Young and Jackson Hotel

The Young and Jackson Hotel has very little architectual merit but it is Melbourne’s most famous hotel.

Batman and Fawkner founded Melbourne in 1835. Melbourne’s first pub was established by John Pascoe Fawkner in 1835, and John Batman bought the site of the Young and Jackson Hotel at the first crown land sale in 1837 for 100 pounds.

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The uncleared bush land purchased by John Batman in 1837, had a frontage on Swanston Street of approx. 48 metres and approx. 40 metres on Flinders Street. Batman, who was estranged from his wife, built a wooden house of seven rooms and kitchen to house his children who were under the care of a governess, Mrs. Nichola Anne Cooke. Batman died in 1839. Mrs Cooke continued to occupy the house and by 1841 had established a boarding school, known as Rossbegh Cottage. At the height of the gold rush in 1853 the school was razed and the land was subdivided.

On the corner of Flinders and Swanston Street a three storey bluestone warehouse was erected. The upper levels were occupied by lawyers and merchants. On the ground floor, James Graham operated a butcher’s shop.

The property was purchased in 1856 by Dennis Patrick Keogh for 2,250 pounds, and remained in the Keogh family for the next 123 years until its sale in 1979 to Marcel Gilbert.

 

The building was vacant in 1859 when WJ Cooze, licensee of the Studley Arms Hotel in Collingwood, made alterations to the premises in anticipation of a licence being granted to operate a public house  named The Prince’s Bridge Hotel.  The application was rejected, possibly because of the close proximity of the Port Phillip Club Hotel in Flinders Street and other hotels in Swanston Street, one only two doors away.

The Argus published a letter from a ‘most obedient servant,

‘EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE

The style of the fittings show that it would be nothing more than a low bar, of which we have too many already. Stale beer, tobacco and choice language would then be the first greeting many thousands would receive on coming in to town in the morning. The resting of drays in front of it would doubtless increase our accidents which, with its position opposite to a church with houses already licensed about three doors down on either side of it and its own unfitness, ought surely to be sufficient to save us from this nuisance.’

W Henry Johnson applied for a licence at the site in 1861. After it was granted he promptly transferred the licence to John P. Toohey, member of the now famous brewery family.

Toohey opened the hotel on 1^st July 1861 as the Prince’s Bridge Hotel.

In 1875 the lease of the hotel was taken over by Henry Figsby Young and Thomas Joshua Jackson, the licence being granted to Young. The Prince’s Bridge Hotel attained its reputation as one of Melbourne’smost important and successful hotels in the nineteenth century partly because of its occupation of the key corner site facing Prince’s Bridge and Flinders Street Station. It was one of the first hotels chosen by the Foster Brothers in 1888 to sell their revolutionary new lager beer which later came to dominate the market for bottled beer. Together, Young and Jackson, ran the hotel until the 1890s when the partnership ended. Jackson died at his home Eblana in Jolimont in 1901. 

Young continued to carry on the hotel with the help of his sons, Harry and Reginald.

In addition to his interest in the hotel, he had taken a leading part in the founding of the Abbotsford Brewery and became chairman of the board and a board member of Carlton and United Breweries. Starting as a substantial shareholder in three brick companies he also became chairman of the Brickmakers’ Association.

The Young family had a keen interest in the arts with a private collection of paintings and statues, considered by some as the finest in the state.

Henry Figsby Young died in 1925 at his mansion Normanhurst in St Kilda. The interior decorations of his home were regarded by ‘connoisseurs of art’ to rank among the most beautiful in the country.

The Painting – Chloe

From their debut at the Paris Salon, – a showcase exhibition for the leading French academic masters and their prize works, together they were a raging success. Chloe (painting) and Lefebvre (painter) won the Gold Medal of Honour, the greatest official award to be bestowed on a French artist and the first of three gold medals Chloe was to win.

Chloe was exhibited at the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880 and won the highest award and much accolade before being purchased by Dr Thomas Fitzgerald of Lonsdale Street, for the princely sum of 850 guineas.  In 1883 Dr Fitzgerald approached the National Gallery of Victoria and offered Chloe for extended exhibition while he visited Ireland for three years. It was to be on display on Sundays but the ensuing controversy, by group of Melbourne’s conservative society, caused it to be withdrawn.

Norman Young bought the painting, Chloe, on the death of Dr Fitzgerald for 840 pounds in 1909. It was placed in the downstairs bar of the Young and Jackson hotel to entice patronage.

The leasehold of the hotel was sold to brewer, Stephen Morell in 1914. The red glaze tile dado and ornamental frieze was added in 1921 to combat the grime at ground level. The street-scape of the hotel is dominated by large advertising signs fixed to the exterior, a feature of the hotel since the 1920s.

An article from Herald (Melbourne) newspaper, dated Saturday 16th October 1943.

‘Whither Chloe?

Future In Balance

The future of Chloe, the famous painting by Jules , Lefebvre, which has been removed to Kozminsky’s Gallery, from the saloon bar of Young and Jackson’s Hotel, after having been damaged by a man who threw a glass of beer, hangs in the balance. The directors of the hotel are equally divided on the subject of what will be done with the picture. Protection of Chloe is the motive of one side, which holds that the painting should be kept in a safer place at least for the duration of the war. Pride in Chloe’s position as an institution motivates the opposition. The latter considers that the hotel would not be the same place without Chloe who has directed the footsteps of millions of men who have lived in Melbourne or visited the city since 1908 when Mr Norman Young, one of the original partners, bought it from Sir Thomas Fitzgerald for £800.

Known To World

 The present value is £3,500 and the picture is insured. Mr A. Ryan, licensee, said today that as far as he knew, “Chloe” was unique as a hotel gallery exhibit. Adam’s Marble Bar in Sydney displayed a nude painting, but it did not compare with “Chloe.” People in all parts of the world knew of the picture. It would be displayed later to raise funds for the Red Cross. More than 6000 people paid 6d. each — total £160— to view “Chloe” for a similar cause in 1940. It was probable that the space where Chloe had hung would be left vacant with a notice, “Gone for the Duration,” to remind pilgrims to the former shrine of her beauty that in the better days to come, they might again see the favourite toast of servicemen of two wars and of others in many intervening years. The original Chloe was a famous Paris model. It is recorded that she died by self-administered poison.’

The painting is to remain part of the hotel forever, as decided by the National Trust and Heritage of Victoria in 1988. She hangs in Chloe’s Room of the Young and Jackson Hotel for all to admire, while eating and drinking.

How lucky we are!