LETTERS FROM W.H. RANKINE TO ROBERT RANKINE

Letters from W.H. RANKINE (1837-1912) of Falkirk to his son ROBERT RANKINE (1868-1941) in Melbourne

            This series of five letters, dated from September 16, 1909 to December 13, 1910 had been kept within the hold of the model of the Charlotte Dundas built by his father John Rankine (1812-1870), grandson of the steam boat inventor.

            Rankine's letters are penned in a cramped, scrawling hand, lacking punctuation and, at times, barely legible. I have punctuated his letters, reproduced below, but have not amended the idiosyncrasies of his spelling or grammar. 

             In this correspondence, W.H. Rankine is confused to learn of a model of the Charlotte Dundas in the Melbourne Museum and asks his son Robert to investigate; he confirms that his grandson, Kenneth Rankine (1890-1968) was responsible for taking the Rankine model to Melbourne. He recounts a visit by John Symington of Junee, New South Wales, grandson of Andrew Symington the clockmaker, but is wary of his motives, suspecting an intention to make some claim upon a supposed birth right. W.H. Rankine's knowledge of the various lines of descent from William Symington was very sketchy. He believed that John Symington was an imposter. 

            His enquiries about the provenance of the relics in the Melbourne Museum led to a singular meeting between Robert Rankine and William Symington (1840-1929) at Bacchus Marsh on Good Friday, 1910. In his letter to Symington, dated March 17th 1910, Robert Rankine arranges a meeting concerning their ancestor, the steam boat inventor. After that momentous encounter, Symington reported back to W.H. Rankine of Falkirk: his response, dated April 2nd 1910, sheds light on the origins of the Symington artefacts which were housed in the Melbourne Museum.    

            At the time he wrote these letters, W.H. Rankine and his wife were living in West Bank Street in Falkirk, but they stayed regularly with their niece at "Auburn" in Maggie Wood's Loan, Falkirk, built in the early 1900's by his nephew William Hamilton.

The occupants of Auburn revealed in the 1911 Census were relatives of W.H. Rankine's wife Helen: her niece Helen Annan Joass and husband William Hamilton, a salesman in the coal industry, and their children Helen Rankine Hamilton born in 1903 and John Norman Hamilton born in 1906, with their 17-year-old house servant Kate Burt.

SOME BRIEF BIOGRAPHIC NOTES ON INDIVIDUALS MENTIONED IN W.H. RANKINE'S CORRESPONDENCE

HELEN DOBBIE c.1838-1921

The daughter of Alexander Dobbie and Helen Annan; W.H. Rankine's wife. In these letters he refers to her as "Mother" and "Mum". After his death in 1912, she moved to Auburn, her niece's home in Maggie Wood's Loan, where she lived until her death in 1921.

ROBERT RANKINE 1868-1941

The only child of William Henry Rankine and Helen Dobbie. Born at Chatham in 1868, he emigrated to Australia in 1898. In Melbourne, he founded a printing firm, Rankine and Dobbie, with his son Kenneth employed as the company secretary. As a Major in the 14th Battalion, A.I.F., he was awarded the D.S.O. for his role at Gallipoli.

CHRISTINA RANKINE 

"Chrissie", Annie Christina Mildred Polden, the wife of Robert Rankine. She was born in Canada. She died in Melbourne in 1944.

KENNETH CARRUTHERS RANKINE 1890-1968

The only child of Robert Rankine and Chrissie Polden, he was born in Aldershot in 1890. He was a student at Scotch College, Melbourne, from 1901 to 1905. On leaving school, he was employed as a shipping clerk. At the time of the Rankine correspondence, he was the company secretary for his father's firm. Kenneth took the Rankine model of the Charlotte Dundas to Australia after a copy had been made in the workshops of the Science Museum in London.

HELEN HAMILTON 1875-1932

"Nell" Born in Falkirk in 1875, Helen Annan Joass was Helen Rankine's niece. From 1891 she lived for over a decade with the Rankines at Pilton Cottage, Laurieston. She married William Hamilton at Falkirk in 1903. They lived at Auburn, a villa in Maggie Wood's Loan, which William Hamilton built in 1901.

WILLIAM HAMILTON 1870-1946 [1]

"Willie" The son of William Forbes Hamilton. A salesman in the coal industry who became the managing director of the Callendar Coal Company. He married Helen Joass at Falkirk in 1903.

