Some notes on
Raymond Hollis Longford

Raymond Hollis Longford has long been revered as a great, if not the greatest, Australian director of silent motion pictures. But his early life, prior to his involvement in the movie industry, is more myth that historical fact: his own statements of events, issued at various times during his later life, contain demonstrable inaccuracies. Unfortunately, there is very little in the way of primary evidence about him prior to his marriage on 5 February 1900.

His early years

The following excerpts of various dates, all when he was alive, give some supposed details of his early life.

1. Mr. Longford is one of the few men who boasts that he has been in jail. He was born in the old Sydney jail, where his father, the late Jack Longford, well known Sydney identity of the early nineties, was in residence, and lived there until he went to sea in a windjammer. Subsequently he was engaged in the Indian Medical Service. He was a roamer in many countries until he considered it time to settle down, ...¹

2. The reason why I wished to produce that film [For the Term of His Natural Life] was that I was au fait with the whole thing. My father was one of the chief officials of the Sydney Gaol, and having lived there for many years in the early days, I have a good knowledge of prison life. I am 52 years of age. I well remember many of the warders who were employed on the chain gang in Melbourne. McKinley was an orderly on Norfolk Island.²

3. Longford's life has been an adventurous one .... In the '90's he went down to sea in the windjammers, was an actor in India in 1897, a soldier during the Boer War and afterwards a wanderer through the glamorous East³

4. A long article in the October 1950 issue of A.M.: the Australian Magazine, some details from which are included below.

5. Sydney-born Raymond Longford has packed more adventure into his life-span than any of his fictitious characters. In his teens he was apprenticed to the sea in a windjammer, and he sneaked ashore at Iquique (Chile) to become mixed up in a South American revolution.
   After a few years before the mast, he secured his second mate's ticket in London, then became a medical service official in India.
   Longford discovered in Calcutta that he could make a living on the stage, and it was as a professional actor that he returned to Australia.⁴

6. Longford narrowly escaped being born in Darlinghurst Jail [sic] where his father was an official. His mother, he says, hailed a hansom and made hospital just in time.
   He stumbled into film making after a stint at sea, a brief, involuntary appearance as a Chilean revolutionist and some years of hard, gruelling acting in London and India.⁵

There is also:

7. National Film and Sound Archive of Australia: title no. 376619: [FRY, LEN : INTERVIEWED BY GRAHAM SHIRLEY, RAY EDMONDSON AND NEIL MCDONALD]
   Leonard Sidney Fry was a nephew of Longford, 31 years his junior, and the two never met. The interview took place when Fry was 74 years old, and all details he gave of Longford's life were learnt from his mother, Longford's younger sister Marguerite, and others in the family; he also had a copy of the A.M. article (4 above). Some of his statements are wrong, and due to the generation difference and the second-hand nature of his information, what Fry said cannot be trusted.

Taking the events of Longford's early life in chronological sequence:

His father, John Walter Longford, and mother, Charlotte Maria Hollis, were married in Melbourne on 20 October 1870 and soon after went to Sydney. In mid-1871 his father took positions in the NSW Police Force, firstly as a supernumerary and then as a constable, but he resigned only 3 months later. Three children were born in Sydney, but 2 (twins) died in infancy. Then on 27 November 1877 John Walter senior took the post of Assistant Inspector of Fisheries in Victoria; it is not known whether the family moved there before or after this appointment. John Walter Longford junior (who would later call himself Raymond Hollis Longford) was born on 23 September 1878 at William Street, Hawthorn, Melbourne⁶ (not, as per 6, in hospital).

John Walter senior had further positions in the Victorian Government service, as an Officer of Customs, and later as a Deputy Electoral Registrar for Bairnsdale, East Gippsland, which office he resigned in January 1881 after only 4 months. The family had been living at Paynesville, and maybe country life wasn't to their liking. By the end of 1881 they were back in Sydney, at Surry Hills. John Walter junior was baptised (with his younger brother Victor William) on 2 February 1883 at the Anglican church of St Michael, Flinders St (then Botany St), Surry Hills; his name was given as "Raymond John Walter Longford".

By the end of 1882 John Walter Longford senior had obtained a position as a warder at Darlinghurst Gaol, Sydney. In mid-1889 he was promoted to gatekeeper (or officer in charge of the gate), and took up residence in the gaol compound; the family was probably there with him by late 1890. But at the start of 1894, because of a serious illness, he had to relinquish his job at the prison. He was soon after declared bankrupt. He died on 7 February 1897 in hospital at Sydney.

