Geoff McArthur launches Ballarat goldfields tale 'Look for the Red Umbrella'

Retired primary school teacher had not intended to write a book, he just started following clues. Then he realised he was stumbling on "something extraordinary".

There was personal tragedy, family scandal and an enterprising woman determined to stand her ground in an emerging city dominated by men on the goldfields. And it all linked back to the house where his wife grew up in Ballarat East.

McArthur started his research about 30 years ago, primarily for his wife, knowing the family that had lived in the Rodier Street House a century earlier had ties to the Eureka Stockade.

When he retired he found an appeal for information online for Margaret Muller, who had run a thriving umbrella business in Ballarat and Bendigo in the mid-to-late 1800s. It turned out she was the younger sister from the Rodier Street house.

"She had married Muller, a German man, who rose to civic leadership and I could follow him because he write letters to the editor and was on school boards, such as establishing Queen Street," McArthur said.

"Eventually his umbrella business was not going so good; there was a rivalry with another umbrella shop and he resorted to crime and money fraud."

Modern online resources, and extra time during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, allowed McArthur to delve far deeper than he had imagined.

In a well-documented trial, Mr Muller was arrested in Sydney and tried by Sir Redmond Barry, the judge who sentenced Ned Kelly to death.

While Mr Muller was in Pentridge Prison serving five years for forgery, Mrs Muller reinvented the umbrella shop and extended the family business to three stores, including one in Bendigo.

McArthur found Mrs Muller had her share of family heartache and resourcefulness to stay afloat and hold both her family and business together when her husband left gaol in a time when business was in the husband's name.

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McArthur's novel Look for the Red Umbrella is named in Mrs Muller's advertising slogan for which she also hung red umbrellas under the storefront verandahs.

"This could've happened anywhere on the goldfields, places like here or in Bendigo," McArthur said. "People like Fred Muller were never chasing gold but following where the people were.

"...There is one final twist I have not unravelled. There are no [direct] descendants of the family. There was one I lost track of after she married a guy in South Africa, stayed two months and got a divorce and disappeared.

"She inherited the whole show and sold it quickly."

McArthur shaped his clues and notes into a basic story to offer the city's historical society and was encouraged to instead share it wider by taking the tale to Shawline Publishing in Ballarat.

When told he needed more words, McArthur said he was glad to take another year to try and tell the tale as fully as he could.

The original store where the Mullers lived was what is now 324 Sturt Street, a gaming store. They re-opened in the Bridge Mall where Greens bakery now trades before a third location in Lydiard Street.

Look for the Red Umbrella is available via shawlinepublishinggroup.com.au and Collins Booksellers in the Bridge Mall and Lydiard Street.

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