A Camden connection to the first railway line in New South Wales

August 12, 2022August 13, 2022 camdenhistorynotes

The Sydney Railway Company

According to Alan Birch writing in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Sydney Railway Company was incorporated in 1849 with capital of £100,000 to build a railway line between Sydney and Parramatta and promised an optimistic return on capital of 8% (Birch 1957).

Camden connections to the railway

One of the directors of the Sydney Railway Company was Thomas Barker who established Maryland at Bringelly in the 1850s. He developed the farm Maryland as a Sydney gentleman’s country retreat and started building his hilltop homestead in 1854. Barker was a skilled engineer and millwright and built a large windmill at Darlinghurst in 1826. He had extensive landholdings in the Yass District, on the Goulburn Plains and along the Murrumbidgee, and our local area in the Cowpastures. A successful Sydney businessman and philanthropist, he was one of the earliest promoters of railways in New South Wales and, along with a number of other colonial gentlemen, paid for the survey between Sydney and Goulburn.

Another company director was Charles Cowper, a New South Wales politician, who owned Wivenhoe. Cowper was manager of the railway but quit when the NSW colonial government appointed the attorney-general as company president. The company ran into financial issues with cost over-runs as the price of land rose during the gold rush. The government extended a loan to the company of £150,000 and appointed three additional directors. Cowper returned to politics and convinced the government to take over the floundering project, which it did in 1854. The company had the honour of being the first railway company that was nationalised in the British Empire. Cost over-runs meant that the 1849 estimate of £2,348 a mile eventually blew-out to over £40,000 a mile. (Birch 1957)

A forgotten anniversary of Sydney’s Central Railway Station

26 September 1855

On 26 September 1855, the first train left the Sydney terminus, a ‘tin shed’, with great pomp and ceremony and thus began the great railways of New South Wales. The ‘tin shed’ railway terminus was replaced by two further railway station buildings, one opened in 1874, and the current imposing Victorian edifice of brick and sandstone in 1906.

The current 1906 Central Railway Station is the third station on the site and is a grand Victorian structure in the tradition of British railway stations demonstrating to the world the importance of rail travel in New South Wales at the beginning of the 20^th century.

A marvellous day goes down in history

The colonial newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald reported on the 1855 railway opening in glowing terms as a marvel. The Herald reporter maintained that it demonstrated how the colony of New South Wales could match the rest of the world with a magnificent achievement, only a decade after convict transportation had been abolished. The newspaper report started this way:

The event yesterday was the triumph, not only of science over natural difficulties, but of the spirit of enlightenment and civilisation over prejudice and worldly mindedness. The great agent of civilization, the best and most effective servant progress, has been retained by the antipodean colonies of Australia within the same quarter century in which he became the liveried civilized vassal Europe. We have established a railway in this colony – we have achieved the great distinction which ranks us with those country who live and progress under impulses which modern science has seemed to indicate will work out the destinies of our race. (SMH, 27 September 1855)

The importance of the event to New South Wales cannot be under-estimated only 32 years after the world’s first public railway. The Stockton and Darlington Railway was the first public railway to use steam locomotives and take passengers. The line opened in 1823 and eventually closed in 1863.

The remains of the first Sydney railway station in 1871. The platform on the RHS later became the George Street Platform (No 11) (SARNSW)

Tin Shed

The original site of the 1855 ‘tin shed’ station was in ‘Cleveland Paddock’ located between Cleveland and Devonshire Streets and known as Redfern Station as it was near Redfern. The present Redfern station was officially called Eveleigh, yet the name Redfern Station for the Sydney Terminal stuck for both the first and second ‘Sydney’ stations. It was indeed a ‘tin shed’ – a corrugated iron shed with a 30m long single wooden platform and was the terminus for the line for passengers from Parramatta. (Upton 2013)

According to Sydney Trains, the 1855 terminus was south of the present Central Railway Station, on the south side of the Devonshire Street tunnel. The oldest surviving structure from this period, and the oldest surviving structure on the New South Wales rail system, is the ‘overbridge’ running under Railway Square to Darling Harbour. Last used as a railway in 1984 it is now known as the Goods Line and is part of Sydney’s urban walkways, and an extension of the existing Devonshire Street pedestrian tunnel.

21-gun salute

At the official opening, the Governor’s Vice-Regal train left the Sydney terminus at 11.20 am to a 21-gun salute and great cheers from the crowd. Over 3,500 passengers travelled on the train service between Sydney and Parramatta Junction at Granville on the first day, with intermediate stations at Newtown, Ashfield, Burwood and Homebush. Trains left the Sydney terminal at 9, 11, 12, 1, 4.45, and 5 and departed from Parramatta Junction at 10 am in the morning and 2, 3, 4 and 5.30 in the afternoon. (Birch 1957)

The journey of 14 miles took around 50 minutes and first-class tickets cost 4/-, Second 3/-, and Third 2/-.

According to State Archives and Records in the first full year of operation, the rail service was used by over 350,000 passengers.

Toing and froing on rail gauge

The rail gauge used on the project determined the future of railways in New South Wales for the next 150 years. Initially, the Sydney Railway Company hired Irish-born engineer FW Shields who favoured 5 ft 6 in, but in 1850 he persuaded the colonial government to change to the Irish national gauge 5 ft 3 ins, which the British Government agreed to in 1851. Shields quit after a dispute in 1850 and Scottish engineer J Wallace was appointed. Wallace preferred the British Standard Gauge for 4 ft 8½ ins and in 1853 orders were forwarded to Great Britain for rolling stock, locomotives and rails on the British Standard Gauge. The rail gauge has remained the same ever since.

Locomotive No 1

One of the locomotives ordered from Great Britain in 1853 was Locomotive No 1 and is on display at the Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo. According to the Powerhouse Museum, the locomotive was built in

England by Robert Stephenson & Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne, designed by J. E. McConnell of the London and North-Western Railway Company, and is a very rare survivor of a McConnell goods express locomotive of the early 1850s.

The locomotive arrived with four others in January 1855 and worked the line for 22 years. It was withdrawn from service in 1877 having hauled passengers and freight between Sydney, Campbelltown, Penrith and Richmond.

The locomotive is considered to be extremely rare and the only example of its type in the world.

Railway fever

New South Wales did not have the first steam railway in Australia, that honour went to the colony of Victoria. According to the National Museum of Australia, the first steam railway line opened in Melbourne on 12 September 1854. and ran between Flinders Street Station to Sandridge, now known as Port Melbourne. It was 2.5-mile (about four-kilometre) long and operated by the Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay Railway Company. A steam engine was made by Melbourne’s Robertson, Martin and Smith Engineering Works and it was the first to be produced in the Southern Hemisphere. The line is still in use today and is part of Melbourne’s light rail tram services.

The desire for a railway in New South Wales was not new and promoters, including Thomas Barker, had lobbied for a railway line from Sydney to Goulburn was first proposed in 1846. (SMH, 27 September 1855)

The first sod

The first sod on the Sydney-Parramatta railway was turned on 3 July 1850 in the Cleveland Paddock by the Hon Mrs Keith Stewart in the ‘presence of his late Excellency Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy and a large concourse of people’. (SMH, 27 September 1855) The inclement weather with continuous rain was a warning and foreboding of the difficulties the project would encounter over the next five years.

The first section of the railway was constructed between Ashfield and Haslem’s Creek at a cost of £10,000. Works included earthworks, fencing and bridges for a single line and interestingly did not include the cost of the rails from the United Kingdom. Progress was slow and ran into problems straight away with labour shortages after the discovery of gold at Bathurst in 1852. The contractor ‘abandoned the contract’ when labour costs escalated and not even an offer by the colonial government of an increase of 30% in funding was not enough to save the project. (SMH, 27 September 1855)

Ceremony of turning the first turf of the first railway in Australia, by the Hon. Mrs. Keith Stewart … [picture] / from an original sketch by John Rae Esqre. Sydney Mail, October 1877. (NLA)

References

Birch, A. (1957). “The Sydney Railway Company, 1848-1855.” Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Australian Historical Society 3: 49-92.

Upton, S. (2013) “Central Railway Station: Through the Lens.”

Updated 13 August 2022; Originally posted 12 August 2022

1920s · Argyle Street · Cultural Heritage · Engineering Heritage · Heritage · Highways · History · Hume Highway · Infrastructure · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Memorial · Memorials · Memory · Mileposts · Monuments · Place making · Public art · Re-enactments · Service utilities · Storytelling · Technology · The Great South Road · Tourism · Transport · Travel · Utilities · Wayfinding

Capturing the distance of the past

November 13, 2021November 28, 2021 camdenhistorynotes

Camden Mileposts

On the Camden Town Centre edges, there are two white concrete posts with numbers and letters. What are they, and what do the letters mean?

These white concrete posts are mileposts from when the Hume Highway ran up the centre of Camden along Argyle Street. The letters indicate destinations, and the numbers are distance in miles. These items are part of Camden’s engineering heritage.

A concrete milepost on the southern end of the Camden Town Centre on the road verge of the former Hume Highway now the Old Hume Highway. (I Willis, 2021)

The letters: M is Mittagong, S is Sydney, L is Liverpool and C is Camden. The distance is a mile: an imperial unit of measure from before the time of metric measurement. The mile here is a statute mile which is 5280 feet or 1.609 km, as opposed to a nautical mile used in air and sea transport and is different.

The English mile

Mileposts dated back to the Roman Empire and were placed alongside the Roman roads. Distances were measured from the city of Rome. The mile originated from the Roman mille passus, or “thousand paces,” which measured 5,000 Roman feet.

The first mileposts along English roads appeared in 1593 and were standardised in England under the reign of Elizabeth I. The English mile was a different length from the Scottish mile and the Irish mile. These measures were not standardised in the British Commonwealth and the US until 1959. (Sydney Morning Herald, 22 August 1935. https://www.britannica.com/science/mile)

In the colony of New South Wales, the first sandstone milestones were located on the Parramatta, Liverpool and South Head Roads from 1816 on the instructions of Governor Macquarie. Milestones provided accurate reference marks along with the expanding public road system for travellers on coaches. (Crofts and Crofts, 2013)

Macquarie Obelisk

In the colonial period, Governor Macquarie’s Obelisk of Distances was erected in 1818 as the official starting point for all distances in NSW. It was located in what was then the centre of Sydney and is now Macquarie Place. The monument was also ‘a symbolic peg’ as the furthest extent of the British Empire in the early 1800s.

