WILLOUGHBY HISTORY CHATTERS

WILLOUGHBY DISTRICT
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
VOLUME 41, NUMBER 4
WILLO U G H BY
CHAT T E RS
OCTOBER 2014
RECENT WDHS ACTIVITIES
INSIDE THIS
ISSUE:
MUSEUM
2
UPDATE
MEMBERS’
NEWS
3
WILLOUGHBY
CITY TODAY
3
ELIZA DAVIES
STORY
4
TRADITIONAL
TRADE TOOLS
5
WAYNE’S STORY
PART 2
7
CONTACT
DETAILS
8
EVENTS DIARY
8
COMING EVENTS
Saturday 11 October
General Meeting with
speaker Dr Ian Hoskins
on Sydney Harbour.
(see page 8)
Tuesday 11 November
Tour to Old Quarantine
Station, North Head
(see page 8)
HI S T O RY
I have been involved in a number of activities promoting the
Society and our museum over
the past two months.
Willoughby City Library has an
extensive collection of Francis
Webb’s poetry and conducts an
annual event of his poetry readings during the Spring Festival.
Regarded in some circles as
one of Australia’s finest poets,
Webb spent much of his youth
in Chatswood where he lived
with his grandparents Charles
and Amy Webb-Wagg at 15
Johnson Street.
I was invited to read two of
Webb’s poems and to provide
background on the Webb-Wagg
family’s life at 15 Johnson
Street to the 50 or so participants.
thanks to the following for their support to these events:
Windsor Gardens Retirement Village
management; David Barker, manager
of The Concourse; Michele Burton,
Librarian, and staff at Willoughby Library and the owners of Bambini Cottage at 17 Johnson Street; for their
cooperation in making their homes
and facilities available to us.
I also wish to extend my thanks to
Terry Fogarty and Margaret
McNaught for their efforts in assessing and entering the documents, photos and archives held by the museum
and entering them into the database
(see page 2).
Paul Storm
I also gave presentations to the
Dural & District Historical Society on Rachael Hemming (on 16
September) and to the Friends
of the Historic Houses Trust at
Juniper Hall in Paddington. The
latter group plans visits to
Chatswood for its members in
November and January 2015.
We have also been active in
conducting tours of Chatswood’s heritage by various
groups on behalf of the Society.
I conducted a walk for the
Northern Beaches Recreational
Group on 29 August, which also
included a light lunch at the
museum, while our Willoughby
Spring Fair event, ‘Chatswood’s
Heritage, from Top to Bottom’ is
scheduled for 28 September. I
wish to express the Society’s
A dining alcove at Windsor Gardens photographed during a
recent WDHS guided tour. BOB McKILLOP
WILLOUGHBY HISTORY CHATTERS
Page 2
WILLOUGHBY MUSEUM UPDATE
A number of groups have visited the
museum over the past two months,
but the number of visitors during our
Sunday afternoon openings has been
disappointing.
One special visitor to the museum on
Thursday
31
July
was
Carol
McFadzean, a lace expert from the
United Kingdom. Carol had been in
touch with us last year with a request
for assistance with information on her
half-sisters, who had grown up in
Chatswood. With Joan Antarakis’ assistance, we were able to meet her request
Following this exchange, Carol advised
that she was visiting Australia in July
as the judge at an international lace
exhibition being held in Adelaide. She
took advantage of this to plan an extensive travel itinerary in Australia,
finishing up in Sydney for a week to
meet with her half-sister and visit our
museum.
Carol met with Mary Thom, Margaret
McNaught and Bob McKillop on 31
July. Following discussion over morning
tea, we undertook an inspection of our
extensive lace collection and associated items.
After looking at some of the lace materials on display in the glass display
cases, some of which were incorrectly
labelled, Carol was able to identify the
lace variety and method of construction of most of the items in our collection.
