Author: hcsYbOjXZv

by Bettye Ross

The lovely scene in S.R. Bellingham’s painting of Coogee Bay, painted circa 1882, and hanging on the left hand side of the Dining Room fireplace has a story behind it. To begin with Sid R. Bellingham is referred to in a number of Art Encyclopaedias as an artist of unknown background or “very little known about this Artist.” Very disconcerting when one wants to know from where he came, what else he painted and what eventually became of him. One thing is certain, he was neither born, married nor died in New South Wales between 1788 and 1945, just as he left no Probate up to 1982 in New South Wales, however he did write a small book around 1920, held in the Mitchell Library, which he named “Ten Years with Palette, Shotgun and Rifle in the Blue Mountains.”

So let us put Mr. Bellingham aside as we have no alternative and concentrate on the building standing high on the hill above the northern cliffs in this paining. This historic home was built circa 1862, at approximately the same time as Lydham Hall, for Mr. Charles Moore. It was designed by the well-known architect Thomas Rowe. Moore became Mayor of Randwick in 1863, later Mayor of Sydney and was responsible for preserving the Sydney Common, subsequently named Moore Park in his honour. He named his home Ballamac, apparently derived from his birth place Ballymacarne in Ireland.

By 1875 this mansion had become Baden Baden Hotel and one of its proprietors was Louis Franks an artist who painted many local scenes. Baden Street is to its east. In 1912, millionaire and entrepreneur, Sir James John Joynton-Smith purchased the property, now named Hastings House, and lived there until his death in 1943 aged 89 years.

Joynton-Smith as this gentleman was familiarly known, had been born at Hackney in London, the eldest of twelve children of James Smith and Jane Ware. His father was a master brass finisher, gasfitter and ironmonger. Joynton-Smith was baptised as James John but by at least the mid 1890s was known as Joynton-Smith. At the age of twelve years he worked for a pawnbroker and then a stationer before becoming a cabin-boy on a steamer sailing to Italy. He was then engaged as Third Cook making for New Zealand in 1874.

His next employment was as a steward on a coastal vessel. Then in hotels, eventually becoming an Hotel licensee in Wellington. He married in Auckland in 1882 but the marriage did not last. In 1886 he returned to England where he lost his savings gambling. This was a hard lesson by which to learn. A little later he returned to Wellington and was founding secretary of the Cooks’ and Stewards’ Union.

1890 saw Joynton-Smith in Sydney working as a calligraphist on illuminated funeral descriptions. For four years from 1892, he managed the Great Central Coffee Palace Hotel in Clarence Street, and then leased the Imperial Arcade Hotel (dropping the word Imperial and naming it the Arcadia) between Pitt and Castlereagh Streets. This was in 1896 and he conducted it as a residential hotel. By 1924 he owned the entire arcade, and later the Hotel Astra at Bondi and the Carlton in the city.

In 1911, Sir James Joynton-Smith purchased the Carrington Hotel in Katoomba (previously known as the Great Western and originally Crushers). He already owned the Hotel Imperial at Mount Victoria. The Carrington with permission, was named thus by the previous owner in 1886 in honour of Lord Carrington who was then Governor of New South Wales. Today many pieces of the silverware at The Carrington bear engravings of JSMT (Joynton-Smith Management Trust), Hotel Imperial and Hotel Arcadia.

In 1901 Joynton-Smith was made a Justice of the Peace. He established the first electric light plant in the Blue Mountains and purchased two theatres at Katoomba, leased the Hydro Majestic at Medlow Bath, built the Log Cabin at Penrith and a tearoom on the way up to the mountains.

Also in 1901, he leased Brighton Racecourse at Rockdale and owned and drove many trotters. Two years later he leased land at the ‘swamp end of Glebe’, renovated it and renamed it Epping, subletting the course to the New South Wales Trotting Club. Taking up the option to buy the racecourse in 1911, he then sold it to the Trotting Club, and it became Harold Park in 1929. He had in 1908 opened Victoria Park racecourse at Zetland which became the first course to cater for ladies by providing retiring rooms. This very modern showplace closed down in 1944.

