Tag: Camden Modernism

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Camden modern, the mid-century Camden cottage

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Mid-century modernism

Across the Camden district, many houses were built between the Second World War and the early 1970s.

The period is usually called mid-century modern, mid-century modernist or just mid-century. 

A mid-century brick ranch-style cottage in River Road Elderslie (I Willis 2024)

In Australia, the postwar period was a period with a housing shortage. The Homes to Love website states

While the 1950s was a time of great productivity and a time that saw a boom in the building industry, the war years had taken their toll resulting in a shortage of building materials, skills and equipment. This resulted in many people building smaller, more basic homes, often taking on the work themselves. (Homes to Love)

https://www.homestolove.com.au/1950s-houses-australia-21734

Rachel Griffiths writes in the Architectural Digest that

Influenced by the optimism of the post-World War II boom and by the exploration of a range of materials, including steel, concrete, and newly available insulated glass.

Architectural Digest

Scholars attribute the design style to American architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and designers like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and LeCorbusier.

The term was coined in 1983 by Cara Greenberg for the title of her book Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s (Random House)

Mid-century housing styles

Until 1952, timber houses were restricted to 111.48 m² (12 squares) and brick houses to 116.13 m². Lending institutions were very conservative, only advancing about 50% of the property value. (Lumby, p32)

Mid-century modernism influenced houses in the post-war suburbs of Australia’s large cities. Architects of the mid-century period include Harry Seidler, Hugh Buhrich (Sydney), David Chancellor and William Patrick, Robin Boyd, Sevitt & Petitt (Melbourne), Roy Grounds (Canberra), Robin Spencer (Brisbane) and others. 

Mid-century brick cottage with low-pitch roof in Luker Street Elderslie (I Willis 2024)

Features of the mid-century modern houses

The Australian Homes to Love website states

 Open-plan living was really embraced during the 1950s to encourage easy flow of people and conversation. Homes were often well-oriented and featured expansive windows, low-pitched gable roofs with corrugated iron or steel decking, vertical weatherboards, light coloured brick or cement sheet exterior walls. Minimalist design was embraced for its clean sleek lines and pastel, Scandinavian, and modern colour schemes utilised.

https://www.homestolove.com.au/1950s-houses-australia-21734

Mid-century modern is a period in the mid-20th century in which design that was characterised by

Sleek, cool, clean, sophisticated, functional, colourful, mod, and curvy—those are apt words to describe the mid-century modern design. This term encompasses the trends that influenced architecture and interior design in prosperous, post-war America.(Dengarden)

https://dengarden.com/interior-design/A-Pocket-Guide-to-Mid-Century-Modern-Style
Mid-century brick flats in Purcell Street Elderslie (I Willis 2024)

The mid-century Camden cottage

There are several recognisable residential housing styles in the Camden area across this period. These range from postwar fibro cottages of the 1940s (Edward Street) to the triple-fronted brick veneer cottages (Camden South) of the 1970s, and those in-between like 1950-1960s ranch style houses (Hennings House, Elderslie)

Many houses were a type of simple and low-cost housing to cope with material shortages and demand from buyers,especially in the post-war years. 

What does the mid-century Camden cottage represent?

The mid-century Camden cottage represents a number of changes in the Camden ocal area.

The most important influence in this period was the growth of the town and district from the economic boom generated by the Burragorang coalfields. Mining production increased progressively across this period and created many jobs.

Former Camden mayor Bruce Ferguson made the point at a conference in the Hunter Valley in 1977 that in 1949, a share farming family made around £1/15/- a week, while a miner was making £10 per week, a multiple of six times. (Ferguson)

In 1960, there were 150 mine workers in the Camden and Elderslie area. (Sankey, p29) By 1971, this had increased by 1800 people were employed in the mines, washeries, and the maintenance and administration of coal. (Sankey, p18) In contrast, dairy farmers fell from 109 in 1950 to 90 in 1974. (Sankey, p6A)

Camden’s population grew from 3934 in 1947 to 6377 in 1961, 8661 in 1966, and 11,155 in 1971. (Sankey, p10) A new high school opened in Camden in 1956.

Former Camden High School John Street Camden was established in 1956 (Peter Mylrea/Camden Images 2004)

The mining boom contributed to the end of the Camden the country town based on agricultural services. This challenged community identity and sense of place and contributed to the creation of Camden’s ‘country town idyll’ as Sydney’s urban fringe approached the town and heralded the end of modernism in the local area.

