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governors of the six Australian States in blue and scarlet uniforms richly ornamented with gold,
the judiciary in wigs and gowns, and members of the consular corps in resplendent dress.
Members of both the Federal and Victorian Parliaments were grouped around the front of the
dais and spectators packed the main concourse and galleries. After the traditional summoning of
the Lower House, the usual prayers and the reading of the Royal Patent by the Clerk of
Parliaments, the Duke delivered his message from the throne... The colourfully dressed
trumpeters blew a triumphant fanfare, the crowd cheered, guns boomed, hats were thrown high
into the air and Union Jacks fluttered out from the flagpoles of thousands of public buildings and
private homes. The once tiny village had become the capital of Australia and
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'gentleman'. The witnesses at the wedding (on 7 April 1909) were a man and a woman called
Permewan, evidently relatives of the bride's mother, whose maiden name was Morris, as one
witness was Elizabeth Mary Morris Permewan (perhaps the bride's aunt).
The Permewans were on the up and up in Melbourne then. Their common ancestor, John
Permewan, who was born in Penzance in 1837, was in Ballarat and Geelong in the 1850's and
60's establishing himself as a road and river carrier of goods. His company had the largest share
of the Echuca trade by 1875, and by 1888 Permewan, Wright & Co had 48 branches in
Victoria and New South Wales. Their London agent was Pickford & Son. The company's
express wagons, pulled by teams of horses, could carry up to six tons of goods; and it also
owned two cargo and three passenger steamers plying between Melbourne and Geelong. John
Permewan died in Ballarat in 1904. But his family maintained his business and their name is still
well known in connection with enterprises involving hardware and general merchandise.
It would seem that Elizabeth Mary Honeycombe's mother, Catherine, was related by marriage
to the Permewans, and tnat her marriage was a genteel affair - and not just because the
bridegroom's father was a gent.
There were more celebrations two months later, when Footsoray's first 50 years were accorded
a Jubilee Procession and Gala Day in June. The procession, over a mile in length, took 20
minutes to pass the many thousands of people who lined the flag-bedecked streets. Among
them must have been three generations of Honeycombes - Richard and Elizabeth, Richard and
Fanny, and Richard junior, now aged 12.
They saw at the forefront a dray bearing elderly pioneers, some of those, according to the
Advertiser, who had witnessed Footscray's rise 'from a swampy, riverside flat to one of the
busiest manufacturing centres in Australia.' Next came other horse-drawn vehicles carrying
manufacturers' and traders' displays, featuring soap, wool, glue, leather, chemicals, dairy
products, meat and other goods. On one of the carts a little girl, surrounded by corn and barley,
held a Cornucopia, a horn of plenty, out of which tumbled a profusion of fruit. There were
bands and representatives of masonic lodges in their regalia, and carts carrying comic tableaux.
At an open-air civic reception the Governor of Victoria was welcomed by the Mayor, Bill
Fielding, Footscray's only Labour councillor, and cheered by thousands of children. Speeches
were followed by feasting, fun and games.
Said The Age: 'The city showed that it was thoroughly satisfied with itself, and proud of its 50
years' record - as, indeed, it has reason to be'. Did Dirty Dick get drunk that night with his
cronies in some local hotel?
The following year, in April 1910 (when Jane Mountjoy died, aged 84, in Geelong) Labour won
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