requirement for the colony. They were highly successful in business, and the firm grew at a rapid pace. In 1894 Sir George retired from active business owing to the onerous duties of the legislative chamber and public life. The firm changed its name again to E. C. Shenton and Co., which it retains up to the present time. They have handsome premises in Hay Street, where a large business is transacted by them as universal providers. A big trade is done in wool and sandalwood, the chief markets for the latter being Singapore and Hong Kong. They hold a great number of agencies, including the P. and O.S.S. Company, and the Norwich Union Fire Insurance Company. Outside the firm, Mr. E. C. Shenton's commercial connections are extensive. He is a member of the committee of the Chamber of Commerce, a director of several mining companies, a member of the South Perth Roads Board, and a member of the Perth Proprietary Syndicate. He has also large interests in several mining properties. These associations have great importance in the colony. The daily routine of his life is a worthy one. Mr. Shenton holds, to some extent, that heartkey of disinterestedness, which, molens volens, touches the tender chord of national life, and finds response in the individual breast. He is admired and respected by business men and private friends alike. Of a kindly and cordial bearing, he extends a welcome hand to those who will help to develop the colony, and has sincere good wishes for its welfare. Of a sympathetic and constructive mental build, we augur for him the prospective of continual deserved prosperity. He lacks not that spirit of theory which is often unduly banished from the empirical and experimental mind. Only a man of shrewdness and methodical skill can accomplish the manifold offices he fills.
In 1855 Mr. Shenton married Miss Ada Waddington, daughter of Mr. John Waddington, C.E., of London. They have five of a family—four sons and one daughter. Mr. Shenton's importance and uses in the colony cannot be lightly estimated. By his vigour and energy he has sustained the reputation of the Shenton family, who, in commerce, have, from the inception of the colony, led in the van of progress. Mr. Ernest Shenton is essentially a business man, and as such the whole of his time is engrossed in directing the extensive operations of this honoured commercial house.
ERNEST McGILLICUDDY.
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Photo by ERNEST McGILLICUDDY. Greenham & Evans. |
HER years of Responsible Government have been full years for Western Australia. The population so devoutly wished for since 1829 has cheered the colony at the rate of thousands per month. Revenue and export have become magnified beyond colonial parallel, and the values of real estate have undergone a revolution. A few feet of sand at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie, which in 1892 were in he midst of wilderness, cannot be purchased in 1897 for £60 a foot. The lucky investor of few hundred pounds in Perth land in 1891 obtains in 1897 an annual income therefrom which enables him to smile at the unenterprising plodder. The enemy of the "unearned increment"—whatever that may mean—can find matter in Western Australia sufficient to fill prodigious tomes with anathema.
And these years have been full years for Western Australian residents. Half a lifetime of energy and excitement has been concentrated into a few little months. The hope of today is realised to-morrow; next year it becomes but memory. Amid inordinate emotion the people have been gathering the harvests of these fat years. There little in life so attractive, so absorbing, so full, as abnormal industrial excitement. It is delightful to see prosperous people; it is delightful to be prosperous with them. There is at these times as much electricity in men's minds as was ever stored in a magnetic mountain.
Ernest McGillicuddy was born at Benalla, Victoria, in 1867, and was educated at the High School, Bendigo, and at St. Patrick's College, Melbourne. In 1882 he matriculated at the Melbourne University, whereupon he began the study of medicine. By combining study with relaxation he spent a happy three years' course at the University; then he lost all desire to emulate Samuel Weller's "Sawbones." He embraced the study of law for some time, but even this did not satisfy.
In September, 1894, Mr. McGillicuddy came to Western Australia, just on the eve of the chief developments in real estate prices. He at once entered the Perth Land Estate Company, and became its manager. Within a few months he was absorbed in the tide of excitement, and conducted some very large land sales for the company. As an auctioneer he was among the brightest and most favoured in Perth. In the middle of 1896 he entered into partnership with Mr. T. F. Quinlan, M.L.A. and became one of the most active agents in land matters in the colony. On one occasion he conducted the record sale in Perth real estate, when he cleared the