There was a shift from the designation of country town to the metropolitan urban fringe when the 1976-1977 NSW Local Government Grants Commission changed the classification of the Camden LGA from ‘non-metropolitan’ to ‘metropolitan’. (Sankey, p40)

The end of the mid-century period in the Camden area is is book-ended by the release of the 1973 New Cities of Campbelltown, Camden, Appin Structure Plan by the State Planning Authority of New South Wales.  

Examples of the mid-century Camden cottage

The Hennings House, built in 1960 on Macarthur Road, was part of the subdivision of the Bruchhauser vineyards of the Elderslie area. It was an excellent example of a house chosen by a local businessman from a pattern book supplied by a local builder. The house was ranch-style, of which there are a number in the Elderslie area with open-plan rooms to the interior. The house was demolished in 2011.

The Hennings House, built in 1960, was located at 64-66 Macarthur Road Elderslie. It was demolished in 2011. (I Willis, 2011)

  • 110 Lodges Road, Elderslie.

This house is a similar design to the Hennings House and has been approved for demolition.

A mid-century timber ranch-style cottage at 110 Lodges Road Elderslie has been approved for demolition. (CRE 2022)

  • Triple and double-fronted cottage

There are many examples of these styles of homes in the local area, particularly south of the town centre, Elderslie and Narellan.

A mid-century triple-fronted brick cottage in Harrington Street Elderslie (I Willis, 2024)

Jacqui Thompson writes on Domain that triple-fronted houses were

are simple buildings that feature a double or triple staggered façade, with a bedroom at the front that steps back to a lounge room and/or the front door. Brick veneer replaced double brick construction, and mass-produced building materials such as glass and cement tiles were embraced. There are wrought iron railings and fencing painted white and wire mesh screens on doors. There can be interconnecting rooms, lower ceilings, and cheaper materials, e.g., melamine benchtops, linoleum and rubber floors and mass-produced sheet materials on walls.  

https://www.domain.com.au/advice/post-war-double-and-triple-fronted-homes-in-australia/

  • Low-pitched roof style

There are a number of mid-century cottages in the Elderslie and Camden area with low-pitched roof styles. They are a mixture of brick and timber construction. In Elderslie, they were built for the coal mining company executives and were more expensive than other stripped-back designs. This design was influenced by West Coast USA styles of the mid-century period.

A mid-century cottage with a low-pitched roof on Sunset Ave. There are a number of cottages of this style in the Elderslie area. (I Willis 2024)

  • Cottage with gable

There are cottages that have a gable design.

A mid-century gabled cottage in River Road Elderslie (I Willis 2024)

The fibro cottage was seen as a modern and affordable housing style. There are many examples in the local area south of the Camden town centre, Elderslie and Narellan, that were built in the postwar years.

Mid-century fibro cottages in Purcell Street Elderslie (I Willis 2024)

References

Robyn Sankey, Camden and the Coal Industry. MA(Hons) Thesis, University of Sydney, 1984.

Bruce Ferguson, ‘The Coal Mining Industry in Camden’. Paper presented at Coal and A Country Town Seminar, Singleton, 1977 published in proceedings, JE Collins (ed), Singleton Shire Council.

Roy Lumby, ‘Modern Movement Architecture In NSW’, in The Modern Movement In New South Wales A Thematic Study And Survey Of Places. HeriCon Consulting (eds), NSW and the Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney, 2013.

Jacqui Thompson, ‘Post-war double and triple fronted homes in Australia’. Domain, 15 June 2025. Online @ https://www.domain.com.au/advice/post-war-double-and-triple-fronted-homes-in-australia/

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Camden Edwardian Cottages

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The Camden Cottage

Camden has quite a number of Edwardian cottages in the town area, on surrounding farms and in local district villages. They are typical of the early twentieth century landscape in the local district. These have been called the Camden Cottage.

The housing style was evidence of the new found confidence of the birth of a new nation that borrowed overseas trends and adopted them to suit local conditions. These style of houses were a statement of the individualism and the national character.

64 John St Camden, early 20th century ( J Riley)

The name Edwardian is loosely attached to cottages and buildings erected during the reign of Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. This period covers the time after the Federation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 when the six self-governing colonies combined under a new constitution. They kept their own legislatures and combined to form a new nation.

