Month: March 2021

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Camden’s heritage inventory

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Camden heritage mysteries solved

In 2015 I posted an item called ‘Camden’s mysterious heritage list’. In it I complained about the travails of trying to navigate Camden Council’s website to find the Camden heritage inventory. I wrote:

Recently I needed to consult Camden’s heritage inventory list for a research project. I also consulted similar lists for Campbelltown and Wollondilly LGAs. They were easy to find. Camden’s list was mysteriously hiding somewhere. It had to exist. The council is obliged to put one together by the state government. But where was it? Do you know where Camden Council’s heritage inventory is to be found? I did not know. So off I went on a treasure hunt. The treasure was the heritage list.

I am very happy to report that many things have changed since 2015.

Camden Council Heritage Advisory Committee

Today Camden Council has a Heritage Advisory Committee which has taken a lead in promoting heritage in a number of areas.

The committee held its first meeting in August 2018 and the minutes of all meetings are located on the committee website.

Committee member LJ Aulsebrook has written about the activities and role of the committee in Camden History, the journal of the Camden Historical Society.

The Camden Historical Society has an ex-officio position on the Heritage Advisory Committee and the president is the nominee of the society.

One of the outstanding activities of the committee was the 2019 Unlock Camden held during History Week run by the History Council of New South Wales. The Camden event was co-ordinated by LJ Aulesbrook.

Cover of 2019 Unlock Camden Flyer for the event (Camden Council)

The aim of the Heritage Advisory Committee are outlined in the Terms of Reference. The ToR states that the HAC aims :

To promote heritage and community education by:
a) Generating a wider appreciation of heritage through public displays,
seminars, participation in the annual National Trust Heritage festival &
history week;
b) Promoting and coordination of heritage open days;
c) Generating a greater understanding and appreciation of Aboriginal
heritage in Camden Local Government Area;
d) Actively encouraging conservation and maintenance of heritage items
and heritage conservation areas to owners and the general public;
e) Investigating grant opportunities;
f) Investigating opportunities for Council run awards/recognition in
response to good heritage work;
g) Developing a register of local heritage professionals and tradespeople;
and
h) Assisting in developing education packages for information, school
education, and best heritage practices.

https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/pdfs/Planning/Heritage-Advisory-Committee/18-181181-ADOPTED-Heritage-Advisory-Committee-Terms-of-Reference.pdf

What is Camden heritage?

Camden Council defines heritage as

Heritage is something that we have inherited from the past. It informs us of our history as well as giving us a sense of cultural value and identity. Heritage places are those that we wish to treasure and pass on to future generations so that they too can understand the value and significance of past generations.

Heritage makes up an important part of the character of the Camden Local Government Area (LGA). Camden’s heritage comprises of a diverse range of items, places, and precincts of heritage significance. Items, places or precincts may include public buildings, private houses, housing estates, archaeological sites, industrial complexes, bridges, roads, churches, schools, parks and gardens, trees, memorials, lookouts, and natural areas. Heritage significance includes all the values that make that item, place or precinct special to past, present and future generation.

https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/planning/heritage-conservation/

Camden Heritage Inventory

The Camden Heritage Inventory is found on an easily accessible file on the Camden Council webpage here.

The cover of the Camden Heritage Inventory PowerPoint file (2020)

There are links within the PPT to the New South Wales State Heritage Register, the NSW Department of Planning Portal and NSW primary spatial data.

The State Heritage Register has a complete listing of local items and those of state significance on the State Heritage Register.

List of 15 Camden properties of state significance on the New South Wales State Heritage Register in 2021 (NSW Government)

In addition Camden Council has set out for general environmental heritage conditions on its website here.

Camden Council has recently offered advice on for owners who want to restore their residential properties along heritage lines. The advice covers materials, colours, and finishes for Victorian, Edwardian and Mid-century residential architectural styles in the Camden Town Conservation area.

Camden Council heritage advice fact sheet for residential properties in Camden Town Centre Conservation Area. (2020, Camden Council)

The Camden Town Centre conservation area was proclaimed by the state government in 2008 and is subject to a range of development conditions.

This is a map for the Camden Town Centre Conservation Area that was proclaimed by the New South Wales government in 2008 (Camden Council)
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Camden Show Sponsors’ Night

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A grand exhibit for a pandemic

This time of the year usually is show week in Camden when the festival rolls into town.

2021 is a bit different. Not normal at all. In the middle of a pandemic, there is no show for the second year in a row.

