Edward William Cole
First published
Yet the way in which he acquired a wife was the thing that branded him as an eccentric of some class. EW. Cole was prepared always to gamble everything on the power of advertising. He used the Herald in Melbourne, invariably on Saturday nights. This was just a little more racy than its stodgy morning contemporaries, the Argus and the Age, and always he took full column ads on the front page.
His ad for a wife was prodigious. It appeared in the Herald on Saturday, 3 July, 1875 and it began:
TWENTY POUNDS REWARD
POSITIVELY BONA FIDE
I, EDWARD WILLIAM COLE
Of the
BOOK ARCADE
BOURKE STREET
wish to obtain a person for a wife with the following characteristics:-
SHE MUST BE A SPINSTER of thirty-five or six years of age, good tempered, intelligent, honest, truthful, sober, chaste, cleanly, neat, but not extravagantly or absurdly dressy; industrious, frugal, moderately educated, and a lover of home. Any respectable, well-intentioned person who from the range of their observation can conscientiously recommend to me an unengaged woman answering the above description will, in the event of a marraige taking place between us in consequence of such information, receive my sincere thanks, and the above reward directly such marriage takes place.
This may be thought by many an absurd, perhaps unusual, way of looking for a wife; and I am quite sensible that I may be laughed at, but the thoughtful will not laugh, the most they will do in that direction will be to smile good-humoredly for they know that whilst the best thing a man can have is a good wife, and the worst thing a bad wife, yet, in most cases, a very irrational principle of selection is followed, for that nineteen out of twenty of the unions that take place originate from the merest accidents of life, from a chance meeting at a ball, at a relation's, at a friend's at a neighbor's etc.
I take that I believe to be the more reasonable course, of looking around to find and when found, of ascertaining by inquiry, the exact character a woman bears in her neighborhood, and amongst those who know her, before I enter into indissoluble intimacy with her: and I have no hesitation in advertising for, critically examining into the character of one who is to be my partner for life, than I should have were I merely advertising for a business partner: and, if, by advertising, I get a good, suitable wife instead of any unsuitable one, which I should very likely get in the usual way, my temporary exposure is well indemnified and my twenty pounds is well spent.
Please address any communication to
E.W. Cole Book Arcade Bourke Street
That wasn't all. There was a postscript which was even longer than the main text of the letter. It carried such lines as:
SHE MUST BE SOBER, for drink, insinuating drink, is a fearful curse, As a destroyer of domestic happiness it is indeed the worst of all - the curse of curses. SHE MUST BE CHASTE, for let even but a tolerable supposition of unfaithfulness once arise, and frequently all domestic happiness is at end.
Legend has it that Cole advertised for the ugliest wife in Australia, but this is the one thing not mentioned in the advertisement. His only concern about physical beauty was neatness of appearance.
Cole Turnley, E.W. Cole's grandson, has written a very complete biography titled Cole of the Book Arcade. He writes that many Melburnians thought that the advertisement was in the poorest possible caste, blaspheming the holy state of matrimony. As for the offer of £20, this smacked of the heathen practice of wife purchasing.
In Tuesday's mail there was only one reply that could be taken seriously. It began:
"I have very carefully read your letter in the Herald and I think it is a sensible one. I want someone to love and take care of me, someone I can look up to and respect... I have made the acquaintance of a few gentlemen in Victoria, and what I have met do not come up to my ideas of a good husband. I do not care so much about a pretty face (though I like to see one as well as most people). would sooner have good sense and good temper any day. I am not pretty myself, for I am a liule dark thing with dark eyes and hair, and nearly 30 years old.
I have received a very good education, and have been brought up to do everything from making a pudding to playing the piano. I am rather hard to please, for I intend to look before I leap. You could not blame me for that.
Cole was not exactly tactful. He wrote back and asked her to call at the Cole Book Arcade. What with all the under 20 year old salesmen, having a quiet giggle, her embarrassment must have been immense. When she arrived at the Book Arcade Cole was not in, so she left suggesting a rendezvous at 7 p.m. at the corner of Collins and Spring Streets.
The lady was Miss Eliza Frances Jordan, daughter of a Tasmanian timber merchant. Her description of herself was accurate. She was not a pretty little thing, in fact plain and plump, but Cole found himself at ease with her immediately. They strolled down Collins Street, making conversation and he went to Tasmania for a week to visit her family. So the power of advertising proved itself once again. They were married and had six children.