Australian architecture

Examples of Edwardian style cottages, including in and around Camden, were an Australian version of English Edwardian houses. Houses were plainer in detail, some with lead lighting in the front windows. Australian architecture was a response to the landscape and climate and the building style tells us about the time and the people who built them, how they lived and other aspects of Camden’s cultural heritage.

The Edwardian style of housing also includes a broad range of styles including Queen Anne, Federation, Arts and Crafts and Early Bungalow. These styles often tend to be asymmetrical with a projecting from gable, can be highly decorated with detailed work to gables, windows and verandahs. Edwardian style cottages often fit between 1900 and 1920, although the style extends beyond this period influencing the Interwar style housing.

Window detailing Camden Edwardian Cottage Elderslie (I Willis)

Edwardian Cottage Detailing

A number of Camden Edwardian style timber cottages have a projecting room at the front of the cottage with a decorated gable, adjacent to a front verandah, with a hipped roof line. This housing style is often characterised by a chimney that was a flue for a kitchen fuel stove and chip copper in an adjacent laundry. In some houses plaster cornices were common, sometimes there were ceiling roses, skirting and architraves. A number of been restored while unfortunately many others have been demolished.

Some Camden Edwardian homes had walls of red brickwork, sometimes with painted render in part. While there are many examples in the local area of timber houses with square-edged or bull-nosed weatherboards. Sunshades over windows supported by timber brackets are also common across the local area.

Doors in Edwardian style houses typically have three or four panels, with entry doors sometimes having an ornamentation. Common windows were double hung while later cottages may have had casement windows especially in the 1920s. Some cottages have return L-shaped verandahs, sometimes roofed with corrugated bull-nosed iron. Verandah post brackets had a variety of designs, with lattice work not uncommon feature. Verandahs featured timber fretwork rather than Victorian style cast ion lacework for ornamentation. Front fences may have had pickets, or just a wire fence in country areas.

Typical Edwardian colour schemes range from apricot walls, gables and barge boards, with white lattice panelling, red roofing and green coloured windows, steps, stumps, ant caps.

Edwardian Cottage Garden

Gardens were often more complex than Victorian examples. Amongst Edwardian gardens growing lawns became popular. Sometimes had a small tree in the front yard which could frame the house and might separate it from adjacent houses. Common trees included magnolia, elm, tulip tree or camellias, while shrubs and vines might have been agapanthus, agave, St John’s Wort, plumbago, standard roses, begonias, day lily, jasmine and sometimes maidenhair ferns.

Camden Edwardian Cottage

In the March 2014 edition of Camden History (Camden History Journal Volume 3 No 7 March 2014) Joy Riley recalls the Edwardian cottages in John Street. Joy Riley vividly remembers growing up as a child and calling one of these cottages her home. ‘I lived at 66 John Street for the first 40 years of my life before moving to Elderslie with my husband Bruce Riley. The two rooms of 66 John Street were built by the first John Peat, Camden builder, to come to Camden. In the 1960s I had some carpet put down in my bedroom, the floor boards were so hard, as they only used tacks in those days to hold carpet, the carpet just kept curling up.’ She says, ‘The back of the house was built by my grandfather, William Dunk. They lived next door at 64 John Street. He also built the Methodist Church at Orangeville or Werombi.

Yamba Cottage, Kirkham

Another Edwardian style house is Yamba cottage at Kirkham. It was built around 1920, fronts Camden Valley Way and has been a contested as a site of significant local heritage.

Yamba Cottage, 181 Camden Valley Way, Narellan. c. 1913 (Camden Images)

The building, a Federation style weatherboard cottage, became a touchstone and cause celebre around the preservation and conservation of local domestic architecture. This is a simple adaption of the earlier Victorian era houses for Fred Longley and his family who ran a small orchard on the site. The Yamba story is representative of smallholder farming in the Camden LGA, which has remained largely silent over the last century. Yamba speaks for the many small farmers across the LGA who have not had a voice and were an important part of farming history in the local area.

Ben Linden at Narellan

Ben Linden at Narellan is an outstanding example of the Edwardian cottages across the local area.

Ben Linden at 311 Camden Valley Way, Narellan is an Edwardian gem in the Camden District. Images by J Kooyman 1997 (Camden Images)

Ben Linden was constructed in 1919 by George Blackmore originally from North Sydney. George Blackmore, born in 1851  was married to Mary Ann and had seven children. George and his family lived in Ben Linden from 1921 to 1926. After this time he retired as a builder and eventually died in 1930.

