Keep your eyes open in central Campbelltown for inspiring public art installations that brighten up dull spaces around the town.
The Campbelltown Arts Centre, in conjunction with Campbelltown City Council and the NSW Government, have a program to re-invigorate the city centre using public art.
A screenshot of the public art webpage on the website of the Campbelltown Arts Centre. Each of the seven public art projects has a dedicated webpage with detailed descriptions of the artworks, what the artist was trying to achieve and the installation specifications. (CAC, 2023)
Public art positively affects the community and people’s self-esteem, self-confidence and well-being. Campbelltown Arts Centre has created a public art website to assist people in this process and shows several murals around the Queens Street precinct.
This blog has promoted the benefits of public art in and around the Macarthur region for some time now. There are lots of interesting public artworks around the area that are hidden in plain sight. This blog has highlighted the artworks and other artefacts, memorials and monuments that promote the Cowpastures region.
The public art program of the Campbelltown Arts Centre and Campbelltown City Council is creative, innovative and inspirational. It is playful yet takes a serious approach to a contemporary problem, urban blight.
These urban planning decisions came from the 1968 Sydney Regional Outline Plan of the NSW Askin Coalition Government.
Sydney-based planning decision created tensions between Campbelltown City Council and the Macarthur Development Board around what constituted the city centre. The Queen Street precinct, supported by the council, gradually declined in importance as a retail area as newer facilities opened up.
Queen Street could not compete with the new shopping mall Macarthur Square opened in 1979 by the Hon. Paul Landa, Minister for Planning and Environment in the Wran Labor Government.
High-value-added retailing deserted the Queen Street precinct and became populated by $2-shops and op-shops.
Campbelltown’s sense of place and community identity has taken a battering in the following decades.
Reinvigoration of the Queen Street precinct
The public art program at the Campbelltown Arts Centre is trying to ameliorate the problems of the past through community engagement in art installations.
The murals would enhance the local streetscape and make the area more welcoming to residents and visitors.
“The first mural is located at one of the entrances to the CBD and will add a new element to our public domain,” Cr Greiss said.
“It’s important that works to the Queen Street precinct enhance the current amenity to build pride among residents and make the area more attractive to people visiting our city,” he said.
The mayor referred to an art installation created by Campbelltown street artist Danielle Mate ‘Raw Doings’ in Carberry Lane. The Arts Centre website states:
This vibrant and bold artwork comprises many shades of blue and purple, and is inspired by aerial views of Country and the Australian landscape.
The mural ‘Raw Doings’ by street artists Danielle Mate was commissioned by Campbelltown City Council in 2022 (Document Photography/CAC 2022)
In 2022 the Campbeltown City Council commissioned ‘Breathing Life / Bula ni Cegu / Paghinga ng Buhay’ by artists and designers Victoria Garcia and Bayvick Lawrance.
‘Breathing Life’ is a celebration of Campbelltown’s thriving Pacific community, and the extensive connections between people, plants, animals and all living things.
The mural ‘Breathing Life’ by artists Victoria Garcia and Bayvick Lawrance in 2022 and was commissioned by Campbelltown City Council (Document Photography/CAC 2022)
In 2012 Campbelltown City Council commissioned a mural board across the bus shelters at Campbelltown Railway Station supervised by Blak Douglas in Lithgow Street called ‘The Standout’. The art installation is the work of 28 artists across 70 panels with a full length of 175 metres.
The Standout pays homage to the Dharawal Dreamtime Story of the ‘Seven Eucalypts’, and Douglas’ previous photographic series of deceased gums standing alone within landscapes and casting shadows within urban facades.
The ‘Stand Out’ mural by Blak Douglas is located in Lithgow Street Campbelltown along the bus shelters outside Campbelltown Railway Station. The work was commissioned by Campbelltown City Council in 2012. (Black Douglas/CAC 2012)
The public art installation ‘Three Mobs’ by Chinese-Aboriginal artist Jason Wing was commissioned by Campbelltown City Council in 2022. The mural is located on Dumersq Street and Queen Street, the south side of the 7Eleven wall, and features a rainbow serpent as an intersection of cultures.
Aboriginal culture reveres the rainbow serpent as the creator of all things on Earth. Chinese culture understands serpents to be a symbol for luck and abundance, and a highly desired zodiac sign.
Defined as any artistic work or activity designed and created by professional arts practitioners for the public domain, Public Art may be of a temporary or permanent nature and located in or part of a public open space, building or facility, including façade elements provided by either the public or private sector (not including memorials or plaques).
Public art can….
make art an everyday experience for residents and visitors
take many forms in many different materials and styles, such as lighting, sculpture, performance and artwork
be free-standing work or integrated into the fabric of buildings, streetscapes and outdoor spaces
draw its meaning from or add to the meaning of a particular site or place.
Public art humanizes the built environment and invigorates public spaces. It provides an intersection between past, present and future, between disciplines, and between ideas.
The paper maintains that public art has the potential to reinvigorate public spaces and add to their vibrancy. It states:
Throughout history, public art can be an essential element when a municipality wishes to progress economically and to be viable to its current and prospective citizens. Data strongly indicates that cities with an active and dynamic cultural scene are more attractive to individuals and business.
The statue of Elizabeth Macquarie by artist Tom Bass in Mawson Park in the Campbelltown CBD on Queen Street. The statue was commissioned by Campbelltown & Airds Historical Society in 2006 and cost $75,000. (Wikimedia)
Public art can express community values, enhance our environment, transform a landscape, heighten our awareness, or question our assumptions. Placed in public sites, this art is there for everyone, a form of collective community expression. Public art is a reflection of how we see the world – the artist’s response to our time and place combined with our own sense of who we are.
associationforpublicart.org/what-is-public-art/
Public art can be found in the most unusual places. In this case, this is a statue of a boy at Emerald Hills Shopping Centre Leppington. The statue memorialises the St Andrews Boys Home that once was located on the Emerald Hills land release site. (I Willis 2021)
To continue the story of Campbelltown, this is an excellent overview by local author Jeff McGill with many fascinating images of past and present times. (Kingsclear Publication, 2017)
Updated 17 May 2023. Originally posted on 16 May 2023 as ‘Public art at Campbellton brightens up a dull space’.
The former Foresters’ Hall occupies one of the most prominent sites in the Camden Town Centre at 147 Argyle Street on the corner of Oxley Street and Argyle Street. On its opening in 1908, the hall was considered the best in New South Wales by the Order of Royal Foresters.
The Royal Foresters were a friendly society at a time long before governments provided welfare benefits, and workers who became sick or injured had bleak prospects. British immigrants brought the idea of friendly societies with them and created branches of large English societies in Australia. Workers who joined friendly societies and paid a fortnightly contribution were provided health and sickness benefits for themselves and their families.
The Morning Glory No 504 of the Order of Royal Foresters was formed in Camden in 1874. The Order of Royal Foresters was a friendly society that originated in England in 1834 and offered members savings plans, health and sickness insurance, and gave sponsorships and grants to community organisations. In 1921 the Camden Royal Foresters merged with the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows. (Mylrea, 2008; Camden News, 14 December 1922)
Purchase of the building site
The Royal Foresters purchased the hall site, with frontages on Argyle Street and Oxley Street, in 1907 for £483. (Mylrea, 2008) The purchase of the hall site was guaranteed by three Royal Foresters’ trustees, HJ Huntley, Stephen Kelloway, and WF Peters. Huntley and Kelloway were part of the Camden Methodist community, who exercised a degree of power and influence well beyond their numbers in the local area.
