KO'd by his Uncle

It's summer time again and many of us will head to the beach, pool or one of our local waterways. Unfortunately hazards come with swimming, like drowning, being stung by blue bottles, swallowing nasty pathogens or...being knocked out by your uncle!!

One stifling hot day in early January 1966, a family were spending a relaxing and fun picnic at the Georges River at Macquarie Fields. Twelve year old Mark Payne from Goulburn was swimming in the river, when all of a sudden his uncle fell on him from a tall tree above the river. The uncle had climbed the tree on the eastern side of the river bank in order to put up a swing. As he bent forward to adjust a rope, he lost his footing and fell directly on to his nephew.

Mark lost consciousness, was pulled from the water, and a member of the party set off to call an ambulance. The ambulance soon arrived together with two policeman from Ingleburn. On arrival, they stripped to their underclothes and swam with a floatable stretcher to the far side of the river where an unconscious Mark was lying. He was brought back to the other side of the river bank.

At Liverpool Hospital, an examination revealed he had sustained a fracture at the base of his skull. He was reported to be still in a serious condition at the end of the next week. No further reports in the weeks after the accident could be found. I wonder did Mark recover and I wonder, in the days and even years that followed, what the relationship between Mark and his uncle, R. Bowerman of Sefton, was like? Perhaps someone out there knows or knew them?

In an interesting sidebar, the two policeman involved in the rescue had to be taken to hospital to treat severe and large blisters on their feet. The barefoot constables had to walk over searing black sand at midday after swimming to the boy.

Beach area on the Georges River at Macquarie Fields taken in 1999 by Stan Brabender

Written by Andrew Allen

A snapshot of the lost suburb of Eckersley

In the early 1800s, a small township developed within the boundaries of what is now the Holsworthy Field Firing Range on the eastern side of the Georges River. The Parish of Eckersley had been named in 1835 by the Surveyor General after Nathaniel Eckersley, who was a Quartermaster-general during the Peninsular War which was part of the Napoleonic Wars. There was, however, no European settlement there until it was opened for selection under the Crown Lands Act of 1884.
The first blocks applied for were between Punchbowl Creek and the Georges River. An interesting mix of people settled in the area. The first to take up their selection were the Etchells brothers, Harry and Frank in 1889. They distilled bootleg rum made in illegal stills in the bush. Other settlers included Leonce, Gustave and George Frere, and Charles and Edmond Kelso. The Freres selected large acreages at Eckersley where George Frere established a vineyard. Charlie Kelso decided his land was unsuitable and forfeited it in 1892. James Heffernan extracted shellac resin from the trunks of tree ferns and sold it to a gunpowder merchant. The Everetts ran the little post office from their selection at Eckersley, and also grew grape vines and apples. They were very well respected and were given a big send off when they left the district in 1902. The Trotts also lived at Eckersley - Whyndam Albert Trott and his wife Lavinia. Mr Trott was away working for weeks at a time, possibly due to his occupation as a builder. Jules Pierre Rochaix also had a house at Eckersley, but he exchanged his land for two blocks at Mount Colah. He was a detective with the New South Wales police force, just one of 14 detectives in a force of just under 2000 officers and constables.

The early Eckersley settlement

 
Further along the river other families built homes and established vineyards and orchards, including Nathaniel Bull, a former mayor of Liverpool, and Isaac Himmelhoch, who cleared and terraced his land with stone, and built a large winery and cellars.
In 1891 there were more than 30 small farms in the area, but by 1912 the Post Office closed. The remoteness of the area, and the fact that the soil proved to be not as suitable as first thought, were contributing factors to the demise of Eckersley. Its fate had been sealed when Lord Kitchener, visiting Australia on military matters, declared Holsworthy as the site for a permanent army camp. The Army took possession in 1913, and the rural settlement was abandoned. The settlers were paid no compensation.
Today only a few ruins, stone walls, wells, and foundations remain of Eckersley.