1, 4, 5, and 6 above incorrectly state that Longford was born in Sydney, and 1 and 6 get more specific in stating that he was (almost) born in Darlinghurst Gaol; but it wasn't until Raymond was about 4 years old that his father started working at the gaol.

According to the entry for Longford in the Australian Dictionary of Biography he was educated at St. John's Parochial School, Darlinghurst Rd, Darlinghurst, Sydney, but the source of this detail is not known.

4, 5, and 6 state that Raymond was involved in a revolutionary uprising at Iquique, Chile, with 4 going into considerable detail:

He was still in his teens when he sneaked ashore at the port of Iquique (Chile) ready for South American adventure. Whether his secret aim was to become President of Chile is not a thing that Longford discusses. But he admits that he soon ran into all the action he wanted.

The boy from down under discovered, quicksticks, that he had strayed right into the thick of South American politics conducted in traditional fashion. The noises-off sounded like the battle scene effects piped into radio serials. Raymond, with his two hands and his 14 words of Spanish, was cast (involuntarily) as an accomplice of some no-account insurrectionists. They set him up with a personal field-piece that reached approximately from shoulder to ankle. Lugging round this piece of ordnance was quite enough to bother a boy – without the additional difficulty of trying to find out, in a foreign country, what the hell went forward.

Within a few days, the future inventor of the close-up had a premonitory close-up of what revolution means. The forces of law-and-order smothered the insurrectionists in fly-swat style. Young Raymond from Iquique, late of Sydney, observed one of his willy-nilly mates being done to death in a dark corner. "I got rid of that gun of mine," says Longford today, "in about a split second."

The Chilean Civil War took place in the first 9 months of 1891,⁷ and major events occurred at the northern sea port of Iquique, which was secured by the insurrectionist forces in mid-February. (And the insurrectionists ultimately won the war.) Longford was only 12 years old (not in his teens) at this time, and although he may have been on a ship that called at ports in Chile, it is highly unlikely he would have been anything more than an observer of any military or revolutionary activity. How did he "sneak" ashore? How did he get around with (almost) no Spanish? How did he get away to safety? One has to conclude that this story of Longford's activities in South America is BS.

That he was a seaman there is no doubt. One item that he kept from his younger days is his Certificate of Discharge⁸ from his service on board the steamer Port Chalmers. He was engaged as 3rd mate on the Port Chalmers on 5 February 1896 at Sydney; the ship did not arrive there until 13 February, was then cleaned at Mort's Dock, went to Newcastle and then back to Sydney, and finally left for London on 5 March⁹, arriving there on 27 April 1896. As Longford had his mate's certificate for this voyage he would already have had some years' exper­ience as a crew member on ships.¹⁰ Whether he ever sailed on a windjammer is unconfirmed.

As for his working in the Indian Medical Service, the A.M. article (4) states that he was "a public officer employed by the official medical service" who "travelled all over the semi-peninsula of misery and magnificence." If he truly had an official position then there should be records in the British Library's Oriental and India Office Collections or in the archives of the government offices in India that dealt with his claimed duties.

Did he do any stage acting in England or India in the 1890s? An extensive search of local newspapers in both countries might turn up a reference to him, but there is no certainty that it would. But there is no reason to believe the claim in 4 that in "Calcutta, Longford went on to the boards professionally" (copied in excerpt 5) and that he returned to Australia as a "professional actor" because, firstly, his occupation as noted on both his marriage certificate and the birth certificate of his son is seaman, and further, there is no record of his performing on the stage in Australia until mid-1905 – see below.

The Boer War (South African War)

The story regarding Longford and the Boer War / South African War is that he served (in some capacity) during the War, then returned to Sydney, and then married Melena Louisa Keen.¹¹ As their son, Victor Hollis Longford, was born on 15 August 1900 he was conceived in mid-November 1899 (presumably at Sydney), and Longford and Keen obviously met before this – though quite probably not long before: as they married on 5 February 1900 it appears to have been a shotgun wedding. The official start date of the Boer War is 11 October 1899. As steamers took about 4 weeks to travel between Sydney and Cape Town (and usually longer when stops were made at other Australian ports), the only way for Raymond Longford to have had any involvement at the start of the War was for him to have been in South Africa when war was declared, and to have left for Australia almost immediately after.

Longford is not listed in Lieutenant-Colonel P. L. Murray, Official Records of the Australian Military Contingents to the War in South Africa; but as this volume is known to be far from complete the absence of his name does not indicate that he was not involved in the War. Nor is his name found in the Australian War Memorial's index of those who served in the Boer War.

