Cowpastures’ memories in monuments, memorials and murals.

August 22, 2022May 7, 2023 camdenhistorynotes3 Comments

A landscape of memorials and memories of the Cowpastures.

Many memorials, monuments, historic sites, and other public facilities commemorate, celebrate and just generally remind us about the landscape of the Cowpastures.

In recent decades there has been a nostalgia turn around recovering the memory of the Cowpastures landscape. This is cast in terms of the pioneers and the legacy of the European settlement.

An applique panel on the Cowpastures Heritage Quilt shows Belgenny Farm, which was part of Camden Park Estate. The quilt is hanging on display at the Camden Library (I Willis, 2022)

Memorials and monuments can be controversial in some quarters, especially in the eyes of those interested in Australia’s dark history.

Apart from monuments and memorials to the Cowpastures landscape, the most ubiquitous form of memorialisation across the Macarthur region are war memorials. Most Macarthur regional communities possess a monument of some kind, dating to the early 20^th century commemorating the memory of those killed in action in the First and Second World Wars and the Vietnam War.

The heyday of building monuments in Australia was in the late 19th century and early 20th century, when the new and emerging nation searched for national heroes. These heroes were overwhelmingly blokes – pale males.

Some of the most significant memorials to the Cowpastures landscape are historical sites, the built environment, and cultural heritage. Many of these are scattered across the Cowpastures region dating from the time of European settlement.

Most of the monuments and memorials to the Cowpastures in the local area date from the mid-20th century. Several have been commissioned by developers trying to cast their housing developments in nostalgia for the colonial past. Only one of these memorials was commissioned by women.

The monuments and memorials can be considered part of the public art of the local area and have contributed to the construction of place and community identity.

The memories evoked by the monuments, memorials, murals, historical sites, celebrations, and other items mean different things to different people.

The Cowpastures Landscape

So what exactly has been referred to by the Cowpastures landscape? In this discussion, there are these interpretations:

A set of principles for viewing The Cowpastures landscape

The Cowpastures landscape and seven principles of interpretation:

Utilitarian – the economic benefit – the protection of the cows and the herd
Picturesque – the presentation of the Cowpastures as a result of the burning of the environment by the Aborigines –fire stick farming – the reports of the area being a little England from the 1820s – Hawdon.
Regulatory – banning of movement into the Cowpastures to protect the cows
The political and philosophical – evils were the true corruptors of the countryside.
Natural history – collecting specimens and describing fauna and flora – Darwin’s visit to Sydney – the curiosity of the early officers.
‘New natures’ – the environmental impact of flooding along the Nepean River and clear felling of trees across the countryside.
Emotional response – how the European viscerally experienced the countryside – sights, smells, hearing – and its expression in words and pictures. (after Karskins 2009, The Colony)

Examples of memory evocation for The Cowpastures

Monuments and memorials

The Cowpastures Heritage Quilt was commissioned by the Camden Quilters Guild commemorating the Cowpastures Bicentenary in 1995.

2. A public artwork called Cowpastures Story in the forecourt of Narellan Library was commissioned by Narellan Rotary Club.

3. A statue of Governor Hunter was commissioned by a land developer at Mount Annan.

Statue of Governor Hunter in the Governors Green Reserve at Mount Annan (I Willis)

4. A collection of bronze cows in the Cowpastures Wild Cattle of the 1790s was commissioned by a land developer at Oran Park.

5. At Harrington Park Lakeside, public artworks memorialise the Cowpastures commissioned by a land developer.

6. At Picton, the Cowpastures mural is completed by a local sculptor and local school children.

The Cowpastures Memorial Bronze mural at Picton (I Willis, 2021)

7. Camden Rotary Pioneer Mural was commissioned by Camden Rotary Club in the mid-20th century and is located adjacent to Camden District Hospital.

Camden Pioneer Mural was commissioned by Camden Rotary Club in the mid-20th century adjacent to Camden Hospital on the Old Hume Highway (I Willis)

8. A different type of memorial is the Cowpasture Bridge at the entry to Camden, spanning the Nepean River.

Information plaque for the 1976 opening of the Cowpasture Bridge located adjacent to the bridge in Argyle Street, Camden (I Willis, 2022)

9. Memorial to the Appin Massacre at Cataract Dam.

10. The Hume and Hovell Monument on the Appin Road celebrates the departure of the Hume and Hovell expedition to Port Phillip Bay in 1824.