Written by Claire Lynch
Sources
Grist Mills Vol.8 No.4 "The Road to Frere's Crossing".
Grist Mills Vol.16 No.1 "Snippets of history of the Georges River".
www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au/lost-suburb-eckersley.html
www.liverpool.nsw.gov.au "History of our suburbs"
Trove

Memories of George Frere and the "Crossing"

On 12 June 1976 Keith Longhurst interviewed his 86 year old father James Longhurst at Frere's Crossing on the George's River. The interview took place at the spot where the bridge crossed the river and was known as Frere's Crossing. The interview reveals valuable information about the early days of the crossing and the surrounding countryside. It also sheds some light on the man responsible for building the crossing- Georges Frere.

Georges Pierre Frere came from the Cognac district in the Charente in France. He migrated with his parents as a nine-year old boy in 1875. He was the son of a winemaker Francois Gaston Leonce and Martha Frere. They had grown grapes that were used to grow cognac.

Protruding from the rocky floor of the Georges River near Kentlyn is a series of old stumps, which once supported the bridge that spanned the waterway. The bridge provided access to Frere's farm. In 1893-94 the Department of Public Works contracted out to build this bridge at Frere's Crossing. It was George Longhurst, James' father, who laid the stone approaches to the bridge. The bridge had eight piles with four piles in the middle. The bridge itself was probably built by George and Jim Kershler.

I thought I would include some of the extracts from the interview that Keith Longhurst did with his 86 year-old father James back in 1976:

This is 12 June 1976 and I am at Frere’s Crossing with my father and he is now standing where his father did stonework on the George’s River Bridge or the Frere’s Crossing as it is now called. That was 75 years ago, what can you tell us? How old would your father have been when he did this, any idea? 

I should say he was around 40. 

When he came here, you reckon you came here in 1895 and you were then 5 years old. 

That’s correct. 

This road at the end of Frere’s, it was here then. 

It was there, but it wasn’t as good a road as it is now. It had a good bridge. It was very rough; you would go out of one pothole into another. 

How long do you reckon that road has been there? Could you work it out? 

We don’t know who built the road, but we always believed it was convicts. You could see where they blasted it with gelignite.

They call this Frere’s Crossing. Frere must have come here before this bridge was here. Etchell came here before this bridge was here. Because we know that the bridge was built in about 1900 – 1901 and your father did the stonework here, so they probably would have done the whole lot together. 

I think that the bridge was built before that Keith when I think over it, because when we came down here, my mother and Mrs Taylor who lived opposite, Mrs Piggott’s mother, they used to come down here in the old cart. We used to have about 12 kerosene tins to take water home and they used to do their washing on the bank there. That went on for some time in the first year that we here because we had no water up there. I remember seeing wallabies up there lying on the rocks when they were washing here. 

Talking about wallabies, did you ever see Koalas here? 

Oh, dozens of them. I don’t mean in one time, but in the years that I lived in the old bush, which I suppose, was about 8 years, we used to see them often, one or two perhaps in a day. There were quite a number of them throughout the country.

                                               James Longhurst photographed in 1920


 

 

Further into the interview James Longhurst talks about Frere:

 

What sort of a house did Frere have? Have you any idea? 

He had an old slab place. He had two places; one was built of weatherboard if I remember right. The other one was the place where he cooked and had his meals. I remember once we wanted to get off a bit early and the fellows sent me up to turn the clock on. I went up and I didn’t know much about a clock. I got hold of the thing and I started twisting. Anyway I heard his cough, everyone knew his cough, and he was just behind. I put the thing down and scooted out the other door and the alarm went off.  
 

What sort of cough did Frere have? I’ve heard you speak of this cough. 

I was going to talk about his cough. He had a very peculiar cough. You’ve asked me and I’ll have to go a little way and relate. Once Bert was sent to get Darkie, the old horse used to take us about, as it was a pretty big place that he had from the vineyard to his home. Bert was sent to get the horse and he found the horse and we found Bert, five of us and we all piled on behind Bert on the horse. I was on the tail just hanging on as there wasn’t any more room and presently around the corner we heard the old fellow coughing and if you could have seen us slide off that horse. Only Bert remained. I went over his tail and the others went off the side. That cough was what I heard when I went to do the clock.  

