A History of Camden Chinese Market Gardeners 1899-1993, edited by Ian Willis & Julie Wrigley
A story from the shadows of history
The first Chinese market gardener arrived in the Camden district in 1899 when George Lee started the first attempt at intensive horticulture. He established a successful local market garden on the Nepean River floodplain at Elderslie, just north of the Camden township. (pp. 18, 47-50)
The last Camden Chinese market garden closed in 1993, marking the end of an era. Biu Wong, the final torchbearer of this rich tradition, purchased the Hop Chong Company garden business in 1968. His decision to close the business marked the end of a chapter in Camden’s history. (pp. 79-82)
Ian and Julie Wrigley have edited a collection of these stories in A History of Camden Chinese Market Gardeners 1899-1993. The book is more of a story of resilience in the face of hardship for Camden’s Chinese diaspora than simply a narrative about local farming history.
Willis and Wrigley have brought the story of the Camden Chinese out of the shadows of history, where the act of forgetting has relegated the Chinese market gardeners to a note in history. This is not unique to Camden and has happened in country towns all over Australia.
Sophie Loy-Wilson, a renowned author of Chinese-Australian history, has stated that Julie Wrigley has ‘collated years of research’ to tell the story of the Camden Chinese and ‘takes the reader from the outskirts of Sydney to rural China, to Hong Kong and back again’.
Chinese market gardeners have been an integral part of Australia’s nation-building story since the late 19th century. Sophie Loy-Wilson recalls
Suburban Sydney, where I live, is pockmarked by old farms – we call them market gardens – but they were farms, vegetable farms, and they are old, they date back to the 1860s, and they bear the marks of many people, many cultures.
A History of Camden Chinese Market Gardeners 1899-1993. p 13
The Camden Chinese farmed on six principal sites along the Nepean River floodplain just outside the Camden town centre. They rented land from local European landowners because they could not purchase their own landholdings.
Land was as important to the Chinese’s identity as it was for Europeans. At the end of the 19th century, the Chinese fitted the settler colonial project without challenging its primary objectives and, like Europeans, had little interaction with the local Indigenous community.
Despite facing numerous challenges, including the White Australia Policy, regular floods on the Nepean River floodplain, and local ostracism by the Camden community, the Camden Chinese demonstrated their resilience and determination, proving the viability of intensive horticulture on the Nepean River floodplain for the first time.
Hard work, innovative entrepreneurship, and the profit motive drove these men-only farming co-operatives, which were organised into highly structured work teams. Their monk-like existence was made harder by rudimentary shelters without luxuries and their families at home in China.
The Camden Chinese used their agency as history-makers, innovators, and risk-takers, developing flexible coping strategies using their technological skills to ensure the success of their farming activities. In 1910, the CamdenNews stated:
It is very interesting to watch those enterprising and skilful agriculturalists who are working the vegetable gardens near the Camden Bridge. They seem to be thoroughly conversant with the composition of the soil and whatever deficiency there was, they spared no expense in making it good…
(Camden News, 1 December 1910)
The Chinese were always outsiders in the eyes of a closed European community in Camden. They were excluded from community events and celebrations, yet during the First and Second World Wars, the Chinese were generous donors to wartime patriotic funds and charities. These outsiders attempted to be insiders. (pp. 42, 67)
The relationship between the Camden community and the Chinese was transactional and market-driven. It was based on selling vegetables to local families, hiring local Europeans to transport their produce to the Sydney markets (pp. 27, 67), occasionally hiring local Europeans as pickers and other business arrangements. (p. 40)
Recovery of stories
Local historian RE ‘Dick’ Nixon was the first to document the history of the Camden Chinese market gardeners. In his memoirs in 1976, he wrote about the Chinese and their farming practices. Dick’s lived experience of the Chinese market gardeners was through his father, Leslie Nixon, who was a local carrier who carted the Chinese produce to the Sydney markets. (pp. 25, 39)
The resurrection of the Chinese market gardener’s stories continued with the small collection of objects at the Camden Museum after it opened in 1970. Relics of the Chinese presence were handed over to the museum as they were found in the forgotten corners of local farms once occupied by the Chinese. Recent work by Julie Wrigley has added a considerable amount of material to the Camden Chinese story and is incorporated in this book. (pp. 33-38, 83-87)
Camden Chinese Market Gardeners fits into a growing genre of books detailing the Chinese diaspora in Australia, including The China-Australia Migration Corridor (2023), a collection of articles from an ARC project on the transnational dimension of the migration between China and Australia. Launched at the Darling Square Library in February 2024 by Dr Sophie Loy-Wilson, who contributed the Introduction to Camden Chinese Market Gardeners and launched the book at Camden on April 6.
Sketch by Douglas Annand, ‘Chinaman’s Garden, Camden, NSW’ in Douglas Annand: Drawings and Paintings in Australia (Ure Smith, 1944)
A History of Camden Chinese Market Gardeners 1899-1993 is a groundbreaking publication by the Camden Historical Society, which manages the Camden Museum. It is the first time the history of the Chinese market gardeners has been published as a book.
Unfortunately, the descendants of the Camden Chinese market gardeners have not taken the opportunity to let the voices of their forebears speak to the world and tell their own stories in their own words. It has been left up to the primary gatekeepers of the Camden story at the Camden Historical Society to open the door and let the voices from the past speak to the present generation. Hopefully, there are many more stories to follow.
This publication is recommended for anyone interested in local studies, the Chinese diaspora, the history of horticulture in Australia, the White Australia Policy, or the immigration story, and has made a valuable contribution to understanding the lesser-known aspects of Australian history. It is available for sale from the Camden Museum.
A History of Camden Chinese Market Gardeners 1899-1993 | Edited by Ian Willis & Julie Wrigley | Camden Historical Society | index | bibliography | 115 pp | ISBN 978-0-6485894-2-6 | $30
Contaminated milk being sold to consumers today is completely unthinkable, yet there was a time in Camden when it was not unusual at all.
Contaminated milk was such as issue that 1931 local milk supplier Camden Vale Milk Company Limited advertised the hygienic properties of its bottled milk.
Camden Vale Milk was produced by the dairies of Camden Park Estate. It was promoted as ‘Free from Tubercule, Typhoid and Diphtheria Bacilli’. Camden Vale promised that its milk was ‘rich, clean’ and ‘safe’.
The advertisement by Camden Vale Milk appeared in the 1931 booklet for Sydney Health Week and was used to promote the sale of bottled milk.
An advertisement promoting bottled milk placed by Camden Vale Milk Company Limited in the 1931 Health and Baby Welfare Booklet as part of Sydney Health Week. Health Week ran from 10 October 1931 to 23 October 1931 across New South Wales.
Sydney Health Week was launched in October 1921 with the aim of improving community health particularly the health of infants. Dr Purdy of the organising committee stated that infant mortality in Australia was twice the rate of Great Britain. Health Week was modelled on the Health Week of Great Britain which started in 1912 by the Agenda Club and renewed after the war. The week was launched with the support of the NSW Labor Government and the Minister for Public Health and Motherhood, Mr G McGirr. (Tweed Daily, 27 October 1921)
The cover of the 1931 booklet published to promote Health and Baby Welfare Week. The booklet was produced by Executive of the Eleventh Annual Sydney Health Week. It had a circulation of 207,000 and was 128 pages.
