Rosslyn

Rosslyn in the 1920s or 1930s (Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society)

If you've driven along Badgally Road recently you would've noticed work being carried out on the Claymore Urban Renewal project. There was once a two storey homestead that occupied a site where this work is going on. The house and farm was called 'Rosslyn' which later became 'Claymore' and which gave the suburb that it is now part of its name.

Samuel Humphreys purchased two lots of land from William Fowler in 1882. This was the land where Rosslyn house stood. After Samuel and his wife Jemima died, the mortgage payments on the property weren't being made and the Savings Bank of NSW took it over. The bank then sold it to Samuel Bursill Senior who sold it to his son Samuel Bursill Junior in 1920. It was the Bursill family who then named it 'Rosslyn'. It was named after Ross and Keith Smith, early Australian aviators. The family lived there until the mid 1930s. It had been a dairy farm.

In her book Badgally Road Campbelltown: The Other Side of the Line, Marie Holmes writes that she believed the house to be built in the 1860s. Photographs show a fine colonial building that had a deep stone flagged verandah and also turned wooden columns. There was also a verandah at the back. The second floor had balconies at the back and front. There were 6 rooms plus a pantry, bathroom and laundry. The bedrooms were on the above level.

Marjorie Morris (nee Bursill) lived in the house with her family in the 20s and 30s. She told the story of how they used what was called an Aladdin Lamp which they placed in the centre of the kitchen table. Their pet magpie would sometimes roost in the open window and would often fly down to join the family. As he swooped the draught of air put the lamp out and they would have to sit in the dark until the lamp cooled down and they could light it again.

The farm and house passed through a number of hands after the Bursills. In 1958, the farm and house name were changed to 'Claymore' by Kenneth and Sarah Vanderbilt. Alterations were made in the 1960s to the upstairs verandah and more columns were added. In 1970, the property was sold to the State Planning Authority who in turn transferred it to the Housing Commission for the development of Claymore suburb. On 28 January 1971, when the house was vacant, a fire gutted the home and left it derelict. Water to fight the fire had to be pumped from a nearby dam. The house was demolished in the late 1970s. It was located on what was Claymore Reserve before the redevelopment took place.

The front view of the house in 1977 after the fire. It was now known as 'Claymore'.


Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

HOLMES, Marie 2000
Badgally Road Campbelltown: The Other Side  of the Line
Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society

The Kangaroo March

1915. There is no Twitter, Instagram, no TV. The first licensed radio station would not operate until 1922. Mass communication was limited to newspapers which hadn’t anywhere near the distribution of recent times. So after the devastating events of Gallipoli, one of the best ways to gain new recruits was the recruitment marches.

One such recruitment drive came to be known as the Kangaroo march. It began in Wagga with eighty-eight young men who marched through such country towns as Cootamundra, Galong, Yass, Goulburn and Bowral calling men to join the ANZAC forces. Two hundred and twenty-two recruits arrived in Campbelltown where they gained a further five before leaving for Sydney. No more joined after this making it a truly ‘rural force’.

The Sydney Morning Herald described them as ‘sunburnt, hard-looking men…a clean limbed lot full of initiative and resource.’

The water cart accompanying the men had a stuffed kangaroo on display. A sign read ‘Don’t look! Hop on while there’s time.’

The re-enactment of this historic event comes to Campbelltown on Saturday the 10^th of October concluding in Mawson Park. The journey, having taken 36 days, aims to pay tribute to the sacrifices those diggers made during WWI a hundred years ago.

By Michael Sullivan

More information:

http://kangaroomarch.org.au/

http://www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/AnzacCentenary

Bushranger for a Day

A previous post was written about Henrietta Fletcher, the daughter of a female convict who settled in the area and is buried in St Peter's Church of England Cemetery at Campbelltown (see http://campbelltown-library.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/a-tale-of-two-ladies.html.) Henrietta was born on the First Fleet ship Lady Penrhyn in 1787 and married ex-convict Edward Fletcher. They later settled at Elderslie.

I recently discovered in Peter C. Smith's comprehensive publication The Clarke Gang: Outlawed, Outcast and Forgotten that Henrietta's grandson William Fletcher was involved with the Clarke gang of bushrangers and their raid on the gold town of Nerrigundah in 1866. Although it was William's first day as a bushranger, it was to cost him his life.

In 1838, William's family moved from Campbelltown to Mullenderee, on the northern side of the Moruya River, where they became small settlers. William was the seventh of eight children and the first of the family born at Moruya. He married in 1864 and had an eleven month old daughter at the time of the Nerrigundah raid.

It's not clear why William Fletcher became involved with the Clarkes. Peter C. Smith believes that Fletcher thought that with the support of the gang he could put his local knowledge to use, and that robbing someone of their gold was easier than digging for it. Prior to the raid on Nerrigundah, Fletcher had been working a claim at the Gulph diggings near the town. He knew the area very well and would've known Tommy Clarke through horseracing. He was described as an occasional jockey. William was with the gang when they returned from the Bega races on Sunday 8 April 1866 when they took possession of a miner's hut on the road to Nerrigundah.