Joynton-Smith’s interest in sports resulted in him financing football matches between the Wallaby (Rugby Union) team and the Kangaroos (Rugby League) team in 1909, with the proceeds going to the (Royal) South Sydney Hospital which he founded, and of which he was President in 1910. He was at one time a director of this Hospital and the Queen Victoria Home for Consumptives at Wentworth Falls and the first president of the Picton Lakes T.B. Soldiers and Sailors’ Settlement.

In 1912 he was nominated to the Legislative Council but was never active and retired in 1934. He was an independent alderman of the Sydney Municipal Council for Bligh Ward 1916-18 and supported by Labor was elected Mayor. He was tireless in his efforts to raise war loans and the Red Cross used the basement of Hastings House for the war effort, making camouflage nets, knitting for the forces and other innovative works. The basement contained a large well which he made safe by securing its coverage for the voluntary workers.

His patriotic and charitable works brought him a knighthood and he became K.B.E. in 1920. Two years earlier, he launched a newspaper presenting his views. This was called Smith’s Weekly and in 1923 Smith’s Newspapers Ltd published the Daily Guardian and from 1929 the Sunday Guardian. He was proprietor from 1930-9 of the Referee and Arrow, selling the two Guardians to Sir Hugh Denison in 1930, remaining Chairman of Smith’s Newspapers until the middle of 1939.

He was known as a fluent and logical speaker, generous with time and money for community causes as reflected by his purchase of a rare exhibit for the University of Sydney in 1914. He backed Sydney’s first radio station 2SB (2BL) in 1923. He was a man who enjoyed his wealth and time, not only with what has been so far noted but also as a practical joker, conjurer, singer of Cockney songs and playing the concertina. He was noted for his pince-nez or monocle (having lost an eye in his youth), his moustache and very sleek hair-do.

Joynton-Smith owned another mansion at Warrawee called Mahratta, but it was at Hastings House (portrayed in Bellingham’s Coogee Bay painting) that his death took place on 10th October, 1943. He was survived by his third wife, Gladys Mary (nee Woods), a daughter and a son J. Joynton-Smith. Hastings House today has been divided into apartments but remains unaltered externally.

Sources:
Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1891-1939 Vol. 8
Australians from 1939, Chapter 12 “Press, Radio and Television”
Randwick and District Historical Society
Randwick Ramble, 5th edition (Part 1: Coogee and Clovelly)
Sydney Morning Herald 23.11.1861, 11.10.1943, 12.10.1943
The Carrington Hotel, History Notes.

This article was first published in the January 2000 edition of our magazine.

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Well, who would have thought 2021 was destined to continue in the same vein as 2020 due to COVID-19 related sickness, death and Lockdown restrictions impacting family, friends, the business and health sectors plus leisure pursuits to name but a few? May Australia and hopefully the rest of the world turn a corner into a more positive 2022…The COVID-19 lightning bolt which struck once, then twice but we hope will not strike thrice?! Let us all hope and pray for a much gentler and kinder 2022.

The St. George Historical Society Inc has joined a great throng of like societies which have been embroiled in learning how to adjust to a new paradigm. Our meetings have necessarily been curtailed by Government and Bayside Council restrictions. This has been challenging, but at least with modern technology, communication updates have still been possible on a timely basis. Nonetheless, in person, face-to-face gatherings are without doubt the most rewarding and popular forms of communication and interaction for social gatherings such as our monthly meetings.

A review of the Society’s activities makes for sobering reading. Of the possible 10 monthly meetings between February 2021 and November 2021, Lockdown restrictions, a clash with ANZAC Day and a freak storm event resulted in the cancellation of 7 and due to being unable to access the Senior Citizen’s Centre due to a Bayside Council error, potentially the aborting of yet another meeting. We must thank the quick-thinking Hortons for use of St. Peter’s Anglican church Cooks River for saving the day. The Lord on this occasion did indeed provide! Sadly, we will not be able to access Lydham Hall for this year’s Christmas party due to ongoing renovations. We shall canvas members’ thoughts for an alternative venue.

2021 coincided with the Golden Anniversary of the opening of the Lydham Hall museum and the Diamond Anniversary of the St. George Historical Society Inc. Alas, due to the pandemic and long-awaited works being undertaken at Lydham Hall, possible celebrations have necessarily been deferred; but significantly not cancelled!

