Lilian Beatrice Simpson was born in Sydney in 1883. She was the fourth daughter of Elizabeth and William Parker Simpson (died 1889) English born William was a sculptor and it seems Lilian inherited his artistic sensibility. She dreamed of becoming an opera singer. In 1901, Lilian married accountant John Miller, a Glasgow born Scotsman. The wedding was held at ‘Killarney’, Chatswood, her mother’s home. In 1893 the widowed Elizabeth Simpson had married Henry Mashman, of the highly successful Mashman Potteries.
The young Millers set up home in Manly. However, Lilian had not abandoned her aspirations of a singing career and in 1909 her teacher suggested it was be helpful if she learned Italian. Her chosen tutor was Count Gino Tenderini, who had recently established a new language school on the first floor of the Equitable building in George Street. It featured the innovative Berlitz method, in which students hear and speak only the target language. Born in Lombardy, Tenderini had already been teaching languages in Sydney for about six years and was well known in Sydney social circles.
Despite ample opportunity over the years, there had never been the slightest hint of any impropriety between the Count and his female students; ‘The officers of the Italian ship Calabria entertained Count Tenderini and 30 lady students of Italian on board the vessel on Monday‘ (Sydney Mail, Jan. 17 1906)
However, when Tenderini met Mrs Miller a passionate love affair began. A piece published in The Woodend Star attempted to explain her allure;
‘The heroine of the drama was the sort of woman who couldn’t hide her light under a bushel. She was of the Poster girl type, flame-coloured hair, red-lipped and vivid. She also had a voice and a clothes sense, and was just the kind of temperamental person to appeal to an ardent Italian Count.‘
Tenderini lived in a bed- sit at his chambers in Hunter Street. It was here that the lovers’ trysts took place.
Orient Chambers
The Count also began making Sunday visits to the Miller home in Manly, much to the consternation of John Miller. He found love letters to Lilian from Tenderini, who even put a framed photo of her lover on the mantelpiece of the marital bedroom. Despite Miller’s remonstrations, the love affair secretly continued.
Early in 1910 Lilian Miller discovered she was pregnant. On March 2. following a botched abortion, she was rushed to hospital from Tenderini’s bed-sit by ambulance, suffering from peritonitis. Despite what had happened, Miller tried to persuade his wife to give up her lover and patch up their marriage. Of course it was hopeless. The Count said he loved Lilian and nothing would change that. Lilian felt the same way, so John Miller reluctantly sued for divorce.
The case created something of a sensation in Sydney;
A good deal of interest was attached to the hearing of a case in the Divorce Court this morning. The public accommodation in the court was full, and a large proportion of those present were fashionably attired ladies. (The Sun, 30 November 1910)
In all the write-ups of the case there was only one, brief mention of the fact that the Millers had a child. His name was Raymond and he was eight years old. It must have been such a confusing and lonely time for him.
Following the divorce Tenderini at least proved the sincerity of his feelings. He and Lilian slipped quietly out of Sydney and the couple were married in Rome in June the following year.
A Victorian newspaper reporter spotted the brief announcement in The Sydney Morning Herald, and had a few, less than kind words to say;
‘All’s well that ends well! An obscure little matrimonial notice in a morning paper this week tells us that Count Tenderini, late teacher of languages in Sydney, espoused to Lilian Berenice Beatrice Simpson, also late of Sydney. Tjis puts the finishing touches to what might at this stage (when all the sordid details of the divorce proceedings have faded into dim shadows), be called a romance, and is the sequel to the Miller v- Miller cause celebre that excited so much of the public ‘s attention about a year ago…He vowed that if her legal owner would release her he would make her a Countess, and so it has come to pass and they continue the romance below their own vine and fig tree under the blue skies of Italy. ‘ (Woodend Star Sept. 16 1911)
The sensationalist Truth newspaper commented; ‘ We all know the Count, and we heard of Lilian Berenice Beatrice when her Manly husband divorced her last year. Lilian had a voice, and grand opera aspirations. Countess Tenderini will look well on the programme should she debut later. (Sept, 3 1911)
Meanwhile young Raymond remained in Sydney. It appears he associated almost exclusively with his father. As an adult he was described a having a Scottish accent so strong he could have walked straight from the streets of Glasgow.
LOVE’S LABOURS LOST
For Lilian, the romantic dream of life as a Italian Countess, with perhaps a successful operatic career, ended almost as soon as it began. Truth published what they described as ‘the last act in the Tenderini sensation’. On September 6, three months after her marriage, Lilian died in Rome from typhoid fever. She was 28.
Neither her wedding nor her untimely death were acknowledged by the young woman’s Simpson or Mashman relatives. Her affair with the Count had led to a complete family rupture . Goodness knows what her son Raymond had been told about his mother following the divorce, if anything at all. The effect his traumatic childhood would have on his later life would be devastating, but that’s another story. It’s also the reason I was interested in the divorce case.
NOTE – I couldn’t help wondering whether Gino Tenderini was simply a self-styled Count or a genuine aristocrat. The answer was provided by Australian journalist Isabel Ramsay, while she was touring Italy in 1926;
Among the people with whom we lunched that day was the Marquese Patreici…Knowing I came from Australia, the first question the Marquese asked was whether I had known Count Tenderini, an Italian from this part of Lombardy who lived for some time in Sydney about fifteen years ago. On replying that I had, he informed me that Count Tenderini, his first wife, an Australian who returned to Italy with him having died some years ago, had married again, and was living in Rome with his wife and son. (Sunday Times, May 2 1926)
TO DISCOVER WHAT BECAME OF LILIAN’S SON, CLICK HERE.
