The 2023 Camden Show proves its resilience and came alive after the disasters of Covid and the 2022 floods when the show was postponed and cancelled.
The arts and crafts pavilion is a good place to start, the must-see at all country shows. On display are the hidden talents of the local area.
The talent of sugar artists is on display in the Arts and Crafts Pavillion. Some of these exhibits are true works of art. (I Willis, 2023)
A staple at all country shows are local farmers and producers who display their animals and produce. The cattle are always an interesting area to watch, and dairying has a rich history in the Camden area going back to the 1880s.
Dairying has been a staple farming activity in the Camden area for over 130 years. These dairy cattle show some of the local talent and why dairy farming has been so important in the local area for so long. (I Willis, 2023)
The produce exhibit is a snapshot of what can be grown and produced locally. Each of these products has been a vital part of the local farming scene over previous decades and in the present. For example, the apple industry was very important in The Oaks for most of the 20th century, and viticulture or growing grapes occurred across the Elderslie area for most of the last 100 years.
Apples, vegetables and other produce have been an important of the farming scene in the local area since the time of European settlement. An examination of Camden Show catalogues over the years shows the importance of these farming products for the local area. (I Willis, 2023)
The flower exhibits are always popular with show visitors, and 2023 is no exception. The flowers have moved out of the main pavilion to a more compact area and the number of exhibitors is down on previous years.
Flower exhibits at the 2023 Camden Show. This image shows the ever-popular dahlias. (I Willis, 2023)
An often overlooked part of the show is the show ball and the announcement of the winner of the Camden Show 2023 Young Woman of the Year. The competition started in 1962 as the Camden Miss Showgirl and was rebranded in 1979 as the Showgirl competition. It is an excuse for the young, and not so young, folk of the area to get frocked up and enjoy themselves.
The promotional material for the annual show ball where the winner of the former Showgirl competition is announced for the following year. (CSS)
The winner of the Camden Show 2023 Young Woman of the Year competition was announced on the front page of The District Reporter.
The cover of The District Reporter, 4 November 2022, where the winner of the Camden Show 2023 Young Woman of the Year was announced. (TDR)
There is much literature produced at show time, and one of the most important is the show catalogue. The schedule lists all categories that competitors might want to enter with their animals, produce or crafts, the entry fees, the winning prizes and lots of other details of show time.
The cover of the 2023 Camden Show catalogue and schedule (Camden Show Society)
Then there is the showground map which details all the exhibitors, events, show rings, entertainment, show bags, conveniences, parking and lots of other information.
The map of the 2023 Camden Show was produced by The District Reporter, and in comparison with maps of shows from earlier years, it is clear how the show has grown in size and moved into the surrounding Camden Bicentennial Equestrian Park from the boundary of Onslow Park. This year the Camden Bicentennial Equestrian Park is accommodating parking, horse events, the ute show, sheep, goats and alpacas, and sheep dog trials. (CSS)
One innovation this year has been the Agricultural Discovery Booklet for children. The booklet is full of puzzles, quizzes, colouring in, find-a-word, crosswords and other stuff. A great thing for the kids.
The cover of the Camden Show 2023 Agricultural Discovery Booklet (CSS)
The 2023 Camden Show has many exhibitors including commercial enterprises, the show guild members who provide rides and entertainment, government information services, community organisations and many others.
The wonderful girls were found at the NSW Government Land Information Service exhibitor stall. These chooks were proudly standing guard over and host of information brochures and booklets and looking after the staff on duty. But these girls have their enemies and on the other side of the exhibitor stall in the corner were a number of them on display (I Willis, 2023)
Some of the enemies of the chooks, looking very menacing and dangerous at the NSW Government Land Information Services exhibitor stall. These feral animals are a nuisance and pest for farmers across rural New South Wales, with the fox starting to make an appearance in the urban part of the Camden area. (I Willis, 2023)
The Sadek Motor Group exhibitor display showing the old and new in motor cars. Displays by local motor dealers at the Camden Show has been a regular feature going back to the 1930s. This 1930s vehicle has attracted the attention of one showgoer who is dressed to drive away this historic specimen. (I Willis, 2023)
Community groups are regular exhibitors at the Camden Show and including the Country Women’s Association, Camden Historical Society, Camden Area Family History Society, Camden Hospital Women’s Auxiliary, Girl Guides, the Camden Show Society itself and many others.
The NSW Country Women’s Association is a regular participant at country shows across the state providing tea, coffee and scones for hungry showgoers. Here the Camden CWA signage is showing the 2023 Camden Show-goer the way to refresh their day with tea and scones. The women also sold a variety of other articles to assist their fundraising. (I Willis, 2023)
Promoting the show is always important and The District Reporter has had their show liftout for many years. The liftout is part of the only print edition of a newspaper that still circulates in the local area and has the show history and many stories about show personalities, events and exhibitors.
The cover of the 2023 Camden Show liftout from The District Reporter. This print media has traditionally been the main way that the Camden Show Society has promoted the show over the last 130 years. (TDR)
This handsome specimen of an animal was used to promote the show on Facebook and Instagram in the lead-up to the 2023 Camden Show. Social media is an integral part of promoting the Camden Show in recent years. (CSS)
The Plough and Harrow Inn at 75-79 Argyle Street is the second oldest hotel in Camden and is still on its original site. The Camden Inn (1841) was the first hotel in Camden. Located on the Great South Road, the Plough and Harrow was part of the fabric of Macarthur’s private village of Camden within the Cowpastures. By the early 20th century, travellers who arrived at the inn were moving down the Hume Highway, renamed from the Great South Road in 1928, with increased motorised traffic.
The Plough and Harrow Hotel on the Great South Road that passed along Camden’s Argyle Street. The image is c.1915 with the signage of the upper verandah saying ‘Camden Jockey Club – Tattersalls’. These thirsty travellers stopped for refreshment after the dust and dirt of driving along the open road in their new-fangled automobiles. (Camden Images)
Inns, pubs and hotels have been part of life in New South Wales since European settlement. The colonial government issued the first licences for public houses in Sydney and Parramatta in 1796 to discourage ‘riotous and disorderly’ unlicensed premises. (Kirby, Luckins & McConville, 2010) Obed West recalls that in the 1820s, public houses in the Cowpastures were extremely rudimentary, and the landlord lived in the premises which served the beer. (Kirby, Luckins & McConville, 2010)
Samuel Arnold
Samuel Arnold built the Plough and Harrow in 1851, a decade after the establishment of the village of Camden. Arnold established a wheelwright’s business in 1841 on the corner of Argyle and Hill Streets and purchased the land opposite his business from the Macarthur family in 1849 for £80. (Mylrea 2011)
Arnold had arrived in New South Wales on the ship the ‘Brothers’ in 1837 with his wife Anne and two children as part of Governor Bourke’s assisted immigrants. He was a member of a group of 14 from the Isle of Wight sponsored by Camden Park (Bell 2007), where he worked from 1837 to 1839. (Burnett, et al, 2013)
The original building for the Plough and Harrow was a single-storey cottage-design ashlar building strongly influenced by Georgian-style buildings. (Camden-Narellan Advertiser, 21 November 2012) Colonial pubs were obliged to provide accommodation and meals for travellers, and most had stables for horses.