Camden Vale Bottled Milk
Camden Park Dairies started selling bottled milk from 1926 under the Camden Vale Bottled Milk brand across the Sydney market. The growth of bottled milk contributed to better hygiene and stopped contamination.
The Macarthur family of Camden Park established the Camden Vale Milk Company Limited in 1920 to distribute whole liquid milk to the Sydney market. The company became a co-operative the following year with 131 shareholders and FA Macarthur Onslow was the managing director. Camden Park’s dairy processing assets, including the Menangle Milk factory, Redfern processing plant and delivery trucks, were transferred to Camden Vale in 1920.
The company opened a milk receiving depot at the corner of Edward and Argyle Streets in Camden in 1921. The Menangle factory sent milk to Redfern for pasteurisation and bottling. Bottled milk gave Camden Vale an edge in the Sydney market where there was fierce competition from over-supply and price-cutting.
Camden Vale Milk Company Limited Depot at the corner of Edward and Argyle Street Camden adjacent to the Camden-Campbelltown tramway. This 1923 view is the timber building that burnt down shortly after this image was taken and replaced with the current brick building. The railway allowed easy transportation of whole milk to the Sydney market. (Camden Images)
Adulterated milk
The Camden Vale Milk advertising for Sydney Health Week might seem alarmist today. Yet a short history of the Sydney milk supply and issues of contamination and milk-borne disease illustrates that these type of concerns were far from alarmist. Indeed they were quite prudent.
So what were the issues with milk in 1931?
In the early 20th century tuberculosis, typhoid diphtheria and other diseases were a constant threat.
A quick search of Trove and the pages of the Camden News and Picton Post reveals the extent of notifiable disease within the Camden community in the past. There were a host of outbreaks in the early 20th century and late 19th century reported by these newspapers. They included: scarlet fever (1914, 1927, 1948); measles (1914); cholera (1899, 1900, 1902, 1911, 1914); infantile paralysis or polio (1932, 1946); typhoid fever (1914, 1916, 1921); consumption or tuberculosis (1912, 1913, 1916); diphtheria (1896, 1898, 1907, 1922, 1948); and others.
Milk-borne disease
The threat of milk-borne diseases was a real threat in the 19th century.
Well before the advent of germ theory and modern epidemiology, milk was being named as the means by which typhoid, scarlet fever and diphtheria were sometimes spread. The connection between infant mortality and cows’ milk had been noted early in the nineteenth century.
The first attempt in New South Wales to control the quality of milk from dairies in the Sydney area were laws to stop the adulteration of food in the 1870s. They were based on English laws. It was quite common for Sydney dairymen to adulterate pure milk with added water, justifying their claims that they could not make a profit without adding water. In 1875 there was an outcry from NSW Medical Gazette about the practice.
New South Wales authorities were prompted into action in 1886 when an outbreak of milk-borne typhoid in Sydney was traced to a well on a Leichhardt dairy. The dairy was contaminated by sewage from surrounding houses. There were further outbreaks linked to polluted dairies in St Leonards in 1887 and 1890, and another in the Randwick area in 1890.
Raw milk
The inspection of Sydney dairy herds from the 1890s led to a decline in the incidence of milk-borne tuberculosis and improved conditions at the dairies. The major risk arose from the sale of raw milk by city dairies.
The local ‘milko’ sold customers raw milk. It was sometimes poor quality and there was no guarantee it was free from contamination. The ‘milko’ poured milk into from a tank in his van into the customer’s jug.
By 1905 action by city health authorities led to significant improvements on city dairies and milk shops. Authorities had started to take action on the adulteration of milk with water and chemical preservatives.
Pasteurisation
Pasteurisation of milk was an effective way of protecting consumers from the milk-borne disease. It involves heat treatment of milk then rapid cooling.
The Farmers’ and Dairymans’ Company started to pasteurise its milk supply in 1903 but contamination occurred in the supply chain. In 1905 the company along with the NSW Fresh Food and Ice Company advertised pasteurised milk in the Sydney press. (Farmers’ and Dairymen’s Milk Co. advertisement, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 January 1905; N.S.W. Fresh Food and Ice Co. advertisement, Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1905, 9).
Commercial pasteurisations was first introduced in the USA in 1907 and spread quickly across American cities as it improved the keeping quality of milk. The first regulations were introduced in England in 1922.
Following the First World War the New South Wales Board of Trade maintained that child health could be improved by higher consumption of milk. The Board added that infant feeding on uncontaminated milk could be achieved by the use of dried milk.
The poor quality of fresh milk from Sydney suburban dairies in 1923 meant that baby health clinics recommended mothers feed their infants a combination of dried milk and fruit juice. The aim was to reduce infant mortality from gastro-enteritis.
Bottled milk and Camden Vale Milk Company Limited
Farmers had started selling bottled milk in 1925. The first bottled milk was produced in Sydney in 1911 but the company was unable to survive the competition from established firm. The first use of bottled milk in Sydney according to newspaper reports was in 1898 following its adoption and use in the Philadelphia in the USA.
A milk bottle produced by Camden Vale Milk Co Ltd (Belgenny Farm)
In 1929 Camden Vale merged with Dairy Farmers’ Cooperative Milk Company, established by South Coast dairy farmers in 1900, and Farmers’ and Dairymans’ Company. The company continued to use the Camden Vale brand and eventually in 1934 the Camden Vale Milk Co Ltd was wound up.
Camden Park Estate Model Dairy No 2 milking showing concrete floor and fitted out with equipment that is easy to clean in 1938 (Camden Images)
In 1926 the Camden Park opened its first ‘model’ dairy at Menangle to give Camden Vale bottled milk an edge in the competitive Sydney market. It represented the ‘best practice and high standards of hygiene’. This meant
The brick dairy had a concrete floor with bails, fittings and equipment designed for ease of cleaning and optimum hygiene.
Milk was pasteurised at the Menangle and Camden factories, bottled and delivered to customers.
‘The Milk with the Golden Cap’ slogan or tagline was used in the promotional advertising for Camden Vale bottled milk. The milk was sold at a premium across the Sydney market.
The Macarthur family at Camden Park Estate followed the latest scientific methods in their dairy herds and regularly won prizes at the Camden Show and the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
I was recently walking across the Nepean River floodplain past meadows of swaying waist-high grass on a local walkway that brought to mind Governor King’s 1805 description of the Cowpastures. Atkinson writes
The first Europeans looked about with pleasure at the luxuriant grass that covered both the flats and the low hills. The flats seemed best for cattle…the trees were sparse.
Atkinson, Alan 1988, Camden, Oxford University Press, Oxford ; New York
The trees were indeed sparse on my walk, yet the cattle in the adjacent paddock proved the fulfilment of the observations of the early Europeans.