HELEN RANKINE HAMILTON 1903-1969

"Neen" The grand-niece of W.H. Rankine and only daughter of William Hamilton and Helen Joass. She was a pupil at the Selma House School in Arnothill gardens. She married Andrew Biggam at Inverness in 1946. She died in 1969 at Auburn, the Hamilton family home in Falkirk. It seems she was known as Neena or Nina as a child and young woman; "Neen" in the Rankine letters.

JOHN NORMAN HAMILTON  1906-1943

The Rankine's grand-nephew, son of Helen Joass and William Hamilton. He was born at Falkirk in 1906. He was lost at sea in 1943.

JOHN SYMINGTON 1863-1960

John Symington had a general store in Junee in outback N.S.W. He was a grandson of Andrew Symington, clockmaker, of Kettle, Fifeshire. Born in Kettle, he was the second son of William Symington 1839-1917 and Helen Anne Adamson. His father emigrated to Australia in 1884 with his second wife. John Symington emigrated to New South Wales in 1881. In 1909 he toured Scotland with his wife Effie and their son Norman John Symington 1902-1985, who would become an ophthalmologist in Sydney. He visited his uncle James Symington, a watchmaker in Oban, and toured the Trossachs. W.H Rankine observed that they were not short of money.

JAMES ADAMSON 1849-1924

A watchmaker in Kirkcaldy, he was the youngest brother of John Symington of Junee. After his mother died, James was adopted by her brother, George Adamson and Mary Robertson, and took the surname Adamson. 

WILLIAM SYMINGTON OF BACCHUS MARSH 1840-1929

A grandson of William Symington and the son of William 1802-1867 who emigrated to Melbourne in 1855.

DR. ROBERT BOWIE 1788-1869

He married William Symington's second daughter Margaret in London in 1818.

In 1833 he published a biography of William Symington. He emigrated to Melbourne with his family in 1851 and was appointed as Psychiatrist Superintendent of the Yarra Bend Lunatic Asylum.

DAVID BELL c.1838-1913

"Mr. Bell" in Rankine's correspondence. A Glasgow ship owner and an authority on early shipping on the Clyde.

SIR JAMES BROWN SMITH 1845-1913 of Clifton Park, Stirling. 

Born in Missouri, his early education was at Dollar. [2] His father, James Smith, was a partner in the Bonnybridge foundry Smith and Westwood. He was a member of the County Council, representing Bonnybridge. He was a friend of Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman and was knighted in 1907 for his charity work. He died after a surgical operation in London in 1913.

ANDREW YOUNGER MACKAY 1845-1925

"Provost Mackay" was born in Falkirk in 1845. He was Provost of the Burgh of Grangemouth at the time of this correspondence.

ALEXANDER BLACK 1873-1961 

"Captain Black" of Wellside, Falkirk. The son of architect William Black 1840-1921.

Commanding officer of the Falkirk Company of the 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Regiment.

West Bank Place, Falkirk, 

Scotland Sept 16, 1909  

            Dear Robert & Chrissie, 

            We are very pleased to get your letters Chrissie & Kenneth's from Melbourne and yours from Hobart and to find by them you were all well. We are anxious to get the next letter to know you are safe home and none the worse of your rough time. It is just rather too much of a change from the moderate weather of Melbourne to heavy snow in Tasmania and we hope you had plenty of rugs for such a railway journey. It is real interesting to us to read your letter and we have read it a good many times and last night mother's birthday we read it again after our bit of supper and said how much we have to be thankfull for. We have every thing we need. We know you are all well and always thinking of us and althou' you may have sometimes business worreys they are no worse than most folk have and you are able to deal with them. 

            Mother is very proud of her present from Kenneth and next week she will be getting Chrissie's. Last night Nell came in and brought her a very pretty Tea cosey, a tea pot from Neen and a hot water jug from John. She has got a big job on today as she is getting two chimneys swept and the sweep has just gone so the new girl is turning out first class and they are busy cleaning up. It is a very fine day and as she got the carpets and pictures done yesterday. They will soon get the parlour sorted. 

