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In browsing through old newspaper files, seeking information as to the affairs of the district of St. George, one occasionally finds interesting snippets of news relative to the everyday life of the community. As a child I was warned by my mother against drinking direct from the tap. “Always use a cup, or at least drink from your hands” was the oft repeated admonition. Of course, child-like, I knew better than my maternal parent and, when not observed, wilfully followed my drinking habits in the customary manner. Recently I came across the following paragraph, culled from the St. George Observer of Saturday March 18th, 1899, which gave food for thought and proved that mother knew best, as always.

The Fish In The Tap, is the idea exploded?

“A Hurstville gentleman was good enough to draw our attention the other day to an eel about five inches long. We had never seen a baby eel, and was rather interested in the specimen, until he told us that it came out of the water tap. Ugh. This is the Sydney Water Supply that the Water and Sewerage Board talk as being the finest in Christendom, and charge so much per one thousand gallons for. And this is the water that some of the Sydney dailies talk of in the same strain. One daily said the other day that the idea of leeches and eels coming out of watertaps was an exploded idea. The idea might be exploded as far as that particular daily is concerned but the eels are not and when the writer of the exploded par takes a hurried drink from a tap and finds an eel or a leech in his mouth, he will probably – if he does not explode himself – use explosive and expressing expletives. It is a fact, however, that the Sydney water supply is not what it is cracked up to be, and our advice is to dilute it with a little – a little – er – well – dilute it or let it boil. The harder it boils the better.”

Illegal Burial

On Wednesday last, January 4th 1899, the postponed case. The Hurstville Council versus Samuel Wilks, of Chatswood, for having an interment made in the Church of England Cemetery, Forest Road, Hurstville, contrary to the by-laws of the Municipality, was heard at Newtown, Police Court. A fine of £5 and costs was imposed, recoverable by levy or distress”.

This sorry state of affairs was brought about by the closure of all local cemeteries in the St. George district, and the requirement that burials from this area should take place at Rookwood, or other burial places which still remained open for public use. Evidently there were conditions under which local interments were permitted as the writer recalls a graveyard service at St. Pauls Church of England, Kogarah, about the year 1908.

The funeral train journey, from the Illawarra Suburbs to Rookwood, was long and arduous, necessitating mourners changing at Sydney Station and walking the streets to the Regent Street Mortuary Railway Station to join the Funeral Train, which ran twice daily to the Rookwood, or Haslem’s Creek Cemetery. Meanwhile, at Sydney Station the small four-wheeled coffin-carriage, or hearse wagon, had to be shunted from the Illawarra train for attachment to the train bound for Rookwood.

The carriages on the Rookwood Funeral Special, according to one irate newspaper correspondent, left a lot to be desired. He wrote “The meanest and dingiest carriages are set aside for the funeral trains, but hitherto I have not been compelled to ride in one of these open cars, which are little better than cattle-trucks. On Saturday last, a bitterly cold afternoon, with cutting south-west wind and driving sleety rain, a party of friends had occasion to take the train from Newtown to Haslem’s Creek. The train was a short one and, as door after door was opened, it was found crammed with mourners from Sydney and we had to find accommodation in the two third class cattle-trucks and got completely wet through.”

There were numerous other complaints raised from time to time about “the loutish element being boisterous whilst travelling on the funeral trains”.

Undoubtedly there were more reasons than that of transport, unpleasant as that apparently was, which brought about the need for clandestine burials. It is understandable that relatives may have desired the burial to be made in their family plot at the local cemetery, even at the expense of breaking the law. Undertakers would not be prepared to flout regulations governing the interment, neither would clergymen be expected to officiate at the graveside. It is known that such burials have taken place, to avoid detection, during the hours of darkness.

Public dissatisfaction with the whole sorry business resulted, at length, in having a burial ground set aside at Woronora, near Sutherland, to serve the needs of the Illawarra suburban area at large.

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In a lighter vein it is interesting to scan, in these old newspapers, the various advertisements calling attention to the merits of this and that local hotel, and also that Mr. George Bird was prepared to teach the use of brass band and other instruments. The blatant assurance offered, by vendors of patent medicines, cure-all pills, and tonics etc., for a guaranteed cure of any type of illness, was regularly published. Long letters from grateful persons who had benefited from the taking of some potent brew, giving full details of their harrowing experiences before being advised by a friend to try a course of – etc. etc. make entertaining reading and confirms one’s view, in the light of present day television “commercials”, that there is nothing new under the sun.

