Page 9 - Pharmacy History 34 February 2008

as a result of the gold discoveries in that area. Father William worked
in the mines and his mother was a midwife in Gympie. The young Ernest Nathanial followed on his own shortly afterwards on 29th June 1885 aboard the 3884 ton iron vessel SS Quetta. The Quetta was a very well known emigrant ship, until it was wrecked with significant loss of life (133 lost out of 291 passengers) in Torres Strait on 28 February 1890 when bound from Queensland ports to India and England.8
He then served his Australian apprenticeship time in Gympie, receiving night tuition in Latin, English and Mathematics. His father William died of typhoid on the 28 February 1890.9 No Social Security was available in those days and Ernest became the breadwinner for the family on an apprentice’s wages of one pound per week. Times were so tough in the new colony that he was sometimes paid in biscuitsibid. On completion of this indentureship, he worked briefly in Brisbane during 1891 for Elliott Bros and also for WJ Trouton on the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets.
Then, bearing an exemplary reference from his former master pharmacist William Wilcox, he arrived in Rockhampton aboard the SS Yaralla in 1891 as assistant to Tom Ingham. In 1894 he passed his final examinations under the tutelage of Arthur Brand Chater, a name familiar to the older generation of pharmacists through his son Arthur Burnett Chater, responsible for much hard work for the Pharmacy Guild in Queensland. EN Symons married Orion Carter in 1897 and they had four children:, Iris Marguerite (Rita), 2 February 1896; Ernest Henry, 21 December 1896; Orion Louise 8 May 1901 and Maude Irene Blanche, 27 June 1907. On New Year’s Day 1897 he acquired the business which eventually became EN Symons and Son when his son Ernie was taken into partnership, the firm trading under this name for almost 100 years. He acquired a property at 139 East Street in 1918 and eventually relocated the business there in 1929. On Ernie’s death in 1941, EN Symons took his daughter Rita ( who registered on 11th
February, 1921) into partnership and when EN Symons died in 1950, his grandson Rex Deacon (son of Orion Louise) entered partnership with her.
In addition to his pharmaceutical accomplishments, EN Symons was
a flautist of international standard and made significant contributions
to the musical life and reputation of Rockhampton. Dame Nellie Melba’s flautist is on record in classing Ernest as the best flautist of the period in the world . He achieved the Advanced Diploma of the Royal Academy
of Music in 1904 and became an Associate of Trinity College in 1909. Musical prowess was evident also in the other family members, as son Ernie was an accomplished violinist while Rita and Maude excelled on the piano. The family home at ‘Blancheville’ at 149 Denham Street was a place of great influence in the cultural and musical life of the city and on practice nights, the neighbours would gather outside for a free concert.ibid
Tropical tonic recipe
Chemists of the era jealously guarded their own precious secret formulae for both internal and external remedies. Such formulae were scripted in copperplate writing and the book kept locked in the business safe. E N Symons proudly purveyed amongst other items, Pectorine Cough Mixture Numbers 1 and 2 (with creosote), Coral Dentifrice Powder, Ideal Embrocation for sprains and strains, Magic Corn Remover, Murillo Hand Cream, Zalara Freckle Cream, Zanetta Hair colour restorer, ENSCO Cough Mixture, Symons’ Tropical Nerve and Brain Tonic (containing strychnine, a common stimulant of those times), Cholera and Diarrhoea Mixture and
Carbolised Eucalyptus Ointment
Carbolised Eucalyptus Ointment (for boils, carbuncles and Barcoo Rot).
A unique feature of the business was the pink marble and golden tap fittings of the soda fountain, much enjoyed
by the local citizenry and especially popular during the war years of the 1940s. Although no longer in use by the time of the writer’s association with the business (1957), it was a treasured icon of a bygone era. When the pharmacy eventually closed in
the mid-1990s, a connection with
the city of over 120 years and with a era when misce secundem artem was a professional philosophy was forever severed.
References
1. Holthouse H 1976 Ships in the Coral MacMillan Sth Melbourne pp 95-102.
2. McDonald L 1981 Rockhampton A history of city and district. Uni. of Qld Press St Lucia pp 359, 513.
3. Rockhampton Morning Bulletin 10.12.29.
4. Pattison J Grant Battler’s Tales of early Rockhampton 1st Reprint 2000 CQ Fam Hist Assoc.
5. Cribb A B & J W 1990 Wild Medicine in Australia p 66 Collins/Angus & Robertson Australia North Ryde.
6. Queensland Country Life May, 1908.
7. Hermann E A 1964 Development of Rockhampton pp 37-38 The Perrier Collection Rock. Municipal Library.
8. Holthouse H 1976 Ships in the Coral MacMillan Sth Melbourne pp 123-127.
9. Allan 2002 ,The Allan Family Papers.
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Pharmacy History Australia 9