Black cattle graze on the waist-high grass just as the wild cattle of the Cowpastures did over 200 years ago. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway 2020 (I Willis)
The cattle I saw were polled hornless black cattle markedly different from the horned-South African cattle, which made the Nepean River floodplain their home in 1788 after they escaped from Bennelong Point in Sydney Town. They became the wild cattle of the Cowpastures.
The beauty of the landscape hints at the management skills of the area’s original inhabitants -the Dharawal – who understood this country well.
The aesthetics of the Nepean River floodplain caught the attention of the early Europeans in a landscape managed by the local Dharawal people for hundreds of years. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Pond (2020 I Willis)
Layers of meaning within the landscape
Walking the ground is an essential way for a historian to empathise with the subtleties of the landscape and the layers of meaning that are buried within it.
The walkway is located in the original Cowpastures named Governor Hunter in 1796, which Governor King declared a government reserve in 1803. Just like an English lord, Governor King banned any unauthorised entry south of the Nepean River to stop the poaching of wild cattle. Just like the ‘keep out’ signs in the cattle paddocks today.
According to Peter Mylrea, the area of the town farm was purchased by colonial pioneer John Macarthur after the government Cowpasture Reserve was closed and sold off in 1825. It is easy to see why John Macarthur wanted this part of the country for his farming outpost of Camden Park, centred at Elizabeth Farm at Parramatta.
Although this does not excuse European invaders from displacing and dispossessing the Indigenous Dharawal people from their country. Englishman and colonial identity John Oxley and John Macarthur were part of the colonial settler society which, according to LeFevre, sought to replace the original population of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers.
Today all of this country is part of the Camden Town Farm, which includes the walkway.
A rest stop on the walkway adjacent to the Nepean River. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway Nepean River (2020 IW)
Llewella Davies – a colourful local character
Llewella Davies was a larger-than-life colourful Camden character and a genuinely unique Camden identity. On her death in 2000, her estate bequeathed 55 acres of her family’s dairy farm fronting Exeter Street to the Camden Council. Llewella wanted the site to be used as a functional model farm for educational or passive recreational use.
An information sign at the beginning of the walkway explains the exciting aspects of the life of Miss Llewella Davies. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)
The Davies dairy farm
The Davies family purchased a farm of 130 acres in 1908. They appeared not to have farmed the land and leased 20 acres on the corner of Exeter and Macquarie Grove Road to Camden Chinese market gardener Tong Hing and others for dairying.
Llewella was the youngest of two children to Evan and Mary Davies. She lived all her life in the family house called Nant Gwylan on Exeter Street, opposite the farm. Her father died in 1945, and Llewella inherited the house and farm on her mother’s death in 1960.
The house Nant Gwylan was surrounded by Camden High School, established in 1956 on a sporting reserve. Despite being approached on several occasions, Llewella refused to sell out to the Department of Education for an extension to the high school.
Llewella, who never married, was born in 1901 and educated at Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School (SCEGGS) in Darlinghurst. The school educated young women in a progressive liberal curriculum that included the classics, scientific subjects, and female accomplishments.
Llewella undertook paid work at the Camden News office for many years and volunteered for numerous community organisations, including the Red Cross and the Camden Historical Society. In 1981 she was awarded the Order of Australia medal (OAM) for community service.
The Camden Town Farm
In 2007 Camden Council appointed a Community Management Committee to examine the options for the farm site that Llewella Davies had gifted to the Camden community. The 2007 Camden Town Farm Masterplan outlined the vision for the farm:
The farm will be developed and maintained primarily for agricultural, tourism and educational purposes. It was to be operated and managed in a sustainable manner that retains its unique character and encourages and facilitates community access, participation and visitation.
2007 Camden Town Farm Masterplan
The walkway has several historic sites and relics from the Davies farm. Here are the Shoesmith Cattle yards… Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)
The master plan stated the farm was ‘ideally place to integrate itself with the broader township’ and the existing Camden RSL Community Memorial Walkway established in 2006.
Against this background, the Camden Town Farm management committee moved forward with the development of a walkway in 2016.
The Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway
The walkway was constructed jointly by Camden Council and the Town Farm Management Committee through the New South Wales Government’s Metropolitan Greenspace Program. The program is administered by the Office of Strategic Lands, with funding for the program coming from the Sydney Region Development Fund. It aims to improve the regional open space in Sydney and the Central Coast. It has been running since 1990.
Camden Mayor Theresa Fedeli opened the walkway on 17th August 2019 to an enthusiastic crowd of locals. The walkway is approximately 2.4 kilometres, and it has been estimated that by January 2020, around 1000 people per week will be using it.
The walkway is part of Camden’s Living History, where visitors and locals can see, experience and understand what a farm looks like, smells like and its size and extent. Located on Sydney’s urban fringe, it is a constant reminder of the Indigenous Dharawal people and the area’s farming heritage of grazing, cropping, and dairying.
If the walker is patient and perceptive, the path reveals the layers of the past, some of which have been silenced for many years.
Some enthusiastic walkers on the path get in some exercise on the 2.4 km long track. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)
The seismic station is adjacent to the walkway path on the Nepean River floodplain. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)
There are information signs at the beginning and the end of the walkway. This one highlights the warnings and the things that walkers and visitors are not allowed to do. Camden Town Farm Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway (2020 I Willis)
The value of the walkway
Tourism
Education
Memorial
Commemoration
Fitness and wellbeing
Ecological
Sustainability
Working farm
Living history
Community events and functions
Commercial business – farmers markets
Aesthetics and moral imperative
Storytelling
Community wellness
Food security
Australian Historic Themes
The Miss Llewella Davies Pioneers Walkway fits the Australian Historic Themes on several levels, and the themes are:
Tracing the natural evolution of Australia,
Peopling Australia
Developing local, regional and national economies
Building settlements, towns, and cities
Working
Educating
Governing
Developing Australia’s cultural life
Marking the phases of life
Updated on 14 June 2023; Originally posted on 14 April 2020 as ‘A walk in the meadows of the past’
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.
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.
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.
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.).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Personal and family stories that family historians and genealogists seek out provide a broader perspective on local histories and local studies of an area. They allow a person to take a look at themselves in the mirror from the past. Insights into our ancestors provide a greater understanding of ourselves in the present. The past informs the present through family and personal histories and places the present into context.
Family and personal histories allow us to see and understand that we are greater than just ourselves. We are all part of a continuum from the past. The present is only a transitory phase until tomorrow arrives.
Looking at the past through personal and family histories gives a context to our present location on the timeline within our own family. Our own family story is located within the larger story of our community. Personal and family stories remind us daily of our roots and our ancestors.
We all have a past, and it is good to be reminded of it occasionally. This is a job that is well done by thousands of enthusiastic family historians and genealogists and their creation of family trees and our connections to our ancestors.
We all need an appreciation of the stories from the past to understand how they affect and create the present. The past has shaped the present, and the present will reshape the future. Our ancestors created us and who we are, and we need to show them due respect. We, in turn, will create the future for our children and their offspring.
One local family were the Pattersons of Elderslie, and one of their descendants, Maree Patterson, seeking to fill out their story. She wants your assistance. Can you help?