That has not stopped the Camden Show society from getting into action and the spirit of the event. 

Committee member Jason Sharpe provided a taste of the show with a colourful temporary display at the recent sponsors’ night.

I was lucky enough to attend the sponsors’ night as the guest of Ian Johnson, the principal at IJ Ag Services.

Better known as a horseman and a sometimes renowned bush-poet Jason Sharpe turned his hand to constructing a sample show display for the assembled guests.

Some of the local produce used in the temporary display created by Jason Sharpe for the 2021 sponsors’ event. At the rear of the display are some perpetual trophies used by some show categories. (I Willis)

Jason out-did himself and blew everyone away with his creativity. His artistic work with pumpkins, corn, hay, chooks, and other produce to be seen to be believed.

If you want to learn how to make a pumpkin look classy beside a handsome bale of hay surrounded by a chorus of chooks, have a chat with Jason.

Jason observed that ‘you cannot understand where you are going without knowing where you have come from’. He used this philosophy in his construction of the temporary display and his acknowledgement of the rich history of the Camden Show.

It was a real shame that it was only a temporary display. I am sure it would have appealed to lots of others in the absence of the 2021 show.

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Pumpkins, eggs, wool fleeces, hay bales and chooks in the temporary display created by Jason Sharpe for the 2021 Camden Show sponsors’ event (I Willis)

A sponsors’ night in the middle of a pandemic

The show committee regularly holds a sponsor’s event each year to say thank you for their support. Without the sponsor’s support, the show would be unlikely to happen.

The current sponsors are listed on the show society website.

Camden Show President Greg Wall with signage from 2019 Camden Show within Jason Sharpe’s temporary display for the 2021 sponsors’ night (I Willis)

Show president Greg Wall gave a stirring speech drawing from Eddie Jaku’s The Happiest Man on Earth. Jaku uses a quote attributed to French philosopher and Nobel Prize winner (1957) Albert Camus that Greg finds inspirational for life. Camus said:

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead.
Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.

President Wall said that sponsors followed Camus’s philosophy and walked beside the committee, and were friends of the Camden Show.

What is sponsorship, and why have it?

Larry Weil, from the website The Marketing Guy, defines sponsorship as:

  a form of affinity marketing that provides certain rights and benefits to the buyer or “sponsor”.   Sponsorship is particularly effective when the sponsor and the property have similar goals, values and vision. Properly activated, this affiliation casts a “halo” or conveys certain characteristics to the sponsor as a result of the strong recognition or fan base of the property.

Weil argues that sponsorship  

 provides business access, connections, hospitality, affinity, audience access, data, and helps to shape public perception in a way that can be hard to achieve using your own marketing and branding efforts alone. 

 Others argue that sponsorship uses the notion that

a brand (sponsor) and event (sponsoree) become linked in memory through the sponsorship, and as a result, thinking of the brand can trigger event-linked associations. 

A variety of items including ribbons, newspaper publicity and trophies indicating the breadth of awards used to acknowledge excellence at the show. All part of the temporary display created by Jason Sharpe at the 2021 Camden Show sponsors’ event. (I Willis)

Camden Show sponsorship

The NSW Government Office for Sport states that

It is good business practice to create a sponsorship policy within the organisation before you apply for sponsorship. 

The Camden Show committee following this principle on its webpage called ‘Why Be a Sponsor?‘ Here the committee maintains that show sponsorship offers:

opportunities available offer your brand an unparalleled opportunity to reach, connect and engage with an average of 45,000 people over two days at the show. This is in addition to the people we reach through our media campaigns across digital, radio, TV and print avenues.

The Camden Show committee argues that the show allows a sponsor to:

• Generate brand awareness • Showcase products and services • Connect with the community • Engage with consumers face-to-face • Generate immediate sales • Capture Data

Camden Show sponsorship is broken into seven levels ranging from supreme to green to allow large and small sponsors to support this marvellous community event.

A pumpkin that was part of the temporary display created by Jason Sharpe for the 2021 Camden Show sponsors’ night (I Willis)

Huge community event

The Camden Show is one of the most significant community events in the Macarthur region and one of southwestern Sydney’s largest festivals. The last show in 2019 attracted nearly 45,000 people.

The show has made a considerable contribution to the construction of place and community identity in the local area. Along with other country festivals, the show integrates cultural identity, belonging, volunteering and paid employment.