The Camden Cottage

It is with interest that I see that a local Camden real estate agent has used the term ‘Camden cottage’ on a sale poster for 21 Hill Street.

Camden 21 Hill Street. The use of the term Camden cottage on the advertising sign is an important acknowledgement of this style of residential cottage in the local area. (I Willis)

This is the first time I have seen the term ‘Camden cottage’ used in a commercial space before and it is an interesting development. The sign actually state ‘Classic Camden Cottage’.

The Toowoomba House

Edwardian country cottages are not unique to the Camden area and can be found in many country towns across New South Wales and inter-state. Toowoomba has a host of these type of homes and published the local council publishes extensive guides explaining the style of housing and what is required for their sympathetic restoration in the online publication called The Toowoomba House. More elaborate Edwardian houses with extensive ornamentation can be found in Sydney suburbs like Strathfield, Burwood and Ashfield.

The Australian Edwardian house

For those interested in reading more there a number of good books on Australian Edwardian houses at your local library and there are a number of informative websites. Edwardian style houses have had a revival in recent decades and contemporary house can have some of their features. For example some are evident in housing estates at Harrington Park, Mt Annan and Elderslie.

Camden 21 Hill Street. The first time that I have seen the use of the term the Camden Cottage used in a commercial space in the local area. This is a simple Edwardian style cottage that was a typical building style of the early 20th century in local area. (I Willis)

Updated 17 May 2021. Originally posted 7 February 2015 at ‘Edwardian Cottages’.

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The Camden News affronted by Sydney ‘flappers’ and the appearance of the modern girl.

camdenhistorynotes

Effrontery and the ‘flapper’

‘Flappers of the 1920s were young women known for their energetic freedom, embracing a lifestyle viewed by many at the time as outrageous, immoral or downright dangerous’, says the History.com website.

If you read the pages of the Camden News you might have agreed.

In 1920 the Camden News reported ‘flappers’ were ‘running wild’ on the streets of Sydney, or so it seemed to the casual reader.  The press report stated:

A straggling procession of boisterous, well dressed young fellows, with pipe or cigarette in hand, and headed by a number of bold looking females of the ‘flapper’ type, paraded George and Pitt streets on Thursday (last week). (Camden News, 25 November 1920)

The same event was reported in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and other Sydney newspapers with less colourful language. Apparently there had been a lunchtime march of office workers along George Street numbering around 3000, with ‘200 ladies’, supporting the basic wage case in Melbourne.

The news story that appeared in the Camden News had originally been run in the Crookwell Gazette.  (Crookwell Gazette, 17 November 1920) and then re-published by the News the following week. The News and the Gazette were the only New South Wales newspapers that that ran this particular account of the Sydney march, where female office workers were called ‘flappers’.

The modern family of Dr Francis West following the christening of Lydia West’s daughter in 1915. This photograph was taken in the backyard of Macaria where Dr West had his surgery and where the West family called home. (Camden Images Past and Present)

The correspondent for the Gazette and News was offended by the effrontery young female office workers being part of an industrial campaign march. In the years before 1920 there had been a number of controversial industrial campaigns taken across New South Wales taken by workers. The Camden News had opposed these actions.

The editorial position of the Camden News was that these young women should fit the conservative stereotype of women represented by the Mothers’ Union. Here women were socialised in Victorian notions of service, ideals of dependence, and the ideology of motherhood where mothering was seen as a national imperative. (Willis, Ministering Angels:20-21)

The modern girl

The Sydney ‘flappers’ were modern girls who participated in paid-work, dressed in the latest fashions, cut their hair short, watched the latest movies, bought the latest magazines and used the latest cosmetics.

Just like modern girls in Camden.

Country women wanted to be modern in the 1920s. 

 As early as 1907 in Australia the term ‘flapper’ was applied to a young fashionable 20 year-old women ‘in short skirts’ written about the Bulletin magazine.

Australian women were considered modern because they had the vote and they were represented in literature as a young and athletic stereotype  as opposed the colourless and uninspiring English girl.  

The flapper

The ‘flapper’ is one representation of young women from the 1920s that appeared all over the world, and Camden was not remote from these international forces.

American author F. Scott Fitzgerald is acknowledged as the creator of the flapper and published his Flappers and Philosophers in 1920. (History.com)  Other female equivalents were Japan’s  moga, Germany’s neue Frauen, France’s garçonnes, or China’s modeng xiaojie (摩登⼩姐).

