Charles and Caroline decided to settle permanently at Como, and Charles commissioned Arthur E Johnson, his brother-in-law, to design a ballroom extension, with children's bedrooms above, at a cost of one thousand two hundred and twelve pounds and fifteen shillings.

The extension was completed in 1875, but Charles died at Como the next year, at the age of fifty-two, of a pancreatic disorder.

This photograph taken circa 1862, has been hand coloured.

The news of John Brown's 1847 house, 'Como', being auctioned in the December of 1864 spread quickly through the opulent rooms at The Melbourne Club. One member, Charles Henry Armytage, who was staying in Melbourne on business, became particularly interested when he found out that it would be a mortgagee's auction.

He and his wife Caroline lived with their eight children at Fulham Station, a large sheep holding just outside Geelong. The combination of their hard work in the country and Charles' inheritance had brought considerable wealth. The time had come for a town house. Como would be the ideal abode to consolidate the family's standing in the burgeoning Melbourne social scene.

Constance Armytage was the daughter of Caroline and Charles Armytage.

The Armytage children in Switzerland during the European tour c.1878.

From left to right: Constance, Leila, Ernest, Laura and Frederick.

On 26 December 1876, the servants were busy packing trunks onto carriages at the front of Como House while the Armytage children played games around them. Finally, Caroline, her nine children and a large retinue of servants drove off down Toorak Road, through Melbourne to Port Melbourne. This amazing entourage, including two cows for fresh milk, thereupon boarded the sailing ship the Assam and toured the world for four years.

Charles Norman was sent to Cambridge while Caroline, the other children and servants went to Egypt, India, China, Japan, Russia and through Europe. This journey was documented in a diary kept by Ada, Caroline's eldest daughter. In 1878, 'Mumma went to the Paris International Exhibition; she walked up to an exhibitor and bought a large ebonised door for the Drawing Room. He looked rather bemused when she asked to have it sent to Melbourne Australia.' During this tour Caroline sent crate-loads of mirrors, vases, chandeliers and furniture back to Como

Some of the servants with a family dog. Ada Armstrong took this photograph.

The lifestyle of the Armytage family and Como was made possible by the large group of servants employed to do the day-to-day work.

The exact number of servants Caroline employed to maintain Como is not known. However, we do know that she employed cooks, a laundress, a housemaid, a needlewoman, 'Tweeney' (a between-the-stairs maid whose bedroom was in the tower), a parlourmaid, a milkman, a messenger, two permanent gardeners and a coachman.

Como was just over 54 acres in area (21.9 hectares) and, like all the large properties around South Yarra and Toorak, both supported and was supported by a large number of working-class retainers.

Caroline Armytage was a woman used to managing a sheep station when her husband was away.

She once wrote, "One of the happiest times in my life was at Fulham Station teaching the Aboriginal children and worker's children with mine". The genteel coquettishness of Melbourne's matrons would have been a shallow environment for this pioneering woman.

Constance, Laura and Leila Armytage with Freddy in the background. A photograph taken by their sister Ada at Como 1896.

Ada was an avid amateur photographer, and spent years documenting her family and Como with her lens.

The last surviving children of Charles and Caroline, Constance and Leila Armytage, sold Como to The National Trust of Victoria in 1959. Como was the first house the newly formed Trust acquired. One of the most significant aspects of the Trust's purchase was the acquisition of the house's complete contents. Over forty years ago, the Armytage sisters realised that if Como were to survive as an expression of their family and its lifestyle it must remain intact as a home. They also left an extensive archive of diaries, letters, journals and photographs.

The constant round of parties, musical evenings, and celebrations for Federation in 1901 enabled Constance to meet Captain Arthur Fitzpatrick, the aide-de-camp to the governor of Victoria.

After a brief engagement, Constance and Arthur were married at St John's, Toorak on 9 May 1906. The wedding was the social event of the season. The reception was held at Como and was attended by the cream of Melbourne society, including old friends such as the artists Arthur and Emma Minnie Boyd. The bride and groom went to live in England. At some point, however, Fitzpatrick left Constance disappearing with the seventy-thousand-pound dowry and ending the marriage. It is unclear what transpired between the couple but, from that time onwards, Constance lived the life of a single woman.

Leila and Constance Armytage with the Australian Red Cross 1st A.C.D in France c. 1918.

At the outbreak of the Great War, Ada was 55 years old, Constance 43 and Leila 39. Leila joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) in England for the Red Cross and was sent to an Australian Military Hospital in Le Havre, France. By 1916, Constance was also living in Le Havre, where she worked side by side with Leila as an untrained nurse and ambulance driver, picking up the wounded and the dying soldiers from the battlefields.

During the eleven years the sisters were away from Melbourne, Laura, a quite frail, artistic woman, lived on at Como. Upon the sisters' return after the war, they found a rather tired Como with a dowdy and faded Edwardian splendour.

TRANSCRIPT

Sign: 'l'Oeuvre de la Goutte de Café'