The Camden district, 1840-1973, a field of dreams

April 20, 2023October 30, 2023 camdenhistorynotes2 Comments

A colonial region

It is hard to imagine now, but in days gone by, the township of Camden was the centre of a large district. The Camden district became the centre of people’s daily lives for over a century and the basis of their sense of place and community identity.

The Camden district was a concept created by the links between peoples’ social, economic and cultural lives across the area. All are joined together by a shared cultural identity and cultural heritage based on common traditions, commemorations, celebrations and rituals. These were reinforced by personal contact and family kinship networks. The geographers would call this a functional region.

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 Camden district ran from the Main Southern Railway around the estate village of Menangle into the gorges of the Burragorang Valley in the west. The southern boundary was the Razorback Ridge, and in the north, it faded out at Bringelly and Leppington.

The district grew to about 1200 square kilometres with a population of more than 5000 by the 1930s through farming and mining. Farming started with cereal cropping and sheep, which turned to dairying and mixed farming by the end of the 19th century. Silver mining started in the late 1890s in the Burragorang Valley, and coal mining from the 1930s.

burragorang-valley Sydney Water — Burragorang Valley (Sydneywater)

The district was centred on Camden, and there were several villages, including Cobbitty, Narellan, The Oaks, Oakdale, Yerranderie, Mt Hunter, Orangeville and Bringelly. The region comprised four local government areas – Camden Municipal Council, Wollondilly Shire Council, the southern end of Nepean Shire and the south-western edge of Campbelltown Municipality.

Cows and more

Before the Camden district was even an idea, the area was the home of ancient Aboriginal culture based on Dreamtime stories. The land of the Dharawal, Gundangara and the Dharug.

The Europeans turned up in their sailing ships. They brought new technologies, new ideas and new ways of doing things. The First Fleet cows did not think much of their new home in Sydney. They escaped and found heaven on the Indigenous-managed pastures of the Nepean River floodplain.

1932_SMH_CowpastureCattle_map — Map of Cowpastures SMH 13 August 1932

On discovering the cows, an inquisitive Governor Hunter visited the area and called it the Cow Pasture Plains. The Europeans seized the territory, allocated land grants, and displaced the Indigenous occupants. They created new land in their own vision of the world. A countryside comprised of large pseudo-English-style estates, an English-style common called The Cowpasture Reserve and English government men to work it called convicts. The foundations of the Camden district were set.

A river

The Nepean River was at the centre of the Cowpastures and the gatekeeper for the wild cattle. The Nepean River, which has an Aboriginal name of Yandha, was named by Governor Arthur Phillip in 1789 in honour of Evan Nepean, a British politician.

The Nepean River rises in the ancient sandstone country west of the Illawarra Escarpment and Mittagong Range around Robertson. The shallow V-shaped valleys were ideal locations for the Upper Nepean Scheme dams built on the tributaries to the Nepean, the Cordeaux, Avon, and Cataract.

View upon the Nepean River, at the Cow Pastures New South Wales Drawn and engraved by Joseph Lycett from his Views of Australia 1824-1825 (SLV)

The river’s catchment drains northerly and cuts through deep gorges in the Douglas Park area. It then emerges out of the sandstone country and onto the floodplain around the village of Menangle. The river continues in a northerly direction downstream to Camden, then Cobbitty, before re-entering the sandstone gorge country around Bents Basin, west of Bringelly.

The river floodplain and the surrounding hills provided ideal conditions for the woodland of ironbarks, grey box, wattles and a ground cover of native grasses and herbs. The woodland ecology loved the clays of Wianamatta shales that are generally away from the floodplain.

The ever-changing mood of the river has shaped the local landscape. People forget that the river could be an angry, raging, flooded torrent on a destructive course. Flooding shaped the settlement pattern in the eastern part of the district.

Camden Airfield 1943 Flood Macquarie Grove168 [2] — The RAAF Base Camden was located on the Nepean River floodplain. One of the hazards was flooding, as shown here in 1943. The town of Camden is shown on the far side of the flooded river. (Camden Museum)

A village is born

The river ford at the Nepean River crossing provided the location of the new village of Camden established by the Macarthur brothers, James and William. They planned the settlement on their estate of Camden Park in the 1830s and sold the first township lots in 1840. The village became the transport node for the district and developed into the area’s leading commercial and financial centre.

Camden St Johns Vista from Mac Pk 1910 Postcard Camden Images — Vista of St. Johns Church from the Nepean River Floodplain 1910 Postcard (Camden Images)

Rural activity was concentrated in the new village of Camden. There were weekly livestock auctions, the annual agricultural show and the provision of a wide range of services. The town was the centre of law enforcement, health, education, communications and other services.

The voluntary community sector started under the direction of mentor James Macarthur. His family also determined the moral tone of the village by sponsoring local churches and endowing the villagers with parkland.

Camden Mac Park — Camden’s Macarthur Park was endowed to the residents of Camden by Sibella Macarthur Onslow in the early 20th century (I Willis, 2016)

Manufacturing had a presence with a milk factory, a timber mill and a tweed mill on Edward Street that burnt down. Bakers and general merchants had customers as far away as the Burragorang Valley, Picton and Leppington, and the town was the publishing centre for weekly newspapers.

Macarthur Bridge View from Nepean River Floodplain 2015 IWillis

The Hume Highway, formerly the Great South Road, ran through the town from the 1920s and brought the outside forces of modernism, consumerism, motoring, movies and the new-fangled-flying machines to the airfield. This reinforced the market town’s centrality as the district’s commercial capital.

Burragorang Valley

In the district’s western extremities, the rugged mountains made up the picturesque Burragorang Valley. Its deep gorges carried the Coxes, Wollondilly and Warragamba Rivers.

Access was always difficult from the time that the Europeans discovered its majestic beauty. The Jump Up at Nattai was infamous when Macquarie visited in 1815. The valley became an economic driver of the district, supplying silver and coal hidden in the dark recesses of the gorges. The Gothic landscape attracted tourists who stayed in one of the many guesthouses to sup the valley’s hypnotic beauty.

Burragorang V BVHouse 1920s TOHS — Guesthouses were very popular with tourists to the Burragorang Valley before the valley was flooded after the construction of Warragamba Dam. Here showing Burragorang Valley House in the 1920s (The Oaks Historical Society)

The outside world was linked to the valley through the Camden railhead and the daily Camden mail coach from the 1890s. Later replaced by a mail car and bus.

Romancing the landscape

The district landscape was romanticised by writers, artists, poets and others over the decades. The area’s Englishness was first recognised in the 1820s. The district was branded as a ‘Little England’ most famously during the 1927 visit of the Duchess of York when she compared the area to her home.

The valley was popular with writers. In the 1950s, one old timer, an original Burragoranger, Claude N Lee, wrote about the valley in ‘An Old-Timer at Burragorang Look-out’. He wrote:

Yes. this is a good lookout. mate,

What memories it recalls …

For all those miles of water.

Sure he doesn’t care a damn;

He sees the same old valley still,

Through eyes now moist and dim

The lovely fertile valley

That, for years, was home to him.

Camden John St (1) — St Johns Church at the top of John Street overlooking the village of Camden around 1895 C Kerry (Camden Images)

By the 1980s, the Sydney urban octopus had started to strangle the country town and some yearned for the old days. They created a country town idyll. In 2007 local singer song-writer Jessie Fairweather penned ‘Still My Country Home’. She wrote:

When I wake up,

I find myself at ease,

As I walk outside I hear the birds,

They’re singing in the trees.

Any then maybe

Just another day

But to me I can’t have it any other way,

Cause no matter when I roam

I know that Camden’s still my country home.

The end of a district and the birth of a region

The seeds of the destruction of the Camden district were laid as early as the 1940s with the decision to flood the valley with the construction of the Warragamba Dam. The Camden railhead was closed in the early 1960s, and the Hume Highway moved out of the town centre in the early 1970s.

Macarthur regional tourist guide — Macarthur Regional Tourist Promotion by Camden and Campbelltown Councils

A new regionalism was born in the late 1940s with the creation of the federal electorate of Macarthur, then strengthened by a new regional weekly newspaper, The Macarthur Advertiser, in the 1950s. The government-sponsored and ill-fated Macarthur Growth Centre of the early 1970s aided regional growth and heralded the arrival of Sydney’s rural-urban fringe.

Today Macarthur regionalism is entrenched with government and business branding in an area defined by the Camden, Campbelltown and Wollondilly Local Government Areas. The Camden district has become a distant memory, with remnants dotting the landscape and reminding us of the past.

