Yearning, Longing and The Remaking of Camden’s Identity: the myths and reality of ‘a country town idyll’.

April 29, 2024 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Australian Historical Association 2007 Regional Conference

Engaging Histories

University of New England, Armidale

23-26 September 2007

Yearning, Longing and The Remaking of Camden’s Identity: the myths and reality of ‘a country town idyll’

Abstract

This article discusses the concept of a “country town idyll” in Camden, an idealised version of a country town from an imagined past that uses history to construct imagery based on Camden’s heritage buildings and other material fabrics. The paper delves into the origins of the idyll, examines its development, and investigates its validity in its contemporary context. It shows how its supporters have used history as a community asset to remake Camden’s identity and explore how the ‘country town idyll’ has been used variously as a political weapon, a marketing tool, and a tourist promotion.

Key terms: Country town idyll; Heritage buildings; Community asset; Political weapon; Tourist promotion.

Article

In May this year, the headline on the front page of the Macarthur Chronicle screamed ‘Home Invasion’. The report warned that

The rural landscape surrounding Camden will be engulfed by suburbia when the construction starts on the Oran Park and Turner Rd precincts early next year. More than 30,000 will occupy 11,500 homes in the two precincts, which form part of the South West Growth Centre. By 2030 Camden will be surrounded by new suburbs consisting of up to 181,000 homes as dense as some of Sydney’s most populated areas.[1]

Sydney’s urban expansion into the local area has challenged the community’s identity and threatened to suffocate Camden’s sense of place. In the face of this onslaught, many in Camden yearn for a lost past when Sydney was further away, times were simpler, and life was slower. This nostalgic vision, a type of rural arcadia, which I have called ‘a country town idyll’, holds a significant place in Camden’s history. This paper, unique in its exploration of the ‘country town idyll ‘, aims to delve into this idyll and show how its supporters have used history as a community asset to remake Camden’s identity.

Initially, the paper will define the ‘country town idyll’ and then show that its origins are drawn from the broader traditions within rural studies. The discussion will then examine the idyll’s development and investigate its validity in its contemporary context. This will be done by exploring its values and how it has been adopted by various stakeholders, including local government, businesses, land developers, and community organisations. The paper will also explore how the ‘country town idyll’ has been used variously as a political weapon, a marketing tool, and a tourist promotion. So, what is meant by the term ‘country town idyll’? This question will be answered in the course of our analysis.

What is the country town idyll?

For this paper, the ‘country town idyll’ is an idealised version of a country town from an imagined past that uses history to construct imagery based on Camden’s heritage buildings and other material fabrics. At the heart of the idyll is the view that Camden should retain its iconic imagery of a picturesque country town with the church on the hill, surrounded by a rustic rural landscape made up of the landed estates of the colonial gentry. Its supporters created the idyll to isolate Camden, like an island, in the sea of urbanisation and development that has enveloped the town. The imagery is firmly located in ‘the country’ that Kerrie-Elizabeth Allen maintains, a location of nostalgia where one can experience an idyllic existence. Central to this notion is nostalgia and an escape from the present, where rural life was associated with an uncomplicated, innocent, genuine society in which traditional values persisted and a place where lives were real. Relationships were seen as honest and authentic.[2]

Camden’s St John’s Church and cemetery illustrating the bucolic nature of the town centre and the church on the hill (I Willis, 2021)

These are the values that the supporters of Camden’s ‘country town idyll’ have encouraged and then expressed in the language they used to describe it. They talk about retaining Camden’s ‘country town atmosphere’, ‘Camden’s country charm’, or ‘country town character’. They describe the town as ‘picturesque’ or having ‘charming cottages’. To them, Camden is ‘ a working country town’ or simply ‘my country town’. These elements evoke an emotional attachment to a place that existed in the past when Camden was a small, quiet country town that relied on farming. So, where did the idyll come from?

The origins of the idyll.

The origins of the ‘country town idyll’ are to be found in the rural ethos that is drawn from within the nineteenth-century rural traditions brought from Great Britain, where there was a romantic view of the country that had an ordered, stable, comfortable, organic small community in harmony with the natural surroundings.[3] This rural culture’s elements have been described as ‘countrymindedness’,[4] ‘rural ideology’[5], ‘rural ethos’,[6] ‘ruralism’[7], and a ‘rural idyll’.[8] They have been a preoccupation of many scholars,[9] including contemporary writers like the Australian poet Les Murray.[10] Within this tradition is an Arcadian notion of a romantic view of rural life, where a distinction is drawn between the metropolis and the village, commonly known as the town/country divide. This was the essence of pre-war Camden, a town of around 2000, where rural culture provided the stability of a closed community which was suspicious of outsiders, especially those from the city, with life ordered by social rank, personal contacts and familial links. It was confined by conservatism, patriarchy and an Anglo-centric view of the world. Camden’s ‘rural culture’ reached a watershed during the 1960s, after which social, economic, and political conditions combined to change Camden’s rurality permanently.

The historical development of the country town idyll and its contemporary use by its supporters

The planned post-war urban growth of Greater Sydney set the conditions for the development of the idyll. Sydney planning authorities had earmarked Camden as part of the Greater Sydney Area and the County of Cumberland Plan as early as 1948. The idea was to form a girdle of countryside around Sydney (a rural-urban fringe) and for Camden to be part of it. In 1968, Camden was included as part of Sydney’s outer rural area in the Sydney Region Outline Plan.[11] While Camden may have been part of each of these plans, they had little direct effect on the township or its rural identity, but this was about to change.

The New Cities Structure Plan Campbelltown, Camden, Appin 1973 (SPA NSW Government)

For many, the release of The Three Cities Structure Plan Campbelltown, Camden, Appin in 1973 was a direct assault on Camden’s ‘rural character’. The plan covered Campbelltown, Camden and Wollondilly local government areas, which, according to the plan, were destined to become part of Sydney’s urban sprawl. For one, Liz Kernohan, the structure plan rang alarm bells. She was a scientist who worked at the University of Sydney Farms at Cobbitty, west of Camden.[12] She was a ‘city type’, an outsider, who came to Camden in 1960 and became a strident advocate for retaining Camden’s country town charm, that is, Camden’s country town idyll. The release of the structure plan prompted her to stand for election to Camden Municipal Council. She based her election platform on the retention of Camden’s ‘rural character’, and while she was not the first to take an interest in these values, her election to Camden Council in 1973 helped crystallise the idyll in the minds of many in Camden for the first time.

Kernohan used the values within the idyll as a constant theme throughout her political career, including her election to the New South Wales Parliament in 1991. In her maiden speech to parliament, she stated that her constituents wanted a semi-rural lifestyle and that ‘explosions of suburbia’ did not constitute progress.[13] Kernohan maintained that Camden’s identity and sense of place were built on the town’s historical place and exemplified by Camden Park, the colonial property of John Macarthur and his descendants, and the Camden Museum, managed by the Camden Historical Society. Kernohan used the values within the idyll to create a direct link between Camden’s history and an idealised landscape from the past. She maintained that:

The Camden district [had] the unique history of being the area where the wool and wine industries were developed by the Macarthur family. Camden municipal council [sic] wants to retain the area’s rural heritage and environment and is encouraging developers to enhance the country town image and take cognisance of the history of the area.[14]

Kernohan’s political activity in the early 1970s helped the development of the idyll and contributed to the formation of the Camden Resident Action Group (CRAG). CRAG was one of the first organisations in Camden to advocate the values within the country town idyll publicly, and it received strong support from Kernohan. The members of CRAG felt that Camden’s rural culture was being undermined by urban growth and set out to effectively isolate Camden from Sydney’s urbanisation. The members of CRAG sort historical links through time to strengthen their sense of belonging and participation in space and place. Janice Newton has maintained that these types of progress associations were more nostalgic and defensive and looked to conservation as their ideal, as opposed to progress associations of earlier times that were positive and supported development. [15]

The Camden Museum Library building in central Camden where the Camden Museum is managed by the Camden Historical Society (I Willis 2023)

The Camden Historical Society, which fitted the same mould as CRAG, fostered an interest in local history and memorialised Camden’s pioneering past with several civic monuments in the early 1970s.