If Raymond did have any involvement in any activity related to the Boer War one possibility is that he worked as crew on one or more of the merchant ships that were used as troop transports. Based on the dates of departure from Sydney, arrival in South Africa, and return arrival in Sydney, the first troop ship he could have worked on was the Australasian which left Sydney on 16 February 1900, which was only a week and a half after he and Melena Keen were married – so maybe a little too soon. The Maplemore and the Atlantian departed soon after, on the 16th and 28th respectively. It is not known if Longford was in Sydney at the time of the birth of his son, but he was not the informant of the birth to the registrar.

Len Fry (7 above) claimed he was told that Raymond worked on ships that transported horses from Australia to India for the Indian Army. If this is so – it is not unreasonable – then possibly Longford also went from India to South Africa at some time. Further investigation of shipping records may help to shed light on this matter.

The official end date of the Boer War is 31 May 1902.

His first marriage

On 5 February 1900 at St. Luke's Anglican church, Burton St, Concord, Sydney, Longford (as Raymond John Walter Longford) married Melena Louisa Keen, the fifth of the ten surviving children of William Henry Keen, a brickmaker, and Susan Elizabeth (née Perry) (who had married in Sydney on 19 August 1870). Melena had been born on 26 September 1881 and was thus younger than 21 years, so her father had given his written consent to the marriage. As Raymond's and Melena's one (and only) child, Victor Hollis Longford, was born on 15 August 1900 it was obviously a shotgun wedding. (Longford was a sailor!)

The marriage was unsuccessful from early on. Melena later claimed that Longford had worked as an insurance agent and was often away from home on business. How long they lived together has not been determined, as they have not been found on early electoral rolls. But by 1908, Melena was back with her parents in Croydon, Sydney (in which suburb she would reside for about 15 more years), and Longford was living at (presumably temporary) accommodation in Surry Hills, Sydney. There is no evidence of their living together after then.

Eventually they did divorce. On 9 July 1924¹³ Melena filed a petition for divorce on the grounds of desertion (and not adultery), claiming that Raymond had left her more than 3 years previously without just cause or excuse. The case didn't get to court until 6 August 1925, when a decree nisi was, as was usual, issued. Longford did not appear in court, nor was he represented; he also had costs awarded against him. A decree absolute was granted on 16 March 1926.¹⁴

Why did it take so long (for either party) to initiate divorce proceedings? On Melena's side, the likely reason was the cost of doing so, and the same was probably also true for Raymond. There was also the likelihood of public disapprobation or shame during or following a divorce. But the timing of the application by Melena was almost certainly a consequence of the deaths of her parents and what happened as a result thereof.

Her father died on 20 August 1922 and all his estate passed to her mother. Susan Elizabeth Keen died on 11 May 1924, at which time she was the owner of several blocks of land in Queen St and Richmond St, Croydon, where she and some of her children, including Melena, lived. The mother's estate, apart from some specific bequests, was divided in equal parts amongst her 10 children.¹⁵ Melena, having been living with her mother, realised the disposal of the real estate would deprive her of a residence. It is thus not surprising that her divorce application was filed within 2 months of her mother's death. She was also able to have her costs of the suit paid by Raymond; in her affidavit in support of the motion for this she stated that she had been informed that Longford had sued his own company, The Longford-Lyell Australian Picture Productions Limited, for arrears in salary of £750, and also that he had received large sums in royalties from films, including Fisher's Ghost¹⁶ – so he was supposedly financially capable of paying her legal fees. Longford's and Lyell's production company was (voluntarily) wound up on 10 June 1924 and this event may also have contributed to Melena's decision to petition for divorce.

For the rest of her life Melena retained her married name, did not remarry, and lived at various addresses in Sydney, usually with one or another of her sisters. She died at Roselands Private Hospital, Beverly Hills, Sydney on 24 August 1970. Curiously, in the death notice that appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald of 25 August, she is referred to as the "dearly loved wife of the late Raymond Longford", and her death registration gives her conjugal status as a widow, rather than as being divorced. As for a few years prior to her death she had been living with her youngest sister, Lilian Alice, it is highly likely that Lilian wrote (or at least provided the details for) the notice; what had she been told about Melena's non-relationship with Longford over the previous 6 decades?

