Summary

Eliza Bushe Wallen arrived in Melbourne in November 1852, on the maiden voyage to Australia of the SS Great Britain, with her parents and siblings. Her father, Francis Robertson Wallen established the firm F.R. Wallen & Sons in Queen Street. The family lived in various parts of Collingwood, Richmond and Hawthorn. Eliza's eldest brother, Robert Elias Wallen, became the first chairman of the Melbourne Stock Exchange.

Less than two years after her arrival in Melbourne, Eliza became ill with colonial (typhoid) fever. On 7 March 1854, aged just 17 years, Eliza succumbed to her illness. This lock of her hair with a bell-shaped gold clasp is inscribed with her name and the date of her death, and was preserved in a small wooden glass-fronted case.

Physical Description

Lock (ringlet) of hair held with an engraved gold bell shaped clasp. Housed in a velvet lined wooden box with a glass front, under the ringlet some paper documents are visible.

Significance

This mourning box speaks to the highly structured traditions of mourning during the Victoria era where grieving was in many cases a public not a private act. During the Victorian era hair was commonly used in items to remember the dead as it was seen as the most delicate yet lasting of materials which survived someone's passing like love.

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