The Bookworm

Ronald Winton was born in Campbelltown in 1913. He was the youngest of three boys to Bob and Lily who owned a shop in Railway Street. As a boy he was nicknamed Johnny Head-In-Air by his brothers after a character in a comic picture book.

Ron was born with a congenital deformity of the foot, making walking for him as a child very difficult. After surgery to straighten the foot at the age of three or four, he could walk reasonably well, but not jump, run, hop and play games naturally easy like his mates. One thing Ron turned to was reading. He grew to love the small library that was once at the back of the old town hall in Queen Street. The library was run by Ted Bamford with the assistance of Mr Gamble. In his autobiography titled 'Johnny Head-In-Air', Ron wrote how the library seemed to receive little attention from the council or citizens and as a result, most of its books were old-fashioned and outdated in style and content. Still, he derived much pleasure from reading them.

Ron grew particularly fond of William Shakespeare's works. He developed a fascination for anything the bard wrote, regularly borrowing numerous old-fashioned volumes and lugging them home to Railway Street- deformed foot and all. His love of all things Shakespeare continued for the rest of his life. Similarly, his affection for the small musty library and Ted Bamford's kindness towards him also stayed with him for the rest of his days.

Ron Winton became a qualified doctor and served in the Second World War. He was awarded an OAM in 1997 and in 1977 was awarded the Gold Medal of the Federal Council of the Australian Medical Association. After leaving Campbelltown early in his life and going on to achieve many notable achievements, Ron never forgot Campbelltown and that tiny old library at the back of the old town hall. He died in 2004 aged 90.

Ron Winton is standing second from the left in the third row. (King Collection)

The small library was located where the window on the far right is. You can just make out the word library on the window. This was taken in 1892.

Written by Andrew Allen

"The Escaped Nun"

In 1886 a controversial lecture was given at Campbelltown’s Town Hall. It was well attended by a respectable and appreciative audience including the Presbyterian minister Rev. David Moore, the Congregational minister Rev. G. Rutherford and the Mayor of Campbelltown Mr Alex Munro.
The speaker was Edith O’Gorman – the “Escaped Nun” who spoke for nearly two hours, keeping her audience keenly interested and repeatedly eliciting vociferous applause.
The story of Edith O’Gorman is indeed a fascinating one. Born at Roscommon in Ireland on 20 August 1842, Edith O’Gorman emigrated to America in 1848 where she joined the Sisters of Charity in 1862, becoming Sister Teresa de Chantal and residing for the next six years at St Joseph's Convent in Hudson City, New Jersey. In January 1868 she left – or as she later claimed ‘escaped’ from - the convent and the following year she converted to Protestantism.
On August 18th 1870 she married William Charles Auffray, a Frenchman who had emigrated to New York. A son, William John Charles Auffray, was born in New York about 1876. In 1871 Edith published Convent Life Unveiled: The Trials and Persecutions of Miss Edith O’Gorman, which ran to numerous editions and was translated into several languages. In it, Edith recounted the many cruelties which she had allegedly endured during her time as a nun. These included being forced to eat worms for minor infractions of the rules and her attempted rape by a priest. Soon afterwards she began a series of Anti-Catholic lectures in which she detailed her blood-curdling experiences and railed against the horrors of convent life. She was billed as ‘The Escaped Nun’.

(Photo: 19thcenturyphotos.com/Edith-O'Gorman-126230.htm)

Edith took her lecture tour to New Zealand during the last few months of 1885. She arrived in Australia in March 1886 and embarked upon a lecture tour here.
On Friday 2nd July 1886, Edith gave her lecture at the Campbelltown Town Hall. It was reported that “a number of Roman Catholics were present at the lecture; and one man who was thought, by those who knew him, to be a bigoted Roman Catholic, was overheard to say – “every word she has said is the truth, for I know it”. * Her tour of Australia continued until December 1887. In many places her life was threatened, riots occurred, stones and eggs thrown and general disruption between Protestants and Catholics occurred. Edith and her husband then travelled to England where she continued lecturing. In England her tour attracted large audiences and mixed responses. While British Anti-Catholics applauded her condemnation of convents, small Roman Catholic minorities protested violently at her lectures and even threatened her with violence.

https://shadowsflyaway.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/edith-ogorman
-the-escaped-nun-of-west-norwood/comment-page-1/

Edith’s husband William died, aged 50, in Dulwich on 25 June 1893. Edith herself died on 25 May 1929, aged 86, and was buried alongside her husband in London’s West Norwood Cemetery. An imposing but now semi-derelict monument still marks their grave.


Written by Claire Lynch
Sources
Trove
Ancestry
www.19thcenturyphotos.com/Edith-O'Gorman-126230.htm
https://shadowsflyaway.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/edith-ogorman-the-escaped-nun-of-west-norwood/comment-page-1/