Edward William Cole was born in the village of Woodchurch, Kent, on 4 January, 1832. His father died a few vears after he was born and his stepfather was an awesome Wesleyan, who every second told his 14 children that God was somebody to be feared.
Cole was a farm boy and practically illiterate. At 17 he left home for London, and for a year, sometimes sleeping in doorways he almost starved.
In 1850 he stowed away, and sailed to South Africa, where he joined the Army and remained in it long enough to shoot a cow. One night while doing guard duty he mistook the cow for one of the Queen's enemies.
Then news came through of extraordinary gold discoveries in Victoria, Australia, so late in 1852, during the full roar of the gold rush he sailed for Melbourne. He spent 10 years on the goldfields al Campbell's Creek, Castlemaine, Maryborough. His temperence training showed out very early, for he made lemonade for the diggers, and did it with style. His signpost outside his lemonade tent was a large frying pan. A frying pan was new and different; his first demonstration of showmanship.
Yes, he was too smart merely to be a Digger, there were other ways to make money. He was by turn laborer, photographer, lamplighter, seller of Cole's Patent Cider at threepence a pint and purveyor of 'Cole's Delicious Meat Pies. None so Nice, 3d. Extra Gravy Free'. Somewhat unsuccessfully he even tried the manufacture of moleskin trousers.
For vears now Cole had been fascinated by books, half living in public libraries, reading everything he could find. By 1865 he had accumulated a stock of f17 worth of books and he opened a book stall in Melbourne's Eastern Market, known then to everybody as 'Paddy's Market'. His average profits were eleven shillings a week.
It was that gift for advertising that got him going. On 23 August 1873, he put a full column on the front page of the Herald. The cost was way beyond his means. It started:
A Race of
Human Beings with
TAILS
It went on and on about the history of the human race, and about a Mr. Thomas Jones, who when travelling in New Guinea on the 24th December, 1871, discovered a community of men walking upon two legs, long arms, long claw-like fingers and 'real tangible tails, more or less long'. He continued his monkey story as a serial every day and for the first time in history, to the delight of the editor, the Herald was putting on circulation because of an advertisement. Melbourne was agog.
Then at the end of the week he pulled his punch line: 'E.W Cole, I Eastern Market, perfectly agrees with Mr. Jones and begs, particularly, earnestly, the most affectionately to inform all the tailless inhabitants of Melbourne that he has for sale a great variety of TALES.'
Indian Tales.
Australian Tales.
And so it was out. Every conceivable variety of tales were avail. able at Cole's book stores in the Eastern Market.
Things were going well. That year he opened his first book Arcade. It was just around the corner in Bourke Street, between the market and Russell Street.
In the early seventies the Melbourne City Council pulled down the old Paddy's Market and erected a new one at a cost of £100,000. Melbourne now was gaining confidence about its own sheer brilliance and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that this was the finest market the world had ever seen.
Yet it was a little too luxurious and it is a mistake for a market to look expensive. So it did not work and even worse, produce retailers refused to take space. E.W. Cole moved in and offered to lease the entire place. He got it for £1919 a year, plus £379 for the cellars. He divided the great archway into shops, he put in £800 worth of show cases, spent £120 on a band, £200 on advertising and turned the cellars into an art gallery at a cost of another £600. His real coup was to go round to butchers and other vendors and invite them to come in, the first six months, rent free. As for his advertising. He had a circular printed which went into almost every letter box in Melbourne.
The market had been known as 'The White Elephant' but Cole thought this was an outrage, so he made his pamphlet into a PROCLAMATION ... be it known unto you that our city is one of the largest and grandest in Australia, and one of the finest in the world. That our market cost [100,000 to build, is one of the finest in the world, and is in the centre of the city; and, whereas, the said market for sundry reasons has been slighted and neglected; be it known unto all of you that this is contrary to the good sense and practice of all the world ...'
So he urged upon the householders that it was practically their civic duty to get along there and enjoy themselves on Saturday nights. He finished his proclamation with some classic Cole verse:
Then look about and see your friends,
The sights and what to buy Enjoy yourselves for a sweet hour
Without a single sigh.