Obelisk of Distances in Macquarie Place Sydney designed by Francis Greenway and built-in 1818 under the orders of Governor Macquarie c1926 (SLNSW)

The placement of milestones in colonial NSW set a precedent. They were placed along the left hand or southern side of the roadway with the destination facing Sydney. The posts were meant to be seen by travellers coming from either direction for the benefit of stagecoach drivers to measure their distance from Sydney. They also ensured that the driver was on the correct road as many were just bush tracks. (Crofts and Crofts, 2013)

Concrete mileposts

The two concrete mileposts in Camden were part of the road improvements by the NSW Department of Main Roads in 1934.

The decision to implement a programme of mileposting followed the first annual conference of state road authorities in February 1934 held in Melbourne. The meeting decided to adopt uniform national procedures for mileposting and road warning signs for roadworks, among other matters. It was felt that uniformity of services would help interstate travellers. (DMR, 1934)

A concrete milepost on the northern entry to the Camden Town Centre on the roadside verge of the former Hume Highway that ran along Argyle Street Camden. (I Willis, 2021)

In 1934 the department allocated £134 to the program in the Sydney area. (DMR, 1934)

The DMR Main Roads magazine stated that

In the days before the advent of the motor vehicle, when travel by road was slow and was done on foot, on horseback, or in horse-drawn carriage, few things gave greater service, or were more eagerly looked for, than the mileposts. (DMR, 1934a)

According to the Department of Main Roads, mileposting before 1934 provided signs that gave direction and the distance of important towns. Mileposts had lost their importance to the traveller because the car speedometer gave ‘progressive mileage’ stated a departmental report. (DMR, 1934a)

Road maintenance

Mileposting in 1934 was implemented with one specific aim.

The purpose of the mileposts now is to provide a convenient system of reference marks along the road for the use of those whose responsibility is to maintain the roads in a proper state. (DMR, 1934a)

The stated purpose was for the milepost to be a reference point along the road to give a precise position for any roadwork that needed to be done. Information to travellers was only secondary. (DMR, 1934a)

Mileposting to 1934 had been haphazard, with much work generated at a local level and many gaps. Road maintenance was a secondary consideration, with information for travellers paramount. Much work was ‘incomplete’. Groups of mileposts were only based around important towns, sometimes following main roads and sometimes not. (DMR, 1934a)

The 1934 mileposting project was partly triggered by the 1928 classification of all roads in NSW into state highways, trunk roads and ordinary roads.

The 1928 changes saw The Great Southern Road through Camden renamed the Hume Highway in 1928. The 1929 Razorback Deviation shifted the highway to the east away from the former Great South Road (now Cawdor Road). (DMR, 1934a)

Different types of mileposts were used in 1934 for different purposes. Concrete posts were used in the Sydney area and country towns, like Camden, and elsewhere there were timber posts.

Specifications and drawings for mileposts as outlined in the Department of Main Roads journal Main Roads (May 1934) where the DMR mileposting project was detailed for all roads in NSW (Main Roads 1934a)

There was a strict protocol for the letters and numbers on the posts, with letters and numbers incised and painted black and distances measured from the post office, and sometimes not. Posts were placed on the left-hand side of roadways leading from Sydney or the coast, as they were in colonial times.

Posts were located with a clear view from the roadway of 200 feet with specific instruction on distances from roadways and locations for cuttings and embankments. On bridges, the mileposts were be clamped to the handrails.

In mid-1934, the NRMA suggested the mileposts on the different highways should be painted in a variety of colours. (Kiama Reporter and Illawarra Journal, 20 June 1934) The suggestion was not taken up.

One supplier of the concrete mileposts was the Hume Pipe Coy (Aust) Ltd. (Main Roads, August 1938)

Wooden Mileposts

In the Camden area, the Camden Heritage Inventory states there were wooden mileposts along Cawdor Road, formerly The Great South Road. They pre-date the concrete mileposts.

Timber milepost c1927 on the road verge of The Great South Road now Cawdor Road. (2021 I Willis)

In a 2002 survey for the Heritage Inventory, the three Cawdor Road timber mileposts were intact.

The posts were local hardwood cut by a sawmill in Edward Street in the late 1920s and delivered to The Great South Road (Cawdor Road) site by Camden teamster Les Nixon. (NSWSHI)

In a recent search, I was only able to locate one intact timber milepost in a fairly poor condition.

This timber milepost c.1929-1934 is located on the former Hume Highway at South Camden now Remembrance Drive. This milepost is located on the 1929 Hume Highway Razorback deviation that moved the main road from the Great South Road now Cawdor Road. (I Willis, 2021)

This timber milepost c.1929-1934 is located on the former Hume Highway at South Camden now Remembrance Drive. This milepost is not on the Wollondilly Shire Council heritage inventory. The milepost is sited on the roadside verge adjacent to the Camden Valley Inn. (I Willis, 2021)

References

CROFTS, R. & CROFTS, S. 2013. Discovering Australia’s Historical Milemarkers and Boundary Stones, Sydney, Roberts and Sandra Crofts.

DMR 1934. Department of Main Roads Ninth Annual Report for the year ending 30th June 1934. Sydney: NSW Legislative Assembly.

DMR 1934a. The Mileposting on Main Roads. Main Roads, 5.

Adaptive Re-use · Aesthetics · Architecture · Argyle Street · Attachment to place · Business · Camden · Camden Gasworks · Camden Story · Communications · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Electricity · Engineering Heritage · Gas · Gothic · Heritage · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Industrial Heritage · Infrastructure · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Memory · Myths · Place making · Public art · Sense of place · Service utilities · Storytelling · Streetscapes · Technology · Town planning · Urban Planning · urban sprawl · Urbanism · Utilities · Water

Mundane objects tell an interesting story

October 26, 2021October 26, 2021 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Utility pit covers

What is under your feet and totally ignored? What do you walk over every day? What is essential in an emergency? What provides access to critical utilities? The answer lies under our feet. What is it? Give up yet?

The answer is the humble utility inspection cover.

Gas Cover Durham Argyle Street Camden 2016 (I Willis)

Utilities like electricity, water, gas, sewerage, communications and others are essential in any community. Camden has acquired the utilities as time has progressed over the past 150 years to the present. Argyle Street has several utilities buried beneath the street and footpaths. Their histories provide valuable insight into the town’s development and progress, particularly in the 20th century.

The arrival of electricity, gas, and water was part of Camden modernism and its influence. These utilities have transnational origins beyond the township and illustrate the linkages between the town and the wider world.

For example, the supply of clean drinking water in Camden was linked to an outbreak of scarlet fever in the later 19th century. Contagious diseases were a significant health concern in the 19th century and were an ever-present worry in daily life. Clean drinking water had a significant influence on the development of public health.

I was walking along Camden’s Argyle Street, and it struck me that utility inspection covers are a historical statement in their own right. They are an entry point for the utility service as they also provide an entry to the stories surrounding the utility’s delivery.

Even the different logos for utilities illustrate the changes in the history of a telco or electricity supplier. A cover might be a statement about a utility supplier that is now defunct. The utility cover is made of different materials – cast iron, concrete, and others.

These are all mysteries that are waiting to be solved for the curious mind. Or just for the bored and idle with nothing better to do.

What about the Gas Cover from Durham above?

Durham Gas Cover

This is an inspection cover for the gas pipes using a Durham fitting probably around 1912. The Durham drainage fitting is a cast-iron, threaded fitting used on drainage pipes; has a shoulder such as to present a smooth, continuous interior surface. (Free Dictionary) The Durham patent system of screw-joint iron house drainage was manufactured by the Durham House Drainage Co. of York USA (1887).

The Durham cover is for the Camden gas supply, installed in 1912 by the Camden Gas Company. The gasworks was built in Mitchell Street and made gas from coal. There were many gas street lights in Argyle Street which were turned on in early 1912. The Camden News reported in January 1912 that many private homes and businesses had been connected to the gas supply network and were fitted for gaslighting.

Mr Murray, the gasworks manager, reported that construction at the gasworks had been completed, the retort had been lit, and he anticipated total supply by the end of the month. (Camden News, 4 January 1912) Throughout 1912 there was an ongoing dispute between Mr Alexander, the managing director of the Camden Gas Company, and Camden Municipal Council over damage to Argyle Street while laying gas pipes and who was going to pay for it. (Camden News, 12 September 1912)

In 1946 Camden Municipal Council purchased the Camden Gas Company. The gasworks was sold to AGL in 1970. (Peter Mylrea, ‘Gas and Electricity in Camden’, Camden History March 2008.)

NRCC

What is this cover for the NRCC? Does it still exist?

The NRCC does not exist anymore, and the logo stood for the Nepean River County Council. It was the electricity supplier for the Campbelltown, Camden and Picton area from 1954 to 1979 when it was amalgamated with Prospect County Council. This, in turn, became Integral Energy. Integral Energy was formed by the New South Wales Government in 1995 from the amalgamation of Illawarra Electricity and Prospect Electricity with over 807,000 customers.

The Campbelltown office of the NRCC was located in Queen Street next to the Commonwealth Bank and in 1960 shifted to Cordeaux Street. By 1986 a new advisory office was opened in Lithgow Street. The council opened a new shop front at Glenquarie Shopping Centre at Macquarie Fields. There were shopfronts in Camden, Picton and other locations.

Logo Design

In October 1954, the NRCC approved a design for its official seal. Alderman P Brown suggested a logo competition, and many entries were received for the £25 prize. The winning design by artist Leone Rush of Lidcombe depicts electricity being extended to rural areas by a circular outline of “Nepean River County Council”.
(Camden News, Thursday 4 November 1954.)

NRCC Seal (http://www.nepeanrivercountycouncil.com.au/) — Nepean River County Council Seal (http://www.nepeanrivercountycouncil.com.au/)

Former NRCC employee Sharon Greene stated that ‘It was like a small family business where everyone was happy to be there.’ (Camden Advertiser, 25 May 2009)

Former office manager, Kay Kyle, said that things in the office in 1959 were pretty bare when she started as a junior clerk.