The term flapper linked Camden to international trends concerned with fashion, consumerism, cosmetics, cinema – primarily visual media. 

The modern girl in Camden

The ‘modern girl’ in Camden appeared in the early 1920s and was shaped by fashion, movies, cosmetics and magazines.

These two photographs illustrate that young women in Camden were modern.

Young Camden women in Macarthur Park in 1919 in a ‘Welcome Home’ party for returning servicemen (Camden Images)

The young women in this 1919 pic have short hair sitting next local returned men from the war.

Another group of the young modern women appeared in Camden in 1920s. Trainee teachers shown in the photograph taken by local Camden photographer Roy Dowle. The group of 49 young single women from Sydney stayed at the Camden showground hall in 1921 along with 15 men. In following years hundreds of young female teachers stayed at the Camden showground and did their practical training at local schools.

The group photograph of the trainee teachers from Sydney Teachers College at Onslow Park adjacent to the Show Hall in 1924. These modern young women and men from Sydney started coming to Camden in 1921. (Camden Images Past and Present) This image was originally photographed by Roy Dowle of Camden on a glass plate negative. The Dowle collection of glass plate negatives is held by The Oaks Historical Society (Roy Dowle Collection, TOHS)

The flapper at the movies

The most common place to the find the ‘flapper’ in Camden was at the movies – the weekly picture show at the Forrester’s Hall in Camden main street. The world on the big screen. 

The movies were a visual medium, just like fashion, cosmetics, advertising, and magazines, that allowed Camden women to embrace the commodity culture on the Interwar period.

The Camden News used the language of latest fashions and styles when it reported these events or ran advertisements for the local picture show. 

One example was the advertisement for the ‘Selznick Masterpiece’ the ‘One Week of Love’ in 1923. The was first time that the term ‘flapper’ appeared in a Camden movie promotion and it was  announced it to the world this way:

‘Every man, woman, flapper, bride-to-be and eligible youth in Australia is crazy-to-see its stupendous wreck scene, thrilling aeroplane crash, strong dramatic appeal, lifting humour, intoxicating love scenes, bewildering beauty, lavishness, gripping suspense, heart-toughing pathos, which all combing to make it the biggest picture of the year’. (Camden News, 9 August 1923)

According to country press reports the movie was the ‘passion play of 1923’ and showed at PJ Fox’s Star Pictures located in the Foresters’ Hall, which had opened in 1914. Starring silent film beauty Elaine Hammerstein and female heart-throb Conway Tearle the movie had enjoyed ‘a sensational long-run season’ at Sydney’s Piccadilly Theatre. (Kiama Reporter and Illawarra Journal, 7 March 1923)

Foreign movies blew all sorts of ideas, trends and fashions into the Camden district including notions about flappers.

Young Camden women were influenced by images and trends generated by modernism at the pictures, in magazines, in advertising, in cosmetics, and in fashion.

While Camden could be a small closed community it was not isolated from the rest of the world.

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Whiteman & McIntosh, Camden Colonial Families Celebrate a Moderne Wedding at Cobbitty

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An important social event

In late August 1928, two Camden colonial families celebrated the marriage of Keith Whiteman to Alice Margaret (Marge) McIntosh. This wedding was a social event between two local families of some importance and social status. The McIntoshes conducted a very successful dairy operation on the family property of Denbigh at Cobbitty, while the Whiteman family were successful Camden retailers.

Wedding 1928 McIntosh Alice McIntosh Denbigh CIPP lowres
In her bridal gown, Marge McIntosh was photographed in the garden of her home at Denbigh Cobbitty for her wedding on 25 August 1928. The style is strongly influenced by the modern from London and Paris (Camden Images Past and Present)

Both families had colonial origins. Members of the Whiteman family had immigrated to New South Wales in 1839 from Sussex to work on Camden Park Estate. While the McIntoshes had immigrated to New South Wales from the Inverness region of the Scottish Highlands in the 1860s.

Wedding ceremony

The ceremony was a relatively small country wedding of 60 guests, given both families’ social profiles and economic positions. The wedding ceremony was held in the historic setting of St Pauls’s Anglican Church at Cobbitty.

St Pauls was the centre of the village of Cobbitty and an expression of its Englishness, typical of several villages across the Camden District. The church was originally built under the direction of Galloping Parson Thomas Hassall in 1842 and adjacent to his 1828 Heber Chapel.

