Family background
Albert Pointing was born in 1853 in Winchester, Hampshire, England, the son of Joshua Pointing, a wool-stapler, and Elizabeth Haslip. At the age of 20, Pointing emigrated from London to Sydney with his elder brother, Joshua, aboard the sailing ship Jerusalem, arriving in Sydney on 22 June 1874.
Pointing married Ellen Norah Daniels (1862-1940) at St Silas’ Church in Waterloo on 10 May 1881. The pair had nine children together. His eldest surviving son, Arthur Pointing (1883-1944), took over the family business on his father’s retirement and expanded the business, A Pointing and Sons, into a chain of butcher shops across Sydney.
Arthur’s two daughters, Audrey (1910-1970) and Glenore (1913-1984), became actresses, with Audrey marrying the 3rd Baron Doverdale in 1933. In 1910 Albert Pointing’s eldest daughter Gertrude (1890-1953) married master butcher, William McCulloch Gollan, who would later be a prominent NSW state politician and Secretary for Lands and Mines.
Having suffered illness arising from diabetes in his later years, Albert Pointing died of heart failure at the age of 71 on 19 November 1924, at his residence, ‘Winchester’, 25 Darling Point Road, Darling Point. His funeral, conducted by Wood Coffill Funeral Directors and the Rector of St Mark’s Darling Point, E Howard Lea, was held at South Head Cemetery on 20 November 1924. He left a substantial estate valued at £22,850 to his wife and surviving children.
Occupation & interests
Having worked as a butcher before leaving England, Albert Pointing continued working in this trade in Sydney, and eventually established an independent butchery business in Darlinghurst at 191 Palmer Street, in partnership with his brother Joshua. By the 1890s the business had moved to the corner of William and Oxford streets, Paddington. In his later years in business, Pointing was elected to the committee of the Master Butchers Association of NSW.
In March 1922 he and his wife departed Sydney aboard the RMS Orvieto for a substantial overseas trip back to the UK, visiting Epsom on Derby Day, and then to Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and France, before returning to Australia via Canada in October 1922 aboard the RMS Niagara from Vancouver.
Community activity
Albert Pointing was a founding member of the NSW Trotting Club in 1902. He was a noted participant of the sport and was treasurer of the club for 20 years until his retirement in 1922. On his death, the Sydney Sportsman noted that ‘there was no better-liked supporter of trotting in this country than Mr. Albert Pointing’. In 1900, Pointing was appointed a Justice of the Peace in NSW.
Local government service
Albert Pointing was first elected as an alderman of the Borough of Paddington (Glenmore Ward) on 8 February 1897. On the nomination of Dugald McIntyre, he was re-elected to this position in February 1900. On 24 February 1900, Pointing was elected for a single term as mayor of Paddington, ending his term on 15 February 1901. He did not seek re-election in the 1903 municipal elections.
Pointing was re-elected to Paddington council on 1 February 1908, and again in January 1911. On 6 February 1911, Pointing returned to the mayoral chair, defeating Michael Kerrigan seven votes to five. He was re-elected mayor for the following term on 2 February 1912, defeating William Lofts seven votes to five, and ended his term on 10 February 1913.
Pointing was re-elected as an alderman for Glenmore Ward in January 1914, June 1917 and January 1920. Pointing lost his position on council at the 2 December 1922 municipal election, when the Labor Party took control of the council, with the Labor ticket of Maurice O’Sullivan, Thomas Hodge, and Albert Thwaites, unseating the three incumbent Glenmore Ward aldermen Pointing, Charles Cranes, and John Marsh.
References
Compiled and researched by Andrew Beveridge, 2024
The information about this alderman was compiled in collaboration with Woollahra Library and Information Service.
‘Mr. Albert Pointing’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1924, p. 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16177566
‘Mr. A. Pointing Dead’, Evening News,19 November 1924, p. 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article119963242
‘Mr. A. Pointing’, The Daily Telegraph, 21 November 1924, p. 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245472236
‘Funerals’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1924, p. 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16177658
‘Late Mr. A. Pointing’, Sydney Morning Herald,10 February 1925, p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16204279
‘A Spreading Commerce – Mr. Arthur Pointing’s Butchering Business’, The Sun, 6 September 1913, p. 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article229687968
‘Trotting. Revival in Sydney’, Evening News, 20 January 1905, p. 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article112750704
‘Late Mr. A. Pointing’, Sydney Sportsman, 25 November 1924, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article167190235
‘Borough of Paddington’, New South Wales Government Gazette,16 February 1897, No. 128, p. 1109, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224341151
‘Municipal Elections. Borough of Paddington’, The Daily Telegraph, 8 February 1900, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article237160988
‘Borough of Paddington’, New South Wales Government Gazette, 24 February 1900, No. 181, p. 1686, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article221015556
‘Local Government Notices. Municipality of Paddington’, The Daily Telegraph,3 February 1908, p. 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238087626
‘Advertising. Municipal Elections. Municipality of Paddington’, Sydney Morning Herald,31 January 1911, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15208722
‘Alderman A. Pointing (Mayor of Paddington).’, Truth, 5 March 1911, p. 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article168748751
‘Two Elections at Paddington’, Evening News, 7 February 1911, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article113939476
‘Men and Women – Some Personal Paragraphs.’, The Sun, 3 February 1912, p. 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222010207
‘The Polling. Municipal Elections. Apathetic Electors’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 February 1914, p. 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15473283
‘Municipal Elections. Municipality of Paddington’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 July 1917, p. 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15757118
‘Municipal Elections. Municipality of Paddington’, Sydney Morning Herald, 2 February 1920, p. 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article15885090
‘Municipal Elections – Paddington.’, Sunday Times, 3 December 1922, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article128209493
‘Paddington All Labor’, The Sun, 4 December 1922, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224159977