Fall of Singapore and the Camden response

January 29, 2021February 1, 2021 camdenhistorynotes

Camden response to the Fall of Singapore

The Fall of Singapore in February 1942 was a disastrous military defeat for the British Imperial forces and a defining point of the Second World War for Camden.

Camden Artist Greg Frawley’s ‘Ceasefire Moon’ (2015). Frawley says that in ‘Ceasefire Moon’ ‘I imagine a moment of peace under a Byzantine Moon where three wounded diggers face us, perhaps questioning what their sacrifice is all about and fearing future horrific battles they will face when they recover’.

Tensions in the district had been rising for weeks during late 1941.

At the beginning of December the Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbour, Royal Air Force facilities on the Malayan coast (7 December 1941) and other locations. Shortly after this the Japanese navy sank the British battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser HMS Repulse (10 December 1941).

Camden resident Donald Howard wrote that the town ‘like the rest of Australia knew that sooner or later we would be “for it”‘. (Howard, The Hub of Camden, p. 25.) Earlier in the year the Camden area had been declared a ‘vulnerable area’ (August) and the town had its first blackout test.

Argyle Street Camden in 1938. The town centre changed very little over the next decade. This view of Argyle Street would have been a familiar memory for any local soldiers who went away for the war. On their return to Camden the town centre would have appeared very much like this 1938 image. (Scan Studios/Camden Images)

Singapore had been on the minds of Australia’s strategic thinkers since the end of the First World War. The Australian Government felt that the country’s greatest military threat came from Japan, and Australia joined forces with Britain in what became known as the Singapore Strategy. British naval facilities were strengthened at Singapore and a string of conservative Australian governments reduced spending on defence across the Interwar years.

‘A black month’

Historian Michael McKernan in his book All in! Australia during the second world war has called December 1941 a ‘black month for Australians’ and Prime Minister Curtin told the nation ‘We are at war’. (McKernan, All In!, pp. 96-97.)

Things were heating up and the Japanese Imperial Army landed forces on the Malayan peninsula on 8 December and started their land-based push towards Singapore.

The Camden News ran an editorial with the headline ‘Japan – According to Plan’. The News stated:

‘The feeling has been that war with the crafty and ambitious Japanese, rapidly rising to power, was bound to come sooner or later. For years the ‘Yellow Peril’ has provided an incalculable element in all Australian political thinking. Put bluntly, the traditional ascendancy of the white race might well be at stake if Japan were enabled to gather strength from this war in anything like the same proportion as she took it from the last.’
(Camden News, 11 December 1941)

The Camden News Front Page 11 December 1941

The warning of a threat to European exceptionalism advanced by the Camden News was not new. The ascendancy of the white man was a long-held belief by Europeans across the world and the defeat of the British Empire troops in Singapore came at the hands of an Asian power came as a complete shock. According to many in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, it was Europeans’ duty—the “white man’s burden“—to bring civilisation to non-white peoples through beneficent imperialism. In Australia, this found expression in the White Australia policy.

We are getting worried!

There were signs that the Camden community were seriously worried by the progress of the war. The Camden National Emergency Services jumped into action: there was an urgent call for wardens; civil defence meetings were held with training sessions; sand dumps were established in case of incendiary bombs; street lighting was reduced; sandbagging was increased at Camden Hospital; and police strictly enforced fuel regulations.

The Japanese advance down the Malay peninsula continued and units from the Australian 8^th Infantry Division saw action in mid-January. By the end of month the Malaya campaign was going badly for the British forces.

The Camden News ran an editorial headed ‘The Jap is not a Super-man’:

‘The Japanese continue their rapid advance through the islands of the north until they are now within striking distance of the biggest island of all — our own homeland. That is cause for anxiety enough, but don’t let us help the enemy by crediting him with powers and capacities. he does net possess. The Jap, good fighter though he is, is not yet a superman.’
(Camden News, 29 January 1942)

The Camden News Front Page 29 January 1942

A profound shock

On 8 February 1942 the Imperial Japanese Army landed on Singapore island. Within a week the British forces had surrendered. The Fall of Singapore on 15 February to the Japanese forces was a profound shock to Australia and other parts of the British Empire.

Terry Stewart writes that Singapore

‘was the scene of the largest surrender of British-led forces ever recorded in history’. The British considered Singapore as their ‘Gibraltar in the Far East’ and it was assumed to be just as impregnable’.
Terry Stewart, ‘The Fall of Singapore’. Historic UK. Online at https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryofBritain/The-Fall-of-Singapore/ viewed 1 February 2021.

Total War

The Camden News editorialised the defeat as Australia’s Total War— And Its Implications. The News warned that Australia was under direct threat of invasion:

Official pronouncements made last week, and again this week, should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that the ‘battle of Australia’ has now definitely begun. We face total war — possibly on our own soil. The events of the last week — one of the blackest weeks of the whole war — have shattered our complacency, and he is a foolish man indeed who still faces the immediate future with light-hearted abandon. We must rid ourselves of our comfortable beliefs that Australia is too far from Japan for successful invasion.
(Camden News, 19 February 1942)

The Camden News Front Page 19 February 1942

Camden’s civil defence authorities drew up plans for the town’s evacuation, and formed a scorched earth policy committee. Helen Stewardson wrote to her brother, Harry, an airman in England, ‘I guess you hear the news the same as we do, it is rather disheartening, but we hope for the best’. (Vernon, ‘Letters to an Airmen’, Grist Mills, Dec. 1999, p. 56.)

Disaster

The failure of the British Imperial Forces at Singapore was profound.

Terry Stewart maintains that the arrogance of the British led to underestimate the ability of the Japanese forces. She writes:

In the 1930s and 1940s, the British forces stationed in Singapore epitomised the British military idea of officers and gentlemen. The atmosphere was very much one of colonial sociability.
Terry Stewart, ‘The Fall of Singapore’. Historic UK. Online at https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryofBritain/The-Fall-of-Singapore/ viewed 1 February 2021.

The Raffles Hotel is a colonial Victorian Singapore icon and is built on the former site of a beach house. The hotel was a favourite spot of British officers and their staff. 2017 (IWillis)

Oliver Steward writes that the British High Command left Singapore vulnerable, with a lack of equipment including tanks and aircraft, without proper kit to be worn by troops in a jungle environment. This situation was complicated by Churchill’s attitude who ordered Empire forcesunder the command of General Percival to “stand their ground to the last man standing”.

When the British commander Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival surrendered on 15 February 1942 more than 130,000 British Imperial troops were taken prisoner.

Captivity

The National Museum of Australia states that for Australia, the fall of Singapore was a disaster. More than 15,000 Australian soldiers were taken captive. Of these, more than 7000 would die as prisoners of war. Controversially, the commander of Australian forces on the island, Major General Gordon Bennett, escaped the island with two staff officers on the night of the surrender. (NMA)

One Camden soldier, Private Robert J Auld, served with the 2/20 Australian Infantry Battalion and was taken prisoner at the Fall of Singapore. In 1940 Auld enlisted and married Camden girl Phyllis Kerswell. The 2/20th saw action in the Malayan peninsular campaign and withdrew under the Japanese advance in December 1941 and arrived in Singapore at the end of January 1942. Imprisoned in Changi after the surrender, Auld and others were transferred to Sandakan. Auld died in June 1945 aged 30. (Camden Remembers)

The imprisonment of Australian troops created the POW as the dominant stereotype for Australia during the Second World War. Craig Barrett writes in his PhD titled Remembering Captivity: Australian Prisoners of War of the Japanese that the POWs have become ‘an integral part of Anzac Day and the Anzac legend’.

Camden War Cemetery on Cawdor Road (I Willis, 2014)

Camden’s Macarthur Park Cenotaph and Memorial Gun Emplacement (I Willis)

Updated 1 February 2021. Originally posted 29 January 2021.

20th century · Aesthetics · Anzac · Art · Attachment to place · Australia · Belonging · Camden · Camden Airfield · Churches · Community Health · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Education · Family history · Festivals · First World War · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Interwar · Living History · Local History · Local newspapers · Local Studies · Memorials · Memory · Menangle Army Camp · Military history · Modernism · Myths · Narellan Military Camp · Newspapers · Place making · Public art · Red Cross · Second World War · Sense of place · Stereotypes · Storytelling · Volunteering · Volunteerism · War · War at home · Wartime

Brand Anzac – meaning and myth

April 23, 2020April 24, 2022 camdenhistorynotes5 Comments

A historian grapples with the meaning of Anzac?

For over a century, the Anzac story has been a central part of the Australian cultural identity. The contradictions that have emerged around it have shown no sign of going away. Historians have been unpacking the meaning of Anzac for decades and seem to no closer to any absolute sense.

Anzac Day Leaflet listing local services in the Federal electorate of Hume (AG)

In a packed auditorium on 20 April 2017, University of Wollongong historian Dr Jen Roberts gave the inaugural public lecture in the Knowledge Series of the University of Wollongong Alumni. Robert’s presentation called ‘Men, myth and memory’ explored the meaning of Anzac and how it is part of Australia’s cultural identity. The attentive audience was a mix of ages and interests, including past military personnel.

One old gentleman in the audience stood up in question time and announced to the audience that he felt that Dr Roberts was ‘a brave lady’ to ‘present the truth’ about the Anzac story in her evocative lecture.

The camp administration block with A Bailey in the foreground at the Narellan Military Camp in 1942. The camp was in operation between 1940 and 1944 (A Bailey).

Robert’s compelling presentation left none of the alumnus present in any doubt about the contested nature of Anzac and that there is far from just one truth. Anzac is a fusion of cultural processes over many decades, and it has grown into something bigger than itself.

The Anzac acronym, meaning Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, was first used by General Sir William Birdwood, and its legal status was confirmed by the Australian Government in 1916.

Shifts in meaning

The term Anzac has survived its 1914 imperial connotations and the 1960s social movements. Its supporters have successfully broadened its meaning to embrace all Australian conflicts, including peace missions. Some argue that this has created a dark legacy for currently serving military personnel, while others have chosen to take cheap potshots at those who question the orthodoxy.