Newton quotes British research, showing that these ‘peripheral communities have a consciousness and valuing of difference’, an identity of separateness. The identity of difference is one of the central values within the country town idyll. The local community has long held animosity toward Sydney-based decision-makers dating back to the nineteenth century, and this has been expressed as the town/country divide. Kernohan encapsulated these values when she stated that,

Camden will be happy to be known as that large country town on the outskirts of Sydney with its own suburbs; it does not want to become part of suburban Sydney.[16]

Geographers readily identify this difference as exurbanisation. According to US research, exurbs are ‘places just beyond the suburbs where the country looks like the country’.[17] This is the rural landscape on Sydney’s rural-urban fringe that Camden offers its new arrivals. A rural landscape that promises the new arrivals lots of ‘country town charm’. These city types are looking for greener pastures on the rural-urban fringe where they can escape the city, but interestingly, not the city’s attractions. The values brought to Camden by these new arrivals, including the search for separateness, have altered the community’s subjectivity – the feeling of the community about themselves – and forced a re-evaluation of how the community sees itself, and this is expressed as the country town idyll. Interestingly, the desire by the new arrivals for difference is similar to the values of separateness in gated estates, where residents are trying to isolate themselves from the outside world and the perceived evils of the city.[18] For Camden’s new arrivals, the Camden township is a metaphorical gated estate with the Nepean floodplain as the fence surrounding the estate. They are protected from the evils of the city, such as crime and congestion, by open space in their ‘contemporary country living’—all part of the country town idyll.

Difference and exclusivity within the idyll are supported by Gleeson’s view that areas of new land releases on the fringe of the Sydney Metropolitan Area, like Camden, have become part of an ‘edge city…existing largely in isolation and antipathy to the older cities’. [19] Exclusivity appealed to Camden’s new arrivals who, Kernohan claimed, had come to Camden to ‘escape city conditions’. According to Matt Leighton, the Narellan Chamber of Commerce president, they were ‘refugees’ from the city. [20] Leighton felt they had graduated ‘a step up’ by making their home in Camden. At the same time, others wanted Camden to become the ‘Bowral of Western Sydney’ by ‘attempting to stay out of the fast lane’[21] or maintaining that it should become the ‘Double Bay of the South Western Sector’ of Sydney.[22] Gleeson maintains that the new arrivals were looking to create new ‘urban villages’, which, he claims, is part of a ‘postmodern angst’ where ‘contemporary suburbanisation in Australia is shaped by the mounting anxiety and insecurity among Australia’s urban middle class’. He argues that all this has been fuelled by the ‘neo-liberal restructuring’ of the last 20 years and the ‘new political emphasis on self-provision’. Gleeson claims that this creates ‘aspirational communities’ on the city’s fringe with a high degree of ‘cultural homogeneity’. [23] In other words, Gleeson would maintain that Camden’s new arrivals were looking for a safe and secure environment with predictable lifestyle outcomes in an Anglophile community where their lifetime investment in housing was protected from the city’s threats. This fitted Kernohan’s Camden and the country town idyll she advocated.

Kernohan was a strong supporter of the idyll until she died in 2004, and her success was due, in part at least, to her recognition of the processes associated with the development of the idyll, which has contributed to the changes in Camden’s identity and sense of place. Kernohan encapsulated this process in the language of Camden’s conservative rural tradition and successfully used it in her political platform. She harnessed Camden’s rurality, or what was left of it, and pragmatically voiced the underlying aspirations of Camden’s old and new residents for some sense of stability in the face of constant demographic change in an ideal past. She did this very effectively in 1994 when she opposed a land release by Industrial Equity. Industrial Equity planned a land release at South Camden, at Cawdor, of 4900 lots. There were protests, and a public meeting was held in July, attracting over 300 people.[24] Kernohan campaigned to keep the area ‘pristine’ and had the number of lots reduced to 777, of between 0.4 and 1.0 hectares, and the provision of public housing stopped. The threat from public housing tenants, real or otherwise, would, it was maintained, would undermine the values of privately owned properties on the estate. Industrial Equity’s development was rejected and remains undeveloped. [25] Yet, eight years later, in 2002, Stockland successfully promoted a land release adjacent to this area called Bridgewater. The Bridgewater development is typical of the development found in ‘exurbia’ or Gleeson’s ‘edge city’ that has fostered the country town idyll in Camden.

Over the last five years, the developers of the Bridgewater land release have used the idyll to sell their allotments to locals and city types. It has been advertised as a ‘contemporary rural lifestyle’ and stridently maintained in its press releases that it was not ‘suburbia’. Stockland claimed the estate was within an hour of the city, where ‘second and third homebuyers are looking to upgrade their lifestyle’ and enjoy extensive parklands.[26] Stockland claimed in its 2006 advertising that its development at South Camden was

An idyllic community bordered by undulating countryside, Bridgewater offers the ultimate country lifestyle a mere 50 minutes from the Sydney CBD.[27]

The promotional literature for the Bridgewater land release used images of blond-haired young children frolicking in an idyllic rural vista in the late afternoon light. The images draw heavily on the nostalgia of a carefree childhood in the country, free from the evils of city life. In other promotional literature, Stockland claimed that their estate was

Set in the charming rural enclave of South Camden on Sydney’s metropolitan fringe. Bridgewater offers you the chance to create a new contemporary country lifestyle. Surrounded by the unique heritage and ambience of 19^th century farm buildings and homesteads, Bridgewater is the epitome of modern country style, providing innovative, contemporary living in a truly historical Australian setting.[28]

The promotional article is supported by panoramic vistas of Camden’s rural countryside.

Formalisation of the idyll

The first formalisation of the idyll occurred in 1999 with the development of Camden Council’s strategic plan. The strategic plan, which captured community sentiment, was drawn up ‘in consultation with the community’[29] and drew heavily on the values of the idyll. It acknowledged the threat of Sydney’s urban sprawl and the desire for separateness by the community using local history. In the introduction to the plan, it states that

Camden has retained many of the traditional qualities of a rural lifestyle and environment and is characterised by historic towns, country villages and new suburban areas. This has been achieved whilst accommodating the fastest urban growth in the Sydney Region. Importantly, it is not a mere extension of the suburban sprawl by Sydney. [30]

It further maintains that

Camden’s unique rural landscapes and vistas have been retained and improved…[and that]…Camden town has retained its country town atmosphere and culture.[31]

The plan claims that the council recognised the community’s aspirations and the idyll’s role in urban planning within the local government area. It maintains that

The council recognised that economic prosperity and quality of life are linked to its rural identity. The attributes of safety, friendliness and close-knit community associated with rural lifestyle also contribute to the amenity of Camden as a place to live and enjoy.[32]

The council acknowledged that ‘the rural nature of Camden attracts newer residents’ and that ‘the rural landscape is an important factor in the lifestyle of the Camden community’.[33]

The idyll received a significant boost in 2004 with the completion of the Camden Draft Heritage Plan. While the plan does not formally acknowledge the country town idyll, it uses history to recognise the special status of Camden. The plan identified several unique qualities of the Camden town area, which supported the idyll. They included: the town’s reputation as one of the few original Cumberland Plain country towns still intact; the town’s early farming and settlement history; the area’s sizeable early colonial landed estates; the town’s association with the Macarthur family; the layout of the town that still reflects its original purpose; the arrangement of the town which took advantage of the views and vistas of St Johns Church on the hill. The report recommended: the adoption of the Camden Township Conservation Area based on the original grid plan for the town, which still exists; the mix of colonial buildings in the town area; the mix of residential, commercial, retail and industrial activity in the town area; the rural properties that still exist on the edge of the town centre; the location of the Nepean River floodplain wrapping around three sides of the town; St Johns Church on the hill; and the historical development of the town that is still evident in the properties and usage of the buildings in central Camden.