In 1855 Arnold leased the inn to innkeeper William Risley at £150 a year. Risley leased the land and the ‘messuage’, including a cottage and adjacent buildings. (Mylrea 2011)
The Plough and Harrow Hotel at 75-79 Argyle Street, also the Great South Road, around 1910 with a group of travellers in new-fangled automobiles attracting quite a crowd. (Camden Images)
A second-storey modernises
Samuel Arnold leased the inn from 1866 to 1886. (Mylrea 2011) and a second storey was added in 1885 to modernise the hotel. (HNSW)
The weekly cattle and horse sales were held at the rear of the Plough and Harrow, now Larkin Place, and helped boost trade. Convivial company at the hotel was provided by licensee M Hennessy and the lady of the house, Mrs Hennessy. Hotel owner CJ Arnold had recently renovated the sale yards conducted by auctioneers RH & JE Inglis. (Camden News, 27 June 1895)
The local pub was often a clubhouse (Kirby, Luckins & McConville, 2010), and in the early 20th century, the Plough and Harrow hosted the Camden Jockey Club. (Mylrea 2011) SP bookies were part of the scene in country hotels, and the licensee of the Plough and Harrow, FE Donnelley, and employee, VA Cook, were fined for allowing illegal gambling on the hotel premises in 1932. (Picton Post, 25 May 1932) The Plough and Harrow held community events and, in 1937, hosted a presentation to retiring stock inspector WN Rees by local ‘stock-owners’ and other interested parties. (Camden News, 25 February 1937)
In 1920, the Plough and Harrow licensee was GH Berner, who purchased the lease from the Estate of Charles J Arnold, and the mortgagee Tooth & Co. The rent for the hotel was around £19 per month. Beer sales between 1921 and 1929 had their lowest point in 1924 and peaked in 1929. (ANU 2011)
The licensee in 1927 was Frank E Donnelly. In 1937 the hotel was owned by Camden Hotel Pty Ltd, with a nominal capital of £2000. The shareholders were: JM Edwards, MW McIntyre, HV Single and BF Watkins and a registered office in Sydney. In 1930 the Plough and Harrow was Camden’s leading hotel, and during the following decade, licensees changed about every year or so. (ANU 2011)
In 1938 Cumberland Country Freehold Pty Ltd bought the freehold, and the licensee, JC Coffey, then JW Lear, leased the hotel for £15 per week.
Modifications
Modifications in 1939 and 1940 reduced bedrooms from 25 to 16, and created a building that has remained largely unchanged. The building had a tiled gable roof with timber gable screens, brick chimneys, new windows, and doors though the old columns were in place along the ground floor verandah. The windows to the hotel’s ground floor were two-pane double-hung, with timber shutters to the French doors on the first floor. The entrance door was timber and glass panelled, and the ground floor verandah and steps were tiled. (HNSW; ANU 2011)
Beer, wine, and spirit sales peaked in 1940 with increased patronage from the personnel of local defence establishments, including Narellan Military Camp, Camden Airfield and Eastern Command Training School at Studley Park. The hotel was connected to electricity from Port Kembla and allowed the use of refrigerated cabinets for beer sales, and by 1949 the hotel was connected to the town sewerage system. (ANU 2011)
This is a 1941 image of the Plough and Harrow Hotel after recent renovations to the front of the building. (Tooth & Co/ANU)
In 1947, the Plough and Harrow Hotel (Camden) Pty Ltd owned the hotel with a nominal capital of £10,000. The shareholders were: TA Povey, HL Anderson, JA Lloyd, with the registered office in Camden. Ownership changed to the Camden Hotel Pty Ltd in 1949, with a nominal capital of £50,000. The property was then transferred to the NSW Country Hotels Pty Ltd. (ANU 2011)
6 o’clock swill
The end of the 6 o’clock swill and early closing ended in 1955 had no identifiable effect on the level of beer, wine and spirit sales. (ANU 2011) Early closing at 6 o’clock was part of the restrictions from World War One and came into force in 1916 after the soldier riots at Liverpool camps and in Sydney.
In 1968 the freehold of the Plough and Harrow was purchased by Muriel F Kennedy and Son for $87,000. (ANU 2011)
Camden Bypass
During the 1970s, beer, wine, and spirit sales peaked in 1974 and gradually dropped off throughout the rest of the decade. The decline was primarily caused by the relocation of the Hume Highway away from the town’s main street to the Camden Bypass in 1973. By 1979 beer, wine and spirit sales were 20 per cent of the level of 1974. (ANU 2011)
This image of the Plough and Harrow in 2017 demonstrates how the hotel frontage has changed little since the 1940 modifications. (I Willis)
Name change
In 1996 the name of the hotel changed to The Argyle Inn. (The District Reporter. 30 March 2007) Former Qantas executive Geoff Dixon purchased the inn in 2006 for $3 million and commenced $1 million in refurbishments. (Macarthur Chronicle, 25 September 2012)
In 2012 the property was transferred to the Dixon’s family’s D & G Investments for $4 million (Australian, 14 March 2014) and the family restored the pub to its original name, the Plough and Harrow Inn. The Camden Historical Society’s John Wrigley welcomed the decision to return the hotel to its original trading name and congratulated the owners for restoring this fine old Camden landmark. (Macarthur Chronicle, 27 November 2012)
The Plough and Harrow Hotel is an example of a relic of early Camden in a main street primarily dominated by modern shop fronts, within the town centre’s Heritage Conservation Area. (HNSW) Today the Plough and Harrow is one of over 6,500 pubs and bars across Australia (2022)
The back bar of the Plough and Harrow Hotel in 2023. (P&HH)
Brian Burnett, Janice Johnson, Richard Nixon and John Wrigley, 2013, They Worked at Camden Park, A Listing of the Employees, Leaseholders and Tenant Farmers Known to have worked on the Camden Park Estate. Camden Historical Society, Camden.
ANU 2011, Tooth and Company yellow cards, 1920s to 1970s, Deposit N60-YC. Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian National University. Accessed 20 February 2023. https://archivescollection.anu.edu.au/index.php/1eqgp
The obverse of the Tooth & Co yellow card with information about the Plough and Harrow Hotel with photographs. The card front has additional information including: licensee, rental, and sales of beer, wine and spirits. (Tooth & Co/ANU)
The story of the construction of the history of the Camden area. There are many versions and they are all correct. They all put their own spin on the way they want to tell the Camden story. Some good, some indifferent, some just plain awful.
(Facebook, 23 November 2015)
View of the farm of J. Hassel [Hassall] Esqr. Cow Pastures, New South Wales by Augustus Earle, c. 1825. State Library of NSW PXD 265, f. 2
Tourist history of Camden
The official story of the township as told to tourists is shared in the brochure for a historic walk around the Camden town centre published by Camden Council. It is reflective of the pioneer legend that has pervaded the Camden story and the legitimising narrative that is part of the nation-building story of a settler society. In many ways, it hides as much as it reveals. It states:
The historic town of Camden, less than an hours drive south-west of Sydney, is the cultural heart of a region that enjoys a unique place in our nation’s history.
The earliest developments of the Australian wool, wheat and wine industries are associated with the town following the original land grant from Lord Camden to John Macarthur in 1805.
The town is home to a large number of heritage listed attractions that reflect its strong links with the history of colonial settlement in Australia. Camden is rich in rural heritage with live stock sale yards, vineyards, Equestrian Park and dairy facilities.
The township reveals in its built heritage an interesting and varied range of architectural styles that reflect the town’s evolution from the earliest days of European settlement through to the modern era.
The walking tour brochure portrays Camden’s rich historical and cultural legacy and affords a valuable opportunity to both visitors and the local community to experience the town’s unique character and charm and appreciate some of its history first hand.
(Camden Heritage Walking Tour Brochure)
A similar heritage walking brochure exists for the Narellan area, which tells the story of European settlement of a planned government village that pre-dates Camden. Here there is also silence on many aspects of the past that are yet to be revealed to readers.
This short historiography is one of the few that has been attempted to illustrate the construction of the history of a rural community. One that has been recently published is included in the history of the gold-mining community of Linton in Victoria (2015). The author, Jill Wheeler, examines the broad range of influences that shaped the writing of that community’s history.
This paper should be read in conjunction with the Camden Bibliography, which is a list of published and other sources on the Camden District. It was my first attempt at compiling an authoritative list of sources on the local area and it has been pleasing to note that a host of researchers have found it to be a useful start.
