Mummel is a rural locality about 20 kilometres northwest of Goulburn NSW on the eastern side of the Wollondilly River. Mummel is part of the story of the settler society in colonial New South Wales on the Goulburn Plains in the early 1820s.
The story of the local Indigenous people has a similar tone to other areas of colonial European settlement. Jim Smith in notes
In Goulburn NSW, the plains and Wollondilly River provided native game and fish for a number of the traditional aboriginal peoples including: Mulwaree, Tarlo, Burra Burra, Wollondilly, Wiradjuri, Gundungurra, Dharrook, Tharawal, Lachlan, Pajong, Parramarragoo, Cookmal and Gnunawal. The Goulburn region was known as a meeting place for all these groups, it wasn’t inhabited by just one group of people.
Great epidemics of disease largely wiped out the indigenous population in the 19th century and sadly, few of the original inhabitants remained by the turn of the 20th.
Records dating back to the 1830s indicate the river flats at Bungonia Road, on the outskirts of Goulburn city, was once the corroboree site of the Gandangara, who were virtually wiped out by an influenza epidemic in 1846-47.
Mummel was granted to Cowpastures oligarch John Dickson of Sussex Street in Sydney who also held the grant of Nonorrah on The Northern Road at Bringelly. Dickson owned a number of properties in the County of Cumberland which were part of the Cowpastures district and they were: Netherbyres, Orielton, Moorfield and Eastwood. Together together formed a line from Bringelly Road in the north to beyond Cobbitty Road in the south. At the 1828 Census Dickson listed his properties at 17,000 acres in the Counties of Cumberland and Argyle of which 15,000 was cleared and 150 acres under cultivation. On these properties he had 3000 cattle and 2000 sheep. Dickson also held 800 acres in Mummel Parish called Evandale.
While in Sydney he met miller and industrialist Thomas Barker who was one of the trustees of John Dickson’s estate. Dickson left New South Wales in 1834 and later died in London in 1843.
Barker asked Waugh to go to Mummel in the County of Argyle where he took charge of the harvest of 150 acres (61 ha) of hay and 350 acres (142 ha) of wheat. He told his parents, ‘and here I am at present furnishing stores of fifty men, keeping accounts, &c.’ (Waugh, 1838)
Waugh reported that he stayed briefly at Orielton in late 1834 before moving to Mummel in February 1835:
I go for good and all to Mummel, Goulburn Plains, Argyleshire…for the first year,– I am to get £40 and board and washing. The farm is 6,000 acres and has about 4,000 sheep and 1,500 cattle on it. There is another overseer from Ayrshire, with a good salary, – he has been twelve years here. He has, besides, a farm of his own, which he manages with an overseer. (Waugh, 1838)
Mummel Range Rd Goulburn (2018 IWillis)
Sale of Sheep
In 1836 around 5000 sheep were offered for sale by auction from Mummel. The advertisement stated that the flock had been bred with Saxon merinos from WE Riley of Raby, Hannibal Macarthur in the Cowpastures and stock from R Jones. WE Riley, pastoralist and sketcher, was a son of the pioneer pastoralist Alexander Riley of Raby who had come to New South Wales as a free settler in 1804. The Riley Saxon merinos won gold medals awarded by the NSW Agricultural Society between 1827 and 1830.
Hannibal Macarthur lived at The Vineyard at Parramatta, and had extensive landholdings. He was the uncle of famous NSW colonial John Macarthur of Camden Park.
Sheep Sale from the Mummel area for 5000 livestock Australian 5 August 1836 (NLA)
In 1841 the John Dickson held 4185 acres in the Mummel area on the northern side of the Wollondilly River.
Mummel 1841
Map of Survey of the Wollondilly River in 1841 NSW Surveyor General Sketch Books near Mummel on northern side of river (SARNSW)
In 1854 there was a sub-division in the Mummel estate, which was surveyed by the firm Roberts and Haege Surveyors. Lots were advertised in the Goulburn Herald 11 March 1854. [Roberts & Haege. (1854). Plan of the Mummel Estate near Goulburn [cartographic material] / Roberts & Haege Surveyors. SLNSW]
Parish of Mummel, County of Argyle, NSW. 1932
1932 Parish Map of Mummel NSW Department of Lands (NLA)
Mummel Provisional School
In 1868 a provisional school was opened at Mummel, which meant that there were between 15 and 15 pupils attending the school.
The Goulburn Mulwaree Local Environment Plan Heritage Inventory lists the Mummel Catholic Cemetery on an ‘exposed hilltop’ across the road from a former church.
