[MELBOURNE] Thomas N. Fitzgerald, surgeon : autograph private note, signed, on his “Rostella” letterhead. Melbourne, October 1903.

Manuscript in ink, 1 page, octavo (200 x 125 mm), on FitzGerald’s personal stationery with embossed letterhead of a racehorse and jockey and the name of his residence, Rostella; dated ‘Saturday Oct 12 03’, the note is addressed ‘My dear Mrs McWilliams’ and is signed in full at the foot ‘T. N. FitzGerald’, who writes: ‘Thanks very much for your kind note. It gives me very much pleasure to know that after your great cab experience you are still in the land of the living. With kind regards, believe me & sincerely yours….’; light foxing and toning, otherwise in fine condition.

Sir Thomas Naghten FitzGerald (1838-1908), who arrived in Melbourne from Ireland in 1858, was unquestionably the single most important figure in the history of medicine in Melbourne in the nineteenth century. In 1897 he was the first Australian to receive a knighthood for services to the medical profession. FitzGerald also became one of the wealthiest citizens in the metropolis: the magnificent Italianate mansion Rostella – with 24 rooms (including a ballroom) and a miniature tennis court – was built for him at the western end of Lonsdale Street in 1869, next door to his own private hospital. FitzGerald had a passion for both thoroughbred racing and the arts: he bred and owned a string of racehorses, and in 1881 he purchased the oil painting Chloé – at the time scandalous for its full-frontal nudity, but today a Melbourne icon – for the staggering sum of 850 guineas. The painting hung in Rostella until his death in 1908. (Indeed, perhaps Chloé was looking down on FitzGerald as he wrote his note to Mrs McWilliams on that first Saturday in October in 1903!). Rostella was demolished in 1972 – to make way for a carpark – and the original cast-iron gates are now all that remains of what was for a century a graceful architectural landmark in the western part of the city.

The ADB entry for FitzGerald makes for some fascinating reading.

Provenance: Jane Emma Murphy (Balcombe) (1854-1924), of “The Briars”, Mornington, Victoria, Australia; thence by descent through the à Beckett family, Melbourne.