This construction of the story of Camden history can be divided into a number of identifiable stages. Each stage reflects the values and attitudes of those who created the writing of the period, and the social and cultural filters that shaped their version of the story.
The Cowpastures frontier
From the beginning of European settlement in Australia curiosity drew those with an interest in wider issues to the local area. The first expeditionaries were naval and military officers who were trained to observe the landform and surroundings and record the detail in their logs and diaries. While providing a detailed account of their journeys they also recorded their observations and contact with Indigenous people. They recorded their observations of a managed landscape that was regularly burnt by the local Indigenous people. Prominent amongst these were Englishmen Watkin Tench (1790), Governor John Hunter (1795), David Collins (1795), George Bass (1796) and Lachlan Macquarie (1810, 1815, 1820), and Frenchmen Francis Louis Barrallier (1802) and Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1826).
Then there are the letters of settlers like John Hawdon of Elderslie in the 1820s who wrote back to England of his experiences in the Cowpastures and dealing with ‘the government men’. [convicts]
Amongst other writings, there are the reminiscences of Barron Field (1825), Thomas Mitchell (1836) and William Pridden (1843), while there are the journals of colonial women such as those of Annabella Boswell (1848).
Naming landform features gave the new arrivals a legitimacy of possession. For example on Governor King’s excursion to the area, he named the locality the Cowpastures because of the escaped cattle.
Central Camden c1930s (Camden Images)
Villages and beyond
The earliest records of settlement in the Cowpastures describe the conditions in the villages that were scattered across the area – Cawdor, Cobbitty, Elderslie, Narellan and then later Camden (1840).
The earliest accounts of Camden village, its planning, its establishment and development are carried in the Sydney newspapers – particularly The Sydney Morning Herald. During the 1840s the Camden Clerk of Petty Sessions Charles Tompson was a regular correspondent to the newspaper.
Even by the 1880s the changing nature of the Camden village and the district prompted nostalgia for the pioneering days of the early colonial period. The Camden Times and Camden News printed reminiscences of the town and district of JB Martin in the early 1880s and 1890s and RH Antill in the late 1890s, Richard Todd (1895 and 1896) as well as the stories from Obed West in the 1884 and 1885 in The Sydney Morning Herald. These stressed the progress and development of the town. Martin, the Camden Clerk of Petty Sessions for a period, made the point in his 1883 (Camden Times) reminiscences that the history of several English counties had been written by local history associations and he felt that a similar venture was worthwhile in the Camden district.
Further reminiscences were Thomas Herbert (1909) in the Town and Country Journal and Samuel Hassall’s (1902) In Old Australia and there are the unpublished reminiscences of Camden businessman Samuel Thompson (1905).
Wartime writing
The Boer War, then the First and later the Second World Wars provide a period of reflection for local folk who are away soldiering in foreign lands. They are amongst the first to write about the Camden District as home in nostalgic terms from far away places where they are under traumatic conditions.
These letters were published in the Camden News and during the Second World War the Camden Advertiser. Some have found their way into recent publications particularly on the centenary of the First World War.
John Kerry’s view of St Johns Church in 1890s (Camden Images)
Camden Aesthetic
An important theme in the Camden story is the development of a Camden aesthetic based on romantic notions surrounding the colonial properties of the landed gentry and the landscapes that were created by the Cowpasture patriarchs.
This first appeared in Andrew Garran’s highly successful Picturesque Atlas of Australasia (1886) and portrayed an idyllic English village at Camden surrounded by an ordered farming landscape. The engraving was accompanied by GB Barton’s account of the exploits of John Macarthur and the foundation of the colonial wool industry. This was a narrative that evolved into local and national mythology and was further advanced by Sibella Macarthur Onslow’s Some Early Records of The Macarthurs of Camden (1914), a collection of family papers.
1934 Australian Commemorative Postage Stamp
The legend of John Macarthur gained further momentum in the 1930s on the centenary of John Macarthur’s death in 1934 when Australia was in search of national heroes. He was the subject of stories in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society (1929) and biographies. His image appeared on a series of postage stamps and later on the new decimal currency in the 1960s. His character was the subject of a novel (1941) and a new Federal electorate of Macarthur (1949) was named after him. In 1960 the Camden community held a four-day celebration of the legend of the John Macarthur and the 150th anniversary of wool production in Australia called the Festival of the Golden Fleece (22-30 October).
The early 20th century also witnessed a shift in history writing identified by Graeme Davison from ‘pioneer’ to ‘patriarchal’ history writing and the development of the Camden aesthetic was part of that agenda.
There was William Hardy Wilson’s The Cow Pasture Road (1920) and Ure Smith’s watercolours and etchings in his Old Colonial By Ways (1928). Whimsical descriptions of Camden’s Englishness were published in Eldrid Dyer’s ‘Camden, The Charm of an Old Town’ (1926) and articles in The Sydney Morning Herald like ‘The Beauty of Age’ (1934).
The Royal Australian Historical Society published articles on the Camden District in its journal. The first appeared in 1928 on the Cowpastures, Cawdor and Cobbitty, which were followed by the Burragorang Valley (1934), Camden (1935), Narellan (1936), and the Cowpastures again in 1939.
Newcastle based journalist JJ Moloney, a former Menangle resident, published his reminiscences of Early Menangle in 1929. In Camden two local journalists, George Sidman and Arthur Gibson, each separately marked the golden jubilee of the foundation of the Municipality of Camden (1889). Sidman, the owner of the Camden News, published the memoirs of J. B. Martin in a series of newspaper columns. While Gibson, owner of the Camden Advertiser, commissioned James Jervis from the Royal Australian Historical Society to write The Story of Camden.
The end of the Second World War created an air of confidence in the Camden District, which by this stage was prospering from the wealth created by the Burragorang Valley coalfields. In 1948 the newly formed Rotary Club and Camden Community Centre commissioned the University of Sydney to conduct a sociological survey of the town to provide a foundation for ‘future development’. This was followed up in 1952 by an American sociologist from the University of Kansas City, ML ‘Jack’ Mason and his wife Elizabeth ‘Beth’. They surveyed the town and established that there was a five-tier social structure, which had its origins in the colonial period and the Cowpasture patriarchs. Both studies were suppressed from public gaze by vested interests until recent times.
Memorials of loss
As historians Graeme Davison and Gail Griffiths have noted the loss of local icons and ‘loved places’ creates a deep sense of insecurity and a desire by some for the ‘good old days’. The grieving process was triggered in the Camden District community from the loss of Burragorang Valley after the state government decided to build a dam in the 1930s. In the early 1960s, the New South Wales Government closed the Campbelltown to Camden rail link as part of a state-wide rationalisation process.
WW1 Memorial Gates at Macarthur Park (Camden Remembers)
There were five seminal events during this period, firstly, in 1957 the number of teachers from the newly established Camden High School formed the Camden Historical Society and held lectures, conducted field trips and outings.
Secondly, there was the erection of civic monuments celebrating the Burragorang Valley. The first monument, erected in 1962, was the Camden Rotary mural at the southern entrance to the town. The mural has designs celebrating Indigenous culture as well as the area’s farming and mining heritage. The stone for the wall came from the St Paulinos Catholic Church in ‘the Valley’.
Thirdly, a wagon wheel was erected by the Camden Historical Society outside the council chambers in 1977 to celebrate the teamsters who brought silver ore from Yerranderie through ‘the Valley’ to the Camden railhead. A heavy horse-drawn farm wagon was located outside the council chambers in 1978 to memorialise farmer workers and the horse. Each of these monuments recalled the values of the frontier; tenacity, stoicism, ruggedness, individualism, adaptability and Britishness. An 1899 water trough was added to these civic monuments in 1979 celebrating the town’s modernity when the town was connected to reticulated water; a sign of progress and development.