After robbing a number of victims there the bushrangers made their way to Nerrigundah. It is believed they heard that the police sergeant was away and the only policeman in town, Constable Miles O'Grady, was ill in bed with a fever (they did not appear to know about a newly arrived constable). After raiding a number of people in the town as well as Pollock's store, Miles O'Grady received word of the bushranger's visit and bravely got off his death bed to confront the men. After a shoot out with the bushrangers, O'Grady was killed but not before shooting William Fletcher. Fletcher was shot just below the armpit and lingered on for an hour before dying. He was found with money and property indicating that he was a willing participant in the events.

William Fletcher had the shortest career in Australian bushranging history- just one day. He was buried not far from where the shooting took place in unconsecrated ground and not far from where a monument to Miles O'Grady was constructed by the people of Nerrigundah. His grave can still be seen today.

For a full account of the raid and the story of the Clarkes, I encourage you to read Peter's brilliant book. It is available from Rosenberg Publishing.

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

Smith, Peter C. 2015
The Clarke Gang: Outlawed, Outcast and Forgotten
Rosenberg Publishing Pty Ltd

Saving Souls

A small pamphlet recently unearthed (see below) announces the “United Tent Mission” - opening in Campbelltown on the 15^th August 1915 and continuing until the 24^th August 1915. The evangelist Mr J.T. Furnass would feature in the Mission Tent which was to be erected in “The Reserve” Queen Street – what we now know as Mawson Park.

John Thomas Furnass, a native of Yorkshire, had arrived recently from England, where he also conducted missions as an evangelist. He was connected with the London Evangelization Society whose aim was to send suitable preachers to conduct special evangelistic services in churches or halls wherever the Society was asked. The Australian organisation was built upon the very successful precedent of its London counterpart.

From 1915 until his passing in 1940, J.T. Furnass held missions in tents, halls and churches all over New South Wales, up and down the South Coast, in the Southern Highlands, in the suburbs of Sydney, North to Cessnock and beyond, and out west. And so he found himself in a tent in Campbelltown for 10 days in August 1915. Newspaper reports of his missions indicate his success at bringing souls to the Lord.

His obituary referred to him as “the big man with the big voice”.  He died as he lived, called to God whilst preaching the Gospel.

Written by Claire Lynch
Sources - Trove

Happy 40th Birthday Glenquarie Library!

The Glenquarie Shopping Centre (Stage 1) was officially opened on September 29^th, 1975. Built at a cost of $2.75 million, the centre was financed and developed by Campbelltown City Council, the first time a local government had entered into such a venture.  The centre contained 28 shops and banks, the largest of which was the Coles New World Supermarket.

One of the stores contained the first Glenquarie Library in a shopfront. This was described as the cheapest “shop” in the Glenquarie centre, being free to all residents and ratepayers.(see picture below).

Eight years later, on September 3^rd 1983, Stage 2 was opened, which included the new ‘stand-alone’ Library and Neighbourhood Centre, as well as doubling the floor space of the shopping centre and increasing the number of shops to 56.

From small beginnings in 1975, Glenquarie Library has grown from 2 staff and just under 2,000 items, to 5 staff and approximately 24,000 items in 2015.

 Written by Claire Lynch
Sources - Local Studies Pamphlet Files

The Murder of Ellen Hyndes

On the afternoon of Friday January 22, 1847 a man by the name of James Fitzgerald was walking towards a house on the Campbellfields Estate at Minto when he noticed a number of cattle gathered round in the scrub with their attention focused on something on the ground. Thinking that it might be the saddle and bridle that he came to look for he suddenly realised to his horror that it was the body of a young woman. The woman was lying on her back with the face and upper part of the body smeared over with clotted blood, which had recently flowed from a long and deep gash across the throat. He recognised the woman as 20 year old Ellen Hyndes.

Ellen had been married to a man by the name of Thomas Hyndes. He was killed the year before at the age of 33 when he fell from his horse. Although the devastation of her loss of her beloved husband and father of her two children was obvious to the locals, it didn't stop one particular admirer from making advances to the young widow.

John Kean was a ticket-of-leave man living in the same neighbourhood as Ellen Hyndes. Kean had become a frequent visitor to Ellen's house ever since the death of Thomas six months previous. After much persistence, Kean obtained her consent to become his wife, in return he would have to buy her some furniture and put it in her house. For reasons unknown she later refused to have the marriage solemnised, and returned his furniture to him which he sold off. Some time later they reconciled and he repurchased some of the furniture and returned it to her in the belief that she would accept his proposal. She expressed no interest this time which greatly upset Kean.

By coincidence a Constable McAlister was at Campbellfields with a warrant for John Kean for horse stealing, when Fitzgerald made his gruesome discovery. Whilst at the house of a man named Thomas Sharpe, he heard the voice of James Fitzgerald call out from the bush. He went over to investigate and an examination of the scene was carried out. The body lay about a half a mile from her house.