CoverBook[2] — Front Cover of Ian Willis’s Pictorial History of Camden and District (Kingsclear, 2015)

Updated 14 July 2023. Originally posted 19 February 2018.

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The Cowpastures’ English-styled-gentry and their private villages

May 28, 2022May 26, 2023 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

A certain type of Englishman

These Englishmen were also known as the Cowpastures gentry, a pseudo-self-styled-English gentry.

All men, they lived on their estates when they were not involved with their business and political interests in Sydney and elsewhere in the British Empire.

By the late 1820s, this English-style gentry had created a landscape that reminded some of the English countryside. This was particularly noted by another Englishman, John Hawdon.

There were other types of English folk in the Cowpastures, and they included convicts, women, and some freemen.

Estate	Extent (acres)	Gentry (principal)
Abbotsford (at Stonequarry, later Picton)	400 (by 1840 7,000)	George Harper (1821 by grant)
Birling		Robert Lowe
Brownlow Hill (Glendaruel)	2000 (by 1827 3500)	400 (by 1840, 7,000)
Camden Park	2000 (by 1820s, 28,000)	John Macarthur (1805 by grant, additions by grant and purchase)
Cubbady	500	Gregory Blaxland (1816 by grant)
Denbigh	1100	Charles Hook (1812 by grant), then Rev Thomas Hassall (1828 by purchase)
Elderslie (Ellerslie)	850	John Oxley (1816 by grant), then Francis Irvine (1827 by purchase), then John Hawdon (1828 by lease)
Gledswood (Buckingham)	400	John Oxley (1816 by grant), then Francis Irvine (1827 by purchase), then John Hawdon (1828 by lease)
Glenlee (Eskdale)	3000	William Howe (1818 by grant)
Harrington Park	2000	Gabriel Louis Marie Huon de Kerilliam (1810 by grant), then James Chisholm (1816 by purchase)
Jarvisfield (at Stonequarry, later Picton)	2000	Henry Antill (by grant 1821)
Kenmore	600	John Purcell (1812 by grant)
Kirkham	1000	William Campbell (1816 by grant), then Murdock Campbell, nephew (1827 by inheritance)
Macquarie Grove	400	Rowland Hassall (1812 by grant)
Matavai Farm	200	Jonathon Hassall (1815 by grant)
Maryland		Thomas Barker
Narallaring Grange	700	John Oxley (1815 by grant), then Elizabeth Dumaresq (1858 by purchase)
Nonorrah		John Dickson
Orielton	1500	William Hovell (1816 by grant), then Frances Mowatt (1830 by purchase)
Parkhall (at St Marys Towers)	3810	Thomas Mitchell (1834 by purchase)
Pomari Grove (Pomare)	150	Thomas Hassall (1815 by grant)
Raby	3000	Alexander Riley (1816 by grant)
Smeeton (Smeaton)	550	Charles Throsby (1811 by grant)
Stoke Farm	500	Rowland Hassall (1816 by grant)
Vanderville (at The Oaks)	2000	John Wild (1823 by grant)
Wivenhoe (Macquarie Gift)	600	Edward Lord (1815 by grant), then John Dickson (1822 by purchase)

This Charles Kerry Image of St Paul’s Anglican Church at Cobbitty is labelled ‘English Church Cobbitty’. The image is likely to be around the 1890s and re-enforces the notion of Cobbity as an English-style pre-industrial village in the Cowpastures (PHM)

Private villages in the Cowpastures

Village	Founder (estate)	Foundation (Source)
Cobbitty	Thomas Hassall (Pomari)	1828 – Heber Chapel (Mylrea: 28)
Camden	James and William Macarthur (Camden Park)	1840 (Atkinson: Camden)
Elderslie	Charles Campbell (Elderslie)	1840 – failed (Mylrea:35)
Picton (Stonequarry in 1841 renamed Picton in 1845)	Henry Antill (Jarvisfield)	1841 (https://www.aussietowns.com.au/town/picton-nsw#:~:text=Origin%20of%20Name,at%20the%20Battle%20of%20Waterloo.)
Wilton	Thomas Mitchell (Parkhall)	1842 – failed (https://www.towersretreat.org.au/history/park-hall-east-bargo-1841-1860)
The Oaks	Mrs John Wild (Vanderville)	1858 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oaks,_New_South_Wales)
Menangle	James and William Macarthur (Camden Park)	1863 – arrival of railway (https://camdenhistorynotes.com/2014/02/16/menangle-camden-park-estate-village/)

Updated on 26 May 20223. Originally posted on 28 May 2022 as ‘The Englishmen of the Cowpastures’

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Making Camden History

February 6, 2022February 6, 2022 camdenhistorynotes3 Comments

A brief historiography of the Camden District

The story of the construction of the history of the Camden area. There are many versions and they are all correct. They all put their own spin on the way they want to tell the Camden story. Some good, some indifferent, some just plain awful.
(Facebook, 23 November 2015)

View of the farm of J. Hassel [Hassall] Esqr. Cow Pastures, New South Wales by Augustus Earle, c. 1825. State Library of NSW PXD 265, f. 2

Tourist history of Camden

The official story of the township as told to tourists is shared in the brochure for a historic walk around the Camden town centre published by Camden Council. It is reflective of the pioneer legend that has pervaded the Camden story and the legitimising narrative that is part of the nation-building story of a settler society. In many ways, it hides as much as it reveals. It states:

The historic town of Camden, less than an hours drive south-west of Sydney, is the cultural heart of a region that enjoys a unique place in our nation’s history.
The earliest developments of the Australian wool, wheat and wine industries are associated with the town following the original land grant from Lord Camden to John Macarthur in 1805.
The town is home to a large number of heritage listed attractions that reflect its strong links with the history of colonial settlement in Australia. Camden is rich in rural heritage with live stock sale yards, vineyards, Equestrian Park and dairy facilities.
The township reveals in its built heritage an interesting and varied range of architectural styles that reflect the town’s evolution from the earliest days of European settlement through to the modern era.
The walking tour brochure portrays Camden’s rich historical and cultural legacy and affords a valuable opportunity to both visitors and the local community to experience the town’s unique character and charm and appreciate some of its history first hand.
(Camden Heritage Walking Tour Brochure)

A similar heritage walking brochure exists for the Narellan area, which tells the story of European settlement of a planned government village that pre-dates Camden. Here there is also silence on many aspects of the past that are yet to be revealed to readers.

This short historiography is one of the few that has been attempted to illustrate the construction of the history of a rural community. One that has been recently published is included in the history of the gold-mining community of Linton in Victoria (2015). The author, Jill Wheeler, examines the broad range of influences that shaped the writing of that community’s history.

This paper should be read in conjunction with the Camden Bibliography, which is a list of published and other sources on the Camden District. It was my first attempt at compiling an authoritative list of sources on the local area and it has been pleasing to note that a host of researchers have found it to be a useful start.

This construction of the story of Camden history can be divided into a number of identifiable stages. Each stage reflects the values and attitudes of those who created the writing of the period, and the social and cultural filters that shaped their version of the story.

The Cowpastures frontier

From the beginning of European settlement in Australia curiosity drew those with an interest in wider issues to the local area. The first expeditionaries were naval and military officers who were trained to observe the landform and surroundings and record the detail in their logs and diaries. While providing a detailed account of their journeys they also recorded their observations and contact with Indigenous people. They recorded their observations of a managed landscape that was regularly burnt by the local Indigenous people. Prominent amongst these were Englishmen Watkin Tench (1790), Governor John Hunter (1795), David Collins (1795), George Bass (1796) and Lachlan Macquarie (1810, 1815, 1820), and Frenchmen Francis Louis Barrallier (1802) and Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1826).

Then there are the letters of settlers like John Hawdon of Elderslie in the 1820s who wrote back to England of his experiences in the Cowpastures and dealing with ‘the government men’. [convicts]

Amongst other writings, there are the reminiscences of Barron Field (1825), Thomas Mitchell (1836) and William Pridden (1843), while there are the journals of colonial women such as those of Annabella Boswell (1848).

Naming landform features gave the new arrivals a legitimacy of possession. For example on Governor King’s excursion to the area, he named the locality the Cowpastures because of the escaped cattle.

Villages and beyond

The earliest records of settlement in the Cowpastures describe the conditions in the villages that were scattered across the area – Cawdor, Cobbitty, Elderslie, Narellan and then later Camden (1840).