Although monthly meetings have largely been in recess, I can assure members, much indeed is happening ‘behind the scenes’ as it were. Laurice and Tina will each provide updates as to what has been negotiated with Bayside Council and Lydham Hall respectively.

I take this opportunity to thank members of the Society’s Executive and Committee for so freely and unselfishly giving their time and talents. Specifically, I would like to thank Barry Johnson in his capacity as the Society’s Editor in recent years and wish him well in his well-deserved retirement from this role. The reformatting and colourisation of the ‘Our History’ newsletter was revolutionary and has been well-received. Well done good and faithful servant!

Laurice Bondfield has worked tirelessly during especially challenging times and on occasion, had to manage exasperating circumstances. Many telephone calls and e- mails have been had between Laurice and Bayside Council as regards COVID-19 Safety plans and securing meeting rooms. She has in addition spent hours reviewing Government COVID-19 information websites and liaising with members, the Society’s committee, the Leader newspaper and guest speakers, collated meeting agenda, taken monthly and committee meeting minutes, helped with the logistics of the meeting room set-up and brought COVID-19 supplies for all our use. I am sure this list is not exhaustive…but I think this should give some idea of what Laurice has accomplished this year. May she continue to keep on keeping on!

Tina Workman indeed lives up to the first syllable of her surname. Work she has and how! Whilst managing the Society’s finances would ordinarily be her principal duty as Treasurer and presumably has the odd challenging moment; NOTHING could compare with her undertakings at Lydham Hall! Fortunately, because of her profession, Tina has the trained eye for detail and design so critical at this watershed period in the Museum’s history. She has had to negotiate with many stakeholders such as Bayside Councillors, Council tradesmen, specialist heritage architects and consultants plus of course the Lydham Hall Management Committee, as much needed external restoration and some internal renovations to this historic house have been actioned with still more to be undertaken before the overall project is finalised.

Tina has necessarily adopted a ‘roll up the sleeves and get cracking approach’. Over perhaps hundreds of hours including many weekends, Tina has cleaned and catalogued upwards of 500 individual pieces and upgraded the associated displays. There is still at least another 1,500 objects to be given the same treatment. Tina has fortunately been assisted by Councillor Liz Barlow, Laurice, the Rankins and others on occasion. The work has been long-overdue and herculean in scope but ultimately will make the Lydham Hall Museum a viable concern in the years to come. Suffice to say, “Tina, thank you very much and do please take time to breathe, eat and sleep”!

I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Robert McGarn to the Committee. Although Robert is very much a quiet achiever, he regularly provides insightful feedback to ideas and proposals. In addition, he has the handy talent of keeping abreast of local news and happenings, much of which would probably otherwise escape the Committee’s attention.

Finally, I wish all members a happy, healthy and holy Christmas. May 2022 prove to have significant respite from COVID-19 and provide the opportunity for our society to joyously celebrate milestone occasions deferred from this year plus a return to some semblance of normality for all Australians.

Best wishes,
Wesley Fairhall
President

(A talk delivered at St. Michael’s Church, Hurstville on the occasion of its Centenary in 1987 by Alderman R. W. Rathbone)

There is some doubt about when Michael Gannon was actually born. His marriage certificate and his convict records all indicate that he was born in 1798 but his death certificate would suggest it was the year 1800. There is no dispute about the fact that he was born in the town of Mullingar in County Westmeath, Ireland, the son of John Gannon, a carpenter and joiner and his wife Alicia.

The family were poor but God-fearing and Michael was given what little education they could afford. He was apprenticed to his father’s trade and showed some promise as a woodturner but he was also the wild one of the family surviving several scrapes with the law in his teenage years.

Eventually he found lawbreaking more exciting and remunerative than carpentry and in December 1819, he was arrested and charged with highway robbery. At the Lenten Assizes in County Meath in April 1820, Michael Gannon was sentenced to transportation for life whilst his younger brother, James, received a sentence of 14 years transportation for being in possession of forged bank notes. They left old Ireland’s shores on 22nd August 1820, aboard the convict transport “Almorah” of 416 tons burthan and arrived in Sydney Cove exactly four months later.

