National Trust Heritage Festival 2014

Step back in time and trace the journey of our early settlers by participating in a tour of our local cemeteries, to be hosted by Campbelltown City Council’s Library Service in celebration of this year’s National Trust Heritage Festival.   

The festival will run from 12 April to 26 May and celebrates the theme, ‘Journeys’.   

Embracing this year’s festival theme, Campbelltown City Library will host a walking tour of  St Peter’s Anglican Cemetery on Wednesday 30 April, and of St John’s Catholic Cemetery on Thursday 8 May. Both tours will be held from 11am to midday and will focus on convicts interred in the cemeteries and their ‘journey’ from their homeland to Campbelltown. Cost is free, but bookings are essential. Participants will meet at the front gate of each cemetery at 11am. 

Accompanying the tours will be a display at HJ Daley Library featuring the lives of the convicts discussed in the tours. The display will also feature Campbelltown library staff that settled in Australia from overseas, highlighting their journey as refugees or migrants. 

For more information, or to book for the tours, phone 4645 4436 or visit campbelltown.nsw.gov.au/whatson 

Visit nationaltrust.org.au for more National Trust Festival events.  

 

 

The graves of convicts James and Elizabeth Ruse in St John's Catholic Cemetery. Both will be featured in the library's cemetery tours.

 

Macquarie Fields Gatehouse

Exciting news! Campbelltown Library has acquired artefacts from an archaeological excavation of Macquarie Fields Gatehouse. The excavation was undertaken by Archaeological and Heritage Management Solutions in late 2011 after they were commissioned by the Glenfield Junction Alliance  to carry out the excavation. Road works unearthed brick features leading to the archaeological investigation. The find included bottles, glass, ceramics, building material, metal and bone.

The site area was adjacent to Campbelltown Road, Glenfield, near its intersection with Beech Road. It was situated in the extreme north of the Campbelltown Local Government Area boundary.

In 1810 the Surveyor General James Meehan had 10 acres of his land grant at Macquarie Fields in cultivation, 40 acres cleared and a house with 4 men employed. At the end of 1820 the Rev Thomas Reddall rented out the main building at Macquarie Field for a school. The building became known as Meehan's Castle.

A larger house known as Macquarie Field House was constructed in the late 1830s or early 1840s. George Fairfowl Macarthur headmaster of St Mark's Collegiate School Darling Point moved his school and family to Macquarie Field House in 1858 when the facilities at St Mark's proved inadequate for expanding the school. It was at Macquarie Field House that the first school cadet corps was founded and the cadet uniform was worn by the boys as a general school uniform.

The gatehouse at Macquarie Field appears from historical evidence to date from the latter part of the 1820s and the available evidence from the occupation deposits do not contradict that date. Archaeological evidence suggests that the gatehouse was demolished in the 1870s. The death of the owner and subsequent sub-division of the estate would have been the probable reason.

In the early 1900s, the architect William Hardy Wilson embarked on a personal quest to record the finest colonial architecture still extant around the Sydney district. One of the sites he recorded, using just art paper stained with tea, was the gates at Macquarie Field. The drawing was made after the gate house was demolished yet it was recorded in the drawing. Wilson was presumably informed of its presence or perhaps some of the footings were still visible and he was able to use these for his sketch.

Between 1917 and 1924 the northern part of the property was sold. The gates had probably gone by 1924 as they are not mentioned by the owner in his reminiscences on the estate.

Gate lodges or houses were considered more than structures to provide security or simple shelter for gatekeepers. As the historian Timothy Mowl said "Lodges were not merely garden structures, they were designed as entrances, garden buildings on the perimeter to lure respectable visitors to view similar pleasures within."

The artefacts will be stored in the Local Studies Collection and will be displayed to the public on a date to be decided.

The convict built gates to Macquarie Field Estate and the site of the archaeological excavation

Written by Andrew Allen

Kathleen Whitten - Our First Woman Mayor

She has been referred to as a headline generator, a mould-breaker and a trailblazer, elected as mayor of Campbelltown at the end of 1961, Alderman Kath Whitten became the first woman to ever hold that position.

The idea of a woman holding such a senior rank dismayed many men and they made no secret of the fact that she had been elected because of a tactical mistake, the result of a political tug of war between council’s two most influential men, Greg Percival and Clive Tregear.

Nonetheless the new Mayor proved both talented and capable and the public grew to be proud of their “novelty” mayor, her biggest problem was winning over her colleagues.