            I think I told you that a gentleman had been in Glasgow some time since calling on my friend Mr. Bell and saying his name was Symington. I asked Mr Bell to try and arrange for me to see him after he got back from his tour north on Friday. I got a telegram from Mr Bell asking if Symington could come on Saturday as he was in Stirling and he Bell would come from Glasgow and we could go into the Symington question. So they all arrive in the forenoon, Symington his wife and a boy, his son, also his brother from Kircaldy. He is a man about 46 or 47, says he has been 27 years in Australia, is in business as a jeweler and storekeeper at Junee N.S.W, 300 miles from Sydney and about the same from Melbourne. His father is there and about 70 years old, that his father is a son of Andrew Symington of Kings Kettle, Fife, a brother of my grandmother and son of William Symington the inventor and that is nearly all he could tell me. He knows nothing of William Symington, my grandmother's brother that I knew and who went to Australia, I believe, about 1847 but says his father worked for William Symington in London when he was 15 years old. This would be in 1854 years after we had letters from W.S. from Australia. He has heard that W. S. once lived at Bacus Marsh and that his minister lately met an old man 82 years old out that way named W. S. who claimed to be a relation of the inventor but as the William Symington I knew must have been born not later than 1800 he would now be, if alive, 109. My father used to correspond with Andrew Symington of King's Kettle and sometimes visit him as his uncle but I never knew he was married or had a family. The brother that came with him is in business as a watchmaker in Kircaldy and is known as James Adamson. This is, he says, because his mother died when he was born and his father went to Australia, leaving him with a sister who was married to a man of that name. Some years ago, this one wrote to Robert Barr, claiming to be a great grandson of the inventor, and asking some information about a Chas. Barr. Back in Glasgow Exhibition Barr gave me the letter and althou' I went to Fife and searched for him and wrote to the address he gave Barr I never could find him or get a letter from him. He got over that to his satisfaction, if not mine, by saying I was looking for Symington and he was only known as Adamson. We went at it till about 7 pm when I saw them off at Grahamston for Stirling. I think they were rather disapointed and it sounded as if they thought they were coming to a house full of relics of old Symington and that there was a good chance for some thing; seemed to think in a nosey way they had some claim to Bantaskine or Westquarter and then mother started in and fetched them down out of the heights. she told them old Symington never had anything, that he was only for a short time a tenant in Westquarter,that he had nothing to do with Bantaskine further than his daughter married the young laird, that it was a bad day for the Rankines when they had any thing to do with Symington who had skinned them to carry out his mining and steam boat fads and died in poverty at his son's house in London, the son afterwards going to Australia. I think she rather surprised them as she did me but she was in great form but they say they will come back and have a day at Westquarter and also at Bantaskine so she handed them the Herald and, pointing to the Ads of sale of Westquarter, said you can get any of the two-they are both in the market.

            I don't take him to be a very clever man. The wife is a bit better. She belongs to Yorkshire and went Australia very young. The boy, their only one, is about 7 and as fine specimen of a boy as you would find in a long while. He could easily pass for 11 or 12 straight and strong and well behaved. Cannot read or write. I asked if they grew many like that there and she said plenty- he was a fair average. They seem to be pretty well off they have been well over the highlands and Yorkshire. They left home last March and are not going back till after the new year. They know Tasmania well and could tell me all about Burnie, Stanley, Zeehan & Hobart. They go there for a holiday to get out of the hot weather at Junee. They came by those Aberdeen boats that go around the cape but think of going back by the Orient line. If so, will only have a short time in Melbourne and will ring you up. They are going to let me know when they go so I shall have plenty of time to tell you. They were very sore at the old boat being broken up and wanted to know what right any one had to do so and who gave permission. This fetched mother on the path again and she let them know that Symington was employed by Lord Zetland to build the boat for him at Grangemouth and superintend the making of the Engine at Carron works, Lord Zetland footing the Bills. Somehow mother did not take kindly to them and when that is the case she does not put too much polish on but Nell saved the situation. She had come in on Friday night and we told her they were coming. Mother said they could go to the Hotel for dinner as she would not get up a dinner for them. While we were all in the parlour, Nell came down with a lot of stuff from Auburn and started setting out the table in the dining room, sent the girl up street for some more … and when mother went out there was a first rate lunch ready and Nell was off, leaving word with our girl we were to come on to Auburn as soon as they were gone for our usual weekend. I was very pleased Nell did so for they had been pressing me to go with them to the hotel to lunch. It was to late to go to Auburn after they had gone and Sunday was a very wet day so we did not go up. 