Camden Library Museum in John Street Camden
In 1970 the Camden Historical Society opened a folk museum in a room in the old council chambers encouraged by the Royal Australian Historical Society. The museum used simple displays of local ephemera, artefacts and other collectables supplemented with rudimentary signage to tell the Camden story.
The memorials of loss across the district extended to the numerous war memorials scattered throughout the Camden District that mourned the loss of men who never came home after the Great War. These monuments were added after the Second World War and in recent times with the centenary of the First World War, and have shaped and re-shaped the Camden story in ways that are still hard to identify. Their meaning is a statement of collective memory that is expressed in April and November every year by local communities.
Elsewhere in the district, The Oaks Historical Society was formed in 1979. It has contributed much material to the storytelling of the western part of the Camden District, particularly the Burragorang Valley and the silver mining fields of Yerranderie.
The rural-urban fringe and other threats
The role of loss in the Camden story acquired new meaning after 1973 when there was an identifiable shift in the interpretation and representation of ruralness in Camden. The release in 1973 of The New Cities of Campbelltown Camden Appin Structure Plan as part of the 1968 Sydney Regional Outline Plan triggered a wave of invaders from the city. Urban planners envisaged three regional centres on Sydney’s outskirts at Camden, Campbelltown and Appin with the ambitious idea of stopping the city’s urban sprawl.
Mount Annan suburban development which is part of Sydney’s urban sprawl c2005 (Camden Images)
These events strengthened the role of the Camden aesthetic. There was the re-making of place centred on the decline of the country town of Camden as the hub of a thriving rural economy to an idealised country town, a country town of the imagination.
Romantic representations of Camden’s rurality, especially St John’s church, became an important part of the contemporary consciousness. They found their way into official council policy and have been used in literature, publications, tourist and business promotions, websites, artwork, music, museum displays and a host of other places. In 1999 Camden Council’s strategic plan Camden 2025 adopted the language and imagery of Camden’s rurality when it outlined ‘the traditional qualities of a rural lifestyle’, ‘the historic nature’ of the area and the ‘unique rural landscapes and vistas’ in a country town atmosphere.
There was also the influence of the national bicentennial celebrations in 1988 and the publication in the same year of Alan Atkinson’s Camden, Farm and Village Life in Early New South Wales (1988) which examined the early decades of the township. The dust jacket used a romantic watercolour (1850s) attributed to Emily Macarthur which looks ‘across Camden Park to the north-west, with St John’s Church and the distant Blue Mountains closing the view’, with the Nepean River flowing across the vista, similar to the 1886 Garran engraving.
This period also the emergence of the local histories of the area written by keen amateurs with the most notable example being John Wrigley, who has put together several publications the first published in 1980 called A History of Camden. The Camden Historical Society started a small journal in 2001 called Camden History, which the society continues to successfully publish specialist local histories for a local audience.
The 21st century saw the evolution in the Camden story to a new generation of writers, most notable amongst them was this author. My work started with a local wartime study of a women’s voluntary organisation and has extended across a range of local themes including the rural-urban fringe, urban history, place, identity, philanthropy, the wartime homefront and local government. Most recently I have told the Camden story in a publication of a pictorial history of the district.
In the mid-20th century it was not unusual for local Camden women to travel overseas by ship. They were part of an exodus seeking adventure and new horizons. They wanted to see the world and they did.
The story of two of these young women, Shirley Dunk and her best friend Beth Jackman, has been told in a recently published article in Anglicaby the University of Warsaw.
Clintons Motors Showroom with sales assistants Shirley Dunk and Beth Jackman in 1953. The business sold electrical goods as well as motor cars, accessories and tyres. (S Rorke)
The article is titled: “My box of memories”: An Australian Country Girl Goes to London’.
The article abstract is:
In 1954 a young country woman from New South Wales, Shirley Dunk, ex- ercised her agency and travelled to London. This was a journey to the home of her fore- fathers and copied the activities of other country women who made similar journeys. Some of the earliest of these journeys were undertaken by the wives and daughters of the 19th-century rural gentry. This research project will use a qualitative approach in an examination of Shirley’s journey archive complemented with supplementary interviews and stories of other travellers. Shirley nostalgically recalled the sense of adventure that she experienced as she left Sydney for London by ship and travelled through the United Kingdom and Europe. The article will address questions posed by the journey for Shirley and her travelling companion, Beth, and how they dealt with these forces as tourists and travellers. Shirley’s letters home were reported in the country press and reminiscent of soldier’s wartime letters home that described their tales as tourists in foreign lands. The narrative will show that Shirley, as an Australian country girl, was exposed to the cosmopolitan nature of the metropole, as were other women. The paper will explore how Shirley was subject to the forces of modernity and consumerism at a time when rural women were often limited to domesticity.
Letters from home were always in demand by anyone who travelled overseas. They would bring news of home and what the latest gossip from the family. These letters were sent by Shirley Dunk to her family in Camden when she went to London in 1954. (I Willis)
To read the article about Shirley Dunk and Beth Jackman click here
The article was originally presented at a conference at the University of Warsaw in 2019. To read about the conference click here.
Shirley Dunk and Beth Jackman travelled to London in 1954 on the RMS Orcades. The ship passage was a time to make new friends and make useful contacts for their time in England. It was a time to relax and have a good time and see the sights of Aden, Colombo, Naples and other exotic spots. (S Dunk)
The local area has a new lifestyle magazine. I found my print copy of Edition 1 Volume 1 of The West Journal at Camden’s florist The Green Seed in Argyle Street, Camden.
The magazine is an interesting addition to the local media landscape. (Willis 2021)
The West Journal is a new lifestyle magazine and addition to the local media landscape (I Willis 2021)
Published by Camden based Olsen Palmer, the 262 page A5 (15cm x 21 cm) colour card cover magazine is a handsome addition to the Sydney lifestyle market. The magazine is published ‘seasonally’ – July, October, January, April. (TWJ:8; Media Kit)
The publisher of The West Journal boasts an estimated readership of 60,000, with social media impressions monthly average between 17,000-20,000. The magazine is distributed to ‘accommodation locations, hotels, pubs, clubs and sporting facilities, local and regional airports, and a host of hospitality locations’. (TWJ Media Kit)
Minimalism
The cover of the first edition has an unmissable orange cover, and the magazine is reflective of stripped back minimalist design principles. The New Yorker magazine said of minimalism in a critique that it is
a mode of living that strips away protective barriers and heightens the miracle of human presence and the urgency, today, of what that miracle entails. (The New Yorker, February 3 2020)
As The New Yorker points out, the simplicity of minimalism hides the reality of a complex world. The simplicity of the cover design of TWJ belies the complexity of publishing a magazine of this quality.
The publishers have been influenced by what Richard Rogers calls the notion of ‘Instagramism’ and image-driven platforms. TWJ states:
Our journal is made up of many beautiful images; we want our advertisers to emulate this. Minimise text, maximise imagery.(TWJ Media Kit)
Editor Boone states that this editorial policy leads to ‘simple and effective communications to our readers’. (TWJ Media Kit)
This is an interesting image of the Nepean River Walkway at Elderslie and not one that is normally used to reflect the Camden area. It is a different interpretation of the cultural heritage of an area rich in Indigenous and European history. There are Dreaming stories of Dharawal People and the colonial stories of settlement from the time of the Cowpastures district from 1975 to the 1850s. (I Willis, 2021)
Cultural diversity and stereotypes
The magazine’s pitch is at a market in Western Sydney hungry for acknowledgement of its riches. Sydney’s West is a land of undiscovered treasures and unacknowledged riches of culture, travel and food.
Sydney’s West is a vast cosmopolitan landscape of a foodie’s heaven for those searching for suburban delicacies. This secret is out for city-based foodie tours who deliver their passengers to Westie foodie-hot-spots.
Sydney’s West has been undersold for years and dogged by unfair stereotypes. The West Journal states in its opening paragraph that
For too long, a generational stigma has tainted the perception of Western Sydney. (TWJ:1)
The stigma has persisted for more than one generation, and I have labelled it the #sydneyculturewar. (Willis, 2016) In recent months it has been fostered in the name of Covid.