The Anzac story needs to be inclusive and not exclusive, and while the current service personnel are the custodians of the Anzac mythology, it can sometimes be a heavy responsibility.

The tented lines at the Narellan Military Camp in 1941. Thousands of troops passed through the camp during its operation between 1940 and 1944 (A Bailey).

Tensions and contradictions

The Anzac story is ubiquitous across Australia. It is embedded in the heart and soul of every community in the country. Within this narrative, there are contradictions and tensions.

The war that spawned the notion of Anzac was a product of industrial modernism. While the Anzac shrines of commemoration and remembrance across Australia were a product of Interwar modernism, some were the work of Rayner Hoff. Yet these same artists and sculptors were supporters of Sydney bohemianism and its anti-war sentiments.

There are a host of other contradictions that range across issues that include gender, militarism, nationalism, racism, violence, trauma, and homophobia.

Jen Roberts argued in her lecture that the Anzac mythology and iconography point to Australian exceptionalism. She then detailed how this was not the situation. She analysed the horrors of war and how this is played out within the Anzac story.

The WW1 Memorial Gate at Macarthur Park was erected in 1922 and funded by public subscription from the Camden community, with the cenotaph in the rear (Camden Remembers)

According to Roberts, the tension within the meaning of Anzac is represented by the official state-driven narrative that stresses honour, duty and sacrifice through commemoration, remembrance and solemnity.

On the hand, the digger mythology’s unofficial story is about a man who is not a professional soldier, egalitarian, loyal to mates and a larrikin – an excellent all-around Aussie bloke.

The official/digger binary highlights the contradictions with the Anzac tradition and its meaning for the military personnel, past and present.

Gunner Bruce Guppy

In 1941 an 18-year-old country lad called Bruce Guppy from the New South Wales South Coast volunteered for service with the 7th Australian Light Horse. Guppy volunteered because his brothers had joined up, and the military looked to have better prospects than working as a dairy hand. Gunner BW Guppy had little time for jingoism or nationalism as a laconic fellow and stated, ‘life is what you make it’.

Bruce Guppy was a yarn-spinning, non-drinking, non-smoking, non-gambling larrikin who saw action in the 1942 Gona-Buna Campaign in New Guinea and later trained as a paratrooper. His anti-war views in later years never stopped him from attending every Sydney Anzac Day March with his unit, 2/1 Australian Mountain Battery, and the camaraderie they provided for him. A lifetime member of the New South Wales Returned and Services League of Australia, he never discussed his wartime service with his family until I married his daughter.

Bruce Guppy and his unit, the 2/1st Australian Mountain Battery AIF, at the 2003 Sydney Anzac Day March. Guppy is in the front row, fourth from the left (I Willis).

Guppy had five brothers who saw active service in the Pacific conflict, with one brother’s service in British Commonwealth Occupation Forces in Japan cited in Gerster’s Travels in Atomic Sunshine. Guppy would not call himself a hero, yet he willingly participated in Huskisson’s Community Heroes History Project in 2007. Guppy was something of a bush poet and, in 1995, wrote a poem called ‘An Old Soldier Remembers’, which in part says:

An Old Soldier Remembers

‘Memories of those dark days
Come floating back through the haze.
My memory goes back to my mother’s face
Saddened, yes – but filled with grace.
The heartache for mothers – we will never know
For it was for them we had to go.’
Bruce Guppy, Bruce’s Ballads by the Bard from Berry. Guppy/Willis, Berry, 1996.

So it surprised no one when Bruce Guppy made the national media in 2013 when he handed Alice Guppy’s Mother’s Badge and Bar to the Australian War Memorial. Australian War Memorial director Brendan Nelson was moved by his death in 2014 and personally thanked the family for his ‘wonderful’ contribution to the nation.

For Guppy, Anzac Day embraced both meanings expressed by Roberts: The official commemorative remembering; and the larrikin enjoying the company of his mates. The purpose of the Anzac story has changed during Bruce Guppy’s lifetime and the experiences of his digger mates who served in the Second World War.

A Red Cross poster was used for patriotic fundraising purposes in 1918 during World War One. (Australian Red Cross).

While many lay claims ownership of the cultural meaning of Anzac, Roberts contends that the organic growth of the Dawn Service is an example of the natural development of Anzac and its sensibilities for different parts of Australian society.

The site and the myth

Roberts examined the two aspects of Anzac mythology – the site and the myth. She maintained that there are many claims to the ownership of the cultural meaning of Anzac. Roberts then pondered the meaning of the slaughter on the Western Front. She asked the audience to reflect on the words of Eric Bogle’s song, And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda covered by an American Celtic band, the Dropkick Murphys.

These comments contrasted with the opening address by an ex-military Alumni organiser. He maintained that the outstanding achievements of the 1/AIF celebrated in military training in Australia today are: the withdrawal of troops at Gallipoli; and the last mounted cavalry charge at Beersheba.

These views contrast with recent research about Gallipoli POWs from Turkish sources that have shown a different side of the story of the conflict.

Camden Airfield has used as a training ground for the early years of the Empire Training Scheme and used Tiger Moth aircraft. The trainee pilots then served with RAF and RAAF squadrons in Europe during World War 2 (1942 LG Fromm).

The Gallipoli peninsula is a site of pilgrimages from Australia while being the only locality in modern Turkey with an English name.

Pilgrims and memory

Roberts contrasted the small group of military pilgrims who went to the 1965 50^th anniversary with the lavish all expenses tour of the 1990 75^th anniversary sponsored by the Hawke Labor Federal Government. She maintains this was the start of the modern pilgrimage industry.

Roberts drew on personal experience and related anecdotes from her five visits to Gallipoli peninsular with University of Wollongong students. These young people undertook the UOW Gallipoli Study Tour, organised by her mentor, friend and sage UOW Associate-Professor John McQuilton (retired).

Widespread interest in Gallipoli pilgrimages has grown in recent times. Family historians have started searching for their own digger-relative from the First World War. They seek the kudos derived from finding a connection with the Gallipoli campaign and its mythology.

The Howard Federal Government started by promoting soft patriotism, followed by the Abbott Government promoting official celebrations of the Centenary of Anzac.

Official government involvement has unfortunately increased the jingoism of these anniversaries and the noise around the desire by some to acquire the cultural ownership of the Gallipoli site.

For example, the Australian Howard Government attempted to direct the Turkish Government on how to carry out the civil engineering roadworks on the Gallipoli peninsular.

RAAF CFS Camden 1941 — RAAF Camden and the Central Flying School at Camden Airfield in 1941. Some of these young men served with RAF and RAAF squadrons in the European theatre during World War 2 (RAAF Historical).

Brand Anzac

Roberts dislikes the Brand Anzac, which has been used to solidify the Australian national identity. Anzacary, the commodification of the Anzac spirit, has been an area of marketing growth, with the sale of souvenirs and other ephemera. Jingoism and flag-flapping have proliferated with the rise of Australian exceptionalism from the national level to local communities.

Anzac mythology and memory tend to forget the grotesque side of war and its effects. First World War servicemen suffered shell shock (PTSD) and took to alcohol, gambling, domestic violence, divorce and suicide. They became the responsibility of those on the homefront.

The Anzac mythology disempowers and marginalises people. The legend is about nationalism, jingoism, racism, and stereotypes while at the same time offering hope, glory and answers for others. The Guppy brothers and their comrades felt they understood the meaning of Anzac.

Roberts maintains that the ideas around the Anzac story belong to everyone and offer contradictions for some and realities for others.

The members of the Australian community are the ones who will make a choice about the meaning of Anzac.

One version of the story of the commemoration of the meaning of Anzac is the recently completed mural sponsored by the Camden RSL Club called ‘Operation Digger March’located at 23 Cawdor Road Camden. The full story of the mural can be found in Camden History journal March 2022 v5 n3. (I Willis, 2022)

The Camden RSL War Memorial at 23 Cawdor Road Camden is the site of the annual dawn service in the Camden township (I Willis 2022)

Updated on 23 April 2022, 16 April 2021. Updated on 27 April 2020 and re-posted as ‘Brand Anzac – meaning and myth’. Originally posted on 24 April 2017 as ‘Anzac Contradictions’

Aesthetics · Agriculture · Attachment to place · Australia · Australian Historic Themes · Belonging · Camden · Camden Town Farm · Colonial Camden · Community identity · Cowpastures · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Dairying · Dharawal · Economy · Education · Farming · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Landscape · Landscape aesthetics · Leisure · Lifestyle · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Macarthur · Nepean River · Place making · Recreation · Ruralism · Sense of place · Settler colonialism · Storytelling · Tourism

A walk in the meadows of the past

April 14, 2020April 17, 2021 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Walkway at the Camden Town Farm

I was recently walking across the Nepean River floodplain past meadows of swaying waist-high grass on a local walkway that brought to mind the 1805 description of the Cowpastures by Governor King. Atkinson writes

The first Europeans looked about with pleasure at the luxuriant grass that covered both the flats and the low hills. The flats seemed best for cattle…the trees were sparse.

The trees were certainly sparse on my walk, yet the cattle in the adjacent paddock proved the fulfillment of the observations of the early Europeans.

Black cattle graze on the waist-high grass just as the wild cattle of the Cowpastures did over 200 years ago. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway 2020 (I Willis)

The cattle I saw were polled hornless black cattle which were markedly different from the horned-South African cattle which made the Nepean River floodplain their home in 1788 after they escaped from Bennelong Point in Sydney Town. They became the wild cattle of the Cowpastures.

The beauty of the landscape hints at the management skills of the original inhabitants the area -the Dharawal – who understood this country well.

This is the landscape that characterises the recently opened Miss Lewella Davies Memorial Walkway which weaves its way across the Nepean River flats on the western side of Camden’s township historic town centre.

Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Pond fog 2020 IW lowres — The aesthetics of the Nepean River floodplain caught the attention of the early Europeans in a landscape managed by the local Dharawal people for hundreds of years. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Pond (2020 I Willis)

Layers of meaning within the landscape

Walking the ground is an important way for a historian to empathise the subtleties of the landscape and the layers of meaning that are buried within it.

The walkway is located in the original Cowpastures named Governor Hunter in 1796, which was then declared a government reserve in 1803 by Governor King. Just like an English reserved King banned any unauthorised entry south of the Nepean River to stop poaching of the wild cattle. Just like the ‘keep out’ signs in the cattle paddocks today.

According to Peter Mylrea, the area of the town farm was purchased by colonial pioneer John Macarthur after the government Cowpasture Reserve was closed and sold off in 1825. It is easy to see why John Macarthur wanted this part of the country for his farming outpost of Camden Park, centred at Elizabeth Farm at Parramatta.

Although this does not excuse European invaders displacing and dispossessing the Indigenous Dharawal people from their country. Englishman and colonial identity John Oxley and John Macarthur were part of the colonial settler society which, according to LeFevre, sought to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers.

Today all this country is part of the Camden Town Farm, which includes the walkway.

Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Nepean River Rest Stop 2020 IW lowres — A rest stop on the walkway adjacent to the Nepean River. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Nepean River (2020 IW)

Llewella Davies – a colourful local character

Llewella Davies was a larger than life colourful Camden character and a truly notable Camden identity. On her death in 2000 her estate bequeathed 55 acres of her family’s dairy farm fronting Exeter Street to the Camden Council. Llewella wanted the site was to be used as a functional model farm for educational purposes or passive recreational use.

Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Information Sign 2020 IW lowres — An information sign at the beginning of the walkway explains the interesting aspects of the life of Miss Llewella Davies. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)

The Davies dairy farm

The Davies family purchased their farm of 130 acres in 1908. They appeared not to have farmed the land and leased 20 acres on the corner of Exeter and Macquarie Grove Road to Camden Chinese market gardener Tong Hing and others for dairying.

Llewella was the youngest of two children to Evan and Mary Davies. She lived all her life in the family house called Nant Gwylan on Exeter Street, opposite the farm. Her father died in 1945, and Llewella inherited the house and farm on her mother’s death in 1960.

The house Nant Gwylan was surrounded by Camden High School which was established in 1956 on a sporting reserve. Llewella steadfastly refused to sell-out to the Department of Education for an extension to the high school despite being approached on several occasions.

Llewella, who never married, was born in 1901 and educated at Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School (SCEGGS) in Darlinghurst. The school educated young women in a progressive liberal curriculum that included the classics, scientific subjects as well as female accomplishments.

Llewella undertook paid work at the Camden News office for many years and volunteered for numerous community organisations including the Red Cross, and the Camden Historical Society. In 1981 she was awarded the Order of Australia medal (OAM) for community service.

The Camden Town Farm

In 2007 Camden Council appointed a Community Management Committee to examine the options for the farm site that Llewella Davies had gifted to the Camden community. The 2007 Camden Town Farm Masterplan outlined the vision for the farm:

The farm will be developed and maintained primarily for agricultural, tourism and educational purposes. It was to be operated and managed in a sustainable manner that retains its unique character and encourages and facilitates community access, participation and visitation.

Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Shoesmith Yards 2020 IW lowres — The walkway has several historic sites and relics from the Davies farm. Here are the Shoesmith Cattle yards… Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)

The masterplan stated the farm was ‘ideally place to integrate itself with the broader township’ and the existing Camden RSL Community Memorial Walkway that had been established in 2006.

It is against this background that the Camden Town Farm management committee moved forward with the development of a walkway in 2016.

The Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway

The walkway was constructed jointly by Camden Council and the Town Farm Management Committee through the New South Wales Government’s Metropolitan Greenspace Program. The program is administered by the Office of Strategic Lands with funding for the program comes from the Sydney Region Development Fund and aims to improve the regional open space in Sydney and the Central Coast. It has been running since 1990.

Camden Mayor Theresa Fedeli opened the walkway on 17th August 2019 to an enthusiastic crowd of locals. The walkway is approximately 2.4 kilometres and it has been estimated that by January 2020 around 1000 people per week are using it.

Invite for Miss Llewella Davies Walkway 2019Aug17

The walkway is part of Camden’s Living History where visitors and locals can see, experience and understand what a farm looks like, what it smells like and its size and extent. Located on Sydney’s urban fringe it is a constant reminder of the Indigenous Dharawal people and the area’s farming heritage of grazing, cropping, and dairying

If the walker is patient and perceptive the path reveals the layers of the past, some of which have been silenced for many years.

Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Walkers 2020 IW lowres — Some enthusiastic walkers on the path getting in some exercise on the 2.4 km long track. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)

Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Highlights (on map)

Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Seismic Instruments 2020 IW lowres — The seismic station is adjacent to the walkway path on the Nepean River floodplain. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)

Additional highlights

Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Warning Do Not Sign 2020 IW lowres — There are information signs at the beginning and the end of the walkway. This one highlights the warnings and the things that walkers and visitors are not allowed to do. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)

The value of the walkway

Tourism
Education
Memorial
Commemoration
Fitness and wellbeing
Ecological
Sustainability
Working farm
Living history
Community events and functions
Commercial business – farmers markets
Aesthetics and moral imperative
Storytelling
Community wellness
Food security

Camden Town Farm Walkway Signage No Dogs2 2020 lowres

Australian Historic Themes

The Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway fits the Australian Historic Themes on several levels and the themes are:

Tracing the natural evolution of Australia,
Peopling Australia
Developing local, regional and national economies
Building settlements, towns, and cities
Working
Educating
Governing
Developing Australia’s cultural life
Marking the phases of life

Updated on 17 April 2021; Originally posted on 14 April 2020

1920s · 20th century · Aesthetics · Attachment to place · Australia · Camden · Camping · Coal mining · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Dairying · Dress history · Engineering Heritage · Family history · Farming · Fashion · Gender · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Industrial Heritage · Interwar · Leisure · Lifestyle · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Memory · Mining · Modernism · Place making · Railway · Sense of place · Social media · Storytelling · Stuart Park Wollongong · Stuart Park, Wollongong · Technology · Travel · Urbanism · Wollongong · Women's history

The mysteries of a photograph

April 3, 2020May 11, 2021 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

How the layers of the past can be peeled back to reveal the mysteries from yesteryear

As I was scanning through my Facebook Newsfeed this morning I came across a pretty little picture that jumped out at me.

The image had been posted on the Lost Wollongong and Yesterday Stories Facebook page and also appeared on its Instagram and Tumbler social media.

The image attracted a host of likes and shares and comments like Phil Hall ‘What a delightful photo’ and Christine Mcmanus ‘It’s very charming’.

What is the appeal of the picture?

The picture has an aesthetic quality partly produced from the soft sepia tones of the image, and partly from the subject, which together gives the photograph a dreamy quality.

The ethereal presence of the image is hard to describe in words and the camera is kind to the subjects, who are well-positioned in a nicely balanced frame.

Wollongong WCL Couple on Mount Pleasant Railway early 20th century near Stuart Park — A couple relaxing on the Mount Pleasant Colliery railway at Stuart Park, North Wollongong in the early 1900s (Lost Wollongong Facebook page, 3 July 2016) The Royal Australian Historical Society caption says: ‘Photographer Aileen Ryan Lynch taking a photograph of M. Carey at Stuart Park Wollongong, March 1919’ (J Scott/RAHS)

The viewer of the picture is a time traveler into another world based on the New South Wales South Coast and is given a snapshot of a moment frozen in time. The observer has a glimpse of a world after the First World World in the present. For the viewer it as a form of nostalgia, where they create a romanticised version of the past accompanied by feelings that the present is not quite as good as an earlier period.

The world in the picture, a mixture of pleasure and for others despair, apparently moved at a slower pace, yet in its own way no less complex than the present. The picture speaks to those who choose to listen and tells a nuanced, multi-layered story about another time and place. It was 1919 in the coastal mining town of Wollongong.

The viewer is told a story about a setting that is full of meaning and emotional symbolism wrapped up in the post-First World Years. The picture grabs the viewers who pressed a Like on their Facebook pages. These social media participants found familiarity and comfort in the past that is an escape from the complicated present.

The picture provides an entry to a world that was apparently more authentic than the present. As Harriet Richards from the University of Melbourne writes:

In response to today’s COVID-19 crisis, we are turning to old movies, letter writing and vintage fashion trends more than ever. Nostalgia is a defence mechanism against upheaval.

Escaping the Spanish flu pandemic?

The image is full of contrasts and unanswered questions. Why are the young couple in Wollongong? Why did they decide on Stuart Park for a photo-shoot? Are they escaping the outbreak of Spanish influenza at Randwick in January 1919? Does the NSW South Coast provide the safety of remoteness away from the evils of the pandemic in Sydney?

The female photographer is a city-girl and her male companion is a worldly reader of international news. They contrast with the semi-rural location in a coal mining area with its workman’s cottages and their dirt floors, and the hard-scrabble dairying represented by the post-and-rail fence in the distance.

The railway is a metaphor for the rest of a world outside Wollongong. The colliery railway is a link to the global transnational industrial complex of the British Empire at Wollongong Harbour where railway trucks disgorge their raw material. On the other hand, the female photographer’s stylish outfit provides an entry into a global fashion world of women’s magazines, movies and newspapers.

The elegantly dressed couple in their on-trend fashion contrast with the poverty of the working class mining villages of the Illawarra coast. Photographer Aileen is described by local historian Leone Flay as ‘dressed for town’, contrasts with the post-and-rail fence on the railway boundary projects the hard-graft of its construction in a landscape of marginal dairy farming.

The remnants of the Illawarra Rainforest that border the railway point to the environmental destruction brought by British imperial policy and its industrial machinery. This contrasts with a past where the Dharawal Indigenous people managed the lush coastal forests that once covered the area along the banks of the nearby Fairy Creek.

