Owner of the Continental Hotel, Sorrento
Location: RC*R*300B
Louisa Margaret Devine, née Fitzgerald, was born about 1892 or 1893, reportedly at Ripponlea, Melbourne, and died on 26 August 1953. Although her exact birth registration and parentage have not yet been conclusively identified, she emerged during the 1920s in connection with one of Victoria’s best-known seaside hotels, the Continental Hotel at Sorrento. Her later ownership of the hotel’s freehold and an estate reported at approximately £51,600 indicate that she was a woman of considerable property and wealth, despite her occupation being conventionally recorded as “Home Duties” at the time of her burial.
The origins of Devine’s interest in the Continental remain intriguing. Evidence suggests that the Fitzgerald connection with the hotel preceded her marriage to Anthony Aloysius Devine. On 4 April 1923, a contemporary newspaper report concerning the theft of the hotel safe identified “Mrs Fitzgerald” as the licensee of the Continental Hotel. This does not establish that the woman was Louisa, nor does a liquor licence prove ownership of the freehold, but it demonstrates that a Fitzgerald woman was operating the hotel before Louisa became Mrs Devine. If Louisa was unmarried at the time, “Mrs Fitzgerald” may instead have been her mother or another relative, making the identification of Louisa’s parents particularly important to understanding the origins of her property interests.
The Continental itself had been a Sorrento landmark since 1875. Established for the Sorrento Hotel Company and closely associated with entrepreneur and politician George Coppin (Boroondara Cemetery), the imposing four-storey limestone hotel became one of the principal symbols of Sorrento’s development as a fashionable nineteenth-century seaside resort. Its history involved a succession of owners, proprietors and licensees, roles which were not necessarily held by the same person. A licensee operated the hotel under the liquor laws, while the proprietor of the hotel business might lease the premises from a separate registered owner of the land and buildings.
An important but incompletely documented change in ownership occurred in December 1913, when newspapers reported that the Continental had been sold at a “highly satisfactory figure”. The report noted that the freehold had changed hands only once in approximately thirty years, but the brief account does not establish the purchaser or consideration. Establishing the ownership of the Continental between this 1913 transaction and the appearance of Mrs Fitzgerald in 1923 may ultimately explain how Louisa became associated with the property.
The Continental was again offered for sale on 16 August 1923, at an auction held at Scott’s Hotel in Melbourne. Bidding opened at £9,000 and rose to £13,250, but the vendor refused the highest bid and the property was passed in for private treaty. The £13,250 figure was therefore not the sale price of the Continental, and there is presently no evidence that Louisa or Anthony Devine paid that amount for the hotel. A private sale may subsequently have occurred, but the purchaser, consideration and any mortgage or vendor-finance arrangements have not yet been established.
Louisa Fitzgerald reportedly married Anthony Aloysius Devine in 1923, the same year as the unsuccessful Continental auction. Anthony, born near Geelong on 16 June 1888, had worked as a grain broker before serving during the First World War and later developed an interest in the tea trade. By 1924, a secondary account drawing upon electoral-roll evidence places Anthony and Louisa at Sorrento as proprietors of the Hotel Continental. Their association with the hotel so soon after the marriage has sometimes encouraged the assumption that the couple purchased it together, but the earlier Fitzgerald connection makes the circumstances considerably less certain.
Of particular significance is a later historical compilation of Continental Hotel owners which includes both L. Fitzgerald and L. Devine. Given Louisa’s maiden surname and her marriage to Anthony Devine in 1923, it is possible that these entries refer to the same woman before and after marriage. If so, the apparent transition from Fitzgerald to Devine may represent a change of surname rather than a conventional sale of the property. Under this interpretation, Louisa already possessed or controlled an interest in the Continental as L. Fitzgerald and continued to hold it as L. Devine after her marriage.
Another possibility is that the Continental belonged to an older member of the Fitzgerald family and was subsequently transferred, settled upon or inherited by Louisa. The “Mrs Fitzgerald” operating the hotel in April 1923 could have been Louisa’s mother, aunt or another relative. A third possibility is that Louisa and Anthony purchased the property by private treaty following the failed August 1923 auction, perhaps with mortgage or vendor finance. None of these explanations has yet been conclusively demonstrated. The historic certificate of title and the registered dealings surrounding the 1923–24 period are required to establish whether the property passed from Fitzgerald to Devine by sale, family transfer, inheritance, settlement or simply a change in the registered proprietor’s surname.
