George Marsellos and Stiliani Galanis - New Zealand residents

Amalia Samios
12 minutes ago
5 min read

Georgios Maselos was born at 6am on 13 Jan 1888 to Dimitri Maselos, a servant, and Aggeliki Mavromati, He was the tenth of their 13 children.

He was 5’6” with black hair and black eyes. His right elbow had been broken and may have been an unusual shape.

Signature of Georgios Maselos. NAA NAA: A1, 1919/5368

George Marcellos or Marsellos, as he was now known, arrived from Athens to Brisbane on 14 October 1914 onboard the SS Otway. He spent four months in Kingaroy working at Cassimatis & Co before moving to Ipswich.

George found a job in John Black’s oyster saloon on Brisbane Road, Ipswich. He had only been working there for about three weeks when, on the night of Monday 22 February 191,5 one of two men who had just had a fish dinner tried to leave through the back. When the manager told him he could not he went and sat down. The men then had words with George and one of the men struck him. The other man rushed out of the shop and while George tried to stop him, the first man also ran out. George chased the men and returned to the shop complaining he had a pain in his side. That was when he noticed a bullet wound. They rang the doctor, but George was not seriously injured. The bullet remained in George, as it was in his pelvis and removing it from that position was a dangerous operation. It is not known whether the bullet was ever removed.

At the end of March 1914, the men were caught and charged with assault and inflicting bodily harm. The men claimed George hit them with a chair before they ran out of the shop. One of the men was found innocent of intention to do grievous bodily harm but guilty of unlawful wounding while the other man was found guilty of common assault. The first man received six months imprisonment with hard labour while the second man received fourteen-day imprisonment with hard labour.

In February 1917 George Marsellos and Peter Spathis (a non-Kytherian) purchased the West Moreton Cafe on the corner of Nicholas and Brisbane Streets from John Black. Both men had been managers of the shop.

By December 1917, George and Peter also owned the Central Refreshment Rooms in Brisbane Street, next to the Palaise Royal Hotel. George ran the Nicholas Street shop while Peter ran the Brisbane Street one.

In June 1918 two Greek cooks break into the Nicholas Street shop where George lived and stole £30 and a bronze medal. The two cooks, Andrew Phachaes and George Manousakis, went to work in the morning and saw the shop had been broken into and George Phacheus quickly told George. George said that later on, Phacheas admitted to stealing the money and the medal. He said he came across a man called Patrinos who had just lost all his money at the races. Patrinos said they should steal the money from George and Phacheas agreed. They broke into the shop and Patrinos broke the drawer and took the money. He told Phacheas to meet him at the Greek Club in Brisbane to split the money on the following Sunday. Phacheas was in custody by then. Patrinos was later discharged and Phachaeus pleaded not guilty. It is unknown what the outcome of the case was.

George applied for naturalization on 11 March 1919. He was living on Brisbane Street Ipswich as a restaurateur at the time. The naturalisation was granted on 26 June 1919.

In July of that year, the partnership between George and Peter Spathis was dissolved. Peter took over the business.

Before 1921 George had a business in Coonabarabran.

At 3pm on 9 March 1921 George married Stiliani Galani in Maryborough where she was living on Bazaar Street. Stiliani, or Stella, was the daughter of Nicholas Galanis and Maria Theodoropoulo She was born 10 April 1898 in Aroniadika.

The newspapers called George and Stella’s wedding the first Greek marriage “outside the metropolis”. Stella’s brother Stan gave her away and Peter Spathis was their best man. The 150 guests danced to English music until midnight, then Greek music until 4am. The happy couple spent their honeymoon in Sydney and the Blue Mountains before moving back to Coonabarabran.

Before 1923, George and his growing family moved to Sydney and lived at 25 Lenthall Street Kensington. George became involved in a printing and publishing business with John Stilson, known as John Stilson and Co. at Oxford Lane Sydney which published the Hellenic Herald. This partnership dissolved a few years later on 29 August 1929 and George took over the business on his own and renamed it “G Marcellos and Co.” He stayed in this business until about 1935. He was probably also having financial difficulty.

There is a newspaper article in 1934 where a G Marsellos applied for a fish license in Auburn Street Goulburn, but there is no other proof of George ever being in Goulburn.

In 1935 George and family moved to Quirindi where George was a refreshment room proprietor but in October George became bankrupt. In December 1936 his estate was sequestered with liabilities of £1783/11/1 and assets of nil. The cause of his bankruptcy was listed as high overhead expenses.

It is unclear when or why, but George moved to Wellington, New Zealand before 1936. On the 1936 electoral roll Stella was living alone at Bolton Street Narandera with no occupation.

On 21 July 1936, Stella and her four children arrived in Wellington New Zealand onboard the Marama to join her husband. They stayed there until at least 1945. The only mention in the New Zealand newspaper was George listed as one of the people who made a speech at a Greek community meeting about WWII in November 1940 and, as manager of Ritz Ltd, George placed an advertisement just to thank the community and wish them a Merry Christmas in December 1945. It appears he spent a total of eleven years in New Zealand before returning to Sydney.

George had a stroke on 9 February 1949 and passed away in Prince Henry Hospital, Little Bay, Sydney on 21 February. He was 60. His death certificate states his usual residence was 25 Lenthall Street, Kensington and that he lived nine years in Queensland, eleven years in New Zealand and nineteen years in NSW.

He was buried in Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, plot G14 - General FM 14, Position 1247, on 23 February 1949.

By 1954 Stella was living alone at 29 Moore Park Road, Moore Park and working as a machinist. Before 1958 she was again living at 25 Lenthall Street and now she was a shopkeeper. She would remain in Lenthal Street and a shopkeeper until at least 1980.

She died on 12 September 1989 aged 89. She was buried with her husband.