Frederic Martell was the adopted son of William Joseph Henry Martell of Geelong –principal of the Ashby School and other schools in the education department. His parents were Leopold Cobian and Marianne Cobian [nee Field]. When and where Leopold Cobian died is not known, but when Frederic was two his mother remarried in Geelong becoming the wife of W.J.H. Martell. Marianne’s father was John Perrin Field a partner in the London firm of Parker, Field & Sons, Gunmakers to Her Majesty’s Board of Ordnance, to the Hon. East India Company and to the Hudson’s Bay Company. She came to Australia with her sister Lavinia, on the Chalmers in November 1853 and married Leopold Cobian at the Independent Church, Melbourne on the 7the December 1852. The following year, on the 15th September, Frederic Cobian was born. With his parents he returned to England where Leopold died it would seem, and the following year he returned with his mother on the Miles Barton.

On the 4th of December 1855 Marianne was married to Martell, and from that date her son became known as Frederic Martell. He grew up with his half brothers and sisters, and the family lived in Nantes Street, Geelong. Fred was trained in the Victorian Education department during the years 1869-75 and in 1875 was appointed drawing master for the Ballarat District. He joined the Ballarat School of Mines in 1880 becoming Vice=Principal, Director and finally in 1895 Registrar.

He was one of the founders of the Ballarat Art Gallery, and was a personal friend of the Lindsay family as well as the English artist J. Miller Marshall. Over the years he formed a considerable art collection of his own. He married Florence Cutter from Ballarat, and the couple had one son Harold. Fred was an ex-president of the original Teachers Union of Victoria, ex President of the Amateur Photographic Association, ex President and ex Secretary of the Science Society, gazetted a Justice of the Peace in 1913, a member of the Committee of the Historical Society for 7 years, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in England, ex President of the Progress Association, President in 1914 of the Ballarat South Street Society etc.etc.

He was one of two or three men who arranged to move the Adam Gordon Lindsay cottage from Craig’s Hotel to the Botanical Gardens – as a plaque inside the cottage indicates, and on his retirement was involved with the administration of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens.When he died the Ballarat press referred to him as “Ballarat’s Grand Old Man”.

His half brothers were C.H. Martell, senior Headmaster in the Victorian Education Department when he retired from Footscray School, Horatio Percy Martell, General Practitioner of Moonee Ponds, Harold Martell, Dentist and Pharmacist of Portland,and Arthur Martell, coffee planter of Costa Rica, His sisters were Gertrude Martell of Tennyson Street, Brighton, Victoria, principal of a girls private school, Ella Martell who married the Victorian Government architect, and Ada Martell, wife of a Sydney solicitor.

His son Harold was a surgeon and physician with a long career in both the Australian Army and – during World War II a Surgeon Commander of the Australian Navy, with his HQ in Western Australia. For many years before his death Frederic Martell and his wife had no contact with their son. Even so Harold’s career is an interesting one and worth more than this brief comment.