There was friction from the start between the Mayor and her male colleagues, with Council refusing to buy her a better fitting mayoral robe (the existing robe was fitted for a large man and held together by safety pins) so she purchased her own sable–trimmed robe. Sympathetic media coverage of the matter only angered her opponents but her biggest confrontation was to be with councilor Guy Marsden over Government plans for Campbelltown to become a “satellite city”.

Whilst her one year term included walkouts by aldermen, an unsuccessful vote of no-confidence and the eternal opposition of several key councilors that resulted in a failed bid to regain the mayorship, even her harshest critics acknowledged her dignity and decorum that she showed in office.

Retiring from council in 1971, she remained Campbelltown’s only female Mayor until Cr Meg Oates was elected mayor in 1993.
 

By Samantha Stevenson

 

Opening of Campbelltown Fire Station in Broughton Street including (l to r) Norm Campbell, Mayor Kathleen Whitten (nee Robinson) and Mr Andrews (former president)   

Sources :

McGill, Jeff Campbelltown : a modern history 1960-1999

Local Information Pamphlets

Swimming in the Cattle Tank and Reservoir

Located in Allman Street, Campbelltown are the historic Cattle Tank and Reservoir. Both were constructed and completed by convict labour in the 1830s. They were regarded as necessary as water supply was a constant problem for both farmers and townspeople living in Campbelltown.

Both the Cattle Tank and Reservoir appear mostly to have had an ample supply of water, even during droughts. So of course one can imagine how alluring they were to the locals on a sweltering Campbelltown day. An interesting photograph in our collection is of "Jack's Day"- a regatta held at the site in 1917. It shows a crowd of people gathered around the Reservoir and a couple of local lads cooling off in the water. The newspaper reported "A band of 20 performers headed a procession from the railway station to Hurley Park, where juvenile sports and aquatic displays in the once tabooed reservoir exhilarated spectators".

The Cattle Tank has also been the scene of drowning tragedies over the years. In 1925 seven year old Leniel Johnson drowned after she accidently fell in while playing with her sister. She had been in the water for 20 minutes before she was found but couldn't be revived. Ten years later sixteen year old Betty Humphreys drowned. She had been suffering a nervous breakdown according to the 'Campbelltown News' and ran from her home in Allman Street and jumped in the Cattle Tank. Despite attempts from a young boy named Jack Hadden, she was unable to be revived. The newspaper mentions a mass of tangled wire and rubbish under the water so the days of a clean place to swim appear to be gone by then.

I interviewed both Jim Summers and David Milliken and they described their experiences of swimming in the Cattle Tank when they were boys. Jim, who was born in 1929, recalls his days of swimming there: "we used to swim in those and when I was a kid they were always full of water. We used to catch fish and eels in the smaller one on the bottom side. The tanks would dry up and you could walk in them. Then they would fill up and the fish and eels would be back, they must stay under the mud." He also went on to explain how there used to be a creek that ran down from the tanks in Allman Street. It ran down to Oxley Street and came out in Dumaresq Street. In the late 1930s council, worried about flooding from the Reservoir and tank, decided to drain water from them. Only a year earlier however, there were plans to convert the Cattle Tank into a 'glorified swimming hole', with preliminary estimates of the cost put at 400 pounds for cleaning out and concreting the tank, plus 5 pounds per refill. The proposal was eventually dropped in the late 1930's after another expert calculated a more realistic cost of 2500 pounds for the conversion.

David Milliken described swimming in there as a kid with whatever was underneath! "Every now and again you would get a bite on your foot from a yabby."

The Cattle Tank continued to be used to water stock as late as 1960. By the early 1960s, both the Reservoir and Cattle Tank were all but dry. Subsequent earthworks for a playing field at the top of Hurley Park radically changed the topography of the site. Although dried out today, both catchments continue to provide recreational facilities for nearby residents- albeit in the form of a cricket pitch or sunken volleyball arena.

 

The photograph above shows the regatta held on the cattle tank in 1917. Note the young boy in the water.

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

PEDDELL, Wendy
Conservation Plan Stage 1: Campbelltown Reservoir and Cattle Tank

Campbelltown Water Supply and Cattle Tank: A Conservation Plan

Interviews with Jim Summers and David Milliken held at Campbelltown Library

Reeve's Emporium

This photograph shows Reeve's Emporium on the corner of Queen and Patrick Streets around 1900. (Judith Roberts Collection)

Reeve's Emporium was located on the north-west corner of Queen and Patrick Streets in Campbelltown or at 135 Queen Street. The site today is occupied by Richardson and Wrench Real Estate.

