Connections
Evelyn Marsden was the only Australian female survivor of the sinking of RMS Titanic. She was rescued in lifeboat 16. She was the daughter of railway worker Walter Henry Marsden and Annie Bradshaw. Her birthplace of Stockyard Creek is about 80 km north of Adelaide, South Australia and is now ruins. Wikipedia
Evelyn Marsden and her husband Dr William A James resided in The Ruthven Mansions in 1912.
William Abel James was born on the 5th October 1880 at Cumbran, Monmouthshire, Wales. The son of a schoolmaster, William John James and his wife Elizabeth Ann, nee Brown. While studying medicine, James served for seven years in 3rd Bn South Wales Borderers, and reached the rank of lieutenant. After graduation in 1906 James obtained a position as a ship’s surgeon with the White Star Line. In the course of his service on the Olympic, he met a 28 year old Australian woman, Evelyn Marsden (1883-1938) who was employed by the Company as a stewardess and nurse.
https://vwma.org.au/explore/people/268086
William Webb with his wife Alice, née Van Stone, and their two sons, arrived in Adelaide on 16 November 1923 and resided in the Ruthven Mansions. He revolutionized the Adelaide railway management by rationalizing the basis of operations and efficient practices.
Donald Allan Dunstan AC QC (21 September 1926 – 6 February 1999) was an Australian politician who served as the 35th premier of South Australia from 1967 to 1968, and again from 1970 to 1979. Dunstan’s socially progressive administration enacted measures to protect buildings of historical heritage, and encouraging arts. Don Dunstan was instrumental in preserving the Ruthven Mansions as a Residential building during his reign.
Walter Charles Torode (1858–1937), Made his reputation building fashionable houses for ‘the gentry’ in Aldgate and Stirling in the Adelaide Hills. Soon a prominent builder, Torode’s contracts included Adelaide University’s Elder Conservatorium (1897) and Adelaide’s Stock Exchange building (1900) and Ruthven Mansions (1913), and extensions to St Peter’s Cathedral (1901) in North Adelaide. Among the first Australian builders to grasp the structural potential of reinforced concrete, building concrete houses in metropolitan Adelaide, and Unley. Torode’s eccentric design, were prominent in his day through his flamboyant self-promotion.
Elena Domenica Luisa Rubeo (1896–1979)
In 1912 Elena’s family moved to Ruthven Mansions, where they opened an elegant restaurant, Café Rubeo, offering authentic Roman cuisine and live music. After her brothers enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1914, she helped to manage the restaurant and became active in the British (Australian) Red Cross Society. She later received a decoration from the Italian Red Cross and was the first woman in Australia to be appointed as an Italian Consular Agent and recipient of the Order of Australia.