St Johns Church Camden around 1900 (Camden Images)

Two aspects of the Draft Heritage Plan[34] warrant special attention as they are critical to understanding the contemporary use of the idyll in Camden, the Nepean River floodplain and the St John’s church. Each has a particular historical, moral, social and psychological significance within the idyll. The supporters of the idyll have used both the Nepean floodplain and St John’s Church and the history associated with them as a political weapon, tourist promotion and part of the construction of heritage iconography. The floodplain is the site of several activities that reinforce Camden’s rural past. They include: the Camden Town Farm, an old dairy farm; Bicentennial Park, an old dairy farm; Camden Showground; the old milk factory of the Macarthurs on the northern approach to the town; and the Camden saleyards, which still operate.

An aerial view of Camden in 1940 with St John’s Church on the ridge above the town centre dominating the surrounding area looking towards Camden Park House in the far distance (Camden Images)

Firstly, the moral imperative of the church on the hill that is St. Johns underpins the values of the idyll and the development of the romantic notions surrounding the town and its past. The church was built on the town’s highest point in 1840 and provides an essential psychological and spiritual focus for the community by dominating the town’s skyline. St Johns is a sacred site associated with the pioneering heritage of the town during the colonial period and the role of the Macarthur family. The Macarthur family ruled over Camden for over 150 years, and the church was central to Macarthur’s moral view of the world and how that should be played out in the town.[35] The town was their metaphysical castle, and they were the squires, especially between 1890 and 1943, when power rested with two Macarthur women, Elizabeth and Sibella Macarthur Onslow. The social authority of these women was absolute. They ensured that the village of Camden reflected their view of the world as much as possible. Nothing escaped their scrutiny or influence, and St Johns was central to their view of the world in Camden. Elizabeth Macarthur Onslow encouraged the maintenance of the proprietaries of life, moral order, and good works, as well as memorialising her family by donating a clock and bells to St John’s Church in 1897.[36] She also memorialised the memory of her late husband by providing a public park named after her husband (Onslow Park), now the Camden Showground. This is one of the sites in Camden that celebrates the idyll each year at the Camden Show. A prominent member of the show committee, Dick Inglis, who was past president,1962-1974, a member of the firm William Inglis and Sons, auctioneers, stock and station and bloodstock agents, and a member of a prominent Camden colonial family, recently claimed that he was proud that the Camden Show was ‘still a country show’ and he hoped that it stayed that way.[37]

This is an aerial view of the Camden town centre, showing the Nepean River in the distance. It clearly shows how the Nepean River floodplain surrounds the township, with a sweeping bend of the river acting as a moat around the town. (Inglis 2019)

Secondly, the geography of the Nepean River floodplain creates a sense of openness around the town or ruralness that engenders a ‘country’ mindset of those who live or would like to live in the local area. The landscape creates a physical and psychological separation from the city. The rural landscape symbolised traditional values embraced by the local community and used in local tourist promotions and by the developers of the new land releases to voice the difference between the local and the metropolitan. This imagery uses nostalgia to connect with Camden’s earlier days when the town was a small rural community and promotes Camden’s ruralness as a positive difference for newcomers to the area. The inundation of the floodplain by the waters of the Nepean River provides a physical and psychological barrier to Sydney’s urbanisation. The floodplain around Camden has been seen as a buffer zone against the onslaught of the city. A moat surrounds the metaphorical castle, that is, the country town. The floodplain provides the moat around the castle.

The Nepean River floodplain and the St John’s Church were invoked within the idyll to defeat a proposal to build a multi-storey carpark in central Camden in 2006. The supporters of the carpark, principally the Camden Chamber of Commerce, wanted additional car parking places in central Camden as early as 1995 because they felt that their financial viability was threatened by competition from Narellan Town Centre, a shopping mall. They thought that a multi-storey carpark would solve their problems. The council considered three possible sites. Two sites were between St John’s church on the hill in central Camden and Camden’s main street (Argyle Street), the third on the floodplain. Camden Council approved a site near St John’s Church in early 2006. The project was eventually defeated because it was felt that any development on the elevated southern sites compromised the vista of St John’s Church from the Nepean River floodplain. The church was located on the hill behind the proposed John Street sites. This vista was part of Camden’s iconic imagery, an important part of the town’s cultural landscape and identity from colonial times.[38] The carpark supporters, the Camden Chamber of Commerce, did not contest this position but felt that the final design of the carpark did not compromise these values; needless to say, Camden Residents Action Group, the historical society and a council-commissioned heritage architect disagreed. The heritage architects felt the proposal compromised the integrity of the ‘most intact country town on the Cumberland Plain’.[39]

The cover of Ian Willis’s Pictorial History Camden & District invokes the town’s history in an important local publication telling the Camden story. (Kingsclear, 2015)

Tourist promotions of Camden have drawn on the historic nature of central Camden, including St Johns church, the vistas of the floodplain and the values of the idyll. This has occurred in brochures, promotions, and a recent webpage, which is part of heritage tourism and allows visitors to experience places and activities that authentically represent the stories and people of the past and present.[40] The website states that,

Camden’s heritage precinct is dominated by the church on the hill, St John’s Church (1840) and the adjacent rectory (1859). Across the road is Macarthur Park (1905), arguably one of the best Victorian-style urban parks in the country. In the neighbouring streets, there are a number of charming Federation and Californian bungalows.[41]

The webpage continues in a similar vein

The picturesque rural landscapes that surround Camden were once part of the large estates of the landed gentry and their grand houses. A number of these privately owned houses are still dotted throughout the local area. Some examples are Camden Park (1835), Brownlow Hill (1828), Denbigh (1822), Oran Park (c1850), Camelot (1888), Studley Park (c1870s), Wivenhoe (c1837) and Kirkham Stables (1816). The rural vistas are enhanced by the Nepean River floodplain that surrounds the town and provides the visitor with a sense of the town’s farming heritage. [42]

Camden Council, in partnership with Camden Historical Society, produced a brochure for a walking tour of Camden and under the heading ‘Camden Town, A Place in History’ states that,

The historic township of Camden, on the southwestern outskirts of Sydney, is the cultural heart of a region that enjoys a unique place in our nation’s history…This rich rural heritage is evidenced around the town in the presence of livestock sale yards, vineyards, equestrian park and dairy facilities, giving Camden a unique ‘working country town’ atmosphere and flavour.[43]

Over the years, St John’s Church has been used on cups, saucers, mugs, and other ephemera.

The same imagery within the idyll is used to promote local businesses. One stockfeed supplier claims to be ‘Keeping Camden Country’.[44] Another business has released a DVD with a slide show and a backing track that uses the values of the idyll in the lyrics of a song written by a local Camden singer/songwriter. The song is called Still My Country Home and is the backing track for a DVD called Camden, Still My Country Home. It has been developed to promote a local business and has all the characteristics of the country town idyll.

Is the idyll still relevant?

Despite the apparent strength of the idyll in Camden, cracks are starting to appear. For example, using the idyll as a political weapon has disappeared, at least in the recent state election in March 2007. Both local candidates from the major political parties, Chris Patterson, Liberal, and Geoff Corrigan, ALP, one the present mayor and one a former mayor of Camden, dropped references to the retention of Camden’s country town atmosphere. Unlike earlier election campaigns involving Liz Kernohan, those values were central to her campaigns for state parliament. This change may be partly reflected by changes to the boundaries of the state seat of Camden and the inclusion of new suburbs in the northern part of the local government area that result from Sydney’s urban growth. In addition, Stockland removed references to ‘contemporary country living’ from promotional literature early in 2007, and the latest land release at East Camden, Elderslie, called Vantage Point, does not mention the idyll.

Yet a recent development application, in May 2007, by McDonalds for a new restaurant in South Camden has seen the idyll used as a potent political weapon yet again and involving the values of the country town. Protesters evoked the values of the idyll against a proposed McDonald’s restaurant in South Camden. The flood of objections from the community centred around concerns that were evocative of the evils of the city coming to invade the country town and revolved around crime, litter, traffic congestion and boorish behaviour. One resident complained that he had witnessed drunkenness, throwing bottles, boorish behaviour and burnouts in the carpark by McDonald’s customers at an outlet in Narellan. He further claimed that all incidents went unchecked by McDonald’s staff, security or police.[45] Helen Stockheim, a resident, claimed that she moved to the area because she liked the ‘country town atmosphere’ and the area was ‘McDonalds free’.[46] The Camden Advertiser ran an editorial titled ‘Let’s treasure our beautiful area’.[47] The giant conglomerate McDonald’s is the ‘outsider’ and brings the evils of the city in the form of globalisation, cultural integration and market domination to Camden. They directly challenge the community’s identity and the values represented by the idyll, such as honesty, simplicity, and authenticity of family-run businesses. The global corporation represents everything that the country town idyll is not.

