Hon Victor Nelson Hood, private secretary to the then State Governor, Sir Thomas Gibson-Carmichael, wrote to Bendigo town clerk William Honeybone to enquire as to McColl’s condition, the vice-regal representative having been at the grounds for the Show. Honeybone responded with the news that McColl was in critical condition and still unconscious. By the following day, McColl had passed away.

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An inquest was held on October 16 by RB Anderson JP, who heard evidence from Ralph Watson, a local carpenter who was nearby  at the time of the accident, from Constable Garland, from Dr William Long. Eleanor McColl was too distraught to appear.

 

Watson had seen King of Arms hit the top rail and fall on his rider, and went to McColl’s assistance, finding him unconscious and bleeding from the nose and mouth; the Constable gave similar testimony. Dr Long had attended with Dr Deravin and described McColl breathing heavily with ‘bloody fluid running from his right ear’. McColl had contusions on the right of his scalp and they determined there was a fracture to the skull, laceration of the brain and membranes though no pressure was present. Following the inquest, McColl’s body was sent by train to McColl’s home town of Sale, arriving in Gippsland at 10:30PM and the funeral taking part the following day. A verdict of accidental death was lodged by the coroner.

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McColl’s probate papers contain an inventory of his assets which show that his equestrian pursuits were very serious. He owned nine horses at the time of his death, valued at an average of £97 each (a relative modern value of $13,700) [ii]. In his listed liabilities included the bill for Misses Thorne’s nursing services (£4/4), Dr Deravin’s attendance (£30) and accommodation and stabling at John Kilfeder’s (£4) and Avery’s (£3/2/6). The estate also had to pay the Bendigo Agricultural Society for stabling and entry fees of just over £9, but the Society owed the McColls prizes to the value £34.

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Eleanor remarried the following year to George Gibb and moved to Ballarat but within three years, the partnership had soured, with George lodging a missing person alert with the Police after Eleanor had left on a train at Geelong with his brother Frank, saying she would not be returning [iii]. In that report, he described her:

 

“38 years of age, five feet tall, slight build, dark complexion, very neat appearance, wore a grey costume and generally wears a black toque hat [a hat with a very narrow or no brim]”

 

Eleanor reappears – seemingly without George – at Oaklands Junction a few years later, where she takes on the licence to the Inverness Hotel (where the current Tullamarine Airport precinct is located). She later took on the licence of the Keilor Hotel, the Golden Fleece Hotel in Melton and the Essendon Hotel in Mount Alexander Road. She continued her connection with horses throughout, at one stage petitioning prominent trotting man, John Wren, to push the committee beyond simply allowing women to ride in races and establish races exclusively for lady riders claiming that there were ‘horse women in this district [Oaklands] who would welcome the opportunity to display their skill in public’ [iv].

 

The Inverness Hotel was first licenced in 1907, owned by bookmaker, Maurice Quinlan of Aberfeldie House, Moonee Ponds, who owned significant tracts of land in the district, so much so that he held the nickname ‘Squire of Bulla’. The digitised Index to Defunct Hotel Licenses on the PROV website shows us that Eleanor was first appointed licensee in January 1915, and it also includes a snippet about the fire that ended her tenure at the Inverness:

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The fire started on Christmas morning in a hay stack behind the pub, supposedly started by a passing motorist, but soon spread and the building was burnt to the ground. Quinlan rebuilt the establishment but Eleanor moved on, taking up the licence of the Keilor Hotel. Quinlan sold the Hotel and some farming land to Captain Thomas de Carteret early in 1918 but later that year, passed away. We can see in his probate papers that de Carteret still owned Quinlan over £425 on the purchase [v].

 

Eleanor continued to ride – she placed second in a trotting gymkhana held at the prestigious Richmond Racecourse in 1917 – but had cause to report to police several items of tack stolen. While it’s unclear if some items were her own or those of hotel guests – a woollen buggy rug with a grey stripe – the proprietary of others is clear. A canvas horse rug lined in check material and ‘ECG’ stamped on the side clearly belonged to Eleanor, while a gent’s riding saddle lined in white cloth with a blue webbing girth and leather surcingle stamped with ‘A Morrison’, did not. By the 1950s, Eleanor had moved to the Daylesford district and passed away in 1959 at Riverwood near Woodend.

 

 

There is a significant amount of correspondence in the City of Bendigo Inward Correspondence collection relating to the Bendigo Agricultural & Horticultural Society from as early as 1870 – take a look at the index here: 

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Digitised probate papers, inquests and hotel licence cards can all be found via PROV’s online catalogue – search ‘Olympic’ too, for a wide range of photos from the 1956 Games and more, or for more on inquests, search ‘equestrian’ and narrow the search by the options on the left to find the digital copies.

 

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End Notes

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[i] ‘News and notes’, Yackandandah Times, 14 Oct 1909, p3

[ii] Public Record Office Victoria, VA 2624 Master in Equity Supreme Court, VPRS 28 Probate & Administration Papers, P3, Unit 105, Item 114/669 Charles S McColl

[iii] Ancestry.com. Victoria, Australia, Police Gazettes, 1855, 1864-1924 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016, p479, 2 Oct 1913

[iv] ‘Race for women riders’, Warrnambool Standard, 24 Jul 1916

[v] Public Record Office Victoria, VA 2624 Master in Equity Supreme Court, VPRS 28 Probate & Administration Papers, P3, Unit 845, Item 159/158 Maurice Quinlan