We then examined baskets of lace and
similar items from storage. This was
sorted into piles for the various categories of lace and associated fabrics,
such as machine-made, crochet, handmade and guipure, together with some
of the British and European lace styles.
Margaret McNaught and Carol McFadzean inspecting items in the Willoughby Museum lace
collection on 31 July 2014 (left) and (right) Carol with the lace dress on display in the ‘From
Home to Museum’ exhibition. MARY THOM PHOTOS
As a historical lace expert and lace
maker herself, Carol provided us with
useful advice regarding storage and
conservation of the various categories
of material in our collection.
the brickwork in the front driveway. In
addition, committee member Don Swonnell has assisted in pruning and clearing up the rear garden, which is now in
splendid order for spring.
If any readers have an interest in our
extensive lace collection, we are keen
to hear from you as we hope to make a
start in researching and cataloguing
key items in the collection.
Society member Judy Peters contacted
the committee regarding the extensive
collection of Mashman pottery objects
and documents that her uncle, Ken Day
had brought together. Ken was a major
figure in the Australian pottery industry
(see Willoughby History Chatters, October 2012) and his collection is a significant one in national terms.
Margaret McNaught and Terry Fogarty
have been documenting the archival
material held at the museum in order
to build up an Excel file that will enable
researchers to locate specific documents, photos and archives held at the
museum.
We are also grateful to Willoughby City
Council for assistance provided at the
museum over the winter months. This
includes pruning trees, renewal of damaged guttering on Boronia and cleaning
While the Willoughby Museum has an
Interest in small objects and documents
from the collection, the committee has
advised Judy that it is of the opinion that
the bulk of the Ken Day collection
should go to a major museum, such as
the Powerhouse Museum.
VOLUME 41, NUMBER 4
MEMBERS’ NEWS
Page 3
WILLOUGHBY CITY TODAY IN PICTURES
There have been some important
updates to the WDHS website over
the past two months. Thanks to the
contribution by Malcolm Lye, the
Northbridge story under ‘Suburbs’ is
now ‘live’ with accompanying images.
It covers Aboriginal heritage, early
settlement, the construction of the
Suspension Bridge and the initial
subdivisions. Then follow detailed
sections on heritage and the parks
and reserves. We trust that you find it
a useful addition to the website.
You may have noticed that there is a
section on the website for ‘Members’.
The Management Committee is currently working on a means of posting
relevant documents such as minutes
of its meetings, financial reports and
similar documents in this area for
access by ‘Members Only’. In addition, we are now circulating newsletters received from other local museums and history organisations to
those members who have access to
email.
We will be holding the annual Members’ Christmas function at the Willoughby Museum again this year from
2.00pm on Sunday14 December. In
additional to poetry readings, we also
hope to arrange an official opening of
our new displays at this year’s event.
As usual, you are requested to bring a
plate for afternoon tea in the garden
and advise us of your wish to attend
to assist us in planning for the event.
Willoughby promotes itself as the
‘City of Diversity’. The image above
was taken by Bob McKillop from the
tower at Windsor Gardens on 11 May
this year. It contracts the urban
streets of the South Chatswood Conservation Area in the foreground with
the rising towers of the Chatswood
City Centre beyond. Rob Wilson took
the lower photograph on 31 August
in Harold Reid Reserve, just 5 kilometres to the east. The majestic
Angophora and the rustic sandstone
outcrop seem a world away.
WILLOUGHBY HISTORY CHATTERS
Page 4
THE ELIZA DAVIES STORY
One of the most remarkable of the
individuals who made a significant
impact on Willoughby’s history is
Eliza Davies (née Arbuckle) who established the first public school on
the North Shore in 1863.
Born to industrialist Matthew Arbuckle and his much younger wife
Mary, née Smith, at Paisley near
Glasgow in Scotland in early 1821,
Eliza had a remarkable ability to attach herself to influential people. It
was a trait that resulted in her
becoming one of the most widely
travelled women in the 19th century.