WF Peters ran a local business as an undertaker, timber merchant and stonemason at 42 Argyle Street as WF Peters & Son, a brickyard at 24 Edward Street, and a branch of the business at Auburn. (SMH, 25 June 1928) He was briefly mayor in 1917, alderman for several years, captain of the Camden town fire brigade, committeeman with the AH&I Society and Camden District Hospital board member. (Camden News, 28 June 1928; Wrigley, 1990) Stephen Kelloway was a local dairy farmer, and HJ Huntley was a local painting contractor who served a term on Camden Municipal Council. (Camden News, 14 December 1922)
An impressive building
The hall was an impressive addition to Camden’s built heritage and cost a substantial amount of money. The hall was designed by local builder WC Furner and constructed by WF Peter. (Camden News, 4 June 1908)
WC Furner, Methodist, was a larger-than-life figure and carried on a business as a timber merchant, ironmonger, and hardware outlet. (CN, 9 March 1939) He served as mayor from 1896 to 1899 and as an alderman on Camden Municipal Council from 1892 to 1905. He was a local magistrate, justice-of-the-peace and coroner (1890-1917), vice-president of the Camden AH&I Society, and president of Camden Hospital Board from 1911 to 1913. His building firm constructed some of Camden’s most notable landmarks, including CBC Bank, police barracks, Dr Crookston’s house, and Hilsyde at Elderslie. (Wrigley, 1983; Wrigley, 1990)
The former Foresters’ Hall around 1920 shows the two retail outlets on either side of the hall entry. The hall was occupied by Pinkerton’s and Fox’s Camden Star Pictures until 1921, when Pinkerton sold out to PJ Fox, who rebranded it as the Empire Theatre. (Camden Images)
The best in News South Wales
The Camden News described the hall as a ‘magnificent and substantial building’, and a male-only banquet for over 100 was held for the official opening on Wednesday, 27 May 1908, with the Foresters in their regalia adding a ‘becoming tone’. (Camden News, 4 June 1908) The women were relegated to cooking with catering provided by Mrs WH McDonald and the hall ‘tastefully decorated’ by Mrs Woodhill and Mrs Coleman. (Camden News, 4 June 1908)
Speeches followed, and SCR (Sub Chief Ranger) Brother H Hedger officially declared the hall open and stated it l ‘was the best building in connection with their Order in the State’. He went on that ‘nothing had been stinted to make this building up to date’ and emphatically stated that the hall was ‘the finest friendly society’s hall in NSW’. He said that the hall ‘was admirably located for the convenience of Shire and other councils’ for community use. (Camden News, 4 June 1908)
Brother Hedger spoke of the work of Royal Foresters. He boasted that no other friendly society in New South Wales did more to alleviate ‘distress’ and paid out over £1,100 yearly for ‘medical fees and expenses’ for members. (Camden News, 4 June 1908)
There was much applause, and the reply was taken by Camden’s Brother E O’Farrell, 80 years old, who was a foundation member of the Court in Camden in 1874. Toasts to the King and others followed.
In the evening, the festivities continued with a social where over 250 people danced to Beverley’s band with a line-up of piano, cornet, and violin. (Camden News, 4 June 1908)
Royal Foresters’ social, attended by 250 people, was held in the evening following the male-only official banquet that celebrated the hall’s opening on 27 May 1908. The acetylene lighting has provided an even light for the photographer for the entire length of the hall, allowing the faces of those present to be made out to the observer. (Camden Images)
The building design
The Camden Heritage Inventory describes the building as a ‘two-storey adapted Federation brick building (of Federation style origins) with parapet roof. Double hung windows with timber shutters.’(Camden Heritage Inventory)
The upstairs part of the building had a supper room described as ‘a perfect room for socials and meetings, well fitted with two fireplaces, windows, and doors leading onto a large balcony commanding a splendid view of the town.’ (CN, 4 June 1908)
There was an ‘admiral stage and dressing rooms’ all lit by acetylene gas, as town gas had yet to be installed in the Camden town area. Plumber W Wilkinson of Camden constructed the acetylene plant. (Camden News, 4 June 1908)
In 1908 acetylene light was considered a modern and cost-effective way to light public spaces. The Kalgoorlie Miner reported that Coolgardie Municipal Council had installed the acetylene system to light the council offices and town hall. The press story made a cost comparison with electric lighting and reported favourably on the running costs of acetylene. The Coolgardie town hall supplied ‘soft light’ with 74 lights and was well suited to theatrical performances where light could be turned off and ‘instantaneously lit again’. (Kalgoorlie Miner, 5 June 1909)
Many occupants
Over the decades, the hall has had a variety of occupants and has been repurposed several times.
There were retail premises on the hall’s Argyle Street from 1908.
The building frontage was modified in 1914 when the building served as a movie palace that celebrated the arrival of modernism in the town. The Camden Star Pictures operated by Pinkerton & Fox (Fuchs) ran a movie theatre from 1914 to 1921. Pinkerton sold out in 1921 to PJ Fox for £2150 and renamed it Empire Pictures (1921-1933). (Mylrea, 2007; Mylrea, 2008)
In 1936 Camden Municipal Council ordered the removal of verandah posts and the balcony from the Empire Theatre. (Camden News, 15 October 1936) From 1938 the Empire Sports Club ran a billiard saloon on the upper-level access by the stairs in Oxley Street. (Mylrea, 2008)
During WW2, soldier support services ran the ACF-YMCA Hospitality Centre in the building from 1944 to 1946 and purchased the equipment from the Sports Club. Lots of Camden’s women, young and old, volunteered to entertain the troops from the Narellan Military Camp. (Willis, 2004)
In the post-war years, the Sydney-based firm Fostars Shoe Factory Pty Ltd occupied the auditorium as part of post-war reconstruction from 1947 to 1958. (The District Reporter, 1 May 2020)
Fostars Shoe Factory Pty Ltd occupied the former Foresters Hall in the postwar years, partly funded by the Commonwealth Government Post-War Reconstruction Scheme to foster employment. Note the upper mezzanine level where the movie projector would have been placed during the interwar years for the Star Pictures and Empire Theatre. (c.1950, Camden Images)
In the following years, the building was primarily used as commercial premises. In 1960 the building was sold to Downes Stores (Camden) Pty Ltd for £10,000, then in 1985, the premises was purchased by B Rixon for £420,000. He operated Southern Radio and Piano Agency, known as Southern Radio (trading as Retravision) from 1985 to 2007. Most recently, the building has been occupied by Treasures on Argyle charity shop (2008-present). (Mylrea, 2008)
Southern Radio traded as Retravision Camden in 1997 when John Kooyman took this photograph. (Camden Images)
PJ Mylrea, 2007, ‘The Birth, Growth and Demise of Picture Theatres in Camden’. Camden History, Journal of the Camden Historical Society, March 2007, Vol 2, No 3, pp. 52-59.
PJ Mylrea, 2008, ‘The Centenary of the Royal Foresters’ Hall’. Camden History, Journal of the Camden Historical Society, September 2008, Vol 2, No 6, pp.204-213.
John Wrigley, 1990, Camden Characters. Camden Historical Society, Camden.
John Wrigley, 1983, Historic Buildings of Camden. Camden Historical Society, Camden.
Ian Willis, 2004, The women’s voluntary services, a study of war and volunteering in Camden, 1939-1945, PhD thesis, School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/168
Updated 12 February 2023. Originally posted 11 February 2023.
The Cowpastures was a vague area south of the Nepean River floodplain on the southern edge of Sydney’s Cumberland Plain.
The Dharawal Indigenous people who managed the area were sidelined in 1796 by Europeans when Governor Hunter named the ‘Cow Pasture Plains’ in his sketch map. He had visited the area the previous year to witness the escaped ‘wild cattle’ from the Sydney settlement, which occupied the verdant countryside. In 1798 Hunter used the location name ‘Cow Pasture’; after this, other variants have included ‘Cow Pastures’, ‘Cowpasture’ and ‘Cowpastures’. The latter will be used here.
John Hunter, Second Governor of New South Wales 1795-1800 and Royal Navy Officer (Wikimedia)
Governor King secured the area from poaching in 1803 by creating a government reserve, while settler colonialism was furthered by allocating the first land grants in 1805 to John Macarthur and Walter Davidson. The Cowpastures became the colonial frontier, and the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous people inevitably led to conflict and violence. The self-styled gentry acquired territory by grant and purchase and created a regional landscape of pseudo-English pastoral estates.
This is a portrait of Governor Phillip Gidley King, the third governor of the British colony of New South Wales from 1800-1806. He saw service in the British Navy with the rank of captain. (SLNSW)
Collective memories
According to Kate Darian-Smith and Paula Hamilton, collective memories are ‘all around us in the language, action and material culture of our everyday life’,[1] and I often wondered why the cultural material representative of the Cowpastures appeared to have been ‘forgotten’ by our community.
The list of cultural items is quite an extensive include: roads and bridges, parks and reserves; historic sites, books, paintings, articles; conferences, seminars, and workshops; monuments, memorials and murals; community commemorations, celebrations and anniversaries.
Material culture
This material culture represents the multi-layered nature of the Cowpastures story for different actors who have interpreted events differently over time. These actors include government, community organisations, storytellers, descendants of the Indigenous Dharawal and European colonial settlers, and local and family historians. Using two case studies will illustrate the contested nature of the Cowpastures memory narrative.
Case Studies
1995 Cowpastures Bicentennial
Firstly, the 1995 Cowpastures Bicentennial celebrated the finding of the ‘wild cattle’ that escaped from the Sydney settlement by a party led by Governor Hunter in 1795.
Following the success of the 1988 Australian Bicentenary and the publication of histories of Camden and Campbelltown,[2] local officialdom decided that the anniversary of finding the ‘wild cattle’ deserved greater recognition. Camden Mayor HR Brooking stated that the festival events’ highlight the historic and scenic significance of the area’. A bicentenary committee of local dignitaries was formed, including the governor of New South Wales as a patron, with representatives from local government, universities, and community organisations.