She said:

‘We had no cash registers or adding machines, we hand wrote receipts and added the figures in our head for daily takings. That was a good skill to have. Eventually we received an old adding machine from Picton, but one day it added incorrectly so I wouldn’t use it again.’ (http://www.nepeanrivercountycouncil.com.au/nrccstories.html)

Former linesman Joe Hanger recalls working for the NRCC. He said,

‘In 1954 we were transferred to Nepean River County Council. They wanted linesmen and I went on the line crew and eventually worked my way up and got a pole inspectors job going around creosoting the poles. Eventually I got my own crew, mainly pole dressing. There were 7-8 in the crew. I was then made a foreman in about 1978.’ (http://www.nepeanrivercountycouncil.com.au/nrccstories.html)

Working in the outdoor crews could be dangerous, as Joe Hanger remembers.

‘In July 1974 I fell from a 40ft pole while doing work near The Oaks. We had to check out why a back feed to The Oaks was loosing voltage. We were looking for crook joints. The pole is still out there, near a bend just before the straight road into The Oaks. We had opened the air break switch behind us and the airbreak switch ahead, we forgot that the transformer was on the other side of the open point. I checked the pole and Neville Brown had gone along to the next pole to open the next section. I was standing on the low voltage cross arm and grabbed one of the wires and was struck by the electricity. Luckily my weight caused me to fall away. I ended up falling about 25 feet and just another pole lying on the ground. If I had the belt on it may have been a different matter. I had a broken leg, broken rib and a great big black eye. I was very lucky.’

(http://www.nepeanrivercountycouncil.com.au/nrccstories.html)

There are a host of other stories and wonderful memories from former employees of NRCC @ http://www.nepeanrivercountycouncil.com.au/nrccstories.html.

Friends of the Nepean River Country Council

Past organisations like the Nepean River County Council have staunch supporters. If you are one of them, join the Friends of NRCC.

The telco inspection lid

This inspection lid is for the telco, which was the Postmaster-General Department of the Australian Government.

PMG Inspection Cover 2016 Argyle St Camden (I Willis)

The telco had a rich history of communications in Australia, starting in 1810 with the first postal service. In 1810 Governor Macquarie appointed Australia’s first postmaster Isaac Nicholls and the colonial government of New South Wales Government the first regular postal services, including rates of postage. The new Sydney General Post Office was opened in George Street in 1874.

The first telephone service was established in Melbourne in 1879.

At Federation, the new Commonwealth Postmaster-General’s Department assumed responsibility for telephone, telegraph and postal services. In the 1920s, the department took control of international short wave services and the Australian Broadcast Commission in the 1930s.

In 1975 the Postmaster-General Department was broken up, and the postal service moved to Australia Postal Commission (trading at Australia Post). Telecommunications became the responsibility of the Australian Telecommunications Commission trading at Telecom Australia. Telecom Australia was corporatised in 1989, renamed Telstra Australia in 1993, and partially privatised in 1999.

In 1992 the Overseas Telecommunications Commission (est 1946) was merged with Telecom Australia.

Telstra Inspection Cover 2016 Argyle St Camden

Inspect Cover Telecom — Telecom Inspection Cover 2016 Argyle St Camden (I Willis)

MWS&DB

The MWS&DB was the Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board, today is known as Sydney Water. The organisation has gone through several name changes:

the Board of Water Supply and Sewerage from 1888 to 1892,
from 1892 to 1925 as the Metropolitan Board of Water Supply and Sewerage,
the MWS&BD from 1925 to 1987,
then the Water Board from1987 to1994, then finally as the
Sydney Water Corp Ltd (1995-1999) with Ltd dropped in 1999.

Deks G (Gas)

Deks Cover for gas in Argyle Street Camden 2016 (I Willis)

Deks was established in Australia by Mr George Cupit in 1947 and remained a family business until it became part of the Skellerup Group in 2003. Deks have a presence in 28 countries. They have supplied plumbing fittings, including flashings, fittings or flanges, for over 100 years. (http://www.deks.com.au/about/)

Malco W (Water)

Malco Cover for Water Argyle Street Camden 2016 (I Willis)

Malco Industries reported in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1951 that the company incorporated three separate businesses involved in heavy industrial activities on its site at Marrickville. There were three divisions (1) Malleable Castings was founded in 1915 and was claimed to be one of Australia’s leading producers of iron castings. (2) EW Fittings was incorporated in 1925 and made cast iron pipe fittings for water, gas, steam and oil. (3) Link-Belt Co Pty set up in 1949 and industrial transmission equipment. (Sydney Morning Herald (NSW: 1842 – 1954), Friday 6 April 1951, page 6)

Romwood SV

Service Valve Romwood Argyle Street Camden 2016 (I Willis)

Havestock Cover

Havestock is a business that has made pit lids since the 1980s. Havestock is now part of the global EJ Group and designs, manufactures and distributes man-hole covers, pit covers and other infrastructure access covers and grates. (http://www.hygrade.net.nz/product-category/by-brand/by-brand-havestock/) (http://www.homeimprovementpages.com.au/connect/havestock_pty_ltd/)

Updated 26 October 2021. Originally posted 21 October 2016.

1973 New Cities Campbelltown Camden Appin Structure Plan · Bridges · Camden · Camden Bridge · Camden Story · Community identity · Cowpastures · Cowpastures River · Cultural Heritage · Economy · Engineering Heritage · Floods · Frontier violence · Governor Macquarie · Heritage · History · Industrial Heritage · Living History · Local History · Macarthur · Memorials · Monuments · Nepean River · Place making · Railway · Sense of place · Technology · Transport · Travel · Utilities

Four bridges and the Nepean River crossing

October 22, 2021April 9, 2022 camdenhistorynotes3 Comments

The Cowpasture bridge

Walking over the Cowpastures bridge, you have a vista of the tranquil water of the Nepean River impounded behind the Camden weir. The tranquillity belies the raging torrent that can cover the bridge at flood times.

On the western end of the bridge is a small park where a plaque celebrates the 1976 re-construction of the bridge. A flood had turned the timber bridge deck into a twisted mess twelve months earlier.

The plaque states:

Cowpasture Bridge
Originally opened in 1901 this bridge was extensively damaged by flood in June 1975.
Following repair it was re-opened by The Hon J JC Bruxner MLA, Minister for Transport and Highways, 9^th April 1976.
Ald RB Ferguson, Mayor. Camden Municipal Council.
REA Rofe Esq. MLA, Member for State Electorate of Nepean.
AF Schmidt Esq., Commissioner for Main Roads, New South Wales.
Plaque, Argyle Street, Camden.

The twisted Cowpasture bridge timber deck after the 1975 flood closed access across the river for many months. (Camden Images)

Choke-point

The low-level Cowpasture bridge is a pinch point for the movement of goods and people across the river. Its closure at flood times has created a choke-point that disrupts daily life. Other low-level bridges in the local area at Menangle, Cobbitty, and Macquarie Grove Road have suffered the same problem.

The eastern approach to the Cowpastures Bridge on Camden Valley Way with signage for the Cowpasture Bridge in the early morning (I Willis, 2017)

The access issue was only solved with the opening of the high-level Macarthur Bridge in 1973. The bridge is an important example of Camden’s engineering heritage and was built as part of the local region’s NSW Askin Governments New Cities structure plan.

Economic importance of access

Access to the southern side of the Nepean River has been an issue since European settlement and the discovery of the Wild Cattle in 1795. Governor Hunter named the area the Cowpastures in 1796, and it became a restricted reserve from 1803 to stop cattle poaching.

The issue of access across the river was illustrated in 1810 when a party led by Governor Macquarie visited the area. Macquarie wrote in his journal on 16 November 1810:

There being very little Water in the River at this time, we crossed it at the usual Ford in our Carriage with great ease and safety.

A bridge at last – ‘a paltry affair’

As the colonial frontier moved beyond the Cowpastures, there was increased traffic across the Nepean River, sometimes reported as the Cowpastures River. (SMH, 2 October 1861). The frontier conflicts between Europeans and Indigenous people calmed on the Cowpastures after the 1816 massacre. (Karskens, 2015) The process of settler colonialism and its insatiable appetite for territory increased traffic through the Cowpastures in the 1820s.

The river crossing required a more permanent solution to deal with the increased traffic movement along the Great South Road. The first Cowpasture bridge was built in 1826, then new bridges followed in 1861, 1900 and 1976. Each was trying to solve the same access problem (SMH, 2 October 1861).

This is a sketch of the 1826 Cowpasture Bridge attributed to Thomas Wore of Harrington Grove in 1842. St John’s Church is on the hill consecrated in 1849. *Historic Sketch Discovered: Camden Village in 1842*, The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, 10 June 1933, p.9 (illustrated is a previously unpublished sketch of an almost identical drawing to *(Cowpastures) Bridge & Village of Camden*.) http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/1151602

A low-level bridge was first raised in 1823 when Surveyor-General John Oxley of Kirkham objected to a bridge at Bird’s Eye Corner river crossing (Menangle). The final decision was to build a crossing halfway between the Belgenny Crossing and Oxley’s Macquarie Grove. (Villy, 62-63)

Work began on the low-level Cowpasture bridge in 1824 and finished in 1826. Construction was supervised by convict Samuel Wainwright and built below the crown of the riverbank. There was no shortage of sceptics, and a band of local ‘gentlemen’ thought the bridge would collapse in the 1826 flood. (Villy, 62-63) They were wrong.

A convict was stationed at the bridge as a caretaker to remove the bridge rails in flood. In 1827 a toll was introduced on the bridge, with the right-to-collect sold for £70. It was forbidden to cross the bridge on a Sunday, offenders were fined and cattle impounded. (Starr, 16-17)

Repairs were carried out on the bridge after floods in 1835 (Starr: 17) and in the 1840s ‘landowners, carriers and mail contractors’ complained. They were concerned that the bridge was submerged by floodwater ‘on every occasion’ and in a recent deluge ‘the Bridge was sixteen feet underwater and the neighbouring flats, a complete sea for miles’. (Starr: 17)

In a number of memoirs, the bridge was described as ‘a very a paltry affair’ (Starr: 23) and a ‘primitive structure’ (Sydney Mail, 5 February 1913).