            It is past 3.30 now and I expect to see Nell and Neen flying past in the car as they are going out to Polmont to tea. They can get from Carron Bridge to Lauriston Square for 2d and can walk on with luggage to Polmont and will call here coming back. 

            I have sent you last week's Wednesday Herald … Weekly as it is likely the last Chrissie will see of Davey Shields traps [3] and they don't compare favourably with the new car with its fast look. You will be able to make out some of the people and ….. on the top.           

            It is coming over very cold and we are in for another frost to night, 2 deg Monday night 3 deg last night, but it is fine and dry and sunny most of the day. 

            Thursday 9.30 a.m. a very fine morning, a bit fogey first thing but a real good harvest morning.

            Mother is very busy with cleaning up after the sweeps. They got the kitchen finished yesterday and the parlour is to be done to day but she has just got the girl started and is now settling down to her letters. 

            Tell Kenneth we did not forget his birthday on Saturday althou' we had such a busy time with the Symingtons. 

            Mother said last night to tell you she would not write you this week as she wanted to see H…. first to know how they were getting on with the potting. They have been closed Monday & Tuesday as this is tryst week. 

            Best love to Chrissie and Kenneth and wishing you every blessing and success. 

            Your loving father,

            W.H. Rankine 

West Bank Place, 

Falkirk. Oct. 7, 1909 

            Dear Robert & Chrissie, 

            We received yours of 1 Sepr. and are very pleased to find you all in such good form. 

You must have been getting some very wet weather and we are glad to know you are high enough to be clear of any flooding and if the house has kept tight with such weather I think you may say it is all right. 

            You will know by now the result of the shooting match. Captain Black, [4] never too modest, is being cockey over it and says there is to be a full account of it in today's paper. If so, I will send it on with the others but any way you are not bad loosers as he only claims 17 points ahead, which on 1264 is not much. I don't know what he did himself but he says very bad but we will see this afternoon. I was very glad to get the copy of the score you sent and shall be glad to hear how you got on with the other teams as I understand they were all from the same state. 

            We are getting some very wet weather. This is the last of the monthly holidays and, as is often the case, it is raining. 

            I was in Glasgow on Saturday, having a chat with Mr. Bell about the Symington boats and engines and also about the Symingtons who are here from Australia but we cannot make anything out of them. They cannot even tell us where their grandfather Andrew Symington died, or when, or who his wife was or anything about the family. They have been in the Trossacs this last two or three weeks and are away over in Fife now trying to make history. Fancy their father, who is living in Junee N.S.W, not being able to tell them where his father Andrew Symington died, or when, and he has only been about 24 years in Australia. Mother won't have their story at any price. I have a notion they are Finlaysons but they won't have that. It is not my business to get out a family record for them which can only be done now by giving a lot of time in searching the register house in Edinburgh and as they seem to have plenty of money they should employ someone to make the search. For fear any thing should happen to our family Bible before you can get it, I will send you a copy of the register with this. 

            Carron Co. have just published a booklett history of their works and refer in it to William Symington and his works. They have made the mistake of showing a sketch of the first Dalswinton Boat and Engine which they say they made for Symington but which I know was made for him in Edinburgh. This has set Mr Bell on to them and the corospondence is closed for the present by their acknowledging their mistake and to put it right in the next edition. 

            Sir J. B. Smith of Clifton Park, Stirling, with whom I have often talked Symington and who has a suite of furniture made from the old boat has been writing to the Scotsman to say how proud Scotsmen should be o know that the Engines of the Charlotte Dundas are in safe keeping in Kensington. As they are not there, and never were, this has brought down Bell's wrath on him. The engines in Kensington are a pair of 4in cylinders which were in first boat which Symington had on Dalswinton Loch, made in Edinburgh and which Carron Co now claim as made by them. Engines of the Charlotte Dundas have had only one cylinder of 18in. or 20in., made by Carron. They also made one about the same time for him at the cost of Patrick Miller of Dalswinton. Both of these Engines are lost. There is also some one named Russell writing in the Glasgow Herald who does not know much about it and Bell is going for him. We talked the subject well out on Saturday and he would like us to go and see these different people and have it out with them but I told him I am not going about the country on that work, especially as there are the Australians in the country who claim to be nearer related, but he only shakes his head and says they cannot do it. He is a cleaver old man a few months older than me and was many years manager with Napiers, the ship builder & Engineer, Glasgow. I will see Sir J. Smith and put him ryte, as we were for years on the C.C. and I often meet him on the bench at Stirling. When I left Glasgow on Saturday I went to Auburn, as I knew mother would be there, and we spent the weekend there as Nell & Neen were taking part in a Bazaar at Lauriston on Saturday. Monday was a very fine day and we did not come home till night but Tuesday was wet all day. These little weekends pass the time buy nicely and I can safely trust our new girl to look well after mother and take her up there or bring her home if I am not there. Any way, she never goes or comes by her self and if Neen knows she is coming, she comes up the road with the camp stool for her to get a rest. 