The earliest accounts of Camden village, its planning, its establishment and development are carried in the Sydney newspapers – particularly The Sydney Morning Herald. During the 1840s the Camden Clerk of Petty Sessions Charles Tompson was a regular correspondent to the newspaper.

Even by the 1880s the changing nature of the Camden village and the district prompted nostalgia for the pioneering days of the early colonial period. The Camden Times and Camden News printed reminiscences of the town and district of JB Martin in the early 1880s and 1890s and RH Antill in the late 1890s, Richard Todd (1895 and 1896) as well as the stories from Obed West in the 1884 and 1885 in The Sydney Morning Herald. These stressed the progress and development of the town. Martin, the Camden Clerk of Petty Sessions for a period, made the point in his 1883 (Camden Times) reminiscences that the history of several English counties had been written by local history associations and he felt that a similar venture was worthwhile in the Camden district.

Further reminiscences were Thomas Herbert (1909) in the Town and Country Journal and Samuel Hassall’s (1902) In Old Australia and there are the unpublished reminiscences of Camden businessman Samuel Thompson (1905).

Wartime writing

The Boer War, then the First and later the Second World Wars provide a period of reflection for local folk who are away soldiering in foreign lands. They are amongst the first to write about the Camden District as home in nostalgic terms from far away places where they are under traumatic conditions.

These letters were published in the Camden News and during the Second World War the Camden Advertiser. Some have found their way into recent publications particularly on the centenary of the First World War.

John Kerry's view of St Johns Church in 1890s (Camden Images) — John Kerry’s view of St Johns Church in 1890s (Camden Images)

Camden Aesthetic

An important theme in the Camden story is the development of a Camden aesthetic based on romantic notions surrounding the colonial properties of the landed gentry and the landscapes that were created by the Cowpasture patriarchs.

This first appeared in Andrew Garran’s highly successful Picturesque Atlas of Australasia (1886) and portrayed an idyllic English village at Camden surrounded by an ordered farming landscape. The engraving was accompanied by GB Barton’s account of the exploits of John Macarthur and the foundation of the colonial wool industry. This was a narrative that evolved into local and national mythology and was further advanced by Sibella Macarthur Onslow’s Some Early Records of The Macarthurs of Camden (1914), a collection of family papers.

1934 Australian Commemorative Postage Stamp

The legend of John Macarthur gained further momentum in the 1930s on the centenary of John Macarthur’s death in 1934 when Australia was in search of national heroes. He was the subject of stories in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society (1929) and biographies. His image appeared on a series of postage stamps and later on the new decimal currency in the 1960s. His character was the subject of a novel (1941) and a new Federal electorate of Macarthur (1949) was named after him. In 1960 the Camden community held a four-day celebration of the legend of the John Macarthur and the 150th anniversary of wool production in Australia called the Festival of the Golden Fleece (22-30 October).

The early 20^th century also witnessed a shift in history writing identified by Graeme Davison from ‘pioneer’ to ‘patriarchal’ history writing and the development of the Camden aesthetic was part of that agenda.

There was William Hardy Wilson’s The Cow Pasture Road (1920) and Ure Smith’s watercolours and etchings in his Old Colonial By Ways (1928). Whimsical descriptions of Camden’s Englishness were published in Eldrid Dyer’s ‘Camden, The Charm of an Old Town’ (1926) and articles in The Sydney Morning Herald like ‘The Beauty of Age’ (1934).

The Royal Australian Historical Society published articles on the Camden District in its journal. The first appeared in 1928 on the Cowpastures, Cawdor and Cobbitty, which were followed by the Burragorang Valley (1934), Camden (1935), Narellan (1936), and the Cowpastures again in 1939.

Newcastle based journalist JJ Moloney, a former Menangle resident, published his reminiscences of Early Menangle in 1929. In Camden two local journalists, George Sidman and Arthur Gibson, each separately marked the golden jubilee of the foundation of the Municipality of Camden (1889). Sidman, the owner of the Camden News, published the memoirs of J. B. Martin in a series of newspaper columns. While Gibson, owner of the Camden Advertiser, commissioned James Jervis from the Royal Australian Historical Society to write The Story of Camden.

The end of the Second World War created an air of confidence in the Camden District, which by this stage was prospering from the wealth created by the Burragorang Valley coalfields. In 1948 the newly formed Rotary Club and Camden Community Centre commissioned the University of Sydney to conduct a sociological survey of the town to provide a foundation for ‘future development’. This was followed up in 1952 by an American sociologist from the University of Kansas City, ML ‘Jack’ Mason and his wife Elizabeth ‘Beth’. They surveyed the town and established that there was a five-tier social structure, which had its origins in the colonial period and the Cowpasture patriarchs. Both studies were suppressed from public gaze by vested interests until recent times.

Memorials of loss

As historians Graeme Davison and Gail Griffiths have noted the loss of local icons and ‘loved places’ creates a deep sense of insecurity and a desire by some for the ‘good old days’. The grieving process was triggered in the Camden District community from the loss of Burragorang Valley after the state government decided to build a dam in the 1930s. In the early 1960s, the New South Wales Government closed the Campbelltown to Camden rail link as part of a state-wide rationalisation process.

WW1 Memorial Gates at Macarthur Park (Camden Remembers)

There were five seminal events during this period, firstly, in 1957 the number of teachers from the newly established Camden High School formed the Camden Historical Society and held lectures, conducted field trips and outings.

Secondly, there was the erection of civic monuments celebrating the Burragorang Valley. The first monument, erected in 1962, was the Camden Rotary mural at the southern entrance to the town. The mural has designs celebrating Indigenous culture as well as the area’s farming and mining heritage. The stone for the wall came from the St Paulinos Catholic Church in ‘the Valley’.

Thirdly, a wagon wheel was erected by the Camden Historical Society outside the council chambers in 1977 to celebrate the teamsters who brought silver ore from Yerranderie through ‘the Valley’ to the Camden railhead. A heavy horse-drawn farm wagon was located outside the council chambers in 1978 to memorialise farmer workers and the horse. Each of these monuments recalled the values of the frontier; tenacity, stoicism, ruggedness, individualism, adaptability and Britishness. An 1899 water trough was added to these civic monuments in 1979 celebrating the town’s modernity when the town was connected to reticulated water; a sign of progress and development.

Camden Library Museum in John Street Camden

In 1970 the Camden Historical Society opened a folk museum in a room in the old council chambers encouraged by the Royal Australian Historical Society. The museum used simple displays of local ephemera, artefacts and other collectables supplemented with rudimentary signage to tell the Camden story.

The memorials of loss across the district extended to the numerous war memorials scattered throughout the Camden District that mourned the loss of men who never came home after the Great War. These monuments were added after the Second World War and in recent times with the centenary of the First World War, and have shaped and re-shaped the Camden story in ways that are still hard to identify. Their meaning is a statement of collective memory that is expressed in April and November every year by local communities.

Elsewhere in the district, The Oaks Historical Society was formed in 1979. It has contributed much material to the storytelling of the western part of the Camden District, particularly the Burragorang Valley and the silver mining fields of Yerranderie.

The rural-urban fringe and other threats

The role of loss in the Camden story acquired new meaning after 1973 when there was an identifiable shift in the interpretation and representation of ruralness in Camden. The release in 1973 of The New Cities of Campbelltown Camden Appin Structure Plan as part of the 1968 Sydney Regional Outline Plan triggered a wave of invaders from the city. Urban planners envisaged three regional centres on Sydney’s outskirts at Camden, Campbelltown and Appin with the ambitious idea of stopping the city’s urban sprawl.

Mount Annan suburban development which is part of Sydney’s urban sprawl c2005 (Camden Images)

These events strengthened the role of the Camden aesthetic. There was the re-making of place centred on the decline of the country town of Camden as the hub of a thriving rural economy to an idealised country town, a country town of the imagination.

Romantic representations of Camden’s rurality, especially St John’s church, became an important part of the contemporary consciousness. They found their way into official council policy and have been used in literature, publications, tourist and business promotions, websites, artwork, music, museum displays and a host of other places. In 1999 Camden Council’s strategic plan Camden 2025 adopted the language and imagery of Camden’s rurality when it outlined ‘the traditional qualities of a rural lifestyle’, ‘the historic nature’ of the area and the ‘unique rural landscapes and vistas’ in a country town atmosphere.

There was also the influence of the national bicentennial celebrations in 1988 and the publication in the same year of Alan Atkinson’s Camden, Farm and Village Life in Early New South Wales (1988) which examined the early decades of the township. The dust jacket used a romantic watercolour (1850s) attributed to Emily Macarthur which looks ‘across Camden Park to the north-west, with St John’s Church and the distant Blue Mountains closing the view’, with the Nepean River flowing across the vista, similar to the 1886 Garran engraving.

