SIR ANTHONY HORDERN

Sir Anthony Hordern

Sir Anthony Hordern

Anthony Hordern was born on 24 July, 1842, at Melbourne to Anthony and Harriett (nee Marsden) Hordern. Educated in Sydney and at Rugby, England, he toured Europe and at 18 entered his father’s firm.

In 1878, Hordern and his brother Samuel signed a formal deed of partnership for thirty years. According to the Bulletin, 22 May, 1880, they ‘fairly ruled the retail trade of the metropolis and the colony in general’. They adopted the trademark of the spreading oak over the motto, ‘While I live I’ll grow‘.

Anthony Hordern & Son’s
Palace Emporium
Haymarket, Sydney, N.S.W.

In 1878, Anthony had visited America and London and, in 1879, opened the ‘Palace Warehouse’ and the ‘Palace Emporium‘ in the Haymarket. In 1881-82, he opened offices in Britain, the Continent, America and China.

Interested in Western Australia, he put to the Colonial Office in 1873, a scheme for 10,000 settlers and in 1883, proposed to the Legislative Council a land-grant railway. Later he formed a syndicate in England to construct the line and encourage migration.

Hordern Memorial
Top of York St, Albany, W.A.

Leaving an estate of £190,800, Hordern died at sea from brain fever on 16 September, 1886, and was buried at Albany where, in 1889, an obelisk was erected to his memory. He was survived by four children and his wife Elizabeth, née Bull, whom he had married in 1864.

The Late Mr. Anthony Hordern.

Illustrated Sydney News
16 October, 1886

IT is our painful duty to record the death of Mr. Anthony Hordern, of the firm of Anthony Hordern and Sons, of this city. This unfortunate and unexpected event took place on board the R. M. S. Carthage, on the 16th September, between Colombo and Albany, of brain fever.

Mr Hordern was born in Melbourne in 1842, was educated partly in Sydney and partly in England, was made a partner, in conjunction with his brother Mr. Samuel Hordern, in the business for so many years carried on by Mr. Anthony Hordern, Senior, in George Street, Sydney, and very early in life exhibited those signs of shrewdness and foresight, which afterwards so signally distinguished him.

The career of Mr Hordern, closed as it has been at the early age of 44, was essentially one of activity, for, into his comparatively short life, he filled enough good work to have satisfied the sternest stickler, had he attained man’s allotted, though seldom reached, three score years and ten.

We turn to his life and its results, and find in Anthony Hordern, the man who, from small beginnings, raised up perhaps the largest, and certainly the most remarkable trade concern in the Australias’; for to his comprehensive grasp of the wants of Sydney and its surroundings, is mainly due the existence of the widely known Palace Emporium in the Haymarket. It is evident he thought he could do something for the people, as well as for himself ; and in creating a splendid investment for the capitalist and at the  same time conferring a benefit on his fellow citizens, he reached what should be the prime end of all business exertion.

But the cosmopolitan genius of the man must needs turn another way for occupation; and for many years before his schemes were given to the world, Anthony Hordern entertained grand, and as it has proved, practical ideas of the future of Western Australia.

Most men would have rested content with an interest in such a concern as that in the Haymarket, but not so Anthony Hordern, for no sooner were the new buildings in Sydney completed, and the venture fairly afloat, than he commenced to devote a large share of his time and attention to his Western Australia schemes, which consisted of a railway from Albany to Beverly, and a gigantic land project for the conversion of something like 5,000 square miles of territory, afflicted with poisonous scrub, into an arable and prosperous country.

How far he succeeded is pretty well known to our readers, how he induced the government of Western Australia to fall in with his views, and how the needful capital was raised, are almost matters of history; and how the deep thinking, hard headed, enterprising Australian citizen was struck down on the very threshold of success, is a sad end to a story full of meaning and instruction.

For the last three or four years Mr. Anthony Hordern resided principally in London, and although he nominally managed the affairs of Anthony Hordern and Sons in the old country, the Western Australia schemes were of such an absorbing character, that the whole weight and responsibility of the Sydney concern have rested upon Mr. Samuel Hordern, now the sole surviving partner, and who will, we are informed, carry on the business in the future.

The funeral took place at Albany, on the 22nd September, and was a public one; all the public offices and houses of business being closed on the occasion, and the people turning out en masse to do honor to the dead.

It is singular, and certainly savours of poetical justice, that the Mr Hordern should find a sepulchre in the country to which he devoted so much thought, and in a place where he frequently expressed a desire to be buried.

THE LATE MR. ANTHONY HORDERN.

West Australian
22 September, 1886

Yesterday morning early, news rapidly spread through the city of the arrival of the R.M.S. Carthage at Albany having on board the remains of Mr. Anthony Hordern, who had died at sea. It appears that Mr. Hordern, when passing through the Red Sea, suffered from sunstroke, the result being brain fever, from which he died on 19th inst., four days sail from Albany.

The body was landed at Albany and placed in the residence of Mr. E.G.S. Hare. Mr. W.H. Angove, a partner in the firm of Forrest & Angove, the agents here for Mr. Mr. Hordern’s company, made arrangements for the burial of Mr Hordern.

The funeral takes place this afternoon at 4 p.m. and will be of a public character. All the Government establishments at Albany will be closed for the occasion; the volunteer corps will attend the funeral, and the Governor will be represented by Captain Allison, A.D.C.

As soon as Mr. Alexander Forrest received in Perth a telegram announcing the death of Mr. Hordern, he waited upon His Excellency, who at once gave orders for the funeral arrangements detailed above. Mr. Angove has, we understand, cabled the sad news to the agents in London of Messrs. Forrest & Angove in order that they might break it to Mrs. Hordern, who is at present in England.

Mr Anthony Hordern was the senior partner of the firm of Anthony Hordern & Sons, of Sydney. The Hordern family who came originally from Wolverhampton, have carried on this business on an immense scale for over fifty years.

Mr Anthony Hordern never took any active interest in politics but devoted his energies to business and to various large enterprises. The first great scheme on which he embarked was the Beverley-Albany Railway, which, in the face of great difficulties, he had before leaving England placed on a safe basis, having transferred the project, except his interest as a shareholder, to a limited liability company.

Similarly he floated a large company in England for the reclamation of a vast extent of poison land in this colony. Both of these schemes, will, we understand, not be affected by the death of him on whose energy their success depended prior to the floating of the companies. He was the holder of a large quantity of land and of house property in this colony, and it is estimated that he has expended fully £30,000 in Western Australia.

He had many schemes in view for the advancement of the colony, and his intention was, in the course of time, to settle here. By Mr. Anthony Hordern’s death the country has lost a genuine friend, and one whose energy and capital would have made him a most valued settler.

Sir Anthony Hordern. Sir Anthony Hordern. Sir Anthony Hordern. Sir Anthony Hordern. Sir Anthony Hordern. Sir Anthony Hordern.