Peeling back the layers of past within the picture reveals several parts to the story: the photographer Aileen Ryan; the coastal location of Stuart Park; and the commercial world of the Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway, and ecology of the Illawarra Rainforest.

Aileen Ryan, photographer

The young female photographer in the picture is Aileen Ryan, a 21-year old city-girl, who spent time in and around the Wollongong area in February and March 1919. Aileen was born in Waverley, Sydney, and was educated at St Clare’s Convent.

At 19 years of age, Aileen gained paid work when most women were restricted to domestic duties. She joined the New South Wales Public Service in 1917 as a typist and shorthand writer. As an independent young working woman, she was worldly-wise and expressed herself through her ability to fund her relatively-expensive hobby of photography. The young Aileen’s hand-held bellows camera hints her grasp of the latest technology.

In 1927 she marries FW Lynch at Clovelly and in 1942 during the Second World War she was seconded to the Directorate of Manpower. She was appointed superintendent of the New South Wales division of the Australian Women’s Land Army, which was disbanded in 1945. She died childless at Waverton in 1983.

Stuart Park, the location

The site of the photo-shoot was located on the colliery railway which skirted the southern boundary of Stuart Park. The park, which was declared in 1885 under the Public Parks Act 1884 (NSW), lies between the railway, Fairy Creek to the north and North Wollongong Beach to the east. The area was originally purchased from James Anderson and is an area of 22.27 hectares.

The park was named after colonial politician and Scotsman Sir Alexander Stuart who was the Member for Illawarra in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly at the time. The park was run by a trust until 1920 when control passed to the Municipality of Wollongong.

The popularity of Stuart Park, including many families from Camden, owed much to the presence near North Wollongong Beach, which was popular for swimming and surfing from the 1920s. The caravan park was unfortunately closed in 1964, but re-opened in 1966, due to public pressure. It eventually closed permanently in 1970. The park now has a sports oval, had a kiosk dating from the 1940s and was popular with day-trippers.

Illawarra Rainforest, the ecology

The site location of the photograph next to the railway was once completely covered by Illawarra Rainforest, remnants of which can be seen along the railway line.

The rainforest type is a rich ecological community characterised by bloodwoods, stinging trees, figs, flame trees, beech, cedar, and other species. The more complex rainforest communities were located along the creek boundaries and on the southern face of escarpment gorges protected the from the prevailing north-easterly winds.

J Bywater from University of Wollongong describes the rainforest community as:

the most complex (species rich) forest type in the Illawarra. A broad definition of this forest is a “Dense community of moisture loving trees, mainly evergreen, broadleaved species, usually with the trees arranged in several layers, and containing vines, epiphytes, buttressed stems, stranglers, and other Iifeforms” (Saur, 1973, p.l.).

Wollongong Illawarra Rainforest Sublime Point Walking Track Bulli 2000 NCubbin — Illawarra Rainforest on the Sublime Point Walking Track below Bulli Tops lookout 2000 (N Cubbin)

The Illawarra Rainforest extended along the coastal and up into the escarpment from the northern parts of the Illawarra south to Kiama, the Shoalhaven River and west to Kangaroo Valley.

The primary threats to the rainforest ecology have been clearing for farming, mining, urban development, and related activities.

Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway, a transnational conduit to the globe

The Mount Pleasant Colliery was opened by Patrick Lahiff in 1861 and was very successful. Two years later the company built a horse tramway with two inclines down the escarpment from the mine to Wollongong Harbour. They eventually upgraded the tramway to steel railway in the 1880s and to convert to standard gauge.

Wollongong Mount Kiera Mine Incline 1880 (WCL & IHS) — The Mount Pleasant Colliery Inclines were similar to the adjacent Mount Kiera Mine Incline of 1880 shown in this image (WCL & IHS) The picture shows the remnant rainforest that was part of the ecology of the Illawarra escarpment.

The construction of the tramway raised the hackles of the locals and was only built after the state parliament passed the Mount Pleasant Tramroad Act 1862 (NSW). The mining company went bankrupt in 1934 and the mine was taken over by Broken Hill Pty Ltd in 1937 and renamed the Kiera Pleasant Tunnels.

Wollongong Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway Workshop 1904 IHT — The locomotive shed at Mt Pleasant Colliery, 1904. Note the engine on the right, built-in Sydney that year. (Courtesy of JLN Southern Collection & Illawarra Heritage Trail)

The coal mine eventually closed in 1955.

Wollongong Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway Belmore Basin 1900s WCL&IHS — Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway near Brighton Beach approaching Belmore Basin in Wollongong NSW 1900s (WCL & IHS) Mount Kiera is shown in the background behind the mining town of Wollongong.

The tramway was closed in 1954.

Wollongong Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway below cliff line 1900s WCL&IHS lowres

In 2017 the Mount Pleasant Tramway walk was upgraded and the seawall rebuilt and renamed the Blue Mile Tramway Pathway.

Wollongong Mural Wollongong Harbour Blue Mile Walk 2020 ICW (2) lowres — A mural illustrating the history of the Blue Mile Tramway walk showing the village of Wollongong, coal handling port facilities at Belmore Basin and Brighton Beach adjacent to it with Wollongong Lighthouse on the harbour breakwater. The Mount Pleasant Tramway is clearly seen going off to the north along the coastline. (I Willis 2020)

The Blue Mile Pathway and other attractions of the Wollongong coast have proved popular with Camden families. They have been going to Wollongong and the South Coast for beach holidays for generations.

Updated 11 May 2021, 17 April 2020, originally posted on 1 April 2020.

Adaptive Re-use · Architecture · Attachment to place · Australia · Belonging · British colonialism · Camden · Camden Historical Society · Colonial Camden · Colonial frontier · Colonialism · Community identity · Convicts · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Elderslie · England · Farming · Georgian · Governor Macquarie · Heritage · Historical consciousness · History · History of a house · House history · Landscape · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Macarthur · Memorials · Memory · Myths · Place making · Sense of place · Settler colonialism · Storytelling · Tourism · Travel

Oxley’s anchor away for 34 years

March 27, 2020July 4, 2020 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

The mystery of the John Oxley memorial anchor.

As visitors approach the Camden town centre along Camden Valley Way at Elderslie they pass Curry Reserve which has a quaint late 19th-Century workman’s cottage and next to it a ship’s anchor. What is not readily known is that the anchor disappeared for 34 years. What happened? How did it become lost for 34 years? How did it end up in a park on Camden Valley Way?

The cottage is known as John Oxley Cottage and is the home of the local tourist information office The anchor is a memorial which was gifted to the Camden community from British naval authorities on the anniversary of the death of noted Englishman and New South Wales colonial identity John Oxley. So who was John Oxley and why is there a memorial anchor?

Portrait John Oxley 1783-1828 SLNSW — A portrait of Englishman and New South Wales colonial identity John Oxley 1783-1828 (SLNSW)

This tale could also be viewed as a celebration of European invaders displacing and dispossessing the Indigenous Dharawal people from their country. Englishman and colonial identity John Oxley was part of the colonial settler society which, according to LeFevre, sought to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers.

Whichever view of the world you want to take this tale is an example of how the past hides many things, sometimes in plain view. This story is one of those hidden mysteries from the past and is also part of the patina of the broader Camden story.

Elderslie John Oxley Cottage Anchor and Cottage 2020 IW lowres — A view of the John Oxley Memorial Anchor, the sculpture silhouette of John Oxley and John Oxley Cottage and the Camden Visitor Information Centre found in Curry Reserve at 46 Camden Valley Way, Elderslie in 2020 (I Willis)

John Oxley Memorial Anchor

Next to the anchor in Curry Reserve is the Oxley memorial plaque which states:

In Memorium

Lieutenant John Oxley RN

1783-1829

Pioneer, Explorer and Surveyor General of New South Wales.

This Navel Anchor marks the site of the home and original grant of 1812 to John Oxley RN.

Elderslie John Oxley Cottage Plaque Anchor 2020 IW lowres — The plaque was attached to the John Oxley Memorial Anchor in 1963 and originally located in Kirkham Lane, Kirkham. The 1963 site was located on the original 1812 Kirkham land grant to Oxley adjacent to the Kirkham Stables. In 2020 the plaque located on the plinth attached to the Oxley Memorial Anchor in Curry Reserve Elderslie. (I Willis, 2020)

The anchor was relocated to Curry Reserve in Elderslie in 2015 by Camden Council from a privately-owned site in Kirkham Lane adjacent to the Kirkham Stables. The council press release stated that the purpose of the move was to provide

greater access for the community and visitors to enjoy this special piece of the past.

Mayor Symkowiak said:

The anchor represents an important part of our history and [the council] is pleased that the community can now enjoy it in one of Camden’s most popular parks.

We are pleased to work with Camden Historical Society in its relocation to Curry Reserve. The society will provide in-kind support through the provision of a story board depicting the history of the anchor.

The anchor had originally been located in Kirkham Lane adjacent to Kirkham Stables in 1963. According to The Australian Surveyor, there had been an official ceremony where a descendant of John Oxley, Mollie Oxley, of Cremorne Point, NSW unveiled the plaque. The report states that there were around 20 direct descendants of John Oxley present at the ceremony organised by the Camden Historical Society.

British naval authorities had originally handed over the anchor to the Camden community in 1929. So what had happened between 1929 and 1963?

The answer to this mystery is explained in the 60th-anniversary address given by the 2017 Camden Historical Society president Dr Ian Willis. He stated that shortly after the society was founded in 1957 Camden Council was lobbied to do something with the anchor that

[had] languished in the council yard all but forgotten.

In 1929 the British Admiralty had presented the anchor to the Camden community to commemorate the centenary of the death of Englishman and New South Wales colonial identity John Oxley.

The British Admiralty actually had presented three commemorative anchors to Australia to serve as memorials. The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

One anchor, from the destroyer Tenacious, is to be sent to Wellington, where Oxley heard of the victory at Waterloo. A second anchor, from the minesweeper Ford, will to Harrington, to mark the spot where Oxley crossed the Manning River. The third anchor is from the destroyer Tomahawk, and will go to Kirkham, near Camden, where the explorer died.