In the end, only 10% of all festival events were directly related to the history of the Cowpastures. Golf tournaments, cycle races and music concerts were rebadged and marketed as bicentenary events, while Indigenous participation was limited to a few lines in the official programme and bicentennial documentation.[3] The legacy of the bicentenary is limited to records in the Camden Museum archives, a quilt, a statue, a park and a book.
The Camden Quilters commissioned a ‘story quilt’ told through the lens of local women, who took a holistic approach to the Cowpastures story. It was the only memorial created by women, and the collaborative efforts of the quilters created a significant piece of public art. Through the use of applique panels, the women sewed representations of the Cowpastures around the themes of Indigenous people, flora and fauna, ‘wild cattle’, agriculture, roads and bridges, and settlement.[4] The quilt currently hangs in the Camden Library.
A postcard produced in 1995 at the time of the Cowpastures Bicentennial of the Cowpastures Quilt produced by the Camden Quilters. (1995, Camden Museum)
Statue of Governor Hunter
In the suburb of Mount Annan, there is a statue of Governor Hunter. The land developer AV Jennings commissioned Lithgow sculptor and artist Antony Symons to construct the work to coincide with a residential land release. The statue has a circular colonnade, supporting artworks with motifs depicting cows, settlement, and farming activities.
According to Alison Atkinson-Phillips, three trends in memorial commemoration have been identified since the 1960s, and Hunter’s statue is an example of a ‘representative commemoration’ – commemorating events from the past.
The statue of Governor Hunter in the suburb of Mount Annan. Land developer AV Jennings commissioned Lithgow sculptor and artist Antony Symons (1942-2018) in 1995 to construct the work. Officially opened by the Mayor of Camden, Councillor FH Brooking, on the 6th April 1995. (I Willis, 2022)
Two other types of memorialisation identified by Atkinson-Phillips have been ‘participatory memorialisation’ instigated by ‘memory activists’ and place-based memorials placed as close as possible to an event.[5]
On the northern approach to the Camden town centre is the Cowpastures Reserve, a parkland used for passive and active recreation. The reserve was opened by the Governor of NSW on 19 February 1995 and is located within the 1803 government reserve, although the memorial plaque states that it is ‘celebrating 100 years of Rotary’.
The NSW Department of Agriculture published Denis Gregory’s Camden Park Birthplace of Australia’s Agriculture in time for the bicentenary. The book covered ‘200 years of the Macarthur dynasty’. It demonstrated the ‘vision and determination’ of John and Elizabeth Macarthur to make ‘the most significant contribution to agricultural development in the history of Australia’. Landscape artist Greg Turner illustrated the work with little acknowledgement of prior occupation by the Dharawal people.[6]
Commemoration of the 1816 Appin Massacre
Secondly, commemorating the 1816 Appin Massacre has created a series of memorials. The massacre represents a more meaningful representation of the Cowpastures story with the loss of Indigenous lives to the violence of the Cowpastures’ colonial frontier. The commemoration of these events is part of Atkinson-Phillip’s ‘participatory memorialisation’ and includes a place-based memorial.
European occupation of the Cowpastures led to conflict, and this peaked on 17 April 1816 when Governor Macquarie ordered a reprisal military raid against Aboriginal people. Soldiers under the command of Captain James Wallis shot at and drove Aboriginal people over the cliff at Cataract Gorge, killing around 14 men, women and children[7] on the eastern limits of the Cowpastures.
Governor Macquarie (SLNSW)
The Winga Myamly Reconciliation Group organised a memorial service for the Appin Massacre in April 2005 at the Cataract Dam picnic area.[8] By 2009 the yearly commemorative ceremony attracted the official participation of over 150 people, both ‘Indigenous and Non-Indigenous’. Attendees included the NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and representatives from Wollondilly Shire Council and the NSW Police.[9]
In 2007 Wollondilly Shire Council and the Reconciliation Group commissioned a commemorative plaque at the picnic area. According to Atkinson-Phillips, plaques are often overlooked and analysing the words gains insight into the intent of those installing them.[10] The inscription on the Cataract memorial plaque leaves no doubt what the council and the reconciliation group wanted to emphasise, and it states:
The massacre of men, women and children of the Dharawal Nation occurred near here on 17 April 1816. Fourteen were counted this day, but the actual number will never be known. We acknowledge the impact this had and continues to have on the Aboriginal people of this land. We are deeply sorry. We will remember them. Winga Mayamly Reconciliation Group. Sponsored by Wollondilly Shire Council.
The plaque at the Cataract Dam picnic area. The memorial was placed at the picnic area in 2007, jointly organised by Winga Myamly Reconciliation Group and Wollondilly Shire Council, following the memorial service started in 2005 by the Reconciliation Group. (Monuments Australia, 2010)
In 2016 the Campbelltown Arts Centre held an art exhibition with an international flavour commemorating the bicentenary of the Appin Massacre called With Secrecy and Dispatch. The gallery commissioned new works from ‘six Aboriginal Australian artists and four First Nation Canadian artists’ that illustrated ‘the shared brutalities’ of the colonial frontier for both nations.[11]
Appin Massacre Cultural Landscape
In 2021 an application was made to Heritage NSW for consideration of the Appin Massacre Cultural Landscape, the site of the 1816 Appin Massacre, for listing on the State Heritage Register. The Heritage NSW website states that the Appin Massacre was ‘one of the most devastating massacre events of First Nations people in the history of NSW’. It is ‘representative of the complex relationships between First Nations people and settlers on the colonial frontier’.[12]
In conclusion, these two case studies briefly highlight how the contested meaning of memorials commemorating aspects of the Cowpastures story varies for different actors over time. At the 1995 bicentenary, only European voices were heard telling the Cowpastures story emphasising the cattle, Governor Hunter, and settlement.
Voices of Indigenous Australians
In recent years the voices of Indigenous Australians have been heard telling a different story of European occupation emphasising the dire consequences of the violence on the colonial frontier in the Sydney wars.[13]
Endnotes
[1] Kate Darian-Smith & Paula Hamilton (eds), Memory and History in the Twentieth-Century Australia. Melbourne, Oxford, 1994, p 4.
[2] Alan Atkinson, Camden, Farm and Village Life in Early New South Wales. Melbourne, Oxford, 1988. Carol Liston, Campbelltown, The Bicentennial History. Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1988.
[3]Cowpastures Review and 1995 Calendar, Bicentennial Edition. Vol 1, 1995, p3
[4]Cowpastures Review and 1995 Calendar, Bicentennial Edition. Vol 1, 1995, p2
[5] Alison Atkinson-Phillips, ‘The Power of Place: Monuments and Memory’ in Paul Ashton & Paula Hamilton (eds), The Australian History Industry. North Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2022, p.126.
[6] Turner, Greg. & Gregory, Denis. & NSW Agriculture, Camden Park, birthplace of Australia’s agriculture. Orange, NSW, NSW Agriculture, 1992.
[10] Alison Atkinson-Phillips, ‘The Power of Place: Monuments and Memory’ in Paul Ashton & Paula Hamilton (eds), The Australian History Industry. North Melbourne, Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2022, p.127.
In 2009 there was a public outcry when there was a proposal to relocate St Mark’s church and develop the site. (The District Reporter, 16 February 2009) While the church building had remained unused for several years, the public protests posed a conundrum for local authorities. Why was there such an outcry over an empty building?
Small churches like St Marks are vital to small communities and their construction of place and development of community identity. Their potential loss threatens a community’s collective memory and sense of place. The church tells the story of a small farming community that has disappeared through the mists of time.
The history of St Mark’s church is the history of Elderslie, and the church was a special place of community celebrations and commemorations along with family celebrations, traditions, and events. The church has been a gathering place, a sacred site.
This charming image taken by John Kooyman in 1998 shows the church and other buildings under the shade of the magnificent camphor laurel tree. (Camden Images)
An outdoor Sunday School proves popular.
St Mark’s church’s origins go back to 1901 and the formation of an outdoor Sunday School by Elderslie resident Miss Elizabeth Carpenter, a disgruntled St John’s church parishioner. Elizabeth (b. 1863) was the eldest daughter of Elderslie orchardist Horatio Carpenter. According to Elderslie resident Len English, the Carpenter orchard of Fernside was just behind the church with a frontage on Macarthur Road.