St Pauls Cobbitty 1910 CHS0669
Cobbity’s St Paul’s Anglican Church 1910 (Camden Images)

According to the press reports, the church was decorated with a simple floral arrangement of white flowers and asparagus ferns (Camden News, 20 September 1928). The white flowers for the  August wedding were likely to have been, according to Angela Wannet, Butterflies Florist in Camden, local calla lilies, oriental lilies, and carnations with trailing ivy.

While not elaborate, the floral displays in the church indicated that the families did not spare any expense on this critical family celebration.

Bride and groom

Cobbitty-born 33-year-old bride Marge McIntosh was the fourth child of Andrew and Ada McIntosh of the colonial property of Denbigh at Cobbitty. Denbigh is one of the oldest gentry properties on the Cowpastures and is listed on the state heritage register. It was initially an 1812 land grant to Charles Hook, then by the Galloping Parson Thomas Hassall (1826-1886), followed by the McIntosh family.

The family first leased the property in 1868 and then purchased it from the Hassall family in 1886. The State Heritage Inventory States that the house and property ‘retains a curtilage and setting of exceptional historic and aesthetic significance’.

Camden Melrose 69 John St FCWhiteman CIPP
Melrose at 69 John Street Camden was a substantial Edwardian home of the Whiteman family. Demolished in the late 1970s. (Camden Images Past and Present)

Camden-born 28-year-old bridegroom Keith Whiteman was the second child of Fred and Edith Whiteman of Melrose at 69 John Street, Camden. Melrose was a significant Edwardian brick cottage on John Street Camden. The Whiteman family had significant business interests in Argyle Street Camden, including a general store and newsagency. 

Keith and his brother Charles gained control of the general store 12 months after Keith’s wedding on the death of his father, Fred. The original Whiteman’s general store opened on Oxley Street in 1877 and moved to Argyle Street. According to The Land Magazine, it was ‘reminiscent of the traditional country department store’. (28 February 1991) and at the time of the report on Australia’s oldest family-owned department stores.

The fashionable bride

We are lucky to have a wonderful photograph of the bride Marge McIntosh in her wedding gown at Denbigh. It provides many clues to the importance of the wedding to both families and their no-nonsense approach to life. While not an extravagant wedding, the bride’s outfit reflects that no expense was spared on the gown and floral decorations for the bouquet and the church decorations.

The design of the outfits, as described in the press reports and in the photograph, reflects the influence of modernism and the fashions from Paris and London. This was a modern wedding in the country between two individuals of some social status.

According to the press reports of the day, the fashions worn by the wedding party were the height of modernism. The bride wore a classic 1920s design described as a ‘simple frock of ivory Mariette over crepe-de-chen’ of lightweight silk crepe as a backing, which was quite expensive.

According to one source, the made-to-order gown was fitted and likely hand-made by a Sydney-based dressmaker. The Mariette wedding gown style is still popular in England for brides-to-be if wedding blogs indicate trends. The bride’s gown was fashionable for 1928, with the hemline just below the knee.

The bride’s veil was white tulle, with a pink and white carnations bouquet. One local source in the shoe industry describes the bride’s shoes as a hand-made white leather shoes with a strap and a three-inch heel. They would have likely been hand-made by one of the four or five Sydney shoe firms of the day, some located around Marrickville.

Cobbitty St Pauls Church Interior 1928 Wedding Marg McIntosh&Keith Whiteman CIPP
Interior of St Paul’s Anglican Church at Cobbitty with floral decorations for the wedding of Marge McIntosh and Keith Whiteman on 25 August 1928 (Camden Images Past and Present)

Marge McIntosh wore a headdress of a ‘clothe’ veil style, which was popular then. The veil was ‘white tulle mounted over pink, formed the train and held in place with a coronet of orange blossom and silver’. According to press reports, the elaborate floral bouquet was made up of white and pink carnations and, according to Angela Wannet who viewed the bride’s wedding photo, was complemented by lilies and ferns.

The history of wedding robes as a part of celebrating wedding festivities dates back to the ancient Chinese and Roman civilizations. The first recorded mention of the white wedding dress in Europe was in 1406 when the English Princess Philippa married Scandinavian King Eric.

In the British Empire, the Industrial Revolution and the marriage of Queen Victoria to her first cousin Prince Albert in 1840  changed all that.  The fitted wedding dress with a voluminous full skirt became the rage after their wedding. The British population romanticized their relationship, and young women rushed to copy their Queen. The bride’s beauty was enhanced with the rise of wedding photography and did much to popularise the white-wedding dress trend.