The Patterson family of Elderslie
Maree Patterson writes:
I moved from Elderslie in 1999 to Brisbane, and I have tried unsuccessfully to find some history on the family.
I am writing this story as I have been trying to research some of my family histories on my father’s side of the family, and I feel sad that I never got to know a lot about his family.
My father, Laurence James Henry Patterson, was a well-known cricketer in the Camden district. He was an only child, and he didn’t really talk much about his aunts, uncles, and cousins.
My grandfather passed away when I was young. Back then, I was not into family history, and I’ve hit a stumbling block. I’m now in need of some assistance.
I would really like to find out some history on the Patterson family as I have no idea who I am related to on that side of my family, and I would like to pass any family history down.
Limited information
At the moment, I am seeking any help as the following is the only information that I have on the Patterson family.
H Patterson arrives in Elderslie
My great-grandfather was Henry Patterson (b. 16 July 1862, Kyneton, Victoria – d. 11th July 1919, Camden, NSW). Henry arrived in Elderslie from Victoria in the 1880s with his wife Catherine (nee Darby), and they became pioneers in the Camden district.
Henry Patterson was a carpenter by trade and worked around the Camden area for various businesses. He and his wife, Catherine, had 7 children, all of whom were born in Camden.
They were Ethel Adeline (b. 9 June 1886), Clarice Mabel (b. 14 May 1888), Isabella (b. 2nd June 1890), William Henry (b. 8 May 1892), Stanley Dudley (b. 5 October 1894), Ruby Lillian (b. 24 March 1899 and who passed away at 5 months of age) and Percy Colin (b. 13 January 1903). [Camden Pioneer Register 1800-1920, Camden Area Family History Society, 2001]
I have been told that Henry and his family lived in a cottage in Elderslie, which is now the Tourist Information Centre, but I have not been able to confirm this. This is now known as Oxley Cottage (M Patterson)
Henry’s wife dies
Henry sadly lost his wife Catherine in 1910 at only 47 years of age, which left him to raise six children.
Headstone of the grave of Catherine Patterson, who died on 2 April 1910, aged 47 years old, and Henry Patterson who died on 11 July 1929, aged 66 years old. The grave is located in St John’s Church cemetery in Camden and is one of the most important cemeteries in the Macarthur region. (J OBrien, 2020)
Henry remarried in 1912 to Martha Osmond (nee Boxall) from Victoria.
Henry died on 11 July 1929 in Camden District Hospital after pneumonia set in following an operation. Martha, who was well-known and respected throughout the district, passed away on 18 May 1950 at the age of 86 years of age. She broke her leg and had become bedridden for some months.
The Patterson family gravesite in St John’s Church cemetery Camden. St John’s Church was built in the 1840s and is one of Australia’s oldest Gothic-style churches. The church has been endowed by the Macarthur family on several occasions. The church makes up one of the most important vistas in the district, with sightlines from Camden Park House. the Macarthur family mansion. (J OBrien 2020)
Henry’s son goes to war
Henry and Catherine’s 5th child, Stanley Dudley Patterson, was a farmer in Elderslie. He enlisted in the 1/AIF on 18 July 1915 and was sent off to war on 2 November 1915. He was wounded, and as his health continued to decline, he was sent back to Australia in February 1917.
Sydney Mail 13 September 1916
Voluntary Workers Association helps local digger
Upon Stanley Patterson’s return to Elderslie, a meeting was held by the Camden Branch of the Voluntary Workers’ Association.
They approved the building of a three-roomed weatherboard cottage with a wide verandah front and back to be built at 7 Purcell Street, Elderslie. He was married to Maud Alice Hazell.
7 Purcell Street house was originally built in 1918 for Stanley Patterson by the Workers Voluntary Association. It was the first house built in the Camden area under the scheme. (2019 REA)
Construction of VWA cottage
The land on which the cottage was to be built was donated by Dr. F.W. and Mrs. West. Once the cottage was completed, Stanley secured a mortgage to repay the costs of building the cottage. I believe that the construction of this cottage started in either late February or late March 1918.
Carpentering work had been carried out by Messrs. H.S. Woodhouse, A. McGregor, E. Corvan, and H. Patterson. The painters were Messrs. F.K. Brent, J. Grono, A.S. Huthnance. E. Smith, Rex May and A. May under the supervision of Mr. P.W. May. The fencing in front of the allotment was erected by Mr. Watson, assisted by Messrs. J. E. Veness, C. Cross, and J. Clissold. [Camden News]
Camden News 13 June 1918
Official handing over of VWA cottage
Stanley Patterson’s cottage in Elderslie, which was the first cottage built by the Voluntary Workers’ Association, was officially opened by Mr. J.C. Hunt, M.L.A., on Saturday, 15 June 1918.
The Camden News reported:
A procession consisting of the Camden Band, voluntary workers, and the general public, marched from the bank corner to the cottage, where a large number of people had gathered.
Mr. Hunt, who was well received, said he considered it a privilege and an honour to be invited to a ceremony of this kind, for when those who had fought for us needed help it was our duty to give that help, for they had fought for us needed help it was our duty to give that help, for they had sacrificed so much for us. Although Private Patterson had returned from active service, he had offered his life for us. Mr. Hunt congratulated Pte. Patterson on responding to the call of duty; soldiers did not look for praise, the knowledge of having done their duty to their country was all they required. He hoped that Pte. and Mrs. Patterson would live long to enjoy the comforts of the home provided for them by the people of Camden.
Camden News, 20 June 1918
Appeal for photographs of VWA cottage by CE Coleman
CE Coleman took a few photos of the VWA cottage and handed them over to Pte. Patterson. These included: one in the course of construction; the official opening; the gathering that had assembled on the day; and a photo of Pte. Patterson. To date, I have searched high and low for these photos but to no avail. The only photo of a cottage built by the Voluntary Workers’ Association is a cottage at 49 Broughton Street, Camden, for returned soldier Pt. B. Chesham. [Camden Images Past and Present] [Camden News, Thursday, 20 June 1918, page 4]
VWA cottage is a model farm for other returning soldiers
Elderslie looking towards the house in 34 River Road 1925 (M Patterson)
Camden News, 13 June 1935
The Camden News reported:
MODEL POULTRY FARM
Stanley Patterson settled down in his new cottage on 1¼ acres and was determined to make good and earn a livelihood and cultivated the land and planting a small apple and citrus orchard and a vineyard. It wasn’t long before he purchased an adjoining piece of land of another 1¼ acres and within a few more years added another block, giving him 3 ¾ acres.
By 1935, Stanley Patterson owned 14 acres in the vicinity of Elderslie. With his apple and citrus orchard and vineyard, Stanley went into poultry farming as well with particular attention given to the production of good and profitable fowls and he had over 1,000 birds, mainly White Leghorns and Australorps with an extra run of the finest standard Minorca.