According to Harold Lowe, St Mark’s churchwarden and treasurer, the story goes that 38-year-old Elizabeth Carpenter had a falling out with the rector of Camden’s St John’s Church, Rev Cecil John King. (Harold Lowe, File Notes, Camden Museum Archive)
The Sunday School proved popular with local families, and ‘in the summer of 1902…[the Sunday School was] held under the shade of the great stone pines below Mrs Lydia Carpenter’s orchard’. Miss Elizabeth Carpenter brought her ‘American organ down on a slide and led the singing’. During the autumn, with inclement weather, the classes were held in Fernside’s ‘old wine press room’. (Camden News, 18 July 1912)
The Sunday School continued to be an essential part of the church’s activities, and in 1933 the Camden press reported that the children of St Mark’s Sunday School held their picnic in Mr Bruchhauser’s ‘top paddock’. Showers did not let up until after lunch, but nothing was ‘daunted’, and the picnic was set up by ‘teachers and helpers in the church. ‘A very happy afternoon was spent by all’ after the ground dried out with ‘games and races’. (Camden News, 8 June 1933)
Transcript on the back of the image (Camden Images) St Mark’s Luker Street Elderslie Sunday School c1955. Bishop Wilston, Ruth Ferguson to R & believed Bishop Wilton, Mary Ferguson next to Ruth. Nancy Ferguson is on the right in a blue dress and white hat. In the front row, children from left Barbara Noble, 3, Lesley Noble, 6, John Bunce, 8, and Pat Higgs girl, in front of the nameplate. Identification by Lorrie Noble (Dec 1998) Photo from transparency by Ina Cameron, 65 Harrington St, Elderslie, who came to Elderslie in 1946 and worshipped at St Mark’s.
A new church
Miss Carpenter led fundraising efforts, ably assisted by RA Cross, Mr Albury, and Mr Bellingham, early in 1902 (Camden News, 5 August 1954), and moves were made ‘for the purchase of a piece of land’ and construction of the church building. (Camden News, 18 July 1912)
A small portion of Thomas Teasdale’s land was acquired by the Church of England and held in the name of the Bishop of Sydney, the Most Reverend William S Smith, and part of the Narellan Parish. (SOHI 2022)
These efforts resulted in the opening of a church building on the site, with the first service on 22 June 1902. (Camden News, 18 July 1912)
A church building was constructed and has been described as
a traditional vernacular form with a simple gable roof covered in shingles. It is a good and representative example of a very modest mission church typical of those erected in small country towns in the late 19th and very early 20th Centuries. Built of weatherboard with a corrugated metal roof and a small belfry, it contained two rooms (the nave and a small vestry) plus a porch. The window openings are simple timber sashes with horizontally pivoting openings. Windows are glazed with translucent and opaque domestic glass from the early 20th Century/Inter-War period. (SOHI 2022)
A new Elderslie resident, Mr Fred Carpenter, constructed the first six ‘handsome and comfortable seats of polished Kauri’, and parishioners donated chairs, books, lamps, blinds, alms dish, matting, communion cloth, pulpit cushions and drape. (Camden News, 18 July 1912)
The church was dedicated by The Rt Rev Bishop AW Pain from Gippsland on St Mark’s Day in 1903, April 25. (Camden News, 5 August 1954) Saint Mark’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Mark, is held on April 25 and commemorates Mark the Evangelist, also known as Saint Mark. Mark the Evangelist is an essential character in early Christianity and is the ascribed author of the Gospel of Mark. Mark the Evangelist is considered the guardian of the earth and harvests and is celebrated in several countries.
According to the Camden press, churchwarden Harold Lowe suggested the church name some years after its consecration. (Camden News, 5 August 1954) According to Lowe, the new church was called St Marks at a St Mark’s Day meeting. (Harold Lowe, File Notes, Camden Museum Archive)
Church of England authorities ‘licensed [the church] for divine service in 1913 and named [it] for St Mark’. (SOHI 2022)
By 1914 the church was known as the St Mark’s Mission Church. (Camden News, 13 August 1914) According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a mission church is not locally self-supporting. Still, it depends partially upon the support of mission funds from the more prominent religious organisation that established it.
Church governance
St Marks was part of the Church of England Parish of Narellan, St Paul’s Cobbitty and St Thomas’s Narellan. The rector of Cobbitty’s St Paul’s, Rev Canon Allnutt, conducted services at St Mark’s Church. (Cobbitty 1827-1927)
The first churchwardens were RA Cross, Thomas Albury and John Latty. By 1915 churchwardens were GM Gardner and T Albury, the minister’s warden was H Bellingham, and Miss Brain was the Sunday School teacher. (Camden News, 29 April 1915) Harold Lowe was the church auditor. (Camden News, 11 May 1916)
The church held its yearly vestry meeting, and the re-elected churchwardens for 1933 were T Albury, RA Cross and J Ross. (Camden News, 8 June 1933)
In 1940 the Narellan Parish Log reported that the rector decided to hold an evening service on the third Sunday of the month where he conducted a Lantern Picture Show. (Camden News, 7 November 1940)
This image shows the parishioners in 1955, which was likely taken by Ina Cameron around the same time as the Sunday School image. While a poor image, the charm and character of the period are clearly shown. Most parishioners were women and likely members of the church women’s guild. Gloves, hats and Sunday best were essential fashion items when attending church in the 1950s. (Camden Images)
First World War and Anzac Day
The First World War profoundly affected the church and the Elderslie community.
In 1915 a memorial service was held at St Mark’s for two Elderslie lads who ‘gave their lives for the Empire’ on the battlefield of the Great War and was held to an ‘overflowing’ congregation. They were Lance Corporal Eric Lyndon Lowe, Signaller, 18th Battalion and Bugler Milton Thornton. The local press reported that ‘beautiful wreaths’ were presented by Mrs Faithful Anderson of Camelot and one from the Cobbitty Rectory. Rev Canon Allnutt took the service, and his daughter, Alice, sang the ‘At Rest’ by Aylward during the offertory. An amount of £1/10/6d was collected for the Liverpool Camp Church Tent Fund. (Camden News, 28 October 1915)
The progress of the First World War and patriotic fundraising put pressure on the community and church parishioners. Yet despite ‘the many calls and patriotic funds’, church finances were pronounced ‘satisfactory’ at the annual 1916 vestry meeting. (Camden News, 11 May 1916)
St Mark’s Day coincided with Camden’s first Anzac Day in the Camden district in 1916. In 1919, the Anzac Day commemorative service at St Mark’s church ‘was crowded and especially attended by the families and friends of those who had met a soldier’s death’. (Camden News, 1 May 1919)
In 1934 Rev AF Pain celebrated the Festival of Saint Mark at the church, where parishioners presented ‘a bounteous supply of the fruits of the earth’ that was sent to Camden District Hospital. (Camden News, 15 February 1934) In 1937 there was a combined service for Anzac Day and the Festival of St Mark. (Camden News, 22 April 1937)
The services for Anzac Day commemoration and St Mark’s Day were split years after the Second World War. In 1952 the service with Holy Communion was held by Bishop EW Wilton from Cobbitty on Anzac Day, Friday 25 April 1952, at 9.30 am. The following Sunday, 27 April 1952, the church had the St Mark’s Festival Service. (Camden News, 24 April 1952)
Farewells and church anniversaries
The 10th anniversary of the church celebrations in 1912 was dampened by the departure of church founders Elizabeth Carpenter and her mother, Lydia.
According to rector Canon GH Allnutt, the Carpenter women had made an ‘immense contribution’ to the church’s foundation with service held once a month at Fernside while the church was being built. The rector presented Miss Carpenter with a gold watch for her efforts. She ‘was visibly affected’ as she thanked the assembly in ‘a simple words’ as the presentation had come as a ‘great surprise’. She said, ‘ she felt quite unworthy…as she had only tried to do her duty to the best of her ability’. (Camden News, 18 July 1912)
In 1939 the church lost its long-term organist when parishioner Olive Burford of Camden to Alan Tindall of Rockdale. As a token of thanks, the parishioners gave her a silver hot water jug. (Camden News, 17 August 1939)
In 1952 on the 50th anniversary of the church, attendances were reported as ‘encouraging’ in the Camden press. Bishop Wilton conducted the evening service and said there was a Sunday School and a congregation ‘growing in strength’. The organists were Miss L Cross and Mrs J Bradford. Churchwardens were CS McIntosh, H Rudd, N Hore and Mr Bradford. The supper was organised by parishioners: Mrs Childs, Mrs Teasdale, Miss Teasdale, Mrs Wrench, Mrs N Ferguson, Mrs C Dunk, Mrs R Dunk, Mrs Weiberle, Mrs Harris, and Mrs Wilton. (Camden News, 10 July 1952)
Improvement and additions
There were ‘improvements and additions’ to the church over the decades. (Camden News, 18 July 1912)
The churchwardens at St Thomas Narellan gave parishioners at St Mark’s the ‘old ‘John Oxley’ harmonium’ after they installed a new organ. (Camden News, 18 July 1912)
The church’s original shingle roof was replaced in 1912 with ‘short-sheet corrugated iron painted dark red oxide’. The ceiling and floors were also replaced. (SOHI 2022)
On the death of Canon Allnutt in 1919, Percy Butler was commissioned to construct a communion table in his memory. Local cabinet maker and carpenter Fred Carpenter had built additional seating, a prayer desk, a communion rail and a lecturn. (Harold Lowe, File Notes, Camden Museum Archive)
A vestry was later added to the building that could act as a chancel when there was a need for additional seating. (Harold Lowe, File Notes, Camden Museum Archive)
The St Mark’s Churchwomen’s Guild held the 1954 church fundraising fair with stalls selling ‘useful goods, including handicrafts suitable for ‘Christmas presents’ at the home of Mrs C Dunk in Luker Street. The fair was opened by Mrs A Pain, the wife of the former rector St Paul’s Church of England, Cobbitty, who held services at St Mark’s church between 1919 and 1940. (Camden News, 4 November 1954)
The construction of Warragamba Dam was advantageous for the church community when the former Nattai Post Office/general store building was brought up from Burragorang Valley and placed at the church’s rear as a hall. (The District Reporter, 2 February 2009). The Women’s Guild and the Elderslie community funded the relocation and fit-out of the hall as a kitchen. (The District Reporter, 16 February 2009; SOHI 2022))
In 1959 a meeting of churchwardens, the Women’s Guild and the rector resolved to create a special fund to finance the purchase of the land adjoining the existing church site. It was decided at the same meeting to repair the organ, which cost £24. (File Notes, Camden Museum archives) The kitchen was extended in 1961; in 1966, the Church of England purchased a small part of an adjoining property. (SOHI 2022) In 1968 a new hall was constructed on the site.
