The mysterious Jean Bianconi first appeared in the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald in April 1877. He materialised seemingly out of thin air, announcing his carriage service with the first of many cryptically-worded advertisements: "The Eastern Question: the Climax - An Omnibus leaves Milson's Point 10.20, 2.20, 5.20, for the junction of Manly and Military Roads, Buena Vista und George's Head. Fare, 6d. Viva Jean Bianconi and cheap fares!"
The self-styled transport magnate had a flair for hyperbole. He invited "invalids and excursionists" to sample the "salubrious air" of his waiting rooms. "A few hours spent each day at these stations will be found to impart vigour to the weakened constitutions of the citizens and their children," he claimed.
In late 1877 Bianconi penned an open letter to the landed proprietors of Willoughby, Manly, and Gordon, inviting them to attend a "monster meeting", at which he would share his vision of a high-level bridge that would unite Cumberland. "The Government will advance the money," he promised. "We shall become the proprietary of one of the most lucrative investments ever entered into in the colony!"
Within a year Bianconi had branched into real-estate, selling subdivisions along his carriage routes. Prospective buyers were promised "fine rich land" and, naturally, "conveyance by omnibus to [their] door for 4s per week". "If you leave that ridge without selecting five acres for your homestead," he wrote, "then you are not the man I take you to be."
Readers must have wondered about the flamboyant Bianconi's origins. An Italo-Irish entrepreneur named Charles Bianconi had died in 1875, not long before Jean first appeared in Sydney. Charles was well known, having pioneered public transportation in Ireland, and his obituary had appeared in Sydney papers. It was almost as if the heir to the Bianconi fortune had decided to set up a franchise in the Colonies.
But the reality was more prosaic. The headquarters of Bianconi's operation was given as 324 George Street, a space shared by a land broker named Richard Harnett. A Herald article from 1913 describes Mr Harnett as the owner of "Bianconi coaches". Harnett had bought up swathes of land in the northern suburbs, and once he had installed public transport in the area, was able to sell for huge profits. Jean Bianconi, it seems, was Harnett's creation: a mouthpiece destined to live briefly, if brightly, in the classified section of the local papers.