The HMS Tomahawk was one of sixty-seven “S” class destroyers built for the Royal Navy as the Great War was ending. The ship was built in 1918 and reduced to the naval reserve list in 1923.

John Oxley, the man.

The Australian Surveyor noted that Oxley came to New South Wales on the HMS Buffalo in 1802 as a midshipman, returned in England in 1807, gained his lieutenancy and came back to New South Wales in 1809. Oxley returned to England in 1810 and was then appointed as New South Wales Surveyor-General in 1812 and returned to the colony.

Oxley was born in Kirkham Abbey in Yorkshire England and enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1802 aged 16 years old.

John Oxley was allocated the grants of Kirkham in 1812 (later Camelot) and Elderslie in the Cowpastures district. He had several convicts assigned to him who worked at the property of Kirkham.

As Surveyor-General Oxley led several expeditions into the New South Wales interior and he was also active in the public affairs of the colony.

John Oxley Reserve

The sculpture of Oxley’s profile had been originally erected in John Oxley Reserve in Macquarie Grove Road at Kirkham in 2012 after lobbying by the Camden Historical Society. The metal cut-out silhouette was commissioned by Camden Council at the instigation of Robert Wheeler of the society. The sculpture commemorated the bi-centennial anniversary of Oxley’s appointment as surveyor-general to the New South Wales colony.

Mayor Greg Warren said:

John Oxley was a major part of Camden’s history. The signage and silhoutte will be a continual reminder of [his] significant contribution to the Camden area. (Camden Narellan Advertiser 20 June 2012)

John Oxley Cottage

The John Oxley Cottage is only remaining building from a row of workman’s cottages built in the 1890s along what was the Great South Road, later the Hume Highway (1928) and now the Camden Valley Way.

The Visitor Information Centre was opened in 1989 after the cottage, and its surrounding curtilage was purchased by Camden Council in 1988 and added to Curry Reserve. The cottage was originally owned by the Curry family and had been occupied until the late 1970s, then became derelict.

The four-room cottage had a shingle roof that was later covered in corrugated iron. There were several outbuildings including a bathroom and toilet, alongside a well.

Curry Reserve is named after early settler Patrick Curry who was the Camden waterman in the 1840s. He delivered water he drew from the Nepean River to townsfolk for 2/- a load that he transported in a wooden barrel on a horse-drawn cart.

John Oxley is remembered in lots of places

There is Oxley Street in the Camden Town Centre which was named after Oxley at the foundation of the Camden township in 1840.

An obelisk has been erected by the residents of Redcliffe that commemorates the landing of Surveyor-General Lieutenant John Oxley. In 1823, John Oxley, on instructions from Governor Brisbane, was sent to find a suitable place for a northern convict outpost.

There are more monuments to the 1824 landing of John Oxley and his discovery of freshwater at North Quay and Milton in the Brisbane area.

An anchor commemorates the route taken by John Oxley in his exploration of New South Wales in 1818 and marks the spot where Oxley crossed the Peel River in 1818 outside Tamworth. In 2017 the anchor was targeted as a symbol of settler colonialism and the European invasion of the lands of the Wiradjuri people. The anchor was obtained from the Australian Commonwealth Naval Department and came off the British survey ship HMS Sealark.

A monument, the anchor from the HMS Ford from British naval authorities, was erected at Harrington NSW in honor of explorer John Oxley who explored the area from Bathurst to Port Macquarie. Oxley and his 15 men crossed the Manning River on 22 October 1818 having stayed here from 19 October in the lands of the Biripi people.

There is John Oxley Park in Wellington NSW on the Macquarie River on the land of the Wiradjuri people. Wellington was named by the explorer John Oxley who, according to the popular story, unable to cross the Lachlan River because of dense reeds, climbed Mount Arthur in 1817 and named the entire landscape below him Wellington Valley, after the Duke of Wellington who, only two years earlier, had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo.

Wellington Oxley Historical Museum once the Bank of New South Wales 1883 (WHS) — The Oxley Historical Museum located in Wellington NSW. The museum is housed in the former 1883 Bank of New South Wales. The site of the town was named after the Englishman the Duke of Wellington by John Oxley on one of his expeditions to the interior of New South Wales. The town is located on the land of the Wiradjuri people. (OHM)

The Oxley Historical Museum is housed in the old Bank of New South Wales, on the corner of Warne and Percy Streets, in a glorious 1883 Victorian-era two-story brick building designed by architect J. J. Hilly. Wellington’s Oxley anchor memorial is today found in the grounds of the Wellington Public School.

Updated 4 July 2020; original posted 27 March 2020

Anzac · Art · Australia · Australian Comforts Fund · Camden · Community Health · Crafts · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Dress history · Fashion · First World War · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Local History · Local Studies · Memory · Military history · Philanthropy · Red Cross · Second World War · Storytelling · Volunteering · Volunteerism · War · War at home · Women's history

The patriotism of the wartime sock knitter

March 10, 2020April 17, 2020 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Fussing over socks

During the First World War, there was a considerable fuss over socks. Not just any ordinary socks but hand-knitted socks. Camden women hand-knitted hundreds of pairs of socks. So what was going on?

As it turns out there was a good reason for all the fuss.

Soldiers on the Western Front suffered in terrible conditions in the trenches. They were constantly wet and cold. In winter there were freezing temperatures.

Fungal feet

Under these conditions, there was a constant danger of the soldiers getting trench foot. Jenny Raynor at Sydney Living Museum writes that this was

a potentially debilitating fungal infection that thrived in the wet, cold and squalid conditions, and could lead to gangrene and amputation if left untreated.

Soldiers wore stiff leather boots that were poorly insulated with two pairs of socks in freezing winter conditions to keep out the cold and wet.

Authorities recommended that troops change their socks twice a day to avoid trench feet. Reports from New Zealand maintained in 1915 that

a pair of socks lasted no more than two weeks when on active service.

So it was unsurprising that there was a constant shortage of socks.

Shortages from the start

Sock shortages commenced from the outbreak of war and illustrated how the progress of the war completely overwhelmed military authorities with their unrealistic expectations.

At the Liverpool Infantry Camp in November 1914 military authorities were advising that three pairs of woollen socks would be adequate for the duration of the campaign, while new recruits were advised by bring ‘strong boots’ and ‘knitted socks’ because the army could not supply them.

Military supply authorities never really got to grips with the problem of shortages throughout the war. Even the vast US military machine could not supply sufficient numbers of socks to their troops when the US government entered the war in 1917. The U.S. government Committee on Public Information sponsored the ‘‘Knit Your Bit’’ campaign conducted by the American Red Cross.

Keep knitting

Knitting for the troops was not restricted to the American Red Cross.

Knitting was part of the homefront response to the outbreak of war across all British Empire countries including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Across the globe, millions of knitted items found their way to the trenches on the Western Front.

Socks were only one of a large list of items that women made for the war effort. Other knitted items included cholera belts, scarves, gloves and balaclavas, and this was supplemented by a considerable effort sewing hospital supplies.

Women volunteer to supply socks

Australian women volunteered to supply knitted from the start of the war. Unlike women in the United Kingdom, Australian women did not replace men in their civilian roles during the war.

In Australia, the push for knitted-socks, and other items, was co-ordinated by the Red Cross, the Australian Comforts Fund and other groups including the Soldiers’ Sock Fund.

In Queensland, the Governor’s wife, Lady Goold-Adams, established the Queensland Soldiers’ Sock Fund.

Knitted socks were part of the soldier’s bag that Red Cross volunteers signed up to supply on the foundation of branches throughout New South Wales in August 1914. Red Cross knitters in Camden and across Australia supplied thousands of pairs of knitted socks to soldiers.

In Camden, the new Red Cross branch supplied ‘a large number of socks’ in the first weeks of the war’ including supplies to the Australian Light Horse regiment and the 4^th Battalion of Infantry. By September 1915 Camden Red Cross workers had supplied 456 pairs of knitted socks to Red Cross headquarters in Sydney amongst a host of other hand-made items.

Annette, Lady Liverpool, the wife of New Zealand Governor Lord Liverpool,

Lady Liverpool instigated ‘Sock Day’, when the women of New Zealand were encouraged to knit enough socks to provide every soldier with two new pairs (around 30,000 pairs in total).

The First World War was not the first time that women volunteers had supplied knitted socks to Australian troops in wartime. In 1900 Camden women supplied 120 pairs of knitted socks to Camden troops in South Africa in the New South Wales Mounted Rifles. These were similar to the activities of British women.

Millions of socks

It has been estimated that Australian women knitted over 1.3 million pairs of socks for the Red Cross and Australian Comforts Fund for the war effort.

Often with a small personal note inside the sock informing the digger who had knitted the garment along with a brief message. (The Conversation 11 August 2014)

Knitting patterns were distributed and cheap wool was made available to knitters.

First World War Cover Knitting Book Aust Comforts Fund Vic 1918 ARC — The cover of the sock knitting pattern book ‘Directions for Standard Socks for Our Men on Active Service’. It was issued by the Australian Comforts Fund in 1918 (ARC)

In 2012 volunteer knitter Janet Burningham from Wrap with Love found that it took about a day to knit each sock. She used a rare grey sock pattern and Paton’s 8-ply grey wool and needles. Socks were knitted in the round on double-pointed needles leaving no seams.

The iconic sock knitter

The solo woman sock knitter was one of the everlasting iconic images of the war at home in Australia.

The iconic image of The Sock Knitter is a 1915 painting by Grace Cossington Smith found at the Art Gallery of NSW. The gallery states

The subject of the painting is Madge, the artist’s sister, knitting socks for soldiers serving on the frontline in World War I. Distinctly modern in its outlook, ‘The sock knitter’ counterpoints the usual narratives of masculine heroism in wartime by focusing instead on the quiet steady efforts of the woman at home.