In 1852 a portion of the bridge washed away, and there were terrible floods in February and April 1860. There was a need to replace the ‘dilapidated’ bridge. (SMH, 2 October 1861)

The timber truss Camden Bridge across the Nepean River with Thompson’s Woollen Mill on the right of the image in 1861. (Camden Images)

Tenders were called in early-1860 for a new five-span timber truss bridge (NSW Government Gazette, 6 April 1860), and it was under construction by September. The construction tender was won by Campbelltown building contractors Cobb and Bocking (SMH, 21 September 1860; SMH 2 October 1861), who also built the low-level timber truss bridge at Menangle in 1855. (RMSHC, 2019; Liston, 85)

A grand affair

There was much fanfare at the new bridge opening on Monday, 30 September 1861, at 3 pm. There was conjecture about the crowd size. The Empire claimed a crowd of 50 people while the Sydney Morning Herald boasted there was 200 present. (Empire, 3 October 1861; SMH 2 October 1861).

Whatever the crowd, there were a host of speeches and Mrs Bleecke, the wife of Camden doctor Dr Bleecke, christened the new bridge the ‘Camden bridge’ by breaking a bottle of Camden wine on the timbers. Then, the crowd let out three loud hearty cheers (SMH 2 October 1861).

At the end of the official proceedings, the men, 40 in number, adjourned to the Camden Inn, owned by Mr Galvin, for a ‘first-rate’ sit-down lunch. The meal was accompanied by a host of speeches and much imbibement. There were many toasts starting with ‘The Queen’ and ‘Prince Albert’. The ladies were left ‘to amuse themselves as best they could until the evening’ (SMH 2 October 1861).

The festivities at lunch were followed in the evening by a ‘grand’ ball held at Mr Thompson’s woollen mill. The floor had been cleared on orders of Mr Thompson, and the space decorated with ‘evergreens’ and ‘flowers’ and brilliantly lit by kerosene lamps. (SMH 2 October 1861)

According to the Sydney press, the Camden populace had ‘seldom’ seen an event like it. One hundred thirty-four people attended the ball. Festivities on into the night with a ‘great profusion’ of food and dancing winding up at 4 am the following day. Locals declared they ‘had never spent a happier or pleasanter day’ (SMH 2 October 1861).

The railway to Camden

In 1882 when the railway line was built between Campbelltown and Camden, the track was laid across the timber bridge deck. This reduced the width of the roadway to 15 feet, and traffic had to stop when a train needed to cross the bridge.(Camden News, 27 June 1901)

According to the Camden press, passengers were regularly notified at Redfern Station (now known as Central Station) with a sign saying ‘traffic to Camden stopped at Camden bridge’ due to frequent flooding. The bridge’s timber deck was ‘well below the banks of the river’. (Camden News, 27 June 1901)

The existing 1860 timber truss bridge was constructed for light road traffic and continually posed problems for the railway. Only the lightest railway locomotives could use the bridge, and the heavy grades of the branch line at Kenny Hill meant that the train was restricted to a small number of cars. (Camden News, 27 June 1901).

In 1900 a new steel girder bridge was constructed to take the weight of two locomotives. The specifications for the bridge are:

five steel girder spans each of 45 feet on concrete piers;
178 feet of timbers beam spans;
making a total length of 403 feet;
the bridge deck was seven feet higher than the 1860 timber truss bridge deck;
construction was supervised by the Bridge Branch of the NSW Public Works Department;
the bridge was built at a cost of £10,000;
construction used 126 tons of steel and 984 cubic yards of concrete. (Camden News, 27 June 1901)

An exciting boat ride

Flood time was an exciting time for rail passengers going to Camden. When the bridge closed, railway passengers got an exhilarating boat ride across the flooded Nepean River. The train would stop at Elderslie Railway Station, climbing aboard the railway rowing boat. Passengers would take their lives in their hands and be ferried across the flooded river by the boatman. The rowing boat was given the Camden Municipal Council in 1889 (Pictorial History Camden: 87)

This image shows the new 1900 Camden Bridge with concrete piers and steel girders which replaced the 1860 timber truss bridge. (SLNSW) The bridge was opened in June 1901 by the NSW Minister for Works the Hon EW O’Sullivan assisted by the Member for Camden, the Hon John Kidd, at a ceremony at Camden Railway Station. (CN, 20 June 1901) This was followed by an official lunch at the Camden School of Arts for around 70 guests who purchased tickets. (CN, 13 June 1901)

Flooded Cowpasture Bridge in 2022

This photograph shows the Cowpasture Bridge under floodwater on 3 March 2022 on the eastern approaches along Camden Valley Way. The height of the Nepean River at the Camden Weir just downstream from the Cowpasture Bridge reached a peak this morning (3/3/22) of 10.01 metres at 9.42am, and the river level was falling at the time this photograph was taken. The Bureau of Meteorology’s river heights are classified by the Bureau of Meteorology as: 6.8 metres is minor flooding; 8.30 metres is moderate; 13.00 metres is major flooding. The river level at the Camden Weir in the days leading up to this photograph ranged from 1.8 metres on 27/2/22 to 2.3 metres on 2/3/22. (I Willis 2022)

This image was taken at the intersection of Camden Valley Way and Macarthur Road on the northern end of the Cowpasture Bridge which was inundated by the Nepean River. The time was Tuesday 9 March 2022 at 9.00am when the height of the Nepean River at Camden Weir was 11.9 metres and classified as a major flood. (I Willis, 2022)

This image was taken at the corner of Camden Valley Way and Macarthur Road looking towards the Cowpasture Bridge on Thursday 7 April 2022 at around 9.00pm. The Nepean River rose to a maximum of 12.21 metres at the Camden Weir mid-evening. The river rose very quickly on Thursday and the Cowpasture Bridge was closed at 12.30pm on Thursday 7/4/22. The bridge was re-opened to traffic on Friday afternoon after the river had dropped below the level of the bridge decking. (I Willis, 2022)

References

Willis, I 2015, Pictorial History Camden & District, Kingsclear Books, Sydney.

Road and Maritime Authority 2018, The Old Hume Highway, History begins with a road, 2nd edn, eBook, viewed 18 October 2021, <https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.gov.au/documents/about/environment/protecting-heritage/hume-highway-duplication/history-begins-with-a-road.pdf>.

Villy, E 2011, The Old Razorback Road, Life on the Great South Road between Camden and Picton 1830-1930, Rosenberg Publishing, Sydney.

Starr, M 2002, Murder, Mayhem and Misdemeanours, Early settlers at the Cowpasture River, New South Wales, 1810-1830, Australian Horizon, Sydney.

Liston, C 1988, Campbelltown, The Bicentennial History, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.

Roads and Maritime Services Heritage Committee 2019, The Timber Truss Bridge Book, eBook, viewed 21 October 2021, <https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.gov.au/about/environment/protecting-heritage/timber-truss-bridge/index.html>.

Karskens, Grace 2015, ‘Appin massacre’, Dictionary of Sydney, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/appin_massacre, viewed 22 Oct 2021

Updated 9 April 2022, 3 March 2022, 19 November 2021; Originally posted as ‘Access Denied, flooding at the Cowpasture Bridge’ on 22 October 2021.

1920s · 20th century · Aesthetics · Attachment to place · Australia · Camden · Camping · Coal mining · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Dairying · Dress history · Engineering Heritage · Family history · Farming · Fashion · Gender · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Industrial Heritage · Interwar · Leisure · Lifestyle · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Memory · Mining · Modernism · Place making · Railway · Sense of place · Social media · Storytelling · Stuart Park Wollongong · Stuart Park, Wollongong · Technology · Travel · Urbanism · Wollongong · Women's history

The mysteries of a photograph

April 3, 2020May 11, 2021 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

How the layers of the past can be peeled back to reveal the mysteries from yesteryear

As I was scanning through my Facebook Newsfeed this morning I came across a pretty little picture that jumped out at me.

The image had been posted on the Lost Wollongong and Yesterday Stories Facebook page and also appeared on its Instagram and Tumbler social media.

The image attracted a host of likes and shares and comments like Phil Hall ‘What a delightful photo’ and Christine Mcmanus ‘It’s very charming’.

What is the appeal of the picture?

The picture has an aesthetic quality partly produced from the soft sepia tones of the image, and partly from the subject, which together gives the photograph a dreamy quality.

The ethereal presence of the image is hard to describe in words and the camera is kind to the subjects, who are well-positioned in a nicely balanced frame.

Wollongong WCL Couple on Mount Pleasant Railway early 20th century near Stuart Park — A couple relaxing on the Mount Pleasant Colliery railway at Stuart Park, North Wollongong in the early 1900s (Lost Wollongong Facebook page, 3 July 2016) The Royal Australian Historical Society caption says: ‘Photographer Aileen Ryan Lynch taking a photograph of M. Carey at Stuart Park Wollongong, March 1919’ (J Scott/RAHS)

The viewer of the picture is a time traveler into another world based on the New South Wales South Coast and is given a snapshot of a moment frozen in time. The observer has a glimpse of a world after the First World World in the present. For the viewer it as a form of nostalgia, where they create a romanticised version of the past accompanied by feelings that the present is not quite as good as an earlier period.

The world in the picture, a mixture of pleasure and for others despair, apparently moved at a slower pace, yet in its own way no less complex than the present. The picture speaks to those who choose to listen and tells a nuanced, multi-layered story about another time and place. It was 1919 in the coastal mining town of Wollongong.

The viewer is told a story about a setting that is full of meaning and emotional symbolism wrapped up in the post-First World Years. The picture grabs the viewers who pressed a Like on their Facebook pages. These social media participants found familiarity and comfort in the past that is an escape from the complicated present.

The picture provides an entry to a world that was apparently more authentic than the present. As Harriet Richards from the University of Melbourne writes:

In response to today’s COVID-19 crisis, we are turning to old movies, letter writing and vintage fashion trends more than ever. Nostalgia is a defence mechanism against upheaval.

Escaping the Spanish flu pandemic?

The image is full of contrasts and unanswered questions. Why are the young couple in Wollongong? Why did they decide on Stuart Park for a photo-shoot? Are they escaping the outbreak of Spanish influenza at Randwick in January 1919? Does the NSW South Coast provide the safety of remoteness away from the evils of the pandemic in Sydney?

