The White Hat Guide to William Guilfoyle

William Guilfoyle
landscape gardener, botanist
8 December 1840 – 25 June 1912

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Mr Guilfoyle’s Two Volcanoes

The following short articles were first published in White Hat Melbourne Newsletter No.395 - 1st April 2010

Mr Guilfoyle’s Two Volcanoes – No.1

William Guilfoyle has stamped his image across Victoria. Not only was he involved with Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens, when you walk into a major garden in a long established regional centre, you are likely to see his name on the gate or on a plaque.

One of White Hat’s favourites is the small but wonderfully crafted Victorian era gardens atop a hill overlooking two lakes filling volcanic craters at Camperdown. The town itself now probably contains more European Elm trees than most of Europe. The European elm beetle has devastated that majestic tree in both Europe and North America, but Camperdown’s century-old avenues maintain a time capsule of Europe in the middle of country Victoria. From the vantage of Guilfoyle’s gardens you can look down on the near circular lakes that have formed in relatively recent volcanic craters. There was volcanic activity here as recently as 10,000 years ago – a time when Aboriginal people had long been in this part of the country. The lakes aren’t fed by rivers, merely runoff our groundwater bubbling up. The opportunity to combine this unusual landscape with the principles of the formal English garden seemed to particularly appeal to Guilfoyle. If you can be sure to visit the museum operated by the local historical society in the old Masonic Hall in order to see Guilfoyle’s original plans.

Guilfoyle had planned for the gardens to be surrounded by parkland dedicated to various purposes. This park was only partially realised, but it does include one of White Hat’s favourite caravan parks and camping grounds in Victoria. It has a number of self-contained cabins and is just the place for anyone who likes tramping about the hills, studying volcanic geology, pondering dead landscape gardeners, hugging the odd elm tree, mucking about in boats and trotting down to the town centre to enjoy some cakes with fresh cream from one of the richest dairy centres in Victoria with not a fast food outlet in sight. If you’re there on the first Sunday of the month there is a chance that craft market will be running in the centre of the main street and you can climb the clocktower to take in the atmosphere of the town.

Or then you could just relax with a book under a tree in Mr Guilfoyle’s garden on a volcano.

Mr Guilfoyle’s Two Volcanoes – No.2

When Melbourne set aside an area for a botanic garden, the layout and plantings were placed in the hands of a nice young man – Ferdinand von Mueller. He would know what the good folks of Melbourne had in mind. A place where they could wander with their parasols and polish the graces that would help them aspire to the genteel classes when they returned to Europe. And they would have a reputable German scientist slowly overseeing the planting and maybe occasionally emerging from his office with a butterfly net to capture and study an interesting specimen. Not our Ferdy. He was tramping all over Victoria collecting specimens, if the workmen were going too slowly he would do it himself at night, by the time the gates opened in the morning he had probably fired off 20 important letters to institutions across the world. Some advised him “slow down Ferdy”, but how could he? There was important work to be done.

This was to be a scientific garden and for that reason it had to test the adaptability of every local and exotic species he could. There was this nut tree he had discovered up in Queensland. He thought he would name that after John Macadam, the brilliant young chemistry professor at Melbourne University, then there was the pine plantation he needed to establish on the hill then th . . “slow down Ferdy”. In the end the people of Melbourne removed him from the Botanic Gardens under acrimonious circumstances. He was replaced by William Guilfoyle who they felt would have a better idea of what Melbourne expected of a Botanic Gardens.

He did not disappoint and is largely responsible for the basic layout of the gardens as we know them today. There was, however, one little project that never came to fruition. At one of the higher points he had built a small storage dam which could be used to feed by gravity water to the gardens below. He had intended to landscape this into a fanciful miniature ‘volcano lake’ which would be at the same time decorative and practical. This never happened. The small reservoir became overgrown with brambles in recent decades until the project was revived and redesigned. This week, Guilfoyle’s Volcano was opened to the public. This Easter is a good time to go along and see what you think of it.

After Ferdy was sacked he still continued working at a frantic pace, fitting more into one lifetime than most of us will into four or five. He had only two speeds – flat out and stop. When he reached stop he was buried in St Kilda Cemetery. I went down there recently to have a chat to him. “”Guilfoyle finally got his volcano.” “Another piece of frippery” he replied. “Where’s the science in that?” “Well, it seems to give people a lot of pleasure.” “Well, each to their own. Now listen, since the wood in this coffin has been giving way I’ve noticed an increasing number of earthworms which I’ve already categorised into seven types but there are two that at significantly different from your common earthworm. Now, have you got pencil and paper there because there are several institutions that need to know about these and you will have to write to them.” I think of advising him to slow down, but what’s the use.