Art AGNSW The Sock Knitter Grace Cossington Smith 1915 — ‘The Sock Knitter’ painted by Grace Cossington Smith in 1915 (AGNSW)

Knitting mediating grief

The action of Camden women and others who became wartime sock knitters was an act of patriotism. They were supporting their boys using one of their traditional domestic arts.

Knitting, sewing, and other domestic arts were unpaid war work and a form of patriotism when women in Australia did not replace men at home in the First World War, unlike the United Kingdom. Historian Bruce Scates has written that women invested a large amount of ‘emotional energy’ in their knitting and sewing.

Women were the mediators of wartime grief and bereavement and knitting and sewing groups were women-only spaces where they could comfort each other and ease the loneliness.

Sock solution

Suzanne Fischer writes that the sock problem and trench foot still existed in the Second World War for American troops stationed in Alaska. She states:

Characteristically, Americans finally reduced their trench foot casualties by throwing more technology at the problem. Thee Shoepac system, introduced in 1944, combined a rubber foot and an impermeable outer leather layer with a felt liner to keep feet dry. These boots were also stylish, which increased their use.

Updated 17 April 2020; original posted 10 March 2020.

Attachment to place · Australia · Belonging · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Families · Family history · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Holidays · Landscape · Landscape aesthetics · Leisure · Lifestyle · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Macarthur · Memory · Picton · Place making · Ruralism · Sense of place · Storytelling · Sydney · Thirlmere Lakes

Reflections on the Thirlmere Lakes Science Information Day

March 5, 2020April 20, 2020 camdenhistorynotes

Thirlmere Lakes Research project

I recently attended a seminar day at Picton showcasing the latest Thirlmere Lakes Research presented at The Thirlmere Lakes Third Annual Science Day held at the Picton Bowling Club.

Thirlmere Lakes Science Day presentation 2020Feb28 lowres — Thirlmere Lakes Science Day introduction to delegates on 28 February 2020 at Picton Bowling Club, Picton. (I Willis)

There was a positive tone to the day where stakeholders were supportive of the goals of the research project. The Thirlmere Lakes Research Program aims to shed light on changes in water levels in the lakes by better understanding the land and groundwater of the system.

This was the third day in a series of seminars and was attended by a range of stakeholders including the community, researchers, and state and local government.

A team of scientists from a variety of research institutions presented a variety of papers ranging across lake geology, geophysics, sedimentation, groundwater, surface flow, chemistry, water balance, and vegetation.

Thirlmere Lakes Science Day presentation2 2020Feb28 lowres — Thirlmere Lakes Science Day Presentation on 28 February 2020 at Picton Bowling Club, Picton (I Willis)

The day was an opportunity for academic researchers to collaborate with each other and stimulate further research. Researchers were drawn from University of New South Wales (UNSW), GeoQuEST Research Centre, the University of Wollongong (UOW), the Australian Government and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), Deakin University and the NSW Department Primary Industry and Environment and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services.

The research project was initiated by community activism started with the Rivers SOS group in 2010 and local concern about mining in the lakes area. Rivers SOS is an alliance of over 40 environmental and community groups concerned with the wrecking of rivers in New South Wales by mining operations.

The science day was very instructive from several perspectives including networking opportunities. Researchers tend to work in silos and conduct their work in isolation from other disciplines. The science day was an opportunity for researchers to interact with each other and generate new ideas from their work.

Thirlmere Lakes Science Day presentation3 Thanks you 2019Feb28 lowres — Thirlmere Lakes Science Day Presentation and thank you comments from researchers at Picton Bowling Club, Picton (I Willis)

There was a positive tone around the day where stakeholders were supportive of the goals of the research project. In the past, there are often tensions between stakeholders based on cynicism and lack of trust. There has been a mixed history of community consultations and engagement over policy decisions. In the past city-based decision-makers have shown little regard for the views of small communities. Their concerns have often been ignored.

The science days appear to have generated a significant level of trust between the community and the research team. There has been an open and transparent approach to the research project. Generally, science researchers do not like to present preliminary findings as they may differ significantly from the final results. This can prove problematic. The general community may not be fully aware of this process and can become suspicious and trust falls away.

The science day encouraged community engagement with positive comments from delegates, researchers and seminar day organisers. Before the commencement of the project, there was a high level of community cynicism about government responses to community concerns about the disappearance of the water in the lakes. The research project seems to have ameliorated many community concerns and lessened community cynicism towards decision-makers and the research process.

The second science day was held in June 2018 with five presentations showcasing preliminary findings from research partners. Feedback indicated that there was a strong interest in the early findings and the need for further community engagement – hence the 2020 day.

Thirlmere Lakes Science Day Aerial View 27Feb2020 2020Feb28 lowres — An aerial view of Thirlmere Lakes National Park 27 February 2020 after the recent rain event in February. This was part of a presentation during a break at the Thirlmere Lakes Science Day on 28 February 2020 at Picton Bowling Club Picton. (I Willis)

Announcement of Thirlmere Lakes Research project by the state government

In 2017 the Macarthur press announced the launch of the current Thirlmere Lakes Research project. The South West Voice reported

The research partners, University of New South Wales (UNSW), University of Wollongong (UOW) and Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), will investigate the sensitivity of these wetland systems to external influences, such as the effects of mining activity and groundwater extraction, over the next four years. (South West Voice 20 October 2017)

Thirlmere Lakes Diarama Science Day 2020Feb28 Lowres — A diorama that was displayed at Thirlmere Lakes Science Day at Picton Bowling Club Picton on 28 February 2020 (I Willis)

The press reports detailed that the 2017 project was built on a 2014 monitoring program that has been continuously recording water levels in the 5 lakes.

The Voice stated that the areas of investigation for the 2017 project included

Geological mapping and geophysical surveys of the Thirlmere Lakes area (UNSW – Dr Wendy Timms);
Environmental isotopes investigations into periodic and recent water losses from Thirlmere Lakes (ANSTO – Dr Dioni Cendón);
Thirlmere Lakes: the geomorphology, sub-surface characteristics and long term perspectives on lake-filling and drying (UOW – Dr Tim Cohen);
Surface Water – Groundwater Interaction (UNSW – Dr Martin Andersen);
Developing an integrated water balance budget for Thirlmere Lakes to provide a detailed understanding of hydrological dynamics (UNSW – Associate Professor Will Glamore). (South West Voice 20 October 2017)

The Thirlmere Lakes Research website stated that the state government provided a significant budget for the 2017 project:

The former Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) committed $1.9 million over 4 years for the Thirlmere Lakes Research Program to help understand the fluctuating water levels in the lakes.

The 2012 inquiry and more

The website states that research on the Thirlmere Lakes began with a 2012 inquiry. This was prompted by community concerns about low water levels in Thirlmere Lakes and the potential impacts of coal mining and groundwater extraction. The 2012 research highlighted gaps in knowledge about the lakes. The inquiry published its findings in the Thirlmere Lakes Inquiry: Final Report of the Independent Committee. The NSW Chief Scientist reviewed the 2012 findings and water monitoring was started in 2013. Following this, a workshop was held in 2016 and its findings were published in The Mysterious Hydrology of Thirlmere Lakes.

Popular with locals

Thirlmere Lakes Families Picnic 1984 DHunt — Thirlmere Lakes with family picnics with children enjoying the lake and swimming in 1984 (D Hunt)

The Thirlmere Lakes National Park is 629 acres located in the Macarthur region and was proclaimed a national park in 1972. In 2000 the national park was inscribed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Greater Blue Mountains Area. The lakes have been a popular recreation spot with local families for many decades.

1920s · Attachment to place · Australia · Camden · Camden Museum · Camden Show · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Education · Fashion · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Interwar · Leisure · Lifestyle · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Macarthur · Memory · Modernism · Myths · Newspapers · Onslow Park · Place making · Schools · Sense of place · Storytelling · Trainee Teachers · Women's history

The trainee teacher mystery of 1924?

March 4, 2020April 17, 2020 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Trainee teachers Camden camp in 1924

Recently Rene at the Camden Museum posted an intriguing photograph taken at the Camden Showground on the Camden Museum Facebook page. It showed a large group of young men and women who were identified as trainee teachers from Sydney Teachers College.

Camden resident Peter Hammond asked on the Camden Museum Facebook page: Any idea why they were in Camden?

So what is the mystery?

The photograph is a bit of a mystery.

The photograph was contributed to the Camden Museum by John Donaldson and was taken in May 1924. The photograph shows 48 women, 34 men, and 2 children.

The photograph reveals more. You can see the spire of St Johns Church in the background and the absence of the 1938 brick front on the show hall. There are no brick and iron gates on the showground. The brick building at the corner of Argyle and Murray is yet to be built.

Photographs can tell so much about the past. They are a wonderful resource and this image provides much information about this mystery.

Mysterious journey

So I set off on a journey to solve the mystery of the question about the photograph.

Camden Trainee Teachers Camp Showground 1924 JDonaldson CIPP — The group photograph of the trainee teachers from Sydney Teachers College at Onslow Park adjacent to the Show Hall in 1924. This is the image that prompted the original question by Peter Hammond on the Camden Museum’s Facebook page. (John Donaldson/CIPP) This image was originally photographed by Roy Dowle of Camden on a glass plate negative. The Dowle collection of glass plate negatives is held by The Oaks Historical Society (Roy Dowle Collection, TOHS)

A quick search of the Camden News on Trove revealed that in May 1924 there was indeed a camp of trainee teachers who stayed at the Camden Agricultural Hall in Onslow Park. The report in the Camden News revealed more information.

There are 109 students and some ten lecturers and authorities gathering, from the University Teachers’ College. The students are obtaining practical knowledge by attending the different schools in the district, and much good should be the result. Those in charge are to be complimented on the excellent arrangements at the camp. (Camden News 15 May 1924)

More to the story

So was this a one-off or is there more to the story?

Further digging reveals that the first camp was in 1921, there were two camps per year one in May and the second around August. There were between 70 and 100 trainee teachers at each camp and they attended several local schools during their stay. The camps seem to have been for about three weeks each. There appears to have lots of interaction between locals and visitors with sporting events, dances, lectures, and lots of other activities.