The last time I heard that cough was the last time I saw Old Frere. I don’t talk out of disrespect when I say old; we always called him Old Frere. We were children and he was about 40 I suppose. I was working in Sydney when I was about 16 and a half and I was going from the railway up to Bow Street and I got up to Crown Street and I was walking along there and I saw an old man going along there. I didn’t take any notice of him and presently he coughed and I looked round and sure enough it was Old Frere. I was glad to see him and I don’t know why I didn’t talk to him. It was he and he was walking along there coughing and only Frere had that cough. That was the last time I saw him.

 

Do you remember how much wine he made or how he got rid of it? 
 

I don’t know how much he made or how he got rid of it. I know carts used to come from this direction past our place at midnight and two in the morning, that sort of thing. Why I don’t know.

Wilfred Longhurst, Alfred Longhurst and Andy Johnson sitting on bridge at Frere's Crossing, Kentlyn in the 1920s
 

 

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

Interview with Keith and James Longhurst, 12 June 1976,  Held at Local Studies section, HJ Daley Library

Macarthur Advertiser, August 16, 1995 p21

HOLMES, Marie
"Snippets of History of the Georges River"
In Grist Mills
Vol.16, No. 1, p

 

 

Tragedy of the Terry Sisters

Campbelltown has experienced many tragedies over the years but the drowning of the Terry sisters in 1900 was one of the most shocking and heart breaking for the community. Lillian aged 15 and Irene aged 12 both drowned in the Georges River in March, 1900.

The Campbelltown Herald reported that the two St Patrick's Convent pupils had a half day holiday due to the Campbelltown Show. Two of the nuns from the school and a Miss Cecily Hill took their classes for a walk to the river. The two Terry sisters went for a swim in the shallow area but wandered into deep water and got into difficulties.

At the inquest, Sister Cecily stated six girls went in to bathe. She succeeded in rescuing two girls and tried to save Lillian and Irene Terry. She told the inquest "I grasped Lily by the hair. But, getting in to deeper water myself, I lost hold." The police searched the river and recovered the bodies two hours later.

The girls came from the New South Wales town of Hay and their bodies were returned there by mail train for burial. A large number of sympathising friends followed the hearse to the station and the children of the convent joined in the procession.

The photograph below shows their headstone in the Roman Catholic section of the Hay Cemetery. It was reported as the largest funeral Hay had seen.

                            W.Carter Collection (Campbelltown City Library)

Source: Campbelltown Herald March 14, 1900

Written by Andrew Allen

The Woolwash

Whenever I ask the older generation of Campbelltown where they swam as children the answer is almost always at the Woolwash. The area known as the Woolwash is 4km east of Campbelltown and is a deep gorge along the Georges River around its junction with O'Hare's Creek. Although rumour has it that the Woolwash was at one time used for washing wool, there appears to be no evidence to support this story. In the early days people used the water for their own purposes, and also to water their cattle. But it was as a swimming hole in the searing summer heat of Campbelltown that the Woolwash gained its reputation.

It was during the 1930s that the Woolwash began to be the town's most popular swimming and picnic area. Many Campbelltown residents of that time remember crowds of about 100 people sitting and sunbaking on the sandy beach on the eastern side of the river. Unlike the muddy water hole at Bow Bowing Creek, the Woolwash water was normally very clear, unpolluted and nearly always flowing. It became so popular that in 1946 a kiosk was built and leased by Fred Lower. In 1955, council constructed a parking area near the top of the Woolwash road. Prior to its construction there were often up to about 50 cars parked along the road down to the turning area on a good weekend. A second car park was constructed in 1969 along with a kiosk and dressing sheds.

The area around the Woolwash was very popular for boy scout camps between the two world wars. Two camping areas were established in the 1930s about 200 metres up O'Hare's Creek, one on either side of the creek.

According to local resident Col Braithwaite, broken glass bottles were a major hazard in the area. People drank the contents of the glass soft drink bottles, threw the bottles into the water, then proceeded to throw stones at the bottles until they broke and sank. Many children often received bad cuts to their feet. Still, this was a small price to pay for a day at Campbelltown's charming piece of paradise.

Four unidentified children of the Denison family at the "The Woolwash" A. Denison Collection

Sources:

"Around the Woolwash in the 1930s and 1940s" by Col Braithwaite in "Grist Mills" vol 16 no 1 p26

Written by Andrew Allen