player – Tennisarchives.com

General First nameAugustus Daniel (Gus)
LastnameKearney
GenderMale
CountryAustralia
Date of birth1870-11-22
Place of birthKyneton, Victoria, Australia
Date of death1907-03-10
Place of deathMelbourne, Victoria, Australia

About

Introduction (by Mark Ryan)

Augustus Daniel Kearney, popularly known as Gus, was born on 22 November 1870 in the town of Kyneton in Central Victoria. He was one of the ten children of Michael John Kearney (1834-1915) and his first wife, Jane Kearney (née Dunne; 1842-76). Both Michael and Jane Kearney were immigrants from County Tipperary in Ireland. Only three of their ten children would live to adulthood, and Jane herself died in 1876 at the age of 34.

In 1879, when Gus Kearney turned nine, his father married again. His second wife was Louisa Pistorio, the daughter of an Italian father and an Irish mother. Ten children would also be born of this second marriage. The family lived in Kearney’s General Store and Hotel, the business founded by Michael Kearney in Murchison, a district located to the north of Kyneton.

In the years circa 1881 to 1890, Gus Kearney was a pupil at Geelong College, a prestigious school founded in 1861 in the port city of Geelong in Victoria. While at Geelong College, Gus Kearney excelled not only at his studies, but also achieved success on the sporting field, being a member of both the 1st Football Team and 1st Cricket teams from 1887 to 1891. He also captained the football team in 1891 and the cricket team for three years, from 1889 to 1891. At the same time he showed great promise at lawn tennis.

From the early to the mid-1890s, Gus Kearney was a medical student at the University of Melbourne. In parallel, he also established himself as a great sporting all-rounder, becoming arguably the best male lawn tennis player Australia had produced up until that point. He also became a renowned footballer with the Essendon Football Club based in the Melbourne suburb of that name. A burgeoning medical career and marriage meant that from the early 1900s onwards Gus Kearney had less and less time to devote to sport.

On 9 February 1900, in Melbourne, Gus Kearney married Ethel Rose Mackay, eldest daughter of George Eric Mackay and Jane Frances Mackay (née Howe). Ethel Mackay was born on 8 May 1880 in Private Plains, New South Wales. She and Gus Kearney had two children together, daughters called Margaret (b. 1901) and Joan (b. 1902). In 1909, Ethel would marry for a second time, to Reginald Leslie (“Snowy”) Baker, the renowned boxer and sports promoter, who later found fame as a Hollywood actor. Ethel Baker died in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on 6 May 1956 at the age of 85.

According to the Victoria Police Gazette, Gus Kearney was registered as a Legally Qualified Medical Practitioner on 5 July 1901. The same source notes that his qualifications were “L.R.C.P. et R.C.S. Edin., et L.F.P.S. Glas. 1900.” In other words, he had completed his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow in 1900, when he qualified as a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh) as well as a Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow).

In the years circa 1902 to 1907, Gus Kearney held various medical positions in New South Wales and Victoria, including those of Officer of Health and Public Vaccinator. One of the last, if not the last, such position he held was that of Officer of Health for the Shire of Rutherglen, in north-east Victoria. He resigned from this role in June 1906. Less than a year later Gus Kearney was dead.
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Gus Kearney’s ancestors

From the internet (ancestry.com):

Like many of the Irish who came to Australia in the 1850s and 1860s, Michael John Kearney was escaping the Irish famine and looking for a better life. The discovery of gold in Victoria gave Irish immigrants such as Michael much hope for the future. Arriving in Morton Bay, Brisbane, from County Tipperary on the British Empire at the age of 21, he settled in Kyneton, in the heart of the Victorian countryside. It was here on 22 April 1861 that Michael Kearney married Jane Dunne, also from County Tipperary. He was 26, she was only 17.

Jane Kearney gave birth to ten children during the next fifteen years; however, this caused heartache as well as joy, with only three of her children surviving into adulthood. It was not uncommon for children to die during childbirth or from infectious diseases or accidents, but for only three out of ten to survive was particularly tragic. The tragedy was multiplied on 27 July 1876 when Jane Kearney herself died from “a rupture of abscess of lung, gastric flow and exhaustional debility.”

Having nursed his wife through what sounds like a horrible death, Michael Kearney was left alone to bring up their four remaining children: Ellen Maria, aged 12; Michael Joseph (known as Bert), aged 7; Augustus Daniel (known as Gus), aged 6; and a new baby, May Jane. Several years later, in 1886, May Jane, the youngest, also died when she was only 10 years old. The local paper wrote that May was “the most patient little sufferer, and was a great favourite with all who knew her. Much sympathy is felt for the family in their sad loss”. May was buried with her mother and the other Kearney children in the Kyneton Cemetery.

These were terrible events, unimaginable to many today, but it was necessary for the business of living to continue and during the first ten years of his marriage Michael Kearney made the most of the opportunities that came his way. He already had a business as a licensed victualler, or publican, in Kyneton, and in 1869 he selected a property known as Castle Bend in Arcadia, north of Kyneton. It was on his journeys back and forth from Kyneton to Arcadia that he located what he thought was a good site for a hotel and general store.

A series of Land Acts between 1861 and 1869 had encouraged many selectors to move to the area around Murchison, north east of Kyneton. This district had only recently been settled by Europeans, much to the detriment of the local Ngooraialum tribe. The “village of Murchison” had been formally approved by the Governor in council in 1854 and was developed on the land that had been the site of the Aboriginal Protectorate.

Michael Kearney bought an L-shaped block of land in an area that was known as “Muddy Flat”, or Moororilim, just west of the Murchison township. On the block he built a brick building with a shingle roof covered with corrugated iron. “The bricks were made and burnt about a half mile from the site and the shingles were split by hand with the throe by two Canadians, Harvey and Charlie, who had a saw-pit in the neighbourhood of Pranjip Park.” [...] Michael Kearney’s hotel business would grow rapidly over the coming years [...]

In 1879, Michael would marry again. He was 43 years old when he married his new bride, Louisa Pistorio, a 19-year-old schoolmistress from Arcadia. Louisa’s parents were Joseph Pistorio, whose family was from Catania in Sicily, and Mary Doolan, from County Kilkenny in Ireland. On their marriage certificate Louisa’s father is described as a “master mariner”; he is listed as a crewman on the Emma, which travelled from Liverpool to Sydney in 1857.

Michael Kearney and Louisa Pistorio were married on 15 October 1879 at Saint Marys Church, Heathcote. Together they would bring up the children from michael’s first marriage – Ellen, Bert and Gus – as well as ten children of their own. Kearney’s General Store and Hotel would become home to them all.
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Gus Kearney at Geelong College

From: https://gnet.geelongcollege.vic.edu.au/wiki/KEARNEY-Dr-Augustus-Daniel-1870-1907.ashx

‘Gus’ Kearney was a legendary sportsman who excelled at cricket, football and tennis. Born at Kyneton to parents, Michael Kearney and Jane nee Dunne, he was educated at the Geelong College from 1881 to about 1891. He was a member of both the 1st Football Team and 1st Cricket teams from 1887 to 1891. He captained the football team in 1891 and the cricket team for three years from 1889 to 1891.

He also gained the following academic awards:

1882 1st, Arithmetic, 2nd Class
1882 1st, Drawing, 1st Class
1883 2nd, Geography, 3rd Class
1883 Free Hand Drawing, Junior Class
1885 1st, Arithmetic, 3rd Class
1885 1st, Free Hand Drawing, Junior Class
1885 1st Music
1886 1st, Free Hand Drawing
1887 1st, Free Hand Drawing
1887 Champion Gymnast
1888 1st, Architectural Drawing
1888 Champion Gymnast
1888 1st, Gymnastics, 3rd Class
1889 1st, Gymnastics, 3rd Class
1890 1st, Euclid, University Class
1890 1st, Gymnastics, 3rd Class
1890 Champion Gymnast