The female photographer is a city-girl and her male companion is a worldly reader of international news. They contrast with the semi-rural location in a coal mining area with its workman’s cottages and their dirt floors, and the hard-scrabble dairying represented by the post-and-rail fence in the distance.

The railway is a metaphor for the rest of a world outside Wollongong. The colliery railway is a link to the global transnational industrial complex of the British Empire at Wollongong Harbour where railway trucks disgorge their raw material. On the other hand, the female photographer’s stylish outfit provides an entry into a global fashion world of women’s magazines, movies and newspapers.

The elegantly dressed couple in their on-trend fashion contrast with the poverty of the working class mining villages of the Illawarra coast. Photographer Aileen is described by local historian Leone Flay as ‘dressed for town’, contrasts with the post-and-rail fence on the railway boundary projects the hard-graft of its construction in a landscape of marginal dairy farming.

The remnants of the Illawarra Rainforest that border the railway point to the environmental destruction brought by British imperial policy and its industrial machinery. This contrasts with a past where the Dharawal Indigenous people managed the lush coastal forests that once covered the area along the banks of the nearby Fairy Creek.

Peeling back the layers of past within the picture reveals several parts to the story: the photographer Aileen Ryan; the coastal location of Stuart Park; and the commercial world of the Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway, and ecology of the Illawarra Rainforest.

Aileen Ryan, photographer

The young female photographer in the picture is Aileen Ryan, a 21-year old city-girl, who spent time in and around the Wollongong area in February and March 1919. Aileen was born in Waverley, Sydney, and was educated at St Clare’s Convent.

At 19 years of age, Aileen gained paid work when most women were restricted to domestic duties. She joined the New South Wales Public Service in 1917 as a typist and shorthand writer. As an independent young working woman, she was worldly-wise and expressed herself through her ability to fund her relatively-expensive hobby of photography. The young Aileen’s hand-held bellows camera hints her grasp of the latest technology.

In 1927 she marries FW Lynch at Clovelly and in 1942 during the Second World War she was seconded to the Directorate of Manpower. She was appointed superintendent of the New South Wales division of the Australian Women’s Land Army, which was disbanded in 1945. She died childless at Waverton in 1983.

Stuart Park, the location

The site of the photo-shoot was located on the colliery railway which skirted the southern boundary of Stuart Park. The park, which was declared in 1885 under the Public Parks Act 1884 (NSW), lies between the railway, Fairy Creek to the north and North Wollongong Beach to the east. The area was originally purchased from James Anderson and is an area of 22.27 hectares.

The park was named after colonial politician and Scotsman Sir Alexander Stuart who was the Member for Illawarra in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly at the time. The park was run by a trust until 1920 when control passed to the Municipality of Wollongong.

The popularity of Stuart Park, including many families from Camden, owed much to the presence near North Wollongong Beach, which was popular for swimming and surfing from the 1920s. The caravan park was unfortunately closed in 1964, but re-opened in 1966, due to public pressure. It eventually closed permanently in 1970. The park now has a sports oval, had a kiosk dating from the 1940s and was popular with day-trippers.

Illawarra Rainforest, the ecology

The site location of the photograph next to the railway was once completely covered by Illawarra Rainforest, remnants of which can be seen along the railway line.

The rainforest type is a rich ecological community characterised by bloodwoods, stinging trees, figs, flame trees, beech, cedar, and other species. The more complex rainforest communities were located along the creek boundaries and on the southern face of escarpment gorges protected the from the prevailing north-easterly winds.

J Bywater from University of Wollongong describes the rainforest community as:

the most complex (species rich) forest type in the Illawarra. A broad definition of this forest is a “Dense community of moisture loving trees, mainly evergreen, broadleaved species, usually with the trees arranged in several layers, and containing vines, epiphytes, buttressed stems, stranglers, and other Iifeforms” (Saur, 1973, p.l.).

Wollongong Illawarra Rainforest Sublime Point Walking Track Bulli 2000 NCubbin — Illawarra Rainforest on the Sublime Point Walking Track below Bulli Tops lookout 2000 (N Cubbin)

The Illawarra Rainforest extended along the coastal and up into the escarpment from the northern parts of the Illawarra south to Kiama, the Shoalhaven River and west to Kangaroo Valley.

The primary threats to the rainforest ecology have been clearing for farming, mining, urban development, and related activities.

Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway, a transnational conduit to the globe

The Mount Pleasant Colliery was opened by Patrick Lahiff in 1861 and was very successful. Two years later the company built a horse tramway with two inclines down the escarpment from the mine to Wollongong Harbour. They eventually upgraded the tramway to steel railway in the 1880s and to convert to standard gauge.

Wollongong Mount Kiera Mine Incline 1880 (WCL & IHS) — The Mount Pleasant Colliery Inclines were similar to the adjacent Mount Kiera Mine Incline of 1880 shown in this image (WCL & IHS) The picture shows the remnant rainforest that was part of the ecology of the Illawarra escarpment.

The construction of the tramway raised the hackles of the locals and was only built after the state parliament passed the Mount Pleasant Tramroad Act 1862 (NSW). The mining company went bankrupt in 1934 and the mine was taken over by Broken Hill Pty Ltd in 1937 and renamed the Kiera Pleasant Tunnels.

Wollongong Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway Workshop 1904 IHT — The locomotive shed at Mt Pleasant Colliery, 1904. Note the engine on the right, built-in Sydney that year. (Courtesy of JLN Southern Collection & Illawarra Heritage Trail)

The coal mine eventually closed in 1955.

Wollongong Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway Belmore Basin 1900s WCL&IHS — Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway near Brighton Beach approaching Belmore Basin in Wollongong NSW 1900s (WCL & IHS) Mount Kiera is shown in the background behind the mining town of Wollongong.

The tramway was closed in 1954.

Wollongong Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway below cliff line 1900s WCL&IHS lowres

In 2017 the Mount Pleasant Tramway walk was upgraded and the seawall rebuilt and renamed the Blue Mile Tramway Pathway.

Wollongong Mural Wollongong Harbour Blue Mile Walk 2020 ICW (2) lowres — A mural illustrating the history of the Blue Mile Tramway walk showing the village of Wollongong, coal handling port facilities at Belmore Basin and Brighton Beach adjacent to it with Wollongong Lighthouse on the harbour breakwater. The Mount Pleasant Tramway is clearly seen going off to the north along the coastline. (I Willis 2020)

The Blue Mile Pathway and other attractions of the Wollongong coast have proved popular with Camden families. They have been going to Wollongong and the South Coast for beach holidays for generations.

Updated 11 May 2021, 17 April 2020, originally posted on 1 April 2020.

Aesthetics · Art · Attachment to place · Australia · Belonging · Camden · Camden Airfield · Camden Park House and Garden · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Denbigh · England · Entertainment · Farming · Fashion · Festivals · Gothic · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Interwar · Landscape aesthetics · Leisure · Lifestyle · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Macarthur · Memorials · Memory · Modernism · Monuments · Moveable Heritage · Movies · Myths · Place making · Public art · Re-enactments · Ruralism · Sense of place · Stereotypes · Streetscapes · Sydney · Sydney's rural-urban fringe · Technology · Theatre · Tourism · Travel · TV Series Shows · Victorian · Volunteerism · War

Movie making Camden style

June 19, 2019April 21, 2020 camdenhistorynotes1 Comment

Moviemakers have always had an eye on the Camden district’s large country houses, rustic farm buildings, quaint villages and picturesque countryside for film locations.

From the 1920s the area has been used by a series of filmmakers as a setting for their movies. It coincided was an increasing interest in the area’s Englishness from poets, journalists and travel writers. They wrote stories of quaint English style villages with a church on the hill, charming gentry estates down hedge-lined lanes, where the patriarch kept contented cows in ordered fields and virile stallions in magnificent stables. This did not go unnoticed in the film industry.

One of the first was the 1921 silent film Silks and Saddles shot at Arthur Macarthur Onslow’s Macquarie Grove by American director John K Wells about the world of horse racing. The film was set on the race track on Macquarie Grove. The script called for a race between and aeroplane and racehorse. The movie showed a host good looking racing blood-stock. There was much excitement, according to Annette Onslow, when an aeroplane piloted by Edgar Percival his Avro landed on the race course used in the film and flew the heroine to Randwick to win the day. Arthur’s son Edward swung a flight in Percival’s plane and was hooked on flying for life, and later developed Camden Airfield at Macquarie Grove.

Camden film locations were sought in 1931 for director Ken G Hall’s 1932 Dad and Dave film On Our Selection based on the characters and writings of Steele Rudd. It stars Bert Bailey as Dan Rudd and was released in the UK as Down on the Farm. It was one the most popular Australian movies of all time but it was eventually shot at Castlereagh near Penrith. The movie is based on Dan’s selection in south-west Queensland and is about a murder mystery. Ken G Hall notes that of the 18 feature films he made between 1932 and 1946 his film company used the Camden area and the Nepean River valley and its beauty for location shooting. The films included On Our Selection (1936), Squatter’s Daughter (1933), Grandad Rudd (1934), Thoroughbred (1935), Orphan of the Wilderness (1936), It Isn’t Done (1936), Broken Melody (1938), Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938), Mr Chedworth Steps Out (1938), Gone to the Dogs (1939), Come Up Smiling (1939), Dad Rudd MP (1940), and Smith, The Story of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (1946).

The Camden district was the location of two wartime action movies, The Power and The Glory (1941) and The Rats of Tobruk (1944). The Rats of Tobruk was directed by Charles Chauvel and starred actors Chips Rafferty, Peter Finch and Pauline Garrick. The story is about three men from a variety of backgrounds who become mates during the siege at Tobruk during the Second World War. The movie was run at Camden’s Paramount movie palace in February 1945. The location for parts of the movie were the bare paddocks of Narellan Vale and Currans Hill where they were turned into a battleground to recreated the setting at Tobruk in November 1943. There were concerns at the time that the exploding ammunitions used in the movie would disturb the cows. Soldiers were supplied from the Narellan Military Camp and tanks were modified to make them look like German panzers and RAAF Camden supplied six Vultee Vengeance aircraft from Camden Airfield which was painted up to look like German Stuka bombers. The film location was later used for the Gayline Drive-In. Charles Chauvel’s daughter Susanne Carlsson who was 13 years old at the time reported that it was a ‘dramatic and interesting time’.

