RECOGNISING a familiar name in death notices often refreshes memories of a key event in the lives of both parties.
That was the case last Saturday when some of us here at the Spec learned of the passing of Rachel Malseed on November 22, aged 87.
She was a much-loved regular visitor at our office.
Our close association goes back to the early 1990s when the Malseed family ran the George Hotel/Motel.
The pub during their tenure quickly rose in public profile, it was freshly renovated, a beer garden was planned and besides providing the usual fare the George welcomed fund-raising events, poetry readings and more.
The licensees for a number of years up to 1997 were constantly at loggerheads with the infant Shire of Southern Grampians over a projected verandah for the front of the building.
Older Hamilton readers will remember that years before the city “fathers” had mandated that verandahs be removed from CBD premises to modernise the retail precinct.
That decision was bitterly fought by many building owners due to the cost involved, but council prevailed, setting a time limit and foreshadowing penalties for those who didn’t comply.
This issue still rankles in some quarters because there was an about-face years later. Verandahs became appropriate and legal again, now for heritage reasons. Go figure!
Anyway, back to the Malseeds and their part in the stoush over verandahs.
IN 1997 the four-year battle to erect a Victorian-style verandah on the George finally ended in triumph for the building’s owners.
After two previous attempts to add a Victorian-style verandah to the hotel, the Malseeds succeeded at their third try when council granted a planning permit.
An impasse had been reached previously after the family declined to keep the existing art deco façade as recommended by Hamilton’s former heritage adviser, Tim Hubbard.
Mr Hubbard claimed that to put a Victorian-style verandah on a 1930s building was a mock historic and would always look a “ring-in”.
The George was rebuilt in art deco style in the 1930s after being destroyed by fire.
Mr Hubbard argued the hotel has a C classification under the Hamilton Heritage Study and buildings in that category should not have their exterior fabric altered.
The Malseeds argued the George Hotel had so many alterations since the 1930s it was no longer a true art deco building.
The cost of their wish Victorian-type bullnose verandah was expected to be about $30,000, with work now expected to start within months.
Rachel told the Spec at the time she was tremendously excited about the approval. There was always a need to be doing something in the hotel industry, she said.
“It’s given the family a buzz to think that we are going to be able to do something to change and make the hotel image a bit better.
She said she had dozens of people come in off the street who she hadn’t known, and who had said they hoped the hotel improvements were now approved.
Mrs Malseed said she had a lot of confidence in Hamilton and believed it had lifted out of the doldrums in the past 12 months.
SADLY, all this enthusiasm didn’t last.
Hamilton, it seems, had too many pubs and something had to give. In due course the Malseeds moved on.
A decade later the famous watering hole was increasingly showing the want of upkeep.
Then years more it was unoccupied save for the occasional rough sleeper.
By 2014 the shire decided it should be demolished.
This brought howls of protest including public demonstrations on site. One local even chained himself to the building in the fight to save the structure.
Council dithered for a while until the furore died down then, in early 2016, nailed a demolition order to the front door.
In the words of one councilor the site would now provide an opportunity for an exciting new development to lift that part of town.
Today, six years on, the hotel is no more and the block remains vacant with some of the remaining detritus hidden behind a high fence.
Rachel Malseed always cheered up our office when she popped in. Happy, positive and never short of something that brought a smile.
She was proud of her forename and that of her extended family.
She was named after her great aunt, Sister Rachel Pratt, who received a Military Medal during WW1 for her “courage and gallantry as a nurse during an air raid on the 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul, France, on July 4, 1917”.
She had been severely wounded while nursing a patient when during the air raid shrapnel burst through the tent puncturing her lung and tearing through her back and shoulders.
She was subsequently evacuated to Britain for treatment and convalescence.
Mrs Malseed was 17 when her famous great aunt died but retained fond memories of her and the example of care and support she bestowed.
She travelled to Gallipoli in 2015, on her own, to retrace some of her relative’s history.
She had learned that Sr Pratt had lied about her age. She was 41 when she enlisted - when the age limit for going to war was 40.
That wasn’t the first time Rachel Malseed she set off overseas by herself.
Ten years earlier, when she was l70, she went backpacking – something not for the faint-hearted at that age considering the accommodation, age group and some of the people she would sometimes have to share with.
Not surprisingly, she volunteered to carry the Queen’s baton into Hamilton preceding the Commonwealth games in 2006.
In retirement she had a long membership with Hamilton Probus.
Following a funeral service at the Hamilton Anglican Church the cortege left for the Dartmoor Cemetery.