Next make your way to Cole's Arcade
To buy a book for Sunday
Twill make you happy on that day,
And wiser on the Monday.
The market was a gay gaslit place. You could do anything there from having your fortune read from the bumps on your head to the buying of a toffee apple. By 1881 it was obvious that Mr Cole was doing very well indeed and the Melbourne City Council was keen to have its lease back.
By August the Council was making life so difficult for Cole, suddenly he dropped his entire interest in the Eastern Market and bought premises known as 40 and 42 Bourke Street East. Before the turn of the century Melbourne was divided East and West down the middle and the dividing line was Elizabeth Street. This was to be his great work of art and all through 1883 he ran teaser advertising telling of the great things to come. For example on Saturday July 17, 1883 his Herald advertisement carried the line over and over again: 'Curiosity will make you read the last 4 lines of this'.
Finally when curiosity did get the better of the reader he found in the last four lines that Cole's Grand New Book Arcade would open shortly.
On Saturday November 3, the Herald advertisement was really spelling out the message. It ran right down the page like this:
New
Book
Arcade
Will
Open
On
Cup Day
It is the
Finest Sight in
Melbourne
And The Grandest
Book
Shop
In The World
Intellectual
Non-Racing
People
Are
Invited
There
Instead of
Going to the Races.
Of course, this was the touch of genius. Melbourne at this time was racing silly. The Herald cover to cover was all racing and on Cup Day, November 7, when Martini-Henry won the big race there were 100,000 people present. When you consider Melbourne's population was 500,000 that meant one in five people were at the races. The other four must have yearned for relief and obviously many 'intellectuals' went to Cole's Book Arcade.
Cole's Book Arcade expanded steadily until it went right through from Bourke Street to Little Collins Street. Mr Cole's publications theniselves told how grand it was with such lines as: 'Unequalled in any city of the world. It is 3 storeys high, 600 feet deep and an average width of 45 feet. Its public walks are half a mile long, its galleries supported on brass pillars. ..Free music recitals are given every afternoon and evening. Intellectual, well-behaved people collect and friends meet and feel happy in the Palace of Intellect.'
Or there would be challenges like this: '£100 to anyone who can prove that Cole's Book Arcade with its 140 brass pillars, 100 mirrors, 3000 cedar drawers, 10,000 house ornaments, 10,000 pictures, 1,000,000 books, is not the prettiest sight in Australia'.
The Palace of Intellect was something to see. At the entrance there was an immense rainbow and underneath two mechanical men, worked by water power and dressed in sailor's suits, turned the handles of a large cylinder which carried boards like the sails of a windmill, telling of all the wonders to be seen within.
The Arcade itself was like the inside of a ship, or better maybe, it was like the interior of a European Opera House with the galleries going up and up. Just as the ad, said, there were mirtors, everywhere. There was even a room of curved, funny mirrors, the type that distort, make one look outrageously fat or thin. Children, sometimes, on seeing themselves in a weird shape started to cry, fearing they would never return to normal again. The mechanical men at the entrance eventually went to Melbourne's State Museum and the funny mirrors to Luna Park.
The number of books expanded from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000, some new, some secondhand. There was everything from Deadwood Dick to ornate editions of Shakespeare and the Bible. There were 3000 cedar drawers stowed with all manner of treasures, including rare editions, monkeys on sticks, poems on roles of vellum and fourpenny tea sets from Japan.
Then to add to the excitement, in the midst of this opera house he had a cage filled with monkeys. Anyone who has been to a 200 can appreciate what a charming odor this added to the prevailing musty smell of two million books. One time Mr Cole went into the cage to talk to his monkeys, one scratched him on the face and streaming blood he had to go off to hospital. There was an aviary festooned with ferns and filled with 20 or more highly colored tropical birds. There was a stuffed crocodile and a stuffed alligator.
Perhaps most remarkable of all was the hen that laid the golden eggs. The thing to do was to pop a penny in the slot, the hen would give a loud cackle then out would come a golden egg. Gold was a small exaggeration; actually it was tin, but when one opened the egg there was a toy inside.
There was a brilliantly mirrored tea salon with 150 feet of painted scenery. You could have tea and biscuits or tea and a hot dog for a penny. For a shilling you could have your photograph taken and receive six utterly solemn pictures of yourself sitting there in deathlike rigidity.
