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ROBERT HEATLEY, the second of eight children reared by Scottish immigrants, represented Carlton in the then VFA for just one season – 1883 - before interests in first bookmaking and then property development took precedence.
The Blueseum’s Stephen Williamson, supplied the following extract from The Carlton Story by Hugh Buggy and Harry Bell, which acknowledges Heatley’s on-field contribution at that time.
“Opening the season against a Waverley 23, Carlton had an easy victory by seven goals to nil. Among the new players to show that game was Robert Heatley, who later became president of Carlton and worked indefatigably for many years for Carlton sport and the Carlton Recreation Ground. The Heatley stand was named to honour his memory, and in appreciation of his distinguished services to the club”.
Ten years after completing his maiden season with the Blues, on May 10, 1893, Heatley married Marion Bowman in her home town of Kyneton.
The Heatleys eventually settled in McIlwarith Street, North Carlton, at a place known as Anchorite (a name later given to a horse Heatley owned which won the Werribee Cup). In the end, the family relocated to the grand home at 393 Royal Parade just before the outbreak of the First World War.
Pic: Robert Heatley and wife Marion Bowman, Carlton, circa mid-1890s
“He [Heatley] had the house built,” Adams said. “It was a very large home on a block of about three quarters of an acre and it faced the Carlton ground.
“Unfortunately in the early 1960s, around about 15 years after he had died, the State Government acquired that property for the Pharmacy College. I was rather annoyed to find that they had acquired it at a cut-down rate and sold it off to the Dental Society. They didn’t keep possession of it and the Dental Society still owns the building, which was one of the reasons that the University of Melbourne didn’t take over the Pharmacy College when it wanted to become part of the University .
“The house is now gone, but I still go there to pat the elm trees out the front. The incredible thing is that the houses that remain on Royal Parade are the old terraces which in our day were the poor homes and are now worth a million.”
Robert and Marion Heatley raised five children. “There were three sons first and two daughters, and he (Heatley) gave each of them two terraces in North Carlton to set them up for life,” Adams said.
“He also gave his wife’s sister, who was living in moderate circumstances, a home in North Carlton – so there’s 11 homes that he bought and gave away – and he provided homes for his four sisters. He was unbelievable.”
Adams described Heatley’s three sons as “rather wayward souls” who were difficult to deal with, and Robert was a “Victorian-strict father as I understand”. Adams recalled that two of the sons enlisted for World War I, leaving behind the eldest, who had lost his arm in a train accident.
Robert Heatley’s marriage to Marion Bowman was unfortunately cut short when Marion, 16 months Robert’s senior, died of a heart ailment in 1915.
Though Heatley never remarried, his love affair with Carlton endured, together with his canny business sense.
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