Visitors were encouraged to discover Goulburn’s Living History as part of the ‘Our Living History’ festival in Goulburn NSW. Held between 9 March and 12 March 2018 the Celebrate Goulburn Group co-ordinated the event. Organisers were encouraging residents and visitors to celebrate and enjoy the city’s heritage. The event was sponsored by the New South Wales Government through the Heritage Near Me Project.
A street view of the central business of Goulburn in Auburn Street showing the Victorian grandeur of the Goulburn Post Office built 1880-1881 (I Willis, 2018)
This blogger joined the visitors and was out and about at two participants in the festival and took in a Georgian house museum and garden and an a museum highlighting the steam technology at a local pumping station.
Visitors were encouraged to embrace the theme of ‘Unearthing Riversdale’ at the homestead at 2 Twynam Drive Goulburn.
The homestead is owned by the National Trust of NSW and the website states:
Built in the late 1830s as a coaching inn, Riversdale later became home to the district surveyor, Edward Twynam and his family. Edward was appointed Chief Surveyor of NSW during the 1890s and his family occupied Riversdale for almost 100 years prior to its purchase by the National Trust.
The building is a Georgian style and now interpreted as a farm homestead.
Riversdale homestead Goulburn (I Willis, 2018)
Riversdale was variously known from 1840 as the Victoria Hotel, the Victoria Inn and the Prince Albert Inn. The building was located on the main road of the ‘Goulburn Plains’ and the site had been occupied by Matthew Healy with built a slab hut public house in the 1820s. Healy also built the kitchen and stable. Healy sold out to Anne and John Richards who ran an Inn.
The site of the town was moved to its current location and the Inn became unviable and the building became a boarding school and then a small farm. The building was called Riversdale in the 1860s by John Fulljames.
The Twynam family took up residence in 1872, and the family occupied the residence until the National Trust purchased the property in 1967.
The Garden
The National Trust rejuvenated the house garden in 1967 in the Gertrude Jekyll style with plantings of herbaceous borders and silver and grey foliage plants. Many 19th century plantings were added and included bearded iris, bulbs, peonies, aquilegia, delphiniums, lilies, lavender and old style roses.
Much of the garden was established by the Twynam family in 1872. There are historic trees in the garden with plantings from 1820s and of particular interest is the avenue of English elms at the rear of the courtyard from the 1840s. The elms were planted by the inn owner Anne Richards, who also planted the medlar on the eastern lawn.
An interesting piece of steam driven technology is the waterworks pumphouse on the Wollondilly River.
The waterworks pumphouse was built between 1883 and 1885 by Harbours and Rivers Board of the NSW Public Works Department on the Wollondilly River at Rocky Point. The supervising engineer and designer of the works for the pumphouse and Marsden Weir was EO Moriarty.
Marsden Weir on the Wollondilly River with the Waterworks in the distance on the waters edge. (I Willis, 2018)
Before the pumphouse was constructed Goulburn residents collected water in tanks or wells, or purchased water from a water carter.
The board installed a 1893 120 HP Appleby Bros steam engine to drive the water pumps. The Appleby beam engine is a typical compound condensing steam engine based on an Arthur Woolf design and 1804 patent. The pumphouse and steam engine was operational in 1886. The engine was driven by two Lancashire/Gallaway boilers in the boiler house.
Waterworks Pumphouse with boiler house at the front of the view. Central section of the building houses the beam steam engine. (I Willis, 2018)
The pumphouse was designed the New South Wales colonial architects and built in a Victorian Georgian style. It is built of brick laid in a Flemish bond pattern. The Waterworks states
It is known as a beam engine because of the large overhead rocking beam that transmits motion from the pistons to the cranks.
Waterworks beam steam engines, according to Bruce Macdonald (manager, 1974), were not common in Australia with the Goulburn engine only one of ten in Australia, all in New South Wales. The others were located in Sydney, Newcastle, Wagga Wagga, Albury and Bathurst. The Goulburn steam engine, according to the Australian Institution of Engineers, is the only intact example in Australia.
A northern annex to the pumphouse building was built in 1897 to house a secondary steam pump, with additions in the late 1920s. The southern annex was built in 1918 to house the first electric pumps which operated in tandem with the steam pumps until 1932.
The complex was managed by Goulburn City Council from 1887 to 1922. The facility supplied water to the town until 1977 when the waterworks closed.
The waterworks is a rare example in Australia of a complete steam powered municipal water supply left in its original location. The facility is of national scientific and technical significance.
