Highway Hold ups

Travelling along Appin Road has long been a hazardous trip. If you were doing it in 1866 there were even more reasons to be filled with trepidation. My research has revealed at least three terrifying hold-ups between Campbelltown and Wollongong during this year, leaving the community shaken.

In early April 1866 one late evening, two armed men stopped the mail coach at Loddon River just outside of Appin on the Wollongong side. They robbed the coach coming from Campbelltown to Wollongong of its mail bags and £5 from the only passenger. They later stopped the mail coach from Wollongong to Campbelltown, known as the up mail, and robbed the passengers of various sums of money, but did not take the mail bags.

It is believed the same bushrangers robbed again about a week later. At about 3am and four miles (7kms) from Appin, the bushrangers stopped the horses, and ordered the the coachman to bail up. The coachman and contractor was James Waterworth, and he was accompanied by the driver, a man from Wollongong and two youths returning either to home or school. The bandits tied everyone up, searched and robbed them. They also undid and rifled the mail bags, opening the letters, and helping themselves to whatever they liked. After leaving the letters scattered about the road, one of them cracked the whip and they drove off, leaving the poor passengers tied up. They eventually untied themselves and raised the alarm.

A few days later a girl on a farm on the Macquarie Fields Estate, was returning from school, when she picked up a parcel which turned out to contain 36 cheques, amounting to £360, and was a portion of the proceeds of the robbery. The cheques were handed over to the police and later a man from Appin was apprehended by the police.

James Waterworth was the coachman on Appin Road for many years. He died in his nineties in Campbelltown in 1920 after a lifetime of amazing stories of bushrangers and robberies. He was held up by bushrangers on three separate occasions. Before the robbery described above, James was held up once with a sickly man as his passenger. He was coming back from Wollongong with £300 and when the bushrangers stuck up the coach, James picked the little man up and carried him to a nearby shed. "You surely wouldn't harm this poor sick fellow" he said, and the bushrangers let him go.

Joshua Bray lived at Denfield on the Appin Road. In 1866 he wrote "They are very much excited about here, the mail was robbed ten days ago...The night before last they stopped it about a quarter of a mile from this house- the coachman and the passengers came about 4 o'clock in the morning to tell us. These robberies take place in the night...they were hiding all their jewellery. Papa has loaded his pistol". Bray describes this robbery as a quarter of a mile from Denfield or about 400 meters in today's measurements. This would rule out the robbery where they tied the victims up as it was seven kilometeres from Appin and therefore too far from Denfield, however it could have been the one where Waterworth carried his sickly man to safety.

The bushrangers are long gone but the same narrow and winding Appin Road continues to move thousands of people between Campbelltown and Wollongong every day.

 James Waterworth pictured in 1902 driving the same coach that travelled from Campbelltown to Wollongong via Appin

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

Empire, 16 April 1866, p4

Sydney Morning Herald, 14 April 1866

NSW Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, 4 April 1866, p118

James Waterworth: a long and eventful life

Today the drive from Campbelltown to Wollongong takes about 45 minutes to complete. In your air conditioned car, the drive is pleasant as you meander along Appin Road passing through the quaint town of Appin. You eventually make your way to the steep but scenic Bulli Pass and on to Wollongong. Imagine what it would have been like for Campbelltown mail coach driver James Waterworth. Waterworth drove the mail coach from Campbelltown to Appin and on to Wollongong in the middle 19th to early 20th century, usually in the early hours of the morning, in all weather and on a rough track. There was also the constant threat of attacks by bushrangers. Little wonder that he once remarked in old age "reminiscences, I can give you a book full."

James Waterworth was born in Parramatta in 1830 and baptised by Samuel Marsden that same year. He was raised as a child by the explorer Hamilton Hume, who bequeathed James a coach originally purchased in 1842 by a Mr Campbell. During his early years he was employed at the Cobb and Co stables. By the 1860s, James was running a coach service using 'American vehicles' six days a week from Campbelltown to Wollongong, for which he was paid 490 pounds per year.

James Waterworth was held up by bushrangers on three separate occasions. On the first occasion he had as a passenger a little sickly man, who was coming back from Wollongong with 300 pounds, which he had collected in rentals. When the bushrangers stuck up the coach and began to search the passengers James picked the little man up and carried him into a nearby shed. "You surely wouldn't harm this poor sick fellow " he said, and the bushrangers let him go.

However on the second hold up a few weeks later he wasn't so lucky. The Sydney Mail reported on the 21 April 1866:

"The immunity which the Wollongong mail has enjoyed, at a time when in all parts of the colony the bushrangers were at work, appears to have ended, for twice within the last fortnight it has been stuck up, and the mail bags opened, and the passengers robbed.  About 2 o'clock am on Tuesday last, when the mail coach reached a place called Rose's Bush, about 4 miles on the Appin side of Campbelltown, three men came out of the bush and ordered the driver to 'bail up'."

Waterworth and his driver were tied up and the passengers robbed and left on the side of the road while the robbers drove the coach off back towards Campbelltown. The tree to which he was tied was known for many years as Waterworth's tree. The bushrangers were later caught.

James Waterworth driving the coach that travelled from Campbelltown to Wollongong via Appin and Bulli. His large horse drawn omnibus was called the "Sovereign". This photograph featured in the Town and Country Journal in 1902.


A few years later in 1869, James was involved in another dramatic incident. In 1869, the Nepean River at Camden was in flood. Between 1 and 2pm on the day that the flood was at its peak, the mail coach from Campbelltown to Camden arrived on the bank, and the mailbag was shipped in a boat. James was one of the passengers in the boat when it upturned and all were cast into the 'boiling stream'. James Waterworth escaped but some of the others were not so lucky.

James Waterworth remained in Campbelltown for the rest of his long life. He was prominent at Campbelltown's centenary celebrations in 1920 and along with James Bocking was feted as one of Campbelltown's oldest residents. In 1924 he was present when the memorial tablet was erected to commemorate the Hume expedition on Appin Road. By then he was aged 94.

James Waterworth in pictured on the left with his wife at Campbelltown's centenary celebrations in 1920. The other men are James Bocking and Rev. Alkin.

James Waterworth passed away at his home at "Bonnie View" in 1926. "Bonnie View" was located in Sturt Street on the hill somewhere in the vicinity of where it intersects with Stewart Street. At the time of his death he owned a large amount of land around the town and had stables in a paddock behind Railway Street. He was buried next to his second wife in St Peter's Cemetery.

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

LISTON, Carol 1988
Campbelltown: The Bicentennial History

Fowler, Verlie 1983
"A Stroll Through St Peter's Churchyard, Campbelltown NSW'

Whitaker, Anne-Maree 2005
Appin: The Story of a Macquarie Town

Sydney Morning Herald 10 May, 1869 p 10

Singleton Argus 4 December, 1920 p 6