The Convict Records held in the State Archives describe Michael Gannon in the following terms, he was aged 22, was 5’6.5″ tall with fair pockmarked complexion, brown hair and hazel eyes. In 1823 he was assigned to Joseph Broadbent, a carpenter and builder, in whose employ worked a seventeen year old chambermaid named Mary Ann Parsonage. Michael Gannon and Mary Parsonage were married the following year.

It is some indication of Michael Gannon’s personality that despite his unprepossessing appearance and in a Colony where men outnumbered women by more than three to one, a woman born free was prepared to marry a convict under a life sentence. To add to this interest, Mary Parsonage was a Protestant whilst Michael Gannon was a Catholic and they were married in an Anglican ceremony in St. Phillip’s Church, Church Hill, by the Assistant Colonial Chaplain, Rev. William Cowper.

Perhaps the clue to this unusual arrangement can be gleaned from the fact that early the next year Mary Gannon petitioned Governor Darling to have her husband legally assigned to her as a government servant which meant that Michael Gannon was hers not only by marriage but by government assignment as well.

The 1828 Census reveals that Michael and Mary Gannon and their four year old son, John, were living in Cambridge Street, Millers Point in the area now known as The Rocks and Michael was following his profession as a carpenter. On 18th July 1829, when he was granted his Ticket of Leave, Michael Gannon’s description is again recorded. He was still 5’6.5″ tall but his complexion had changed from fair to pale and the colour of his eyes from hazel to grey and by November 1835, when he was granted a Conditional Pardon his hair had already begun to turn grey and his complexion had changed from pale to ruddy (he had obviously been out in the sun). He remained 5’6.5″ tall.

During these years Gannon had worked hard. He had prospered as a carpenter and had developed into a builder and property owner. In 1843 he became the undertaker for Catholic burials within the town of Sydney and was in partnership with his brother as an auctioneer and commission agent in Lower George Street. The Depression of that year, however, played havoc with his enterprises4 and he was declared insolvent. Salvaging what he could, he obtained publican’s licence for an inn on the Cook’s River Road at Tempe and was settled on the site of today’s Government Bus Depot by 1845.

By this time Michael and Mary Gannon’s family had increased to ten. John born in 1825, Mary in 1827, Robert in 1829, William in 1831, James in 1833, Frederick in 1836, Joseph Napoleon in 1838, Alfred in 1840, Alicia in 1842 and Maria in 1845. All but Mary survived to adulthood.

Again, because of his industry, Michael Gannon prospered. In the late 1840’s he purchased land in the City, at Petersham and along the Hawkesbury River but perhaps his most important acquisition was the 1,950 acres originally granted to Captain John Townson of the N.S.W. Corps in April 1810 and sold to the enterprising ex-convict, Simeon Lord, two years later. This vast tract of country, which today covers all the suburbs of Hurstville, Allawah, Canton and West Bexley remained entirely undeveloped because there was no access from it to the settlement at Sydney. After Lord’s death in 1840 the grant had passed to John Holden and James Holt but even after the building of Forest Road between 1843 and 1848, little development took place. On 18th November 1850, they, in turn, sold it to Michael Gannon for the sum of £732 – £68 less than they had paid for it only six years before.

Almost immediately, Gannon set about realizing on his newly acquired estate. Section One covered the whole of the present day suburb of Carlton whilst Section Two covered most of West Bexley. Each section was divided into Lots ranging in size from 15 to 30 acres and these were offered to would-be purchasers on extremely generous terms financed by Gannon himself at 10 percent deposit and 6 percent interest repayable over a period of 20 years.

One of the earliest buyers was a man named George Perry who acquired the 18 acres now partly occupied by the buildings of the Sydney Technical High School in January 1854 for £160. Perry’s receipts for the land he bought are still in existence and whilst the interest payment was always made in cash, the capital repayment was made almost entirely in bags of charcoal, sucking pigs, fat pigs and on one occasion, a heifer.