This period also the emergence of the local histories of the area written by keen amateurs with the most notable example being John Wrigley, who has put together several publications the first published in 1980 called A History of Camden. The Camden Historical Society started a small journal in 2001 called Camden History, which the society continues to successfully publish specialist local histories for a local audience.

The 21^st century saw the evolution in the Camden story to a new generation of writers, most notable amongst them was this author. My work started with a local wartime study of a women’s voluntary organisation and has extended across a range of local themes including the rural-urban fringe, urban history, place, identity, philanthropy, the wartime homefront and local government. Most recently I have told the Camden story in a publication of a pictorial history of the district.

Ferguson’s Australian Nurseries, a century of horticulture

December 25, 2021May 13, 2023 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

A local nursery serves the world

In 1883 the Double Bay outlet of Ferguson’s Australian Nurseries at Camden was described in the Sydney press as a ‘well-ordered establishment…covering three acres…laid out in a most systematic manner’. (Illustrated Sydney News, 14 April 1883, page 3)

The Double Bay nursery was part of the Ferguson horticultural enterprise, which started in the 1850s at Camden. Sales encouraged opening a second nursery at Campbelltown later moved to Double Bay. The 20th century brought more changes and, eventually new owners.

Ferguson’s nursery and William Macarthur’s Camden Park nursery were part of a British imperial horticultural network that satisfied the Victorians’ insatiable demand for plants. The industry was driven by plant hunting expeditions and a Victorian fetish for orchids, ferns, palms and other new plants.

The burgeoning colonial nursery industry in the Cowpastures was integral to British imperialism and the settler-colonial project. The Enlightenment notions of progress and development were good for business and reinforced the dispossession and displacement of the Dharawal people from their country.

Nurseryman Francis Ferguson

The Camden nursery was established in 1857 by Englishman Francis Ferguson on a 50-acre site fronting the Nepean River. Francis came out to New South Wales as an assisted immigrant in 1849 on the John Bright after working at Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire and other English estates. Initially, he worked for Sir Thomas Mitchell, laying out his estate at Parkhall (later Nepean Towers, St Mary’s Towers) at Douglas Park. (Morris and Britton 2000)

Historian Alan Atkinson describes Ferguson as ‘a man of education, some capital and mercurial habits’. (Atkinson, 1988)

Signage at the entry to Ferguson Lane, the location of the former Ferguson’s Australian Nursery at Camden (I Willis 2021)

Ferguson was head gardener at Camden Park Estate for William Macarthur (later Sir William) from 1849-1856 and could be styled as a Macarthur protege. (Reeve 2017) The Camden Park website maintains that William Macarthur ran one of the most important nurseries in 19th-century New South Wales. According to visiting English nurseryman John Gould (JG) Veitch, Macarthur was well known in Europe. Veitch Nurseries were reportedly the largest family-run plant nurseries in 19th-century Europe.

Ferguson remained indebted to the patronage of William Macarthur (Morris and Britton 2000) and his experience at Camden Park and acted on Macarthur’s behalf when he was not in Australia. (WCL 2021)

In 1864 a 25-year-old JG Veitch (Financial Times, 27 September 2014) led a plant hunting expedition to the ‘South Seas’ and delivered several Wardian cases to Australian colonial contacts. While in New South Wales, he visited William Macarthur’s Camden Park nursery and Fergusons Australian Nursery, which impressed him. For a time, Ferguson acted as an agent for James Veitch and Sons nurseries. (Morris and Britton 2000; McMaugh 2005)

Fruit trees, camellias and roses

Francis Ferguson opened the Camden nursery sometime in 1857 (Nixon 1991; Little 1977; Farmer and Settler, 8 July 1937, 15 July 1937), and it became the centre of a growing horticultural enterprise that extended well beyond the area.

The Ferguson nursery was located on the left bank of the Nepean River at the Macquarie Grove river-crossing on the northern boundary of Camden Park estate. The nursery site had an east-west alignment with a 600-metre river frontage along its northern boundary ending at Matahil Creek to the east, with the Ferguson homestead on the rise to the southwest.

The homestead had ‘a fine view’ of the Camden township to the northeast with the spire of St John’s Church and allowed a ‘glimpse of Camden Park house in the distance’ to the southeast. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 January 1880, page 68)

According to Alan Atkinson, the Australian Nursery specialised in ‘trees “peculiarly adapted to the requirements of Australia”, together will shrubs and native seeds’. (Atkinson, 1988)

According to an 1880 Sydney press report, the nursery was about eight acres in extent with ‘a long avenue’ terminating at a ‘large gate’ below the house ‘making a very nice carriage drive’. There were ‘very well laid out walks’ throughout the nursery, surrounded by ‘gigantic pines, araucarias, and poplars’. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 January 1880, page 68)

Remnant Araucarias that were on the southwestern boundary of Fergusons Australian Nursery. They made up the grove of trees that lined the driveway entrance to the Macquarie House next door to the nursery. (I Willis, 2021)

Reports indicate that in 1879 Fergusons sold over 60,000 fruit trees and 5,000 camellias (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 January 1880, page 68). The nursery plant stock comprised over 6000 camellias and 100,000 hawthorn seedlings. (Ferguson 1871)

From the outset, the Australian Nursery issued trade catalogues regularly, and one of the earliest was the 1861 Catalogue of Plants, Fruit Trees, Ornamental Trees and Shrubs.

In 1871 issued, a series of five trade catalogues listed plant stock for sale. The catalogues were:

New and Rare Plants
Hardy Trees, Shrubs and Conifers
Fruit Trees, with directions for forming the orchard.
Roses
Bulbs and Tubers. (Ferguson 1871)

The ‘Catalogue of New and Rare Plants’ listed over 950 individual plants and was a mixture of native plants from the Australian continent and exotics from worldwide. The catalogue listed numerous popular flowering plants, including roses, camellias, azaleas, pelargoniums and chrysanthemums, fuchsias, carnations, and dahlias. Utilitarian plants included ‘trees for avenues’ and ‘hawthorn for hedges’. Under the heading of ‘trees and shrubs’, details listed the plants’ ‘scientific name’, ‘native country’, ‘height in feet’, and price. (Ferguson 1871)

Cover of Ferguson’s Trade Catalogue of New and Rare Plants for 1871 (NLA)

The Ferguson catalogue provided practical advice for the colonial gardener and a plant description. For example, ‘Araucaria Bidwilli – The Queensland Bunya Bunya, forming magnificent trees as single specimens’. Camellias were a favourite but hard to grow in the colonial climate, and details on how to look after them were provided. The hawthorn was a ‘favourite English Hedge Plant [and] thrives remarkably well in all parts of Australia, forming, undoubtedly, the best defensive hedge’. (Ferguson 1871)

Ferguson’s also offered advice on new and rare plants in the press. In 1876 the nursery published advice on the ‘rare’ Jacaranda mimosifolia described as ‘a singularly beautiful and rare flowering tree’. The report stated, ‘the Jacaranda mimosifolia is perfectly hardy in all but the coldest districts of New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria.’ (Australasian (Melb), 6 May 1876)

Ferguson’s sold extensively across the colonial garden market in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand, supported by 14 agents in locations ranging from Auckland to Wellington and Wanganui in New Zealand’s North Island and to Dunedin in the South Island. In Queensland, agents were listed at Warwick and Darling Downs, while those in New South Wales ranged from Bega to Mudgee and out to the Liverpool Plains. Ferguson claimed that there was an increasing demand for ‘Australian Timber Trees’ in Northern India, California, Southern Europe, and New Zealand. (Ferguson 1871)

Campbelltown Nursery

Condamine Street, Campbelltown

By the late 1860s, increasing demand and the distance from the Campbelltown railway station encouraged Ferguson to establish a nursery outlet at Campbelltown. (Ferguson 1871)

The Camden nursery was nine miles from Campbelltown Railway Station, and it took Mr H Ferguson in a buggy with a ‘fine stepper’ and an hour to get there. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 10 January 1880, page 68)

The firm opened the Campbelltown nursery in 1869 on Condamine Street, close to the convict-built water supply reservoir. (Reeve 2017) It was stocked with 50,000 ‘well-grown healthy plants’ to supply growing demand from ‘up-country and adjacent Colonies’. (Ferguson 1871)

From 1874 the Campbelltown outlet was managed by Francis John (FJ) Ferguson, Francis’s son, who had returned from five years with English firm Veitch Nurseries at Chelsea, and the firm now traded as Francis Ferguson and Son. (Reeve 2017)