In 1890 and 1891, while still at school, he won the Inter-colonial Tennis Singles Championship and played for Victoria. In 1890, again still a student at College, he played with the Geelong Football Club (GFC). After leaving College, he commenced playing in 1892 with the Essendon Football Club, part of what was then the Victorian Football Association, and was one of its most reliable players for many years until 1896. He was vice-captain of the Essendon Team when it first entered the Victorian Football League (VFL) in 1897 and won the premiership that year. He played 18 games in the VFL before furthering his medical studies at Edinburgh, Scotland.

Each year, a prize, known as the Dr ‘Gus’ Kearney Memorial Prize, is given in his name to a student who gives outstanding service to the best interests of the College.
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Gus Kearney’s wedding

From The Melbourne Punch, 22 February 1900

Mr Gus Kearney to Miss Ethel Mackay

The marriage of Mr Augustus Daniel Kearney, son of Mr Michael Kearney, Moorilim, Murchison, and Miss Ethel Mackay, daughter of Mr George E. Mackay, of Ethelstan, Albury, was celebrated at the Australian Church, Flinders Street, Melbourne, by the Reverend C. Strong at 8.30 p.m. on 9th February. The bride, who was given away by her father, wore an ivory duchesse satin skirt, the bodice entirely of Honiton lace, with a long court train of moire velours; tulle veil, fastened with moonstone star; her only ornament was a pearl necklet (the gift of the bridegroom). She carried a white prayer book.

Mr Colin Morrison was best man. The groomsmen were Messrs Reay, Mackay, Michael Kearney, S. Gillespie and Edwin Ryrie. The bridesmaids were the Misses A. Mackay (sister of the bride), May and Alice Jackson, and the Misses Fannie Wilson and Helen Hood, all of whom wore white satin over yellow, black plumes in their hair; they carried black directoire sticks, with bunches of crimson flowers tied with yellow; black velvet bands, with pearl slides, round throat (the gift of the bridegroom).

A reception was afterwards held at Menzies’ Hotel, the guests numbering about one hundred. […] Refreshments of the lightest and daintiest were served from the buffet, and also in the winter garden on small tables decorated with flowers. The presents were exhibited in the drawing-room, and all the suites of rooms on the ground floor were thrown open to the guests. A good band played several selections during the evening.

The bride’s gift to the bridegroom was a pencil case set with a turquoise; bridegroom to bride, a pearl necklet. Amongst the numerous gifts many cheques were included. Mr and Mrs Kearney left for Adelaide on Thursday, 15th February, where they intend staying a short time, leaving in the Polynesien for Marseilles en route to Edinburgh.
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An obituary of Gus Kearney

From The Leader (Melbourne), 16 March 1907

One of the most popular figures in Australian tennis passed away last Sunday, when Gus Kearney succumbed to an operation for an abscess on the brain at the Alfred Hospital. Though he was the greatest tennis player Australia has produced up to the Norman Brookes era, and held an unbeaten record for over five years in New South Wales and Victoria, his memory will be treasured not so much for his skill at tennis as for his sportsmanlike conduct in matches and for the sweet, kindly disposition that earned him such a host of friends throughout the length and breadth of Australia.

He retired from championship tennis in 1903, making his last appearance in Sydney in May of that year, when he failed to retain his title of champion of New South Wales in a challenge round against Wilberforce Eaves. He started practising as a doctor at Albury, and subsequently at Rutherglen in 1902, and had few opportunities to keep up his tennis form. His list of achievements in Victoria includes four times champion of the State, while he held a safe mortgage on the provincial championship at Geelong for about eight years.

There was a very large gathering at the funeral on Monday, and his epitaph was concisely recorded by one of the mourners in the phrase: “Poor old Gus, the whitest man and the best sport we ever had.” Dr Kearney leaves a widow and two children to mourn his loss.
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