The future relevance of the idyll to the Camden community is still an open question. The encroachment of Sydney’s urban sprawl is reshaping Camden’s identity in ways which are not yet clearly discernible. Yet many want the rural vistas and the historic buildings that create the separateness of Camden from Sydney’s urbanisation. They are the ones who are trying to hold on to the values of the small town in the form of the country town idyll.

[1] Macarthur Chronicle (Camden Edition) 15 May 2007, p.1.

[2] Kerrie-Elizabeth Allen, ‘The Social Space(s) of Rural Women’, Rural Society, v.12, no.1, 2002, pp31-32.

[3]. Waller, Town, City and Nation, p. 213. This division was based on nostalgia and romance and is still evident in popular contemporary British magazines like Country Origins, This England and The Best of British.

[4].Countrymindedness was ‘Physiocratic, populist and decentralist’. Rural pursuits were seen as ‘virtuous, ennobling and co-operative; they bring out the best in people’, while ‘city life is competitive and nasty, as well as parasitical’. The city was seen as immoral and parasitic, while the country was decent, honest and industrious. Aitkin, ‘Countrymindedness’, pp. 35-36.

[5].Poiner, The Good Old Rule, pp. 30-52; Alston, Women on the Land, pp. 142-147.

[6].Teather, ‘Mandate of the Country Women’s Association’, p. 85.

[7].Neutze, ‘City, Country, Town’, p. 15.

[8].Ward & Smith, The Vanishing Village, p. 7; Davidoff, World’s Between, pp. 46-50; Kerrie-Elizabeth Allen, ‘The Social Space(s) of Rural Women’, Rural Society, v.12, no.1, 2002

[9]. The town/country divide is based on the relationships between people, and Tonnies’s gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft is often considered ‘the classic statement in this tradition ‘Tonnies’s work described gemeinschaft relations as social relations based on ‘blood ties and geographical proximity’, while Gesellschaft relations is a contractual relationship found in the city. Other social philosophers who have seen a rural-urban dichotomy include Weber, Simmel, Durkheim, Marx and Engels, and Park. Ward & Smith, The Vanishing Village, pp. 1-12.

[10] Murray’s Boeotia and Athens (city and the bush).Helen Lambert, ‘A Draft Preamble: Les Murray and the Politics of Poetry’. APINetwork.Online. < http://www.api-network.com/main/index.php?apply=scholars&webpage=default&flexedit=&flex_password=&menu_label=&menuID=homely&menubox=&scholar=58> Accessed 14 May 2007.

[11] Bunker Raymond and Darren Holloway, ‘More than fringe benefits: the values, policies, issues and expectations embedded in Sydney’s rural-urban fringe’, Australian Planner, Vol. 39, No. 2, 2002, p. 68

[12] In 1936, The University of Sydney purchased a dairy farm at Badgery’s Creek and, in 1954, Corstorphine and May Farms at Cobbitty. In 1962, more farms were donated at Bringelly L Copeland (ed), 1910-1985 Celebrating 75 Years of Agriculture at the University of Sydney, Sydney: University of Sydney, 1985, p.46.

[13] NSWLAPD, 16 October 1991, pp.2293

[14] NSWLAPD, 16 October 1991, pp.2293-2294

[15] Janice Newton, ’Rejecting Suburban Identity on the Fringes of Melbourne’, The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 1999, 10:3, pp. 322-329

[16] NSWLAPD, 16 October 1991, pp.2293-2294

[17] Tom Foreman, ‘Exurb growth challenges US cities’, CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2005/us/03/27/urban.sprawl/ . Online. [Accessed 25 May 2007]

[18] Jane Cadzow, ‘Do Fence Me In’, Good Weekend, 5 May 2007, pp33-38.

[19] Brendan Gleeson, ‘What’s Driving Suburban Australia?’, in Griffith Review, special edition ‘Dreams of Land’, Summer 2003-2004.pp. 57-65.

[20] Macarthur Advertiser 16 August 1995; Camden News 22 August 1973.

[21] Macarthur Advertiser 16 August 1995.

[22] The Crier 18 March 1981.

[23] Brendan Gleeson, ‘What’s Driving Suburban Australia?’, in Griffith Review, special edition ‘Dreams of Land’, Summer 2003-2004.pp. 57-65.

[24].The meeting took place at the Camden Valley Inn on 16 July 1994. Camden Crier 17 August 1994.

[25] Camden and Wollondilly Times 14 September 1994; ‘Mini City Proposal Stopped’, Pamphlet, August 1994, Kernohan File, Camden Historical Society Archives.

[26] Macarthur Advertiser 11 September 2002.

[27] Stockland, Upgrade Your Lifestyle, (Stockland Sales and Information Centre, 2006, Advertising Brochure)

[28] Stockland, ‘Bridgewater, Contemporary Country Living’, Aspect NSW, Spring/Summer 2005, pp. 36-37. (Advertising Literature).

[29] Camden Council, Statement of Affairs, Camden: The Council of Camden, 2007, p.3.

[30] Camden Council, Camden 2025, A Strategic Plan For Camden, (Camden: Camden Council 1999).p. 2. Online. http://www.camden.nsw.gov.au (Accessed 14 December 2006)

[31] Camden Council, Camden 2025, A Strategic Plan For Camden, (Camden: Camden Council 1999).p. 2. Online. http://www.camden.nsw.gov.au (Accessed 14 December 2006)

[32] Camden Council, Camden 2025, A Strategic Plan For Camden, (Camden: Camden Council 1999).p. 18. Online. http://www.camden.nsw.gov.au (Accessed 14 December 2006)

[33] Camden Council, Camden 2025, A Strategic Plan For Camden, (Camden: Camden Council 1999).p. 18. Online. http://www.camden.nsw.gov.au (Accessed 14 December 2006)

[34] Camden Council adopted the Camden Draft Heritage Report in December 2006.

[35] Atkinson, Camden; Willis, ‘The Gentry and the Village’;

[36] RE Nixon & PC Hayward (eds), The Anglican Church of St John the Evangelist Camden, New South Wales, Camden: Anglican Parish of Camden, 1999, pp. 8-21.

[37] District Reporter, 24 August 2007, p. 4.

[38] For example, this vista is on the front cover of Paul Power’s A Century of Change, One Hundred Years of Local Government in Camden (Camden: Macarthur Independent Promotions, 1989).

[39] Camden Advertiser 28 June 2006, p. 1.

[40] National Trust for Historic Preservation, ‘Heritage Tourism’. http://www.nationaltrust.org/heritage_tourism/index.html Online. [Accessed 4 April 2007]

[41]Ian Willis, ‘Camden, the best-preserved country town on the Cumberland Plain’, Heritage Tourism <http://www.heritagetourism.com.au/discover/camden.html> Online. Accessed 23 May 2007.

[42]Ian Willis, ‘Camden, the best-preserved country town on the Cumberland Plain’, Heritage Tourism <http://www.heritagetourism.com.au/discover/camden.html> Online. Accessed 23 May 2007.

[43] Camden Council, Heritage Walking Tour of Camden Town, (Camden: Camden Council, 2001)

[44] Advertisement: ‘Regal Stockfeeds’, District Reporter 24 August 2007, p. 6.

[45] ‘Traffic with that ?’, Camden Advertiser, 27 June 2007, Online. http://www.camdenadvertiser.com.au/2007/06/traffic_with_that.php [Accessed 27 June 2007]

[46] ‘Ready for a bun fight’, District Reporter 1 June 2007, p. 3.

[47] Camden Advertiser 27 June 2007, p. 4.

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Despina’s story, fond memories of living in Campbelltown

March 21, 2024 camdenhistorynotes

Memories of Campbelltown

A former resident of Campbelltown, Despina Maddalena, has recalled her time living in Campbelltown in the early 2000s. She has fond memories and is quick to defend the city from stereotypes and misinformation.