This article was first published in the April 1966 edition of our magazine.

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by Gifford and Eileen Eardley

Gazing upon the Arncliffe scene, in this year of grace, southwards from Cooks River bridge at Tempe, it is difficult to envisage the general appearance of the area prior to the advent of settlement. The river was fringed with a dense growth of mangroves and the marshy tracts bordering the stream were covered with sombre hued she-oaks, or casuarina trees. In the background rose forested hill country with a steep-sided rocky escarpment encircling each of the numerous ridges, on which flourished age-old angophora trees, each with its own grotesque form of trunk sculpture. Kangaroos and wallabies abounded throughout this sylvan wilderness and, even today, something of the former variety of birdlife is to be seen amongst the reeds and bushland surrounding untouched margins of the nearby Wolli Creek.

Aboriginal tribes banqueted on the rich supply of cockles, mussels, oysters, and other shell-fish, obtained by the womenfolk from the salt mudflats. Traces of long abandoned “kitchen middens”, as their camp refuse heaps are named, can be discerned at the foot of “Nanny Goat” hill, immediately west of Turrella Railway Station, and also at the high northern end of Hill Street, Arncliffe, there is an old feasting ground at a spot ostensibly used as a “lookout” against possible raiding parties. From the native point of view this certainly was a land of plenty, insofar as food supplies were concerned, and numerous caves in the sandstone terrain adequately provided for their shelter.

The vast area contained between Cooks and Georges rivers, and extending westward to Salt Pan Creek was, according to a map of the 1815 period, named Botany Bay. At this time civilised settlement was indeed sparse and amongst the very first settlers, to what is now known as Arncliffe, came Reuben Hannam who gained a grant of 100 acres ranged along the southern bank of Wolli Creek. On this property a small two-roomed stone cottage was erected, which survived until about 1928 when it was demolished to make way for the construction of the East Hills Railway. It is possible that this tiny residence could have been the first homestead immediately south of Cooks River insofar as Arncliffe is concerned. Reuben Hannam was overseer at the Government brickworks located on Brickfield Hill, the site of which, according to tradition, being now occupied by the firm of Anthony Hordern and Sons.

About 1828 Mr. Alexander Spark, a Sydney business man, established his country residence, named “Tempe”, on the south bank of Cooks River where the stream narrowed to pass between two opposing sandstone hillocks, before entering the wide expanse of estuarine mangrove covered mudflats, through which the tidal channels, in great meanders, flowed slowly to Botany Bay. Mr. Spark’s property, owing to its pleasant surroundings and good husbandry, became one of the show-places of Sydney-town, but eventually evil times beset its owner and the extensive grounds had to be subdivided into small allotments and farm sites, clustered together under the place name of Tempe. The house survived this vicissitude and has been for many years in the keeping of the good sisters associated with St. Magdalen’s Training Centre.

Another early settler was David Hannam, son of the aforementioned Reuben Hannam, who was successful in obtaining a 60-acre grant immediately south of the Spark’s property, the land spreading over the northern slopes of what is now called Arncliffe Hill. David Hannam built his homestead, which eventually became known as “Arncliffe” (after a place-name in Yorkshire) at the eastern side of Eden Street, just south of the intersection of Burrows Street. Incidentally Eden Street was formerly named Old Rocky Point Road, being portion of the original highway to Sans Souci, via Rockdale and old-time Kogarah township.

It will be noted that the area now known as Arncliffe was divided into a series of extensive allotments when the original land grants were made, and it was not until these properties were subdivided, and connecting streets formed, that the village began to develop. A number of the inhabitants were self-contained and grew their own vegetables and fruit trees and, of course, kept fowls, ducks, and sometimes a pig. Many of the homes were made of brick, with slate roofing, and their gardens were protected from roaming cattle, and goats, by wooden paling fences. The majority of these houses are still occupied and most are kept in excellent order. They were somewhat plain in their design and generally decorated by means of cast-iron fringing, of oftimes elaborate pattern, affixed beneath the lower edge of the front verandah support beams. This fringing, was picked out in all manner of colours which gave a gay effect, one would like to see a renewal of this old-time custom.