The Camden Show is far from unique either in concept or history. The history of agricultural shows goes back to the early 19th century when they copied similar events in Europe. Historian Helen Doyle argues that the early shows were primarily ‘a means of promoting new agricultural technology and were used to teach farmers and display the latest farming innovations. Prizes were awarded, and one of the earliest contests were ploughing contests.

Framed portraits of past Camden Show presidents normally housed on display at the rear of the Camden Show office not generally accessible to the public. These portraits were part of the temporary display created by Jason Sharpe at the 2021 Camden Show sponsors’ event. These images acknowledge the rich history of the show. (I Willis)

 Geoff Raby’s Making Rural Australia details that Australia’s first agricultural show was in Hobart in 1822, organised by the Van Diemen’s Agricultural Society.  The same year several leading colonial ‘gentleman’ formed the Agricultural Society of New South Wales.

Kate Darian Smith argues that the Agricultural Society of New South Wales was formed

  with the aim of encouraging profitable cultivation techniques and livestock production suited to the local environmental and climatic conditions.  A key activity of the new Society was the organisation of an annual competitive display of animals and produce, thus providing agricultural education to the public and enabling its members to meet and conduct business. The first show was held at Parramatta in 1823 and included prizes for high performing servants as well as the ‘best’ rams, cheeses, and beer. 

The cover of Neville Clissold’s Camden Show 1886-2011 The People The Stories (2011) which outlines the history of the Camden Show from its origins in 1886 to 2011 anniversary show.

The original Camden Show in 1886 followed these traditions. The first show was organised by a committee formed in 1885 with the grand title of the Camden Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Society. The AH&I Society was a ‘gentlemen’s club’ made up of the local landed gentry headed by president JK Chisholm of Gledswood and a committee of other ‘local notables’.

The 1886 show held competitive farming displays for stock and produce with the best exhibits awarded prizes. The show had a section for the ‘colonial’ red and white wines reflecting the importance of the area to the foundation of the Australian wine industry. Camden women were encouraged to supervise their children’s efforts and entries in the domestic arts of sewing, cooking and artwork.

The 1886 Camden Show schedule that was part of the temporary display created by Jason Sharpe at the 2021 Camden Show sponsors’ event (I Willis)
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Motherhood and nation-building in the early 20th century

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Infant mortality and the ideology of motherhood.

In Camden the ideology of motherhood expressed itself in the foundation of the St John’s Mother’s Union in 1900 which saw that mothers were an integral part of women’s service role to the British Empire. (Ministering Angels, p19) and later the Red Cross in 1914 and Camden Country Women’s Association in 1930. (Ministering Angels, 21) 

In the early 20th century the Red Cross was variously described as the ‘Greatest Mother in the World’, and the ‘Mother of all Nations’  (Ministering Angels, 6)  The CWA were concerned with motherhood and infant mortality and of their main activities in the early 20th century was the foundation of baby health centres across the country.

This First World War poster is a lithograph by American artist Foringer, A. E. (Alonzo Earl) and is titled ‘The greatest mother in the world’ (1917). The poster is showing a monumental Red cross nurse cradling a wounded soldier on a stretcher.

Around the turn of the century a direct link was made between infant welfare, motherhood, patriotism and nationalism. Motherhood and mothering were expressed in terms of patriotism and a national priority. All driven by European exceptionalism, expressed in Australia as the White Australia policy. There was anxiety around falling birth rates, whiteness and the strength of the British Empire.

The story of the Camden District Red Cross 1914-1945 is published by the Camden Historical Society. It tells the story of Red Cross branches at Camden, Menangle, The Oaks, Bringelly, Mount Hunter, Oakdale and the Burragorang Valley.

Motherhood as national building

Sociologist Karen Swift writes that from the around the middle of the 18th century the state became interested in motherhood where ‘the state’s interest in controlling and using female fertility for nation building and economic purposes’.  Biological determinism stated that motherhood was a natural state for women and that is should be a national priority.

Swift writes:

The ‘master narratives’ governing European motherhood in earlier centuries was that of nation building, especially in the colonies. The creation of new nations required a growing, healthy population, with women’s roles focused on producing and rearing soldiers and laborers. Once nation-building efforts became established, mothers were called upon to contribute to the development of a large and prosperous white middle class needed to perpetuate and grow capitalism. For this purpose, white mothers were needed to learn, teach, and demonstrate the moral authority the middle class required to dominate those below in the social, economic, and racial hierarchies. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/motherhood#:~:text=Motherhood%20as%20Ideology&text=A%20well%2Dknown%20summary%20of,67).

