SEE COMMENTS RE HENRY, FRED AND WILLIAM GODFREY.

The two Purves brothers built bridges in Van Dieman's Land before coming to the Port Phillip District. James,an architect, came out first and his brother, Peter,who was a stone mason,joined him after a tragedy befell him.Each brother had a son named James, but James Jnr was usually referred by his full name (as below.) Purves Rd in Rosebud may have been granted to James the architect but Peter's descendants lived there.

THE ARCHITECT.
Port Phillip Apostle No 6 James Purves, landowner
Posted on November 30, 2008 | 9 Comments
James Purves was born at Berwick-on-Tweed on 25 May 1813 and arrived in Van Diemens Land in 1837, moving across to Phillip in 1839. He commenced practising as an architect and building surveyor that year with an office in Bourke Street opposite Mr Allan?s (whoever he was). He obtained an auctioneers license in the same year- possibly that?s where he met Welsh? A different address is given for his office- Little Collins Street, next to McLeans store; then another notice that he moved into McLeans store itself. Either way, he is located in the commercial centre of town. He sold the auctioneers business to H. H. Atkinson in 1841, and maintained another architect office in Collins Street from 1840. His private residence was in Newtown (now Fitzroy) in 1840, then Richmond in 1844 and 1845. He married Caroline, the daughter of Thomas Guillod of London in October 1842. His son, James Liddell Purves, who was a barrister, columnist, free trade parliamentarian and member of the Australian Natives Association, was born in Swanston Street in 1843.

purvesjames (photo)

There?s his son. A fine upstanding man he is too.

James Purves Snr. is listed as holding land with Chirnside at the Loddon River and Geelong in 1840, then took a license to run stock in the Portland Bay district with Chisholm in 1842-3 (but I doubt if it is John Moffat Chisholm, who seems to have always used all three names; there are other Chisholms in Port Phillip) . He also held land in Western Port with Dixon 1842-3; and with E. W. Hobson. He won a prize for a horse at the first show, held on 3 March 1842 at the cattlemarket on the corner of Elizabeth and Victoria streets- a ?failure? of a show, according to Garryowen, where ?the exhibits were a vast disappointment?.

There is no evidence of much connection with the other Twelve Apostles. He seems to be quite active in leasing or purchasing properties in the early 1840s, especially during 1842 when the depression was kicking in, but there does not seem to be any further action after cutting his partnerships in 1843. Unlike the other Twelve Apostles, he had a profession to fall back on- perhaps this saved him from the insolvency that engulfed the others. He joined with Fawkner and Chisholm in fighting the arrangements made to cover Rucker?s debt once it all went pear-shaped. In September 1846 he helped fight a fire in a coach factory. By 1850 he was purchasing land again. He had a licence at Tootgarook- or is it Toolgaroop?- between 1850-69 where he became an importer and racehorse breeder and also at Traralgon between June 1853 and 1855.

He obviously had the money to send his son ?home? to England for his education, his law degree and his Grand Tour. His son published the diary he wrote on the way home ? A Young Australian?s Log. I wonder if that gives any more information?

This is all so disjointed. There?s a Thomas and Henry Purves in Port Phillip at the time, who DO come out very strongly in Judge Willis? favour, but I don?t know if they?re connected to James Purves at all. There?s several mentions of Mr Purves in the newspaper, but I?m not sure which one it is. And how and why did James Purves get involved in the Rucker scheme? Search me.

ROSEBUD.
Peter Wilson wrongly states in ON THE ROAD TO ROSEBUD that the Rosebudwas owned by Edward Hobson and was uninsured when she went aground inland of the foreshore bike path at Rosebud. (A plaque at the spot explains how the site of the stranding was determined.) James Purves had insured the vessel and there are many articles on trove about some of the insurers trying to avoid paying their share,claiming necessary documentation had not been provided and the stranding occurred on the EAST coast of the bay,which was not covered by the policy. Just prior to the stranding in 1855,James tried to sell the vessel and presumably he was the owner.

Extract from my journal about James Purves at Fingal.
WHICH JAMES PURVES?
The two men credited with having started the breeding of thoroughbreds in Victoria were James Purves and William Cross Yuille,the latter the author of the Stud Book. I was surprised to discover this as Hurtle Fisher and his brother, Charles B.Fisher (the father of the Australian Turf according to MARIBYRNONG:ACTION IN TRANQUILITY), had captured this distinction in my mind.

