Wedding of
the Year

WINIFRED HAWTHORNE McLAUGHLIN (1880-1950) was the socialite daughter of Hugh McCall Hicks, a wealthy brewer, and his wife Florence Annie, of New Farm, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

When she was aged eight a Professor W. Cross gave Winnie, as she was always called, a phrenological analysis. It stated "you will love devotedly and will be inclined to fall in love too early in life." In fact she was 29 when she was married to Lieut.-Colonel Hubert McLaughlin, retired for the second time and 20 years her senior.

For Brisbane's high society in 1909 it was the wedding of the year. The local paper gushingly described and pictured every detail of the ceremony, the bridesmaids dresses, even the cake.

Just after the marriage, her father gave Winnie a set of stone martin furs (below right) for a birthday present. A large relative of the weasel, the stone martin has a very soft, dark brown pelt. Winnie was highly clothes-conscious, as shown by the intricate confection of dressmaking and millinery she wears in the photo with a parasol.

Alas, it took time for the latest fashion news to trickle down under. For example, consider the photograph below taken in 1898.


Oh, dear! That style is so 1896, the year in which puffed sleeves were at their puffiest. But by the time
Winnie posed for the picture sleeves were long and tight to the arm, with a high round shoulder puff.

During the Great War Winnnie became a Red Cross nurse. It helped to console her for Hubert's death in 1915.

Later Winnie, who had trained as a Cordon Bleu chef, was able to demonstrate her culinary skills to the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, who was her house guest during his exile in England. In the Second World War Winnie joined the WVS, providing food for bomb victims.

Winnie said she married into the McLaughlin family for the entertainment — soap opera not yet having been invented. She came to visit me when I shared a three-bedroom flat with another Old Cheltonian and a cultured female friend. Winnie had scarcely emerged from her car, driven by her paid woman companion, when she demanded "Tell me, who's sleeping with whom."

Winnie's parents, Hugh Hicks (above left) and Florence (left), were married in 1877 in Melbourne, where she had heen born in 1861 to John William Shanklin and his wife Jane Susannah, née Mowbray. During his 18 years as managing director, Hugh brought the Perkins and Co. Ltd. brewery from near collapse to become one of Queensland’s most successful firms.

He retired in 1910 and moved with Florence (right) into what a newspaper described as "a charming suite at 'Beulah,' Kirribilli Point, North Sydney, a perfectly ideal residence, the walls of which are laved by the waters of Sydney Harbour."

The couple were visiting their son-in-law's home in Aldershot when Mr. Hicks died on June 13th 1914. His grave is pictured left.

Winnie was besotted with her only child Adrian, shown below with his mother on the right and his grandmother on the left.

© 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
Reproduction or transmission, in whole or in part, for other than personal use is prohibited without advance permission from Dr. G. H. McLaughlin.