Later that day John Kean made his way to Reeve's Public House at Narellan with intentions to leave the district the next day. He knew the police would be on his trail. Constable Charles Bamford of Campbelltown made a statement "I had information that he (Kean) had been charged with horsestealing and murder; I went on Saturday morning, the 23rd, to Reeve's public house at Narellan; Kean was sitting under the verandah, the moment he saw me he ran through the house into the bush."  After running about a mile, Kean was apprehended and brought to the watch house at Campbelltown.

John Kean made a confession to the murder of Ellen Hyndes on the 29th of January. He declared:

 I murdered the woman and wish to suffer for it. I came to Campbelltown on Thursday, and went to James Hogan's house in which his mother resides. I arrived there about two or three in the afternoon. We began talking about Ellen Hyndes, and about a brother of his named Michael Hogan marrying her. We talked about nothing else that evening. I remained there that night, and next morning pretty early James Hogan and I left the house together, taking different roads, and we both met in the bush, not far from Ellen Hyndes house, and after waiting some time we saw her coming towards us. James Hogan first took hold of the woman and threw her down, and tore her shawl ; she got up and ran away, and I got hold of her and threw her down again, and James Hogan then gave me the razor that he had purposely brought to kill the woman; I then cut her throat. The night previous we had arranged how we were to murder her—that one was to hold the woman, while the other cut her throat. The reason for Hogan joining with me to murder the woman was, that he did not wish his brother to marry her. After we had murdered her we both returned by different roads to Hogan's house; I got to the house first, and he about ten minutes after; this was about 11 a.m.; after I had cut her throat with only one cut of the razor, I gave the razor back to Hogan; no blood came on my clothes; the mother of Hogan came into Campbelltown that day, and on her return, said there was a report about my stealing a horse; I then left the house and went over to Reeves's public house on the Cowpasture road, and remained there until the next day, when I was taken and brought into Campbelltown by constable Charles Bamford; no one knew of the murder but our two selves; Mrs. Hogan did not know of it, and Michael Hogan was not at home; I was aggravated to the deed by the jeering of the ogans (sic) and others.

James Hogan was initially taken into custody on the suspicion that he aided and abetted in the murder. He was later cleared of any involvement as the only evidence against him came from the confession of John Kean. He was later put on trial for misleading the police. The charge was proven and he lost his ticket of leave.

During Kean's trial it was brought up that he became jealous when he received word that Ellen was about to marry a man by the name of John Cremer. This was the real reason behind her refusal to marry John Kean.

A number of witnesses were called up at the trial and each gave damning evidence against Kean. One stated that he had heard Kean make several threats as to what he would do to Ellen if she did not marry him. One such threat was that before he was humbugged any longer by her, "he would go on the Sydney gallows". Another witness claimed that Kean came to her shop the day before to buy a knife and a handkerchief- the same patterned handkerchief that was at the scene of the murder and presented in court.

John Kean made no other defence other than the assertion of his innocence, declaring that the confession attributed to him was made while he was in a state of excitement from drink, so that he did not remember anything about it.

The jury, after having retired for a few minutes, found a verdict of guilty. The judge addressed the prisoner "solemnly as to the heinous nature of the crime which he had been proved, beyond all manner of doubt, to have committed."

John Kean was executed at Darlinghurst Gaol on April 30. He was reported to be penitent, and his conduct and demeanour uniformly pious. Since his confinement he became very corpulent. His appetite never failed him right up to the day before his execution.

Ellen Hyndes was buried in the same grave as her husband at St John's Catholic Cemetery, Campbelltown. The grave can be seen in the photograph below.

Written by Andrew Allen

Queen Street in the Late 1960s

Time for a walk down memory lane. This photograph would've been taken from the roof of the old Macquarie Cinema on the corner of Queen and Browne Streets looking south west. Those of you living in Campbelltown in the late 1960s would remember this part of Queen Street back then. (Click on the image for a larger version)

In the foreground on the left is Mawson Park with the Club Hotel also on the left on the corner of Queen and Cordeaux Streets. On the other side of Queen Street starting from the right is Ted McPherson's butcher shop which was at 151 Queen Street. Moving left and next to the butcher is Richie Hand's barber shop. Next to that is a milk bar owned by Con and Peter Papapandos and formerly operated by Grallelis'. Then we have a group of 2 storey buildings. The first on the left belonged to Ryall, Smith & Co, accountants, typing, duplicating and photocopying. It was upstairs and above Carolyn's Frock Salon. G E Eves, photographer was next at 157 Queen Street and this was also upstairs. Geoff Eves took this photograph and took many street scenes around this period. He still lives in Campbelltown. Moving left we had William B. Leckie, Chemist, at 159 Queen Street.

Moving further to the left, a vacant block of land sits beside two large buildings. On the right is the Bank of NSW, previously the Balalaika Cafe. On the other side of the vacant block is the Commercial Bank of Australia, later Bank of NSW and then Westpac. On the first floor was M R Newton, solicitor and J M Daly, surveyor. This site used to be occupied by Reeve's Emporium. Patrick Street is on the other side of this building.

Just out of the picture to the left is Lack's Hotel which was on the corner of Queen and Railway Streets.

Do you remember these businesses? We'd love you to share your memories with us!

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

Campbelltown Ingleburn News, September 30, 1969