From Australia’s Jewish Past: Philip Louis Frankel
Businessman, mason, chazan, sportsman, and loyal Jew
Philip Louis Frankel
Philip was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, on 12 March 1863. His father, Jacob, was born in Breslau, Prussia (now Poland).
Jacob and his first wife Sarah and three children had arrived in Hobart in 1842. Sarah passed away in 1847, and his children were taken to Sydney to be with family. Jacob then travelled the world before arriving back in Sydney in 1852. He moved on to Melbourne, where he set up a shop on Swanston Street as a merchant, an outfitter of goods and equipment for miners during the gold rush years. He then became an auctioneer, as well as a Chazan for a small but growing Jewish community. Jacob met Philip’s mother Mary and they married in 1857 and moved to Dunedin in 1861.
Jacob’s mantra of ‘’be honest, be upright and keep your religion’’ taught by his father, was instilled in Philip. It was how the family lived and was certainly passed on to Philip’s children, Alan and Phyllis. Philip was educated in New Zealand. At the age of seventeen, he moved to Brisbane and, for close to sixty years, was the managing director of Philip Frankel Pty Ltd, which he established four years after arriving in Brisbane. He was a member of the Grand Lodge and Superior Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Queensland.
He was one of the founders of Brisbane’s Amateur Athletic Association and was president, treasurer, and handicapper for many years. He played rugby union and was selected for the second team to play the English side in 1887 and 1888. He rowed with the Commercial Club and later became its patron and treasurer. For his services, he was made a life member. He was also well-known among the Brisbane bowling fraternity. Philip enjoyed singing and joined the Old Brisbane Liedertafel Men’s Choir.
For forty years, Philip was associated with the Royal National Association Brisbane (the Ekka) as a councillor and office-bearer, and when he visited Great Britain, he made a special study of the great agricultural shows, bringing back to Australia some very useful and innovative ideas. As a mason, he came up with the idea of providing a home for aged masons and their dependents. Philip conducted the High Holy Day Services at Brisbane’s Hebrew Congregation in 1927 and became its President for a period of twenty years.
In the early years of World War 1, Philip lobbied for support for an agricultural community for Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe to be established in Queensland. Like others, he received significant support from both state and government ministers, but the Jewish Agricultural Settlement Fund in London did not support Philip’s or other advocates’ concept. His interest in helping Jews to migrate to Australia continued after the war when he supported, again with many other Australian Jews, the Kimberley Plan to resettle Jewish refugees from Europe in Northern Australia before and during the Holocaust. Unfortunately, this plan also failed when it was vetoed by the Australian Government and then Labour Prime Minister John Curtin.
Philip had stood for parliament as a Conservative candidate for the Brisbane seat of Fortitude Valley in the 1903 Queensland State Election. Unfortunately, the seat was lost to the sitting Labour member. He was invited to be a member of the Governor’s Advisory Committee for the Queensland Women’s Electoral in 1906, assisting with the administration of women’s newly granted right to vote. He remained a staunch supporter of King and Country as a member of the Anglo-Jewish Association.
Philip’s great-grandson, Alan Philip Frankel, revealed that on 8 August 1917, at a time when his grandfather and his battalion were marching in the rain for three and three-quarter hours to Hemmel in Belgium, Philip was making an Application to the Commonwealth of Australia seeking the ‘Sole Right to Perform or Authorise the Performance of a Musical or Dramatic Play’. The play was titled ‘A Marriage by Telephone’. Alan was able to obtain a copy of the play, which is held in the National Archives of Australia in Canberra. At the time, the document was one hundred and two years old. What an amazing man who, at that time, had the wisdom to write on such a topic. When Alan read the play, he was struck with the ironic sense of humour that his grandfather had and how this has been passed down through the family to Alan’s father and his three brothers – and now their children.
Philip’s legacy lives on through the family and his great-grandson, also known as Alan, who recalls dinner on a Friday evening with his wife and four sons. After dinner, Philip would sit in his favourite easy chair and sleep for about half an hour. When he woke, he would say, “It was lovely having you and the boys here tonight and it is also lovely when you go home’’ and off they would go. Looking back at all Philip had achieved Alan questioned – was there nothing that this man could not do?
Philip died in Brisbane on 21 September 1943, aged eighty, and was buried in Toowong Cemetery. His wife Minnie passed away in 1908 at the age of forty-eight. She was most prominent in Brisbane’s Jewish circles, helping to establish the Council of Jewish Women, and was president of Daughters of Zion, an organisation that would send practical help to other true daughters of Zion in Palestine. She was also associated with the Jewish Women’s Guild, their duties included looking after the Shabbat and Festival robes, attending to the decorating of the synagogue, and providing for the needs of poor women within the community. In her obituary, it read – ‘’In many charitable works her kindly manner and capacity for the organisation will be long remembered and regretfully missed’’.
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:
The Week – 14 February 1930; Brisbane Daily Telegraph – 26 November 1932 and 21 September 1943; Brisbane Courier – 2 July 1908; National Library of Australia; Genealogical Society of Queensland – Article by Alan Frankel Grandson; History of the Brisbane Synagogue
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