By Tamara Hynd, curator of Shellharbour City Museum
Dr Arthur Wigley Bateman was a fascinating and well-travelled man.
He was born 1844 at St Pancras, London to Thomas and Marianne Bateman (nee Daubeny). His father was a solicitor and the family lived at Endsleigh Street, with several servants. Arthur attended Rossall Boarding School in Lancashire, known locally as the ‘Eton of the North’, before enrolling at Magdalen College, University of Oxford.
In 1865, when he was 20 years old, Arthur set off for Australia on board the ‘Venus’. He left Gravesend in May and arrived in Melbourne in August. Arthur kept a journal of his entire trip which he eventually sent to his sister Mary Daubeny, back in London. Arthur travelled around Melbourne and visited Adelaide before returning to England in September.
Three years later, in 1868, he came back to Australia on board the ‘Agamemnon’, and again recorded his travels in his journal which this time, he dedicated to his sister, Mary. This trip was a scientific one for Arthur. He set off for Tasmania to collect specimens for Doctor George Rolleston, a now famous physician and zoologist, and the first Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology to be appointed at the University of Oxford. Rolleston was a good friend and protégé of Thomas Henry Huxley.
A decade later, Arthur once again returned to Australia. He was by now, about 34 years old, and a qualified physician and surgeon, L.R.C.P (Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburg).
During his 10 years away, Arthur studied medicine in the UK, and travelled. He toured Stockholm and Africa, all the while recording the journey in his diary. He visited Napoleon’s tomb at Saint Helena, and whilst visiting his Uncle Edmund in Germany, was possibly introduced to the dawn of ‘Volapuk’ or, the ‘Universal Language’.
Volapuk was a constructed language, invented in 1879 by a German Priest who believed God had directed him to create an international one. Arthur continued a great interest in Volapuk for the rest of his life. He was the recipient of an 1889 diploma from the Association Francaise Pour La Propagation Du Volapuk, Paris, as a correspondent in that language. Arthur taught the language, contributed many articles on its positive use to newspapers, and developed demonstrations of the language to exhibit at the Albion Park Show in the 1890’s.
When Arthur did return to Australia in 1878, he settled in Tenterfield as the official Government Medical Officer and Vaccinator for the district. It was here he met his future wife Anna Louisa Kennedy, who he married 12 months later. The couple made a quick trip back to London, where their first child, Mary Louisa Daubeny Bateman was born in 1880.
On their return to Australia, the family lived at Rylestone and Manly, where Arthur continued working as a physician. In the 1890s they moved to Albion Park for Arthur’s new appointment. He tended to cuts and broken bones, treated gunshot wounds, pleurisy, typhoid fever, influenza, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and injuries caused by accidents.
At Albion Park, on the rise of a hill on Tongarra Road, the Batemans built a beautiful home which they named ‘Ravensthorpe’. The home had an adjacent doctor’s surgery on the eastern side of the house.
Arthur and Anna Bateman went on to have 10 more children.
Blanche Ethel Minter Bateman died when she was just 3 years of age, in 1891. Six years later, they lost their son John Kennedy Bateman aged 16 years, in a boating accident on Lake Illawarra.
Arthur and Anna’s eldest child Mary Louisa, married John Augustine Raftery at Albion Park in 1907. John’s parents ran the local, Commercial Hotel , which once stood on the site of Mood Park at the crossroads. The couple later purchased the family home ‘Ravensthorpe’ from Mary’s mother, and raised their own family there.
Thomas Arthur Bateman was president of the Albion Park Agricultural and Horticultural Society from 1919. He served as alderman and mayor of Shellharbour Council, and was secretary and treasurer of the local rugby club. He farmed ‘Meadow Farm’ until he and his family moved from the district.
Charles Daubeny Bateman followed in his father’s footsteps and became a medical practitioner. He enlisted with the AMC Reinforcements in 1916, and served as a medical officer. He joined the 7th Australian Field Ambulance, 21st Battalion, 5th Australian Field Ambulance and 20th Battalion, serving at the Battle of Bullecourt, Bellicourt, Ypres, Ploegsteert Wood, Amiens, Villers-Bretonneux, Hangard Wood, Peronne, and the Hindenburg Line. Charles returned to Albion Park after working for eight months as assistant medical officer at the Children’s Hospital, Shadwell. In 1944, Charles lost his only son Peter in the Second World War, a result of air operations on the European Western Front.
One of Arthur’s good friends was another well-known doctor, George Edward Rundle. They had both studied at the University of Edinburgh, and Rundle took up Bateman’s appointment as Medical Officer at Tenterfield, after Arthur’s departure. Dr Rundle was a trustee of the Australian Museum, and served as president of the Zoological Society. It is believed, in 1900, Dr Rundle donated two captured thylacines’ (Tasmanian wolves) to Sydney’s first zoo, Moore Park Zoo.
Dr Arthur Wigley Bateman was only 54 years old when he died at his home ‘Ravensthorpe’. His good friend D GE Rundle erected a monument in his honour at the Albion Park Anglican Cemetery. It reads ‘Sacred to the memory of Arthur Wigley Bateman B.A. Oxon. L.R.C.P. L.R.C.S. Edin. Born London 18th October 1844. Died Albion Park 19th May 1899’.
Today, the former Bateman family home, ‘Ravensthorpe’, is a luxury wedding venue, with the doctor’s former surgery, used as the honeymoon suite.
To find about more about the history of Shellharbour City, visit Shellharbour City Museum’s online platform, Discover Shellharbour