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About The King of Melbourne:
Colonial Melbourne's most influential figure was more intriguing than you know
116 years ago, a cemetery in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs was bestowed with an extraordinary addition: a mausoleum of Egyptianizing architecture based on a well-known structure in Egypt called Trajan’s Kiosk.
It was built to inter the body of one of the city’s most prominent and well-known citizens, the owner of The Age newspaper and Scottish immigrant David Syme, and later his wife Annabella. It is considered a masterpiece of Arts and Crafts architecture.
David and Annabella Syme’s remains are in the mausoleum, but they were not joined by any of their nine children.
Not long afterwards, the fascinating story of how the tomb came to be, and the prominence of the man it was built for, faded into history, with many details lost, and many hidden.
This new biography about David Syme is not only about the heritage listed tomb but the spiritual understandings of the man himself, told from the perspective of a researcher - artist who has engaged with the monument in paintings and public talks for almost a decade.
Apart from a survey of the monument itself and the incredible artisans like Walter Butler, Royston Bradshaw, Mabel Young, and stonemasons the Ballantine Brothers responsible for its creation, the book explores what David Syme thought about religion: from his Calvinist beginnings as a young man in Scotland, to the afterlife and how Ancient Egyptian religion and symbolism are reflected in the very mausoleum itself.
The book examines connections to early Australian Prime Minister and Federation draftsman Alfred Deakin, British Spiritualist Gerald Massey, Spiritualism & Theosophy, and a pioneering newspaper that set the template for mighty newspapers in Australia and worldwide.