There is a story, apparently coming from Len Fry in his interview (7 above), that Melena for a long time refused to grant Longford a divorce because she was a Roman Catholic. But there is no other evidence that she was: her parents are not known to have been Catholics, and both were buried in the Independent section of Rookwood cemetery; Melena married Longford in an Anglican church; her cremation service was performed by a Methodist minister. And ultimately, as described above, she divorced him. Possibly in this matter Fry confused Melena with Emilie Elizabeth Anschutz, Longford's second wife, who was a Catholic. There was no necessity for Melena to "grant" Raymond a divorce: had he wanted to he could have petitioned the court on his own account, though he may not have had sufficient grounds: Melena had not deserted him and might even have been willing to live with him again. (And did Raymond even care about getting a divorce? Did he want to marry Lottie Lyell? Would Lottie have agreed to marry him?)

Travelling player

Despite the claims in excerpts 3, 4, 5, and 6 above the first we definitely know of his acting on the stage is a report of a performance of the play Under Two Flags on 25 August 1905 at the Palace Theatre, Sydney, wherein he portrayed the character Colonel Chateauroy.¹² He gets special mention: he was "sufficiently vindictive" in the part. This performance was the first of pupils of the Academy of Dramatic Art, which was run by Frank Reis, a former stage manager for William Anderson, and pupils of the elocutionist Stella Chapman. It is thus reasonable to assume that Longford had been taking acting lessons from Reis. This does not, of course, preclude his having acted in London or India in the 1890s. 1905 is also when he started using his mother's maiden name, "Hollis", as part of his name.

Four months later, on Boxing Night (26 December) of that year, Longford started in a tour with the Lilian Meyers Dramatic Company, this first performance taking place in the Masonic Hall at Bathurst, NSW. During all of 1906 and most of 1907 the Meyers company, with Longford, toured country NSW and Queensland; in November 1907 he left them before they went to Tasmania.

It was reported that Longford was to be part of a Queensland tour by Fitzmaurice Gill's Dramatic Company, starting in early February 1908, but he didn't do this because his next known performances were with Blandford Wright's Great Musical Comedy Company at the Victoria Theatre, Newcastle, NSW, for the last week of February 1908. Perhaps he skipped the Queensland tour with Gill because he had lined up a tour with one of Edwin Geach's companies that took him to New Zealand early in March. The group were across the Tasman Sea for 3 months before returning to Sydney on 9 June 1908; they then went to Queensland in mid-July, but Longford appears to have stayed with them for only another couple of months, because at the start of October he was with the May Renno Dramatic Company in northern New South Wales and later in Queensland. This tour finished sometime in February 1909, after which Longford again joined one of Edwin Geach's touring companies – and also in this was Lottie Lyell: this was the start of their partnership that would end with her death on 21 December 1925.

Until the end of 1910 or early 1911 Raymond and Lottie toured country towns in New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia, and also in New Zealand. They then started producing motion pictures for Cosens Spencer in Sydney.

Ngurang

In mid-December 1919 Longford bought a property (land and house) in Lord Street, Roseville, Sydney.¹⁷ As house numbers were not in use in that street at the time the property is listed in Sands' Sydney directories as "Ngurang", which is the name assigned by the previous owners (John Frederick and Catherine Mary Nicholas). Only in the 1929 Sands' is the property identified as 44 Lord St. The land was about 80' × 201' (24.4 m × 61.3 m) in measurement, the area being 1 rood 19 perches or 0.37 acres (0.15 hectares). Longford immediately took out a mortgage with the vendor.

In early January 1923 he transferred the title of the property to Lottie Lyell at a price of £800:¹⁸ why he did so is unknown, but possibly he wanted not to be personally exposed to the loss of the house following potential legal action. Lottie, in her will dated 24 November 1924, devised the Lord St title to Raymond; subsequent to her death on 21 December 1925 and probate of her will, the title went back to Longford in late February 1927. (At which time the outstanding mortgage was paid off, and a new one immediately taken out.)

Living at Ngurang at various times over the years, besides Raymond and Lottie, were Lottie's mother and younger sister, her youngest maternal uncle, Percival William Hancock, Raymond's son, and possibly Victor's wife(-to-be), Queenie Mackenzie – see below.

On 24 February 1928 Longford sold the Lord St house and land.

There is no record of Longford buying any other real estate in his name (in New South Wales). Thus the following claim attributed to him of buying a house to remove the roof is not true:

"It was simple, really," he says modestly. "I just went out and bought a house and took the roof off. This gave us a complete set of rooms, furniture, and household equipment, with plenty of strong natural light."¹⁹

But the removal of the roof element may well be (at least partially) correct as it is mentioned on other occasions:

Prior to this most pictures were taken in the open air, and on one occasion Longford and his associates rented a cottage to make some interiors and obtained the owner's permission to remove a few boards to let in a little more light. They finished up by removing the entire roof and most of the walls, but what the owner said is not recorded.²⁰

and in the A.M. article (4 above):

... Longford's solution of the interior shot problem was radical, not to say boisterous. He and Spencer procured their house and simply tore the roof off.