There is nothing quite like experiencing history in the field to gather a feel for a place. Walking the ground provides a perspective for historians that cannot be gained by staying in the archive. Such is my experience of Goulburn. The inland city Goulburn was one of the most important rural centres in 19th century New South Wales.
A street view of the central business of Goulburn in Auburn Street showing the Victorian grandeur of the Goulburn Post Office built 1880-1881 (I Willis, 2018) The world seems to have passed the town by with its eclectic collection of building style – Victorian, Edwardian, Interwar and post-war. Tucked around every corner there is a new surprise – Catholic and Anglican Cathedrals, the imposing railway station, a grand Victorian post-office and an imposing courthouse that would have certainly made a statement about law and order in 19th century Goulburn. Another world away from the present.
Goulburn Modernism
Hidden in plain sight in Auburn Street, Goulburn’s main street, amongst this imposing Victorian grandeur are a number of Interwar buildings. Modernism in the 20th century is represented by the CML building and the small office of the local newspaper. The Goulburn Evening Penny Post building at 199 Auburn Street Goulburn was built in 1935. The newspaper office reflected a confidence in the future of Goulburn. A statement about the town.
The new 1935 newspaper office of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post in Art-Deco styling showing the beacon with the lamp on top above the newspaper signage (I Willis, 2018)
The Daniels family, who owned the Penny Post, were part of the country press barons who ruled their rural media empires with an iron fist. Families liked the Sommerlads of the New England, the Sidmans of the Macarthur region, the Shakespeare family of the mid-west, the Robinsons in the Hunter, the Parkers of the mid-west, the Musgraves of Wollongong, the Motts of Albury and a host of others.
The newspaper landscape in Goulburn
Goulburn was a vibrant colonial newspaper landscape reflecting a prosperous colonial pastoral economy. While the Goulburn had a literate population it was still a frontier town. Publishers were self-made men, editors as well. Colonial New South Wales was a rugged and robust publishing environment – a boom and bust cycle.
The first newspaper in the town was the Goulburn Herald in 1848. By the 1920s 21 separate newspaper mastheads had come and gone in Goulburn. The Interwar period appears to have been a prosperous time for the New South Wales country press. According to Rod Kirkpatrick’s Country Conscience, there were 238 titles published in 1920, which was only slightly reduced to 221 in 1930.
The front entrance of the Art-Deco style 1935 newspaper building showing the chromium and Carrara glass of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post (I Willis, 2018)
The first issue of the Penny Post in 1870 was produced under the cumbersome masthead of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post and Southern Counties General Advertiser as a short tabloid (11 x 14 inches) of 4pp. By 1930 the Goulburn Evening Penny Post was the last standing.
Goulburn society was driven by its religious zeal and the city even had 3 religious publications. They were: The Goulburn Banner (1848 – Presbyterian), the Monthly Paper (1893 – Church of England) and Our Cathedral Chimes (1920s – Roman Catholic).
A special edition celebrates the new office building
The December 1935 edition of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post that celebrated the opening of the new office building. The edition was 36pp with most of the editorial space taken over by recounting the history of the Goulburn township and area. At the time the Post was a daily, Monday to Friday, which incorporated The Goulburn Daily Herald with a cover price of one penny.
A special edition of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post for 18 December 1935 celebrating the opening of the new Art-Deco style newspaper office. (NLA)
Staff photographs
Goulburn Evening Post Staff 1935 (GEP, 1935) (Image supplied by Paul Titheradge )
Goulburn Evening Post 1965 Staff Photo of Management, Editorial and Production Staff. Amongst the staff are Reg Martin, Mark Collier (Linotype Operators), Paul Titheradge (supplied image), Vern Daniel, Col Daniel. (GEP, 1965)
Architect LP Burns
The anniversary edition of the ran an article with headline ‘Inside A Modern Country Newspaper Office’. The Sydney architect LP Burns designed an office building which was described as a ‘fine, modern building’ of ‘distinction’ in a ‘modern’ style.
Burns also designed Goulburn’s Elmslea Chambers at 17 Montague Street in 1934. It is described as one of the first buildings in Australia to use coloured polychrome terracotta in its façade which features a fine relief of birds, flowers, leaves and typical Art Deco sunbursts under the windows. The building was designed for wealthy pastoralist FG Leahy.
