By John McKechnie AO KC
Mentone is a popular seaside suburb 21 kilometres from central
Melbourne. Lying by the shore of Port Phillip Bay, in the 19th century it
was popular with members of the Heidelberg school of painters, including
Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder.
They visited Mentone over summer to work and relax.
Mentone received a boost in 1881 when the railway was extended to
Mordialloc, passing Mentone on the way. The advent of the railways encouraged the incorporation of the Mentone Racing Company Ltd on the 28th of March 1888. Punters could now reach Mentone from the city and return at the end of the day just as easily.
The racecourse was built on 156 acres. Passengers could alight at
Mentone station, pass through a special gate and walk a half mile to the
fine grandstand, built ‘with an eye to beauty as well as comfort’.
The racecourse was declared open with much fanfare on the 8th of
September 1888. The final race meeting was held 60 years later, on the
24th of July 1948. By then, the suburbs had expanded greatly and
Mentone was no longer simply a summer holiday town. Workers
commuted to the city every day in the carriages that once held legions
of punters.
The racecourse was generally profitable. However, there was one
occasion when things went awry. It was the custom of the Victorian Railways to run special trains to Mentone on race days to accommodate punters from all over Melbourne. Horse racing at Mentone depended on these trains.
Wednesday the 19th of June 1901 dawned gloomy and wet. This was
hardly surprising. After all, it was winter – in Melbourne. Bad weather did
not much affect the racecourse as it had an excellent wet weather track
and seldom cancelled racing.
Although the telephone had only been in use in Australia for about 20
years, it was proving very popular. At about nine o’clock a clerk at
Flinders Street Station picked up the earpiece of his candlestick
telephone and dialled the number of the traffic manager’s office.
When the call was answered by a messenger in the manager’s office,
the clerk enquired “Are the Mentone races postponed?”
Technology was still evolving and perhaps there was some crackling on
the line that made speech fuzzy. At all events, the messenger mistook
the enquiry for a statement and told his superiors, “The Mentone races
are postponed”.
The special trains, steam hissing quietly as they waited, were cancelled. Messages were sent by telegraph to all stations: “The Mentone races have been postponed”. Notices to that effect were posted at Mordialloc and elsewhere.
Back at Mentone racecourse all was quiet. Where were the expected
hordes of punters? Perhaps the trains had been temporarily delayed. As
the minutes stretched out and two hours had passed, the secretary of
the racecourse rang the traffic manager. The confusion was discovered.
The locomotives were attached to the carriages once more and those
punters still about finally made their way to Mentone racecourse,
arriving over an hour late.
Attendance was nevertheless still well down. The racecourse lost a great
deal of money that day – 250 pounds. The company consulted its
solicitors who in turn recommended seeking the advice of a barrister,
Leo Cussen. Sir Leo Cussen was later to become a highly regarded
Supreme Court Judge and a giant of Australian legal history. In 1901, he
was one of the leaders of the Victorian Bar whose reputation was such
that it was joked if a solicitor did not obtain Cussen’s opinion on
litigation, that would amount to professional negligence.
Not this time.
The Mentone Racing Company sued the Commissioner of the Victorian
Railways for negligently publishing a false and misleading notice. An
alternate plea of libel was also made.
District Court Judge Chormley and then the Full Court had no trouble
dismissing both claims despite Cussen’s advocacy. They held that there had been no malice in the publication of the notice, and indeed the notice on the mistaken facts was reasonable.
The Mentone racecourse continued as a training track until 1972 when
the land was subdivided and developed for housing. You can, however,
visit the Mentone racecourse reserve off Glenelg Drive Mentone as a continuing link to its glory days.
Adapted from Mentone Racing Club v Victorian Railway Commissioners (1902) 8 Argus Rep 100. References: Articles from Trove, Australian dictionary of Biography, Mentone Racecourse – article by Veronica Hahn.