Campbelltown journalist and raconteur Jeff McGill wrote in 2013 ‘Careful what you call south west Sydney’. He examined the stereotypes and name-calling that existed in Sydney’s West and Southwest. Jenny said she had met contempt towards her by those in Sydney’s beachside and harbourside suburbs in a Facebook comment. She said that they think you are ‘slow-witted, lazy, anti-social’.
The West Journal is a positive move to counter these attitudes and boasts that it
Wants to celebrate the cultural diversity, food and individuality found within Western Sydney and Regional NSW. (TWJ:1)
Academic Gabriele Gwyther has argued that Western Sydney is a
region of great complexity: a patchwork of culture, language, ethnicity, personal histories, religion, income and status. (Gwyther 2008)
A rich history
More than this, I have argued that Sydney’s West has a rich history from the pre-colonial period to the present. (Willis 2018)
The magazine demonstrates the influence of the past on the present by presenting stylish images of the West’s cultural and natural heritage. The past shapes the present, and there is no escaping its clutches, whatever its colours.
The stories of the Dharawal, the Dharug and Gundungurra provide a rich tapestry of storytelling. TWJ acknowledges the traditional custodians of each site in the magazine, for example, the Dharug People at Blacktown. (TWJ: 14)
The European story on the Hawkesbury and down to The Cowpastures adds another layer (Willis 2018; Karskens 2020) with a profile of Camden Park House (CPH 2020), arguably one of the most important colonial properties still in the hands of the family built in the 1830s. (TWJ:226-229)
Embracing growth and change
The West Journal encompasses all of this and distribution across Sydney’s West from Hawkesbury Shire Council in the north, Wollondilly Shire Council in the south, west to Blue Mountains City Council, east to the Canterbury Bankstown.
Editor Deane Boone boasts that the magazine will ‘explore everything Western Sydney and Regional NSW has to offer’ extending to ‘West of West’ taking in Wagga Wagga to Armidale and Dubbo. (TWJ:4-5)
The New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian MP has endorsed The West Journal and commended the publishers on their efforts in promoting Sydney’s West (I Willis 2021)
These claims are endorsed by New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian MP. She states ‘Western Sydney is an exciting region undergoing profound growth and change’, and her government ‘shares this enthusiasm for Sydney’s West as a wonderful place’. The premier ‘commends’ the publisher for their efforts. (TWJ:6)
Editor Boone has set a high standard with this issue. It is hoped that later volumes match it. The magazine closes with the bold aim:
To embrace, inform and celebrate the amazing cultural diversity, experiences and offerings the West has to offer. (TWJ:263)
Karskens, Grace 2020, People of the river : lost worlds of early Australia. Allen & Unwin Crows Nest, NSW
Rogers, Richard 2021, ‘Visual media analysis for Instagram and other online platforms’. Big Data & Society. Vol 8 issue 1. https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211022370
Development proposal for 80 John Street and dunny demolition
In the backyard of an historic cottage at 80 John Street there is a funny little dunny that dates from the 1890s. In 2011 it created a great deal of fuss when there was a proposal for a two-storey commercial development at the rear of the cottage site and the demolition of the dunny for parking.
This is a view of the little 1890s outhouse in the backyard of 80 John Street with work going on around in 2021. This is the same outhouse that caused all the fuss in 2011 when a two-storey commercial building was proposed for this site. (I Willis, 2021)
A funny little dunny goes by a host of names
The funny little dunny is an example of a building that has gone by a host of names over the years. According to Margaret Simpson from the Powerhouse Museum they have variously been called a
Lav, privy, loo, thunderbox, WC, outhouse, toot, throne, restroom, powder room, washroom, john, kharsi, bog, comfort station, and even twinkle-palace, are just some of the euphemisms used for toilets. If you were in the military you’d be using the latrines, on a sailing ship going to the heads, but in country Australia it’d be the dunny.
The little outhouse created quite a storm and any development proposal in upper John Street below St John’s Church was destined to create some sort of controversy.
The is a view of the row of Victorian Workman’s cottages in upper John Street (76-78 John Street) that are just below St John’s Church (I Willis, 2018)
This line of simple, neat, and pleasing four cottages (74-80 John Street) along the eastern side of John Street, leading up to the view of St Johns Church spire, are representative of late nineteenth-century country town cottages. They are remarkably consistent in quality and form a good group.
The cottage at No 80 where the loo is located is described as a weatherboard cottage had a ‘corrugated iron hipped roof’ with a ‘brick chimney, timber-posted corrugated-iron bullnose verandah and four-pane double-hung windows with timber shutters’ enclosed by a front picket-fence.
This view of John Street is taken from the St John’s Church steeple in 1937 and shows the row of workman’s cottages on the right hand side of the street. (Camden Images)
The development drew community concern at a number levels: obstructed views from Broughton Street; the bulk and height of the proposed new building; and the demolition of the loo.
Objections abound
The Camden Historical Society lodged an objection with the consent authority, Camden Council, and then published an article in the 2011 Winter Newsletter.
This was followed by a front-page story in the Macarthur Chronicle under the headline DE-THRONED, with a full-page picture of society member Robert Wheeler with the loo in the background.
This is the front-page story in the Macarthur Chronicle for 28 June 2011. Camden Historical Society member Robert Wheeler takes centre stage in the page with the loo from 80 John Street in the background. (I Willis)
The report stated that the loo was
‘One of the few in remaining buildings in the town area which were common before the town was connected to the sewer in 1938.
The Chronicle reported that ‘former Camden town planner Robert Wheeler [was] leading calls for the loo to be preserved due to its historic significance.
‘Mr Wheeler said the proposed building was not ‘sympathetic’ to the heritage of the surrounding area and the outdoor toilet should not be demolished’.
(Macarthur Chronicle, 28 June 2011).
[Camden Historical Society] vice-president John Wrigley said, ‘The society was concerned about the ‘block-like’ look to the new building and the demolition of the outside toilet’.
The little dunny is special
The Macarthur Chronicle posed the question:
‘Is this Camden’s oldest toilet?’
(Macarthur Chronicle, 28 June 2011).
The Development Conservation and Landscape Plan noted the special architectural feature of the outhouse. It had a ‘custom-rolled roof’ that ‘mayhave been by half a water tank’, unlike standard outhouse roofs which were ‘gables or skillion’.
(Source: Stedinger Associated, 78-80 John St, Camden, Conservation Schedule of Works and Landscape Plan, Unpublished, 2011, Camden).
This is a typical country town outhouse that is no longer in use in Berry NSW. This outhouse has a gable roof which is more typical of those found in country towns across Australia. This particular example would have probably have housed a pan system toilet before the Berry sewerage system was connected to town properties. (I Willis, 2021)
The pan system
The Landscape Plan detailed how the ‘outhouse, which dated from the 1890s, was part of the Camden’s pan toilet system. Cottage residents who used the outhouse walked along a narrow path leading from the loo to the cottage kitchen.
This is a pan toilet that was used in the mid-20th century and is similar to what was used in the John Street outhouse in the early 20th century. This example is at the Camden Museum and has a deodoriser in the toilet lid . (I Willis, 2021)
The toilet had a pan for ‘nightsoil’ which was collected by a Camden Council contractor. The contractor accessed the pan through a small opening in the rear wall of the outhouse, and replaced the full pan with an empty can.
The cottage outhouse was not built over a pit or ‘long drop’ for the excrement and urine like those built on local farms.
(Source: Stedinger Associated, 78-80 John St, Camden, Conservation Schedule of Works and Landscape Plan, Unpublished, 2011, Camden).
A vivid description of the experience of using a pan system has been provided by Margaret Simpson from the Powerhouse Museum.