Developing national anxiety around motherhood

The metaphor of the Red Cross as mother and guardian angel was extended in the post-war environment and incorporated a concern for mothers and infants. The terrible losses of the First World War, and declining birth rate made the welfare of mothers and infants a national defence priority. There were calls to repopulate the country (The Maitland Weekly Mercury, 30 November 1918.)   and a developing national anxiety around motherhood. Some of Sydney’s conservative elite had expressed concern about the issue of infant welfare, and set up the Kindergarten Union and Free Kindergartens in the 1890s.  

Sibella Macarthur Onslow in the library at Camden Park House in 1922. Sibella known affectionately ‘Sib’ was a philanthropist, church woman, pastoralist, a woman of independent means and intensely private. She was a member of influential conservative women’s organisations during the Edwardian and Interwar periods including Sydney’s influential Queen’s Club and National Council of Women and the imperial Victoria League. (Camden Images)

Support from the National Council of Women of NSW, of which Sibella Macarthur Onslow of Camden Park was a member, and others who were concerned about the welfare of mothers and infants led to the establishment of day nurseries, supervised playgrounds and other initiatives in inner Sydney in the early 1920s. There were high rates of infant mortality in inner Sydney and social conditions for single mothers with children were less than desirable. There had been the Royal Commission on the Decline of the Birth Rate and the Mortality of Infants in New South Wales in 1904 and the Edwardian period was characterised by a nationalistic concern over the moral decline of the British race. (Ministering Angels, 65-66)

‘Perfect Motherhood is Perfect Patriotism’

‘Perfect Motherhood is Perfect Patriotism’ according to Sydney’s Daily Telegraph in 1926. The article was a part of the publicity associated with a fundraising campaign for the Karitane-Sydney Mothercraft Centre at Coogee operated by the Australian Mothercraft Society. The society had been established in Australia in 1923 modelled on the Royal New Zealand Society for Health of Women and Children, commonly called the Plunket Society, established by New Zealand doctor Sir Truby King in 1907.

King  visited Australian in 1917 on a lecture tour and warned Australia:

You should have a white Australia. But if you find the Eastern nations more moral more noble to make more sacrifices for the continuity of the race, you know the result must be the same as has been the case with the great civilisations of the past. Greece and Rome went down, not through any failure in the valour or courage of their young men, but because of the increase in luxury, the repugnance to rearing families, followed by decadence and sterility and eventually extinction. If the population of Australia do not do their duty to the race there cannot be any resistance to other races coming in and populating this fair land.

(Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Friday 11 February 1938)

Red Cross Baby Day in Camden

In 1920 the women of the Camden Red Cross were concerned about these issues and donated £14 to the Society for Welfare of Mothers and Babies. The society had been formed in 1918 in Sydney, aimed to teach mothercraft and eventually set up the Tresillian training school at Petersham in 1922.

The women of the Camden Red Cross at their weekly street stall in Argyle Street Camden in the 1920s. The women ran the stall for decades and raised thousands of pounds for local and national charities. (Camden Images)

Red Cross Baby Day became an important part of the district Red Cross child welfare agenda in the post-war years. The Red Cross coordinated the first Baby Week in 1920 in the first week of April and encouraged the formation of local committees.

The Baby Week was supported by Lady Helen Munro Ferguson and had its origins in England with the National Baby Week Council in 1900. Its objects were to foster child welfare by decreasing infant mortality, to promoting the health of mothers, and to encouraging motherhood and maternal nursing(The Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal, 27 February 1920)  (Ministering Angels, 66).

The 1920 Red Cross Baby Day in Camden was held on 30 March and the Camden branch had two street stalls, while the Narellan Red Cross had an afternoon tea stall at the Bank of New South Wales.  (Minutes, Camden Red Cross, 9 March 1920 )  

Camden RHS Adeline West with baby Kathleen LHS Adeline’s sister Ethel Jones & baby Edwin 1908 (Camden Images)

The support continued in 1925 when the Camden Red Cross was assisted on the dip stalls by Miss Gardner from Camden Public School and her kindergarten class. The total raised by Camden was £23 and Narellan Red Cross raised £9. Camden News, 1 April 1920) 