Second marriage

Longford's second marriage was to Emilie Elizabeth Anschutz, the second child (of four) of (Alwin) Erich Max Anschutz, builder's labourer, and Elizabeth L. (née Murray), and took place on 19 July 1933 at the District Registrar's Office, St. Leonards, Sydney. She was about 4 years younger than Longford's son Victor. Over the next 3 decades they lived at 4 addresses at Wollstonecraft and Waverton, Sydney; the last of these, 1 Crow's Nest Rd was bought by Emilie on 8 October 1958. Raymond died on 2 April 1959 at Royal North Shore Hospital, St. Leonards and was buried with Lottie Lyell at what is now Macquarie Park Cemetery, Sydney.

It is interesting to note that, although Raymond worked as a nightwatchman on the Sydney docks later in this period, his profession in the electoral rolls is still that of picture director. In his will, dated 28 August 1958 (in which he leaves all his property to Emilie), he refers to himself as a motion picture director.

Emilie lived on at 1 Crow's Nest Rd, and died in Mater Misericordiæ Hospital, Crow's Nest, on 22 June 1975; she too was buried at Macquarie Park Cemetery but in a different section from Raymond. She left all she owned to her only and younger, married sister, Ruth Smith.

His names

The variations of his name over his lifetime are interesting. At the registration of his birth he is named "John Walter Longford", the same as his father. By the time of his baptism 4½ years later his parents had decided to call him "Raymond John Walter Longford". In the one record we have of his sea-faring days he called himself simply "Raymond Longford". For the registrations of his first marriage and of the birth of his son he used his full baptismal name.

It appears that he started using the name "Raymond Hollis Longford" – "Hollis" being his mother's surname – when he commenced his stage career in 1905. (He was referred to as "Mr. Hollis Longford" and "Mr. R. Hollis-Longford" in the first reviews of his stage acting.) Later he was mentioned as "R. H. Longford". From mid-1909, when he was working with Lottie Lyell, he was usually referred to simply as "Raymond Longford". This persisted during his film-making days, though for most official and formal matters – electoral roll listings, legal proceedings, copyright applications – he was "Raymond Hollis Longford".

For his divorce proceedings his full baptismal name was used; as he did not take part in them this name was taken from the details of the marriage. And "Raymond John Walter Longford" was again used at his second marriage (to Emilie Elizabeth Anschutz). He wrote his will on 28 August 1954 and signed himself with this name (though "also known as Raymond Hollis" is appended). His death registration has him as "Raymond Hollis Longford", and on his gravestone is simply "Raymond Longford".

Other matters

Another myth that is easily debunked is that Longford had some involvement in the making of the film of the world championship boxing match between Tommy Burns and Jack Johnson that took place on Boxing Day (26 December) 1908 at Sydney Stadium. As is detailed elsewhere Longford was on that date at Mackay, Queensland, 1400 km north of Sydney.

It is also claimed that he had something to do with the production of the 1910 film The Life and Adventures of John Vane, the Australian Bushranger, though he himself made no such assertion.²¹ Although his whereabouts are not known in early 1910, when the film was most likely being produced, in February he was recruited (along with Lottie Lyell) to act in a touring company which was away from Sydney till the end of the year.

Raymond Hollis Longford never became a bankrupt. There was another Raymond Longford, not obviously related, who lived near Narrandera, NSW, whose estate was sequestered late in 1927.

Victor Hollis Longford (Raymond's and Melena's son) had, like his father, an unsatisfactory first marriage. On 20 January 1926 at the District Registrar's office, Chatswood, Sydney, Victor H. Longford married Florence MacMenzie, the only daughter of Isaac Beresford MacKenzie and Charlotte Florence (née Purss). Florence was Florence Muriel though she was known as Queenie Muriel MacKenzie. And, as a "find" of Raymond Longford, she was the motion picture actress Virginia Beresford. (She starred in his 1926 film The Pioneers.) The marriage did not last: in May 1927 Victor petitioned for restitution of conjugal rights but the consequent decree was ignored by his wife, and he sued for divorce on the ground of desertion in August 1928 (by which time Queenie was back living with her parents and using her maiden name). The divorce was made absolute on 5 March 1929 (and on 20 April Queenie Muriel MacKenzie married Reginald Bertram Salisbury). Victor married again on 10 April 1963, his second wife being Janet McDonald.