Bridal party

Our modern bride at Cobbitty was attended by her sister Etta (Tottie) McIntosh in a frock of apricot georgette and the bridegroom’s sister Muriel Whiteman who wore a blue georgette, with hats and bouquets toned with their frocks. Georgette is a sheer fabric with a good sheen that is difficult to work and requires a good dressmaker. The fabric is difficult to cut out and sew and, according to one source, is easy to snag. The dressmaker exhibited her skill and experience with handcrafted sewing if the wedding photo of the bride, Marge McIntosh, is anything to go by.

The groom had his brother Charles Whiteman act as best man and an old school friend from Albury, Mr T Hewish as groomsman. (Camden News, 20 September 1928)

The reception

The wedding guests retired to a reception at the McIntosh’s historic colonial property of Denbigh, where the bride and groom were honoured with the ‘usual toasts’ and many congratulatory telegrams. A master of ceremony would have stuck to a traditional wedding reception with an introduction of the bride and groom, then toasts, with a response speech from the bride’s father, more toasts, responses by the groom’s father, followed by the reading of telegrams. The McIntosh family household would have likely provided the catering for the wedding.

denbigh-2015-iwillis
Denbigh homestead has extensive gardens and is still owned by the McIntosh family at Cobbitty (Open Day 2015 I Willis)

Wedding gifts

Amongst the wedding gifts were a rose bowl from the Camden Tennis Club and a silver entre dish from FC Whiteman & Sons staff. These gifts reflect the interests and importance of the bride and groom in these organisations. Tennis was a popular pastime in the Camden area in the 1920s, and some Camden tennis players did well at a state level in competitions. The entire dish would have been a plain design reflecting the influence of 1920s modern styling rather than the ornate design typical of Victorian silverware. (Camden News, 20 September 1928)

Honeymoon

The bride’s going away outfit was ‘a smart model dress of navy blue and a small green hat’. This would likely have been a fitted design typical of the style of the period and the influence of modernism in fashions in London and Paris. (Camden News, 20 September 1928)

The bride and groom left for a motoring honeymoon spent touring after the wedding festivities. In the 1920s, motor touring gained popularity as cars became more common and roads improved. Coastal locations and mountain retreats, with their crisp cool air in August, were popular touring destinations in the 1920s.

Camden Whitemans General Store 86-100 Argyle St. 1900s. CIPP
FC Whiteman & Sons General Store, 60-100 Argyle Street Camden, around the 1900s, was one of the oldest continuously family-owned department stores in Australia (Camden Images Past and Present)

Historical images

The wedding photograph of Marge McIntosh in her bridal gown, like historical photographs in general, is a snapshot in time. The image provides a level of meaning that contemporary written reports in the Camden press do not contain. The photograph provides subtle detail that can fill out the story for the inquisitive researcher.

While the wedding reports did not make the social pages of the Sydney press, it does not understate the importance of this union at a local level in the Camden community. It would be interesting to speculate if there were similar weddings between other Camden families.

The visual and written reports of the wedding give a new insight into life in Camden in the 1920s and how the community was subject to external transnational influences from all corners of the globe. Many claim that country towns like Camden were closed communities, which is true in many respects. These two Camden families were subject to the forces of international fashion and maintaining their community’s social sensibilities.

References

Summer Brennan 2017, ‘A Natural History of the Wedding Dress’.JSTOR Newsletter, 27 September. https://daily.jstor.org/a-natural-history-of-the-wedding-dress/

Updated on 27 May 2023. Originally posted on 27 September 2017 as ‘Camden Colonial Families Celebrate a Moderne Wedding at Cobbitty’

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The Camden Fibro Cottage: a not-so-humble abode

camdenhistorynotes3 Comments

The Camden Fibro Cottage

The humble fibro cottage of the 1950s and 1960s in Camden is integral to the town’s 20th-century history. The fibro house is representative of the baby-boomer era, when drive-ins, Holdens, Chiko rolls, black & white TV, rock & roll, and vinyl LPs were the norm.

Fibro is evocative of long summer holidays by the beach, with adolescent love, boogie boards, zinc cream and paddle pops.  

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

Fibro was invented in Austria by Ludwig Hatschek in 1900 and, within three years, was imported to Australia. Fibro was made in Australia by 1916, and was only one of a few countries to use it for housing.