The second wartime movie was director Noel Monkman’s The Power and The Glory starring Peter Finch and Katrin Rosselle. The movie was made at RAAF Camden with the co-operation of the RAAF. It is a spy drama about a Czech scientist who discovers a new poison-gas and escapes to Australia rather than divulges the secret to the Nazis. Part of the plot was enemy infiltration of the coast near Bulli where an enemy aircraft was sighted and 5 Avro-Anson aircraft were directed to seek and bombed the submarine. The Wirraway aircraft from the RAAF Central Flying School acted as fighters and it was reported that the pilots were ‘good looking’ airmen from the base mess. There was a private screening at Camden’s Paramount movie theatre for the RAAF Central Flying School personnel.

Camden Park was used as a set for the internationally series of Smiley films, Smiley made in 1956 and in 1958 Smiley Gets a Gun in cinemascope. The story is about a nine-year-old boy who is a bit of rascal who grows up in a country town. They were based on books by Australian author Moore Raymond and filmed by Twentieth Century Fox and London Films. Raymond set his stories in a Queensland country town in the early 20^th century and there are horse and buggies and motor cars. The town settings were constructed from scratch and shot at Camden Park, under the management of Edward Macarthur Onslow. The movies stars included Australian Chips Rafferty and English actors John McCallum and Ralph Richardson. Many old-time locals have fond memories of being extras in the movies. Smiley was released in the United Kingdom and the United States.

In 1999 Camden airfield was used as a set for the television documentary The Last Plane Out of Berlin which was the story of Sidney Cotton. Actor Geoff Morrell played the role of Cotton, who went to England in 1916 and became a pilot and served with the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War. He is regarded as the ‘father of aerial photography’ and in 1939 was requested to make flights over Nazi Germany in 1939. Camden Airfield was ‘perfect location’ according to producer Jeff Watson because of its ‘historic’ 1930s atmosphere.

In 2009 scenes from X-Men Origins: Wolverine was filmed at Camden and near Brownlow Hill.

In 2010 filmmaker Sandra Pyres of Why Documentaries produced several short films in association for the With The Best of Intentions exhibition at The Oaks Historical Society. The films were a montage of contemporary photographs, archival footage and re-enactments by drama students of the stories of child migrants. The only voices were those of the child migrants and there were many tears spilt as the films were screened at the launch of the exhibition.

In 2011 scenes from director Wayne Blair’s Vietnam wartime true story of The Sapphires were filmed at Brownlow Hill starring Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy and Chris O’Dowd. This is the true story of four young Aboriginal sisters who are discovered by a talent scout who organises a tour of American bases in Vietnam. On Brownlow Hill, a large stage was placed in the middle of cow paddock and draped with a sign that read ‘USC Show Committee presents the Sapphires’ and filming began around midnight. The cows were herded out of sight and the crew had to be careful that they did not stand of any cowpats. Apparently, Sudanese refugees played the role of African American servicemen of the 19th Infantry Division.

The romantic house of Camelot with its turrets, chimney stacks and gables, was built by racing identity James White and designed by Horbury Hunt was the scene of activity in 2006 and 2007 for the filming of scenes of Baz Luhrman’s Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The location shots were interior and exterior scenes which involved horse riding by Kidman and Jackman. The film is about an aristocratic woman who leaves England and follows her husband to Australia during the 1930s, and live through the Darwin bombing by the Japanese in the Second World War.

Camelot was a hive activity for the filming of the 1950s romantic television drama A Place to Call Home produced by Channel 7 in 2012. Set in rural Australia it is the story of a woman’s journey ‘to heal her soul’ and of a wealthy family facing changes in the fictional country town of Inverness in the Bligh family estate of Ash Park. Starring Marta Dusseldorp as the mysterious Sarah and Noni Hazlehurst as the family matriarch Elizabeth, who has several powerful independently wealthy women who paralleled her role in Camden in time past on their gentry estates. The sweeping melodrama about hope and loss is set against the social changes in the 1950s and has close parallels to 1950s Camden. The ‘sumptuous’ 13 part drama series screened on television in 2013 and according to its creator Bevin Lee had a ‘large-scale narrative’ that had a ‘feature-film feel’. He maintained that is was ‘rural gothic’, set in a big house that had comparisons with British television drama Downton Abbey.

The 55-room fairytale-like mansion and its formal gardens were a ‘captivating’ setting for A Place to Call Home, according to the Property Observer in 2013. Its initial screening was watched by 1.7 million viewers in April 2013. The show used a host of local spots for film sets and one of the favourite points of conversation ‘around the water-cooler’ for locals was the game ‘pick-the-place’. By mid-2014 Channel 7 had decided to axe the series at the end of the second series. There was a strong local reaction and a petition was circulating which attracted 6000 signatures to keep the show on the air. In the end, Foxtel television produced a third series with the original caste which screened in 2015.

Camden airfield was in action again and used as a set for the Australian version of the British motoring television show Top Gear Australian in 2010. Part of the show is power laps in a ‘Bog Standard Car’ were recorded on parts of the runways and taxiways used as a test track.

Camden Showground became the set for Angelina Jolie’s Second World War drama Unbroken in 2013. The main character Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic runner, and Onslow Park were used as part of the story of his early life as a member of Torrance High School track team. The movie is about Zamperini’s story of survival after his plane was shot down during the Pacific campaign. The filming caused much excitement in the area and the local press gave the story extensive coverage, with the showground was chosen for its historic atmosphere. Camden mayor Lara Symkowiak hoped that the movie would boost local tourism and the council was supportive of the area being used as a film set. The council had appointed a film contact officer to encourage greater use of the area for film locations.

Edwina Macarthur Stanham writes that Camden Park has been the filming location for several movies, advertisements and fashion shoots since the 1950s. They have included Smiley (1956), Smiley Gets a Gun (1958), Shadow of the Boomerang (1960) starring Jimmy Little, My Brilliant Career (1978) was filmed in Camden Park and its garden and surrounds, and The Empty Beach (1985) starring Bryan Brown, House Taken Over (1997) a short film was written and directed by Liz Hughes which used lots of scenes in the house. In the 21st century, there has been Preservation (2003) described a gothic horror movie starring Jacqueline Mackenzie, Jack Finsterer and Simon Bourke which used a lot of the scenes filmed in the house.

In 2005 Danny De Vito visited Camden Park scouting for a location for a movie based on the book “The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle”. In Sleeping Beauty (2010) an Australian funded film was shot at Camden Park and the short film La Finca (2012). In September 2014 Camden Park was used as a location in the film called “The Daughter” starring Geoffrey Rush. Extensive filming took place over 3 weeks and members of the family and friends and Camden locals played the role of extras.

In September 2014 Camden Park was used as a location in the film called “The Daughter” starring Geoffrey Rush. Extensive filming took place over 3 weeks and members of the family and friends and Camden locals played the role of extras.

The Daughter Movie Set Camden Park 2014 E Stanham

In 2015 the Camden Historical Society and filmmaker Wen Denaro have combined forces to telling the story of the Chinese market gardeners who settled in Camden in the early twentieth century. The project will produce a short documentary about the Chinese market gardeners who established vegetable gardens along the river in Camden and who supplied fresh product to the Macarthur and Sydney markets.

In 2015 an episode of the Network Ten TV show of The Bachelor Australia was filmed at Camden Park in August 2015. They showed scenes of the Bachelor Sam Wood taking one of the bachelorette Sarah on a romantic date to the colonial mansion Camden Park. There were scenes of the pair in a two-in-hand horse-drawn white carriage going up and down the driveway to the Camden Park cemetery on the hill overlooking the town. There were scenes in the soft afternoon sunlight of the couple having a romantic high-tea on the verandah of Camden Park house with champagne and scones and cupcakes. In the evening there were floodlit images of the front of Camden Park house from the front lawn then scenes of the couple in the sitting room sitting of the leather sofa sharing wine, cheese and biscuits in front on an open fire and candles. Sarah is gobsmacked with the house, its setting and is ‘amazed’ by the house’s colonial interior.

In 2018 a children’s film Peter Rabbit was been filmed in the Camden district. The movie is based on Beatrix Potter’s famous book series and her iconic characters. The special effects company Animal Logic spent two days on the shoot in Camden in January 2017. The first scene features the kidnap of the rabbit hero in a sack, throwing them off a bridge and into the river. For this scene, the Macquarie Grove Bridge over the Nepean River was used for the bridge in the movie. According to a spokesman, the reason the Camden area was used was that it fitted the needed criteria. The movie producers were looking for a location that screamed of its Englishness. Camden does that and a lot more dating back to the 1820s. The movie is set in modern-day Windermere in the English Lakes District. The location did not have to have too many gum trees or other recognisable Australian plants. John and Elizabeth Macarthur would be proud of their legacy – African Olives and other goodies. Conveniently the airport also provided the location for a stunt scene which uses a bi-plane. The role of the animators is to make Australia look like England.

In August 2018 the colonial Cowpastures homestead of Denbigh at Cobbitty was the set for popular Australian drama series Doctor Doctor. The series is about the Knight family farm and the show star is Roger Corser who plays doctor Hugh Knight. He said, ‘

The homestead is a real star of the show. The front yard, the dam and barn brewery on the property are major sets – I don’t know what we would do without them.

The show follows the high-flying heart surgeon and is up to season three. Filming lasted three months and the cast checked out the possibilities of the Camden town centre. Actor Ryan Johnson said that Denbigh ‘made the show’.

Denbigh homestead was originally built by Charles Hook in 1818 and extended by Thomas and Samuel Hassell in the 1820s.

denbigh-2015-iwillis — Denbigh Homestead Open Day 2015 has been used as a film set in 2018 for the TV series Doctor Doctor (I Willis)

In late 2018 the TV series Home and Away has been using the haunted house at Narellan known as Studley Park as a set for the program. The storyline followed three young characters going into the haunted house and staying overnight. They go into a tunnel and a young female becomes trapped. Tension rises and the local knock-about character comes to their rescue and he is a hero. The use of the set by the TV series producers was noted by Macarthur locals on Facebook.