Double Bay Nursery

Manning Road and New South Head Road, Double Bay

The business continued to prosper, and FJ Ferguson moved the Campbelltown outlet closer to Sydney. A site was chosen at Double Bay on a former market garden in 1876 and opened in 1878. (WCL 2021) (Reeve 2017)

The Double Bay Nursery site had ‘a large frontage’ on New South Head Road with ‘rich deep alluvial’ soil in a low-lying area that drained into Double Bay. (Illustrated Sydney News, 14 April 1883)

By 1887 the nursery had two propagating glasshouses with impatiens and lasiandras, a bush house that accommodated a mixture of pot plants, including camellias, bouvardias, magnolias, conifers and tree ferns. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 6 August 1887, page 278)

This is an engraving of Ferguson’s Nursery in Double Bay that appeared in the Sydney press in 1883 (*Illustrated Sydney News*, 14 April 1883, p. 17)

In 1885 the nursery opened a shopfront in Sydney’s Royal Arcade, which ran between George Street and Pitt Street and had been designed by Thomas Rowe in 1881. Herbert Ferguson successfully managed the nursery shop and specialised in plants, seeds and cut flowers. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 6 August 1887, page 278)

The Fergusons also ran a small nursery near Ashfield railway station to supply the Royal Arcade shop with cut flowers. (Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 6 August 1887, page 278)

Ferguson Lane is near the former entrance to the Ferguson Australian Nursery. The lane is lined with African Olive, which is remnant vegetation with the regrowth of an Araucaria emerging from amongst the grove (I Willis, 2021)

The 20th-century beckons

The beginning of the 20th century brought more changes for the Ferguson nursery business and, by the late 1960s, new owners.

References

Atkinson, Alan (1988). Camden, Farm and Village Live in Early New South Wales. OUP, Melbourne.

Ferguson, F. (1871). Catalogue of new and rare plants, hardy trees, shrubs, conifers &c. Camden NSW, Ferguson’s Australian Nurseries. (NLA)

Little, S. (1977), Correspondence to CHS 19 February, MSS, Camden Museum Archives

McMaugh, Judy (2005). Living Horticulture, The lives of men and women in the New South Wales Nursery Industry. Nursery and Garden Industry NSW & ACT, Sydney

Morris, C. and G. Britton (2000). Colonial landscapes of the Cumberland Plain and Camden, NSW: A survey of selected pre-1860 cultural landscapes from Wollondilly to Hawkesbury LGAs. Sydney NSW, National Trust of Australia (NSW). 1 & 2.

Nixon, RE (1991). Camden Rose Festival. Typescript, Camden Museum Archives.

Reeve, T. M. (2017). “‘Rawson’, Condamine Street, Campbelltown, a private residence, formerly known as ‘Marlesford’.” Grist Mills 30(2): 25-32.

WCL (2021). “Double Bay as a nineteenth-century centre of gardening and horticulture.” Woollahra Local History/Woollahra’s Historic Landscapes. Retrieved 10 December 2021, 2021, from https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/library/local_history/woollahras-historic-landscapes/horticulture-in-double-bay.

Updated on 13 May 2023; Originally posted 25 December 2021.

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Local girls go to London

October 9, 2021January 20, 2022 camdenhistorynotes

Local women travel the world

In the mid-20th century it was not unusual for local Camden women to travel overseas by ship. They were part of an exodus seeking adventure and new horizons. They wanted to see the world and they did.

The story of two of these young women, Shirley Dunk and her best friend Beth Jackman, has been told in a recently published article in Anglica by the University of Warsaw.

Clintons Motors Showroom with sales assistants Shirley Dunk and Beth Jackman in 1953. The business sold electrical goods as well as motor cars, accessories and tyres. (S Rorke)

The article is titled: “My box of memories”: An Australian Country Girl Goes to London’.

The article abstract is:

In 1954 a young country woman from New South Wales, Shirley Dunk, ex- ercised her agency and travelled to London. This was a journey to the home of her fore- fathers and copied the activities of other country women who made similar journeys. Some of the earliest of these journeys were undertaken by the wives and daughters of the 19th-century rural gentry. This research project will use a qualitative approach in an examination of Shirley’s journey archive complemented with supplementary interviews and stories of other travellers. Shirley nostalgically recalled the sense of adventure that she experienced as she left Sydney for London by ship and travelled through the United Kingdom and Europe. The article will address questions posed by the journey for Shirley and her travelling companion, Beth, and how they dealt with these forces as tourists and travellers. Shirley’s letters home were reported in the country press and reminiscent of soldier’s wartime letters home that described their tales as tourists in foreign lands. The narrative will show that Shirley, as an Australian country girl, was exposed to the cosmopolitan nature of the metropole, as were other women. The paper will explore how Shirley was subject to the forces of modernity and consumerism at a time when rural women were often limited to domesticity.

Letters from home were always in demand by anyone who travelled overseas. They would bring news of home and what the latest gossip from the family. These letters were sent by Shirley Dunk to her family in Camden when she went to London in 1954. (I Willis)

To read the article about Shirley Dunk and Beth Jackman click here

The article was originally presented at a conference at the University of Warsaw in 2019. To read about the conference click here.

The full citation of the article is:

Ian Willis 2021, “My box of memories”: An Australian Country Girl Goes to London. Anglica, 2021; 30 (1): 53-66. DOI: 10.7311/0860-5734.30.1.04 GICID: 01.3001.0015.3447 Online @ https://anglica-journal.com/resources/html/article/details?id=222778

Shirley Dunk and Beth Jackman travelled to London in 1954 on the RMS Orcades. The ship passage was a time to make new friends and make useful contacts for their time in England. It was a time to relax and have a good time and see the sights of Aden, Colombo, Naples and other exotic spots. (S Dunk)

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Camden Airfield and the Bellman Hangars

August 14, 2021August 14, 2021 camdenhistorynotes2 Comments

Camden Airfield has a number of historic hangars from the Second World War. They are called Bellman hangars.

They are a British designed transportable hangar that were erected at the airfield. Camden had six Bellman hangars by mid-1942.

A Bellman Hangar at Camden Airfield built in 1941 and used by the RAAF Central Flying School as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme to train aircrew for the European war campaign. These remaining hangars are part the unique aviation archaeology and heritage at the existing Camden Airfield. (I Willis, 2014)

According to John Dunn’s Comeng, A History of Commonwealth Engineering, vol 1 1921-195 5 (2006), they were originally designed in 1936 by NS Bellman, a structural engineer with the British Directorate of Works (UK). The hangars were meant to meet the needs of the Royal Air Force (UK) and the Empire Air Training Scheme (UK).

Australia had very close links with United Kingdom at the time as part of the British Empire. The country relied heavily on the UK for its defence needs and Camden airfield played a small part in that story.

The RAAF Central Flying School that was set up at Camden Airfield in 1940 was part of the Empire Air Training Scheme and Bellman hangars were supplied by Waddington’s Pty Ltd. According to Daniel Leahy’s ‘Aerodromes of Democracy, The Archaeology of Empire Air Training Scheme flying schools during World War II’ the training course duration for pilots was 14 weeks, air observers 12 weeks, and air gunners 8 weeks. All courses instructions were conducted at Camden RAAF CFS while based at the airfield.

The tenders for the of the supply of the hangars, according to Dunn, were called in mid-1940 by the Australian Government’s Department of Supply and Development. Overall 283 Bellman hangars were supplied to a variety of sites across Australia and New Guinea. The final cost to the Commonwealth Government for the supply of the hangars was around £1,500 each.

Over 85 per cent of the Bellman hangars in Australia were supplied by Waddingtons (Clyde). Waddingtons got into financial trouble with the Bellman supply contract and under the wartime regulations the Commonwealth Government took a controlling interest in the firm. The government discovered that there were all sorts problems with supplying the hangars, although they were a ‘simple product’. The problems were eventually sorted out and the hangars were all supplied.

RAAF Training Squadron at Camden Airfield with one of the main aircraft used for training at the time a Tiger Moth in 1942. The control tower is shown to the left of the image and the Bellman hangars behind. (LG Fromm)

Under wartime regulations Waddington’s was a protected industry and supplied a variety of wartime contracts in the engineering field. They included railway wagons, ocean-going lighters, ‘Igloo‘ hangars, pontoons, landing barges, and buses. Waddingtons was completely taken over by the Commonwealth Government in 1946 and renamed Commonwealth Engineering Co Ltd. Interestingly, in the 1920s the principals of Waddingtons ran a business called Smith and Waddington which made ‘custom’ car bodies for imported chassis of Rolls Royce, Hudson, Wolseley and Fiat in a factory on Parramatta Road, Camperdown.

