Thomas Cornelius Cole (abt. 1810 - 1889)

Born about 1810 in Sudbury, Middlesex, England

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth (Whitmore) Cole — married 1837 (to 1879) in Harrow, England

Descendants

Died 31 Jul 1889 at about age 79 in Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia

Biography

Thomas was born in 1810, the son of Guy Cole and Elizabeth Nutt.

In 1837, Thomas Cornelius Cole married Elizabeth Whitmore in Harrow, Middlesex, England.

Accompanied by her, their three children and his brother George (1822-1868), Cole reached Melbourne in February 1842—a son had died on the voyage. Thomas, George and a cousin John Cole (1816-1894), who had preceded them in 1839, established nurseries, orchards and market gardens on the Merri Creek.

In 1847 Thomas purchased land with a Yarra River frontage at Burnley where he established an orchard and nursery. According to E. E. Pescott, Cole issued his first catalogue from the Richmond Nursery in 1850, making it one of the earliest produced in Victoria. He took a keen interest in the horticultural progress of the colony and was a prime mover behind the establishment of the Horticultural Society of Victoria's experimental garden at Burnley.

Cole purchased 38 acres (15 ha) of land with a frontage to Tooronga Road, Upper Hawthorn, in 1853. By 1860 he had established another orchard and nursery and erected a large, brick house on this estate, named Twyford. He drew on his long horticultural experience—then unparalleled among fellow colonists—in his book Cole's Gardening in Victoria (1860). Besides monthly notes on the kitchen, fruit and flower garden, Cole included authoritative remarks 'On Selecting Fruit Trees', and much of interest regarding garden design. He recognized the futility of large expanses of lawn in oppressive Australian summers but was generally little concerned with questions of garden styles. He was careful and cautious, even conservative, in outlook and in the pages of the Yeoman and Australian Acclimatiser he clashed during 1863 with the progressive agriculturist Josiah Mitchell over the question of exhaustion of soils.

In 1862 Cole leased the Richmond Nursery to his son John Charles (1838-1891), who specialized in fruit trees and vines and supplemented the rapidly urbanized site in the mid-1880s with a generous land selection at Fern Tree Gully (Belgrave), which he named Glen Harrow. Another of Thomas's sons, Rev. Thomas Cornelius junior (1836-1879), was also active in Melbourne horticultural circles. In 1864 Thomas senior purchased a further 37 acres (15 ha), adjoining the Twyford estate, and leased it to his son Henry Ungerford (1843–1904), who established the Shorland orchard and nursery. Like his father and brother, with whom he worked closely, Henry was noted for his work as a pomological hybridist and as a judge of fruit at horticultural shows

Thomas Cole's wife died in 1879. On 5 July 1881 at Christ Church, Hawthorn, he married with Anglican rites Catherine Mary Josephine Mathers.^[1] He died on 31 July 1889 at Twyford ^[2]and was buried in Melbourne general cemetery, survived by his wife, and by two sons and three daughters of his first marriage. His estate was valued at £85,100. Henry Cole's Shorland Nursery carried on in the early decades of the twentieth century; by the 1930s Twyford had been demolished and subdivided for residential purposes. Thomas Cole was a pioneer of Victorian horticulture and his outstanding work in the raising of seedling fruits and vegetables produced varieties for Australian conditions vastly superior to their predecessors.

Obituary: It is with regret that we announce the death of Mr. Thomas Cornelius Cole, of Twyford, Tooronga-road, Upper Hawthorn, well known in the gardening world, and highly respected by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. His name will long be held in remembrance, more especially for the benefits he has conferred upon horticulture in the raising of seedling fruits and vegetables, many of which are widely known and highly appreciated by the gardening fraternity, no collection being considered complete unless containing one or more of Mr. Cole's seedlings. He arrived in the colony on the 26th February, 1842, accompanied by his wife, two sons and a daughter. The party landed at what was then known as Liardet's Beach, now Port Melbourne, and after staying in Melbourne for a few days went to reside near St. Mark's Church, George-street, than called Newtown, where the youngest three of his children were born. Mr. Cole, in company with a relation, Mr. John Cole, now of Malvern, afterwards rented a garden at Coburg, on the Merri Creek, which is still carried on by a son of the latter. After a few years Mr. T. C. Cole relinquished his share of the business to his partner and joined his brother George in another garden on the Merri Creek, opposite Northcote. The partner ship having been dissolved Mr. T. C. Cole kept on the place, and it was here that the great and disastrous floods of 1849 were experienced which swept the family out of their house thrice in 13 months. Mr. Cole bought the land which is now known as the Richmond Nursery in 1847 or 1848, carrying on the garden at Merri Creek until the expiry of the lease, when the family took up their residence on the land at Richmond, which was cultivated as a market garden and orchard, and was highly famed for the excellent manner in which it was laid out and planted, as well as for the first class character of the fruit and vegetables grown ; Mr. Cole obtaining the best varieties from England and improving them by selection and other means, some of them being still in demand and grown by all cultivators of vegetables. In 1862 Mr. Cole gave up the business to his second son, who has since conducted it as a fruit tree nursery and orchard, and who has raised and distributed some seedling fruits, which have become famous throughout Australia. It is now carried on by the firm of T. C. Cole and Son. Mr. T. C. Cole moved to Twyford, where he established an orchard, and devoted great attention to the hybridising and raising of strawberries and nearly all other kinds of fruit, in which he was highly successful, and a long list of tho varieties now in cultivation might be made out, his Edith Strawberry and Twyford Bigarreau cherry in particular being found in every garden. Mr. Cole died on 31st July, aged 79 years.^[3]

Sources

1. ↑ Victorian marriage registration 1881: 03493,F,Mathers,Catherine Mary Josephine,Cole,Thomas Cornelius,Melbourne, 1881: 03493,M,Cole,Thomas Cornelius,Mathers,Catherine Mary Josephine,Middlesex,
2. ↑ Victorian death registration 1889,12271,M,Cole,Thomas Cornelius,Thomas Cornelius,Nott Elizabeth,Hawthorn,79,
3. ↑ 1889 'OBITUARY.', Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918), 10 August, p. 15. , viewed 28 May 2018, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198057203

• Richard Aitken, 'Cole, Thomas Cornelius (1810–1889)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cole-thomas-cornelius-12850/text23201, published first in hardcopy 2005, accessed online 28 May 2018.

This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Supplementary Volume, (MUP), 2005

• FAMILY SEARCHES, FAMILY KNOWLEDGE