Following her father’s death in her
early childhood, Eliza had a particularly strained relationship with her
mother, who married again. She left
her family and became involved with
Baptist missionaries in her late
teens. In August 1838, Eliza Arbuckle joined the family of two regular church members, Mr and Mrs
Holmes, to migrate to Sydney.
In Sydney Eliza moved in establishment circles, including the explorer
Charles Sturt and his wife Charlotte,
who became her guardians, and she
moved to Adelaide with them in April
1839. She accompanied the Sturts,
Governor George Gawler and his
daughter Julia on an ill-fated exploration into the mallee lands east of the
Murray River in late 1839. It was an
experience that brought Eliza face-toface with the harshness and risks of
the Australian landscape with a
young English guest of the Governor
losing his life and Eliza facing a neardeath experience.
Eliza’s relationship with Charlotte
Sturt was to result in a disastrous
marriage with William Davies on 17
April 1840. Fleeing this experience,
she returned to Sydney in 1841
where she became a governess to
the children of Frederick Parbury and
his wife. Eliza subsequently travelled
to the United Kingdom in 1847 as a
servant to the Parbury family. Following a meeting with the American fundamentalist preacher Alexander
Campbell, she travelled to his base
in Bethany in Brooke County, West
Virginia. Here Eliza gained teaching
experience at one of their schools.
Eliza returned to Sydney in 1848 for
an unsuccessful reconciliation with
her mother and half-sister. This resulted in Eliza establishing her first
school for the children of tenants at
James Mackay Grey’s Omega Retreat
estate in the hills behind Kiama in
1858, which she named Mount Pleasant School. After she returned to Adelaide in March 1861, influential
friends assisted her to obtain a divorce from William Davies.
Returning to Sydney in June 1861,
Eliza stayed with members of the Baptist Bush Mission Society. She joined
missionary Robert Dixon on a journey
to the Lower North Shore early in
1862. Suffering from blistered feet
from the long walk through rugged
bush, Eliza stayed the night with the
itinerant worker families living in scattered huts. She was shocked at their
primitive living conditions and lack of
education facilities, so she promised
to return and help them commence a
school. She opened the Bethany Bush
School with 18 pupils on 16 June
1862.
The school was housed in a small tworoomed timber hut built by a shoemaker, a Mr Davey. The site, now
marked by a WCC Heritage Plaque,
was at what became today’s ‘Pommy
Lodge’ at 120 Penshurst Street.
Eliza’s ability to impress influential
people enabled her to gain the support of four leading residents—James
Reid, Thomas McClelland, Richard
Johnson and William Mason—to petition the Board of National Education
for the school to become a ‘nonvested national school’. She also impressed William Wilkins, the acting
secretary of the Board, and got the
support of William Lithgow, the major
landowner in the area, The Governor
of NSW, Sir John Young, also paid a
personal visit to the school.
On 30 July 1863, the school formally
became the North Sydney National
School with William Wilkins in attendance at the ceremony. It was the first
national school on the North Shore.
The only known image of Eliza Davies (from
her autobiography)
Eliza Davies oversaw the move to
new premises on land donation by
William Lithgow and continued in the
role of head teacher until 3 December 1869. It was a period that saw
many clashes with the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke, the rector of
St Thomas’ Church at St Leonards,
who resented the establishment of a
new school in ‘his area’, let alone one
run by a woman!
Eliza Davies’ 7½ years at Willoughby
was probably the longest period she
had remained in one locality in her
adult life. She sailed to Adelaide on 7
February 1870 where she once more
became involved in the establishment of a school in the suburb of
Hindmarsh, a diversion that delayed
her journey to the United States until
1874, where she fulfilled her promise
to return to Bethany.
Eliza recorded her adventures in her
autobiography The Story of an Earnest Life, Cinncinati, Central Book
Concern, 1881. It undoubtedly contained much hyperbole, but she had
clearly retained her journals and relevant documents to use as reference
material.