            The Herald has just come and I will send it with the other & find it looks rather strange that you and Black should both come out Eighth from the top and both have the same score. [5] They had a full team and the wonder is they did not do more. McCullan [6] is taking prizes all over the county wherever prizes are to be got and McCue [7] took the Bronze Medal this year at Bisley. A lot of other money prizes. I think I sent you a sketch of some of them some time since. Of course Black says he could have picked a team that would have all gone well over 90 each but that is ?hoch.

You will get some good reading if you wade through the Lauriston indignation meetings lately and especially the School Board meeting in Wednesday papers. Some say they are getting too near civilization now. The cars are running but will learn better when they get used to it.

            This Thursday is a very dull morning but there is no rain. I am going over to Stenhousemuir this afternoon to tea with J. P. Smith. It has been a long process but there has always been something coming along to stop it. He has got all his Dunoon holidays over now and I have a clear day so I will go over to day. 

            I hope Kenneth had a good time on board the new boat Otoway. [8] She will be bringing the mail this time. He will be quite up to date with these big boats. They must be very fine from pictures I have seen of them in the Illustrated papers. 

            I hope you have got on all right with your painting. Kenneth will make a grand helper. Give him our very best love and also Chrissie and wishing you every blessing. 

            Your loving father, 

            W.H. Rankine 

West Bank Place, 

Falkirk 

28 October 1909 

            Dear Robert & Chrissie,

            We were very pleased to receive yours Sept 22. first post Monday and am so glad to find by it you are all well and getting such fine weather and have been able to get your painting done which will keep you right for some time. We have had a fortnight of very bad weather, constant rain & gales of wind, but on Tuesday night it changed to frost and is so yet.

            Wednesday afternoon it is very cold but we don't mind that as it is dry and we can get out. On Sunday night, mother & I went to the Parish Church. It has been closed for some time getting cleaned and repaired and the electric light fitted and it looks first rate. It is a long time since mother was at the Parish Church. It was a grand sermon and the subject of text was Pilate's wife and you can read a good lot of it in that book we sent Chrissie called The Day of the Cross. 

            Willie got over his cold very easy and it was very much helped by him keeping his bed for three days.  Nell took a nasty cold at the end of the week but is better and was here last night. I was there most of yesterday, repairing their clock. Our girl had to go out to Lauriston this afternoon (with) a message for mother so she went to Auburn first and got the children and they are away, Miss Neen taking charge and telling them she will pay the cars for John & the girl. They have just come back in the middle of our tea. Supper was not (ready) when they got there so Neen just ordered the maid to get tea for her & John which had to be done. 

            I was telling them yesterday about your oranges growing on the tree and they were delighted. I have had to tell them again & again. He is a grand little chap but she leads him into some queer scrapes for which he gets the hidings and he does howl but there is no tears or howling with her.

            We are glad to hear Kenneth got his books & likes them. 

            I wish you or Kenneth would try and find out for me how the Melbourne Museum people got that model of the Charlotte Dundas and who it belongs to and, if possible, the address of the owner. A Mr. Russell of Edinburgh has written my friend Mr. Bell to say he knows a gentleman named Hart, a son of the man who built the Charlotte Dundas, who was home from Australia and saw the model in Kensington and, knowing it was his father's, found out who owned it; got it from the gentleman in Scotland, he had forgotten his name, took it out to Melbourne and put it in the Museum there. It is all very funny. Mr. Hart built the CD at Grangemouth in 1801 and his son must have been a sprightly youth in 1903 to pass himself off for Kenneth 102 years after. 

