The namesake of a Dee Why street was gifted an apartment by the Japanese Emperor
Inman and Orlando Roads are two relatively unknown streets in the Dee Why West industrial area, near Cromer High School. Even less known is the man who was the source of their names, despite the somewhat amazing life that he lived.
Orlando Inman Kempthorne was born in Carlton, Melbourne in 1860, and grew up in New Zealand where his father founded a drug store which became the country’s biggest chemical manufacturer.
Orlando trained in chemistry and rose to a senior level in his father’s company. However, his private life was less successful, being married and divorced twice. After the second, he moved to Western Australia and founded his own chemical agency business.
For reasons that are not clear – perhaps his chemical business involved contacts with both the UK and Japan – in 1898 he moved to Tokyo in the role of attache to the British Legation. There he acted as liaison between the Japanese Navy and major ship builders in Britain as the Japanese modernised and expanded their fleet, including battleships.
When the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China in 1900, he actually sailed with the Japanese fleet and was present at the Battle of Taku Forts.
With the rebellion suppressed, Orlando went on a tour of Japan, Korea and China, lecturing and advising local manufacturers on how to do business with the west. The Japanese Emperor was so impressed that he gave him a serviced apartment in the Imperial Palace.
On return to Australia, he set up an auction business in Sydney and played a role in the visit of the Japanese fleet to Australia in 1910, including to a surf carnival at Freshwater. On retirement he built a large house at Dee Why in 1921, complete with tennis court and 100 seat private theatre. The house was on eight acres at the corner of today’s Inman and Orlando Roads.
He died in 1930 and disappeared from local history.
Richard Michell is the vice-president of the Manly, Warringah and Pittwater Historical Society and the secretary of Friends of Dee Why Lagoon. Visit mwphs.org.au and fodyl.au respectively.
