Giants v Mouses

In 1963, Bill Anderson (33 stone or 210 kilograms) and Les Miller (18 stone or 114 kilograms)- total 314 kilograms or 50 stone- of Campbelltown Bowling Club threw out a challenge in the journal Bowls to any pair weighing 50 stone or more. The only takers were two Nyngan men, Noel Trotman (8 stone or 51 kilograms) and his father (7 stone or 45 kilograms)! The match was promoted as The Campbelltown Giants versus The Nyngan Mouses.

The match took place in Campbelltown on January 25, 1964. Everyone was in stitches when the weighing took place before the game. A large wooden beam was set up as a balance in the form of a type of sea-saw. Of course the two tiny Nyngan men headed straight for the sky as soon as Bill and Les plonked their considerable frames on the other end. Adding to the hilarious moment, nine other bowlers were added to the Nyngan side to weigh up the balance. The Campbelltown-Ingleburn News explained that Vince Tripp tipped the balance as he was the foundation "stone" of the club!

The match commenced to the whirring of many cameras, TV and local enthusiasts having a busy time getting the best angles of the match. Members were delighted to see themselves on television during high tea. The city press and television gave the game a wide coverage (imagine TV networks bothering to cover such an event these days).

For the record the Nyngan Mouses beat the Giants 27 to 12.

Written by Andrew Allen

Update: It appears a re-match took place at Nyngan according to the caption on the above photograph

Sources:

LOWE, Allan 1993
Campbelltown Bowling Club: The Early Years
Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society Inc

Campbelltown-Ingleburn News, January 28, 1964

Building the Mall

Do you remember when Campbelltown Mall was being built? Only three years after Macarthur Square was opened, Campbelltown was to have another shopping centre constructed. Bulldozers began their work in 1982 clearing land once owned by Fred Fisher for a double level complex.

Local resident Max Bancroft thought it was a good idea to record the various stages of building. Max worked in the telephone exchange located next to the site and took his photographs from the roof of the exchange. The images are valuable not just because they show what the mall looked like during its construction but because they also show what the town looked like in 1982. I've included five such images that best reveal this. Clicking on each image will give you a larger version.

Thank you Max for donating these fascinating photographs to Campbelltown Library.

This image is looking south-west from the roof of the telephone exchange. In the background is the overhead bridge on Gilchrist Drive. The graders are on what is now Hurley Street.

In this photograph the colonial buildings in Queen Street are visible as well as the old Campbelltown Theatre. The Good Intent Hotel had only just been demolished to make way for the new mall. A brave campaign was waged by Councillor John Hennessey to save the large trees in front of colonial building on the right. Fortunately his efforts proved successful.

A similar view looking towards the old theatre. Note the two large block of flats (or shops?) behind the theatre that are long gone.

This shot is looking south toward the Campbelltown Catholic Club. In the background is Macarthur Square. The road in the middle distance is Camden Road with a much smaller Catholic Club and a number of houses along it all since demolished.

This photograph was taken by Max Bancroft from the roof of the exchange looking west toward Blair Athol. In the foreground is the ramp that leads up to the upper car park of the mall.

Written by Andrew Allen

Fruit of the vine.

The Campbelltown area is not the first that comes to mind when considering vineyards and winemaking. Although the Macarthur family was producing wine throughout the first half of the 1800’s at Camden Park, and indeed, took wine to the Paris Exhibition of 1955, other winemakers in the Campbelltown area were also busily trying to grow grapes and produce good wine. 

Campbellfields

Dr William Redfern was transported to New South Wales, arriving in 1801. His good reputation as a doctor gained him a free pardon in 1803. He eventually became physician to Governor Macquarie and his family, and also to the Macarthur family. He was granted 1300 acres in the Airds district near Campbelltown in 1818, naming the property Campbellfields, in honour of Mrs Macquarie.

In 1821 William Redfern went to England, and on his return voyage, spent some time at Madeira, studying the vineyards and wine industry there. He engaged vine dressers and procured vines at considerable expense, and returned to New South Wales in 1824, receiving a further grant at Campbellfields, where he introduced the white grape variety ‘Verdelho’ to Australia from Madeira.

He lived at Campbellfields and devoted more and more time to his farming activities, which included cultivating the vine as well as fine wool and cattle, gradually withdrawing from his medical practice, which he entirely gave up in September 1826. Two years later he took his son William to Edinburgh to be educated. Though he intended to return, he died there in July 1833.

Varro Ville

1811 Dr Robert Townson was granted 1000 acres at Minto and called it 'Varro Ville', after the Roman agriculturalist Marcus Terentius Varro, whose only complete work to survive is the Res Rustica (“Farm Topics”), a three-section work of practical instruction in general agriculture and animal husbandry, written to foster a love of rural life.

Dr Townson was living off his capital since arriving in Australia, and, fearing financial ruin, devoted himself to developing Varro Ville to the exclusion of everything else.  Varro Ville became a showpiece and its vineyard was 'second only to Gregory Blaxland'.  (Gregory Blaxland had a vineyard at Brush Farm on the Parramatta River, taking wine to England in 1822, and again in 1827, the latter earning him a Gold Medal from the Royal Society of Arts.)  After the death of Dr Townson in 1827, Varro Ville was advertised for sale and described as follows “The Estate was the Residence of the late Dr. Townson, and possesses one of the first Vineyards in this Colony, planted with the choicest Grape Trees, together with an Orchard, having a great variety of the best Fruit Trees in it.”

Eschol Park

The original 50 acre grant to Mark Millington was enlarged to 1,300 acres by Thomas Clarkson, who also erected a house on the property in 1817. After changing hands again, it was sold to William Fowler in 1858. He originally named it Eshcol Park after the Promised Land of Eshcol in the Bible, but it was continually misspelt, and is now known as Eschol Park.  William built the existing main house, and in about 1860 erected a three story winery and adjoining still room. He also established a 15 acre vineyard, and within a decade or so, it was producing 2000 to 3000 gallons of award-winning wines. William Fowler sold the property to a Mr Milgate, who continued the vineyard with Fowler acting as agent for selling the wine. The property changed hands again, and was again listed for sale in 1885, with the listing boasting  ‘15 acres of valuable and well-cared-for vineyards in full-bearing’ and ‘in the cellars are nine 700 and one 1,100 gallon casks, besides a large number of lesser capacity; these together with the valuable plant and about 15,000 gallons of wine, varying in age from six years downwards’. Vineyards across the region were badly hit in the 1890s when the Phylloxera disease struck, and Eschol Park was devastated. The suburb bearing the name Eschol Park has its streets named after varieties of grape grown in Australia, as well as wine types, methods and terms, and the early vigneron of Eschol Park himself is remembered by William Fowler Reserve.

Eshcol Park c1870. Photo courtesy of Campbelltown & Airds Historical Society

 

Written by Claire Lynch

Sources:

Wineries in Macarthur – A Historical Perspective by Steve Greaves

Vineyards of Sydney – by Dr. Philip Norrie

Australian Dictionary of Biography   http://adb.anu.edu.au/

Campbelltown City Council www.campbelltown.nsw.gov.au

Trove

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