Over the decades, Campbelltown has received some bad press from some quarters of the Sydney press.

On the other hand, others have come to its defence, like former editor Campbelltown-Macarthur News Jeff McGill in 2013 when he stridently defended his home town in the Sydney press in an article ‘Careful what you call south-western Sydney’.

In another story, former Airds resident Fiona Woods defended her home turf from detractors in an emotionally filled story in a suburb where residents have lived on the edge and faced many challenges.

In a blog post called Westies, Bogans and Yobbos. What’s in a name? I argue that

Sydney’s west and south-west have also been stereotyped as regions that are dangerous foreign places, a form of Otherness.

I conclude in the blog post that

a name does matter and Macarthur regionalism is a touchy issue in the communities of Campbelltown, Camden and Picton where identity, place, stereotypes and perceptions are realities for some but not for all.

Memories are important to people as they are tied up with their identity and sense of place. Memories help tell our story to the world, who we are and where we come from.

This Despina’s story.

An area to be proud of

Despina Maddalena

It was August 2002, and we were preparing for our wedding. At the time, we opted to buy our own home rather than rent.

After looking at what our 21-year-old selves could get with our savings, the options were a studio apartment located in a rather run-down part of Sydney’s CBD for approximately $150,000 or $210,000 for a home in Campbelltown not too far from my parents. We decided at the time, given our family also consisted of a staffy called Tessa, that a home with a yard would be more appropriate.

Colonial Street Cottage Campbelltown (D Maddelana)

Whilst looking at homes in and around Campbelltown, we settled for a little home on Colonial Street.
Colonial Street is a split-level street in the older part of Campbelltown. Many homes in that area look much the same, being mostly fibro or weatherboard. We found out that they were offered as part of an affordable housing scheme introduced to returning servicemen with families following WW2.

Having grown up in South Australia, my knowledge of Campbelltown was limited at the time despite living in the surrounding suburb of Bow Bowing for a few years. However, from what I had heard, Campbelltown had a reputation of being a rather rough area, so though I was proud my fiancée and I were able to buy our own home, I must admit I didn’t feel I could proclaim ‘we bought our first home in Campbelltown’ to all out friends and family. The area we were told had an issue with crime, and the demographics of the area were very much blue collar, with a good majority of residents living in government housing and living on government handouts. As such, although I was excited to move in, I was rather hesitant as to what our experience would be.

Colonial Street cottage Campbelltown (D Maddalena)

In August 2002, we purchased the home, and by February 2003, I moved in. Over the next 3 years, living in our little fibro 2-bedroom, 1-bathroom home, I came to appreciate the area, and my opinion of it had, for the most part, changed. Our neighbours on either side were working-class folk, much like us. On one side, there was a young family, very quiet with a newborn baby, and the father enjoyed his potted patch of greens. They were always quiet and friendly. Our neighbours on the other side were also lovely people with two grown-up children. They were a little rough around the edges but decent and hardworking.

Campbelltown itself had everything and anything we could ask for in amenities, hospitals, shopping centres and transportation. It was also a perfect pivotal location to visit regional areas surrounding Sydney and other cities such as Canberra.

Our quaint little home had wonderful views that overlooked the mountains of Razorback. We enjoyed living there and never had a problem with crime, and neither really did our neighbours or friends who lived in the area. Our support network was fantastic, we attended the local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses that met at St Helen’s Park were we were able to meet a great deal of people from all walks of life as well as walk the areas of Campbelltown both old and new. It was then that I really came to appreciate that, despite its reputation, Campbelltown wasn’t such a bad place to live after all.

In August 2005, exactly 3 years from the date we bought it, we sold our little home on Colonial Street to travel the world. On returning to Australia, we moved to different areas of NSW and Sydney itself and got to experience varying demographics. Kempsey on the Mid North Coast, which also had its own unique reputation and history, was one area we lived in, somewhat similar to Campbeltown, as well as Kurraba Point on Sydney’s North Shore. Both are vastly different. In each area where we lived, we joined the local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and, through our volunteer work, got to see aspects and places of suburbs that even people who live in an area for most of their lives sometimes don’t really experience.

In December 2013, we ended up back in Campbelltown, this time on Ruzac Street, purchasing a considerably older home. Most people would turn in the opposite direction, given how much work it needed. However, my husband and I have always had an appreciation for older homes with history and charm. We would often joke that we wanted a home with a soul.

The house was apparently built in the 1950s for Mr French, a schoolteacher. It was double-brick and almost triple-story, with interesting handrails and wonderful views.

Our neighbours were the best you could ask for, Judy Clarke, who grew up a street above ours in the 1940s. A year after we moved in, she moved next door to us, after having lived out of the area during her married life. Brian and Noreen across the road, Brian of which was born and bred in the area. Both are really lovely neighbours, neighbours you could only wish you had.

Our home was just below St Elmo, a wonderful grand home on Broughton Street with a rich history that sadly has been left to rack and ruin. As with most homes with history in Campbelltown and everywhere, my heart breaks to see them let go. However, for the most part, those glimpses of Campbelltown that remind us of yesteryear are still there, the Old Bank on Queen Street built in the 1880s, the Queen Street shopfronts, some still untouched from the 1940s, Mawson Park not even scratching the surface. Campbeltown has a rich and wonderful history we found with much to offer.

From the first time we moved back to Campbelltown, we had noticed a drastic change in people and the surrounding landscape from 2005, returning in 2013.

Many of the older fibro or weatherboard homes that really embodied Campbelltown’s construction were now being flattened in preparation for 2, 3 or even 4-story buildings, some townhouses, and some apartment buildings. It was sad to see these older homes go. However, this was the reality of life. The population was expanding, and Campbelltown was really becoming a satellite city. Along with this the culture of the area had drastically changed, there was a healthy mix of different nationalities moving in. From being predominantly Australian, an influx of immigrants from India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Samoa and China now flavour the area. The shopping centres and small shops on the main streets and back streets avail those who live in the area or visit a variety of cultural experiences that have the ability to tease one’s sensory system.

The Australian Botanical Gardens were also a favourite place to visit with friends and family.

If asked, I would be hard-pressed to find another area, such as Campbelltown, that has so much to offer. There is great truth in the saying time changes things, and it certainly has.

My once initially negative thoughts of the area had changed. Yes, there is crime, there are areas decidedly ugly and neglected, but most suburbs have that, so really, the area is what one makes it. Campbelltown, for the most part, is perhaps even better than ever for its cultural diversity and perhaps forced adaptation to the new.

I feel sorry for people who live locally but who haven’t had the opportunity or drive to embrace the area. When in discussion with people now about our growth as individuals and journey in life, I’m actually quite proud to mention Campbelltown.

Its history and demographics have certainly changed over the last century. It cannot be argued that the preservation of an area’s history can enrich both socially and culturally.

My only wish is that those delegated with the power to make a change take a little more pride, take a little more care, and show a little more interest in Campbelltown and its surrounding suburbs’ tangible history and invest in its future through infrastructure and building preservation. Campbeltown really does have a lot to offer.

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Public art in Hobart tells the story of female convicts in Van Diemen’s Land

February 25, 2024 camdenhistorynotes

Hidden in the shadows

Public art has been used in Hobart to reveal stories of female convicts that have been hidden in the shadows for decades.

The silence of history has been broken, and the layers of history have been peeled back to reveal a story of resilience and agency in the face of misery and hardship.

The logo of the Cascades Female Factory Historic Site in South Hobart (CFFHS)

These stories have been commemorated in two sets of statues, one on the Hobart waterfront and one at the Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart, by Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie.

Footsteps Towards Freedom (2017)

In 2017, the Footsteps Towards Freedom statues were installed on the Hobart waterfront and unveiled by the President of Ireland, Michael Higgins, and the Governor of Tasmania, Kate Warner.

The proposal was first mooted in 2015 when Hobart Lord Mayor Sue Hickey, the Speaker of the House of Assembly Elise Archer and the Governor of Tasmania met to discuss the project.

Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie was commissioned to undertake the art installations. Dublin-based Gillespie is from a global community of bronze-casting sculptors and works from a foundry in County Clare in Ireland. He is one of the few who works on site-specific art installations and uses the lost wax casting process to portray human emotions where a metal sculpture is cast from an original.

Footsteps Towards Freedom art installation at Macquarie Wharf No 1 on the Hobart waterfront (I Willis 2024)

The four statues that make up Footsteps Towards Freedom are located on Macquarie Wharf No. 1, where the convict women were taken off the ships.

The women were then walked up Macquarie Street to the Female Factory to await assignment or to be kept there if they were considered unassignable.

The Monuments Australia website states that Footsteps Towards Freedom is:

From 1803 to 1853, almost 13,000 convict women together with 2,000 children arrived in Van Diemen’s Land.
https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/landscape/settlement/display/112076-footsteps-towards-freedom

The President of Ireland Michael Higgins said at the opening of the art installation:

These sculptures, let us remind ourselves, also make common cause with the suffering of migrants in our times. They should remind us that the trauma of displacement and forced exile are not experiences confined to our past, but are the lived experience of millions around the world today, including many who now call Australia home.
https://fromtheshadows.org.au

From the Shadows (2021)

Following on from the success of the Footsteps of Freedom project, the Governor of Tasmania, Kate Warner, launched the From the Shadows project at a reception at Government House in 2019.

In 2021, the Governor of Tasmania, Kate Warner, unveiled the first of two statues, one of a pregnant convict outside the Cascades Female Factory and the other in the factory yard.

The statues were designed and constructed by Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie.

From the Shadows art installation at the Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart. This statue of a pregnant female convict, completed by Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie, is located outside the grounds of the factory. (I Willis 2024)

The Governor of Tasmania Kate Warner said at the opening of the first statue in 2021

The narrative of the pregnant convict woman highlights that there is much more to a convict life than a crime, a trial and sentence. The statue of the pregnant convict woman is evocative and challenging, and is designed to make those viewing her ask: who is she? why is she here? what became of her baby?
https://www.govhouse.tas.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022-03/from_the_shadows_2021_.pdf

Cascades Female Factory

The Cascades Female Factory was one of a number of sites of reform and retribution of the British penal system in Van Diemen’s Land, where women could be hidden from their English masters.

Women of Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent and working-class English women from the northern counties.

If the factory walls could speak, they would tell harrowing tales of depravity, immorality and corruption. Decadence, sinfulness, perversion, degenerate, evil and wickedness for the upright church-going middle-class of colonial Hobart.

The female factory was opened at the Cascades from 1828 to 1856 at a time when women had few legal rights. The story of the female factory is one of women’s agency, resilience and perseverance in the face of incredible adversity and hardship. Hundreds of descendants in Tasmania point to these stories.

Now rebuilt with a new interpretative information centre, the female factory allows these stories to be told. Women’s stories and experiences at the female factory have been re-interpreted. Stories of trauma, queerness, loss and dispossession of children, and loss of identity.

One of the yards at the Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart (I Willis 2024)

The very fact of the isolation and desolation of the female factory did, in its own way, lead to enough remnants of the factory remaining on its original site to be able to resurrect the stories and experiences of the women experiences and stories.

Careful interpretation of the old and its remnants have produced a hauntingly real experience for visitors at a site of hardship and trauma for many women inmates.

The Cascades Female Factory website states that the

Cascades Female Factory Historic Site bears witness to the displacement, oppression and control of women in Tasmania. We honour their pain and loss, their courage and perseverance.
https://femalefactory.org.au/audioguide/

Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart in the late 19th century (CFFHS)

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Embroided handkerchief, memories of home at Christmas on the frontline in 1916

December 24, 2023 camdenhistorynotes

Embroidered silk handkerchief

At the Liverpool Regional Museum, there are poignant memories of home for an Australian soldier on the frontline at Christmas in 1916.

Christmas during wartime is a period of hope and memories of home. This embroidered silk handkerchief is full of meaning and memories for an Australian soldier.

An embroidered silk handkerchief sent to an Australian soldier on the frontline in 1916 at Christmas (Liverpool Regional Museum)

Embroidered souvenirs during wartime were popular with the troops, and they were light and easily folded and posted from home.

The troops could easily carry these momentoes in their kit bag as they moved around the front.

The embroidered silk handkerchief was a personal item from a loved one who had taken the time and effort to hand-sew the design on the material.

The curator at the Liverpool Regional Museum has written:

In the heat of the First World War, many continued to find comfort in the small holidays that dotted the year. The highlight was Christmas, which held high prominence throughout Australia from the 1910s.

As war waged throughout the world, Christmas brought sorrow for those separated from loved ones fighting in far-off lands. As a result, embroidered cards and fabrics were frequently purchased by soldiers. As souvenirs to send home, they were a powerful message to loved ones as a reminder during these times apart. These elaborate gifts were handmade, often featuring traditional or patriotic symbols, generally adorned with the flags of the countries fighting the war.

This handkerchief belonging to the Ashcroft Family is one of these souvenir gifts. Made from white silk, it is hand embroidered with a Christmas Tree. The bauble decorations illustrate the flags of the Triple Entente, the allied powers of World War One, which then included Great Britain, France and Russia.
https://mylibrary.liverpool.nsw.gov.au/My-Library/liverpool-regional-museum

An embroidered silk handkerchief sent to an Australian soldier on the frontline at Christmas 1916 (Liverpool Regional Museum)

From the Ashcroft Collection at the Liverpool Regional Museum.

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‘Fibro Majestic’, a new exhibition at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, a review

July 22, 2023 camdenhistorynotes

A simple, cheap housing style

Post-war housing domestic architecture in Camden is typified by a simple, cheap utilitarian building called the Camden fibro cottage.

This style of domestic architecture, the fibro cottage, can be found all over Australia and has provided a basic form of housing for thousands of families.

Modern fibro cottages in Burrawong Crescent Elderslie were built around the 1960s. (I Willis, 2005)

Yet it has been derided, rubbished, and scoffed at for decades after initially being heralded as the height of modernism in the early 20^th century.

Fibro Majestic exhibition

The simple fibro house is celebrated in a new exciting exhibition at the Campbelltown Arts Centre called Fibro Majestic by renowned Australian artist and sculptor Catherine O’Donnell.

The exhibition by artist Catharine O’Donnell runs from 8 July to 13 August 2023 with free entry.

Promotional flyer for *Fibro Majestic* at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown (CAC 2023)

Initially conceived for the artist’s survey exhibition ‘Beyond the Shadow’ at the Orange Regional Gallery in partnership with Grafton Regional Gallery, curated by art historian Lucy Stanger in 2022.

At the centre of the exhibition is the imposing spectacle of a 75%-scale replica of a fibro house.

The exhibition promotion states:

‘Catherine O’Donnell: Fibro Majestic’ presents a body of work by O’Donnell that considers the historical and social context of fibro and social housing in Western Sydney and across Australia. O’Donnell grew up in a fibro home in Green Valley, Western Sydney, which at the time was the largest public housing estate in Sydney. The shape and form of the fibro house has long since informed her practice as she explores architecture, social history and the notions of home and memory.   

Cover for the Fibro Majestic Exhibition Catalogue at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown (CAC, 2023)

Exhibition notes state that O’Donnell has taken the floor plans from the New South Wales Housing Commission around the mid-century. They are a type of modernism that has fallen out of favour with the government, the public and the building industry.

A small-scale model of a fibro cottage.
Catherine O’Donnell, ‘Gold leafed house 1’, 2022. Stereolithographic model and gold leaf 13x26x30cm. Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown. (I Willis, 2023)

Complementing the main sculptural installation is a range of small housing models and intimate drawings that evoke memories of living in a fibro house.

Catherine O’Donnell, ‘Beyond the curtain beats a loving heart’, 2020. Charcoal on paper diptych, 107×50 framed.
Campbelltown Arts Centre Fibro Majestic Exhibition 2023. (I Willis, 2023)

The fibro houses were more than just buildings. They sheltered people’s lives, provided a safe haven, and were a site of family celebrations, birthdays, marriages, anniversaries, and rituals. The curtains also hid many dark secrets, from domestic violence to poverty and unemployment. While there were many dysfunctional families and disrupted lives, there were many happy families with children who grew up and led successful lives.