The funds were donated to the Camden District Cot at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children. In 1925 Camden Red Cross members sought the assistance of the girls from Camden Superior Public School, with the girls helping out on one of the dip stalls. This practice continued until 1940. The Camden Red Cross branch made a regular donation and it generally varied between £20 and £50, with a peak in 1922 of £53. The overall average donation between 1921 and 1939 was £34, while during the Furner presidency the average donation was £37 and Macarthur Onslow’s presidency £32. The Camden Red Cross made a number of donations to nursery movement groups during the 1920s and they included: Nursery Association (1924, £10); Sydney Day Nurseries (1925, £10); Infant Home, Ashfield (1925, £7, and 1926, £10); and the Forest Lodge Day Nursery (1927, £6). (Ministering Angels, 66)

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Bottled milk and hygienic dairies: agricultural modernism

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Bottled milk reduces contamination  

Contaminated milk being sold to consumers today is completely unthinkable, yet there was a time in Camden when it was not unusual at all.

Contaminated milk was such as issue that 1931 local milk supplier Camden Vale Milk Company Limited advertised the hygienic properties of its bottled milk.

Camden Vale Milk was produced by the dairies of Camden Park Estate. It was promoted  as ‘Free from Tubercule, Typhoid and Diphtheria Bacilli’. Camden Vale promised that its milk was ‘rich, clean’ and ‘safe’.  

The advertisement by Camden Vale Milk appeared in the 1931 booklet for Sydney Health Week and was used to promote the sale of bottled milk.

An advertisement promoting bottled milk placed by Camden Vale Milk Company Limited in the 1931 Health and Baby Welfare Booklet as part of Sydney Health Week. Health Week ran from 10 October 1931 to 23 October 1931 across New South Wales.

Sydney Health Week was launched in October 1921 with the aim of improving community health particularly the health of infants. Dr Purdy of the organising committee stated that infant mortality in Australia was twice the rate of Great Britain. Health Week was modelled on the Health Week of Great Britain  which started in 1912 by the Agenda Club and renewed after the war. The week was launched with the support of the NSW Labor Government and the Minister for Public Health and Motherhood, Mr G McGirr. (Tweed Daily, 27 October 1921)

The cover of the 1931 booklet published to promote Health and Baby Welfare Week. The booklet was produced by Executive of the Eleventh Annual Sydney Health Week. It had a circulation of 207,000 and was 128 pages.

Camden Vale Bottled Milk

Camden Park Dairies started selling bottled milk from 1926 under the Camden Vale Bottled Milk brand across the Sydney market. The growth of bottled milk contributed to better hygiene and stopped contamination.

The Macarthur family of Camden Park established the Camden Vale Milk Company Limited in 1920 to distribute whole liquid milk to the Sydney market. The company became a co-operative the following year with 131 shareholders and FA Macarthur Onslow was the managing director. Camden Park’s dairy processing assets, including the Menangle Milk factory, Redfern processing plant and delivery trucks, were transferred to Camden Vale in 1920.

The company opened a milk receiving depot at the corner of Edward and Argyle Streets in Camden in 1921. The Menangle factory sent milk to Redfern for pasteurisation and bottling. Bottled milk gave Camden Vale an edge in the Sydney market where there was fierce competition from over-supply and price-cutting.

Camden Vale Milk Company Limited Depot at the corner of Edward and Argyle Street Camden adjacent to the Camden-Campbelltown tramway. This 1923 view is the timber building that burnt down shortly after this image was taken and replaced with the current brick building. The railway allowed easy transportation of whole milk to the Sydney market. (Camden Images)

Adulterated milk

The Camden Vale Milk  advertising for Sydney Health Week might seem alarmist today. Yet a short history of the Sydney milk supply and issues of contamination and milk-borne disease illustrates that these type of concerns were far from alarmist. Indeed they were quite prudent.

So what were the issues with milk in 1931?

In the early 20th century tuberculosis, typhoid diphtheria and other diseases were a constant threat.

A quick search of Trove and the pages of the Camden News and Picton Post reveals the extent of notifiable disease within the Camden  community in the past. There were a host of outbreaks in the early 20th century and late 19th century reported by these newspapers. They included: scarlet fever (1914, 1927, 1948); measles (1914); cholera (1899, 1900, 1902, 1911, 1914); infantile paralysis or polio (1932, 1946); typhoid fever (1914, 1916, 1921); consumption or tuberculosis (1912, 1913, 1916); diphtheria (1896, 1898, 1907, 1922, 1948); and others.