VOLUME 41, NUMBER 4
Page 5
TRADITIONAL TRADE TOOLS
We continue here the coverage of traditional trade tools in our collection at the
Museum from the August newsletter. We
have identified additional interesting
items in the collection. If you are able to
provide us with any further information
on any of the tools described here and
on page 6, this would be greatly appreciated.
We have concentrated on tools relating
to coach-building during the era of horsedrawn vehicles, but have also found a
number of fascinating trade tools in the
general collection.
The adjustable screw wrench depicted
here was manufactured by the Peugeot
Company in France, and appears to be
an early product of the firm. Its screwmechanism is quite different from the
better-known Coes’ Type screw-wrench
from the Cogan collection shown in the
centre photograph. It also differs from all
the Peugeot wrenches of this type found
on the internet, which have a double set
of ‘teeth’ to clasp nuts, while this only
has one. The imprints into the steel are
‘PEOGEOT FRERÉ (in a semi-circle), some
indecipherable numbers in the middle
and BRÉVETÉ (‘patented’) across the
bottom. There is no classic Peugeot
‘Lion’ brand, which was introduced from
1850, so this wrench appears to be
quite old.
Both items are in good working order.
The spanners used to remove and screwon large nuts on horse-drawn vehicles,
as shown below, are a useful addendum
to our collection of coach-builders’ tools.
Again information on their manufacture
and use is lacking.
LEFT: The Peugeot Company, better known today
as a car-maker, started life
as a tool-making enterprise. Our research suggests this early type of
adjustable wrench was
manufactured by Peugeot,
but we are seeking additional information.
WDHS 1989.27
Coe’s Type screw-wrench invented by Loring Coe and patented in 1841.The brothers
Longin and Aury Coe established works to manufacture their tools in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA in1840. We are unsure of the era of this example. COG.1993.39
This is one of several spanners of various sizes that were used for nuts on horse-drawn
vehicles. They were donated to the Museum by the Dyer family. Item 1989.20.
WILLOUGHBY HISTORY CHATTERS
Page 6
TRADITIONAL TRADE TOOLS (continued)
LEFT: Frame-saws similar to this one
in the Cogan collection have been
around since Medieval times. Additional information on the date of
manufacture and the uses for this
example is welcomed.
(COG_1993_13)
“The traditional
tools of
yesteryear tell
us much about
the tool-makers
who made them
and the tradesmen who used
them …”
LEFT: One of two large smoothing
planes in the Cogan collection at
the museum. Additional information on its approximate date of
manufacture and its special uses is
sought.
COG_1993_27
VOLUME 41, NUMBER 4
Page 7
WAYNE’S STORY PART 2
Following his time at the Carriage Workshops at Redfern reported in the August
issue of Willoughby History Chatters, Wayne
Dempsey moved the Sydney Terminal Station (the country section of today’s Central
Station) as a porter in 1968. He remained
there for 31 years until he retired in 1999 to
look after his sick father at their home in
Albert Avenue, Chatswood.
As he rose through the ranks at the station,
Wayne experienced many historical changes
and amusing incidents, both in the public
arena—where he flagged off trains, responded to public queries and met travelling
dignitaries—and ‘behind the scenes’. This
included tasks preparing and provisioning
carriages for their journeys, communicating
train information with other stations and
arranging special train services. It was a
period when the NSW railway system was
going through rapid change and Wayne’s
recollections capture the impact of these
changes on those who worked there.
