Ellis Stones
| Ellis Stones | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Ellis Andrew Stones October 1, 1895 Wodonga, Australia |
| Died | April 9, 1975 Ivanhoe, Victoria, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Alma mater | Moonee Ponds West Primary School |
| Height | Five ft 6 in (168 cm) |
| Parents |
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Ellis Stones (Ellis Andrew Stones, October 1, 1895 – April 9, 1975), was a constructor of private and public gardens—many displaying naturalistic rockwork—and a conservationist whose work and ideas profoundly influenced approaches to public landscaping in Australia. Based in Melbourne, Australia he was an early proponent of the use of Australian native plants and one of the founding fathers of the Australian landscaping style.
Ellis Stones was born in Wodonga, Victoria. His father was Thomas James Stones a customs officer, born in Victoria. His mother was Hannah May, née Downs, also born in Victoria. He grew up in Essendon, Victoria. After attending Moonee Ponds West Primary School he worked with the Victorian Railways as an apprentice carriage builder. He married Olive Doyle in 1922. They had a son who died in his first year, and three daughters.
On 25 April 1915 he was a rower in the first boat of the second wave of the landing in the Gallipoli Campaign. He took a bullet in his left knee, an injury which was to cause him lifelong pain.
During World War II Stones worked in the Volunteer Defence Corps and the Civil Constructional Corps.
After WWI he returned to work as a carpenter and, later, a builder, eventually living and working at Avenel in country Victoria. The Depression brought him and his family back to Melbourne, where he took on whatever work he could find (including repairing broken window glass), and eventually settled in Ivanhoe. Working on a house in Heidelberg in 1934-35, he volunteered to build a stone wall for its landscape designer Edna Walling. Impressed by his natural aptitude she employed him again on many other jobs as he gradually established his own practice as a constructor and designer of gardens.
Stones collaborated for many years with Edna Walling, constructing many of the rock outcrops, walls and ponds in the gardens she designed. Among the gardens in which he did rock work for Walling were:
In Australian Home Beautiful of December 1938 Walling wrote:
"It is a rare thing this gift for placing stones and strange that a man possessing it should bear the name Stones... Lovely as formal gardens can be, it is these informal schemes, in which boulders form so important a part, that appeal so tremendously... they give us the atmosphere of the country, and the refreshment of mind derived from such".
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Wikipedia