The Emerald Museum and Nobelius Heritage Park is at Crichton Road in Emerald. The park occupies part of the Gembrook Nurseries, operated by Carl Axel Nobelius and his sons from 1886. Carl was born in Finland in 1851 to Swedish parents and he migrated to Melbourne in 1872. By 1903 Nobelius was advertising over one million trees for sale and this had increased to 3 million trees just before the First World War. The nursery concentrated on fruit and ornamental trees and supplied trees world wide, including to South Africa to replant their orchards after the Boer War. Many of the ornamental trees planted by Nobelius can still be seen at the Nobelius Heritage Park.The Emerald Museum has an interesting display of material representing Emerald's past including Nobelius memorabilia, the Writers of the Dandenong exhibit and a gold mining exhibit. Gold was discovered at Emerald in 1858. Visit the website for more information - http://www.emeraldmuseum.org.au/ An attractive and informative booklet Nobelius Heritage Park : an illustrated guide by Jo Jenkinson, is available at the Museum.
Back to Carl Axel Nobelius (1851 - 1921) - he married Emily Brightwell (1857 - 1911) in 1877. They had eleven children - Hilda (born 1877 - 1941, married name Taylor), Carl Oscar (1879 - 1958), Otto Victor (1881 - 1882), Conrad Percival (1883 - 1968), Archibald Victor (1885 - 1962), Ethel Ruby (1887 - 1965, married name Hayes), Clifford Stanley (born and died 1891), Rupert Wilfred (1891 - 1965), Clifford Leonard (1892 - 1967), Rudolf Stanley (1895 - 1896) and Stella Irene (1897 - 1974, married name Skehan)
4 comments:
I love your blog, very informative. We had a Nobelius who used to run the old post office in Narre Warren when I was only little and the phones still ran by him plugging everyone in on a big board, maybe he was a relation??
Keep up the good work!
In the Library Archive we have a copy of an obituary of Sylvia Nobelius (nee Harmer)(1914-2006) , wife of Jack. Jack became the Post Master at Narre Warren after he returned from fighting in the Second World War. Jack (1913-1983)was the son of Carl Oscar and Florence (nee Prescott) Nobelius. Carl was the son of the founder of the Nobelius Nurseries, Carl Axel Nobelius. Sylvia Lane , off Malcolm Court, in Narre Warren is named in honour of Sylvia in recognition of her wide ranging community involvement.
Yes, in later life, Jack was the Post Master at the Narre Warren Post Office. I am fortunate to have know Jack's son Haydn Nobelius who was born in 1946 (I believe) and I have known him since 1968 and we remain close friends. Haydn still lives in Narre Warren and is very proud of his family's history in the Emerald and Narre Warren areas. The local Narre Warren newspaper has just recently (June or July of 2021) published a 2 page feature article on the Nobelius family with several interesting photographs. In addition to the family achievements in the nursery, market gardening and orchard industries, of note was the fact that Jack Nobelius was an accomplished Baritone who won many prestigious awards and even declined the offer of a recording career in the USA, preferring instead to marry his sweetheart Sylvia and raise his family in Melbourne.
Thank you Rod. They are certainly an interesting family, who have contributed so much to the development of our area.
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