Historical information

This is a glass cup which has been painted and etched at the Warrnambool Industrial and Art Exhibition of 1896-7. This exhibition lasted three months and was staged at the Liebig/Timor Streets intersection at the Warrnambool Town Hall and Council buildings with some temporary buildings added for the occasion. It was reported that 70,000 people visited the displays, attended the concerts and entered the competitions. John Villiers, a Warrnambool painter and decorator with a glassware and chinaware shop in Liebig Street, had a stall at the Exhibition. He brought from Melbourne a glass etcher who etched glass souvenirs such as this one for patrons of the Exhibition. It was the first time that glass etching had been done in Warrnambool. Alice McConnell was born in 1885 in Warrnambool to Robert McConnell and Matilda Russell so she was about 11 or 12 at the time of the Exhibition. She died at the age of 17 in Warrnambool. Her father was possibly the proprietor of the R. and J. McConnell livery stables which later became a transport company in Warrnambool.

Significance

This glass is most significant because it is one of the few surviving souvenirs of the important Warrnambool Industrial and Art Exhibition of 1896-7. It is also a memento of Alice McConnell, the owner of the glass, who died at the young age of 17. The item comes from the estate of Ken Wooles who was a descendant of the Wooles family prominent in Warrnambool as monumental masons. He was also related to the McConnell family on his mother’s side of the family

Physical description

This is a glass cup with a handle. It has a curved shape and has a painting of a young girl with brown hair in a white decorative setting. The glass is etched with the name of Alice McConnell and this was done in 1897 at the Warrnambool Industrial and Art Exhibition of 1896-7. There is a crack near the handle.

Inscriptions & markings

‘Warrnambool Exhibition, Alice McConnell, 1897’