The Bellman hangars were only ever meant to be temporary, and they were supposed to be capable of being erected and dismantled by unskilled labour with simple equipment. Dunn maintains that the Bellman hangars were 95 feet wide (1 feet = 0.304 metres), 122 feet long, 17 feet high, covered an area of 10,000 square feet (1 square foot = 0.092 square metres), consisted of 60 tons of steel, at an average cost of £3,365 (erected), had 80 major components and could accommodate 5 Barracuda aircraft.

Waddingtons supplied Bellman hangars to around 25 airfields and other locations in New South Wales (from Camden to Temora), 15 in Queensland (from Cairns to Kingaroy), 17 in Victoria (including Ascot Vale and Port Melbourne), 4 in South Australia (including Mallala and Mt Gambier), 8 in WA (from Canarvon to Kalgoorlie), 3 in Tasmania (including Western Junction), 1 in the ACT (Kingston), 3 in the Northern Territory (including Gorrie and Wynellie) and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.

Initially Bellman hangars were designed in the United Kingdom with canvas panelled doors and canvas under the eaves, although steel-framed and clad doors were introduced after heavy snowfalls at Thornaby Airfield in the winter of 1937. The time taken to erect the UK hangar including levelling the ground, laying door tracks, erecting the steelwork and fitting the original oiled canvas Callender doors, was 500 man hours.

The British Ministry of Defence states that there are over 100 Bellman hangars still in existence in throughout the UK that were built around the Second World War in 2014. They were originally constructed by provide a fast, economical solution to a need for hangars. It is described as being a lightweight structure made from steel lattice frames, to form 14 bays giving an overall length of 53 metres and width of 29 metres.

The Airfields of Britain Conservation Conservation Trust states that Bellman hangars were only one type used in the United Kingdom during the war and between 1938 and 1940 over 400 were built for use. One of their disadvantages was their lack of roof height.

According to some reports there are 14 surviving Bellman hangars at RAAF Base Wagga, at least three at Point Cook (RAAF Williams), one at RAAF Base Fairbairn, Canberra Airport, four at HMAS Albatross, Nowra, a number at Auburn, Bankstown and Camden. For the enthusiast there is an interesting article on Bellman hangars on Wikepedia.

Updated 14 August 2021. Originally posted 15 July 2014.

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Camden Heritage Conservation Area – an English-style village in the Cowpastures

May 6, 2020June 19, 2023 camdenhistorynotes3 Comments

Heritage conservation

In 2006 Camden Council designated the Camden town centre as a Heritage Conservation Area, later incorporating it in the 2019 Camden Development Control Plan.

A heritage conservation zone, according to Camden Council, is :

an area that has historic significance… [and]… in which historical origins and relationships between the various elements create a sense of place that is worth keeping.

The map of the Camden Heritage Conservation Area from the Camden Council Development Control Plan 2019 (CC DCP 2019)

Historical significance

Several writers have offered observations on Camden’s historical significance.

Historian Ken Cable argued in the 2004 Draft Heritage Report prepared by Sydney Architects Tropman and Tropman that: Camden town is a significant landmark in the LGA.

In 2006 Sydney architect Hector Abrahams stated that Camden was ‘the best-preserved rural town in the entire Cumberland Plain’ (Camden Advertiser, 28 June 2006).

Hector Abrahams -best preserved- Camden Advertiser 2006 Jun28 — Architect Hector Abrahams commented that Camden was the best-preserved country town rural town in the Cumberland Plain. Camden Advertiser 28 June 2006.

Historian Alan Atkinson has argued that Camden is ‘a profoundly important place’, while historian Grace Karskins maintains that ‘Camden is an astonishingly intact survival of early colonial Australia’.

Sense of place

In the early 20^th century, poets, artists, and writers waxed lyrical that the town was like ‘a little England’.

Camden Council documents stress the importance of the town’s rural nature for the community’s sense of place and community identity.

Camden Aerial 1940 CIPP — An aerial view of Camden township in 1940 taken by a plane that took off at Camden airfield. St John’s Church is at the centre of the image (Camden Images)

This is quite a diverse range of views.

This blog post will look at the historical elements that have contributed to the town’s sense of place and its historical significance.

While none of these elements is new, this is the first time they have been presented this way.

A private venture of Englishmen James and William Macarthur

The village was a private development of Englishmen James and William Macarthur on the Camden Park Estate family property.

The Macarthur brothers had their private-venture village of Camden approved in 1835, the street plan drawn up (1836) and the first sale of land in 1841. All are within the limits of Camden Park Estate.

The Macarthur brothers had another private venture village at Taralga on Richlands and Menangle on Camden Park Estate.

Camden James Macarthur Belgenny — James Macarthur (Belgenny Farm)

Creation of a little English-style village

The notion of an English-style village on the family estate must have been an enticing possibility for the Macarthur brothers.

In Camden village, James and William Macarthur named streets after themselves and their supporters. They include John Street, Macarthur Road, Elizabeth Street, Edward Street, Broughton Street, Exeter Street, Oxley Street, and Mitchell Street. The Macarthur family funded the construction of St John’s church on the hill and donated the surrounding curtilage.

St Johns Church Camden around 1900 (Camden Images)

The Macarthur brothers created vistas from the family’s Georgian hilltop Georgian mansion across the Cowpastures countryside to their Gothic-style village church.

The Englishness of the Camden village entranced many visitors and locals, including artists and writers. On a visit in 1927, the Duchess of York claimed that the area was ‘like England.’

Strategic river crossing into the Cowpastures

The village was strategically located at the Nepean River ford, where the first Europeans crossed the river. By the 1820s, the river crossing was the main entry point to the Macarthur brothers’ Camden Park Estate, the largest gentry property in the area.

The village’s situation on the Great South Road reinforced the Macarthur brother’s economic and social authority over the countryside.

The river crossing was one of the two northern entry points to their Camden Park Estate realm, the other at the Menangle. Menangle later became another private estate village.

The Macarthur village of Camden would secure the northern entry to the family’s Camden Park estate, where the Great South Road entered their property. By 1826 the river ford was the site of the first toll bridge in the area.

Camden Cowpastures Bridge 1842 Thomas Woore R.N. of Harrington Park CIPP — Camden Cowpastures Bridge 1842 Thomas Woore R.N. of Harrington Park (CIPP)

None of this was new as the river crossing had been the entry into the Cowpastures reserve declared by Governor King in 1803. The site was marked by the police hut in the government reserve at the end of the Cowpasture track from Prospect.

English place names, an act of dispossession

The Camden village was part of the British imperial practice of placing English names on the landscape. The village’s name is English, as is the gentry estate it was located – Camden Park.

English place names were used in the area from 1796 when Governor Hunter named the Cow Pastures Plain site. The Cowpastures were a common grazing land near a village.

Naming is a political act of possession or dispossession and is an active part of settler colonialism.

Camden Signage — The Camden sign on the entry to the town centre at Kirkham Reserve on Camden Valley Way, formerly The Great South Road and Hume Highway. (I Willis)

The Cowpastures was a meeting ground between the Dharawal, the Dharug and the Gundungurra people. The area was known as ‘Baragil’ (Baragal)’ or Benkennie (dry land).

Indigenous names were generally suppressed by English placenames until recent decades.

Initially, the Wild Cattle of the Cowpastures that escaped from the Sydney colony in 1788 occupied the meadows of the Nepean River floodplain.

The Cowpastures became a contested site on the colonial frontier.

Dispossession in the English meadows of the Cowpastures

The foundation of the Macarthur private village venture was part of the British colonial settler project.

The first Europeans were driven by Britain’s imperial ambitions and the settler-colonial project and could see the economic possibilities of the countryside.

Under the aims of the colonial settler project, as outlined by Patrick Wolfe and later LeFevre, the new Europeans sought to replace the original population of the colonised territory with a new group of settlers.

Hunter’s naming of the Cowpastures was the first act of expropriation. Further dispossession occurred with the government reserve, and later Governor Macquarie created the government village of Cawdor in the centre of the Cowpastures.

Art Governor Macquarie SLNSW — Governor Macquarie (SLNSW)

The Europeans seized territory by grant and purchase, imposed more English place names in the countryside, and created a landscape that mirrored England’s familiarity.

The colonial settlers brought Enlightenment notions of progress in their search for a utopia.