I grew up in a small New South Wales rural town before the sewer was connected. Ours was an outside toilet in the backyard. Underneath the seat plank was a removable sanitary pan (dunny can). About once a week the full pan was taken away and replaced with a clean empty one. This unfortunate task was the job of the sanitary carter (dunny man) with his horse and wagon and later a truck. Going to the dunny, especially in summer towards the end of the collection week, was a breath-holding, peg-on-nose experience.
Modern commercial toilet paper was not part of the pan system experience. She says:
In Australia, newspapers were cut into sheets by the householder and held together with a piece of fencing wire or string and hung on a nail inside the dunny. Another source of paper were the thick department store catalogues like Anthony Horderns sent out to householders.
The pan system installed in the John Street outhouse was quite common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in New South Wales.
In the late 19th century controversy raged over the benefits or lack of them between the pan system and water carriage systems. Flush toilets and water carriage of sewerage dates back to 2500BC.
Sewer gas was a big problem in the nineteenth century when knowledge of how to trap the gas and prevent its return back into homes and city streets was scarce and workmanship in sewer construction often cheap and shoddy.
Air pollution was a particularly damning accusation since it was believed that ‘miasmas’ were responsible for many of the life-threatening diseases around at that time.
This is a simpler pan toilet used in the mid-20th century similar to what would have been used at John Street outhouse. A nightsoil pan is inserted below the toilet seat. This example is at the Camden Museum. (I Willis, 2021)
A 1914 advertisement for a contract to collect nightsoil (excrement) at Picton gives an idea of how nightsoil was disposed of in our local area. The contractor used a sanitary cart pulled by a horse to collect the pans from outhouses in the town area. The contractor was then expected to dispose of the nightsoil by dig trenches at the depot which was one mile from the town centre. At the time there were 270 pans in the Picton town area.
Before World War One Camden Municipal Council had considered the installation of a septic tank sewerage system for the town area. (Camden News, 24 August 1911)
In 1938 the council was given permission to proceed with a sewerage scheme for the town managed by Sydney Metropolitan, Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board and town sewerage scheme was completed in 1939. (Camden News, 29 June 1939)
This is an example of a nightsoil pan that was inserted below the toilet seat. The pan was collected by the nightsoil service contractor and a lid secured on top. This example is at the Camden Museum and is similar to the type of pan that would have been used in the John Street outhouse. (I Willis, 2021)
A related story about disposal of nightsoil and long drops in goldrush Melbourne in the mid-19th century can be found here.
On a recent evening in Camden there was the launch of a new exhibition at the Alan Baker Art Gallery in the heritage listed building Macaria in John Street.
The exhibition, FACE to FACE: Live Sittings 1936 – 1972, celebrates Alan Baker’s achievement of entering the Archibald prize 26 times with 35 artworks between 1936 and 1972. Despite his persistence he never won a prize.
The cover of the FACE to FACE Live Sittings 1936-1972 Exhibition programme at the Alan Baker Art Gallery held in Macaria, John Street, Camden. (ABAG)
The exhibition programme states that Alan Baker was studying at JS Watkins Art School alongside future Archibald winners Henry Hanke in 1934 with his Self Portrait, William Pidgeon who won in 1958, 1961 and 1968, and his brother Normand Baker in 1937 with his Self Portrait.
The programme provides a timeline of Baker’s paintings with images that illustrate his works.
the exhibition will feature Baker’s first 1936 Archibald Prize entry painted at the age of 22, a self-portrait study painting by Normand Baker for his 1937 winning Archibald Prize entry, and Baker’s 1951 portrait of Australian Filmmaker Charles Chauvel (courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland).
The feature wall in the entry of the Alan Baker Art Gallery in Macaria, John Street Camden for the FACE to FACE Live Sittings 1936 -1972. The image was taken on the opening night of the exhibition on 17 April 2021. (I Willis)
The Archibald
The Archibald Prize is one of the pre-eminent portraiture prizes in Australia held yearly at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. First awarded in 1921 this prestigious art prize is a sought after award by artists generating publicity and public exposure. Traditionally portraitists were mostly restricted to public or private commissions.
The Art Gallery of NSW states that:
The Archibald Prize is awarded annually to the best portrait, ‘preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australasia’.
The Archibald has never been far from controversy and turning points have been William Dobell’s prize-winning portrait of fellow artist Joshua Smith in 1943 and in 1976, Brett Whiteley winning painting Self portrait in the studio.
Macaria, the gallery building
The Alan Baker Gallery website outlines a short history of the Macaria building.
An exterior view of Macaria showing the Gothic influence in the roof line and window detail. The verandah was an addition to this style of building in the Australian colonies. (I Willis, 2018)
The website states:
Macaria was originally built in 1859-1860 as a school house by Henry Thompson, the building has since been used for many things; including a private home; the Camden Grammar School; the residence and rooms of doctors and dentists including popular local physician Dr Francis West. In 1965 Macaria was purchased by Camden Council and used as Camden Library and later, offices for the Mayor, Town Clark and staff.
Macaria is a fine example of an early Victorian Gentleman’s Townhouse. Designed and built in the PicturesqueGothic, Renaissance Revival style, Macaria features gabled windows, high chimneys, stone trims and a wooden porch. Sympathetically renovated and restored in 2017, the historical features including the oregon timber flooring, Australian cedar architraves and mahogany skirting boards have been retained.
Macaria is a substantial Victorian gentleman’s townhouse and residence from the mid-Victorian period that was influenced by the Picturesque movement and Gothic styling. The building is now the home of the Alan Baker Art Gallery. (I Willis, 2017)
Prowling crazy colourful koalas are on the loose in the Australian Botanic Gardens in Mount Annan and other notable spots in Campbelltown.
The cute one-metre-high fibreglass sculptures, called Hello Koalas, are loose across the garden landscape. They are a sight to behold after being a hit at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney in 2019.
The artworks are part of the Hello Koalas Sculpture Trail, jointly hosted by The Australian Botanic Garden (ABG), Mount Annan and Campbelltown City Council. Running from April 1 to April 30, the art installation is on loan from the Port Macquarie area.
This is Wollemia The Vital Scientist by artist Lisa Burrell for the 2021 Hello Koala Sculpture Trail at The Australian Botanic Gardens Mount Annan. Wollemia will make sure that the Garden scientists are growing new Wollemi trees for the future. (I Willis)
Engaging public art installation
On a visit to the ABG this week, I watched how the sculptures touched the hearts of everyone who walked past them.
The Hello Koalas seemed to immediately grab the attention of everyone who walked past them, from the very young to the very young at heart. The koala characters appeared to melt the coldest heart with their bright colours and crazy artwork.
There is an element of surprise to the sculptures, and there is an immediately identifiable joy in people’s reactions. Young and old pose for selfies and family pics with the koala characters.
Families sought out the elusive koala characters across the ABG after picking up the free trail map. The kids were making sure that they found all of the 22 koalas in the garden.
The cover of the 2021 Hello Koala Sculpture Trail at The Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan. Inside the brochure was a map with all of the 16 Hello Koalas scattered across the garden with the location. (I Willis)
According to the trail map, families can be helped in the koala hunt by downloading the ‘Agents of Discovery’ by using the ABG QR code and then seeking out the koala characters.
A public art trail
The outdoor art installation trail is strategically placed across the garden landscape to ensure an exciting and wonderful experience of these ‘living sculptures’.
Each of the Hello Koalas has a name and is themed around culture, heritage and environmental issues. There is Captain Koala, Bushby, Flying Fire, Topiary and a host of others.
The trail map provides a host of information about the Hello Koalas location, their names, and the artist who created them.
The ABG art installation was ‘conceived and created in Port Macquarie by Arts and Health Australia’, which aims ‘to promote and develop the application of creativity and the arts for health and quality of life’.
This is Scoop the busy news reporter who spreads the word about the importance of looking after native animals. He is part of the Hello Koalas at the ABG Mount Annan 2021. Scoop is by artist Rebekah Brown. (I Willis)
Project director Margaret Meagher described the Hello Koalas as Wildlife Warriors and said, ‘The project aims to spread the message that we must care for our koalas and all native fauna and flora’.
Toads and Koalas
The individual Hello Koalas were designed and hand-painted by artists from Port Macquarie, Taree, Kempsey and Coffs Harbour. They are part of a larger public art installation [IW1] in the Port Macquarie area, where 77 Hello Koalas are located across the region. They recently featured in Port Macquarie’s Summer 2021 Hello Koalas Sculpture Trail, and later on, this year will be part of the 5th Annual Hello Koalas Festival between 25-26 September.
Director Margaret Meagher was inspired to create the Hello Koalas by an animal trail that was part of the 2010 Hull arts festival in England. The trail celebrated the life and times of local poet Philip Larkin and his poem Toads. Festival organisers created the Larkin with Toads sculpture trail. After initial scepticism, the toads have been a huge hit winning tourist awards, gaining national press coverage and increased local tourism.
Public art installations are a vital part of a vibrant community and add to its cultural, aesthetic and economic vitality. Public art promotes
‘a sense of identity, belonging, attachment, welcoming and openness, and strengthen community identification to place. [It creates] a tangible sense of place and destination’.
Director Margaret Meagher argues that public art fosters cultural tourism and community cultural development.
Public art is an opportunity to showcase artist talent differently and generate broader community interest. This type of art installation can ferment interest in issues and engage the media, the public and the creative sector. Public art appeals to the imagination of adults and children and can bring the community together.
Successful public art encourages public engagement with art and can create a sense of ownership within the community. There can be increased visitation increase tourism that brings money into the area. It can contribute to placemaking, shaping community identity and a sense of belonging.
Not a balmy idea
The Hello Koalas Sculpture Trail, at first glance, may be considered a balmy idea. In reality, it is a clever idea that on initial observations seems to have engaged people’s interest and imagination and created a unique art experience.
The ABG Hello Koalas brochure states:
Effectively, each Hello Koalas sculpture provides a blank canvas to convey evocative messages that celebrate the existence of native plants and animals and raise public awareness, across generations, of the importance of caring and preserving our natural world.
Royal Botanic Gardens chief executive Denise Ora is quoted as saying, ‘When we did this exhibition in Sydney in 2019, it was a huge success. There’s a really fun aspect and a real educational aspect’.
Once again, country show societies are gearing up for the annual New South Wales Showgirl competition. In 2008 500 young women entered the pageant at a local level representing 120 show societies, with the Sydney Royal Easter Show finals. The 2011 Camden Showgirl has attracted seven young local women – four of the seven are university students, two business owners and one business manager.
The competition has come a long way since its beginnings in 1962 which started as Miss Showgirl and changed in 1979 to the Showgirl competition. It has seen off a variety of other pageants and successfully competes with several others. In these days of television celebrity fashion competitions, the Showgirl competition is a bit of an anachronism. Rather quaint, yet with an underlying strength that is endearing to supporters.
The Showgirl competition is a complex mix of paradoxes and apparent contradictions, just like other aspects of rural life: it is very traditional while accommodating the aspirations of young women; it is staid yet has had an underlying strand of the commodification of young women as objects of display; it is conservative yet encourages sexualisation of young women through good times at balls and the like; it avoids the stereotypes of other beauty pageants, yet it promotes a version of a stereotypical young rural woman; it is part of the town and country divide yet brings the country to the city; and more.
The showgirl competition is a relic of a time when rural women were confined by home and family. The foundation sponsor was the racy tabloid, The Daily Mirror, which commodified womanhood images on page three. Later competition sponsors, The Daily Telegraph and then The Women’s Weekly, used different representations of womanhood, and today The Land newspaper takes a newsworthy approach to rural affairs.
The RAS Miss Royal Easter Showgirl for 1978 in the Australian Women’s Weekly. The winner is an 18-year-old trainee nurse from Mungindi in rural New South Wales. (AWW 29 March 1978)
The values expressed in the Royal Agricultural Society Guide for Showgirl entrants prepared by 2009 Camden Showgirl Lauren Elkins are slightly old-fashioned. The guide stresses etiquette, grooming, manners, dress sense, presentation and socialising skills – a solid list of skills for any aspiring job applicant. The competition even offers deportment lessons for entrants – An echo from the past.
While the aims of the competition have not changed, part of its resilience has been its ability to cope with changes in the representation of rural life and women themselves. It expresses the agency of the young women who enter, whether university students or shop assistants and provides personal development opportunities.
Showtime, the show ball and the Showgirl competition are representatives of notions of rurality. Camden Showgirl is part of the invocation of rural nostalgia. People use the competition as a lens through which they can view the past, including the young women who enter it. In 2009 Camden Showgirl Lauren Elkins ‘was keen’, she said, ‘to get into the thick of promoting the town and its rural heritage’.
Organising committees select entrants who have a sense of belonging to and identifying with the local area. According to Suzie Sherwood, a 2004 Camden organising committee member, the winning showgirl projects the values and traditions of the local community.
In a historical analysis by Kate Darian-Smith and Sara Wills (2001), they see the current response to Miss Showgirl as ‘an embodiment of meaningful and rural belonging’. Miss Showgirl entrants indeed embrace parochialism and the interests of local show societies as part of the competition. These forces have long shaped the rural identity and its response to city-based decision-making.
Miss Camden Showgirl for 2018 in the Australia Day Parade on the float for the Camden Show. (I Willis)
Rural New South Wales faces constant challenges, and the showgirl’s success is a rural showcase in the ‘big smoke’. The competition embraces the experience of showtime in Sydney when the country comes to town, and there are social engagements, cocktail parties and pictures on the social pages. The showgirl competition draws on rural traditions surrounding debutante balls, bachelor and spinster balls and similar community gatherings that express a sense of place. The essence of localism.
Glamour and style are back, and Showgirl has an element of ‘fashions on the field’. Young women have an opportunity to ‘frock up’. Something authentic. It harks back to the days of the country race meeting and the local polo match. The exclusivity that was once the rural gentry’s domain when deference and paternalism ruled the bush. Press photographs of ‘glammed up’ Showgirls sashing 1st place in the dairy cow section recall days of the ‘Lady of the Manor’ and the English village fair.
2011 Camden Show Girl and Camden’s first Sydney Royal Showgirl, Hilary Scott. (The District Reporter 3 October 2011)
Miss Showgirl competitions have not been without their critics. The competition has survived in New South Wales and Queensland while not in Victoria. Understandably entrants passionately defend the competition.
None of these issues has been a problem for 2011 Camden Showgirl winner Hilary Scott, a 22-year-old horse-loving university student from The Oaks. She appeared on the front page of The District Reporter, all glammed up in the paddock, under the banner headline ‘Showgirl Hilary supports agriculture’. Hilary is a confident young rural woman who projects Miss Showgirl’s contemporary vibrancy and complexities.