In 1935, the progeny test of Stanley Patterson’s birds held a record of 250 eggs and over and the distinctive productivity of these is in the fact that he collects eggs in an off period equal to numbers in flush periods. The marketing value is therefore enhanced. The pens are well divided into different sections, the buildings being on the semi-intensive system each with its own separate run. The brooder house is fitted with the Buckeye principle brooders, also has run for young chicks. The incubator house is a separate identity fitted with a Buckeye incubator of 2,000 eggs capacity, hot air is distributed by means of an electric fan. Feed storage and preparation shed and packing room are conveniently attached and the model poultry farm is one that stands out only to the credit to the industrious owner, but to the district in which it is worked.
In 1935, day-old chicks were sold for 3 Pounds per 100 or 50 for 32/-. Day-old Pullets were sold for 7 Pounds per 100, eggs for hatching were sold for 25/- per 100 and Custom hatching was 8/- per tray of 96 eggs.
Camden News, 20 June 1935
Looking down River Road in Elderslie to house at 34 River Rd with Nepean River in distance 1925 (M Patterson)
My grandfather, WH Patterson
My grandfather was William Henry Patterson, the 4th child born to Henry and Catherine Patterson. He was a carpenter like his father, and following his marriage to Ruby Muriel Kennedy in 1918, he purchased some acreage in River Road, Elderslie. He had a vineyard, flower beds, fruit trees and other crops on a small farm.
Family cottage of WH Patterson at 34 River Road Elderslie front of house 1970 (M Patterson)
William built his own home at 34 River Road, Elderslie, in the early 1920s with some assistance from another builder. The home was a double brick home with a tin roof and consisted of two bedrooms, a bathroom, a lounge room, a kitchen, laundry and a verandah around 3 sides.
Inside the home, there was a lot of decorative timber, and William had also made some furniture for his new home. This home has since gone under some extensive renovations, but the front of the home still remains the same today and recently sold for $1.9 million.
As a carpenter, William worked locally in the Camden district and, on several occasions, worked at Camelot. Unfortunately, I have no other information on William.
Family cottage of WH Patterson at 34 River Road Elderslie side view of house 1970s (M Patterson)
Contemporary developments at 34 River Road, Elderslie
Jane reports she is the current owner of 34 River Road Elderslie and has loved finding out about the history of the house. She purchased the house two years ago (2018) and is currently renovating the house’s interior.
Jane says:
I have been working with Nathan Caines from Fernleigh Drafting & Melanie Redman Designs for the interior, coming up with some beautiful concepts. The original exterior of the house will not be changed, but there will be some amazing changes out the back.
PC Patterson
Percy Colin Patterson, the 7th child born to Henry and Catherine Patterson, married Christina N Larkin in 1932. In the early 1920s, Percy was a porter at Menangle Railway Station for about 5 months before he was transferred to Sydney Station.
Maree’s search continues
Maree Patterson concludes her story by asking:
I am particularly interested in information on the Camden Branch of the Voluntary Workers’ Association, which was formed in 1918.
The WVA built the first cottage at 7 Purcell Street, Elderslie, for returned World War 1 soldier Pte. Stanley Dudley Patterson, who was my great uncle.
The house at 7 Purcell Street Elderslie 2019 (REA)
The house still stands today but has had some modifications, and I lived in this cottage for a few years after I was born with my parents.
I am particularly interested in trying to obtain copies of these photos if they exist somewhere. Any assistance you can offer would be greatly appreciated, or perhaps point me in the right direction to find these photos.
Maree Patterson can be contacted by email: reesrebels@yahoo.com
Caylie writes that she had no idea of what she and her husband, David Jeffrey, would find when they decided to renovate the worst house on the busiest terrace in Milton, a Brisbane suburb. She says that they had no idea of the treasures they would find ‘secreted inside the house’.
Caylie writes:
A curious online community of amateur sleuths began a relentless quest for answers. As more clues were revealed, the ghosts of Old Brisbane started to rise from the depths of people’s memories.
Flooding of the Nepean River on the Camden floodplain
What is the Camden ‘bathtub effect’?
Not sure. Well, you are not on your own.
The ‘bathtub effect’ is part of the flooding effect created by the landform that makes up the Hawkesbury-Nepean River system. The river has a unique floodplain system that creates particular problems for local residents and others along the river.
The natural characteristics of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley make it particularly susceptible to significant flood risk. The combination of the large upstream catchments and narrow downstream sandstone gorges results in floodwaters backing up behind these natural ‘choke points’
The Hawkesbury-Nepean River system has four localised floodplains created by four choke points along the river. Each of these ‘choke points’ is created by a local gorge along with the river system – Bents Basin Gorge, Nepean Gorge, Castlereagh Gorge and the Sackville Gorge.
This is a view of Camden Railway Station in Edward Street and some likely local identities assessing the situation. This flood event occurred in the late 1800s with a view looking towards Narellan (Camden Images)
Each of the four localised floodplains upstream from the four gorges acts like a ‘bathtub’ in a period of high rainfall, with floodwater flow choked off by the gorges. The gorge restricts the floodwater flow, and the river rises quickly behind the gorge at the end of the local floodplain.
Camden’s ‘bathtub effect’
The 2015 Nepean River Flood Plain Report and the flood maps clearly show how the Bents Basin Gorge acts as a ‘choke point’. The gorge creates a ‘bathtub’ upstream along with the Nepean River floodplain from the entrance of the gorge. The floodplain upstream from the gorge starts around Rossmore and continues upstream to Cobbitty, Camden, and Menangle.
While the Camden ‘bathtub effect’ is not as dramatic and dangerous as those created in the Penrith-Emu Plains area or the effect of the Sackville Gorge at Windsor and Richmond – it is real.
flows escaping from the Nepean River are known to inundate the low lying areas of Camden and certain sections within South Camden and Elderslie. Floodplain areas along many of the tributaries of the river (particularly Narellan Creek and Matahil Creek) are also known to be affected by backwater flooding from the Nepean River during flood events.
This image of a newspaper photograph shows an aerial view of the Camden township in the 1974 flood event. The Nepean River is towards the top of the image behind the town centre, flowing from R-L. (SMH)
Floods are characterized by rapid river rises with flooding commencing as quickly as 6-12 hrs after the commencement of heavy rain if the catchment is already saturated. Under flood conditions, the Nepean River overflows its banks and commences to inundate the low lying floodplain around Camden during floods of 8.5m on the Cowpasture Bridge gauge. (Appendix, pp. A1-A3)
This is a view of Camden township from Peppertree Corner on Cawdor Road. Some inquisitive local children examined the waters flowing past them. This is the 1949 Camden flood event (B Yewen/Camden Images)
Causes of flooding along the Hawkesbury-Nepean River on the Camden floodplain
The Upper Nepean Catchment is the headwaters of the Nepean River floodplain at Camden. This geographic area drains the Avon, Cataract, Cordeaux, and Nepean Rivers, with dams on each waterway.
The catchment of the Nepean River above the Warragamba River junction, below Warragamba Dam, is around 1800km2
The wettest conditions are usually created by low-pressure systems, called east coast lows, that form up off the South Coast of New South Wales. The low-pressure systems moving onshore and the Illawarra Escarpment’s orographic effect can produce heavy rainfall events.