The addition of a new building on St Mark’s church site in 1955 was much anticipated by parishioners who provided voluntary labour for the construction. Images supplied by Ina Cameron, a local Elderslie resident. (Camden Images)
Funerals and remembrance services
Funerals and remembrance services were a time of community grieving and support, and the church had a central role in these events.
The death of local parishioners was always a loss to the church. A St Mark’s parishioner and ‘keen’ church worker Mrs Ellen Cross recently died aged 66. (Sydney Morning Herald, 6 January 1930) A stalwart of the St Mark’s Sunday School, Mrs FA Goodman died aged 60 years old. She had taken the Sunday School just days before admission to Camden District Hospital, where she died of pneumonia last Saturday, December 5. Mrs Goodman had ‘conducted’ the Sunday School from 1926 to her death. (Camden News, 10 December 1931)
St Mark’s churchwarden James Ross was killed by a motor car as he walked at night between the Cowpastures Bridge and the milk depot in 1938. (Camden News, 29 December 1938)
A remembrance service was held at St Mark’s on the death of Joyce Asimus, daughter of Mr and Mrs Roy Asimus, of ‘The Heights’ Elderslie, who died after a recent operation. Joyce was reportedly a ‘friendly, energetic and affectionate soul held a high place in esteem and affection of the neighbourhood’. The St Mark’s Churchwomen’s Guild was represented by Mrs Funnell Senr, Mrs Wilton, and Mrs Childs. (Camden News, 29 October 1953)
St Mark’s parishioner and Elderslie resident, 89-year-old Mr RA Cross of Macarthur Road Elderslie, died in 1954. Mr Cross had been a churchwarden since St Mark’s church foundation. The Camden press reported that Mr Cross and other parishioners attended St Marks Church within days of his death. Mr Cross was a retired brickmaker and made bricks for famous local properties, including Camelot, Carrington Hospital, and Pomare at Cobbitty. His funeral was held at St Thomas’s church at Narellan, with the service taken by Bishop Wilton and buried in Narellan cemetery. A week later, a remembrance service at St Mark’s was for this ‘faithful and regular worshipper’.(Camden News, 29 July 1854)
The funeral of Mrs Constance AM Ross of Elderslie, mother of Mrs Childs, was held at St Mark’s church in 1952. The Camden press reported that this was the first time a funeral service with the casket was held at the church in its 50-year history. (Camden News, 10 July 1952)
This is a sad image from 2011 of a church past its use-by date, all boarded up, unkempt and unloved. Yet it could still rouse the Elderslie community’s emotions to protect the building’s cultural heritage and the collective memories it possessed for them. The church building is up for sale. (I Willis)
Last service and the loss of a church
Over time, church parishioners died, old Elderslie families moved away, the church congregation grew smaller, and the parish could not financially support the church. Church authorities decided to ‘amalgamate St Mark’s with St Thomas‘s, Narellan, with the final service being held at St Mark’s being held on 21 October 2001. The church was then closed to sell the land’. (SOHI 2022)
In Elderslie, as elsewhere, the threatened loss of a local church often triggers a passionate response from the local community. The local church, even if unused, is a repository of collective memories and a sacred site that possesses a sense of place and community identity.
In 2009 there was a community outcry over a proposal to subdivide the land surrounding St Mark’s church, relocate the church building, demolish the church hall, and cut down the camphor laurel on the Camden’s Register of Significant Trees. (The District Reporter, 16 February 2009)
Passionate locals voiced their concerns, particularly about the state of the camphor laurel. Councillor Eva Campbell maintained that the church was ‘the most significant building in Elderslie’. (Macarthur Chronicle, 3 February 2009) Later reports show that the camphor laurel tree was planted to celebrate the church’s consecration in 1903.
In the end, Camden Council voted to cut down the tree and approved shifting the church across the existing site to allow the consolidation of three allotments into two. (The District Reporter, 16 February 2009; Macarthur Chronicle, 3 February 2009)
The Anglican Church deconsecrated St Marks in 2010. (SOHI 2022)
The removal of the camphor laurel tree adjacent to St Mark’s church in 2009 after approval by Camden Council. At the rear of the church site are the kitchen and hall in the process of demolition (I Willis)
The church site and buildings were sold to the private owners in 2011 and converted to a private residence where the new owners became the guardians of the community’s collective memories.
In 2022 a proposal by the private owners to extend the former church building generated public interest in maintaining the cultural heritage of the church’s history.
This charming image shows the current usage of the former St Mark’s church in 2022 is now in private hands and used as a residence. The character and integrity of the former church building are still intact, with the belfry, entry porch, and church building with sash windows clearly shown here. Adding a picket fence adds to the rustic nature of the original building. This image illustrates adaptive reuse that is outlined in the Burra Charter guidelines for heritage sites within Australia. (I Willis)
Updated on 28 April 2023. Originally posted on 25 November 2022.
The private English-style estate village of James and William Macarthur
The establishment of Camden, New South Wales, the town in 1840, was a private venture of James and William Macarthur, sons of colonial patriarch John Macarthur, at the Nepean River crossing on the northern edge of the family’s pastoral property of Camden Park. The town’s site was enclosed on three sides by a sweeping bend in the Nepean River and has regularly flooded the surrounding farmland and lower parts of the town.
John Macarthur on the cover of Australia’s Heritage 1970. The original oil painting of John Macarthur is held in SLNSW (I Willis, 2022)
The site of Camden was within the 5000 acres granted to John Macarthur by the 2nd Earl Camden [3.2], the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, in 1805, while Macarthur was in England on charges for duelling. Macarthur was a fractious quarrelsome self-promoter who arrived in NSW with his wife Elizabeth and family in 1790 as paymaster of the New South Wales Corps. The Corps (sometimes called The Rum Corps) was formed in England in 1789 as a permanent regiment of the British Army to relieve the New South Wales Marine Corps, which had accompanied the First Fleet to Australia in 1788 to fortify the colony of NSW.
The town’s site, as part of the Macarthur grants, was located on some of the finest farming country in the colony in the government Cowpastures reserve on the colonial frontier. The grants were part of the dispossession of traditional lands of the Dharawal people by the British settler colonial project and inevitably led to conflict and violence. Macarthur claimed that the town’s establishment threatened the security of his landholdings at Camden Park and opposed it during his lifetime. On his death in 1834, his sons had a different worldview and moved to establish an English-style estate village dominated by a church.
A fine Gothic-style church
The ridge-top location of St John’s Church (1840) on the southern end of the town meant that it towered over the town centre and had a clear line of sight to the Macarthur family’s Georgian mansion at Camden Park 2.6 miles to the southwest. The fine English Gothic-style church was funded mainly by the Macarthur family and has been the basis of the town’s iconic imagery. There were a number of large gentry estates built on convict labour in the surrounding farmland, the largest being the Macarthur family’s Camden Park of over 28,000 acres.
St John’s Anglican Church in its hilltop location at the top of John Street Camden. This image is by Charles Kerry in the 1890s (Camden Images)
Many immigrant families came to the area under Governor Bourke’s 1835 plan and settled on the gentry estates as tenant farmers, some establishing businesses in Camden. The first land sales in the village occurred in 1841, which stifled the growth of the existing European settlements in the area. The population of Camden grew from 242 in 1846 to 458 in 1856, although the gentry’s estates still dominated the village. Camden Park, for example, had a population of 900 in 1850.
English-style gentry
The English-style gentry practised philanthropy in Camden to maintain its moral tone. Elizabeth Macarthur Onslow, John Macarthur’s granddaughter, encouraged the maintenance of the proprieties 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. She also marked the memory of her late husband, Captain Onslow, by providing a public park in 1882 named after her husband (Onslow Park), which is now the Camden showground.
