Robert E Dawson
Mercantile Rowing Club (VIC)
Robert Ernest Dawson was born in Hobart Town and died at Black Rock Victoria on 16th December 1945.
Robert was one of the Club's first senior oarsmen and was a member of the Club's first ever winning senior Victorian Championship in 1895. He went onto win three Intercolonial Championships.
Mercantile's 1895 winning Victorian Championship Four with Dawson in the bow seat
Following his distinguished rowing career, Robert became a wine maker. His granddaughter Helen Christie advises that the wine making business was a partnership with a Club founder and life member, Thomas Gilchrist. Gilchrist doesn't appear to be an active partner as all credit for subsequent wine making has been given to Robert. It is possible that the partnership was short lived for the purpose of establishing the business as Dawson is noted as the proprietor within a few years. The vineyard and wine making property was at Humevale, southeast of Whittlesea and was known as the Glenlinton Vineyard. He produced award winning wine made from semillon, shiraz and cabernet sauvignon grapes from Britain. The boom years of the 1920s appear to have been good for the vineyard with reports of fruit tress being removed for more vines. As mentioned, fruit trees were also planted on the property. The property was purchased in about 1902 and sold as a going concern in 1937. In the auction advertisement, it was stated that Glenlinton is celebrated as producing the best light wines, claret, hock, and chablis in Victoria of late years, exactly similar in climate and type to the famous Upper Yarra wines of 20 to 50 years ago. Helen Christie put the sale of the business down to the Depression of 1930s, which of course impacted demand for quality wines, and a lack of interest by his sons to continue the business.
During his life he had also been appointed as a Magistrate in 1910, and to the Royal Agricultural Society in 1935.
The following family history has been provided by Dawson grandchild Helen Christie.
My Grandfather was born in Hobart Town as it was then known. His father Dr William Lee Dawson came to Australia from Ireland as a ship’s surgeon (a branch of the family has his diary written on the voyage, along with gruesomely, his amputation saw). He studied at both Trinity College, Dublin and London. William Dawson set up practice at Franklin on the Huon River, dying there in 1871 at the age of 51..
He married Emma Seabrook in Hobart. Emma was an elder sister of WJ Seabrook who wasn’t interested in being part of his father’s highly successful Seabrook building company in Hobart, and he moved to Victoria and established WJ Seabrook wine merchants. So this connection was obviously an influence with my grandfather and his establishment of Glenlinton winery. The Seabrook family still remain in the wine industry with a vineyard in the Barossa Valley.
When my great grandfather died in Tasmania Emma moved to Victoria with her family to live with her sisters. My grandfather would have been around 4 years old.
Thomas Gilchrist was in ‘silent’ partnership in the land with RE Dawson up until the time of Gilchrist’s death in 1928. My mother said he often stayed at Glenlinton and I think she was somewhat scared of him. `After his death a will was produced that had been signed shortly before his death naming his two sisters as beneficiaries. This was against the agreement that on his death the land would revert to the Dawson’s. This new will was contested and the case was won in favour of the earlier will due to TR Gilchrist being of unsound mind at the time and the coercion of his sisters. Except for the short period prior to his death when his sisters moved him to a private hospital he was cared for by the eldest of RE Dawsons 7 children (Olive) in Essendon, along with my mother who was a student at Penleigh Grammar and some (?) of the brothers who were at University. The handwritten transcript of the court case is still in the family.
Not only was this a difficult period for the family but made more so by their son (Robert) Leigh who died at 26 the year following Mr Gilchrist’s death due to the effects on his heart of a severe bout of rheumatic fever.
Dawson Family
Back: Jack, Leigh, Frank, Tom.
Middle: Frances, Robert Ernest and (Helen) Nellie
Front: Kathleen (my mother) and Olive
Known rowing history
1891 - Melbourne Regatta, Maiden Pair, bow - First
1891 - Bairnsdale Regatta, Maiden Four, bow - First
1892 - Upper Yarra Regatta, Junior Pair, bow - First
1892 - Bairnsdale Regatta, Maiden Eight, seven seat - First
1893 - Melbourne Regatta, Junior Eight, seven seat - First
1893 - Upper Yarra Regatta, Senior Four, bow - First
1893 - Richmond and South Yarra Regatta, Junior Four, bow - First
1894 - Melbourne Regatta, Senior Four, bow - First
1894 - Upper Yarra Regatta, Senior Four, bow - First
1894 - Bairnsdale Regatta, Senior Pair, bow - First
1894 - Richmond and South Yarra Regatta, Senior Four, bow - First
1895 - Ballarat Regatta, Senior Four, bow - First
1895 - Geelong and Barwon Regatta, Senior Four, bow - First
1895 - Victorian Championship Senior Four, bow - First
1895 - Intercolonial Men's Eight Championship, bow - First
1896 - Melbourne Regatta, Senior Four, bow - First
1896 - Victorian Championships, Senior Eight, three seat - First
1896 - Intercolonial Men's Eight Championship, bow - First
1896 - Intercolonial Men's Four Championship, bow - First
Andrew Guerin
March 2023 (updated in June 2025)
Sources:
- Emails from Helen Christie in June 2025
- http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11059102
- Glenlinton Archives - Australian Wine Collectables -http://australianwinecollectables.com/tag/glenlinton