Camden Trainee Teacher Camp 1924 Tennis MWatkins SLNSW bcp_01861h — Trainee teachers from Sydney Teachers College at the 1924 Camden camp have a game of tennis in the local area on their recreation time (SLNSW)

The first camp in May 1921 seems to have been a big deal not only for the town but also for the AH&I Society. Following the First World War, the finances of the AH&I Society were in a parlous state and the hall hire was a welcome boost to finances.

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

Camden was first graced with the presence of these bright-eyed and bushy-tailed budding young teachers in 1921 when 64 of them settled in for a week at the show hall. The Camden camp provided for them an opportunity to practice their teaching theory and practice of the New South Wales New Syllabus that they learned in the classroom at Sydney Teacher’s College. The 1921 trainees were all single and were made up of 49 women and 15 men and four weeks after the Camden camp were to be placed in schools. (Camden News, 12 May 1921)

The Sydney Teachers College trainees were allocated to schools across the local region and the list included: Camden Campbelltown, Campbelltown South, Cawdor, Cobbitty, Glenfield, Ingleburn, Minto, Mount Hunter, Narellan and The Oaks. (Camden News, 12 May 1921)

The teaching practice visits were organised on a group basis and transport was either by train or bus. By end of their training course, the students had had at least three weeks of practice teaching in teaching at rural schools. (Sydney Mail, 8 June 1921)

In 1920 the STC students had been based at Glenbrook and the success of the experiment encouraged the college to extend it to Camden. The venture, according to the Sydney press, was a first in Australia for teacher training and it was believed at the time to be a world-first for such a camp. During the week in Camden, the camp was visited by the New South Wales Director of Education Peter Board and the chief inspector HD McLelland. (Sydney Mail, 8 June 1921)

Camden Trainee Teacher camp 1921 SydMail1921Jun8 — The Camden trainee teacher camp was considered such an important occasion by the Sydney press that the *Sydney Mail* devoted a complete page to the trainee teacher camp at Camden. (Sydney Mail 8 June 1921)

A party of 89

In 1921 the party of 89, made up of students and lecturers and their families, had arrived by train at Camden the previous Saturday afternoon. The group was put up the show hall with conversion to a dormitory and the construction of cubicles to accommodate the mixed sexes. The show pavilion was converted to a kitchen and dining area from 6am to 9am, and then again after 4pm. The Camden press reports stated that at these times ‘the showground was a scene of great activity’. (Camden News, 12 May 1921)

The STA trainees had some time for recreation and in the evenings singing and games were organised between 7pm and 8pm by the music lecturer Miss Atkins, and the education lecturer Miss Wyse. Games and singing were held at the St Johns Parish Hall and sometimes the students’ organised tennis games. (Camden News, 12 May 1921)

Sydney Teachers College 2011 Flkr — Sydney Teachers College located on the grounds on the University of Sydney where the trainee teachers at the Camden camp attended their courses. (Flickr 2011)

More mysteries?

Do you have any mysterious photographs that tell a great story about our local area?

Updated 17 April 2020; original posted 3 April 2020.

Adaptive Re-use · Architecture · Attachment to place · Australia · Belonging · Camden · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Eastern Command Training School, Narellan, NSW · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Macarthur · Memory · Military history · Narellan · Place making · Ruralism · Second World War · Sense of place · Storytelling · Sydney · War · War at home

Eastern Command Training School, 1939-1945, Studley Park, Narellan, NSW

February 21, 2020January 10, 2021 camdenhistorynotes2 Comments

Eastern Command Training School, 1939-1945

Studley Park, Narellan, NSW

Studley Park was located on the Hume Highway at Narellan. During the war period, its role as a as defence facility for the Australian Army Service Corps (AASC) School was to conduct infantry training courses.[1] The property was leased in October 1939 by the Department of Defence at £12/12/- per week although it had been first occupied in September.

Studley Park at Night spooky 2017 CNA — Spooky Studley Park House is claimed to be one of the most haunted locations in the Macarthur region. The TV series Home & Away on 3 & 4 October 2018 certainly added to those stories by using the house as a set location. (CN Advert)

A report[2] for the defence authorities in 1940 gave a detailed description of the property including a valuation. According to the report the site fronted the Hume Highway, with the rear of the property on Lodges Road. The property consisted of an undulating country that was mostly cleared and grassed and was 193 acres. The soil was clay and land was suitable for grazing, fruit growing, and viticulture. It was felt to be an appropriate site for a country club and golf course or an agricultural school.

The site had been purchased by Archibald Gregory, a company director, in 1933, who had established a golf course. Gregory had converted the house into a high-class residence and the author of the report considered that it was unlikely that the property could be maintained in that state during its occupation by the Army. The report author considered it probable that the entire golf course would have to be reconstructed after occupation.

Narellan Studley Park House 2015 IW — Studley Park House sits on the top of a prominent knoll above the Narellan Creek floodplain with a view of Camden township (I Willis, 2015)

Property Improvements[3]

Asset – Valuation

Land- 198 acres – £4,958; House – £6,592; Theatre – £465; Club House – £1,057; Barn – £370; Swimming Pool – £188; Golf Course – £4,625; Motion Picture Plant, Screen – £750; Rental Value – £25 per week; Improved Value – £20,000.

Complaints

During the early occupation of the site by the army, Gregory continued to occupy the house, but by May 1940 his patience had worn thin. He complained to the authorities that the army had occupied the site from September 1939 without payment and had caused considerable disorganisation to his business and considerable damage to his property.

Gregory’s solicitors made representations that the government had published a report in the press in April that the army had decided to purchase the property. Since the publication of the report Gregory’s business had virtually stopped and had resulted in considerable losses.

In April 1940 approval was given for the purchase of the entire property at a cash price of £16,000, including all buildings, property, floor coverings and some furniture. [4]

List of property[5]

Golf House – 8 tables, chairs, mirrors, golf lockers, stove, counters, showcase, boiler;

Studley Park house – carpet, lino, wardrobes, tables, stove, bookcases, lounge suite, bedroom suite, tables, toilet stand, dresser, refrigerator, boiler;

Theatre – Theatre talking equipment with amplifiers and sound equipment

After the acquisition of the property by the Department of Defence additional buildings were moved to the site or constructed to house 280 staff and students.[6]

Narellan Studley Park Derelict Army buildings[4] 2015 IW — Derelict army buildings from the Second World War period adjacent to the Studley Park house. (I Willis, 2015)

Officers and Other Ranks

18 July 1940 – Captain Costello[7];

August 1941 – Major Ironmonger, CO, Captain Peach, Adjutant[8];

29 November 1943 – 26 February 1944 – Major John Whitmore, Chief Instructor. Lt Max Cadogan, 17th Battalion, Instructor[9]

Narellan Studley Park Derelict Army buildings[2] 2015 IW — Derelict army buildings from the Second World War period adjacent to Studley Park house (I Willis, 2015)

School Operations

The Eastern Command Training School conducted courses in tactical instruction on the Vickers machine gun and driving Matilda tanks.[10]

Narellan ECTS Studley Park 1939 Hall& Co AWM

Most of the instruction at the school, including artillery, was conducted by the Australian Instructional Corps. The instructors were warrant officers and the chief instuctor was Captain Peters, a Duntroon graduate. Other instructors included W/O Jim Turpie, W/O Johnston, W/O Chad (WW1 veteran).[11]

Alan Bailey reports that he would occasionally take mail and quartermasters stores from Narellan Military Camp to Studley Park, usually by horse transport.[12]

Narellan Studley Park House Aerial 2020 LJackson — This aerial view of Studley Park House Narellan in 2020 shows the context of its site location on the knoll of a hill. The WW2 army buildings are behind the main house and just in view. (L Jackson)

Pansy Locomotive

In their time off some of the troops would `flag down’ Pansy, and it was reported the driver would pick them up anywhere along the line on the way into Camden. The guard and the driver would wait a reasonable time for the return journey in Camden and they would be rewarded with a bottle of wine, `…the only drink available in take-away form at the time…’.[13]

Exercises

Exercises were carried out on the Nepean River with river crossings, there were day and night exercises around Menangle and Camden Park, bayonet training, anti-gas warfare, range practice with a rifle, Bren Gun, mortars, pistols, sub-machine, carbines, and hand grenades. There were infantry tactics, leadership, supporting arms applicable to the infantry. In 1941 there was also instruction Vickers Machine Gun, Aircraft Identification and protection from air attacks.

All soldiers who attended the courses spoke well of them and Bede Tongs reports that they helped in action as a member of the 2/3rd Infantry Battalion against the Japanese in 1942 New Guinea in the Wewak campaign. The accommodation was two to a tent.[14]

During the war, the School provided married officers and well as single officer’s quarters.[15]

Narellan Studley Park Derelict Army buildings[3] 2015 IW — Derelict army buildings from the Second World War period adjacent to Studley Park house (I Willis, 2015)

Units Attending School

September 1939 – October 1939 – Sydney University Regiment[16]

Early part of the war – 1 Field Brigade, RAA, and various other units: Artillery, Light Horse, Infantry, Signallers; 130 personnel[17];

August 1941 – 3^rd Infantry Battalion, AMF, Course Series No 1, Infantry Training; 30 participants in each of 3 platoons – total 90 personnel[18];

1941 – 100-150 personnel[19];

Little contact with townies

The troops at the school had little if any contact with the local community. If they had any time off, such as an hour in the evening, then they tended to walk across the paddock to the Narellan Hotel. It is reported by Sir Roden Cutler, that at such time the Camden Police were understanding enough not to monitor the hotels opening hours too closely.