Camden Showgirl Winners
Miss Showgirl 1962-1978, Camden Showgirl 1979-2020
1962 Helen Crace 1963 Helen Crace 1964 Sue Mason 1965 Barbara Duck 1966 Dawn Dowle 1967 Jenny Rock 1968 Heather Mills 1969 Michelle Chambers 1970 Joyce Boardman 1971 Anne Macarthur-Stanham 1972 Kerri Webb 1973 Anne Fahey 1974 Sue Faber
1975 Janelle Hore 1976 Jenny Barnaby 1977 Patsy Anne Daley 1978 Julie Wallace 1979 Sandra Olieric 1980 Fiona Wilson 1981 Louise Longley 1982 Melissa Clowes 1983 Illa Eagles 1984 Leanne Reily 1985 Rebecca Py 1986 Jenny Rawlinson 1987 Jayne Manns
1988 Monique Mate 1989 Linda Drinnan 1990 Tai Green 1991 Toni Leeman 1992 Susan Lees 1993 Belinda Bettington 1994 Miffy Haynes 1995 Danielle Halfpenny 1996 Jenianne Garvin 1997 Michelle Dries 1998 Belinda Holyoake 1999 Lyndall Reeves 2000 Katie Rogers
2001 Kristy Stewart 2002 Margaret Roser 2003 Sally Watson 2004 Danielle Haack 2005 Arna Daley 2006 Victoria Travers 2007 Sarah Myers
2008 Fiona Boardman 2009 Lauren Elkins 2010 Adrianna Mihajlovic 2011 Hilary Scott 2012 April Browne 2013 Isabel Head 2014 Jacinda Webster
The Competition aims to find a young female Ambassador for rural NSW and the agricultural show movement.
The Showgirl Competition is definitely not a beauty pageant. Entrants must have a genuine interest in, and knowledge of, rural NSW. The Competition encourages the participation and awareness of issues faced by women in rural NSW.
Carpentry was an essential craft in all communities and has been practised for centuries. In the Camden area, the traditional trade of carpentry as it was practised had a variety of forms. Traditional trades were part of the process of settler colonialism on the colonial frontier in the Cowpastures.
In pre-settlement times, the first form of bush carpentry was practised by the Aborigines. They stripped bark from trees and used it for shelters that kept them from the natural elements and made weapons.
At the time of European settlement, many on the frontier had no formal trades skills and learnt bush carpentry from watching the Aboriginal people or experimenting themselves. The bush carpenter was a practical make-do pioneer who innovated with naturally occurring products from their local environment. They practised sustainability in a period when it was a necessity for their very survival and relied on their ingenuity, adaptability and wit.
A rudimentary vernacular domestic style architecture typical of frontier settlement constructed from available local materials. The farmhouse Illustrated here is the home of V Kill and his family in the Burragorang Valley in 1917 with some intrepid bushwalkers. The cottage is slab construction with a dirt floor and no electricity. The cottage is surrounded by the vegetable garden which is carefully tended by the family. (Camden Images)
Some of the bush carpenter’s spirit and tradition arrived with the early European settlers and owed some of its origins to the English tradition of green woodworking. This traditional practice dates back to the Middle Ages and is linked with coppicing, a traditional form of woodland management. The craftsmen led a solitary existence in the woods and made a host of items from unseasoned green timber, including furniture, tools, fencing, kitchenware and other things.
The bush carpenters were amongst the first in the Camden area to erect building structures. Like other rural areas of Australia, the Camden area’s landscape has been defined by the bush carpenter’s huts and sheds. One example was illustrated in Peter Mylrea’s Camden District (2002), the so-called Government Hut erected at the Cowpastures in 1804.
This view of the Government Hut in the Cowpastures at the Nepean River crossing illustrates the rudimentary form of construction on the colonial frontier in 1804. (State Library of NSW SSV1B / Cowp D / 1)
The early settlers who built these basic shelters did so without the manufactured products of the Industrial Revolution. Either through cost or just a make-do attitude, they built rudimentary vernacular buildings that lasted for decades. In later times settlers’ structures were improved with the introduction of galvanised iron after the 1820s.
There were many examples of huts and farm sheds being erected in other parts of the Camden district, remote from major centres, like the Burragorang Valley. Post-and-rail fencing and a host of other structures put a defining character on the rural landscape. There is still evidence of bush carpentry in and around Camden.
The former farm shed c1900-1910 apply renamed the barn is popular with weddings and other activities at the Camden Community Garden. This farm shed illustrates the rudimentary type of construction practiced as a form of bush carpentry in the local area. (I Willis, 2018)
The bush carpenter’s tool kit usually did not have specialised tools and would have included saws, axes, adze, chisels, augers, hammers, wedges, spade, and other items. Their kit was meant to cope with all the contingencies of the rural frontier that were typical of the remote parts of the Camden district.
The formal trade of carpentry and joinery has a long history going back centuries centred on the guilds. Guilds appeared in England in the Middle Ages, and according to the website London Lives 1690-1800, their purpose was to
defend the interests of the trade, regulate the quality of workmanship and the training of new members, and provide support and welfare for their members.
In London, they were established by charter and regulated by the City authorities. Guilds in London had considerable political power and were one of the largest charitable institutions in the City. Carpenters were organised in the Carpenter’s Company, one of 12 powerful London guilds. Guilds were a mixture of apprentices, journeymen and master craftsmen, with no women.
In the colony of New South Wales, carpenters were formally trained artisans have examples of their work in colonial mansions of the grand estates and the many local towns and villages across the Camden district. These artisans used milled timber and other manufactured products of the Industrial Revolution that were readily available and that their clients could afford.
Camden’s carpenters were a mixture of journeymen and master craftsmen, who had served their apprenticeship in Camden and elsewhere. John Wrigley’s Historic Buildings of Camden (1983) lists 38 carpenters/builders who worked in Camden between the 1840s and 1980s.
The pre-WW2 tradesmen used hand tools and traditional construction methods, which is evident in any of the town’s older buildings and cottages. Take particular notice when you walk around central Camden of the fine quality of artistry that has stood the test of time from some of these traditional tradesmen.
The hand tools used by the Camden carpenter changed little in centuries of development and refinement. The tool kit of the mid-1800s would have included hammers, chisels, planes, irons, clamps, saws, mallet, pincers, augers and a host of other tools. It would be very recognisable by a 21st-century tradesman. Master carpenter, Fred Lawton’s tool kit, is on display at the Camden museum (TDR 19/12/11)
A display of hand tools at the Camden Museum. This display illustrates the range of tools that made up the carpenter’s toolkit for his job. Shown here is a range of saws, hammers, augers, planes, adze, and other tools. (2021 KHolmquist)
Hand tools were utilitarian, and some had decorated handles and stocks, particularly those from Germany and British makers. By the early 19th century, many hand tools were being manufactured in centres like Sheffield, UK, and these would have appeared in the Camden area. Carpenters traditionally supplied their own tools and would mark on their hand tools to clearly identify them. Many of the hand tools became highly specialised, especially for use by cabinet-makers, joiners and wood-turning.
The Camden carpenters listed in the 1904 New South Wales Post Office Directory were JP Bensley, John Franklin, Joseph Packenham and Thomas Thornton, while at Camden Park, there was Harry ‘Herb’ English. According to Herb’s nephew Len English, Herb English was one of a number of generations of the English family who were carpenters in the early years of the 20th century in the Camden area. It was a family tradition for the sons to be apprenticed in the trade to their father and work at Camden Park. This practice followed the training principles of English carpentry guilds under a system of patrimony.
Camden carpenter Herbert English working at Camden Park in the 1920s. This image illustrates the use of hand tools here showing the use of the chisel, mallet, handsaw and square. English is cutting a rebate with the chisel after marking the cut out with his square. He would have supplied his own tools and kept them sharpened at the end of the working day. (Camden Images)
Len English’s grandfather, William John English,e was apprenticed to his father, James, and worked at Camden Park between the 1890s and 1930s. William lived in Luker Street, Elderslie, where he built his house and had his workshop, where Len recalls playing as a lad. William’s son, Jack Edward English, was apprenticed to his father (William) in the family tradition, also worked at Camden Park and later in Camden and Elderslie during the 1930s and 1940s. During this period, Jack and his brother, Sidney, both worked with local Camden builders Mark Jenson and Mel Peat (TDR19/12/11).
![View of the farm of J. Hassel [Hassall] Esqr. Cow Pastures, New South Wales by Augustus Earle, c. 1825. State Library of NSW PXD 265, f. 2](https://camdenhistorynotes.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/view-of-the-farm-of-j-hassel-esqr-cow-pastures-new-south-wales.jpg)
Camden History Notes 
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