Goulburn’s Elmslea Chambers at 17 Montague Street Goulburn designed by Sydney architect LP Burns in 1934 (Pinterest)
The front of Goulburn’s Elmslea Chambers was Wunderlich terra cotta polychrome panels and the Building Magazine claimed that ‘Goulburn [had] never before seen a block of offices of such a lavish and commodious nature’. The building interior had Silky Oak panelling with Tasmanian Oak inlay, with chromium light fittings with frosted green glass. The builders were Armstrong and Stidwell.
The newspaper building design
The new building of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post was an example of sleek Art-Deco styling. A stripped back minimalism of the realities of the commercial world – a no-nonsense, business-like, functional and matter of fact. Just like the owners and editors.
The shopfront of the 1935 newspaper office building for the Goulburn Evening Penny Post showing the Art-Deco styling of chromium and Carrara glass windows (I Willis, 2018)
Art-deco styling was expression of modernism – sleek, fast, stripped back, not frilly like the Victorian frippery, not tizzy – reminiscent of the world of the railways, movies, motor cars, ocean liners, aeroplanes, consumerism, fashions, wireless. The influences coming down the Hume Highway to Goulburn. The building conveys a powerful statement about the Interwar period in Goulburn.
The Penny Post article on the newspaper office made special mention of the beacon with the lamp on top which made it different from other commercial buildings and with the shopfront Carrara glass. The journalist writing the story was keen to assure the readers that the Carrara glass front was ‘pleasing and harmonious’ and emphasised to the readers that using this type of glass could give a ‘creeping appearance of extravagance’.
Carrara glass was developed in the USA. It was a high-strength coloured glass and used globally in Art Deco and Streamline Moderne buildings. Carrara glass was usually white or blue-gray which resembled the high quality Carrara marble from Tuscany in Italy. The pigmented glass was an acceptable low-cost alternative building material.
The interior public foyer area of the 1935 newspaper office of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post with timber paneling probably Silky Oak which was popular at the time (I Willis, 2018) The building frontage according to the 1935 press reports was marked by its ‘judicious display’ and ‘would attract attention in any of Sydney’s busiest streets’. The first floor of the building contained the newspaper’s editorial offices and a large strong room where the newspaper archives were kept. The report continued stating that the building was centrally heated by steam including the composing and machinery rooms. This would, it was maintained, be greatly appreciated by the newspapers employees.
The printing presses were at the rear of the building and the newsroom in the centre while the retail shopfront area dealt with advertisers and local folk buying the newspaper. There was a staff of over 20 journalists, compositors, printers, editors, clerical and retail support. These staff were witness to the daily life of the town as it passed through the doors of the newspaper office.
History in plain sight
Today the Goulburn Post building is evocative of a time when print media was king. Walking into the 1935 Penny Post office is like stepping back into the past. Into a world that has disappeared, best illustrated currently by the US movie The Post. The movie explores the buzz of the newsroom at the Washington Post and the publishing of the Pentagon Papers during the heyday of the Vietnam War. When print was king.
While the Goulburn Evening Penny Post was not a large metro daily it is easy to visualize the hive of activity in the newsroom and printing shop. The approaching print deadlines and the smoke-filled rooms amongst the evocative timber paneled rooms throughout the building.
The interior public foyer area of the 1935 newspaper office of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post showing the Art-Deco style light fittings and timber paneling which is throughout the building (I Willis, 2018)
The fabric of the building is still largely intact and retains its integrity, charm and character. The building reveals the layers of history to those who care to take a look. The building has escaped any major renovations and the building structure is as it was in 1935. If these walls could talk they would tell many great yarns of hard-bitten country press barons, editors and journos.
It is easy to image the smell of the printers’ ink; the whir of the printing presses; the buzz of the newsroom; the clacking of typewriters; and babble of conversations at the front desk with advertisers, stock and station agents, and wool merchants. The newspaper was the heartbeat of the town and the ink and newsprint flowed through arteries and veins of the community.
The 1993 commemorative plaque on the front of the 1935 newspaper office of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post opened by the local member of parliament. (I Willis, 2018)
Today’s newspaper
The current Goulburn Post, the offspring of the Goulburn Evening Penny Post, is still is located in the 1935 building. It is the hub for 10 mastheads within the Fairfax Media. Goulburn Post editor Ainsleigh Sheridan says that the newspaper is about creating community history. She would concur with the former president and publisher of the Washington Post, Phillip Graham, who is credited with saying that ‘journalism is the first rough draft of history’ in 1997.
