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The following information is provided by the Chambers Family researcher (and member of Heidelberg Historical Society), Judith Lesley formerly Prasad née Chambers, who owns the copyright in her work.
‘Newlands was built for a successful early colonist ironmonger and his wife; locally, John Stoup Chambers was held in such high regard at St John’s Church of England, Heidelberg, that he was elected as a Parochial Nominator. His wife Mrs Emma Chambers, by now in her 60s, I have no doubt, was the Lady of the House - that beautiful two storey brick and rough-cast villa of nine rooms, for which her husband had commissioned specific-sized bricks for its side fence in Banksia Street. I expect that research into the Church’s archives could reveal activities with which she was involved - there is recorded (in the Collingwood Mercury on 5 December 1895, for example) that the expense of plumbing being laid on in the vicarage was enabled with an initial financial contribution from Mrs Chambers. The donation to the quilt would have been such a likely action from such a lady - with her initials and the name of her new home embroidered onto this square of the quilt.’
‘There should be no confusion about the initials E.C. with her stepdaughter Miss Emma Chambers - who continued to live with her parents, being involved in her father’s Melbourne-based business of Chambers and Seymour. Miss Emma used a second middle name – this was confirmed by her father when naming her in his Will; although it was a different name to that registered at her birth.’
References
An undated photograph of Newlands can be viewed in the collection of State Library Victoria.
For more detailed information - available at the Heidelberg Historical Society (HHS) Museum - Judith Lesley recommends:
‘Copies of contact prints from glass photographic plates depicting Newlands in the HHS Museum computer.’
‘A copy of a hard copy photograph depicting Newlands with some years of garden growth, including the corner planting of a lemon scented gum that is still standing, is on p. 74 in the two-section edition of my three-section book Schoolmaster John Chambers 8.12.1809 - 23.4.1877 with comprehensive NOTES - in its plastic document storage box in the HHS Research Room. The original can be viewed on-line in the collection of State Library Victoria.’
‘Information about her can be found in the two section edition of my three section book Schoolmaster John Chambers 8.12.1809 – 23.4.1877 with comprehensive NOTES - in its plastic document storage box in the HHS Research Room.’
‘There are further references to this family in articles I have had published in The Heidelberg Historian, the bi-monthly newsletter produced by HHS, which are accessible on-line; based on the research in my book.’
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