Campbelltown Town Hall

Many of Campbelltown's important historic events have revolved around one of the town's landmark buildings- the town hall theatre.

The land was originally the site of the Temperance Hall built by James Bocking in 1862 and before this it was owned by George Worrall, the murderer of Frederick Fisher. The original hall had a raised stage with dressing rooms either side and kitchen underneath with lighting provided by kerosene lamps. The local newspaper reported that it was "available to theatrical companies and with piano, for balls, entertainment, etc".

The Temperance Hall was purchased in 1884 by Campbelltown Council and was to be used as a town hall. A fire station was built next door in 1891. Almost immediately it was taken over by Council for the Clerk's Office and the following year a matching facade was added to the town hall. This facade of the fire station and the town hall is decorated in solid late Victorian style, and this is the main character of these buildings.

A free library and reading room functioned from 1886 to 1905 in the area beneath the existing stage. Council meetings took place in one of the upstairs rooms for 60 years up until 1953, when the move was made to the corner of Queen and Lithgow Streets.

One interesting fact about the building is that it was the first in Campbelltown to have electricity connected. This was in 1924 and it apparently bears the official connecting serial number of 1!

Up until 1964 when a new civic centre was constructed, the building was used as a town hall. This included dances, balls and concerts during World War II. Between 1964 and 1979 the building served as the home of the Campbelltown RSL Youth Club. Following this and after renovation in 1979, the theatre group adopted the town hall as its home.

The building has long been associated with numerous ghost stories and the resident ghost is of course named "Fred". Members of the theatre group are certain of Fred's existence and say that he makes cameo appearances when there are few people about the place. Lights turning on and off and footsteps after shows are just some of the antics Fred gets up to.

This photograph shows the town hall and fire station taken prior to 1920.

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

Macarthur Advertiser April 18, 1979

"History of the Town Hall Theatre"
In "Grist Mills" Vol.5, No.4, 1990 p.65

The Local Undertaker

Charles Alexander Nicol, known affectionately as Charley Nicol, was born in Campbelltown in 1884. He was the son of George and Martha Nicol. During his youth he worked with his brothers on the family farm on Appin Road. Being a teamster, his father was often away and the boys needed to run the farm in his absence.

Being one of 14 children he soon found he would have to move out and fend for himself. He had some years of working for wages before going into business. This was at first a sawmill at Appin but later he went to Campbelltown where he opened a timber yard in Iolanthe Street. Soon after starting his timber business, he became the local undertaker and used his timber in making the coffins. He kept his empty coffins in the roof of a large shed at the rear of Iolanthe Street. Charley also dug the graves at the cemeteries and filled them after the funeral. He was well known in the Campbelltown community for his caring and sympathetic nature and for the comforting words to the deceased's relatives and friends.

According to local identity Norm Campbell, Charley was adamant that Frederick Fisher was buried close to the corner of Howe and Broughton Street in St Peter's Cemetery. This was against the most people's belief that it was more towards the bowling green corner.

Charley was a real character of Campbelltown. He could be regularly seen in the company of local barber Mort Clissold. If you wanted any information to do with the town you would call in and catch up on all the gossip from the pair.

Charley was also a builder and constructed many of the timber buildings in King, Iolanthe, Warby and Chamberlain Streets. He was a keen cricketer and lawn bowler. Charley also owned the land where rugby league was played and the ground was often known as "Charley Nicol's Paddock".

Another of his interests was motorcycling. In his younger days he was one of the first in Campbelltown to own one of the "boneshakers" as they were known at the time.

In 1920 he was elected as an alderman on Campbelltown City Council and served several terms on council.

Charles Nicol died on May 30, 1969 aged 85 and is buried in St Peter's Cemetery. His grave can be seen in the photograph below. I wonder did he catch up with Fred Fisher to confirm if he was correct or not!

Written by Andrew Allen

Menangle Railway Bridge Turns 150

Opened in 1863, Menangle Viaduct is the oldest railway bridge in New South Wales. It is an excellent example of early bridge construction.

The bridge was designed by John Fowler. Messrs. Peto, Brassey and Betts were successful in tendering for construction of both the railway line from Campbelltown to Picton and the viaduct. After a great flood occurred in 1860 during the finalising of its design, the bridge was lifted over six feet to provide sufficient clearance for floodwaters.

During its construction, about 500 people (construction gangs and their families) lived in tents and small huts nearby.

The sandstone for the piers was quarried about one and a half miles upstream and transported by temporary tramway. The ironwork was fabricated at Birkenhead in the UK and loaded on to two vessels which sailed in 1861.

The bridge is one of two identical bridges constructed for the NSW Railways, the other being over the Nepean River at Penrith. The Penrith bridge was opened in 1867 but has been used for road traffic since 1907.

In 1976, some wagons of a goods train were derailed on the northern approach and came into violent collision with the ornamental masonry piers at that end. They were so severely damaged that they were demolished from above the rail level and have not been replaced.

Last Monday the 12th of August, a presentation was made to acknowledge the 150th anniversary of the opening of the bridge.

 

Menangle Railway Bridge taken in the 1930s (Riley Collection)

Written by Andrew Allen

Adventures Down St Elmo Hill

In my interview with local identity Norm Campbell in 2011, he told me a story about the day of his lucky escape as a baby in the 1930s. Norm was in the care of the Meredith family on this day and they were visiting friends at St Elmo. They walked there pushing young Norm in a pram. This house was located at the top of the steep Broughton Street hill in Campbelltown.

The Meredith girl who was taking care of him was distracted for a moment. Suddenly his pram began to charge down the steep, unpathed roadway, gathering speed as Norm swayed and bumped inside. The pram accelerated past Lindesay Street, Moore Street, and Queen Street, finally coming to a halt in long grass near the railway line.

