Around 1872, James Fergusson moved into his new home, Glenferrie, in Malvern, then on the eastern edge of Melbourne. It was a fine two-storey brick mansion with 14 rooms and extensive grounds. Fergusson was general manager of Fergusson ; Mitchell, one of the leading printing firms and manufacturing stationers in the Colony of Victoria, and he had recently been elected a Member of the Legislative Assembly. Fergusson commissioned a large, stained-glass stairwell window for his new home, almost certainly from the Melbourne firm Ferguson ; Urie; several similar examples of the company's work from the 1860s to 1880s survive in Melbourne churches and mansions. The images in the window reflect the commercial wealth and confidence of a generation of immigrants that had come to the young colony and made its fortune through agriculture, mining, manufacturing and trade. Painted glass panels depict shipping, railways, farming, mining, commerce and, personally significant to Fergusson, printing. The window is also a symbol of the colony's pride and its continuing attachment to Britain. At the top of the window, a kangaroo and an emu stand on either side of the Australian colonial coat-of-arms. Pride of place in the middle of the window is given to the Fergusson Blazon of Arms, with three boars' heads and a buckle. The thistle, rose and shamrock (symbols respectively of Scotland, England and Ireland) are repeated throughout the background. After James Fergusson's death in 1888, Glenferrie passed through several owners, until it was eventually demolished in 1954. A local resident apparently purchased the window and built it into their modern home in the 1970s. When new owners undertook extensive renovations in 2001, they donated the window to the museum.
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