Our first AGM as a newly formed trustee company held its first ordinary general meeting at the grand Scott’s Hotel (then dubbed as ‘the city home of country people’) in Collins Street, Melbourne on 14 August 1888.

Sir John Madden was one of the founding directors present at that first meeting in 1888, and remained on the Board until 1893.

The ‘dapper man with good manners and charm’ Sir John (1844 – 1918) was born in Ireland, the eldest of seven sons and migrated with the family to Melbourne in 1857. 

One of the first four law graduates of the University of Melbourne in 1865, he became Victoria’s longest serving Chief Justice. A keen sportsman who also enjoyed farming, gardening and house painting, he was not without controversy throughout his legal and political career.