Floods have occurred in all months of the year. The highest recorded flood at Camden occurred in 1873, when a height of 16.5m was recorded on the Camden gauge (approximately a 200yr ARI). [Cowpasture Bridge, Camden]
Other major floods occurred in 1860 (14.1m), 1867 (14.0m), and 1898 (15.2m). In recent times, major floods have occurred in 1964 (14.1m) and 1978 (13.5m) with moderate to major flooding occurring in 1975 (12.8m) and 1988 (12.8m). (Appendix, pp. A1-A3)
The RAAF Base Camden was located on the Nepean River floodplain. One of the hazards was flooding as shown here in 1943. The town of Camden is shown on the far side of the flooded Nepean River. (Camden Museum)
A report of the 1898 flood event at Camden taken from the Camden News 17 February 1898 gives clarity of how quickly the river can rise in the local area:
Near midnight on Saturday rain began to fall, at first with moderation, towards day break gusts of wind sprang up from the South East bringing heavy rain, lowering the crops in its passage, even majestic trees were torn up by their roots and in sheltered paddocks the trees were denuded of large limbs.
Sunday all day the wind blew with hurricane force; early on Monday morning the storm somewhat abated in its velocity.
Even on Sunday midnight no apprehension of a flood was anticipated by the Camden townspeople the continuous rain and boisterous weather, however made the more Cautious anxious, and one tradesman took the precaution to look after his horses in near paddock when the danger of a flood was manifested to him, the Nepean River had suddenly risen and was flooding the flats.
A report in the Camden News of the 1911 Camden flood event provides further clarity around the behaviour of the river:
The rain of Thursday, it may naturally be expected filled creeks, dams and watercourses to overflowing, but the climax came with a heavy storm between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., when some four inches [100mm] of rain fell. This brought the local water down from the adjoining hills in torrents, the Main Southern Road and Carrington Road were then covered with some two feet of fast rushing water, and on Druitt Road the local flood was then absolutely impassable..
In the early hours the Nepean River rose rapidly, and before the arrival of the first train the bridge was impassable ; the water continued to rise till about 3.15 in the afternoon, it having then reached it highest point, covering the new embankment between the town and the bridge, running through the Chinese quarters on the one side, and just into the pavilion on the show ground on the other. From near Druitt Road to Beard’s Lane was one long stretch of water….
He describes the effect of the Sackville Gorge on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River:
“The Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley is throttled down by a narrow gorge down near what’s called Sackville, which is just upstream of Wiseman’s Ferry,” he said.
“The result of that is that the water can flow into the top of the system very, very rapidly, can’t get out, and so you get very dramatic rises in the level of the river.
“So normal river level might be two metres; if you’re at the town of Windsor and in the most extreme thought possible, that could rise up to 26 metres, which is a number that’s quite hard to comprehend.”
‘The enormous body of water rushing down with relentless force on its way to the sea could not be easily described, nor its effects conceived. About the neighbourhood of Windsor, now that the waters are fast subsiding, the scene is most dreary, and the destruction caused be -comes every day more apparent. The feeling of bitter anguish expressed not in words but in the blank look of utter despair would move the most hardened.
Flooding is a normal part of the cycle of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River system, as it is for any river basin in Australia.
The particular landform features of the Hawkesbury-Nepean, with the four gorges along the river, produce four localised floodplains. Each localised floodplain creates a local ‘bathtub effect’ on the river floodplain in each location.
The landform of the four river gorges creates severe flooding for local communities along the river system.
Updated 5 April 2024. First posted on 29 November 2019.
Interwar Camden directly connects to a noted Sydney interwar architect, Aaron Bolot. He designed the 1936 brick extensions to the Camden Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Hall.
Aaron Bolot, a Crimean refugee, was raised in Brisbane and worked with Walter Burley Griffin in the 1930s. He designed the extensions on the front of the former 1890s drill hall at the Camden showground.
The 1936 extension to the Camden Agricultural Hall was designed in the same style as the 1933 Memorial Gates adjacent to the building works. (I Willis, 2019)
Bolot worked for Sydney architect EC Pitt, who supervised the construction of the new showground grandstand in 1936 and agricultural hall extensions (Camden News, 19 September 1935).
The work of Aaron Bolot and many other Sydney architects is found in photographer Peter Sheridan’s Sydney Art Deco. Sheridan has created a stunning coffee table book highlighting Sydney’s under-recognised Art Deco architectural heritage. The breadth of this Interwar style covers commercial and residential buildings, cinemas and theatres, hotels, shops, war memorials, churches, swimming pools and other facets of design.
Sheridan argues that Aaron Bolot was an influential Sydney architect during the Interwar period specialising in theatres and apartment buildings.
Bolot’s work at Camden was a simple version of the more complex architectural work that he was undertaking around the inner Sydney area, for example, The Dorchester in Macquarie Street Sydney (1936), The Ritz Theatre in Randwick (1937), the Ashdown in Elizabeth Bay (1938) and other theatres.
The brick extensions to the agricultural hall were general improvements to the showground, and works were finished in time for the 1936 jubilee show. The report of the show stated:
The new brick building in front of the Agricultural Hall, erected in commemoration of the jubilee, proved a wonderful acquisition, and its beautiful external appearance was, only a few days before the show, added to ‘by the erection of a neat and appropriate brick and iron fence joining that building with the Memorial Gates, * and vastly, improving the main pedestrian entrance to the showground. The fitting of this new room withstands and fittings for the exhibition of ladies’ arts and crafts, was another outlay that added to the show’s attraction. (Camden News, 2 April 1936)
(Camden News, 2 April 1936)
The hall extensions were designed like the memorial gates erected in 1933 in memory of GM Macarthur Onslow (d. 1931) and paid for by public subscription. It was reported that they would add ‘attractively to the Showground entrance’. (Camden News, 19 September 1935)
Camden Agricultural Hall and Memorial Gates 1990 JKooyman (Camden Images)
The hall extensions were 50 feet by 23 feet after 5 feet were removed from the front of the former drill hall. A central doorway was to be a feature, and there would be a ‘main entrance porch leading directly to the big hall on the Onslow Park side of the building’. (Camden News, 19 Sept 1935)
The hall extension cost £400 (Camden News, 19 March 1936) and was to be built to mark the 1936 Jubilee Show (50th anniversary). It was anticipated that the new exhibition space could be used for the
ladies’ arts and crafts section, such as needlework, cookery; be used for the secretary’s office prior to the show; a meeting place for committees; and in addition provide a modern and up to date supper room at all social functions. (Camden News, 19 September 1935).
(Camden News, 19 September 1935)
The approval of the scheme was moved at the AH&I meeting by Dr RM Crookston, seconded by WAE Biffin, and supported by FA Cowell. The motion was unanimously carried out by the meeting. The committee agreed to seek finance from the NSW Department of Labour and Industry at 3% pa interest. (Camden News, 19 September 1935)
One of the largest tourist attractions in the local area in the mid-20th century was a local milking marvel known as the Rotolactor.
Truly a scientific wonder, the Rotolactor captured people’s imagination at a time when scientific marvels instilled excitement in the general public.