Cowpasture patriarchs

The Macarthur private venture village was located in a landscape of self-style English gentry, and their estates were interspersed with several small villages.

The gentry estates and their homestead and farm complex were English-style village communities. One of the earliest was Denbigh (1818).

denbigh-2015-iwillis — Denbigh Homestead Open Day (2015 IWillis)

The oligarch-in-chief was Camden Park’s John Macarthur.

The Europeans used forced labour to impose English scientific farming methods on the country.

The Cowpasture colonial elite created a bunyip aristocracy and styled themselves on the English gentry.

On the left bank of the Nepean River were the gentry estates of Camden Park along with Brownlow Hill. On the right bank were the gentry properties of Macquarie Grove, Elderslie, Kirkham and Denbigh and several smallholders.

The ideal society for the colonial gentry included village communities. To foster their view of the world, the Europeans created the small village of Cobbitty around the Hassall family’s private Heber Chapel.

The village of Stonequarry was growing at the southern limits of the Cowpastures at the creek crossing on the Great South Road. The village was located on Antil’s Jarvisfield and was later renamed Picton in the 1840s.

The picturesque Cowpastures countryside greeted the newly arrived Englishmen John Hawdon from County Durham. In 1828 Hawdon became the first person to put in writing that the Cowpastures area reminded him of the English countryside when he wrote a letter home.

The progress and development of the country town

The Enlightenment view of progress influenced James and William Macarthur’s vision for Camden village. They sought to create an ideal village community of yeoman farmers and sponsored self-improvement community organisations, including the School of Arts.

Camden School of Arts PReeves c1800s CIPP — Camden School of Arts PReeves c1800s (Camden Images)

Within the Macarthur fiefdom, former estate workers became townsmen, took up civic duties and ran successful businesses.

The village of Camden prospered and became a thriving market town and the economic hub of a growing district.

The architectural styles of the town centre shine a light on the progress and development of the Macarthur village. The architectural forms include Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian, Interwar modern, Mid-20^th century modern, and Post-modern.

The town centre serves a host of functions for the community that are indicated by the types of land use in a country town. These include commercial, government, open space, industrial, transport, residential, religious, and agricultural.

The country town idyll and the appearance of heritage

Since the 1973 New Cities Structure Plan for Appin, Campbelltown and Camden, there has been increased interest in the cultural heritage of the town centre. This is the first appearance of the influence of post-modernism in the Camden story.

The New Cities Plan 1973[1] — *The New Cities Structure Plan Campbelltown Camden Appin* (1973, SPA NSW Governbment)

John Wrigley conducted the first heritage study of the Camden town centre in 1985 for the Camden Historical Society.

Urban growth and the loss of rural countryside have encouraged a nostalgic desire for the past. This process led to the evolution of Camden, the country town idyll.

The heritage of the town centre is what the community values from the past that exists in the present. It comprises tangible and intangible heritage, as well as multi-layered and multi-dimensional. The town centre story is a timeline with many side shoots or a tree with the main stem and branches.

Camden time traveller and the town centre

The living history of the town centre is evident at every turn, and a visitor can be a time-traveller into the past.

A view along Argyle Street is a view into the past with the integrity of the built heritage still intact from over 100 years ago.

The traveller can participate in the area’s living history ‘simply by being present’.

One of these sites is the commanding view from the hilltop at St John’s church. Here the traveller can view the Cowpasture countryside that nestles the Camden town centre within its grasp.

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

The Camden community has a strong sense of itself and community identity based on the continuity of the Camden story and the changes that have occurred within it.

The Camden Heritage Conservation Area has a high value of historical significance. The factors that contribute to this significance clearly show how its historical origins, and the relationships between the elements, have created a sense of place that is worth keeping.

Updated 19 June 2023. Originally posted on 6 May 2020 as ‘Hope, heritage and a sense of place – an English village in the Cowpastures’

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John Oxley’s anchor lost for 34 years

March 27, 2020September 30, 2023 camdenhistorynotes3 Comments

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 gift 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 celebrating 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 was originally located in Kirkham Lane, Kirkham. The 1963 site was on the original 1812 Kirkham land grant to Oxley adjacent to the Kirkham Stables. In 2020 the plaque was located on the plinth attached to the Oxley Memorial Anchor in Curry Reserve Elderslie. (I Willis, 2020)

Camden Council relocated The anchor to Curry Reserve in Elderslie in 2015 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 was originally 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 around 20 direct descendants of John Oxley were 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 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 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 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 ended. 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 to England in 1807, gained his lieutenancy, and returned to New South Wales in 1809. Oxley returned to England in 1810, was appointed 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.

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, 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 the 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 were 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 later covered in corrugated iron. Several outbuildings, including a bathroom and toilet, alongside a well.

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

John Oxley is remembered in lots of places

Oxley Street in the Camden Town Centre 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, on instructions from Governor Brisbane, John Oxley 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 John Oxley’s route in his exploration of New South Wales in 1818 and marks 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 honour 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 after the explorer John Oxley who, according to the popular story, could not cross the Lachlan River because of dense reeds. He 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 is 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 on the grounds of the Wellington Public School.

Updated 31 July 2023; originally posted 27 March 2020 as ‘Oxley’s Anchor away for 34 years’.

Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · England · First World War · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Living History · Local History · Place making · Sense of place · Storytelling · War · War at home

Princess Mary Christmas Gift 1914

January 3, 2020 camdenhistorynotes

Princess Mary Gift Tin 1914

In the months leading up to Christmas 1914, the seventeen-year-old daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, Princess Mary, decided to launch a patriotic fund called the Princess Mary Christmas Fund in 1914. Her idea was to raise enough funds to ensure that “every Sailor afloat and every Soldier at the front” received a Christmas present.

A special appeal went out to raise funds and as a result, small keepsake tins were made for the troops. The British public enthusiastically supported the appeal and over £160,000 was raised and over 2.6 million men and women were eligible for the gift.

All serving soldiers and sailors in the British, colonial and Indian Armed Forces would receive a gift tin with a number of comforts. The tins were filled with various items including tobacco, confectionery, spices, pencils, a Christmas card and a picture of the princess. The tin had a hinged lid embossed with a capital M.

A Princess Mary Christmas Gift Tin 1914 that was on loan at Camden Museum in 2015 (I Wills)

Each brass-embossed case contained items such as a pipe and tobacco, pencil, notebook, postcards, a photograph of the Princess Royal and a Christmas card. Tins sent out after Christmas included a card with a victorious New Year greeting. Non-smokers, nurses and Sikhs were given tins containing spices, fruit lozenges, sugar candy or chocolate.

With the large number of recipients, it was impossible to distribute them in 1914, so they were divided into three categories. Class A were generally those in France, Class B were those not in Class A and Class C for troops in the British Isles. Class B and C gift tins were sent out in January 1915 and contained a Happy New Year card.

Once the soldiers and sailors consumed the items the tins were useful for carrying small items. The gift tin or box is a treasured possession by many veterans and their families.

Today many of these tins are held in museums, memorials and in private collections. Those which survive with their original gifts from the Princess Royal are extremely rare – although Mason’s box contains the 1915 New Year card.

Read more about the Queen Mary Christmas Gift tin

Australian War Memorial
Image at the Australian War Memorial
Melbourne Museum
1/25th County of London Cyclist Battalion The London Regiment
Imperial War Museum United Kingdom

Aesthetics · Art · Attachment to place · Belonging · Camden · Colonial Camden · Colonial frontier · Colonialism · Community identity · Cowpastures · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · England · Farming · Floods · Frontier violence · Georgian · Gothic · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · History · Landscape aesthetics · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Macarthur · Memory · Myths · Place making · Ruralism · Sense of place · Settler colonialism · Storytelling

Charles Tompson, a colonial diarist of the Cowpastures

September 23, 2019April 29, 2023 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Janice Johnson (ed), Camden Through a Poet’s Eyes, Charles Tompson (Jnr). Camden Historical Society, Camden, 2019. pp.126. ISBN 978-0-6485894-9-5

In 1854 Charles Tompson described that the ‘village of Camden’ had ‘the aspect and the attributes of an English village’ (p.118). In doing so, he was probably the first European to describe Camden’s Englishness, an attribute that numerous writers have agreed with, particularly in the early 20^th century. Tompson was not the first to note the Englishness of the Cowpasture district. That privilege belonged to John Hawdon in 1828.