Another local girl named Chris Vardy and her brothers experienced the thrill of hurtling down this same hill during their childhood in the late 1950s. In her Campbelltown Recollections: stories from our past interview, Chris described what is was like to descend the hill at top speed in a home made billy cart made from pram parts. "No helmets, no shoes and just shorts. Straight from the top of St Elmo all the way down to Queen Street. Look out! It was a wonder we weren't killed".

The photograph above is of the notorious Broughton Street hill at St Elmo looking west in 1946. (Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society)

Written by Andrew Allen

Our "Ghost Post"

Locked away at H.J. Daley Library is an old rail from Fisher's Ghost Bridge that once spanned Fisher's Ghost Creek near Airds Cottage. The piece of wood has an interesting history as Jeff McGill describes in his Campbelltown Clippings book.

According to Jeff, the rail became famous as the finish post for the Campbelltown Picnic races in the early 1970s. It was famous because in the years that it was used as the finish post the races were repeatedly washed out. It started in 1970 when race promoter, Deirdre O'Dowd, called the main event the Fisher's Ghost Cup.

It seemed "Fred" was unimpressed. The rain came down in torrents and the horses virtually had to swim up the track! The rest of the event had to be cancelled.

The next year the name reverted to the old title of the Campbelltown City Cup and the sun shone brightly. However the next year the meeting was named again after "Fred" and the rail was used as the finish post. It was completely washed out and three other meetings that followed were as well.

Deirdre brought the post back to her house and stored it in the garage. Within six months she received an excess water bill for a half a million gallons of water, due to leaking pipes!

I use the "ghost post" for the occasional display and school tour. Yes, it almost always rains on the day it's brought out of storage. A sure way to break any drought!

                            Fisher's Ghost Bridge in Southern Queen Street

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

McGill, Jeff 1993
Campbelltown Clippings
Campbelltown: Campbelltown City Council

Skeleton in the Creek

It's Friday the 18th of June 1920 and Alexander Crowe, a World War One digger, is chopping wood on his farm at the Soldier Settlement near Campbelltown. Crowe's block was on the far eastern boundary of the settlement with a creek running through the rugged portion. As he was chopping wood he saw a curved shape bone lying on the ground. After curiously scouting the ground in the vicinity and much to his horror, found a human skeleton partially dressed in men's clothing lying in the dry creek bed. The police were immediately notified and they began to identify the skeleton.

Initial newspaper reports before identification described the scene. They wrote that the nature of the bones indicated that the man was in the prime of his life when he died. They theorised that the man could have stumbled over the bank of the creek and lain there without attracting assistance. The right knee was dislocated it was also noticed.

Early reports also suggested that the body had been there for around 12 months. Also in the creek bed were six bottles of vanilla essence, three pennies and four half pennies plus some cordial bottles. Police however initially had little to go on to identify the body.

Dr Mawson of Campbelltown then examined the remains. He was of the opinion that they were lying exposed for at least six months, and were those of a young man between 5ft 9in and 5ft 10in high. Several bones were missing and the doctor believed that they were taken by wild dogs.

News of the discovery reached Victor Thompson of Parramatta. He was quickly on the scene and was convinced that the skeleton was of his father Nathaniel.

Sixty year old Nathaniel Thompson lived in Landers Street, Redfern and worked as a cordial maker. He had recently lost a son and was greatly affected by this. One day in February that year he had set out to visit his mother's grave in Liverpool. Before he had left the family gave him three pennies and four half-pennies to take with him. Being a great walker he had decided to walk the journey but became lost as night approached. The Campbelltown Herald went on to explain that "the place where the deceased was found would give every reason to believe that an accident happened, and the death was due to exposure". Further adding support to the son's belief that this was his father was a distinctive broken tooth and a newly soled boot.

This was all I could locate on this story. I find it strange that Nathaniel Thompson would stray as far as the Soldier Settlement at Campbelltown on his way from Redfern to Liverpool.

                         Soldier Settlement, Waminda Avenue, Campbelltown


Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

VINCENT, Liz 1994
Tales of Old Macarthur Country
Picton: Liz Vincent

Bathurst Times, Monday 21 June 1920

Campbelltown Herald Friday 25 June 1920

Joe Quinn

I was recently contacted by a researcher investigating the life of Australia’s first major league baseball player, Joseph J. Quinn.  Quinn is something of a forgotten hero in Australian sport – he played 17 seasons in the American major leagues between 1884 and 1901, mostly as a second baseman, and he was so popular with the American public that he was voted “Most Popular Ballplayer” in 1893!  It was 102 years before another Australian was drafted into a major league team, which may explain the lack of research and recognition of Quinn’s achievements in the land of his birth, although he was inducted into the Australian Baseball Hall of Fame in May this year. 

Most of Joe Quinn’s childhood was spent in the Campbelltown area before he immigrated to the United States with his parents and older brother at the age of 11 in 1872.  He was actually born in North Ipswich, QLD, in 1862, to Patrick and Catherine Quinn, but the family are thought to have moved to Campbelltown around 1866 due to the severe drought and subsequent high levels of unemployment in Queensland.

But the Quinns’ lives in Campbelltown between 1866 and 1872 are a bit of a mystery.  Joe’s father was an illiterate labourer with a history of finding work wherever he could get it during his travels around Australia – he had previously worked as a farmer, miner, and railway navvie.  The Quinns were Irish Roman Catholics and it may be that both Joe and his older brother Patrick jnr. attended St. Patrick’s school on the Old Menangle Road.  But there are very few employment or education records from this period – can anyone shed any light on this family and their lives?

It is anticipated a book about Quinn’s life will be released later this year – details to come.

 

 

This photograph of Joe Quinn was taken in 1890 in Boston

Written by Andrew Allen