Built in 1897, it was of rendered brick, of two storeys, and with a corrugated iron roof. It also had a balcony up until 1951 when a motorcycle crashed into it and it had to be demolished. The shop windows had roller shutters which were lowered after business hours. For late shopping on Friday nights, three lanterns were suspended under the awnings. These operated on petrol, and had to be pumped and fitted by a mantle.

It was founded and erected by Thomas Henry Reeve. A relative named Will Craft helped Reeve build it. Thomas Reeve moved to Campbelltown from the city where he had an ironmongery business in George Street, Haymarket.

The store sold drapery, ladies' and gentlemen's wear, boots and shoes, axes and pruning knives, buggy whips, double breech loading guns and gunpowder, and toys. Millinery, drapery and haberdashery were also popular items sold. It sold heaps of sheet music, musical manuscript books and song albums.The emporium also dealt in Kynock brand ammunition, at least to the mid-1920s.

The business was sold in 1954 to A.J. Daniel. It later became Lombard Discounts Pty. Ltd. and the CBC bank, although it had been greatly modified.

Written by Andrew Allen

Campbelltown Hospital Opening

Campbelltown Library was recently sent the above photograph from a previous employee who believed it might be the Campbelltown Hospital. The photograph shows a parachutist about to land on a nearby field. We were able to confirm that it is the hospital and determine that it was taken on the opening day.

 

The first stage of Campbelltown Hospital was officially opened by Premiere Neville Wran on the 1^st of October 1977. In attendance , according to the local newspaper, were a crowd of ‘1500 deeply interested people.’

Mr Wran paid tribute to Gough Whitlam who had in 1974, shamed the State government into keeping an election promise to build the hospital. Earlier Mr Whitlam said ‘although the areas to the south and west were referred to as suburbs, people did not realise how much they were entitled to have the facilities that any capital city would have.’

The Mayor Gordon Fetterplace said ‘no less than four governments had been involved in the project’ and Cliff Mallam paid tribute to the Campbelltown Auxiliary for the sum of $30,000 it had fund raised over 24 years.

Using a ‘fast tracking system’ of construction the hospital came in under budget at $9.8 million instead of 11. Fast tracking it was explained, ‘allows the construction of the outer shell first’ while detailed interior planning continues.

Mr Mallam’s speech also made a plea to consider incorporating a helipad as recently it took five hours for an ambulance to reach one of the area’s coal mines.

Our hospital began with 120 beds, staffed by 126 nursing personnel,  seven doctors and 21 paramedical officers greatly reducing the strain on Camden and Liverpool hospitals.

References: Campbelltown – A modern History Jeff McGill

The Macarthur Advertiser Oct 5 1977 p1,13/ Sep 28 p3

Our First Mayor- A Tragic Ending

Not a lot is known about Campbelltown's first mayor John Ahearn. Local author and journalist Jeff McGill published a book on mayors of Campbelltown in 1996 and outlined what little information there is about him. Jeff wrote that "as mysteriously as Alderman Ahearn appeared on the pages of our history, he departed". Now, after a recent telephone call by a relative named Mrs Hobbs, I am able to explain what happened to our first mayor. It was a sad discovery.

John Ahearn was elected as Campbelltown's first mayor in February 1882, simply because he was a newcomer, who had less to do with the town than any other alderman. Most of the new council's members came from old local families with entrenched rivalries. John Ahearn was from nearby Appin and therefore no established faction could grab power.

Alderman Ahearn became frustrated by some of the parochial attitudes he encountered. When a tender for kerbing and guttering was offered he supported a new resident who had a cheaper quote. He was embarrassed however when his colleagues voted for a contract that was more expensive but from an old-town family.

It appeared that John Ahearn would have lost the Mayorship after his first term but the death of his sister forced him to leave the district. His sister Eliza died suddenly and left four children behind. Her husband was W.T. Airey who was also serving on council as an alderman.

John Ahearn was a contractor when he wasn't serving council. He was involved in a number of important constructions throughout Sydney, including construction of the Centennial Park reservoir.

After Campbelltown he completed terms as mayor for Burwood and Auburn councils. He also served as mayor of Mudgee council.

On the 18th of June, 1909 John Ahearn took his own life. He shot himself through the head at his office on the Arncliffe-Bexley tramline, for the construction of which he held the contract. A revolver was found in his hand by his son and another man. John had been depressed at the time. He was buried at St Patrick's Catholic Cemetery at Parramatta. A non-descript headstone marking the final resting place of Campbelltown's first mayor.

 

Written by Andrew Allen 

 

 

Sources:

McGill, Jeff 1996
First Citizen: Mayors of Campbelltown since 1882
Campbelltown: Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society

Sydney Morning Herald, June 19, 1909, p16