One of the happy stories with many fond memories is the story of Fiona, who grew up in the Airds Housing Commission Estate in South Campbelltown. with its many fibro homes.

Fiona recalls:

Living in Airds during the late 70s and early 80s, friendships were built, and people stuck together. It was the freedom of riding bikes with friends until the street lights came on, building makeshift cubbies and performing concerts for the neighbours.

I still remember the excitement of walking to the local shops with my sisters to buy a few groceries for Mum. The constant search for ‘bargains’ in the hope there would be twenty cents left over to buy some mixed lollies.

Ugly Australia

According to O’Donnell, fibro cottages ‘were compact, mass-produced, box-like structures’ built across Sydney’s western suburbs.

The simple fibro cottage has characterised Western Sydney and its lifestyle. The simplicity of the fibro cottage was its attraction and part of its downfall.

Typical of the urban fringe, the simple fibro cottage has been derided and ridiculed by those who are snobbish about Sydney’s outer suburbs.

The fibro cottage is typical of suburbia on the edge. The edge can be marginalised people, the urban fringe, or the perception that it is a type of housing that is unacceptable to some.

The fibro cottage represents a type of Otherness, an ugly Australia. These images have been reinforced by the Sydney press, which labelled Campbelltown an ‘ugly houso wasteland’ in 1975.

According to historian Ian Willis

The humble fibro cottage in Camden in the 1950s and 1960s has been integral to the town’s 20th-century history. The fibro house represents the baby-boomer era, when drive-ins, Holdens, Chiko rolls, black & white TV, rock & roll, and vinyl LPs were the norm. Fibro is evocative of long summer holidays by the beach, with adolescent love, boogie boards, zinc cream and paddle pops.

This is the essence of Fibro Majestic, a metaphor for mid-century Australia.

Optimism and hope in a compact box

The fibro cottage came to the rescue in the post-war years, when Sydney experienced a housing shortage due to the ‘baby boom’ and increased immigration.

The postwar years were a period of optimism and hope for a better lifestyle. These cottages were cheap and utilitarian and could be erected quickly.

Fibro, as a building materialz, was invented at the beginning of the 20^th century and imported into Australia before the First World War. Wartime restrictions resulted in the product being manufactured in Australia by the war’s end.

This is an image of a Camden fibro cottage built in 1920. Chesham Cottage is at 49 Broughton Street, Camden, built by the Camden Voluntary Workers Association following the First World War. (Camden Images)

Leaked heat like a sieve

The fibro cottages of the 1950s leaked heat like a sieve and failed by today’s energy-efficient efficiency standards for housing. According to Lloyd Nicols from the Illawarra Flame retrofit project, these cottages can be made energy efficient to make them sustainable, affordable, and attractive. The project, a joint venture between the University of Wollongong and Wollongong TAFE College, aims for kits to be able to retrofit existing fibro cottages to increase their thermal performance.

Nostalgia and memory

Nostalgia and memory are a big part of the exhibition. Artist Catherine O’Donnell states that the fibro cottage is the architecture of my childhood and an ‘everywhere-everyman example of mid-century developments across Australia’.

The simple fibro shacks littered along the Australian coastline are part of this nostalgia. Wendy Shaw and Lindsay Menday argue

The old beach shacks that dominated seaside fishing villages or isolated holiday surfing spots provided low-cost accommodation for holidaymakers in often remote and low-populated settings with few services. Some of these holiday houses were owner-occupied but remained vacant outside holiday times. Most were available for short-term holiday rental. All were relatively basic.

These fibro cottages straddled the class divide and were easily accessible by the motor car by mid-century. These were egalitarian holiday experiences for Australians.

The *Fibro Majestic* sculptural installation attracts an audience at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown (I Willis 2023)

Shaw and Menday maintain that

In northern New South Wales, tropes of nature, community, and heritage [around fibro cottages] have been incorporated into a new beachside ‘town’ identity.

These fantasies of bygone days play out in the Fibro Majestic exhibition, which conjures up memories of beach holidays with long lazy days lounging in the sun in a mystical past. All viewed through rose-coloured glasses misty with nostalgia.

O’Donnell maintains that these memories are ‘synonymous with Australian identity’.

Flawed Plans, a commission

In addition to the main exhibition, The Campbelltown Arts Centre has commissioned a site-specific art installation on the stairs and front wall of the gallery amphitheatre called ‘Flawed Plans’.

The *Flawed Plans* art installation in the forecourt of Campbelltown Arts Centre.
‘Flawed Plans’, 2023. (Campbelltown Arts Centre Amphitheatre). Vinyl, dimensions variable. Commissioned by the CAC. (I Willis, 2023)

The artwork highlights the many layers to the story of the fibro cottage and how perceptions shift and twist.

Where once the fibro house was seen as a saviour as a cheap and effective form of housing, it has become a to be seen as an urban disaster by many.

The artist maintains that as the viewer climbs around the installation, their perception shifts and skews ‘as the viewer climbs, descends or orbits the work’.

Fibro Majestic, a reflection

Fibro Majestic reminds us all how perceptions and memories change over time. Fibro houses were once the height of modernism, yet in later decades, they were derided and rubbished.

The sculptural installation at the Fibro Majestic exhibition at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown.
‘Fibro Majestic’, 2022. Mixed media, common household construction materials, 587x587x220cm. (I Willis, 2023)

The exhibition evokes the fibro heritage of affordable accommodation for the working man and his family in the postwar years when there was a housing shortage for ordinary people.

Fibro was a practical building material that, despite its dangers, could provide a model for the current housing crisis. The fibro cottage was a simple effective housing solution that could be reborn again.

The exhibition Fibro Majestic has captured the essence of nostalgia around this housing style. Baby boomer memories are full of fibro houses and other mid-century Australian lifestyle icons.

The art installation encapsulates the essential elements of the architectural style and is evocative of the lives of those who lived in this utilitarian style of domestic architecture.

‘Baker, The Artist, The Influencer’, the exhibition

May 15, 2023 camdenhistorynotes

A new gallery exhibition

If you are observant when walking around central Camden, new vibrant posters are publicising a new exhibition at the Alan Baker Art Gallery Macaria in John Street Camden.

A poster to be found in a bus shelter in John Street Camden advertising the exhibition. This poster is of the artist Alan D Baker and provides a colourful addition to passengers using the local bus service. (I Willis, 2023)

The posters are in all sorts of locations.

One of the most interesting is the back wall of the Oxley Street carpark.

An exhibition poster for ‘Baker, The Artist, The Influencer’ located on the rear wall of the Oxley Street carpark. Illustrating that art is for everyone and is accessible to all. The subject of the poster is Alan Baker’s wife, Marjorie. (I Willis, 2023)

The new exhibition is ‘Baker, The Artist, The Influencer’ and runs until September 2023.

The exhibition is the story of the Camden Art Group, which commenced sometime in 1972.

The art group started with local school teacher Ken Rorke. He was an art teacher at Camden Public School from 1961 to 1981.

As a keen artist, Ken asked artist Alan Baker to teach a Wednesday night class, which he refused, but he agreed to provide ‘advice and an expert hand’.

The experiences of the Wednesday night art group were quite varied and prompted some individuals to further their art careers.

An exhibition poster of ‘Baker The Artist The Influencer’ using one of his works ‘The Master’s Student’, which was completed at the Wednesday night Camden Art Group session in 1975. The poster is located in the laneway at the rear of the Oxley Street carpark and brightens up an otherwise drab masonry wall. (I Willis, 2023)

The exhibition catalogue states:

Camden Art Group was comprised of a mix of people from all walks of life. There were local business people, high school students, teachers, mothers, fathers, forestry workers – anyone with an interest in art was welcomed and found a place for themselves among the friendly group.

The art group, usually consisting of an attendance of about 20 artists, fostered the creative talents of many people who have gone on to bigger and better things.

