One of Australian philanthropy’s most passionate advocates,Darvell Hutchinson AM,has passed away in Melbourne after a lifetime of supporting and promoting the power of giving. He was 91.
Although Darvell’s longest association was his remarkable 50 years as chair of the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust in Melbourne,he was also a founding chair of The John Villiers Trust in Queensland. He was also a former president of the Australian Association of Philanthropy Association (the forerunner of peak body Philanthropy Australia) and was honoured with Philanthropy Australia life membership in 2014.
Darvell,whose grandparents migrated from Ireland to Melbourne in 1892,was born at home,in Ross Street,Toorak,on July 1,1930,the youngest of four children. The midwife attending the birth told Darvell’s mother Elsie immediately after the delivery:“This boy was in a great hurry to get into the world,and that’s a good sign.” It turned out to be prophetic – Darvell grew into a man who was keen to get tasks organised and outcomes delivered,usually with a sense of urgency. These traits were evident in his philanthropy too,which was distinguished by a boldness,a willingness to trust his intuition and to identify successful investments that grew the organisations he supported.
But his drive to help others was perhaps fashioned from the hardships of his early years – the family was not well off. Darvell’s arrival at the time of the Great Depression,and then the scourge of Polio that afflicted many children,added to the family’s burden. Darvell was sent to his aunt’s home in NSW when polio swept through Victoria. Defying stringent border restrictions in place,Darvell was smuggled back under the seat of a car on way to Mildura train station for the return home after the polio threat eased in Melbourne.
Darvell was educated at Gardenvale Primary School and finished his schooling at Melbourne High,securing a scholarship to the Commonwealth Institute of Accountants that led to his first job,with accounting firm Wilson,Bishop and Henderson. It was there he met his future wife,Barbara,who was working as a stenographer. Darvell worked in London and Barbara joined him before they returned to Melbourne to marry in April 1958.
Darvell HutchinsonSupplied
It was the first of the two enduring partnerships of his life. The second began when Darvell was appointed trustee of what was then the Helen M. Schutt Trust. He was only 33 and for the next 50 years,Darvell would apply his dedication and vision to make the legacy of Helen M. Schutt (nee Smith) a feature of the Australian philanthropic landscape.
Today,the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust has contributed $135 million to Victorian charitable causes and has total assets of more than $140 million.
Darvell never met the woman behind the Trust – Helen died in France,in 1951. He was,at the time,a partner with a firm of chartered accountants whose professional predecessors had acted for Helen’s family.
One of Darvell’s ideas was to make the HMS Trust an independent identity with its own office. In 1987,he retired from the accounting firm and devoted himself to establishing the Trust’s first autonomous public office,making the Trust an independent entity and helping establish its profile as a benefactor. On the Trust’s 50 anniversary in 2001,Darvell announced a name change,to the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust to reflect the source of benefaction in Helen’s own name.
While Darvell’s accounting background was integral to helping to grow the financial resources of organisations he worked with,it was his embrace of strategic philanthropy that was a hallmark of his approach to giving and service to a long list of organisations.
Darvell had been trustee and treasurer of the National Gallery of Victoria,vice-president of the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund,director of the Macpherson Smith Rural Foundation Ltd (now Youthrive Victoria) and the National Institute of Circus Arts,and a member of the Patrons’ Council of Royal District Nursing Service. He was also a trustee of the L.E.W. Carty Charitable Fund and most recently a founding director of the Brian M Davis Charitable Foundation.
He held a range of public company directorships,from the Bank of Melbourne,RESI-Statewide Building Society and JC Williamson Ltd across the years,but it was his association with the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust that underpins his philanthropic career. In 2014,the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust established the Hutchinson Indigenous Fellowship,a perpetual gift supporting 12-month residences for Victorian Indigenous artists at the University of Melbourne.
There was always a refreshing – and often inspiring – candour about Darvell’s approach to philanthropy. “I think we have come to a level in philanthropy where there just has to be far more collaboration and partnership,because our individual purses will never be able to aspire to achieve the significant social impacts that can be leveraged out of working together,” he said some years ago.
He was honoured for his service to the community as a Member of the Order of Australia in 1994,while Monash University conferred a doctor of laws honoris causa on him and the Central Queensland University Council followed in 2016 with an honorary degree of doctor of the university.
On Darvell’s retirement from the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust,one of the nation’s finest historians Geoffrey Blainey AC summed up Darvell’s legacy:“All honour to Darvell Hutchinson. I can think of no other Australian who has given so many years to guiding a philanthropic trust and guiding it so effectively. He possesses a special quality,sheer good sense. How you will miss him!” It is a fitting epitaph for a man who entered the world in a hurry.
Darvell is survived by his wife Barbara,his three children and extended family.
Nick Richardson is a writer at Philanthropy Australia.