Cutler stated that Camden was a very quiet pleasant little town and in their off-duty time they frequented the Camden Inn milk bar, where the owner, his wife and their daughters always gave them a warm welcome.[20] Bede Tongs reports that Camden shops and streets were full of friendly people.[21]

Post-war use

After the war, the military use of the site continued and initially the AASC School was used by the Citizen Military Forces. In 1951 the School took the First Recruit Platoon of the newly formed Women’s Royal Australian Army Corps. During the Vietnam War, the School was used as intelligence centre where troops were introduced to helicopter tactics. The site has also served as the base for Camden Troop of the 1/15th Royal New South Wales Lancers, Second Ordinance Platoon and the Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU). [22]

The farmland surrounding the house was leased in 1945 to A Chapman of Kirkham for grazing his cattle.[23] In 1949 a group of Camden residents approached the Department of the Army to secure all but 18 acres of Studley Park for use as a golf club, and eventually, in 1996 the Camden Golf Club purchased the site.[24]

Narellan Studley Park Derelict Army buildings[5] 2015 IW — Derelict army buildings from the Second World War period adjacent to Studley Park house (I Willis, 2015)

Infantry Wing Syllabus Course

7 June 1941 – 9 July 1941

from the diary of BGD Tongs

Instruction commencing 0945 – Instruction finishing 2200

Tuesday, 8 July 1941

Demonstration of C & C and Practical; Judging distance; Military vocabulary and searching ground; study of the ground; Demonstration and Observation by night;

Wednesday, 9 July 1941

Lewis Light Machine Gun; Scouts and Patrols; Penetration; Map Reading – Definitions, Conventional Signs, Reference System; Indication and Recognition of targets; Fieldcraft; Military Intelligence;

Narellan Eastern Command Training School Obstacle course Studley Park Narellan 1941 LK Stevenson AWM

Thursday, 10 July 1941

Weapons and their characteristics; Map Reading – Contours and North Points, Direction; Lewis Light Machine Gun; Fieldcraft; Fieldcraft – Epediascope;

Friday, 11 July 1941

Lewis Light Machine Gun; Map Reading – Scales and Protractor, Compass and Intervisibility; Fire Control; Fieldcraft – Individual Stalk, Epediascope;

Saturday, 12 July 1941

Patrol Exercise

Monday, 14 July 1941

Fieldcraft; Bayonet; Rifle; Grenade; Anti-Gas Respirator and Fitting; Attack Rifle; Military Intelligence; Message Writing; Lewis Light Machine Gun; Map Reading – Setting Map and Finding, Own Position;

Tuesday, 15 July 1941

As for 14 July 1941 [25]

Narellan Eastern Command Training School Training class Studley Park 1940 Major EE Bundy SLV

References

[1].AA: SP857/PC681, Studley Park, Dept of Interior, Correspondence, 17 May 1946

[2]. AA: SP857/PC681; Memorandum from Valuer CH Jackson, 16 February 1940;

[3]. AA: SP857/PC681; Memorandum from Valuer CH Jackson, 16 February 1940;

[4]. AA: SP857/PC681, Studley Park, Department of the Interior, Correspondence, 16 January 1940 – 7 June 1940;

[5]. AA: SP857/PC681, Studley Park, Department of the Interior, Correspondence, 16 January 1940 – 7 June 1940;

[6].Ray Herbert, Brief History of Studley Park, Pamphlet (Camden: Studley Park Golf Club, 1998)

[7].Camden News 18 July 1940

[8].BGD Tongs, Letter, 16 November 1986

[9].Max Cadogan, Letter to ICW, 18 February 1999

[10].Ray Herbert, ‘Army Spy Centre now a golf course’, District Reporter 5 August 1998

[11]. Sir Roden Cutler, Letter, 21 August 1987; BGD Tongs, Letter, 16 November 1986; George Carter, Letter, 7 November 1986;

[12]. Alan Bailey, Letter, 3 October 1988

[13]. BGD Tongs, Letter, 16 November 1986

[14]. BGD Tongs, Letter, 16 November 1986; George Carter, Letter, 7 November 1986;

[15].Ray Herbert, ‘Army Spy Centre now a golf course’, District Reporter 5 August 1998

[16]. Sir Roden Cutler, Letter, 21 August 1987

[17].Dr John Ratcliffe, Letter to ICW, 18 February 1999

[18]. BGD Tongs, Letter, 16 November 1986

[19]. George Carter, Letter, 7 November 1986

[20]. Sir Roden Cutler, Letter, 21 August 1987

[21]. BGD Tongs, Letter, 29 January 1987

[22].Ray Herbert, ‘Jobs for the girls’, District Reporter 12 February 1999, 29 July 1998, 5 September 1998, 19 February 1999; Ray Herbert, Brief History of Studley Park, Pamphlet, (Camden: Studley Park Camden Golf Club, 1998);

[23]. AA: SP857/PC681, Studley Park, Dept of Interior, Correspondence, May 1945, 1955.

[24].Ray Herbert, ‘Jobs for the girls’, District Reporter 12 February 1999, 29 July 1998, 5 September 1998, 19 February 1999; Ray Herbert, Brief History of Studley Park, Pamphlet, (Camden: Studley Park Camden Golf Club, 1998);

[25]. BGD Tongs, Letter, 29 January 1987

1920s · Attachment to place · Australia · Belonging · Burragorang Valley · Camden · Colonial Camden · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Dairying · Economy · Farming · First World War · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · House history · Landscape · Lifestyle · Living History · Local History · Local newspapers · Local Studies · Macarthur · Memory · Modernism · Myths · Newspapers · Place making · Ruralism · Second World War · Sense of place · Storytelling · Sydney's rural-urban fringe · Tourism · Travel · Urban growth · Urban Planning · urban sprawl · Urbanism · War · War at home · Women's history

The Camden district in 1939

February 21, 2020April 20, 2020 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

The Camden District 1939

The Camden district can be hard to define and has changed over time. Dr Ian Willis conducted research in the mid-1990s to determine the extent of the Camden district at the outbreak of the Second World War. This was part of his post-graduate studies at the University of Wollongong on the effect of the Second World War in Camden.

Map Camden District 1939[2] — Map of the Camden district in 1939 showing the extent of the area with Camden in the east. The silver mining centre of Yerranderie is in the west. (I Willis, 1996)

The boundary of the Camden district could be: an arbitrary line on a map based on a political decision; a natural region; an idea in someone’s mind; the delivery round of a Camden business; the geographic circulation area of a Camden newspaper; the emotional attachment of a person to a general area called Camden; the catchment area of a special event in Camden; the membership of a Camden organisation; the social networks of people who live in the Camden area; or any combination of these.

From historical research I have conducted I have found the boundary of the Camden district to a moveable feast. By the 1930s it took in an area of 1180 square kilometres and a population of around 5000. The result is on the attached map. It is a combination of the factors outlined above.

Origins of the Camden district

The concept of the Camden district was set in motion by 1827 when the early pattern of the early land grants had determined the road network. This process was re-enforced by the arrival of the tramway in 1882, the road traffic along the Hume Highway going to Goulburn, and the movement of silver from Yerrandarie and coal from the Burragorang Valley to the Camden railhead. As a result, the town became an important transport interchange and centre for economic activity for a district, which extended out to Burragorang Valley and Yerrandarie.

By the 1930s the growth of the town had attracted additional businesses and the town had become the centre for government services and community organisations. The town was a meeting place for local people and acted as a stepping off point to the rest of the outside world.

Cover Pictorial History Camden District Ian Willis 2015 — Front Cover of Ian Willis’s Pictorial History of Camden and District (Kingsclear, 2015)

The district’s population came together on Sale Day (still Tuesdays) to meet and do business. The livestock sales were the town’s busiest day of the week The annual Camden Show was (and still is) always a popular attraction and people came from a wide area to compete and exhibit their crafts, produce and livestock.

Daily life in the Camden district is recorded in the two local newspapers

District life was reported in detail in Camden’s two newspapers, the Camden News and the Camden Advertiser, which were widely circulated in the area. Camden businesses had customers from all over the local area. Some had regular delivery runs that reached to Burragorang Valley and beyond.

Since the 1930s many things have happened. The largest change has been the growth in population, and the town and district are now part of the Greater Metropolitan Area of Sydney. Despite this, the district still has a discernable identity in the minds of local people.

1973 New Cities Plan

The creation of The new cities of Campbelltown, Camden, Appin: structure plan (1973) was one of the most profound changes to the Camden district. The New Cities proposal was part of the 1968 Sydney Region Outline Plan developed by the State Planning Authority of the Askin Liberal government and became a developers’ dream.

The New Cities Plan 1973[1] — The New Cities Plan 1973

Current planners, bureaucrats, businesses, and residents need to have an understanding of this local identity and build on the opportunities that it presents.

Today the Camden district is part of the Macarthur region.

Camden response to the Fall of Singapore

‘A black month’

We are getting worried!

A profound shock

Total War

Disaster

Captivity

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

A historian grapples with the meaning of Anzac?

Shifts in meaning

Tensions and contradictions

Gunner Bruce Guppy

An Old Soldier Remembers

The site and the myth

Pilgrims and memory

Brand Anzac

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Walkway at the Camden Town Farm

Layers of meaning within the landscape

Llewella Davies – a colourful local character

The Davies dairy farm

The Camden Town Farm

The Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway

Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Highlights (on map)

Additional highlights

The value of the walkway

Australian Historic Themes

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

How the layers of the past can be peeled back to reveal the mysteries from yesteryear

What is the appeal of the picture?

Escaping the Spanish flu pandemic?

Aileen Ryan, photographer

Stuart Park, the location

Illawarra Rainforest, the ecology

Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway, a transnational conduit to the globe

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

The mystery of the John Oxley memorial anchor.

John Oxley Memorial Anchor

John Oxley, the man.

John Oxley Reserve

John Oxley Cottage

John Oxley is remembered in lots of places

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Fussing over socks

Fungal feet

Shortages from the start

Keep knitting

Women volunteer to supply socks

Millions of socks

The iconic sock knitter

Knitting mediating grief

Sock solution

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Thirlmere Lakes Research project

Announcement of Thirlmere Lakes Research project by the state government

The 2012 inquiry and more

Popular with locals

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Trainee teachers Camden camp in 1924