In these days of post-modernism and fake news, this excitement seems hard to understand.
Menangle Rotolactor in the 1950s Postcard (Camden Images)
What was the Rotolactor?
The Rotolactor was an automated circular milking machine with a rotating platform introduced into the Camden Park operation in 1952 by Edward Macarthur Onslow from the USA.
Part of agricultural modernism, the Rotolactor was installed by the Macarthur family on their colonial property of Camden Park Estate to improve their dairying operations in the mid-20th century.
The idea of a rotating milking platform was American and first introduced in New Jersey in the mid-1920s.
Camden Belgenny Farm Rotolactor Model 2 model in 2018 (I Willis)
The 1940s manager of Camden Park, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Macarthur Onslow, inspected an American Rotolactor while overseas on a business trip and returned to Australia full of enthusiasm to build one at Camden Park.
The Menangle Rotolactor was the first in Australia and only the third of its kind in the world.
Camden Belgenny Farm Rotolactor Model 3 display in 2018 (I Willis)
The rotating dairy could milk 1,000 cows twice a day. It held 50 cows at a time and was fed at as they were milked. The platform rotated about every 12 minutes.
The Rotolactor was a huge tourist attraction for Menangle village and provided many local jobs.
In 1953 it was attracting 600 visitors on a weekend, with up to 2000 visitors a week at its peak. (The Land, 27 March 1953)
The structure plan did recognise the importance of the Rotolactor and the cultural heritage of the Menangle village. (The State Planning Authority of New South Wales, 1973, p. 84)
These events, combined with declining farming profits, encouraged the Macarthur family to sell out of Camden Park including the Rotolactor and the private village of Menangle.
The Rotolactor continued operations until 1977 and then remained unused for several years. It was then purchased by Halfpenny dairy interests from Menangle, who operated the facility until it finally closed in 1983. (Walsh 2016, pp.91-94)
Community festival celebrates the Rotolactor
In 2017 the Menangle Community Association organised a festival to celebrate the history of the Rotolactor. It was called the Menangle Milk-Shake Up and was a huge success.
Menangle Milk Shake Up Community Festival, organised by the Menangle Community Association in 2017 (MCA)
The Festival exceeded all the expectations of the organisers from the Menangle Community Association when it attracted over 5000 people to the village from all over Australia. (Wollondilly Advertiser, 18 September 2017)
A true country event like in the old days. So many visitors came dressed up in their original 50s clothes, and all those wonderful well selected stall holders. It was pure joy.
Despite these sentiments, the event just covered costs (Wollondilly Advertiser, 5 April 2018)
The festival’s success demonstrated to local development interests that Rotolactor nostalgia could be marketized and had considerable commercial potential.
The Menangle Community Association attempted to lift the memory of the Rotolator and use it as a weapon to protect the village from the forces of urban development and neo-liberalism
Menangle land developers also used the festival’s success to further their interests.
Developer Halfpenny made numerous public statements supporting the restoration of the Rotolactor as a function centre and celebrating its past. (The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 2017).
Menangle Rotolactor in a derelict condition in 2016 (Image by Karen)
The newspaper article announced that the site’s owner, local developer Ernest Dupre of Souwest Developments, has pledged to build a micro-brewery, distillery, two restaurants, a farmers market, a children’s farm, a vegetable garden, and a hotel with 30 rooms.
In 2017 the state government planning panel approved the re-zoning of the site for 350 houses and a tourist precinct. Housing construction will be completed by Mirvac.
Mr Dupre stated that he wanted to turn the derelict Rotolactor into a function with the adjoining Creamery building as a brewery next to the Menangle Railway Station.
He expected the development to cost $15 million and take two years. The plan includes an outdoor concert theatre for 8000 people and a lemon grove.
Facebook Comments 6 August 2021
Reply as Camden History Notes
Bev WatersonRemember it well. My parents would take us there quite regularly.
Elizabeth SearleJD Gorey, The pilot was asking about this during our trip to the farm. He may be interested in the article Originally posted 19 July 2019. Updated 6 April 2021.
Craige Cole I remember travelling from our family dairy farm on the far south coast to visit the Rotalactor in the late 60s and recall the total awe of my parents. I know that visit was the catalyst for us installing a new more efficient dairy setup.
Caroline TavendaleCraige Cole our friends own a dairy farm in Rochester, Victoria. They have rotolactor dairy, installed it about 3 years ago.
The CHN blogger attended an informative and interesting talk at Belgenny Farm in the Home Farm meeting hall. The presentation was delivered by Peter Watson from the Howell Living History Farm in Lambertville, New Jersey, USA.
Mr Watson, an advocate of the living history movement, was the guest of the chairman of the Belgenny Farm Trust Dr Cameron Archer. Mr Watson was on a speaking tour and had attended a living history conference while in Australia.
Peter Watson and Howell Farm
Peter Watson presented an interesting and far ranging talk about Howell Living History Farm in New Jersey and its programs.
A very informative talk by Mr Peter Watson from the Howell Living History Farm in Lambertville, New Jersey, USA. Mr Watson was the guest of Belgenny Farm Trust Chairman Dr Cameron Archer. The talk was held on 2 May 2018 at the Belgenny Farm community hall with an attentive crowd of local folk. (I Willis)
Mr Watson said, ‘The 130 acre farm was gifted to the community in 1974 by a state politician with the aim of showing how farming used to be done in New Jersey.
Howell Living History Farm is located within a one hour of around 15 million and the far has 65,000 visitors per year and 10,000 school children.
Mr Watson said,
‘We took about 10 years to get going and deal with the planning process, which was tenuous for the government authorities who own the farm.
Mr Watson said,
‘The main aim at the farm is the visitor experience. The farm represents New Jersey farming between 1890 and 1910 – a moment in time.’
Mr Watson says,
‘We do not want to allow history to get in the way of an education experience for the visitor. The farm visitors are attracted by nostalgia which is an important value for them.
Most historic farms are museums, according to Mr Watson and he said, ‘At Howell Living History Farm visitors become involved in activities.’
The farm uses original equipment using traditional methods and interpretation with living history.
The Living History Movement
Historian Patrick McCarthy considers that living history is concerned with (1) ‘first person’ interpretation or role play (2) adopting authentic appearance (3) re-creating the original historic site of the event.
Living historian Scott Magelssen maintains that living history museums ‘engage strategies in their performance of the past’, claiming to be ‘real history by virtue of their attention to detail’. Living history museums ‘do not merely represent the past; they make historical ‘truth’ for the visitor’. (pp. xii-xv)
According to Magelssen living history museums ‘produce history’ like textbooks, films or a lecture. Under the influence of post-modernism history ‘is on longer to be seen as the reconstruction of the past through scientific analysis’. Living history is a research tool. (pp. xii-xv) There are various interpretations on the way this is constructed, configured and delivered amongst the theorists.