This James Purves died at Richmond on 12-6-1878. (P.1s, Launceston Examiner, 6-7-1878.) He owned Chinton, east of Mt Macedon and Tootgarook on the Mornington Peninsula. Neither is mentioned in this obituary but they were in other obituaries. James Purves had a brother named Peter but you'd never know it unless you read Hec Hanson's MEMOIRS OF A LARRIKIN. He was a mason and followed his architect brother to Van Diemans Land when his wife died shortly after giving birth to their first child, James. Leaving the baby in the care of a relative, the heartbroken Peter joined his brother and combining their skills they built many of Tasmania's early bridges.


THE ARCHITECT'S SON.
Where did "Liddle" come from? Perhaps here.
Purves, Margaret 59
Born: Abt 1757, Berwick
Marriage: Liddle, James 5 Jun 1773, Coldingham, , Berwick, Scotland 141

Purves, James Liddell (1843?1910)

by Marian Aveling

This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 5, (MUP), 1974

James Liddell Purves (1843-1910), lawyer and nationalist, was born on 23 August 1843 in Swanston Street, Melbourne, eldest son of James Purves and his wife Caroline. His father, an early Victorian colonist from Berwick-upon-Tweed, became an importer, race-horse breeder and owner of the station Toolgaroop near Western Port. Purves attended several Melbourne schools, including the Diocesan Grammar School, but his health was poor and he was sent to Europe in 1855 to complete his education. His diary of the voyage to London was later published as A Young Australian's Log (1856); it shows precocious powers of expression and observation. He continued his studies in Germany and Belgium, obtaining a good knowledge of German and French, and in King's College School, London. In 1861 he matriculated and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, to study medicine, but soon changed to law at Lincoln's Inn, London. For four years he studied, travelled widely on the Continent and at times supported himself by writing literary and documentary articles for several London journals and newspapers. In 1865 he was called to the Bar and, in December 1866 on his return to Melbourne, was admitted to the Victorian Bar.

This varied education produced quick intelligence, a fluent and often brilliant tongue, and great charm, his influence on colonial opinion and practice being based less on intellect than on personality and style. In the late 1860s he contributed a witty column, 'Talk of the Town', to the Melbourne Herald, and became co-editor of the Australian Jurist. His rapid rise in the legal profession showed a special flair for spectacular cases: in 1871 the defence of a client accused of stealing a fortune in gold coin; in the mid-1870s a gold-mining case involving suspected fraud; and in 1878 the defence of a respectable softgoods firm charged with smuggling by the protectionist Berry government. From the early 1880s he undertook a number of will and divorce cases, all closely reported in the press, and was briefed to appear in almost every important jury case. He was retained as standing counsel by a large number of public and private institutions, including the Victorian railways, in the defence of which he appeared in the long series of compensation cases arising out of the railway disasters of 1881 and of 1886, when he was appointed Q.C. and acknowledged as the leader of the Victorian Bar. A colleague later commented acidly that Purves was master of all trades and deficient only in law.

Certainly his success depended less on abstract legalities than on his ready grasp of technical skills such as surgery and mining, and on his ability to make disputed points clear to a jury by apt, homely and often humorous similes. His greatest contribution to forensic law in Victoria was the development of a unique style of cross-examination, a persistent and acute questioning by which a hostile witness could be led to prejudice his own case. Although privately a kindly man to whom many younger colleagues turned for assistance, Purves was notoriously brusque with witnesses, and when a doctor whose reputation he had impugned in court later knocked him into the gutter in Collins Street, public sympathy was not all with the lawyer.

Purves entered the Legislative Assembly in April 1872 as a free trader and constitutionalist for Mornington, and was soon known for his oratory. He was several times offered cabinet rank and regarded by some as a potential leader of the constitutionalists. A latent demagogue, Purves always admired Berry's powers of leadership. But his own talents inclined less to administration than to ideological debate; at the height of the constitutional crisis he once had to be forcibly rescued by friends from an attempt to sway a fiercely pro-Berry mob. In February 1880 he made an apparently quixotic decision to contest the working-class electorate of Footscray, was defeated and in July lost again in the Liberal stronghold of Maryborough and Talbot. He never stood for parliament again.