11. Parks and reserves, e.g., Rotary Cowpasture Reserve, opened in 1995 By Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair, Governor of NSW, celebrating 100 years of Rotary.

The Camden Rotary Cowpasture Reserve was opened on 19 February 1995 by Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair, Governor of New South Wales. The reserve is located at Lat: -34.053751 and Long: 150.701171. and the address is 10 Argyle Street, Camden. The reserve is on an original land grant within the boundaries of Camden Park Estate from the early 19th century, which was part of the Macarthur family’s colonial pastoral empire. Camden Park Estate was a central part of the Cowpastures district. (I Willis)

12. In Campbelltown’s Mawson Park is a statue of Elizabeth Macquarie. The bronze statue honours the wife of Governor Macquarie, whose maiden name was Campbell, and Campbelltown was named in her honour. The sculpture was created by sculptor Tom Bass in installed in 2006.

The statue of Elizabeth Macquarie in Mawson Park Campbelltown was created by sculptor Tom Bass and installed in 2006. (C&AHS)

13. The Narellan Community Mosaic Project in Elyard Reserve in Elyard Street Narellan was installed in 2005. The mosaic artwork is a series of concentric rings starting with the Indigenous Story, then the settler society of the Cowpastures, progressively moving outwards to the present urban environment. The Project coordination was through Marla Guppy from Guppy & Associates. It involved Project artist – Cynthia Turner, Ceramic artist – Christine Yardley, Heritage artist – George Sayers and Henryk Topolnicki from Art is an Option.

The outer circle shown here illustrates the historic sites of the Narellan area. The Harrington Park house is in the centre of the image, with the 20th-century house Ben Linden on the left and Bullock teams on the right of the centre. The inner circle represents European settlement from the time of a settler society to the 21st century. (I Willis, 2023)

14. A goanna woodcarving is found in Elyard Reserve on Elyard Street, Narellan. There is no artist attribution.

A wood carving of a goanna climbing a tree in Elyard Reserve at Narellan NSW. There is no artist accreditation. (I Willis, 2023)

15. The artwork Life Blood on the forecourt of the Herbarium at the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan, NSW.

The artwork Life Blood on the Australian Botanic Gardens Herbarium forecourt (I Willis, 2023)

Cultural Heritage

1. Cowpastures Bicentennial celebrations occurred in 1995 and were a loose arrangement of community events.

Postcard of the Cowpastures Heritage Quilt commissioned and sewed by Camden Quilter’s Guild members in 1955. The quilt is currently on display at Camden Library. (Camden Museum)

2. An art exhibition at the Campbelltown Art Centre in 2016 called With Secrecy and Dispatch commemorates the Appin Massacre’s bicentenary.

3. The Appin Massacre Cultural Landscape, which is the site of the 1816 Appin Massacre, is being considered for listing on the State Heritage Register.

4. Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations Annual Fair and Conference in 2016, called Cowpastures and Beyond, was held in Camden with exciting speakers and attended by various delegates.

*Cowpastures and Beyond Conference* held in Camden in 2016 (CAFHS)

5. An art exhibition at the Campbelltown Arts Centre called ‘They Came by Boat‘ in 2017 highlighted many aspects of the landscape of the Cowpastures and its story.

6. Paintings by various artists, e.g., ‘View in the Cowpasture district 1840-46’ by Robert Marsh Westmacott.

7. Campbelltown-born architect William Hardy Wilson wrote The Cow Pasture Road in 1920, a whimsical fictional account of the sights and sounds along the road from Prospect to the Cow Pastures.

A fictional account of The Cow Pasture Road written by William Hardy Wilson in 1920 with pencil drawings and watercolours. (I Willis, 2022)

8. Macarthur ‘Bulls’ FC is a football team founded in 2021 named after the Wild Cattle of the Cowpastures and has a training facility established at Cawdor in the centre of the former 1803 Cowpasture government reserve.

Historic sites

1. The Cowpasture Road was the original access route to the colonial Cowpastures Reserve in the early 19^th century, starting at Prospect and ending at the Nepean River crossing.

2. The historic site at Belgenny Farm is one of Australia’s earliest European farming complexes in the Cowpastures. The farm was part of the Macarthur family’s Camden Park Estate and is an example of living history.

3. Camden Park House and Garden is the site of John Macarthur’s historic Regency mansion and was part of the Macarthur family’s Camden Park Estate.

