Taphophile Tragics - Ego's folly

This is one of the most visited memorials in Rookwood, indeed, THE most visited. But I guess that is because it is presented in a particular way that appeals to the egalitarian nature of most Australians. And because it is on the schools' visiting programme. For mine, it is the salutary story of one who believed his own promotion.


John Frazer was a mercantilist of the nineteenth century, a shopkeeper if you will. Not to denigrate that noble calling, but it is just the way you earn your living. No more, no less. Not in my eyes. It is what you DO with your wealth, should you have the skills and the wit to accumulate same, that may justify your place in history, if that is what you crave. Frazer sought to memorialise himself to his city, by building water fountains to enable the citizenry access to fresh water as they go about their day. There is a Frazer Fountain in Albert Square, at the entrance to Domain Road, opposite St Mary's Cathedral. There is another Frazer Fountain in Hyde Park North at the pedestrian crossing over College Street to access Sydney Grammar School. This latter has been moved twice already as the city grew around it. The Albert Square fountain has had its water disconnected because of the futility of trying to access it in the middle of a traffic roundabout. A classic folly in pursuit of renown.

Yet Frazer's most grandiose folly is the monument built to house his mortal remains. Its footprint is in the shape of a giant tear-drop, bordered by a wrought-iron fence of which the lead photograph is part. Frazer died in 1884, leaving an estate of 405,000 pounds. Although others of his family were also eventually interred in the vault, due to fears of vandalism, the remains were more recently dis-interred and cremated. His descendants donated the monument as a shelter for birds, asking that the high windows be removed to allow them access. Within 6 months, the windows had to be boarded up again, because the birds were attracting vermin. So rather than a testament to John Frazer, Esq., the Frazer Vault stands as a testament to the workmanship of stonemasons of the past. Egalitarianism will have out.

The folly of Ozymandias

A folly is a whimsical structure built to serve as a conversation piece, or to lend interest to a view, or maybe to commemorate a person or an event. A folly is not a bad thing, just extravagant and ... out there. Today, I bring you some minor follies, some over-blown structures that are in one’s face on turning a corner, or breasting a rise, In this era of economic rationalism and financial discipline, it is a joy to find structures so essentially ... useless.

Below Left: The Victor Chang memorial opposite St Vincent's Hospital in Darlinghurst Below Right: Oxford Square near the intersection with Riley Street

The design for a cast-iron canopy drinking fountain was chosen from a Glaswegian catalogue by Mayor Renny in about 1870. Altogether, he had ten specifically forged for Sydney, complete with the coat of arms of the city at that time. Wherever they were originally located, many have been moved, and some ... lost. The book ends for this post show the canopy in Macquarie Place down at the Quay although it is missing its fountain, and looks a trifle naked. The only original location to still be graced with an ornate canopy fountain is Beare Park, in Elizabeth Bay.

Top: Gothic folly in Hyde Park Below both: The Albert Square folly that is a traffic hazzard!

Then we come to the redoubtable John Frazer, who must have been a Methodist with a strong dash of wowser. He had a wholesale grocery store down on York Street and gave the council a thousand pounds in the 1880s to erect drinking fountains for the citizenry. A thousand pounds! If money doubles every seven years ... that is a lot of dollars! Two were constructed, a gothic style one in Hyde Park which had to be moved a couple of times but now leads down to Sydney Grammar School on College Street. The other, in the Italian-Renaissance style this time, should be moved as it stands in the middle of Albert Square at the head of Art Gallery Road. It is a danger to drink from and, anyway, the water mechanism is long gone. A folly of a folly, I hear you say. Move it, I say. Down into the Domain and put the water mechanism back in.


And finally, the memorial fountain to Lewis Wolfe Levy, a Member of the Legislative Council who died in 1888, erected in the Royal Botanic Gardens by his bereft family. This has four (four!) water fountains, one on each corner. They all work, and water spouts out the mouths of lions on the super-structure. Who was he? He was born in London in 1815, died in Sydney in 1885 and had 15 children – sufficient one might think. What did he do? A businessman, pastoralist and mercantilist, he became a Director of Prince Alfred Hospital and the Industrial Blind Institution, as well as the President of Macquarie Street Synagogue - a pillar of the establishment, in other words.


Middle ranking citizens, worried that their deeds would not suffice, needed a more permanent reminder of their existence. ‘The lone and level sands stretch far away.’

Source: 'Water, water, everywhere' - City of Sydney

Sunday in my City - Water on tap

On Art Gallery Road, near Robbie Burns memorial

Top left: Victor Chang memorial opposite St Vincents Top Right: Hyde Park south, near War Memorial Bottom Left: Mid Central Ave, that joined Gardens with Domain Bottom Right: Grand Drive, Centennial Park

Water is the most precious of commodities. More precious than gold. More precious that shares. Nearly as precious as education, but not as precious as love. We drink it, we cook with it, we bathe in it, we launder in it, we flush with it. Human household uses. But there are also industrial uses and agricultural uses. Water was a marginalised natural resource that was taken for granted. But that is all changing.

Australia is an arid country, and it is not alone on the planet in that respect. Our rainfall pattern is around the coastal fringes, and obviously this is where the population exists. We have creeks, but not a plethora of massive running rivers. No Niles, Mississips. No Rhines, no Danubes.No Amazons, no Yangtzes. Our main river system, one that drains a massive area of the entire continent, is the Murray-Darling which is nearly 3,500 km long.

All three bubblers are in the Botanic Gardens, the two small ones are same bubbler from different angle

Consumers the world over, for the last decade, have been convinced that the only good water to drink is the water that comes in small plastic bottles. This may not be totally true, but it does have people taking water where-e’er they go, and drinking water more frequently. Drinking fountains (bubblers) went out of fashion when advertisers told us that they transmitted diseases and were unclean.

All the bubblers featured here are very close to the inner city, and in areas that were developed in the middle of the 19th century. There are bubblers all over our city and in our major parks. I lost count how many there are in Centennial Park. Nowadays, these are all connected to our main water supply.

Today, I feature the humbler bubbler. Tomorrow, the bubbler gets a roof over its head.

Near Mrs Macquarie's Chair overlooking the Opera House

A member of the Sunday in my City community.