Family background
Frederick Lewis Artlett was born on 6 July 1870 at Point Piper, NSW, son of Frederick William Artlett and Emily L.Lewis. On 26 April 1898 he married Adeline Brooks at St James Church Croydon NSW. There were four children of the marriage.He died on 24 June 1918, aged 47 years at Parramatta. Adeline Artlett died in 1931, 58 years
Occupation & interests
Artlett’s father, also Frederick, was local registrar of births, deaths & marriage from 1884, and a property agent. Frederick operated as a house agent at 21 Glebe Point Road, Glebe to 1915 and also took over as local registrar in 1896 on his father’s death.He was a member of the executive committee of the Local Government Association.
Community activity
Artlett was first elected to Glebe Council in February 1908 and remained on Council until his death in 1918.He was mayor from 1911 to 1914. A devout Anglican, he led a deputation of six laymen from Glebe’s Protestant churches and the city mission to the Chief Secretary in 1911 protesting against a new picture show operating on Sunday evening. He told the Royal Commission on Greater Sydney in 1913 he was concerned about “the threats to the purity of municipal life” posed by the scheme. Suburban councillors, he said, possessed “a higher moral character” than rheir city counterparts, and”Greater Sydney woud tend towards Tammany”, a political machine in New York notorious for its corruption.
Local government service
Artlett’s 1914 Mayoral report focused on local parks. Jubilee Park,, he declared, was one of the municipality’s “bright spots”, and in conjunction with Maybanke Anderson Glebe Council was supporting the children’s playground movement by procuring part of Wentworth Park from its trustees for a kindergarten.
References
Barrier Miner (Broken Hill) 9 June 1911 p. 8
Royal Commission on Greater Sydney, NSWPP 13 (2) pp. 163-64
Sydney Morning Herald 13 February 1914 p. 5; 3 June 1913 p. 10
Sydney Morning Herald 13 January 1911 p. 10 18 July 1913 p. 3
Cumberland Argus 29 June 1918 p. 6
Sydney Morning Herald 25 June 1918 pp. 4-5