A Conrad Martins 1843 watercolour, ‘Camden Park House, Home of John Macarthur (1767-1834)’ (SLNSW)

4. Other colonial properties across the Cowpastures region (in private hands), eg, Denbigh.

5. Indigenous paintings of polled cattle by the Dharawal people in the Bull Cave at Kentlyn

Updated 1 January 2023. Originally posted 22 August 2022.

Aesthetics · Art · Artefacts · Colonial Camden · Cowpastures · Cowpastures Bicentennial · Craft · Crafts · Cultural Heritage · Fashion · Heritage · Leisure · Local History · Local Studies · Memorial · Memorials · Memory · Place making · Placemaking · Public art · Quilting · Sense of place · Settler colonialism · Sewing · Storytelling · Women's history

A Cowpastures memorial quilt

August 16, 2022August 26, 2022 camdenhistorynotes4 Comments

Camden Country Quilters Guild Cowpastures Heritage Quilt

Hanging on the wall in the Camden Library is a quilt, but no ordinary quilt. It is a hand-made quilt that had previously hung in the foyer of the Camden Civic Centre for many years. The quilt celebrated the Cowpastures Bicentenary (1995) and was made by members of the Camden Country Quilters Guild.

A panel in the Camden Cowpastures Bicentennial Quilt showing a map of the Cowpastures using an applique hanging in the Camden Library (I Willis, 2022)

The Cowpastures Quilt is a fascinating historical document and artefact and tells an interesting story of the district.

The Cowpastures Review stated:

The Cowpastures Heritage Quilt, which is featured on the front page, is unique. It is a product of the Camden Country Quilters Guild. It was unveiled by His Excellency, The Governor of New South Wales, Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair on the 19^th of February 1995, as part of the opening of the Cowpastures Bicentennial. It was given by the Guild to the Camden Council, which has it displayed in the Camden Civic Centre.

Cover of Cowpastures Review displaying the Camden Cowpastures Bicentennial Quilt Issue Vol 1 1995. (I Willis)

The Cowpastures Bicentennial Committee created postcards and notepaper featuring the quilt that was sold at Gledswood Homestead and the Camden Library.

Postcard of Cowpastures Heritage Quilt 1995 (Camden Museum)

Quilts were practical items with social value

Quilts have sentimental or commemorative value and are examples of needlework skills and techniques, and the use of specific fabrics used in their designs.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London states on its website:

As a technique, quilting has been used for a diverse range of objects, from clothing to intricate objects such as pincushions. Along with patchwork, quilting is most often associated with its use for bedding.

Quilting first appeared in England in the 13^th century, reached a peak in the 17^th century and can be traced back to 3000BCE. The word quilt means a ‘bolster or cushion’.

According to the V&A museum, a quilt is usually a bedcover of two layers of fabric with padding or wadding in between held together by lines of stitching based on a pattern or design. Very fine decorative quilts often become family heirlooms and are passed down through generations. In a domestic situation, women made quilts to celebrate ‘life occasions’ like births and weddings.

The V&A states that quilts are often quite large and associated with social events where people share the sewing. In North America quilting was a popular craft amongst Dutch and English settlers and quilts were made as part of marriage dowry for a young woman.

Quilting is often associated with patchwork where the quilt was made of scraps of fabric or ‘extending the life of working clothing’.

Convict women and quilting – The Rajah Quilt

In the National Gallery of Australia is a quilt made in 1841 by convict women transported on the Rajah from Woolwich to Hobart. According to blogger Bernadette, a descendant of one of the women who made the quilt, it is one of the most important textiles in Australia and world history.

The textile is called the Rajah Quilt and was organised as part of the scheme organised by prison reformer Elizabeth Fry’s British Ladies Society for promoting the reformation of female prisoners. The quilt is made up of over 2000 pieces of fabric and it has been described as

a patchwork and appliquéd bed cover or coverlet. It is in pieced medallion or framed style: a popular design style for quilts in the British Isles in the mid 1800’s. There is a central field of white cotton decorated with appliquéd (in broderie perse) chintz birds and floral motifs. This central field is framed by 12 bands or strips of patchwork printed cotton. The quilt is finished at the outer edge by white cotton decorated with appliquéd daisies on three sides and inscription in cross stitch surrounded by floral chintz attached with broderie perse on the fourth…

On the Rajah’s arrival in Hobart, the quilt was presented to the governor’s wife Lady Jane Franklin by the 29 women who sewed it on the voyage to Van Dieman’s Land. Lady Franklin sent the quilt back to England to Elizabeth Fry and then it was lost. It was rediscovered in a Scottish attic and returned to Australia in 1989 and placed in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia.

