formally inaugurated the first Commonwealth Parliament in full naval uniform with his
cocked hat upon his head.'
The Duke and Duchess then travelled to Geelong by train.
In May 1902, the South African war came to an official end. The coronation of Edward VII,
planned for 26 June, had to be postponed until August, while the 60-year-old king was
operated on for appendicitis. There were further celebrations in Geelong for this, but none so
bright as those that attended the arrival of electric light in the town's streets that November.
What did Jane Mountjoy make of that? Her eyes, accustomed to gas-light and candle-flame,
were dim. It was magic, but not for her. And when she heard that some local men had made an
aeroplane and tested it on the foreshore at Bream Creek - it was the first plane to fly in
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