Alan Baker’s role was to be ‘an inspiring and charismatic force for the class’. (Ahmad, et al, 2018)

Rizwana found it interesting to compare her training in South Asian training with Alan Baker’s Realist technique and style. (Ahmad, et al, 2018)

Some were encouraged to extend their professional interest in art after being discouraged early in life. (Ahmad, et al, 2018)

The displayed artworks at the Alan Baker Art Gallery Macaria in John Street, Camden. These are some of the works from the Camden Art Group. (I Willis, 2023)

There were other benefits from the art group included lifelong friendships, opportunities for professional development, the development of a collegiate artistic atmosphere, mentoring of local artistic talent, the creation of a thriving arts community that encouraged creativity, and several participants’ lives that were changed by art. (Ahmad, et al, 2018)

Baker, mentor, artist, and local identity encouraged the art group members to experiment and use a range of styles and materials, and their work is displayed alongside Baker’s art in the exhibition.

The exhibition catalogue states:

Sleek sculptures in stone and wood, commemorative busts, traditional oil paintings, drawings, and expressive watercolours hand side by side. These works showcase the impressive body of work created by the Camden Art Group in the years of the group meetings and, continuing beyond Baker’s death, into the present day.

This artwork called ‘An Artists Life’ portrays the Camden Art Group busily at work in one of the classrooms at Camden Public School. Ken Rorke instigated the formation of the art group and invited Alan Baker to teach the class, which he refused to do. Instead, he offered to attend the group sessions and provide advice and an expert hand. He did this from 1972 until his death in 1987. Some of the participant artists of the group are listed, and their work is displayed in the exhibition. This work is located just inside the front door of the gallery. (I Willis 2023)

The Camden art group’s ground-breaking influence and its collegiate atmosphere is still evident today.

Exhibitions of artwork by Baker and others create an atmosphere that fosters creativity and innovation. Art can catalyse economic activity, leading to new businesses and job opportunities.

References

Gallery 2023, Baker, The Artist, The Influencer. Alan Baker Art Gallery Macaria, Camden.

Ian Willis 2018, ‘Alan Baker, the artist’. Camden History, September, vol 4, no 6, pp242-247.

Rizwana Ahmad, Patricia Johnston, Olive McAleer, Shirley Rorke, Nola Tegel, and John Wrigley, 2018, ‘Alan Baker Art Classes’. Camden History, September, vol 4, no 6, 248-257.

Ian Willis, 2018, ‘Alan Baker Art Gallery opening, a brush of class’. Camden History Notes Blog, Camden, 5 March. Online at https://camdenhistorynotes.com/2018/03/05/alan-baker-art-gallery-macaria-opening/

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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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Sydney’s urban fringe: a transition zone of hope and loss

September 24, 2015May 10, 2023 camdenhistorynotes6 Comments

Winners and losers on the urban fringe

Sydney’s rural-urban fringe is a site of winners and losers.

It is a landscape where dreams are fulfilled and memories are lost. The promises of land developers in master-planned suburban utopias meet the hope and expectations of newcomers.

At the same time, locals grasp at lost memories as the rural countryside is covered in a sea of tiled roofs and concrete driveways.

Conflict over a dream

As Sydney’s rural-urban fringe moves across the countryside, it becomes a contested site between locals and outsiders over their aspirations and dreams. The conflict revolves around displacement and dispossession.

Sydney’s rural-urban fringe is similar to the urban frontier of large cities in Australia and other countries. It is a dynamic landscape that makes and re-makes familiar places.

More than this the rural-urban fringe is a zone of transition where invasion and succession are constant themes for locals and newcomers alike.

Searching for the security of a lost past

As Sydney’s urban sprawl invades fringe communities, locals yearn for a lost past and hope for some safekeeping of their memories. They use nostalgia as a fortress and immerse themselves in community rituals and traditions drawn from their past. They are drawn to ever-popular festivals like the Camden Show and Campbelltown’s Fishers Ghost Festival, which celebrate the rural heritage of Sydney’s fringe.

Local communities respond by creating imaginary barriers to ward off the evils of Sydney’s urban growth that is about to run them over. One of the most important is the metaphorical moat created by the Hawkesbury-Nepean River floodplain around some of the fringe communities of Camden, Richmond and Windsor.

Fringe communities use their rural heritage to ward off the Sydney octopus’s tentacles that are about to strangle them. In one example, the Camden community has created an imaginary country town idyll. A cultural myth where rural traditions are supported by the church on the hill, the village green and the Englishness of the gentry’s colonial estates.

Hope and the creation of an illusion

Outsiders and ex-urbanites come to the new fringe suburbs looking for a new life in a semi-rural environment. As they escape the evils of their own suburbia, they seek to immerse themselves in the rurality of the fringe. They want to retreat to an authentic past when times were simpler. It is a perception that land developers are eager to exploit.

Ex-urbanites are drawn to the urban frontier by developer promises of their own piece of utopia and the hope of a better lifestyle. They seek a place where “the country still looks like the country”. These seek what the local fringe communities already possess – open spaces and rural countryside.

The imagination of new arrivals is set running by developer promises of suburban dreams in master-planned estates. They are drawn in by glossy brochures, pollie speak, media hype and recent subsidies on landscaping and other material benefits.

Manicured parks, picturesque vistas and restful water features add to the illusion of a paradise on the urban frontier. Developers commodify a dream in an idyllic semi-rural setting that new arrivals hope will protect their life savings in a house and land package.

Destruction of the dream

CHS2436 — Oran Park Development 2010 (Camden Image/P Mylrea)

Dreams are also destroyed on Sydney’s urban frontier for many newcomers. Once developers of master-planned estates have made their profit, they withdraw. They no longer support the idyllic features that created the illusion of a suburban utopia.

The dreams of a generation of ex-urbanites have come crashing down in the suburbs like Harrington Park and Mount Annan. The absence of developer rent-seeking has meant that their dreams have evaporated and gone to dust. Manicured parks have become overgrown. Restful water features have turned into dried-up cesspools inhabited by vermin.

Paradoxically, the ex-urbanite invasion has displaced and dispossessed an earlier generation of diehard motor racing fans of their dreams. The destruction of the Oran Park Raceway created its own landscape of lost memories. Ironically new arrivals at Oran Park bask in the reflected glory of streets named after Australian motor racing legends and sculptures that pay tribute to the long-gone raceway.

The latest threat to the dreams of all fringe dwellers is the invasion of Sydney’s southwest urban frontier by the exploratory drilling of coal seam gas wells. Locals and new arrivals alike see their idyllic surroundings disappearing before their eyes. They are fearful of their semi-rural lifestyle.

So what of the dreams?

Sydney’s rural-urban fringe will continue to be a frontier where conflict is an ever-present theme in the story of the place. Invasion, dispossession, opportunity and hope are all part of the ongoing story of this zone of constant change.

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

Learn more

Ian Willis 2012, Townies, ex-urbanites and aesthetics: issues of identity on Sydney’s rural-urban fringe.

Ian Willis 2013, Imaginings on Sydney’s Edge: Myth, Mourning and Memory in a Fringe Community (Sydney Journal)

Updated 10 May 2023. Originally posted 24 September 2015

Australian Historical Association 2007 Regional Conference

Engaging Histories

University of New England, Armidale

23-26 September 2007

Yearning, Longing and The Remaking of Camden’s Identity: the myths and reality of ‘a country town idyll’

Abstract

Article

What is the country town idyll?

The origins of the idyll.

The historical development of the country town idyll and its contemporary use by its supporters

Formalisation of the idyll

Is the idyll still relevant?

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Memories of Campbelltown

An area to be proud of

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Hidden in the shadows

Footsteps Towards Freedom (2017)

From the Shadows (2021)

Cascades Female Factory

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Embroidered silk handkerchief

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A simple, cheap housing style

Fibro Majestic exhibition

Ugly Australia

Optimism and hope in a compact box

Leaked heat like a sieve

Nostalgia and memory

Flawed Plans, a commission

Fibro Majestic, a reflection

More reading

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A new gallery exhibition

References

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A certain type of Englishman

Private villages in the Cowpastures

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Winners and losers on the urban fringe

Conflict over a dream

Searching for the security of a lost past

Hope and the creation of an illusion

Destruction of the dream

So what of the dreams?

Learn more

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