The Concourse at Sydney Terminal Station during Wayne Dempsey’s time there and
as many readers will remember it. with the old Destination Board for country trains
near the clock. The newsstands provided opportunity for travellers to stock-up on
reading matter before boarding the train for a journey. ARHSnsw Railway Resource
Centre photo
Part 2 of Wayne’s Story will be published in
the November issue of Australian Railway
History. The magazine is stocked by selected newsagents (including Nextra at
Chatswood Chase) or it can be purchased
from the ARHS Bookshop in Redfern, see:
Http://www.arhsnsw.com.au/bookshop.htm
Wayne Dempsey flags away a special tour train from Sydney Terminal Station during his time as a porter there. Wayne Dempsey collection
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Page 8
CONTACTS
WDHS Management Committee:
President: Paul Storm (9419 7354)
Vice-President: Mary Thom
Secretary: Terry Fogarty
Treasurer: Bob McKillop
Committee Members: Joan Antarakis,
Harry Fox, Don Swonnell
As Northbridge history is now available on our website, it is featured in this selection.
In this 1920s view of Fig Tree Point at Northbridge, The Hermitage built by dentist
William Twemlow around 1875 is a prominent landmark. The house was purchased by
Edward Hallstrom in 1932 as his private residence and he kept a private zoo on the
property for many years. Picture Willoughby photo
Patron: Cr Gail Giles-Gidney, Mayor of
Willoughby
Newsletter Editor: Bob McKillop
Willoughby Museum
Our museum is located at Boronia,
58 Johnson Street, Chatswood.
COMING EVENTS
Members’ Meetings
Held at the Willoughby Room,
Willoughby Library at The Concourse, commencing at 2.00pm.
NOTE: The October meeting (see
below) will be held at the Dougherty Centre in Victor Street,
Chatswood.
Saturday 11 October 2014:
Noted historian Dr Ian Hoskins
will be our guest speaker on the
History of Sydney Harbour, with
particular reference to Middle
Harbour. Ian is the North Sydney
Council Historian and his book,
Sydney Harbour: A history, won
the History Book Award in the
Queensland Premier's Literary
Awards in 2010. His new book,
Coast: A history of the New South
Wales edge (New South Publishing, 2014) is the first history written of the coast in our state. It
traces man's relationship with this
stretch of land from Point Hicks to
Tweed Heads and examines how
European settlers initially sought
riches from the inland, and then
embraced the coast in the twentieth century when our enthusiasm
for surfing and fishing became
key elements of popular culture.
Sunday 14 December: WDHS
Members event at the Willoughby Museum from 2pm.
Please put this date in your
diary. (Further details next issue).
Tours & Events
We conduct tours to places
of historical interest each
odd month of the year.
Friends and members of fellow
historical societies are welcome. Forthcoming tours and
events are:
Tuesday 11 November: Tour to the
North Head Quarantine Station,
Manly. We aim to be at the Old
Quarantine Station by 11.00am
for the guided tour. We will
meet at the Manly Ferry wharf
at Circular Quay by 9.15am to
catch the 9.30am ferry to
Manly, from where we will take
the 10.38am 135 bus from
West Esplanade Stand J for the
short journey to the Quarantine
Station.
Bookings please to the WDHS
by email or phoning 02 9410.
Opening hours: 1-4pm each Sunday.
Admission $5 adults; $4 concession; $2
child, $10 family.
WILLOUGHBY DISTRICT
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
58 Johnston Street, Chatswood NSW 2067
Phone: (02) 9410 3203
E-mail contact:
Secretary: willoughbydistrict@bigpond.com
Editor: rfmckillop@bigpond.com
Website: www.willoughbydhs.org.au
CORRECTION
___________________________________
Member Brian Day has sent the following:
While reading Willoughby Chatters (vol 41, No.4), I
noticed that Mr Chaffer is referred to as Mr Cedric
Chaffer. This is incorrect. His first name is Edric, not
Cedric. I have known the Chaffers all my life. As far
as I am aware, Edric still lives in the same house
which is about 150 metres from my home. So we
have been neighbours for about 60 years. I offer this
in the interest of historical accuracy.
Editor: Brian is of course correct. The item was
based on a newspaper report that used the incorrect
name for Mr Chaffer, which I should have picked up.