Louisa’s ownership of valuable property was not legally exceptional for a married woman by the 1920s. Victorian married-women’s-property reforms had established the right of married women to hold property separately from their husbands. The significant historical question is therefore not whether Louisa could own the Continental in her own name, but how the Fitzgerald interest in the property originated and how it came into her possession. The evidence presently available makes it possible that the Continental connection belonged principally to Louisa and her Fitzgerald background rather than originating with Anthony Devine.
Anthony and Louisa had one child, whose name appears in different sources as Gerald or Gerard Devine. The discrepancy has not yet been resolved from a primary record. A later biographical account of Anthony also states that Louisa died in 1933, but this conflicts with the much stronger evidence for Louisa Margaret Devine’s death in 1953. The 1933 date may be a transcription or typographical error, although the possibility of confusion between two women cannot be completely excluded until the relevant marriage and death records are compared.
By about 1931, a secondary account places Anthony and Louisa in connection with the Emerald Country Club. Anthony was later associated with the Broken River Hotel at Benalla. These later movements do not necessarily mean that Louisa had disposed of the Continental. Ownership of the freehold could be separated from operation of the hotel, allowing Louisa to retain the Sorrento property while leasing it to other hotelkeepers and living elsewhere. This may help explain her later residence in Brighton while the Continental continued to operate under other proprietors.
At the time of her death Louisa lived at 18 Kinnane Street, Brighton. She died on 26 August 1953, aged 60, and was buried two days later at Brighton General Cemetery in the Roman Catholic section. Her burial register recorded her occupation as “Home Duties”, a conventional description which gives little indication of her apparent financial position or property interests.
The scale of those interests became apparent after her death. In November 1953 a contemporary newspaper report headed “Woman left £51,600” identified Mrs Louisa Margaret Devine of Kinnane Street, Brighton Beach, as having left an estate valued at approximately £51,600. This was a substantial fortune for the period and suggests that Louisa possessed significant assets in her own right. The newspaper report does not, however, establish whether the figure represented the gross or net estate or how much of it consisted of the Continental Hotel, other real estate, investments, mortgages, securities or cash.
Louisa’s probate inventory and will are consequently important surviving records for understanding her life. They may establish whether she still owned the Continental at her death, identify other property and investments, name her beneficiaries and perhaps resolve the Gerald-Gerard discrepancy concerning her son. If the Continental remained part of her estate in 1953, the probate papers should also help explain how the property subsequently passed from her ownership.
The later disposition of the Continental remains uncertain. A secondary ownership list places N. and G. Fernhead after L. Devine, but without sufficient dates to establish whether they purchased the property directly from Louisa, acquired it from her estate, obtained it through an intermediate owner or merely operated the hotel while another person retained the freehold. The historic land title should ultimately establish the sequence.
Louisa Margaret Devine is therefore significant not simply as the wife of a hotel proprietor but as a woman who appears to have possessed substantial property in her own right. The surviving evidence increasingly suggests that the key to her association with the Continental lies in her Fitzgerald background. A Fitzgerald woman was operating the hotel before Louisa’s marriage; later accounts identify both L. Fitzgerald and L. Devine among those associated with its ownership; and Louisa eventually died leaving an estate worth tens of thousands of pounds.
The possibility that L. Fitzgerald became L. Devine through marriage is particularly compelling, although it remains unproved until the historic title is examined. Alternatively, the Continental may have passed to Louisa from another Fitzgerald relative. Either explanation would mean that the origins of her wealth lay at least partly on her side of the family rather than with Anthony Devine.
Her story also illustrates the limitations of conventional records of women’s lives. In the cemetery register Louisa was simply a woman engaged in “Home Duties”. Behind that modest description, however, was a substantial estate and an association with one of Victoria’s most important historic hotels. Establishing her parents, identifying the mysterious Mrs Fitzgerald at the Continental in 1923, and tracing the hotel’s title through the Fitzgerald-to-Devine period may eventually reveal how a largely forgotten Brighton woman came to hold such a valuable place in the history of Sorrento.
Sources:
Contemporary Victorian newspaper reports concerning the Continental Hotel burglary and Mrs Fitzgerald’s licence, April 1923; the auction of the Continental Hotel, August 1923; and Louisa Margaret Devine’s £51,600 estate, November 1953.
Heritage Victoria, Continental Hotel, Sorrento, heritage history and significance documentation.
Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, historical indexes and death registration for Louisa Margaret Devine.
Public Record Office Victoria, probate and land-record research collections.
Australian War Memorial, records relating to Anthony Aloysius Devine and his First World War service.
St Patrick’s College heritage biography of Anthony Aloysius Devine, used cautiously where its account conflicts with primary evidence.
Contemporary and later historical accounts of the ownership and operation of the Continental Hotel, Sorrento.