The Goulburn Post is a tri-weekly masthead and is just one of the Fairfax Media group that is produced in the building. The Post is co-ordinated in the Auburn Street office and then sent online to Canberra for printing. In the past printing was done on-site in the back of the Auburn Street building. The current building has issues with fire regulations that did not exist in 1935 and the upstairs area is not currently in use.
Richlands Georgian style homestead built in the 1840s on the 2016 open day (I Willis)
The Richlands estate, north of Goulburn in the NSW Southern Tablelands, was an important part of the Macarthur family pastoral empire for nearly 100 years. The Richlands estate acted as an outstation about one days ride west of Camden Park estate. The property reached its hiatus in the 1840s when its extent reached around 38,000 acres including the private village of Taralga.
James Macarthur managed the Richlands estate with his brother William Macarthur from Camden Park. (Belgenny Farm)
James and William Macarthur initially took up adjacent land grants of around 2000 acres between Taralga Creek and Burra Lake in 1822. The area had been traversed by a party led by Charles Throsby in 1819 looking for an alternative route to Bathurst other than the arduous route across the Blue Mountains. Throsby and company journeyed from the Moss Vale area, crossing the Wollondilly River then the Cookbundoon Ranges near Tarlo, turning north are eventually arriving at Bathurst.
Opening up the Southern Tablelands
Reports of these areas encouraged pastoralists to take up land, one of the first was Hannibal Macarthur, John Macartur’s nephew, at Arthursleigh on the Wollondilly. In a speculative venture in 1822 James Macarthur and partners Lachlan MacAlister and John Hillas, overseer with William Macarthur, moved a mob of cattle over the Cookbundoons and left them in charge an assigned convict Thomas Taylor at Tarlo. Hillas and MacAlister also took up a grants adjacent to the Macarthur holdings.
On the death of John Macarthur in 1834 the Richlands estate passed to Edward Macarthur, a career British soldier, while managed by James and William Macarthur on his behalf.
Governed by absentee landlords
While the Richlands estate was governed by absentee landlords the real story is of those who formed the microcosm of society on the estate. They included convicts, managers, tenant farmers, servants and the Burra Burra people, who were dispossessed and displaced from their country.
Fledgling settlement of Taralga
For the twenty years of the Richlands estate it was managed from the fledgling settlement of Taralga on the southern edge of the property. There was a central store and a number of skilled tradesmen, convicts and their overseers were based in the village from the 1820s.
Taralga village main street 2000s. The initial management of the Richlands estate was conducted from the village in the 1820s until it was shifted to the new hilltop homestead built in the 1840s. The village is one of number of private towns that the Macarthur family established in colonial NSW. ULSC
Rural empire of 38,000 acres
James and William Macarthur acquired land by grant and purchase north and south of the hamlet of Taralga including 600 acres from Thomas Howe of Glenlee in the Cowpastures in 1837. The diary of Emily Macarthur’s, James’ wife, showed that William made six-monthly visits to Richlands from 1840. Lieutenant Colonel Edward Macarthur visited Richlands in 1851 after being posted to Sydney as deputy adjutant general.
Edward Macarthur (1789-1872), who inherited the Richlands estate on the death of his father John Macarthur in 1834. ( Richard Daintree and Antoine Fauchery, c1858)
Strategic hilltop
Work began to move the management of the estate from the village to the hilltop overlooking Burra Lake and Guineacor to the east. Hilltop locations for homesteads were common throughout the Cowpastures and as they were of other Macarthur properties. This practice followed Laudon principles and provided a defendable strategic location on the estate.
Richlands Georgian style homestead on hilltop location built in the 1840s on 2016 open day (I Willis)
William Campbell was appointed superintendent in 1839 and work began on stone offices on the farm hilltop site, along with underground grain silos, convict accommodation and outbuildings. Work was completed by 1844 when Thomas and Martha Denning occupied the house forming a small quadrangle. Denning was appointed overseer (farm manager).
Georgian-style residence
Work on a new on a Georgian-style residence began in 1845 for new English estate manager George Martyr, who took up the position after his arrival in the colony in 1848 after marrying Alicia in Sydney.
Martyr took an active interest in community affairs serving on Goulburn Council and supervising construction of the Catholic Church in the village. A qualified surveyor from Greenwich, Martyr surveyed the village of Taralga and the Macarthurs offered village lots for sale from 1847. George and Alicia raised six children on Richlands.
Richlands Georgian style homestead built for estate manager George Martr and his family in the 1840s on the 2016 open day (I Willis)
The property was eventually resumed by the New South Wales Government in 1908, broken up for closer settlement and sold in 30 smaller lots in 1910.
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