Transport hub
Camden became the district’s transport hub at the centre of the road network, primarily set by the pattern of land grants from the 1820s. The earliest villages in the district predated Camden and then looked to Camden for cultural and economic leadership as the district’s major centre. The arrival of the Camden tramway in 1882 meant that silver ore west of the district (1871) was shipped through the Camden railhead to the Main Southern Railway from Sydney.
The Camden Branch Line Locomotive Crossing the Nepean River Bridge 1900 Postcard (Camden Images)
Progress assured
Combined with rail access to markets, the town’s prosperity was assured by a series of technical and institutional innovations that transformed the dairy industry in the 1890s. In the 1920s, the Macarthur family set up the Camden Vale Milk Company and built a milk processing plant at the eastern end of the main street adjacent to the rail line. Whole milk was railed to Sydney and bottled under its label until the mid-1920s. Milk was delivered daily to the factory by horse and cart until the 1940s from local dairy farms.
Camden Milk Depot, trading as Camden Vale Milk Coop Ltd located at the northern end of Argyle Street adjacent to Camden Railway Station. (Camden Images)
Camden’s progress saw the construction of a new bank (1878), the commencement of weekly stock sales (1883), the formation of the Camden Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Society and the first Camden Show (1886), a new post and telegraph office (1898), the foundation of two weekly newspapers (Camden Times, 1879, Camden News, 1880), a new cottage hospital (1898), the formation of a fire brigade (1900), the opening of a telephone exchange (1910), the installation of reticulated gas (1912), electricity (1929), town water (1899) and the replacement of gas street lighting with electric lights (1932), and a sewerage scheme (1939). By 1933 the population of the town had grown to 2394.
First local council
The first attempt at local government in 1843 was unsuccessful. A meeting of local notables formed the municipality of Camden at a public meeting in 1883. Still, it was not until 1889 that the municipality was proclaimed, covering 7,000 acres and including Camden and the neighbouring village of Elderslie. Nine townsmen were elected aldermen at the first election that year, and the first meeting was held at the School of Arts. In 1993 the Camden Municipal Council eventually became the Council of Camden.
In 2014 this is the head office of Camden Council in the former Victorian gentleman’s townhouse built by Henry Thompson. (Camden Images)
Street names
Camden’s 1840 street grid is still intact today, with streets named after members of the Macarthur family – John Street, Elizabeth, Edward Street – and NSW colonial notables – Oxley Street, Broughton Street, Mitchell Street. The main highway between Sydney and Melbourne (the Hume Highway) passed along the main street (Argyle Street), until it was re-routed in 1976. The town’s business centre still has several Victorian and Art Deco shopfronts.
Some charming Federation and Californian bungalows in the church ridge-top precinct were the homes of the Camden elite in the early 20th century. The precinct is the site of Macarthur Park (1905), which was dedicated to the townsfolk by Elizabeth Macarthur Onslow and contained the town’s World War One cenotaph (donated by the Macarthur family).
John Street heritage precinct
John Street runs north-south downhill to the floodplain from the commanding position of St John’s church. Lower John Street is the location of the Italianate house Macaria (c1842), St Paul’s Catholic church and the government buildings associated with the Camden police barracks (1878) and courthouse (1857), and Camden Public School (1851). This area also contains the oldest surviving Georgian cottage in the town area, Bransby’s Cottage (1842). Lower John Street has the Camden Temperance Hall (1867), which later served as Camden Fire Station (1916–1993), and the School of Arts (1866), which served as the Camden Town Hall, while the rear of the building was occupied for a time by Camden Municipal Council.
Camden School of Arts located in John Street PReeves c1800s (CIPP)
Volunteerism
Community voluntary organisations have been part of Camden’s life from the town’s foundation. In the late 1800s, they were male-dominated, usually led by the landed gentry, and held informal political power through patronage. James Macarthur sponsored the Camden School of Arts (1865) and Agricultural, Horticultural & Industrial Society (1886), later called the Camden Show Society, while the non-conformists sponsored various lodges and the temperance movement. A small clique of well-off local women established several conservative women’s organisations after Federation. Their social position supported their husbands’ political activities, and the influence of the Macarthur family was felt in these organisations, for example, the Camden Red Cross and Country Women’s Association.
The women of the Camden Red Cross at their weekly street stall in Argyle Street Camden in the 1920s. The women ran the stall for decades and raised thousands of pounds for local and national charities. (Camden Images)
Many men and women from Camden and the district saw military service in the Boer War and later World War One and Two when residents set up local branches of national patriotic funds and civil defence organisations. On the outskirts of the town, there were active defence establishments during World War II, including an airbase, army infantry, and training camps.
Coal mining
Economic prosperity from coal mining in the district’s western part challenged old hierarchies in the postwar years, replacing the old colonially-based rural hegemony. New community organisations like Rotary and later the Chamber of Commerce fostered business networks in the town. The Camden Historical Society (1957) promoted the town’s past and later opened a local museum (1970).
Camden Museum Library building in John Street Camden, where the Blue Plaque with being located, recognising the efforts of the Camden Red Cross sewing circles in both World War One and World War Two. (I Willis, 2008)
Urbanisation
The New South Wales state government decreed that the town would become part of a growth area in the form of ‘new cities’ under the Macarthur Growth Centre Plan (1973), modelled on the British Garden City concept. Increasing urbanisation threatened the town’s identity and the number of community members formed by the Camden Residents’ Action Group (1973).
Mount Annan suburban development, which is part of Sydney’s urban sprawl c2005 (Camden Images)
In 2007 Camden was the administrative centre of the Camden Local Government Area, which had a population of over 51,000 (2006) and an area of 201 square kilometres. The Camden LGA became part of the state government’s Sydney South West Growth Centre, planned to house 500,000 new residents, and is one of Australia’s fastest-growing urban areas.
Wave of nostalgia
Increasing levels of Sydney’s urbanisation have continued, threatened the loss of rural landscapes around the town, and awakened a wave of nostalgia. The NSW state government created the Camden Town Conservation Area (2008) based on the mid-20th century country town that aimed at preserving the town’s integrity and material fabric.
Macarthur Regional Tourist Promotion by Camden and Campbelltown Councils
The Oran Park Library has several public artworks that commemorate the former Oran Park motorway on the site. These extraordinary public art installations celebrate the memories of the Oran Park Raceway, which closed in 2010.
Oran Park Library 2019 at night (I Willis)
The commissioning of the artworks was a collaboration between Guppy Art Management & Camden Council.
The Artworks
Moto Caelifera Eclectica by James Corbett
James Corbett describes himself as a car part sculptor and is based in Brisbane, Queensland.
James Corbett created these works in 2018, and he describes this installation as a ‘challenging commission’ on his blog. He writes:
to create two large racing grasshoppers in double quick time for the new Oran Park library near Camden in western Sydney. This used to be a rural area, but was known to me since I was a child for just one reason. It had a car racing track. All the big names raced there, and I used to rabidly read all about their exploits in my eagerly awaited, latest copy of ‘Racing Car News.’ I couldn’t get enough of that stuff when I was twelve years old.
The track is gone and the pastures are disappearing under houses, but there are still just enough paddocks of dry yellow grass about to give a feel for the history of the district. I wanted to pay tribute to both, that soon to be gone rural feel, and the rich racing history. Those dry grassy areas make me think of grasshoppers, flies, locusts and Hereford cattle. And Insects seem sort of mechanical, and built for a purpose. Form following function, like racing cars. Well the ones I like anyway.
Corbett created two works as part of the installation. He calls one ‘The Green Kawasaki Grasshopper’ and it is attached to the wall. In constructing the works, he writes:
The Formula cars of the era had riveted aluminium sheet chassis, and I wanted to reflect that. Hence the riveted abdomens. I wanted them to look like they could work like machines. I cut up a yellow Hyundai and found a green I liked on a Daihatsu. When I found a Kawasaki engine for the green one, it had to be given the late Greg Handsford’s race number 2.
‘The Green Kawasaki Grasshopper’ by James Corbett 2018 (I Willis, 2022)
The second hanging artwork Corbett calls ‘Beechy Grasshopper’ and it has a 4.8-metre wingspan with wings made of ‘glass car windows’. More information about the installation can be found on Corbett’s website.
‘Beechy Grasshopper’ by James Corbett 2018 (I Willis, 2022)
Tracks by Danielle Mate Sullivan 2018 (I Willis, 2022)
Mr Rev Head The Local by Freya Jobbins
Freya Jobbins is a Sydney-based contemporary Australian multidisciplinary artist whose art practice includes assemblage, installation, video, collage and printmaking.
‘Mr Rev Head the local’ by Freya Jobbins 2018 (I Willis 2022)
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Information Label for ‘Mr Rev Head the local’. (I Willis, 2018)
Speedster by Justin Sayarath
Sydney-based artist Justin Sayarath has several installations around the metropolitan area where he ‘combines both his technical skill of visual arts and graphic design to create and collaborate in the public and commercial domains’.
‘Speedster’ by Justin Sayarath 2018 (I Willis 2018)
The official opening in 2018
The mingling crowd at the opening of the Oran Park Library on 30 June 2018 with the grasshopper on the wall above the visitors. (I Willis, 2018)
Updated on 2 May 2023. Originally posted 5 September 2022.
Camden Country Quilters Guild Cowpastures Heritage Quilt
Hanging on the wall in the Camden Library is a quilt, but no ordinary quilt. It is a hand-made quilt that had previously hung in the foyer of the Camden Civic Centre for many years. The quilt celebrated the Cowpastures Bicentenary (1995) and was made by members of the Camden Country Quilters Guild.
A panel in the Camden Cowpastures Bicentennial Quilt showing a map of the Cowpastures using an applique hanging in the Camden Library (I Willis, 2022)
The Cowpastures Quilt is a fascinating historical document and artefact and tells an interesting story of the district.
The Cowpastures Review stated:
The Cowpastures Heritage Quilt, which is featured on the front page, is unique. It is a product of the Camden Country Quilters Guild. It was unveiled by His Excellency, The Governor of New South Wales, Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair on the 19th of February 1995, as part of the opening of the Cowpastures Bicentennial. It was given by the Guild to the Camden Council, which has it displayed in the Camden Civic Centre.
Cover of Cowpastures Review displaying the Camden Cowpastures Bicentennial Quilt Issue Vol 1 1995. (I Willis)
The Cowpastures Bicentennial Committee created postcards and notepaper featuring the quilt that was sold at Gledswood Homestead and the Camden Library.
Postcard of Cowpastures Heritage Quilt 1995 (Camden Museum)
Quilts were practical items with social value
Quilts have sentimental or commemorative value and are examples of needlework skills and techniques, and the use of specific fabrics used in their designs.
As a technique, quilting has been used for a diverse range of objects, from clothing to intricate objects such as pincushions. Along with patchwork, quilting is most often associated with its use for bedding.
Quilting first appeared in England in the 13th century, reached a peak in the 17th century and can be traced back to 3000BCE. The word quilt means a ‘bolster or cushion’.
According to the V&A museum, a quilt is usually a bedcover of two layers of fabric with padding or wadding in between held together by lines of stitching based on a pattern or design. Very fine decorative quilts often become family heirlooms and are passed down through generations. In a domestic situation, women made quilts to celebrate ‘life occasions’ like births and weddings.
The V&A states that quilts are often quite large and associated with social events where people share the sewing. In North America quilting was a popular craft amongst Dutch and English settlers and quilts were made as part of marriage dowry for a young woman.
Quilting is often associated with patchwork where the quilt was made of scraps of fabric or ‘extending the life of working clothing’.
Convict women and quilting – The Rajah Quilt
In the National Gallery of Australia is a quilt made in 1841 by convict women transported on the Rajah from Woolwich to Hobart. According to blogger Bernadette, a descendant of one of the women who made the quilt, it is one of the most important textiles in Australia and world history.
The Rajah Quilt (NGA)
The textile is called the Rajah Quilt and was organised as part of the scheme organised by prison reformer Elizabeth Fry’s British Ladies Society for promoting the reformation of female prisoners. The quilt is made up of over 2000 pieces of fabric and it has been described as
a patchwork and appliquéd bed cover or coverlet. It is in pieced medallion or framed style: a popular design style for quilts in the British Isles in the mid 1800’s. There is a central field of white cotton decorated with appliquéd (in broderie perse) chintz birds and floral motifs. This central field is framed by 12 bands or strips of patchwork printed cotton. The quilt is finished at the outer edge by white cotton decorated with appliquéd daisies on three sides and inscription in cross stitch surrounded by floral chintz attached with broderie perse on the fourth…
On the Rajah’s arrival in Hobart, the quilt was presented to the governor’s wife Lady Jane Franklin by the 29 women who sewed it on the voyage to Van Dieman’s Land. Lady Franklin sent the quilt back to England to Elizabeth Fry and then it was lost. It was rediscovered in a Scottish attic and returned to Australia in 1989 and placed in the collection of the National Gallery of Australia.
The quilt’s story is one of hope at a time of despair and disempowerment from a group of women hidden in the shadows of history. A type of radical history.
Cowpastures Quilt tells a story
Quilts often told a story and in the V&A collection, there are a number of significant quilts telling Biblical stories, scenes from world events and the 1851 Great Exhibition.
The Cowpasture Quilt tells the story of the Cowpastures on its Bicentenary. The story was represented in the different panels in the quilt created by the Guild members who were part of the project. The quilt’s construction was a community effort and each sewer has their name sewn into the quilt.
Camden Cowpastures Bicentennial Quilt hanging in Camden Library in John Street Camden (I Willis, 2022)
The significance of the individual panels in the quilt was explained by the Cowpastures Review and it stated:
The central pane – the discovery of the Hottentot cow. The left pane – The Aboriginal influence, mining, the map of the ‘Cow Pastures’, representing flora and fauna and the Stonequarry Bridge at Picton. The right panel – St John’s Church, John and Elizabeth Macarthur, Camden Park Estates, Belgenny Farm, Gledswood Homestead and merino sheep and vineyards. The bottom panel – John Street, Camden, including ‘Macaria’ and representations of horticulture venture in the area. Not visible in the photograph in the names of the ‘quilters’ and some surprise ‘first family’ names.
Title panel in Camden Cowpastures Bicentennial Quilt hanging in Camden Library (I Willis, 2022)
Fashion quilting
According to the V&A quilting fell into decline in the early 20th century under the influence of modernism. It found a revival in the 1960s as part of the hippie culture and the art community and is firmly part of the art space.
Quilts’ inherent associations with warmth, nostalgia, and community make them particularly appealing now, in the midst of the pandemic and widespread division and inequity. Perhaps this fraught reality can account for, at least in part, why contemporary artists are drawn to quilting as a means to express themselves. The tactility of quilted fabric inevitability conjures domesticity, and every stitch—every precisely placed patchwork—brings us back to that feeling of the comfort and safety of home
Davis-Marks writes that contemporary American artists are engaging with the craft of quilting and building on the ‘enduring and complex history of quiltmaking’. In the US context quilting was practised by slaves, Indigenous Americans and other marginalised peoples as a form of expression and craftwork for the everyday.
An applique panel of the Cowpastures Quilt shows the Regency mansion on Camden Park still estate built in the 1830s. The panel uses figures to tell a narrative about the foundational story of Australia and the Camden district as part of a settler society. The Cowpasture Quilt is on display at Camden Library (I Willis, 2022)
Davis-Marks writes that the ancient craft of quiltmaking has resonance for contemporary artists in the age of social media and illustrates a broader appeal of working with traditional mediums of textiles, ceramics, knitting and other crafts.
In a January 2020 article for Artsy, writer and curator Glenn Adamson reflected “At a time when our collective attention is dangerously adrift,” Adamson wrote, “trapped in the freefall of our social-media feeds and snared in a pit of fake facts, handwork provides a firm anchor. It cannot be spun. It gives us something to believe in.”
Artists are using quilts as a lens to look into the dark history of the past. Sometimes these are called ‘story quilts’ where they tell a story in a narrative and figures. Artist Faith Ringgold‘s work often explores notions of ‘community and ancestry’ and said that she bonded through the experience of jointly sewing quilts with her mother.
The Cowpastures Quilt is a ‘story quilt’ and tells the story of our past as part of a settler society and the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. The quilt uses figures and narrative to examine the past through the lens of the women who constructed the quilt in 1995. More than this the Cowpasture quilt is a public statement and an affirmation of community through the collective efforts of local women who undertook the sewing project. The collaborative efforts of the Camden Quilters created a significant piece of public art and a narrative statement of who we are through the use of history.
A panel of the Cowpasture Quilt shows the Henry Kitchen cottage from 1819 still standing today as part of the Belgenny Farm complex which is one of the most important colonial farming complexes still intact in Australia on the former Camden Park estate of the Macarthur family. The quilt is on display at the Camden Library. (I Willis, 2022)
Updated 26 August 2022; originally posted 16 August 2022
Hidden out of the way in the back streets of Mount Annan is a memorial to Governor Hunter.
This memorial is located in the Governors Green reserve in Baragil Mews, Mount Annan.
The view of the entrance off Baragil Mews to Governors Green Heritage Park at Mount Annan with the statue of Governor Hunter in the distance. The park is set in a bush reserve adjacent to residential housing. (2022 IW)
This is another hidden and largely forgotten memorial to the Cowpastures in the local area.
A bronze statue of Governor Hunter is at the centre of a circular colonnade with artworks celebrating the Cowpastures.
The land developer AV Jennings commissioned Lithgow sculptor and artist Antony Symons (1942-2018) in 1995 to construct the work.
The view of the statue of Governor Hunter as you approach it from Baragil Mews. The statue is at the centre of a circular colonnade with other parts of the artwork on the fencing. (IW 2022)
Governor Hunter and the Cow Pastures
The story of the Cowpastures begins in 1787 with the First Fleet and HMS Sirius, which collected 4 cows and 2 bulls at the Cape of Good Hope on the way out to New South Wales. After they arrived in the new colony, the stock escaped within 5 months of being landed and disappears.
In 1795 the story of the cattle is told to a convict hunter by an Aboriginal, who then tells an officer and informs Governor Hunter. Hunter sends Henry Hacking, an old seaman, to check out the story. After confirmation Governor John Hunter and Captain Waterhouse, George Bass and David Collins headed off from Parramatta, crossing the Nepean River on 17 November 1795. They find good farming land covered with good pasture and lagoons with birds. After climbing a hill (Mt Taurus), they spotted the cattle and named the Cowpastures.
Governor John Hunter marked area on maps ‘Cow Pasture Plains’ in the region of Menangle and elsewhere on maps south of Nepean. The breed was the Cape cattle from the First Fleet, and the district was declared out of bounds to all by 1806; the herd had grown to 3,000.
British colonialism and a settler society
Governor Hunter was part of the settler society project and the country’s dispossession of First Nations people. Hunter was a representative of British imperialism and how it implemented its policies on the colonial frontier of New South Wales.
The Cowpastures was a site of frontier violence and the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous land in the early 19th century.
Governor Hunter Statue
The statue of Governor Hunter in Governors Green Reserve at Mount Annan. The statue was commissioned by land developer AV Jennings and Lithgow sculptor Antony Symons was engaged to complete the artwork in 1995. (2022, I Willis)
Plaques below the Governor Hunter statue
The plaque on the plinth at the base of the Governor Hunter statue celebrates the reserve’s opening in 1995. (2022, I Willis)
Plaque inscription
Governor’s Green Heritage Park was presented to the people of Camden by AV Jennings and was officially opened by the Mayor of Camden Councillor FH Brooking on the 6th April 1995 in celebration of the centenary year of the discovery of the herd in 1795 at Cowpastures Camden.
Camden Mayor Frank Brooking
Frank Brooking served as Camden’s mayor from 1993 to 1997. Mr Brooking was a motor dealer whose business was located on the corner of Cawdor Road and Murray Streets and sold Morris and Volkswagon brands. Frank was a community-minded person who volunteered for the Rural Fire Service, Camden Rotary Club, Camden Show Society, Camden Area Youth Service and other organisations. He died in 2013 aged 74.
Plaque Governor Hunter statue
A plaque highlighting the history of the decision of Governor Hunter in 1795 to name the Cowpastures. The naming of the site was an act of dispossession of Dharawal country. Hunter was an agent of the British Colonial Office and its imperial interests in the settler society project of New South Wales. (2022, I Willis)
Plaque inscription
Governor John Hunter (1737-1821), Governor of New South Wales September 1795 – November 1799.
‘On the evening of my arrival…, I was directed to the place where the herd was feeding,… we ascended a hill, from which we observed an herd…feeding in a beautiful pasture in the valley I was now anxious to ascertain of what breed they were, whether natives… or the descendants of those we had so long lost, but in this attempt we were disappointed by being discovered and attached most furiously by a large and very fierce bull, which rendered it necessary for our own safety, to fire at him. Such as his violence and strength, that six balls were fired through, before any person dared approach him. I was now satisfied that they were the Cape of Good Hope breed…. offspring of these we had lost in 1788, at this time we counted sixty-one in number, young and old. They have chosen a beautiful part of the country to graze in…
Historical Records of Australia, Governor Hunter to the Duke of Portland, 21st December 1795.
AV Jennings.
Other elements of the artwork
Artwork by Antony Symons of a horned cow located on the collonaded surroundings of the Governor Hunter statue (2022, I Willis)
Artwork by Antony Symons of the Cowpastures on the colonnade surrounding the statue of Governor Hunter. The artwork comprises a settlers slab hut, Cumberland Woodland, and a farmer’s cart. The cart carries the artist’s signature. (2022 I Willis)Artist Antony Symons’s signature is located at the bottom of the cart on the colonnade fencing. (I Willis, 2022)
A regal-looking Governor Hunter in full naval uniform. Hunter held the rank of Vice-Admiral of the Royal Navy and succeeded Arthur Phillip as the second Governor of New South Wales, serving from 1795 to 1800. The artwork was commissioned by land developer AV Jennings who engaged Lithgow sculptor Antony Symons. (I Willis, 2022)
Updated on 21 May 2023. Originally posted on 13 June 2022 as ‘Cowpastures memorial at Mount Annan’
Jeff McGill, Rachel. Allen & Unwin 2022, Sydney. ISBN 9781760879983.
Tonight I had the privilege of attending the book launch for local author and raconteur Jeff McGill’s Rachel at Mary Sheil Centre, St Patrick’s College at Campbelltown.
McGill’s Rachel tells the story of Jeff’s great-great-grandmother from the Coonabarabran area of NSW. Rachel Inglis (Kennedy) was known as Rachel of the Warrumbungles.
Cover Jeff McGill’s Rachel (A&U)
McGill’s Rachel had been brewing for about 40 years and it was only in the 2020 lockdown when Jeff’s freelance work dried up that he got mobile on writing the book.
A friend advised him to send a couple of chapters to two publishers. He sent the work to Allen and Unwin and a small publisher in Melbourne. Allen & Unwin got back to him in two days and wanted to know if he had more material, so he sent off chapters 3 & 4. The rest is history.
Jeff often visited Rachel Kennedy’s farm at Box Ridge and listened to local storytellers at Coonamble and Coonabarabran. He is the sort of writer who walks the ground and soaks up the ghosts of the past. He allowed the landscape to talk to him and embedded himself in the spirit of place.
The late Mrs. Inglis was one who rarely gave a thought to herself, her one object in life being to help others. She was always to be found at the bedside of almost every sick person in the Warrumbungle district, and has been known to have ridden as far as 20 miles in the middle of the night to reach some sufferer, even when far from well herself. Considering that all her grand efforts were done in an age when motor cars were unknown, it stamps this fine old pioneer as one of the world’s best — a race that is fast vanishing from our midst. The deceased lady had reached the great age of 85 years. (MG&NWR, 11 April 1930)
At the time of Rachel’s death, it was usual for the country press to publish any sort of obituary of a woman unless she was white and from an influential rural family. The country press was a very white-male institution.
The obituary published in the Mudgee press was an acknowledgement that Rachel was a true local identity and bush character well known in the area. A rare feat indeed. The bush was a male-dominated landscape where women remained in the shadows.
Rachel did not fit the stereotypical 19th-century woman. Yet, she did not seek recognition for her community work and never received it in any public fashion.
The local community understood Rachel’s contribution to their lives and when she was buried in the Presbyterian section of the Gulargambone Cemetery, it was
in the presence of one of the largest gatherings, ever seen at the cemetery. The Rev. G. Innes Ritter, of Coonamble, performed the last sad rites at the graveside. (MG&NWR, 11 April 1930)
Rachel Inglis’s (Kennedy) family and home at Box Ridge near Coonabarabran in NSW c.1890s (Jeff McGill)
It was very common for women from the rural under-class to disappear into the shadows of history without any acknowledgement of their existence. The lives of some of these women are probably best reflected in stories like Henry Lawson’s The Drover’s Wife(1892), a piece of Australian Gothic fiction. Author Samantha Leersen writes:
‘The Drover’s Wife,’ and the fears felt by its protagonist, presents a fictitious account of the real concerns experienced by settler Australians.
‘The Drovers Wife’ by Russell Drysdale (1945) and the author Henry Lawson 1902 (1867-1922) (UoS)
Rachel’s story has many parallels with Lawson’s The Drover’s Wife.
Rachel Kennedy stood out on a wild frontier dominated by men… her extraordinary and unputdownable pioneering story is told for the first time
‘Just a girl, but when it came to chasing wild horses nobody questioned Rachel Kennedy’s skill in a saddle. What raised the eyebrows was the type of saddle she used: a man’s.
Rachel Kennedy was a colonial folk hero.
She also built rare friendships with Aboriginal people, including a lifelong relationship with her ‘sister’ Mary Jane Cain.
Meticulously researched and written with compelling energy, this is a vivid and at times heartbreaking story of a pioneering woman who left a legacy that went well beyond her lifetime.
Cover Jeff McGill’s Rachel 2022
Emerging from the shadows of history
The book is a ripping yarn about the colonial frontier and the role of women in early New South Wales. Another woman emerges from the shadows of history and we are allowed to understand their true contribution to the settler story of our nation.
Updated 2 June 2022. Originally posted 1 June 2022.
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)
Camden History Notes 
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