The Lamplighter

Every day at dusk you would see him. He would walk around the quiet streets of Campbelltown carrying his small ladder and kerosene can with its long narrow spout. It was a routine that he loved and that he had perfected through years of practice. As he approached each lamp post he would take the lamp out and clean the globe and then fill the lamp with kerosene and light it. A ritual from another time in a slower paced and less complicated world.

Edwin James Bamford, known as Ted,  was born in 1865 in Picton. He was the son of Edwin Bamford and and Elizabeth Reeves. The family came to Campbelltown when Ted was only 3 or 4 months old. Ted secured his first job aged only 13 when he began constructional work on Sydney's first water supply. His main duty was to supply horses to the surveyors, moving them between Campbelltown and Fairfield where they were stationed.

He began his lamplighting in 1902. Although there were not many lights in town, it still required some travelling by foot. There was a light outside the town hall, one on the corner of Allman Street, one on Dumaresq Street, one near the corner of Lithgow Street, one near the park and one on the corner of Broughton Street. They never showed much light according to local Frances Meredith.

As a boy, Fred Seers assisted him with the lamplighting for threepence a week. Fred grew up to be one of the town's much loved characters himself.

Lamplighting was not the only job that Ted was skilled at. Perhaps his greatest joy in life was as Verger for St Peter's Church. He followed in his father's footsteps with this. He would clean the church, ring the bell, chase pigeons and undertake rounds of the graveyard. He reputedly knew the inscription of every tombstone in St Peters. Later he worked in the tiny library in a small building at the back of the town hall. He was the librarian there and he also looked after two billiard tables in the small building. There was a fireplace and he kept the logs on the fire in winter. He later moved to the new Soldiers Memorial School of Arts on the corner of Queen and Lithgow Streets and worked as the librarian.

Ted had a keen interest in botany. He was able to give the botanical name of every tree, pine and shrub that you could find in Campbelltown!

He carried out his work as lamplighter up until the time that electricity was installed in Campbelltown in early 1924. No more would this gentle old character wander the streets lighting up the town. 

Ted married Frances Holland at St Peters, Campbelltown and they had three children. The untimely death of his daughter Fanny had a profound effect on him and was believed to have contributed to his death not long after. He had suffered from asthma throughout his life. Edwin Bamford died in 1936 and was buried in the cemetery at St Peters that he dutifully cared for. 

Can you help with finding a photograph of Edwin Bamford for us?

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

Campbelltown News 24 July 1936

A Stroll Through St Peter's Churchyard, Campbelltown NSW by Marie Holmes

Frances Meredith oral history interview 1977 (Held at Campbelltown Library)

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