By 1855 there was quite a reasonable population in the area and a number of these people ascribed to the Catholic Faith. To attend Mass, it was necessary for them to travel all the way to Sydney and even after the building of St. Patrick’s Chapel along the Rocky Point Road at Kogarah in 1865, the journey was long, arduous and inconvenient. Section One of Gannon’s land was partly bisected by a narrow, deeply rutted track later known as Willison Road and it was down that lane that the Catholic inhabit- ants of the area, by now known as Gannon’s Forest, made their way to Mass each Sunday. It is reported that the bend in today’s Willison Road at its junction with Short Street was occasioned by the early Catholic inhabitants of the district as they struck off across country to reach St. Patrick’s on their Sunday pilgrimages. The fact that this diversion actually reached the Ioggerah Road at a point occupied by Edmund English’s Koggerah Family Hotel some two miles distant from the church suggests that the diversion catered for both the physical as well as the spiritual comfort of those who used it.

No doubt out of concern for the convenience of the Catholic residents of Gannon’s Forest and the fact that the only school in the district was a tumble-down affair conducted under the auspices of the Church of England, Gannon donated a site for the erection of a church. On 24th November 1655, Michael Gannon of Cook’s River in the Colony of N.S.W. Innkeeper, transferred to Rev. John Bede Polding, Roman Catholic Archbishop and Rev. Daniel Maurus O’Connell, Roman Catholic Clergyman, that parcel of land in the County of Cumberland, Parish of St. George commencing at a marked stump on the New Line of Road to the Illawarra comprising all ways, lights, sewers, watercourses, easements and appurtenances for the erection of a Roman Catholic Church and no other purpose whatsoever. The sum paid by the Church was a token ten shillings and the deed of transfer was executed and witnessed by Gannon’s solicitor son, Frederick.

Michael Gannon was now 57 years of age. His family was growing up and were doing very well. Frederick was a solicitor, Alfred a wealthy land speculator, William a prominent race horse owner, his champion stallion, “Arsenal” winning the 1886 Melbourne Cup. William was later to become the licensee of the prestigious Petty’s Hotel. Gannon’s daughter, Maria, was also to achieve some prominence as the mother of Major R. W. Lenehan, the controversial Breaker Morant’s commanding officer during the Boer War.

Gannon had won a reputation for fair dealing in business and enjoyed universal respect as a man of property, a good father and family man, a faithful member of his Church and a man of generosity and compassion. He also enjoyed considerable respect among the Colony’s Establishment for, despite his convict beginnings and his Irish ancestry, he was an unashamed loyalist and a conservative in his political allegiances. Apart from a short stint as an alderman of the St. Peter’s Council, he never sought election for any public office but he was invariably a member and Often the Chairman of the Campaign Committee of the more conservative candidate for any election in the seats of Cumberland South Riding and Canterbury which at one time or another covered this area. In particular, he was a close personal friend of the conservative Protectionist, John Lucas who s an implacable opponent of Sir Henry Parkes, was responsible for opening up the Jenolean Caves and was the author of the original White Australia Policy.

In the early 1850’s Michael Gannon gave the land on which the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Tempe was erected and for many years, until its abolition in 1872, he was a member of the Cook’s River Road Trust. In 1864 he had offered 8 acres of land from his estate at Hurstville to establish a public cemetery in the St. George District and in 1881, waived all claim to the land on which St. George’s Anglican Church, Hurstville stands after it was discovered the church had stood for 25 years on land that had never been legally transferred to it.

In August 1874, Michael and Mary Gannon celebrated 50 years of married life together, an occasion which saw assembled not only a devoted family but a host of other admirers as well and when Mary Gannon died in March the following year there was a further outpouring of the love and respect in which this fine pioneering couple were held. Michael was to live on for another six years, lonely, broken and embittered by the loss of his beloved helpmate and when he was finally laid to rest beside her in August 1881, it brought to an end not only a chapter in this district’s and this church’s history but the end of an era in a family that was to make its mark in many areas of endeavour in this state.

I do not know what motivated the original builders to choose the name of St. Michael as the name for this church but if it was not intentional then it was indeed a fortunate co-incidence for Michael was also the Christian name of the good, wise, far-sighted and very compassionate man who gave the land on which this church now stands.

This article was first published in the March 1990 edition of our magazine.

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