The quilt’s story is one of hope at a time of despair and disempowerment from a group of women hidden in the shadows of history. A type of radical history.

Cowpastures Quilt tells a story

Quilts often told a story and in the V&A collection, there are a number of significant quilts telling Biblical stories, scenes from world events and the 1851 Great Exhibition.

The Cowpasture Quilt tells the story of the Cowpastures on its Bicentenary. The story was represented in the different panels in the quilt created by the Guild members who were part of the project. The quilt’s construction was a community effort and each sewer has their name sewn into the quilt.

Camden Cowpastures Bicentennial Quilt hanging in Camden Library in John Street Camden (I Willis, 2022)

The significance of the individual panels in the quilt was explained by the Cowpastures Review and it stated:

The central pane – the discovery of the Hottentot cow. The left pane – The Aboriginal influence, mining, the map of the ‘Cow Pastures’, representing flora and fauna and the Stonequarry Bridge at Picton. The right panel – St John’s Church, John and Elizabeth Macarthur, Camden Park Estates, Belgenny Farm, Gledswood Homestead and merino sheep and vineyards. The bottom panel – John Street, Camden, including ‘Macaria’ and representations of horticulture venture in the area. Not visible in the photograph in the names of the ‘quilters’ and some surprise ‘first family’ names.

Title panel in Camden Cowpastures Bicentennial Quilt hanging in Camden Library (I Willis, 2022)

Fashion quilting

According to the V&A quilting fell into decline in the early 20^th century under the influence of modernism. It found a revival in the 1960s as part of the hippie culture and the art community and is firmly part of the art space.

Quiltmaking as art

Artist Isis Davis-Marks writes on the Artsy website that

Quilts’ inherent associations with warmth, nostalgia, and community make them particularly appealing now, in the midst of the pandemic and widespread division and inequity. Perhaps this fraught reality can account for, at least in part, why contemporary artists are drawn to quilting as a means to express themselves. The tactility of quilted fabric inevitability conjures domesticity, and every stitch—every precisely placed patchwork—brings us back to that feeling of the comfort and safety of home

Davis-Marks writes that contemporary American artists are engaging with the craft of quilting and building on the ‘enduring and complex history of quiltmaking’. In the US context quilting was practised by slaves, Indigenous Americans and other marginalised peoples as a form of expression and craftwork for the everyday.

An applique panel of the Cowpastures Quilt shows the Regency mansion on Camden Park still estate built in the 1830s. The panel uses figures to tell a narrative about the foundational story of Australia and the Camden district as part of a settler society. The Cowpasture Quilt is on display at Camden Library (I Willis, 2022)

Davis-Marks writes that the ancient craft of quiltmaking has resonance for contemporary artists in the age of social media and illustrates a broader appeal of working with traditional mediums of textiles, ceramics, knitting and other crafts.

In a January 2020 article for Artsy, writer and curator Glenn Adamson reflected “At a time when our collective attention is dangerously adrift,” Adamson wrote, “trapped in the freefall of our social-media feeds and snared in a pit of fake facts, handwork provides a firm anchor. It cannot be spun. It gives us something to believe in.”

Artists are using quilts as a lens to look into the dark history of the past. Sometimes these are called ‘story quilts’ where they tell a story in a narrative and figures. Artist Faith Ringgold‘s work often explores notions of ‘community and ancestry’ and said that she bonded through the experience of jointly sewing quilts with her mother.

The Cowpastures Quilt is a ‘story quilt’ and tells the story of our past as part of a settler society and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. The quilt uses figures and narrative to examine the past through the lens of the women who constructed the quilt in 1995. More than this the Cowpasture quilt is a public statement and an affirmation of community through the collective efforts of local women who undertook the sewing project. The collaborative efforts of the Camden Quilters created a significant piece of public art and a narrative statement of who we are through the use of history.

A panel of the Cowpasture Quilt shows the Henry Kitchen cottage from 1819 still standing today as part of the Belgenny Farm complex which is one of the most important colonial farming complexes still intact in Australia on the former Camden Park estate of the Macarthur family. The quilt is on display at the Camden Library. (I Willis, 2022)

Updated 26 August 2022; originally posted 16 August 2022

Charles Cowper · Colonialism · Cultural Heritage · Economy · Heritage · History · Lost Sydney · Maryland · Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences Powerhouse Museum · Railway · Sydney Railway Company · Technology · Thomas Barker · Transport · Uncategorized · Wivenhoe

A Camden connection to the first railway line in New South Wales

August 12, 2022June 5, 2023 camdenhistorynotes

A Camden connection

In the mid-19th century, a prominent member of the country gentry from Camden district was directly connected to the first railway in New South Wales. The identity was TC Barker from Maryland at Bringelly and one of the founding directors of the Sydney Railway Company.

