Family background
Lancelot Lewis Earl was born in 1862 at London, England, son of Lancelot Earl and Elizabeth nee Lewis. He married Ann Edwards at Wollongong in 1886. He died at Arncliffe on 20 June 1938, aged 76 years. Ann Earl died 10 December 1952, aged 88 years.
Occupation & interests
After arriving in Sydney in 1883, Earl worked as a policeman for three years, and then worked as a wholesale fruit agent from 1886 to 1913 when he retired. The Earls moved to Arncliffe before the war and later Lancelot Lewis Earl became chairman of Central Starr Bowkett Society. He was a member of Rockdale Council from 1924 to 1937, president of Arncliffe Citizens Association and trustee of Arnclife School of Arts.
Community activity
Earl told the Royal Commission on the Saturday Half Holiday in 1909 that huge emporiums in the city supported early closing (at 1 pm) as a way to limit the longer hours of small shops, but he said ‘early closing robbed a lot of little people of their living’. Earl chaired the first general meeting of Glebe Distrct Rugby League Club in February 1908, and was a trustee of Wentworth Park.Earl was secretary of St Johns Institute and a churchwarden of St John’s Bishopthorpe, Glebe
Local government service
In 1907 Earl urged the speed of trams in Glebe Road between St Johns Road and Mitchell Street be moderated as the suburb’s main artery, especially on ‘Saturday evening was crowded with people, many of whom had to cross from one side to the other at great risk’.
References
Sydney Morning Herald 14 February 1906 p. 6
Sydney Morning Herald 15 January 1907 p. 8
Sydney Morning Herald 24 February 1908 p. 10
Royal Commission re Saturday Half Holiday, NSWPP 1909, 5, pp. 709-1149
Ron Rathbone, A Village called Arncliffe, Wild & Woolley, 1997
Sydney Morning Herald 22 June 1938 p. 8; 25 October 1938 p. 6