Studley Park at Night spooky 2017 CNA — Spooky Studley Park House is claimed to be one of the most haunted locations in the Macarthur region. The TV series Home & Away on 3 & 4 October 2018 certainly added to those stories by using the house as a set location. (CN Advert)

Studley Park has recently been written up in the Camden-Narellan Advertiser (4 August 2017) as one of the eight most haunted places in the Macarthur region. Journalist Ashleigh Tullis writes;

Studley Park House, Camden

This impressive house was originally built by grazier William Payne in 1889. The death of two children has earned the house its haunted reputation.

In 1909, 14-year-old Ray Blackstone drowned in a dam near the residence. His body is believed to have been kept at the house until it was buried.

The son of acclaimed business man Arthur Adolphus Gregory died at the house in 1939 from appendicitis. His body was kept in the theatrette.

In 2019 movie-making in the area continues with the 4th series of Doctor Doctor. Wikipedia states of the plotline:

Doctor Doctor (also known outside of Australasia as The Heart Guy^[1]) is an Australian television drama that premiered on the Nine Network on 14 September 2016.^[2] It follows the story of Hugh Knight, a rising heart surgeon who is gifted, charming and infallible. He is a hedonist who, due to his sheer talent, believes he can live outside the rules.

Camden was used as one location along with the historic colonial property of Denbigh. Mediaweek stated in 2016 (Sept 9):

The regional setting for the series has proven to be a benefit for narrative and practical production reasons. While all of the hospital scenes were filmed in a hospital in the Sydney inner-city suburb of Rozelle, exterior shooting took place in Mudgee, with filming of Knight’s home was shot in Camden. In addition to $100,000 worth of support from the Regional Filming Fund, the regional setting delivers a unique authenticity to the series that it would otherwise lack.

Sometimes the local area is used a set for an advertising campaign by a fashion label or some other business. The owners of Camden Park House posted on Facebook in August 2019 that the house and garden were used as a set by the Country Road fashion brand.

Camden Park House Country Road Photoshoot 2019 — Country Road fashion shoot at Camden Park House. Have a peek at Camden Park House at the Country Road page and visit us on 21/22 Sept on our annual Open Weekend. (Camden Park House)

In late 2019 the local press reported that streaming service Stan’s drama The Common was partially filmed in Camden. The spokesperson for Stan said

While no specific details about plotlines or particular actors were given away, the spokesman said the production was filming on August 7 at the Narellan Jets Football Club and Grounds, Narellan Sports Hub.

In 2020 the movie release of Peter Rabbit 2 highlights part of our local area. Press reports state that the production team were impressed with the local area for Peter Rabbit and they came back for the sequel. Visual effects supervisor Will Reichelt said that the Macarthur region resembled an ‘English country vista’.

Wollondilly Advertiser 2020Mar13 Movie Peter Rabbit 2 — Onset: Domnhall Gleeson and Rose Byrne (picture here filming a different scene) were on set in Brownlow Hill for the production of Peter Rabbit 2. Picture: Sony Pictures Australia/Wollondilly Advertiser 2020Mar13

Updated 21 April 2020

Communications · Cultural Heritage · Heritage · Historical consciousness · History · Living History · Local History · Local newspapers · Newspapers · Place making · Printing · Sense of place · Technology · Traditional Trades · Volunteering

A taste of ink and type in a country printery

September 7, 2018September 7, 2018 camdenhistorynotes

The CHN blogger enjoyed an informative and interesting visit to a small museum as part of History Week 2018 conducted by the History Council of New South Wales.

The museum in question was the Penrith Museum of Printing located in the Penrith Showground.

Penrith Museum of Printing signage (2)lowres

The museum has a collection of fully operational letterpress printing presses and equipment from the 1860s to the 1970s. It is part of the living history movement that is so popular with tourists in North America, Europe and increasingly Australia.

The printing equipment includes linotype machines, flat-bed printing presses of various types and platen presses. There is also a substantial collection of hand-set type.

During the History Week visit the operation of the different presses was explained by retired tradesmen who had been printers and compositors. They kick started the presses and linotype machines and demonstrated their capabilities.

Penrith Museum of Printing Linotype Machine 2018 — Here a museum volunteer and former operator demonstrates and explains the operation of a linotype machine at the Penrith Museum of Printing. This is a hot metal typesetting system that casts blocks of metal type for individual uses. The machine creates lines of type for the compositor to set-up a page for printing a newspaper. Hot lead was used to create the letters and was heated to over 500 degrees C. These machines were used across the world to set print for newspapers, magazines and posters for large metropolitan dailies to small local country newspapers up to the 1980s. This machine is belt driven and in the late 19th or early 20th century a printery would have had a steam engine and boiler to drive the equipment. (I Willis, 2018)

The museum is setup like a 1940s printing shop and the visitor gets the experience of the noise of the press and linotype machines and the smell of the ink. It is the authentic real deal.

Linotype machines were introduced to replace hand-compositing of pages for printing. Hand setting was very slow. What would take a compositor hours to set in a page would take minutes with a linotype machine.

The printing museum is also a site for the demonstration of the traditional trades of the printer and compositor.

The printing museum give a real demonstration of how the local newspapers of the Macarthur region were produced before the current era of off-set printing. The processes for printing the local paper were labour-intensive despite the introduction of these pieces of equipment.

Penrith Museum of Printing Albion Hand Press 2018 — This is a demonstration of the hand-operated Albion Press by a volunteer and former printer at the Penrith Museum of Printing. The museum website states ‘This beautiful old Albion Press was manufactured in London in 1860 is a magnificent example of 19th Century printing press design and craftsmanship’. The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences states that ‘Albion printing presses continued to be manufactured, in a range of sizes, right up until the 1930s. They were used for commercial book-printing until the middle of the nineteenth century and after that mainly for jobbing work and by private presses. The arrival of small hand printing presses enabled the publication of newspapers in country regions.’ (I Willis)

This type of equipment had a profound influence on the production of local newspapers across the world.

It is interesting how much of the terminology used in computer word processing derives from the smell and noise of the print shop and the lives of the printers and compositors.

The Macarthur region newspaper printeries

The Sidmans in the early 20^th century introduced the latest equipment at the principal printery located in the building that houses the Camden News office and printery at 145 Argyle Street Camden.

Camden News Linotype printing machine 1930 CN — This image shows the *Camden News* printery in the 1920s at the rear of the building and office occupied by the newspaper at 145 Argyle Street, Camden. From the left are N Bean, printer, Charles Sidman, linotype operator. The Penrith Museum of Printing states that this is likely to be a Payne’s Wharfedale Cylinder Printing Machine and sheets of newsprint were hand fed into the press by the operator. (Camden News, 22 October 1980)

The Richardsons had the latest equipment at their headquarters and printery at 315 Queen Street Campbelltown for the Macarthur Advertiser and other newspapers.

History of Penrith Museum of Printing

The Penrith Museum of Printing website outlines the short history of the museum. It states:

The story of the Museum begins with Alan Connell, the founder of the museum who had a desire back in 1987 to develop a “working museum” of letterpress printing machinery and equipment.

As the story goes, many years had to pass before Alan’s dream was able to be fully realised via a Commonwealth Government Federation Fund Grant. The Penrith Museum of Printing was officially opened on the 2 June, 2001 by Ms Jackie Kelly, M.P. for Lindsay, the then Minister for Sport and Tourism.

A large proportion of the machinery and equipment on display originally started its working life in the Nepean Times Newspaper in Penrith, NSW Australia, while many other items have been donated by present and or past printing establishments.

To experience the smell and noise of the local newspaper printery a visit is a must to the Penrith Museum of Printing.

Penrith Museum of Printing Tour group 2017 — Tour group enjoy their visit to the Penrith Museum of Printing. Visitors are watching a demonstration and explanation of the equipment by museum volunteers who were former compositors and printers. (PMoP)

For contact details go to the website of the Penrith Museum of Printing.

Architecture · Attachment to place · Community identity · Farming · Festivals · Goulburn · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Local History · Modernism · Place making · Sense of place · Settler colonialism · Technology · Victorian

A field of flowers and steam at a festival of living history

March 11, 2018 camdenhistorynotes

Visitors were encouraged to discover Goulburn’s Living History as part of the ‘Our Living History’ festival in Goulburn NSW. Held between 9 March and 12 March 2018 the Celebrate Goulburn Group co-ordinated the event. Organisers were encouraging residents and visitors to celebrate and enjoy the city’s heritage. The event was sponsored by the New South Wales Government through the Heritage Near Me Project.

Goulburn Auburn St 2018[2] lowres — A street view of the central business of Goulburn in Auburn Street showing the Victorian grandeur of the Goulburn Post Office built 1880-1881 (I Willis, 2018)

This blogger joined the visitors and was out and about at two participants in the festival and took in a Georgian house museum and garden and an a museum highlighting the steam technology at a local pumping station.

Riversdale Homestead Museum and Garden

Visitors were encouraged to embrace the theme of ‘Unearthing Riversdale’ at the homestead at 2 Twynam Drive Goulburn.

The homestead is owned by the National Trust of NSW and the website states:

Built in the late 1830s as a coaching inn, Riversdale later became home to the district surveyor, Edward Twynam and his family. Edward was appointed Chief Surveyor of NSW during the 1890s and his family occupied Riversdale for almost 100 years prior to its purchase by the National Trust.

The building is a Georgian style and now interpreted as a farm homestead.

Goulburn Riversdale homestead 2018 — Riversdale homestead Goulburn (I Willis, 2018)

Riversdale was variously known from 1840 as the Victoria Hotel, the Victoria Inn and the Prince Albert Inn. The building was located on the main road of the ‘Goulburn Plains’ and the site had been occupied by Matthew Healy with built a slab hut public house in the 1820s. Healy also built the kitchen and stable. Healy sold out to Anne and John Richards who ran an Inn.

The site of the town was moved to its current location and the Inn became unviable and the building became a boarding school and then a small farm. The building was called Riversdale in the 1860s by John Fulljames.

The Twynam family took up residence in 1872, and the family occupied the residence until the National Trust purchased the property in 1967.

The Garden

The National Trust rejuvenated the house garden in 1967 in the Gertrude Jekyll style with plantings of herbaceous borders and silver and grey foliage plants. Many 19^th century plantings were added and included bearded iris, bulbs, peonies, aquilegia, delphiniums, lilies, lavender and old style roses.

