Francis ORMOND

ORMOND, FRANCIS (b. Aberdeen, Scotland, 23 Nov 1829; d. Pau, France, 5 May 1889). Grazier and philanthropist in Victoria.

Son of Francis and Isabella (nee Essen), Ormond was brought up in Liverpool and educated at Tyzack's Academy. The father (having captained ships to Australia) emigrated to Vic on his barque Tuscan, and in 1843 leased twenty acres as an inn site at the Leigh River crossing on the Geelong-Hamilton Road (modern Shelford), from the Clyde Company. Francis jr worked there as stable boy and bookkeeper. The father branched into squatting, and during the 1851 goldrushes sold his inn and two squatting runs to acquire Borryalloak Station near Skipton. Beginning as station manager, Francis jr became Borryalloak's proprietor in 1854, branched out into nearby Bangal Station in 1861 and added part of Round Hill Station in 1881, followed by other Riverina property acquisitions. Gold-rush pastoral profits, based on family seafaring and inn-keeping assets, made Ormond a moderately wealthy man.

Francis jr was early associated with Rev A J Campbell's attempts to foster Christian worship in Geelong's pastoral hinterland by financing printed sermons; he endowed a Presbyterian theological scholarship in 1872. When Campbell in 1877 sought funds to found a Presbyterian theological college associated with Melbourne's University, Ormond donated £300. Ormond also answered Campbell's call for financial assistance to found Geelong's Gordon Institute of Technology. When a Presbyterian university residential college was proposed in 1879, Ormond was a modest donor. However the scheme grew upon him, and building extensions would swallow much of his wealth before his death in southern France. Ormond College became his main memorial.

Ormond believed that a sound theological education and a sound university education went hand in hand. When J D Wyselaskie bequeathed money for a separate theological hall within Ormond College's grounds, Ormond was perturbed that 'theological' and 'university' dimensions might be separated. Hence the provision for theological professors' teaching facilities and lecture rooms in what Ormond insisted upon calling 'the Victoria Front', built for the Queen's jubilee (in hopes of a knighthood?) and opened in December 1888. However, he had earlier brushed aside his original plan to have an ordained theological 'President' of Ormond College, and personally selected the Ulster-reared Presbyterian and Cambridge-finished mathematical layman, John McFarland, to be the college's first 'Master'.

McFarland was not a communicant Presbyterian when selected.

Ormond was not narrowly denominational and financed steeples to complete St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, Melbourne. He kept aloof from the Presbyterian 'heresy hunt' involving Rev Charles Strong in the 1880s, disliking doctrinal wrangles and ecclesiastical disharmony. Nor were Ormond's benefactions designed to serve only society's upper classes. The Melbourne Working Men's College (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) founded in 1887 owed much to Ormond's doggedness as foundation president, and something to his financial aid. Ormond differed from most other squatters in believing that: 'It is out of the great masses of the people, with healthy bodies, and healthy minds, that we expect to get our future rulers of this fresh country'. Ormond loved good music. Failing in an attempt to institute a Melbourne college of music, he endowed the University of Melbourne's Ormond Chair of Music.

Ormond's gifts and bequests were diverse, benefitting a range of educational institutions, asylums for the afflicted, hospitals, churches, and a sailors' home. He often made conditional gifts which levered contributions from less altruistic peers. This evangelical Presbyterian philanthropist is unusual in that his wealth was freely distributed during his lifetime, his gifts were largely confined to Australia rather than 'sent home', and he believed in education.

DON CHAMBERS