These are some of the observations of the Cowpastures drawn from the pen of Charles Tompson in a new collection of his work, Camden Through a Poet’s Eye, Charles Tompson (Jnr). The Camden Historical Society has published a work that the late Janice Johnson had been working on while she was alive. The book has been funded by a bequest Johnson estate.

Tompson-Camden-ThroughAPoetsEyes-Cover_lowres — Cover of Camden Through a Poet’s Eyes, Charles Tompson. ‘The Cow-Pastures, Camden Park’ William McLeod. c1886.

Tompson was a prolific writer and observer of the Cowpastures under the byline ‘From our Correspondent – Camden’ for The Sydney Morning Herald between 1847 and 1852. He wrote about the ordinariness of the area while occupying the position of Clerk of Petty Sessions, and his reports are far from ordinary.

Tompson was educated by colonial standards, born on the Castlereagh and attending the local parish school run by Irish rebel Reverend Henry Fulton. His observations are full of colour and movement and provide an invaluable archive of data, descriptions and general goings-on across the area.

Tompson published regular reports on various topics, including farming, the weather, cropping, local identities, police rounds, court proceedings and the movement of people through the area, amongst other topics. He was an astute observer and provided the earliest detailed overview of the early years of Camden village from his position at the local courthouse.

A detailed reading of Tompson’s work provides the patient and curious observer with a detailed description of rural life in the Cowpastures. In 1847 Tompson identified the area as the Cowpastures (p.23) as it was to remain into the late 19^th century. He provided a useful description of the area (p.23). For example, there was a constant shortage of farm labour in 1847 to cut hay by hand on ‘small scale’ farms across the area worked by smallholders. (p.28). Maize was planted in October (p.28), and wheat and hay were harvested by hand-sickle in November (p.33), although the drought restricted the harvest (p.32).

Market prices are provided for those who need to know about such things. Horses were worth between £8 to £10 in 1847 (p.29), wheat might get 4/6 a bushel, maize worth 2/- a bushel, and good hay was worth £10 per ton. (p.32). By March 1848 price of wheat had dropped to 3/6 to 4/- a bushel, while fine flour was worth £12 a ton, and vegetables were scarce, with potatoes between 1d to 1½d per pound (p.42). Flour was ground at one of the mills in the area. (p.23)

Tompson Book Back Cover Camden sketch 1857-lowres — Back Cover of Camden Through a Poet’s Eyes Charles Tompson. Sketch of Camden, HG Lloyd, 1857 (SLNSW)

The local population and its growth (p.23) were detailed by Tompson, along with the villages and hamlets in the immediate area, including Narellan, Cobbitty (p.24), Picton and Menangle (p.25). Tompson could be effusive in his description and Cobbitty was a ‘diamond of the desert on the dead sea shore’ while he could be more grounded and just described Narellan as the ‘Government township’. (p. 24)

The local colonial grants and their links to each location are detailed for the reader. Cobbitty was surrounded by ‘Wivenhoe, Denbigh, Matavai and Brownlow Hill – all beautiful in their own way – from the homely milkmaid-like undecorated farm and the verandahed cottage, with group plantations, to the elegant Italian villa, embowered in orange groves, and the secluded chateau of dignified retirement’ (p.24). Similar descriptions were used by travel writers in the early 20^th century.

The gentry estates were the same ones that reminded Englishman John Hawdon of his Durham homeland in the 1820s. The description of the landscape provided by Tompson reminds the reader how short the gap was in years between the original European settlement of the Cowpastures and his presence in Camden village in the 1840s.

Camden Park was described by Tompson as ‘magnificent’, which had, in the last few years, ‘been opened up and cultivated by a story of a primitive pioneer who takes farms on clearing leases’ (pp24-25). The tenant farmers were not the yeoman farmer the British colonial authorities were trying to create at the time. They were closer to a peasant culture. Tompson likened Camden Park to a European ‘principality’ rather than the gentry ‘Estate’ it was and would remain for over the next 150 years. (p.26)

TompsonCharles-Camden-ThroughAPoetsEyes-lowres

The Razorback Range was ‘scarcely…a mountain’ and was ‘in fact a tract of excellent arable land’. The Nepean River and Bent’s Basin was a ‘small lake of about a furlong’s diameter’ and it was ‘round and deep’. (p.27)

The weather was an ever-constant in Tompson’s travails of the Cowpastures, as were the constant dry spells that are all part of the Australian environment. He laments ‘how sadly the rain keeps off’ in October 1847 (p.27). A month later, he left his thermometer in the sun and it rose to 120⁰F when left on the ground on his way home from church (p.28). He observed that the continued dry spell of 1847 had ‘driven’ the smallholders ‘to despair’ (p.28).

Thunderstorms, unsurprisingly, were typical of a summer’s afternoon across the Cowpastures. In December 1847, a ‘heavy thunderstorm passed over, without much rain’ (p.33), as it still happens today. Thunderstorms could cause bushfires that burnt throughout the hotter months of the year (p.30). Bushfires were an ever-present part of the Cowpasture’s ecology – both natural and man-managed – by Indigenous Australians.

Tompson was not a fan of the Indigenous people and possessed the British attitude to the inferior nature of the Australian Aborigine that was the basis of the settler society colonial project. In March 1848, ‘the blacks [Dharawal] from the south country always visit the Cowpasture…in great numbers’. Reminiscent that the colonial frontier could be a violent site and a male domain. Tompson reported that there was a woman of a lonely farm hut ‘scarcely considers her safe’ as the Indigenous people moved through the area ‘in the absence of her husband’.(p.44)

The newbies to the local area in the 21^st century could do themselves a favour and read the description of the 1848 flood at Camden. The flood was caused by an east-coast-low-pressure system, as they are in eastern Australia today. The 1848 flood event was over after three days, reaching its peak within 24 hours of the river starting to rise. Tompson witnessed an ‘expanse of water several miles in circumference’ that had previously ‘dry land’. (p.43)

Disease was a problem with influenza (p.31) prevalent in 1847, and ‘everybody is wrapped up, pale, coughing and wearing a certain indescribable dreamy appearance’. (p.31) Tompson reported the presence of scarlet fever in 1848 (p.61) and called it scarlatina (p.61) as it was also known. Even as early as 1848, the Camden village was regarded by many Sydney ‘invalid refugees’ as a type of health resort, with many staying at Lakeman’s Camden Inn. (p.61)

The very English hunting activity appeared in 1849 and the Sydney gentry brought their ‘dingo hounds’. Tompson reported that they were joined by some local ‘gentlemen’ and went deer hunting ‘in the bosky glens of the Razorback’. It was reported that some hounds ‘ran down a fine kangaroo’, and the party returned drenched ‘by heavy rain’. The following day the party moved to Varroville. (p.79)

Janice Johnson’s collection of Tompson’s musings and sometimes whimsical commentary on life in the Cowpastures is a convenient summary of work published in the Sydney Morning Herald. The researcher does not have to wade through hundreds of pages looking for a short descriptive paragraph as Alan Atkinson did for his work on Camden.

Johnson has done the hard graft by extracting these snippets of Cowpasture life using the National Library’s wonderful database Trove. This is a treasure trove of information for any researcher, complemented by a useful index. For those interested in colonial New South Wales, this book should be a standard reference of the colonial period in any library.

Updated 29 April 2023. Originally posted on 23 September 2019.

A colonial region

Cows and more

A river

A village is born

Burragorang Valley

Romancing the landscape

The end of a district and the birth of a region

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A certain type of Englishman

Private villages in the Cowpastures

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A brief historiography of the Camden District

Tourist history of Camden

The Cowpastures frontier

Villages and beyond

Wartime writing

Camden Aesthetic

Memorials of loss

The rural-urban fringe and other threats

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A local nursery serves the world

Nurseryman Francis Ferguson

Fruit trees, camellias and roses

Campbelltown Nursery

Condamine Street, Campbelltown

Double Bay Nursery

Manning Road and New South Head Road, Double Bay

The 20th-century beckons

References

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Local women travel the world

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Heritage conservation

Historical significance

Sense of place

A private venture of Englishmen James and William Macarthur

Creation of a little English-style village

Strategic river crossing into the Cowpastures

English place names, an act of dispossession

Dispossession in the English meadows of the Cowpastures

Cowpasture patriarchs

The progress and development of the country town

The country town idyll and the appearance of heritage

Camden time traveller and the town centre

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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

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Princess Mary Gift Tin 1914

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Janice Johnson (ed), Camden Through a Poet’s Eyes, Charles Tompson (Jnr). Camden Historical Society, Camden, 2019. pp.126. ISBN 978-0-6485894-9-5

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