Much of the garden was established by the Twynam family in 1872. There are historic trees in the garden with plantings from 1820s and of particular interest is the avenue of English elms at the rear of the courtyard from the 1840s. The elms were planted by the inn owner Anne Richards, who also planted the medlar on the eastern lawn.

Goulburn Waterworks Steam Engine and Pumphouse

An interesting piece of steam driven technology is the waterworks pumphouse on the Wollondilly River.

The waterworks pumphouse was built between 1883 and 1885 by Harbours and Rivers Board of the NSW Public Works Department on the Wollondilly River at Rocky Point. The supervising engineer and designer of the works for the pumphouse and Marsden Weir was EO Moriarty.

Goulburn Weir Wollondilly River Workworks 2018 — Marsden Weir on the Wollondilly River with the Waterworks in the distance on the waters edge. (I Willis, 2018)

Before the pumphouse was constructed Goulburn residents collected water in tanks or wells, or purchased water from a water carter.

The board installed a 1893 120 HP Appleby Bros steam engine to drive the water pumps. The Appleby beam engine is a typical compound condensing steam engine based on an Arthur Woolf design and 1804 patent. The pumphouse and steam engine was operational in 1886. The engine was driven by two Lancashire/Gallaway boilers in the boiler house.

Goulburn Waterworks pumphouse 2018 — Waterworks Pumphouse with boiler house at the front of the view. Central section of the building houses the beam steam engine. (I Willis, 2018)

The pumphouse was designed the New South Wales colonial architects and built in a Victorian Georgian style. It is built of brick laid in a Flemish bond pattern. The Waterworks states

It is known as a beam engine because of the large overhead rocking beam that transmits motion from the pistons to the cranks.

Waterworks beam steam engines, according to Bruce Macdonald (manager, 1974), were not common in Australia with the Goulburn engine only one of ten in Australia, all in New South Wales. The others were located in Sydney, Newcastle, Wagga Wagga, Albury and Bathurst. The Goulburn steam engine, according to the Australian Institution of Engineers, is the only intact example in Australia.

A northern annex to the pumphouse building was built in 1897 to house a secondary steam pump, with additions in the late 1920s. The southern annex was built in 1918 to house the first electric pumps which operated in tandem with the steam pumps until 1932.

The complex was managed by Goulburn City Council from 1887 to 1922. The facility supplied water to the town until 1977 when the waterworks closed.

The waterworks is a rare example in Australia of a complete steam powered municipal water supply left in its original location. The facility is of national scientific and technical significance.

Anzac · Attachment to place · Australia · Community identity · Heritage · Historical consciousness · Historical Research · Historical thinking · History · Local History · Myths · Narellan · Narellan Military Camp · Place making · Second World War · Sense of place · Technology · War

The army in camp at Narellan in WW2

April 24, 2016April 18, 2018 camdenhistorynotes4 Comments

Once the army moved into Narellan Military Camp it commenced operation and became part of the wartime scene during WW2. Men were seen marching all over the district, there were mock raids and the men practiced firing small arms. The camp is an important part of the story of Narellan during war as thousands of men, and some women, moved through the camp on their way to somewhere in the theatre that was the Second World War.

Narellan Military Camp 1940 CHS1229 — Aerial View Narellan Military Camp c.1941 (Camden Images CHS)

Militia Units

Universal trainees appeared at the camp in December 1941. They were part of the militia as tensions increased with Japans entry into the war in December 1941 and uncertainty increased. In October 1939 Prime Minister Menzies introduced compulsory military service for duty within Australia. Unmarried men 21 years in the year ending 30 June were called up for three months’ training with the militia. Menzies wanted the militia to maintain a strength of 75,000 to meet the demands of the 2^nd AIF and withdrawal of men who were in reserved occupations. Menzies stated in November 1940:

there is, I believe, a growing recognition of the fact that military training for the defence of Australia should be a normal part of our civic life, and that if it is to be just and democratic, it should be made compulsory.[1]

Militia units were created and equipped and some were deployed to sensitive areas. According to Milsearch in 1941 some units were deployed operationally to cover the likely Japanese landing beaches in the Newcastle – Sydney area. One unit established at the Camp at this time was the 2nd Australian Army Troops Company Royal Australian Engineers. This unit was almost solely involved in preparing route denial charges designed to frustrate enemy deployment inland following expected Japanese beach landings both north and south of Sydney. Narellan Camp also seems to have served as an assembly area at this time for units of the 8th and 9th Infantry Brigades.[2]

Tents in the bush Narellan Military Camp 1942 A Bailey

Training Ranges

There were three ranges for training purposes that Milsearch has identified – a grenade range, a 600 yard range, and a 30 yard small arms range.

The grenade range was located on a small hill adjacent to the old Oran Park Raceway and now covered with houses. The range was used for training hand grenade throwing and was constructed in late 1940.

The 600 yard range has been variously described as Narellan Rifle Range, Cobbitty Range or the rifle range Cutt Hill Cobbitty. The range was located north-west of the camp and is described as ‘being three and a half miles west along Cobbitty Road from the junction with Bringelly Road, then north along dirt roads to the range’. There were fifteen targets at 600 yards for small arms training and the range was constructed in July 1942. There are indications, according to Milsearch, that there was another 30 yard range on the site in 1941.

The 30 yard small arms range was located in a ‘disused quarry at the foot of water tanks on the right of the road from Camden to Narellan’.

Camp Admin block Narellan Military Camp 1942 A Bailey

Training with a difference

In 1942, according to Arthur Colman, the 2/1st Light Tank Squadron attacked RAAF Camden Aerodrome in a night exercise, and it is reported that they frightened the wits out of some of the RAAF personnel by charging over them in their slits trenches. As well, there was similar exercise in daylight (they had the only 2 light tanks in NSW). In the 10 weeks this unit was at Narellan they had instruction in small arms, map reading, truck driving and maintenance. As well there were the long route marches over all sorts of terrain to keep the men physically fit. For instance exercises by `Shanks pony’ and truck to such places as Wallacia, Mittagong, Nowra and the Kangaroo Valley area.[3]

Jim McIntosh reports that the Army had exercises over the whole of his property of Denbigh but they would always ask could they come onto the farm. He remembers that the tanks always `tore up a lot of grass’ but they were pretty careful not to disturb cultivated areas. In addition he recalls the Camp had trenches in the hills on the northern and north-western side of the camp adjacent to Denbigh.[4]

At Cobbitty Fred Small reported that the soldiers would frequently have marches through the village. A short march would be from the camp to Cobbitty Bridge over the Nepean River with groups of 40-50 troops. Larger groups of between 300-400 men would march through the village 2-3 times per day.[5]

Diary of a soldier

The diary of Andrew Heyward[6] of the 2/1 Independent Light Tank Regiment gives some of the character of activities at the camp.

Date	Activity
31 December 1941	Arrived at Narellan from Tamworth by bus and train – last camp in tents along Narellan Road
4 January 1942	Route march through Camden
5 January 1942	Major-General Northcote told the unit was not going to Malaya – anticipated what was going to happen to Singapore
6 January 1942	– 22 miles route march to Menangle
8 January 1942	Left camp with full packs marched through Cobbitty, Camden ended up at The Oaks Public School
12 January 1942	0330 – Reveille – full packs marched towards Penrith and ended up at a large waterhole – Warragamba
16 January 1942	Full pack march to Stanwell Park – storm about 1800 – came back in trucks
21 January 1942	up 0430 – exercise with trucks at Wallacia
23 January 1942	Rifle range – Narellan
3 February 1942	Unit ground attack exercise on RAAF Camden drome- I went right around river bank to enter up through vegetable garden and buildings nearby
11 February 1942	Anzac Range – Moorebank
16 February 1942	4 days exercise to Moss Vale, Jervis Bay, Nowra, Kiama, Bulli, Picton, Bowral
20 Feb, 1942	Used first 10 Owen guns on Narellan range
26 Feb, 1942	Driving exercise to Valley Heights
2 Mar, 1942	4 day stint in Blitz wagons – Wallgrove, Penrith, Windsor, Richmond, Rossmore – did a night march through Campbelltown to Wedderburn then marched to Menangle and Blitzs back to camp – at Narellan we did lot of Morse vehicle maintenance, gunnery training in camp
16 Mar, 1942	Left Narellan camp for exercises on way to Singleton camp via Menangle, Richmond, Wilberforce

[1] http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs162.aspx

[2] Oran Park Precinct: (Narellan Military Camp), Historical Review and Preliminary Investigations for Munitions Contamination, Milsearch/Growth Centres Commission UXO Study, 12 February 2007.

[3]. Arthur Colman, Letter to ICW, 14 November 1986, 15 January 1987; Mort Maiden, Letter to ICW, 6 June 1987;

[4]. Jim McIntosh, Interview, 10 November 1987

[5]. Fred Small, Interview, 13 January 1987

[6]. Andy Heyward, Letter to ICW, 6 January 1987, 7 May 1987;

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

The Sydney Railway Company

Camden connections to the railway

A forgotten anniversary of Sydney’s Central Railway Station

26 September 1855

A marvellous day goes down in history

Tin Shed

21-gun salute

Toing and froing on rail gauge

Locomotive No 1

Railway fever

The first sod

References

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Camden Mileposts

The English mile

Macquarie Obelisk

Concrete mileposts

Road maintenance

Wooden Mileposts

References

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Utility pit covers

Durham Gas Cover

NRCC

Logo Design

Friends of the Nepean River Country Council

The telco inspection lid

MWS&DB

Deks G (Gas)

Malco W (Water)

Romwood SV

Havestock Cover

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

The Cowpasture bridge

Choke-point

Economic importance of access

A bridge at last – ‘a paltry affair’

A grand affair

The railway to Camden

An exciting boat ride

Flooded Cowpasture Bridge in 2022

References

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

How the layers of the past can be peeled back to reveal the mysteries from yesteryear

What is the appeal of the picture?

Escaping the Spanish flu pandemic?

Aileen Ryan, photographer

Stuart Park, the location

Illawarra Rainforest, the ecology

Mount Pleasant Colliery Railway, a transnational conduit to the globe

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

The Macarthur region newspaper printeries

History of Penrith Museum of Printing

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

The Garden

Share this:

Like this:

Share this: