There was a consecutive three year period where the Ferguson & Urie company held annual dinners for their employees, between 1886 and 1888. Each occasion was extremely well documented in the North Melbourne Advertiser which wrote in extraordinary detail of the evenings festivities. Each of these historic events is a truly remarkable account of the Ferguson & Urie company history.
Each dinner was held in the “Hotham Mechanics Institute” which was part of the North Melbourne Town Hall. When North Melbourne merged with the Melbourne City Council in 1905, it was no longer officially the Town Hall and the building now hosts the North Melbourne Post Office, the Arts House, Conference and Events, and a number of small businesses at the street level.
The first Ferguson & Urie company dinner was held on the 9th of April 1886, and the evenings festivities were documented in, “The North Melbourne Advertiser, Friday 16th April 1886″, which published an article titled “A PLEASANT GATHERING”.
To read the full transcript of the dinner see: The 1886 Employee Dinner
Photos of the North Melbourne Town Hall dated 13th Nov 2011.
For a full transcription of the other dinners see:
The 1887 Employee Dinner
The 1888 Employee Dinner
Short link to this page: https://wp.me/p28nLD-D6
Ferguson and Urie 