There was a full time orchestra that played every afternoon and evening, piano, trumpet and three strings. It was possible to write requests on a blackboard and, if one had the patience to wait, eventually the orchestra would thump, it out. Everything they played, comic songs, Advance Australia Fair and many fine religious numbers like Nearer My God To Thee.
His philosophy for running the establishment would shock the owners of modern book stores. People would spend all day there, reading and never buying a book. They would tear them up, throw them aside, turn down the leaves and frequently steal them. E.W. Cole used to comment: 'I do not mind this. When I was a young man I had no particular opportunity of study, no chance to read, and I made up my mind when I got on in the world, if ever I did, I would give opportunities to the young, so that they would be able to read free of charge, and come into my place without anyone asking them what they wanted.'
There was a fernery, a recluse, where one could sit. Cole's manager felt that this was a waste of space, and seeing that this was a smart business it should be returning revenue.
Certainly not said Cole. If a man came to town and didn't want to leave his wife at home, she could sit there in the fernery and read a good book. The same thing applied to young fellows with a spare hour. How much better for them to go in there rather than in to hotels.
One of his advertising methods was to distribute little copper and aluminium medals which first he gave away, then sold for threepence each. He spent £1500 on them and distributed them around the city in letter boxes. There were 114 of them and number I had on the first side:
pens and 2 good
pencils for this
medal at Cole's
Book Arcade
Est. 1873
On the reverse side it had:
In the world,
You can get almost
Any book you want there.
Most of them had worthy messages such as:
brothers. The
people everywhere that
you do not know are
as good as the people
that you do know.
The money spent
on intoxicating drinks
& drugs, foolishness &
war, would feed, clothe
and educate the whole human race.
His immortal achievements were Coles Funny Picture Books No 1 and 2, called The Family Amuser and Instructor to Delight the Children and Make Home Happier. The Best Child's Picture Book in the World. It Contains Choice Riddles, Games and Pieces of Reading for Adults.
There are now three Cole's Funny Picture Books and their popularity has never waned. Cole's grandson, Cole Turnley is still publishing them in Melbourne.
Jokes, riddles, mystery drawings, these books fascinated the children of the eighteen eighties. For example in Book 1, page 41, one could find 'Cole's Patent Whipping Machine for Flogging Naughty Boys in School'. The whipping machine was steam operated, and by the use of thousands of canes on a drum it could flog four boys at a time. Underneath the picture were the words: Testimonial From a School Master. (To Mr. Cole, Book Arcade, Melbourne.)
I have not a bad boy remaining now, but before I used your machine they used to a frightful lot of young scamps. For instance, in my school of 1000, the first day the machine was introduced, 741 were punished for various misdeeds and 103 for single offences were flogged as follows.
John Hawkins, for talking.
William Winning, for grinning.
George Highing, for crying.
Edward Daring, for swearing.
Henry Wheeling, for stealing.
Peter Bitting, for spitting. and so on.
Then on page 25 there was Cole's Electro-Micro Scolding Machine for scolding Naughty Girls. This incredible scolding machine could pick up all horrid words said within a range of 40 miles to north, south, east and west, 40 miles up in the sky and down in the mines 40 miles deep, and play scolding words so loudly so that mothers, uncles, sisters, fathers, etc., would all hear her being scolded. ..one great advantage of the Electro-Micro Scolding Machine is that after it has been in use a short time the girls will all have been shamed into good behavior.
There was so much in these books they were an instant best. seller. There was Girl Land, Boy Land, Dolly Land, Naughtiness stand, Stealing Land and Play Land. In Naughtiness Land there was before-and-after picture of the boy who smoked a pipe - an unforgettable warning.
' Creediness Land was another startling portrait of 'A wicked, rude, bad, naughty, cross, nasty, bold, dirty-faced boy.His ideas were unending, on 31 October, 1882 his advertisement stated:
I, the undersigned firmly believe that a man has already made machines to run over the land and float over the water faster than the swiftest animal, so shortly he will make machines to fly through the air as fast and finally faster than the swiftest birds do not. And I hereby offer a bonus of £1000 to any person who shall (in consequence of said bonus) within the next two years, invent a flying machine, to go by electrical, chemical, mechanical or any other means, except by gas, a distance of 100 miles, and shall come and stop in front of the Book Arcade, Bourke Street, Melbourne; as easily and as safely as a carriage stops there now.
