FREDERICK ILLINGWORTH, M,L,A.
COMMERCIAL interests in a young growing country are abnormal one way or other. It takes many years for bedrock to be attained and stable reliable business to be conducted on defined lines. One year there is an inflation, which enriches all with vested and other interests. Another year the value of these things is far under the normal. And then takes place the evanishment of the wealth of those who were previously apparently rich. The cleverest business men are affected by these rapid fluctuations, these booms and collapses. Some of Australia's finest class of business men of a few years ago are now in poverty. One man is sometimes compelled, in business terms, to begin his life again several times. Often it is through no fault of his. It is the common experience of every growing country—the refining process which leads to permanency. The kaleidoscope of life evolves its many slides, and the bright and brilliant and hopeful alternate with the sombre and heavy and hopeless. The strong man is never cast down while life remains, and whether on bloody battlefields or in industrial wars he allows no temporary defeat to permanently dishearten him. He rises again.
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Photo by FREDERICK ILLINGWORTH, M.L.A. The Hart Co. |
There are thousands of such men in the Australian continent, and among them are public men and many of our best citizens. The career of Mr. Frederick Illingworth is a case in point. He is made of the stuff which is never wholly defeated. He has amassed three fortunes and lost them. He has served Australia in her Parliaments, and helped to guide colonies with his advice. The sphinx riddle has never overmastered him, and by careful shrewd business principles he is now prospering and helping his country. Mr. Illingworth is among the prominent public men of Western Australia, and is a force which must be reckoned with in the local political world. To all intents and purposes he is a leader of the Opposition, a position as important, in its way, to political vitality as that of Premier. His name carries respect throughout the colony, and his constitutional knowledge is availed of by all sections of the House of Assembly and by the public. If everything goes well he may yet be on the Treasury benches of Western Australia. His rise in public favour in this colony has been phenomenal, for he has only been resident here a few years. He reached Western Australia with a ripe experience and a sound judgment, and was possessed of ability which must work its way. On 24th September, 1844, Frederick Illingworth was born in Yorkshire, England. His father, Mr. James Illingworth, was a successful wool-classer, and was associated with the woollen industry nearly all his life. In the forties the Australian flocks became famous in England, and numbers of the English gentry were leaving their old homes to take up large stretches of rich pastoral country in the colonies, and numerous fortunes were made by these lucky men. Mr. Illingworth, sen., recognised that there was a big future before the woollen industry in Australia, and in 1848 he left England with his family and landed in Victoria. Thus Mr. Frederick Illingworth is practically an Australian. The father became attached to the now noted firm of Goldsbrough, Mort, and Co., and was able to render them assistance of some moment, because o[ his wide knowledge on wool. After some years he was offered the whole business of the company at a satisfactory figure, but unfortunately he did not buy it. Since then Goldsbrough, Mort, and Co. have become, without exception, the most important factor in wool production in Australia. The family took up their residence at Heidelberg, near Melbourne, but afterwards removed to Brighton. Eventually Mr. Illingworth père purchased a substantial tract of land at Brighton, which he subsequently subdivided and sold to advantage. During the fever engendered by the great gold discoveries in Ballarat and Bendigo (Victoria), he visited those centres, and was successful as a gold-digger. Indeed, he was among the earliest to visit those fields.
Meantime, Frederick Illingworth was attending schools in Melbourne, upon leaving which he entered the service of Mr. Alex. Rippingale, now of Hatton Gardens, London, who conducted a large galvanised iron and hardware establishment in Brighton. The lad acquired a thorough knowledge of this trade, and when Mr. Rippingale closed the business he connected himself with a similar establishment, owned by Alfred Shaw and Co., Melbourne. He was associated with this house for some twenty-five years, whereupon he entered business in partnership with Mr. J. R. Hoskins, a much respected ex-mayor of Bendigo. These two gentlemen became wealthy timber and hardware merchants in Bendigo. Subsequently Mr. Illingworth purchased an estate in Yalook, in the Raywood district, Victoria, where he engaged extensively in pastoral pursuits. Bad years followed bad years, and droughts became only too common, until Mr. Illingworth lost nearly all his money, and sold his property for a mere pittance. He now had to begin again and returned to the old firm of Alfred Shaw and Co. By carefulness and a splendid