The Sydney Railway Company

According to Alan Birch in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Sydney Railway Company was incorporated in 1849 with capital of £100,000 to build a railway line between Sydney and Parramatta and promised an optimistic return on capital of 8% (Birch 1957).

Camden connections to the railway

One of the Sydney Railway Company directors was Thomas Barker, who established Maryland at Bringelly in the 1850s. He developed the farm Maryland as a Sydney gentleman’s country retreat and started building his hilltop homestead in 1854. Barker was a skilled engineer and millwright and built a large windmill at Darlinghurst in 1826. He had extensive landholdings in the Yass District, on the Goulburn Plains and along the Murrumbidgee, and our local area in the Cowpastures. A successful Sydney businessman and philanthropist, he was one of the earliest promoters of railways in New South Wales. He paid for the survey between Sydney and Goulburn and several other colonial gentlemen.

Another company director was Charles Cowper, a New South Wales politician who owned Wivenhoe. Cowper was the railway manager but quit when the NSW colonial government appointed the attorney-general as company president. The company ran into financial issues with cost overruns as the price of land rose during the gold rush. The government extended a loan to the company £150,000 and appointed three additional directors. Cowper returned to politics and convinced the government to take over the floundering project, which it did in 1854. The company had the honour of being the first railway company nationalised in the British Empire. Cost overruns meant that the 1849 estimate of £2,348 a mile eventually blew out to over £40,000 a mile. (Birch 1957)

A forgotten anniversary of Sydney’s Central Railway Station

26 September 1855

On 26 September 1855, the first train left the Sydney terminus, a ‘tin shed’, with great pomp and ceremony and thus began the great railways of New South Wales. The ‘tin shed’ railway terminus was replaced by two further railway station buildings, one opened in 1874 and the current imposing Victorian edifice of brick and sandstone in 1906.

The current 1906 Central Railway Station is the third station on the site. It is a grand Victorian structure in the tradition of British railway stations demonstrating to the world the importance of rail travel in New South Wales at the beginning of the 20^th century.

A marvellous day goes down in history

The colonial newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, reported on the 1855 railway opening in glowing terms as a marvel. The Herald reporter maintained that it demonstrated how the colony of New South Wales could match the rest of the world with a magnificent achievement only a decade after convict transportation had been abolished. The newspaper report started this way:

The event yesterday was the triumph, not only of science over natural difficulties, but of the spirit of enlightenment and civilisation over prejudice and worldly mindedness. The great agent of civilization, the best and most effective servant progress, has been retained by the antipodean colonies of Australia within the same quarter century in which he became the liveried civilized vassal Europe. We have established a railway in this colony – we have achieved the great distinction which ranks us with those country who live and progress under impulses which modern science has seemed to indicate will work out the destinies of our race. (SMH, 27 September 1855)

The importance of the event to New South Wales cannot be underestimated only 32 years after the world’s first public railway. The Stockton and Darlington Railway was the first public railway to use steam locomotives and take passengers. The line opened in 1823 and eventually closed in 1863.

The remains of the first Sydney railway station in 1871. The platform on the RHS later became the George Street Platform (No 11) (SARNSW)

Tin Shed

The original site of the 1855 ‘tin shed’ station was in ‘Cleveland Paddock’ located between Cleveland and Devonshire Streets and known as Redfern Station as it was near Redfern. The present Redfern station was officially called Eveleigh, yet the name Redfern Station for the Sydney Terminal stuck for both the first and second ‘Sydney’ stations. It was indeed a ‘tin shed’ – a corrugated iron shed with a 30m long single wooden platform and was the terminus for the line for passengers from Parramatta. (Upton 2013)

According to Sydney Trains, the 1855 terminus was south of the present Central Railway Station, on the south side of the Devonshire Street tunnel. The oldest surviving structure from this period on the New South Wales rail system is the ‘overbridge’ running under Railway Square to Darling Harbour. Last used as a railway in 1984, it is now known as the Goods Line and is part of Sydney’s urban walkways and an extension of the existing Devonshire Street pedestrian tunnel.