Milk-borne disease

The threat of milk-borne diseases was a real threat in the 19th century.

Medical historian Milton Lewis has argued

Well before the advent of germ theory and modern epidemiology, milk was being named as the means by which typhoid, scarlet fever and diphtheria were sometimes spread.    The connection between infant mortality and cows’ milk had been noted early in the nineteenth century.

It was not until 1861 that Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases.

 The first attempt in New South Wales to control the quality of milk from dairies in the Sydney area were laws to stop the adulteration of food in the 1870s. They were based on English laws. It was quite common for Sydney dairymen to adulterate pure milk with added water, justifying their claims that they could not make a profit without adding water. In 1875 there was an outcry from NSW Medical Gazette about the practice.

New South Wales authorities were prompted into action in 1886 when an outbreak of milk-borne typhoid in Sydney was traced to a well on a Leichhardt dairy. The dairy was contaminated by sewage from surrounding houses. There were further outbreaks linked to polluted dairies in St Leonards in 1887 and 1890, and another in the Randwick area in 1890.

Raw milk

The inspection of Sydney dairy herds from the 1890s led to a decline in the incidence of milk-borne tuberculosis and improved conditions at the dairies. The major risk arose from the sale of raw milk by city dairies.

The local ‘milko’ sold customers raw milk. It was sometimes poor quality and there was no guarantee it was free from contamination. The ‘milko’ poured milk into from a tank in his van into the customer’s jug.

By 1905 action by city health authorities led to significant improvements on city dairies and milk shops. Authorities had started to take action on the adulteration of milk with water and chemical preservatives. 

Pasteurisation

Pasteurisation of milk was an effective way of protecting consumers from the milk-borne disease. It involves heat treatment of milk then rapid cooling.

The Farmers’ and Dairymans’ Company started to pasteurise its milk supply in 1903 but contamination occurred in the supply chain. In 1905 the company along with the NSW Fresh Food and Ice Company advertised pasteurised milk in the Sydney press. (Farmers’ and Dairymen’s Milk Co. advertisement, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 January 1905; N.S.W. Fresh Food and Ice Co. advertisement, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1905, 9).

Commercial pasteurisations was first introduced in the USA in 1907 and spread quickly across American cities as it improved the keeping quality of milk. The first regulations were introduced in England in 1922.

Following the First World War the New South Wales Board of Trade maintained that child health could be improved by higher consumption of milk. The Board added that infant feeding on uncontaminated milk could be achieved by the use of dried milk.

The poor quality of fresh milk from Sydney suburban dairies in 1923 meant that baby health clinics recommended mothers feed their infants a combination of dried milk and fruit juice. The aim was to reduce infant mortality from gastro-enteritis.

Bottled milk and Camden Vale Milk Company Limited

Farmers had started selling bottled milk in 1925.  The first bottled milk was produced in Sydney in 1911 but the company was unable to survive the competition from established firm.  The first use of bottled milk in Sydney according to newspaper reports was in 1898 following its adoption and use in the Philadelphia in the USA.

A milk bottle produced by Camden Vale Milk Co Ltd (Belgenny Farm)

In 1929 Camden Vale merged with Dairy Farmers’ Cooperative Milk Company, established by South Coast dairy farmers in 1900, and Farmers’ and Dairymans’ Company. The company continued to use the Camden Vale brand and eventually in 1934 the Camden Vale Milk Co Ltd was wound up.

Herd testing at Camden Park Estate

The Camden Park management were industry leaders in the Sydney market. In 1924 were the first dairy herds in New South Wales to be certified TB free.

Camden Park Estate Model Dairy No 2 milking showing concrete floor and fitted out with equipment that is easy to clean in 1938 (Camden Images)

In 1926 the Camden Park opened its first ‘model’ dairy at Menangle to give Camden Vale bottled milk an edge in the competitive Sydney market. It represented the ‘best practice and high standards of hygiene’. This meant

 The brick dairy had a concrete floor with bails, fittings and equipment designed for ease of cleaning and optimum hygiene. 

(Belgenny Farm)

Milk was pasteurised at the Menangle and Camden factories, bottled and delivered to customers.

‘The Milk with the Golden Cap’ slogan or tagline was used in the promotional advertising for Camden Vale bottled milk. The milk was sold at a premium across the Sydney market.

The Macarthur family at Camden Park Estate followed the latest scientific methods in their dairy herds and regularly won prizes at the Camden Show and the Sydney Royal Easter Show.