Fibro was made and distributed in Australia primarily by Wunderlich and James Hardie. Fibro was cheap and easy to use, and it was modern.

In the 1950s, as the Burragorang coalfields expanded, the town suffered a housing shortage and fibro cottages provided one solution. Several fibro cottages were built by the New South Wales Housing Commission.

These housing types were recognized for features including hot-water systems, running water to the kitchen and bathroom and power-points throughout the house.

Camden’s simple fibro cottages provided affordable accommodation for the working man and his family. Local farms have a host of fibro houses as they were cheap to build, and fibro was a practical building material that sometimes replaced iron cladding.

Many Camden families have nostalgic memories of summer holidays at a fibro beach shack getaway on the South Coast. They were loved for their low maintenance and were easy to repair.

Charles Pickett’s The Fibro Frontier (1997) describes the 1950s fibro home style as austerity modernism. Pickett states that fibro houses combined economy, ease of construction and buyer engagement.

Fibro was a mass-produced manufactured building material that made housing construction cheaper.  Fibro offered the working family the chance to become a homeowner through a cost-effective form of modern domestic architecture.

Camden’s fibro houses had proud owners who kept well-maintained front gardens and mowed the grass with their Victa mowers around the Hills hoist in the backyard.

This image shows the farm cottage at 49 Exeter Street, Camden, located within the Camden Town Farm precinct. These fibro-clad farm cottages were relatively cheap to build in the early 20th century. This fibro-clad farm cottage was restored in 2017. (CTF)

The Powerhouse Museum and Sydney Living Museum have Wunderlich fibro catalogues that provide a valuable record of this style of architecture. Homeowners and builders were offered lots of advice on the advantages of fibro-cladding in magazines like Australian Homemaker, Australian Home Beautiful and Australian House and Garden.

Barry Humphries, the son of a builder, has stated that fibro houses were a bit ‘declasse’ and sometimes they were not ‘nice’ homes, although some in the 1950s described them ‘as modern as tomorrow’.

One characteristic of Camden fibro cottages is the rounded corners and walls, with their streamlined and modern lines, which were first manufactured in 1937.

Fibro was also used in commercial architecture in Camden and several retail and commercial properties in central Camden. Pickett maintains that the peak of fibro’s acceptance was the 1960s, and from there, its popularity declined, and it was replaced by other building materials, for example, brick-veneer construction.

Unfortunately, fibro has poor insulation qualities, and these cottages were cold in winter and hot in summer, and today there are health risks from asbestos.

Fibro-clad houses represent an essential period in Camden’s historical development, and examples are listed in Camden’s local heritage list. Interestingly filmmakers and artists have adopted the fibro house to signify a form of ‘retro-dagginess’ and a re-evaluation of suburbia, according to Pickett. 

Compressed fibre board has been returning as a successful building material in recent years.

Renovating a fibro cottage needs care with the dangerous asbestos fibres. For more information click here

This is an image of Chesham Cottage at 49 Broughton Street, Camden, in 1920, built by the Camden Voluntary Workers Association following the First World War. Fibro-cladding was a relatively cheap housing material compared to brick or timber. (Camden Images)

Facebook comments 4 May 2023

Paquita Bugden  Was a great place to call home.🥰

Russell OwenGrew up no 6 my parents bout one original still there 36 years

Kim Warren – EvansLooks like Burrawong cres…..Grew up at no 13, great memories ❤️

Andrew LundyWe rented a house in this street between 89 and 91. Our place wasn’t fibro though

Rosie RussellSkye SheilSamantha Ferrero I always think of Carol’s house and garden as the ultimate perfect version of these houses

Skye SheilRosie Russell so true! She always so on top of it!

Liz HaleRosie Russell I grew up in Fibro cottage 🤩

Kenny LittleRosie Russell no matter the houseHome is home

Darren Poss JamesLittle st Camden was the miners fibro houses down the south endGreat place to grow up 👍

Wendy StaceI grew up in Narellan also. Fibro homes were everywhere.

Anne WatkinsPlenty of them in Narellan too, I grew up in a fibro house.

Paquita Bugden Unfortunately all to be knocked down soon. New ‘old age’ units going up.

Jean Woods MacnaughtonAlistair, your first home in Lerida was like these but full on PINK!😉

Updated 4 May 2023. Originally posted 29 June 2014.