From the mid-1880s Purves's political talents were channelled through the Australian Natives' Association, which had been founded in 1871 as a friendly society and gradually extended its activities to include mutual improvement, debate and public demonstration on questions of national importance. Purves was not, as he and others often claimed, a founder of the association; he joined in 1872 but took no part in its affairs until 1884 when it began a series of protest meetings calling for British annexation in the Pacific. In his addresses to these meetings and later as president of the A.N.A., Purves developed a vague and ardent vision of Australia's future greatness which he placed sometimes within a renewed British empire, sometimes in glorious independence. During his presidency separatist elements within the A.N.A. pushed him and the association to the forefront of opposition to the Imperial Federation League in Victoria, but his attempt to establish a New South Wales A.N.A. failed when the republican movement in Sydney rejected his position as one of dual loyalty, to Australia and empire both. 'Emperor' Purves's two years as president of the A.N.A. in 1888-90 were marked more by oratorical fireworks than constructive leadership, but they confirmed the association's reputation within Victoria as a publicist organization with some political influence. Purves's oratory aroused in many of the younger generation a strong sense of responsibility for their country's development and a rather populist awareness of their own ability to direct it.

In the early 1890s Purves successfully defended the Age in two libel cases, of which the most famous and politically significant, Speight v. Syme, carried a great load of involved technical evidence; its hearing took 98 days and an appeal of 86 days was also lost. In this decade Purves was sporadically active in the long effort to persuade Victorians of the advantages of Federation, though pressure of business, sickness and his usual impatience with routine meetings kept him from the leadership. He failed to gain a place on the Victorian delegation to the Federal Convention of 1897 but was prominent in the dramatic crusading and canvassing in the last days before the first federal referendum.

Purves was also prominent in Victorian sporting circles as an owner of fine race-horses, a champion shot, and a keen lawn-tennis player and yachtsman. In 1875 he had married Annie Lavinia, daughter of R. Grice; she died in childbirth, and in 1879 he married Eliza Emma, daughter of W. A. Brodribb. He had one son by his first marriage and two sons and three daughters by the second. On his death on 24 November 1910 the Victorian Bar mourned a leader and inspiration, the A.N.A. its greatest prophet.

This rootsweb page states that James Liddle Purves (its subject) was born in CAMPBELLFIELD! The Australian Dictionary of Biography article states that the architect's first-born son was born in Swanston St., Melbourne.

Father: James PURVES c: 21 Jun 1814 in Coldingham,Berwickshire,Scotland
Mother: Caroline GUILLOD

Marriage 1 Eliza Emma BRODRIBB b: 1856 in Deniliquin,New South Wales,Australia
Married: 1879 in Paddington,New South Wales,Australia
Children
Has No Children Eleanor Alison PURVES b: 1883 in Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
Has No Children Philip Brodribb PURVES b: 1886 in Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
Has No Children Eliza Mary PURVES b: 1880 in South Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
Has No Children Godfrey Liddle PURVES b: 1881 in Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
Has No Children Beatrice Annie Ethel PURVES b: 1890 in East Melbourne,Victoria,Australia
Has No Children William Richard Walter PURVES b: 1894 in East Melbourne,Victoria,Australia

Marriage 2 Annie Lavinia GRICE b: 1854 in Collingwood,Victoria,Australia
Married: 1875
Children
Has No Children James George PURVES b: 1876 in Collingwood,Victoria,Australia

THE BARRISTER'S HOUSE.
East Melbourne, Clarendon Street 036, Mosspennoch | East ...
emhs.org.au/.../east_melbourne_clarendon_street_036_mosspennoch‎
Mosspennock was built in 1881 for James Liddell Purves, Q.C. and was designed by Charles Webb. It is unusual for the curved glass in its front bow windows.



MEMOIRS OF A LARRIKIN.
This is the life story of Hec Hanson,the great grandson of THE STONE MASON,PETER PURVES. I may one day write a journal about Hec's story but here I will confine myself to the genealogy provided in the book.

P.21. My maternal great-grandfather Peter Purves was born in 1802,in Berwick upon Tweed in Scotland. He was a mason,as is indicated on his tombstone at Point Nepean.(It's still there!) Peter married his sweetheart Barbara Scott,in March 1835,and on 29th September 1835,while living in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne,England,she gave birth to a son-James. It was only one month later,that Barbara died. After this tragedy,Peter left his son in the care of an aunt,Mrs Russell,back across the border in Berwick upon Tyne, and followed his brother James,to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania). On this island,he tried to overcome his sorrow by working with his brother, building bridges.

Young James was eager to get to know his father, so at the age of eighteen he set sail for Australia aboard the "Thomas Lowry". He arrived in 1852, and joined his father and uncle at Tootgarook Station,on the Mornington Peinsula. The brothers had been managing this run since 1850*,with Peter getting credit for giving it the name Tootgarook**, after an aboriginal word meaning "the croaking of frogs". Peter Purves died in March 1860,so his son managed to be with him for eight years.

(Peter's brother James went on to own Tootgarook Station and had a son called James Liddle Purves, who became a well-known barrister and politician.)

Two years after his father's death,young James married Emily Caroline Quinan***, who was born at Broken River (Benalla)in Victoria. They lived at Tootgarook,which is between Rosebud and Rye,and had ten children.My mother Frances Ada Elizabeth was the ninth child and was born at Tootgarook in 1883.

* Edward Hobson was supposed to have held the Tootgarook Run until 1850 but from about 1844 was managing a run for his brother,Dr. Edmund Hobson, which Edward named "River of Little Fish" (Traralgon.) Charles Hollinshed suggested in LIME LAND LEISURE that JAMES Purves might have been managing Tootgarook in the 1840's.

**I have seen several alternative names for the run.

***Emily's father, Robert Denison Quinan,assisted by his wife,Emma, established a private school at Dromana on 12-11-1860, catering for about 25 pupils and due to a petition signed by Robert Rowley and many other Dromana residents,his school became a National School on 1-6-1861. To supplement his income,he did book-keeping for the Kangerong Road Board but finding a discrepancy of five pounds he sought a loan from Richard Watkin of the Dromana Hotel. When the loan was refused, he committed suicide.(Pages 130-1,A DREAMTIME OF DROMANA.)
N.B. He was from Dublin and was wrongly called Robert Dublin Quinan in the book. Many articles about the suicide,but not the cause, can be found on trove.

FAMILY TREE. (I can't use the usual lay-out.)
James Purves,son of Peter, married Emily Caroline Quinan in 1862 (15-6-1862 according to the wedding notice.)
James was born on 29-9-1835 at Newcastle-on-Tyne,England and died on 6-11-1913 at Rosebud. Emily wasborn at Broken River (Benalla)and died on 4-8-1910 at Rosebud. (Rosebud=Greenhills in Purves Rd.)

Their children, with birth, death,and marriage details, were:
1. James (Jim), Pt Nepean 1863, 1927, bachelor.
2. George LiddlePt Nepean 1865, 1892, ?
3. Emily b.1867 (3-11-1867 Trove), d. 1947 W.A., m.1899 Gustav Frederick Phillip Lenz.
4. Lily, 1870 Tootgarook, 1938, spinster.
5. Robert 1872 Toot., 1937,m.Emma Mason.
6. Walter, 1875 Toot., 1935, m.1904 Leila F.Cotton.
7. Barbara Scott, 1878 Toot., 1934 Dromana, m.1915 James Wilson*.
8. Peter, 1880 Toot., 1940 buried at Rye, m. Isabella Cairns.**
9. Frances Ada Elizabeth, 1883 Toot., 1951 Tawonga, Vic., m. 1906 Alfred George Hanson.
10. Ernest, 1885 Dromana, 1886.

*See my Sarah Wilson journal. See P.3,Mornington Standard 19-4-1902 for the Laurissen letter of thanks re Bobby Wilson split skull.
**Isabella Cairns
Born in Victoria, Australia in 1886 to James Thompson Cairns and Johanna Russell. Isabella married Peter Purves. She passed away on 1983 in Victoria, Australia. (See my CAIRNS GENEALOGY journal.)