            There is a lot of discussion just now about early steam navigation. Carron Co. have admitted their mistake and are getting up particulars for a new book. I will send you the one just published. Bell has given Russell a doing for publishing a drawing of the C.D. not a bit like her. I will not go for him till hear from you when I will let him know it was Mr. Kenneth Rankine who saw the model in Kensington, got it retourned to Laurieston, and took it to Melbourne but it has never been in Melbourne or any other museum in Australia. Mr Russell is a printer & Publisher, 25 North Bridge, Edinburgh. When the Australian Symington was here lately, I asked him if he knew anything of a model of the C. D. and after consulting his young brother, who will be about 26 years old, they said that it was the model father made. The father has been 24 years in Australia. The young one has never been out of Scotland so what they know about it is not worth learning. Bell has now started on Russell for stating that John Bell of Thornhill was with Fulton on the C.D., trying to get tips from Symington, and Bell tells him he is talking utter rubbish. Provost A. Y. Mackay is agitating to get the model back to Grangemouth, which he calls its birthplace, and Mackay is on to Russell for saying the C. D. was built at Falkirk, but I tell them all Mr K. Rankine is not the man to let it out of his hands so you see there is some fun to be got out of the ship yet and it keeps me going.

            I have lots of applications for copies of our little book but they cannot be got so sit tight on your one as I have only one.

            It is dark now except for the clear moon light and Nell's maid has come for the babes and after her usual fight with grandma they have gone off in high glee. It is very cold.

Thursday 9.am., this has been a very cold night and the roads are as hard as the pavement but the sun is out and it looks plesant, especialy after a good breakfast and a nice fire at your back. 

            I shall be pleased to hand over the photo to Black. He says he cannot get one of his team but will send you one of presentation of new colours. 

            Best love to Chrissie & Kenneth and wishing you every cheers,

            Your loving father,

            W H Rankine

“Auburn” 

Falkirk, Scotland

6 January 1910 

            Dear Robert & Chrissie, 

            We were very pleased to get your letter of 1 Decr. on Tuesday and to find by it you were all well and that Chrissie was going away to Tasmania for a short holiday and we all hope she will get a lot of benefit from it. We think from what you say you will be going some time which will make it still more pleasant. These new Orient Boats are not making much better time than the old ones. This Otranto  [9] was advertised to deliver the mails on Friday in London and it is Tuesday before we get the letters. They will have to hurry up to keep time with the P.&O.

            I am very pleased to get the information about the Symington relics in the Museum at Melbourne. I should very much like if you can find out who they belong to and when they were 

placed in the Museum. As you say, it is not easy to understand the drawing being different to the model in the same case. The picture card which Russell the publisher of North Bridge, Edinburgh, sent out is very like the sketch you sent me with the sharp pointed bow and the tall … funnell. I will either see my friend Bell of Glasgow or send him your letter as I know he will be delighted 

at the discovery of the original patent and, as he is sure to suggest some other questions, I will think over a few before next letter. I cannot understand the wheel-race not being cut right through 

the stern as I don't see how the water would get away or what would be the use of two rudders. When you see the model next time, you might note the shape of the wheel well, if it is shaped like this or square. You have not said if there is a break in the deck aft as shown in the sketch I sent. If you get in touch with the Bacus Marsh man, and he knows anything about his family history, perhaps you might find out if W. S. the inventor had anything more than two sons & two daughters and if my grandmother was younger or older than Dr. Bowie’s wife. If he is the man I take him to be he must 

be a son of the little chap I used to play with and his grandfather would be the inventor's eldest son who went to Australia with Dr. Bowie. I don't want to give you a lot of trouble about this but I should like to know if these people who are still here are genuine. They said they could not stand the cold but they sent us a photograph last month, taken in the ice at Loch Leven. 

            Best love to Chrissie & Kenneth and wishing you every blessing. 

            Your loving father, 

            W.H. Rankine 

P.S. The sun dial was blown down last week in a very severe gale so I will not put it up again but will send it out to you when the weather moderates and I am able to paint it.

I think we will go home this week but it depends on the weather.