E.W. Cole.
Nobody came forward with that ingenious machine but many years later, on Friday, February the thirteenth, 1914, E.W. Cole's daughter Linda went flying at Elsternwick with the dashing young Harry Hawker in his Sopwith Plane. One of E.W. Cole's books reported 'Miss Cole was perfectly calm and collected when entering the biplane and showed no signs of nerviness. During the flight around St. Kilda, Brighton and Sandringham and across the waters of Hobson's Bay she conversed freely with Mr Hawker and commented on the panoramas which unfolded below.'
He was mauled constantly by such publications as Truth and The Bulletin for being opposed to the White Australia policy, and he produced a little book which stated 'The Whole World is Mixing'. It began I intend in the following pages to show that all mankind are akin - that all are cousins, first cousins, second cousins, 32nd cousins or 132nd cousins, as the case may be, but cousins to some degree. We must not think that because portions of the human race have diverted for a long time in distant and tropical climates, and been colored by the sun that they are not our blood relations...11 generations back you had 1024 ancestors.' Carry this doubling back for a hundred generations, say, to thelime of Moses and it gives you thousands of millions of progenitors."
Cole thought that the world's ills could be cured by white and colored people mingling until everyone on earth became a pale honey color. Just to show his lack of bias, a negro, named Gabriel, was there by the monkey cage in the Arcade. He had the ¡dea that eventually week by week the color of Gabriel's skin would become paler. All this would take place because of his environment, so one day he would be able to tell the world about the honey-colored negro.
He was always anti-drink and he was one of those who believed hatif only the hotels could be closed this would help to defeat the Kaiser. So just after the outbreak of war in 1914 he brought out a little book titled The Evils of the Drink Traffic.
It contained lines such as these:
'It has been found by the most careful scientific experiments, and completely confirmed by actual experience in Athletics and war as attested by Field Marshal Lord Roberts V.C., Field Marshal Lord Wolseley and many other Army leaders that Alcohol or Drink -
1. Slows the power to see signals.
2. Confuses prompt judgement.
3. Spoils accurate shooting.
4. Hastens fatigue.
5. Lestens resistance to Disease and Exposure.
6. Increases shock for wounds.
The book pointed out that His Majesty King George himself was setting the example of abstinence and directed the banishment of wines, spirits and beer from the Royal Household, so he urged that everyone sign the Patriotic Pledge:
In order that I might be of patriotic service to my country and carry out the wishes of the Commander in Chief at this time of national peril I promise until the end of the war to abstain from all intoxicants (except when such are ordered by a doctor) and to encourage others to do the same.
Not all his publications were a great success. When he was 80 he retired to live in a great mansion at Essendon which eventually was to become the girls' school Lowther Hall. He shifted his printing works out with him and even in his later years he produced another six books.
There was a little publication The History of the Apple which traced the story of the apple right back to the days when Eve got to hear about it. 'The apple,' wrote Cole, 'is Earth's most important, most varied, most beautiful, most universally favored and altogether best fruit. Apples satisfy the craving of the stomach better than strong drink and keep it in a healthier more natural condition.'
Cole lived to be 86. He died just one month after the end of the Great War, on 16 December 1918. Sadly he did not leave anyone with his own eccentric skills to carry on the business. Within 10 years Cole's Book Arcade, once the biggest in the world, had collapsed and closed.
It went for £200,000 at auction and oddly enough the new resident on the site was G.J. Coles, a 'buy anything' store, which advertised nothing over two and six. Just possibly E.W. Cole would have approved of their style.
SOURCES:
Henry Williams, EW. Cole, An Appreciation, Book Arcade Printing Department.
H.H. Cox, Melbourne Truth, 23 March, 1957.
Henry Williams, E.W. Cole, An Appreciation.
Alfred Chitty and Henry Williams, Incidents in the Life of E.W. Cole.
Cole Turnley, Cole of the Book Arcade.
Henry Williams, E.W. Cole, An Appreciation.
Coles Funny Picture Books 1 & 2.
H.H. Cox, Melbourne Truth, 23 March, 1957.
Alfred Chitty & Henry Williams, Incidents in the Life of E.W. Cole.
The Herald, 17 May, 1960.
Assorted Works, EW. Cole. La Trobe Library.