Binks Family Bendigo

Frederick (Freddie) Lawrence Binks

By Rob Upson

Bendigo Historical Society Member

Freddie Binks was born in Ballarat in 1856 to the Rev. William Lawrence Binks and Sarah Green Binks (nee Howse).

He is well known for being the first student to be enrolled in the newly established Wesley College, St Kilda Road, Melbourne in 1866.

Wesley College was named after John Wesley (1703-1791) co-founder of the Methodist Church.

The foundation stone was laid by the then Governor of Victoria in January 1865.

Binks Family

The Rev. Binks and his wife were one of several Methodist families who raised funds for the building of Wesley College. He was the Minister of the Wesley Uniting Church in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne as well as in other parishes in Victoria and South Australia.

William Lawrence Binks was born in 1819 in Durham, England and in 1841 entered the Wesleyan ministry. Two years later he was sent to the West Indies as a missionary where he met and married Sarah Howse in 1848. After returning to England, he was then sent to Melbourne in 1855 to take charge of the Wesleyan ministry.

In 1868 he was transferred to Adelaide where he was involved in the establishment of Prince Alfred College where son Freddie was among its first intake of students. Quite a unique distinction, Freddie being one of the first students at two wellknown schools.

After leaving school Freddie went into banking. In 1899 he came to Bendigo as Manager of the National Bank of Australasia at 32 Pall Mall Bendigo.

Formerly the Colonial Bank, it was designed by William Charles Vahland and built in 1887.

Freddie lived in the compact Manager’s quarters on the top floor until he married Mabel Alice Smith in 1905 at the Sacred Heart Church in St Kilda. The couple lived at 42 Wills Street for a while, briefly at the City Family Hotel, and finally at 96 Moore Street. They didn’t have any children.

Contribution to Bendigo

Freddie Binks was a member of the Sandhurst Club and was its President in 1900/01. Freddie was also a member of the Bendigo Jockey Club and a Founding Member of the Bendigo Golf Club at Epsom in 1901. Unfortunately, the Club has no record of any of his achievements.

The only reference to Freddie Binks in the Bendigo Historical Society’s Collection is a postcard from the Roy and Doris Kelly Collection. It is stamp dated 27 Dec 1904 and sent to him at the National Bank, Bendigo from an undecipherable named person.

After he retired from banking, Freddie became a Share Broker and held a Gold Buyer’s Licence.

He died on 11th October 1926 and is buried in the Bendigo Cemetery. (Mon H6 Grave 27104). His widow, Mabel Alice, returned to Melbourne to live and she died on 20th July 1955. She was cremated and her ashes scattered in the Fawkner Cemetery, presumably around the graves of her parents.

In 2021, the Old Wesley Collegians Association (OWCA) installed a plaque on Freddie’s gravestone honouring him as being the first student enrolled at Wesley College in 1866.