Auburn,

Falkirk, Scotland 

13 Decr. 1910 

            Dear Robert & Chrissie,

            We were very pleased to get yours of Decr. 8 first post Saturday and are sorry to hear Chrissie 

had such a rough passage across the strates. We had a P. C. from Chrissie same time telling us that the weather had been very rough but she was safe across and was getting better weather in Tasmania and we all hope she would get a continuance and have a real pleasant trip home and feels all the better for the change. 

            You will see we are still at Auburn. We would have gone home last Thursday but the weather was very bad and has continued to rain & sleet with severe gales and it was better here alltogether than being in the house by our selves. It began yesterday morning with a fierce gale and sleet and continued all day after dinner time it got colder and by 5 pm it was freezing and snowing. This morning there is 4 inches of snow althou' no wind, bright sun and six deg. of frost. It is dangerous walking and the horses are having a bad time. Our girl has been to Falkirk and says the tram cars are running snow plows in front, so it is no use of us going home to sit looking out of the windows. 

            I am sorry to learn young Symington is such a specimen. His father at Bacus Marsh must be the boy I knew. He was about two years younger than me. I will not send you any questions for him till I get home and have time to look round as there are some things connected with the Melbourne relics I do not understand. The patent here is number 2544; you give 4418. I think Lady Woodcroft has it. Then the price 80 pounds Scots is only about £4 - so it may be a copy of some specification and as there (are) such a lot of them unless a verbatim copy could be got on a good translation it might not be worth much, but it is good to know where they are and important to know who they belong to. There is one patent here in the name of William Symington, Cooper & Andrew Symington, watchmaker, in Fife, dated 1834. It was never any use and I think must have belonged to the William S. of Bacus Marsh who went to Australia with Dr. Bowie. Annan of Croydon published a book on St. m v s for Dr. Bowie. It would be interesting to know who D. F. was. 

            I hope Kenneth and yourself got on all right with the cooking and did not burn the pots. 

This new railway I have been reading about should be a good thing for his firm and especially for 

his C...  I…  

            Best love to Chrissie and Kenneth and wishing you every blessing.

            Your loving father, 

            W.H. Rankine 

[1] Obituary, with portrait, The Dollar Magazine June 1913 Volume XII Number 46 Pages 63-65

[2] Death notice, The Scotsman 6 May 1946 page 6

[3] David Shields, carriage hirer, Laurieston

[4] Alexander Black, Commanding Officer of the Falkirk Company of the 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

[5] The Falkirk Herald 6 October 1909 page 8, report of a "postal" shooting competition between Captain Black's Falkirk Company and a team from the First Victorian Scottish Regiment, led by Captain Robert Rankine

[6] Sergeant John McCallum

[7] Private Edward McCue

[8] S.S. Otway, launched at Glasgow in 1908 and owned by the Orient Line. The Otway was torpedoed in 1917.

[9] S.S. Otranto, built in 1909, was owned by the Orient Line. A troop ship in W.W.1, it was wrecked in a collision in 1918.

FROM ROBERT RANKINE TO W.H. RANKINE

Letter dated Melbourne 1 December 1909

Rankine visited the Museum with his son Kenneth. The curator told him the model of the Charlotte Dundas had been stored in the cellars the last two years. On a return visit he was able to view the model and other relics held at the Museum, a plaster bust, a patent extract and two lithographic prints of William Symington's steam vessels. He describes these items in this letter to his father.

Letter dated Melbourne 30 March 1910.

In which Rankine recounts his meeting with William Symington at Bacchus Marsh. The origins of the Symington relics in the Melbourne Museum are revealed. An extract from this letter is held in the Transport Museum at Glasgow, but the original has been separated from this correspondence. [1]

FROM WILLIAM SYMINGTON OF BACCHUS MARSH TO W.H. RANKINE

A letter, dated Bacchus Marsh, 2 April 1910 (together with a covering letter to Robert Rankine of the same date), in which William Symington recounts his meeting with Robert Rankine at Bacchus Marsh. He provides some biographic detail about his father William, his uncle Andrew and Dr. Bowie. He confirms in this letter that Andrew made the model in the Melbourne Museum. He explains also the background to the bust and the patent extract. In his covering letter, he asks Robert Rankine to enquire of the Museum when the Symington relics were likely to be displayed.

[1] Glasgow Museum of Transport (Riverside Museum), Charlotte Dundas file, reference E1/1/3/7