21-gun salute

At the official opening, the Governor’s Vice-Regal train left the Sydney terminus at 11.20 am to a 21-gun salute and great cheers from the crowd. Over 3,500 passengers travelled on the train service between Sydney and Parramatta Junction at Granville on the first day, with intermediate stations at Newtown, Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush. Trains left the Sydney terminal at 9, 11, 12, 1, 4.45, and 5 and departed from Parramatta Junction at 10 am and 2, 3, 4 and 5.30 in the afternoon. (Birch 1957)

The journey of 14 miles took around 50 minutes, and first-class tickets cost 4/-, Second 3/-, and Third 2/-.

According to State Archives and Records, in the first full year of operation, the rail service was used by over 350,000 passengers.

Toing and froing on rail gauge

The rail gauge used in the project determined the future of railways in New South Wales for the next 150 years. The Sydney Railway Company initially hired Irish-born engineer FW Shields who favoured 5 ft 6 in. Still, in 1850 he persuaded the colonial government to change to the Irish national gauge 5 ft 3 ins, which the British Government agreed to in 1851. Shields quit after a dispute in 1850, and Scottish engineer J Wallace was appointed. Wallace preferred the British Standard Gauge for 4 ft 8½ ins, and in 1853 orders were forwarded to Great Britain for rolling stock, locomotives and rails on the British Standard Gauge. The rail gauge has remained the same ever since.

Locomotive No 1

One of the locomotives ordered from Great Britain in 1853 was Locomotive No 1, which is on display at the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo. According to the Powerhouse Museum, the locomotive was built in.

England by Robert Stephenson & Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne, designed by J. E. McConnell of the London and North-Western Railway Company, and is a very rare survivor of a McConnell goods express locomotive of the early 1850s.
maas.museum/event/locomotive-no-1/#:~:text=Plan Your Experience-,Locomotive No.,Sydney to Parramatta in 1863.

The locomotive arrived with four others in January 1855 and worked the line for 22 years. It was withdrawn from service in 1877, hauling passengers and freight between Sydney, Campbelltown, Penrith and Richmond.

The locomotive is considered extremely rare and the only example of its type worldwide.

Railway fever

New South Wales did not have the first steam railway in Australia; that honour went to the colony of Victoria. According to the National Museum of Australia, Melbourne’s first steam railway line opened on 12 September 1854. and ran between Flinders Street Station to Sandridge, now known as Port Melbourne. It was 2.5 miles (about four-kilometre) long and operated by the Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay Railway Company. A steam engine was made by Melbourne’s Robertson, Martin and Smith Engineering Works and was the first to be produced in the Southern Hemisphere. The line is still used today and is part of Melbourne’s light rail tram services.

The desire for a railway in New South Wales was not new, and promoters, including Thomas Barker, had lobbied for a railway line from Sydney to Goulburn was first proposed in 1846. (SMH, 27 September 1855)

The first sod

The first sod on the Sydney-Parramatta railway was turned on 3 July 1850 in the Cleveland Paddock by the Hon Mrs Keith Stewart in the ‘presence of his late Excellency Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy and a large concourse of people’. (SMH, 27 September 1855) The inclement weather with continuous rain was a warning and foreboding of the project’s difficulties over the next five years.

The first section of the railway was constructed between Ashfield and Haslem’s Creek for £10,000. Works included earthworks, fencing and bridges for a single line and, interestingly, did not include the cost of the rails from the United Kingdom. Progress was slow and ran into problems with labour shortages after the discovery of gold at Bathurst in 1852. The contractor ‘abandoned the contract’ when labour costs escalated, and not even an offer by the colonial government of an increase of 30% in funding was not enough to save the project. (SMH, 27 September 1855)

Ceremony of turning the first turf of the first railway in Australia, by the Hon. Mrs Keith Stewart … [picture] / from an original sketch by John Rae Esqre. Sydney Mail, October 1877. (NLA)

References

Birch, A. (1957). “The Sydney Railway Company, 1848-1855.” Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Australian Historical Society 3: 49-92.

Upton, S. (2013) “Central Railway Station: Through the Lens.”

Updated 5 June 2023; Originally posted 12 August 2022

Month: August 2022

Cowpastures’ memories in monuments, memorials and murals.

A landscape of memorials and memories of the Cowpastures.

The Cowpastures Landscape

A set of principles for viewing The Cowpastures landscape