Australia Day 1915 in Camden: Record-breaking Wartime Fundraiser

Australia Day 1915

In mid-1915, the Camden Patriotic Fund took control of Australia Day (30 July) fundraising, with all monies raised going to the Red Cross to aid Australian wounded.

The Camden Patriotic Fund

In the early months of the war, the Camden Patriotic Fund was the most prominent supporter of the Camden Red Cross.

The fund was formed at a public meeting convened by the mayor, RER Young, the husband of the Red Cross president, in the first week of September 1914. The meeting passed a motion, moved by the mayor and seconded by AJ Macarthur Onslow, Sibella’s brother, which stated that one of the fund’s primary purposes was to provide for the ‘widowed and fatherless who have sacrificed their lives in the Defence of our Empire’. (The Camden News, 17 June 1915.)

Macarthur Onslow was elected secretary, and a public subscription was taken up, raising £340, which included £250 from Camden Park. By June 1915, the fund had raised over £1796, of which £426 went to the Camden Red Cross. (The Camden News, 17 June 1915.)

One of the first events organised on behalf of the Camden Patriotic Fund for the Camden Red Cross was a Camden Park garden party on Saturday, 19 September 1914, hosted by Sibella Macarthur Onslow. Around 250 people enjoyed the ‘simply beautiful’ garden and listened to the Camden District Band after paying an entry cost 1/-. The event raised over £12. (The Camden News, 17 June 1915, 3 September 1914, 17 September 1914, 24 September 1914)

Australia Day in 1915

Australia Day had a mixed history up until 1915. In New South Wales, it was celebrated as Foundation Day and was a Sydney-centric community event. On the 50th anniversary of Foundation Day, the 26th January was a public holiday in NSW. (NSWGG, 23 Jan 1838)

There was dissension in the other colonies, and they celebrated their own foundation days. Ben Jones of CQU writes

By the centenary of the British arrival in 1888, all colonies except South Australia observed the day. Even after Federation in 1901, the primary national holiday was not January 26 but “Empire Day”, celebrated on May 24.(https://theconversation.com/australia-day-wasnt-always-january-26-but-it-was-always-an-issue.)

In 1915, the idea of Australia Day being held on July 30 as a wartime fundraiser for the Red Cross originated with Mrs Elle Warton-Kirke of Manly, who wrote to a Sydney newspaper in January. Mrs Wharton-Kirke had four sons, three brothers and her son-in-law serving at the front. (Herald (Melb), 29 July 1915) She raised over £1 million for the war effort. (Northern Beaches Advocate, 1 August 2023)

The date for Australia Day – there’s been a few of them.
by incanberra

Australia Day in Camden in 1915

In Camden, the 1915 Australia Day activities were the largest wartime fundraiser of the First World War, raising £1628.

The Australia Day committee was formed at a ‘large public meeting’ chaired by GF Furner, Camden mayor and husband of the future Camden Red Cross president, at the Camden School of Arts in June 1915. A large attendance ‘clearly’ showed that Camden

was willing to do her share towards providing comforts for the brave Australian soldiers who have been wounded in the battlefield, fighting for the protection of their fellow countrymen and civilisations’.[1] (The Camden News, 17 June 1915.)

Camden’s Australia Day celebrations included a street collection, a sports day, a concert and the ‘Red Cross gift gathering’ organised by Camden Red Cross workers.

Not everyone in the community was happy with fund organisers, and there were complaints that there were too many appeals and collections in Camden.

These were dismissed by EH Street, fund treasurer and manager of the Commercial Bank, who felt that the community had ‘not yet felt the pinch, and it was not time to talk of too much giving until we had denied ourselves’. He was confident that ‘people of Camden would respond liberally on Australia Day to help those who are doing so much to help us’. [2] (The Camden News, 17 June 1915.)

A public subscription was started, and donations rolled in from early July, with £10 from the Camden Division of the Sons of Temperance and £41 from Misses Allnutt and their Cobbitty friends. By the end of the second week of July, over £100 had been pledged or given to the committee, including £26 from the Camden Masonic Lodge.[3] (The Camden News, 1 July 1915, 8 July 1915.)

The committee’s publicity took hold in the third week of July, encouraging the community to

dip deeper into our pockets to help our wounded countrymen… As the casualty rates increase, our responsibilities increase, and every man and woman enjoying the freedom, the liberty and blessings of the British Flag ensures for them in this fair land of ours, should do his or her utmost to help provide funds for the relief of those whose wounds have been inflicted while fighting for that Flag. [4] ( The Camden News, 29 July 1915.)

By the third week of July, around £600 had been pledged or given to the committee.

Event publicity in The Camden News quoted Sir Ian Hamilton’s reports on the Gallipoli landing and how Australian troops ‘went as straight as their bayonets’.[5] (The Camden News, 15 July 1915.)

The News published a letter from Camden nurse Clarice Whiteman, who was stationed at No 1 Australian General Hospital (Lunar Park) at Heliopolis stating

all the men we are nursing are Australians and New Zealanders principally and proud we are of them, for, in spite of limbs missing and some of them I am afraid being put on their backs for life-time..I am quite sure that, if only their mothers and friends could peep at them and see them in such high spirits, and being so brave, their sorrow would be somewhat lessened.[6] (The Camden News, 29 July 1915.)

The Camden Red Cross organised a Gift Gathering afternoon at the AH&I Hall on 10 July. The branch used the promotional slogan ‘Our Wounded Soldiers’, sought donations, and arranged admission by donation of a ‘gift’. 

The Camden News listed 44 suitable gifts that be used as hospital comforts, which ranged from pyjamas, mittens, and other clothing to personal requisites including toothbrushes and pipes to foodstuffs and games.

Other donations, including fruit, vegetables and livestock, were auctioned on the day, and entertainment was provided by the Camden District Band. The Red Cross made a special appeal ‘to the young men who are unable to obey the call to arms to give comforts for their brethren who have suffered at the front’.[7]  (The Camden News,  8 July 1915.)

The event raised £134.  The ‘Gift Gathering’ committee had invited Colonel JW Macarthur Onslow, Sibella’s brother and Enid’s husband, and Caroline Edgeworth David, English-born wife of geologist Tannatt William Edgeworth David, to talk. Caroline gave a stirring sabre-rattling speech about the work of the Red Cross and maintained that

the war means more to us in Australia that many realise – Australia will be one of the first things Germany will claim should the war go against Britain and her Allies… Should Germany be victorious in this war our country will be under the German flag…the Germans will exercise their extraordinary idea of ‘independence’ in crushing our subjects, killing the men and leaving the women to untold misery. (The Camden News, 15 July 1915.)

She then called upon local women to urge able-bodied men to join up, ‘not only men of their own families but to make other people see the need of sending their men.’[8] (The Camden News, 15 July 1915.)

---

[1] The Camden News, 17 June 1915.

[2] The Camden News, 17 June 1915.

[3] The Camden News, 1 July 1915, 8 July 1915.

[4] The Camden News, 29 July 1915.

[5] The Camden News, 15 July 1915.

[6] The Camden News, 29 July 1915.

[7] The Camden News,  8 July 1915.

[8] The Camden News, 15 July 1915.