About us

In the 1880’s, about 30 years after the gold rush, it would have been the peak time for the quartz mining of gold, and so there were a number of prominent business people within Bendigo. Quite a competition between Bendigo and Ballarat for different things, for example the size of the public buildings, and so Ballarat had formed its own trustee company. So, in the late 1880’s, a particular group of businessmen based in Bendigo said well we think Bendigo’s important enough to have its own trustee company. So, in December 1887, a group of businessmen met and decided to form a trustee company and they came up with the name Sandhurst and Northern District Trustees Executors and Agency Company. And for them I think it was to be Bendigo based, but also the northern part of Victoria as a focus. And it was basically a meeting of people who were fairly determined to set up one of these companies to service the local community. And they met in 1887 and then in turn got all the necessary approvals and formed the company and signed up the memorandum and articles of association of the company and that all happened the following year in January 1888.

It had to be created by a special act of Parliament. We do have the certificates on the wall as to back in 1887 when it was enacted and then the company started in 1888. So, they’re there and we’re quite proud to have them on our wall still.

And I guess there would have been that thing of ‘where do we start?’ And so, I gather from 1888 until they moved here to where we are today at 18 View Street in 1891, for about 2 years, 2 and a half years until they found this, their permanent home, they worked somewhere off Pall Mall. And that made sense, because their manager John Neeson, one of the people who helped form the company, he was based in the Beehive building. So, I don’t think it’s particularly clear which building Sandhurst Trustees was based in, but between 1888 and 1891 they were just based off Pall Mall and then in 1891 the company purchased the building as the post office had moved out. So, at about that time the huge post office that is now the Visitors centre had been built in Pall Mall, and Sandhurst Trustees bought what was then a vacant building. At the start though they only occupied the core central section of the building, and they had other businesses - solicitors, accountants - working in some of the other parts of the building as they didn’t occupy the whole building initially.

Particularly prominent amongst the first group of businessmen who formed the company, is the Abbott family and the Crowley family. And here at 18 View Street we have a particular set of photographs in our reception area honouring those initial people who were the initial directors of the company. John Crowley was quite a businessman, he owned the Princess Theatre in View Street, so it was opposite where Sandhurst Trustees is today, since demolished but, that was one of his business interests. At one point he was involved in the Shamrock Hotel and quite a local businessman prominent in the community. And separately, that other family name I mentioned, the Abbott family, they had made their mark on Bendigo through providing hardware to the miners but also, they had a substantial boot factory and sales room in Pall Mall. And they also had substantial tannery works in the local community and further north into other parts of Victoria. So, the Abbotts and the Crowleys were particularly involved in that initial phase of setting up the company in 1887, 1888.

So, when the company was formed in 1888, I guess like any group of people forming a company they wanted to come up with a motto or a phrase that would reflect what the company was supposed to do as a trustee company. And so, for the history of the company the motto has been mindful, faithful and lasting, reflecting the perpetual nature of a trustee company in dealing with people’s affairs. So, the company seal for many years has featured a castle, and that phrase, mindful, faithful and lasting. So, in the boardroom is the company seal, the very formal device that was used to affix the company seal so it’s a device that winds down and places pressure through the paper and in days gone by you would place a wafer on the paper, it’s called a wax wafer, and then you press the seal through it. So, there are very few places that still use this sort of device and the only other time I’ve seen one recently, is we had a visit recently to the Supreme Court of Victoria. The Supreme Court still uses an impressed seal on its grants of Probate that it issues. So, there are still occasions that people use those sorts of things. These days it’s in the boardroom as a more of a historical feature for the company rather than being something that used day to day. These days, sadly, we just use a self-inking stamp when we want to put the company seal on something.