Origins of living history museum movement
One of the early influencers of the living history movement in North America was Henry Ford who established his indoor and outdoor living museum experience in the Detroit suburb of Dearbourn in Michigan USA. It is the largest indoor-outdoor museum complex in the USA and attracts 1.6 million visitors. Ford opened the Greenfield Village to the public in 1933 as the first outdoor living museum in the USA and has over 100 buildings moved to the site dating from the 1700s. Henry Ford said of his museum
I am collecting the history of our people as written into things their hands made and used…. When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived, and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition…
Living history @ Belgenny
Belgenny Farm is an authentic collection of colonial farm buildings that were once part of the Macarthur family’s Camden Park Estate.
The signage at the entrance to the Belgenny Farm complex at Camden NSW. (I Willis, 2018)
The Belgenny Farm website states that its education program adopts the principles of the living history movement. It states:
Schools enjoy a diverse range of hands-on curriculum based programs including the new Creamery Interpretative Centre. The Creamery showcases the dairy industry over the last 200 years and is supported by a virtual tour and online resources.
And more to the point:
Belgenny Farmwas established by John and Elizabeth Macarthur in 1805 and contains the earliest collection of colonial farm buildings in Australia. The property is a major educational centre with direct links to Australia’s agricultural history.
Sydney Living Museums
Sydney Living Museums is part of the living history museum movement and manages 12 historic properties across NSW. The stated role of SLM is to:
enrich and revitalise people’s lives with Sydney’s living history, and to hand the precious places in our care and their collections on to future generations to enjoy.
Sydney Living Museums’ Hyde Park Barracks in Macquarie Street Sydney. (Wikimedia)
Sydney Living Museums has a philosophy which aims to be part of the living history movement by being:
authentic; bold; collaborative; passionate; and a sociable host.
Originally known as the Historic Houses Trust (HHT) the first chairman stated that the organisation wanted to present
to refresh and unify our diverse range of properties and highlight our role and relevance for current and future generations.
Living history is storytelling
Living history is walking the ground of an historical event or place or building. Walking the ground shows the layers of meaning in history in a place or building.
Walking the ground is an authentic real experience.
Participants absorb the past that is located in the present of a place or a site. The past is the present and the past determines the present. It shapes, meaning and interpretation. It is the lived experience of a place.
Living history allows participants to be able to read: the layers of history of an area; the layers of meaning in a landscape; or the layers of history in a building.
It is like peeling off layers of paint from a wall when viewers peel back the layers of history of a site, building or place. Each layer has a special meaning – a special presence.
Lived experience leads to storytelling which is real and authentic.
Storytelling creates the meaning of the past and creates the characters of the past in the present. It allows the past to speak to the present.
Experience some of these stories at the Camden Museum.
Story telling by a volunteer at the Camden Museum for a school visit by Macarthur Anglican School (MAS, 2018)
While I was visiting a historical contact at Menangle I was shown a framed photograph of a winning display in the district exhibition at the 1937 Camden Show. The photograph was bordered by the prize winning ribbon from the Camden AH&I Society awarded to the Menangle Agriculture Bureau. The photograph peaked my interest as I was not familiar with the local agricultural bureaux. A search in the archive files at the Camden Historical Society including those the Camden Show Society yielded light on the matter either.
A framed photograph of the winning district display organised by the Menangle Agricultural Bureau at the 1937 Camden Show. The photograph is surrounded by the winning sash from the Camden AH&I Committee and has been framed for preservation. The organiser of the display was JT Carroll and the bureau president was HE Hunt and secretary F Veness. The framed photograph came to light in 2017 and was handed to Menangle resident Brian Peacock. This is rare photograph of an important day for the village of Menangle which was an example of an English-style estate village controlled by the Macarthur family’s Camden Park Estate.
So what happened at the 1937 Camden Show.
The Menangle Agricultural Bureau took out a first prize at the 1937 Camden Show in the district exhibit. The bureau had entered its agricultural display of fruit, vegetables and other produce. The Camden News reported the display was constructed with over 3000 apples. The Menangle Agricultural Bureau won against stiff competition from the Mount Hunter Agricultural Bureau. The only other competitor in that category.
So what is an agricultural bureau? When did they appear in the Camden district?
Agricultural bureaus were established in New South Wales in 1910 as an initiative of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture, according to the State Archives and Records of NSW.
The aims of the agricultural bureaux were to ‘connect with young rural people’. They were ‘to deliver lectures and demonstrations and special instructions to farmers, and to promote fellowship and social networks within rural communities’.
The bureaux appear to be one of a number of organisations that were part of an organised youth movement within the British Empire set up during the Edwardian period.
The State Archives maintains that the stated aims of the agricultural bureau movement fitted the general imperial youth movement of the time. In NSW ‘the main functions of the Bureau were to promote rural and adult education, to organise co-operative group effort to improve facilities, to train people in citizenship, leadership, and community responsibility’.
There was an anxiety amongst the ruling elites of the British Empire about the state of youth and there was a concerted campaign to inculcate the values of thrift, diligence and obedience. During the Edwardian period the youth movement spawned a number of youth organisations including Boy Scouts, Boys Brigade, Girl Guides, and a host of others. These organisations have been seen by some historians like Michael Childs Labour’s Apprentices as agents of patriotism, obedience and social passivity.
The agricultural bureaux were a farmer-controlled self-governing body which could received extension services from the NSW Department of Agriculture. They were apolitical and non-sectarian.
The state government kept firm control of the new organisation through the NSW Department of Agriculture initially provided lectures through the Department’s District Inspectors of Dairying and Agriculture. The state government went further and provided a subsidy to the bureaux members at the rate of 10/- per pound. In addition council members were reimbursed their expenses for attending meetings.
The activities of the early agricultural bureaus on the Camden district seem to indicate that the bureaus were less of a youth organisation and more of an adult farming group and included activities for the entire family.
One of the earliest agricultural bureaus to be established in the Camden area was at Orangeville around 1913.
The Camden News reported in April that members of the bureau were keen to gain all the scientific knowledge to develop their orchards. They had tried explosives in their orchards as a means of improving ‘sub-soiling’, initially under the trees and then next to the trees. The results of the experiment would not be known, it was reported, until the trees started to bare fruit.
In October 1913 the Orangeville Agriculture Bureau organised a picnic. Mr J Halliday organised the festivities for the ‘ladies and children’. There were 70 children present and prizes were organised for a number races and a competition amongst the ladies organised by Mr RH Taylor. The proceedings were livened up by Mr Joseph Dunbar on the gramophone. A tug-of-war was organised between the single and married men. Councillor CG Moore captained the married men and Mr AL Bennett ‘led the bachelors’. The married men won. Both men were candidates in the upcoming Nepean Shire elections. A short political address was given by Mr WG Watson, which was followed by games until sunset. Mr Taylor, the vice-chairman, thanked everyone for coming and stressed the advantages of becoming a member of the bureau.
A women’s extension service was organised within the body. The bureaus organised farmer training courses, while the women’s extension service organised domestic training courses. The agricultural bureaus were affiliated with a range of other rural organisations including the Bush Nursing Associations, The Rural Youth Organisation and a number of farming organisations.
The local agricultural bureaux disappeared after the Second World War, while the organisation carried on at a state level into the 1970s.
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