The first main road, little more than a track wending its way through bushland, became known as the Rocky Point Road, and passed over the low salt swamp, adjacent to Cooks River, by means of an embankment, and a short log bridge, before curving southwestwards to climb the northern slopes of Arncliffe Hill, following, as aforementioned, the alignment of the present Eden Street. Reaching the lowest point of the ridge, located where Firth Street joins Forest Road, the original highway curved eastward and then southward in its descent to the Spring Creek Valley, running against and on the western side of the Princes Highway until Spring Street was reached, where both the old and the new main roads united to follow the same alignment southwards to Rockdale and beyond. The steep down grade south of the Forest Road intersection became known locally as Cobblers Pinch and proved a terror to the drivers of horse drawn vehicles, so much so that in 1864, this portion of the old road was abandoned when the present main road, now called Princes Highway, was constructed.

A second main road was constructed in the mid 1840s, which left Rocky Point Road in the vicinity of Allen Street and, in a series of shallow curves that avoided the marsh foreshores, passed westward to join with the present Wollongong Road in the vicinity of Almond Street. Here the road swerved to avoid a rocky knoll and reached Barden’s Public House at the north-western corner of Kelsey Street. The road then curved slightly westward to pass near a freshwater creek, obviously for watering purposes, after which it wound its way along the lower western side of Arncliffe Hill to reach the intersection of the later constructed Forest Road, continuing along the top level of the watershed until it reached Peakhurst. Here it descended to the punt crossing at Lugarno.

The third main road of consequence was the Muddy Creek Road, later termed West Botany Street, which gave an easier approach to the farmers and settlers in the West Botany District, east of Rockdale. This was a region of vegetable gardens, poultry farms, and pig raising pens, which were scattered amidst the drier parts of Patmores Swamp.

One of the principal industries of the early days was limeburning, the basic material being dredged from the huge deposits of shells found in the bed of Cooks River. Special kilns were built along the river shore in which the shells were placed in layers, resting on alternate beds of wood fuel. The resultant quick- lime was in great demand for the making of mortar used in the laying of stones and bricks for the building trade. The burning of mangrove tree trunks was also carried out to gain supplies of soda-ash used in the making of soap and also glass. The vast forests afforded plentiful supplies of firewood, which was taken in horse-drawn vehicles of all descriptions, to the metropolis, where it was used for the purpose of heating and cooking. Once the land became cleared of its trees and undergrowth it was utilised for grazing of cattle, horses, and goats, while the more fertile bottoms, after draining, were converted into vegetable gardens and orchards. A certain amount of dairying was also carried out, whilst boiling-down works and tanneries in the district gave immediate neighbours much cause for complaint.

In the early days places of worship were few and far between. In the 1860s St. Davids Church of England, now classified as Old St. Davids, was built in Hirst Street. This small historic edifice was erected largely through the efforts of Mary Hannam in memory of her husband, hence the name St. Davids. Additions to the old church were made in later years and the fabric is maintained in excellent condition and Sunday services are still held therein. The Congregationalists met in the house, named Hillside, belonging to Mr. Favell, situated at the junction of Wolli and Bardwell Creeks, the latter being then known as Stoney Creek. It has been said that people came to “Hillside” for the service by rowing boat along the reed-fringed Wolli Creek. Then there was a Primitive Methodist meeting house, a small brick building built, according to local information, by a Mr. Nelson who resided in Arncliffe Street, immediately opposite his church. With the Union of the Wesleyan and other Methodist Churches throughout the State, an important event which took place just after the turn of the century, this tiny church was vacated insofar as worship was concerned and it was not long before Chinese tenants moved in and the place became the living quarters of the Celestials engaged in market gardening. About 1960 this then dilapidated building was demolished to make way for factory premises.

The oldest public school in the St. George District was founded at Arncliffe during November, 1861, when Mr. George Turner became responsible for the education of some thirty pupils. The school house, so it is stated, was a slab-sided building that had been provided with four forms for seating purposes, but little else in the way of teaching equipment. It is unfortunate that the exact location of this school appears to have escaped historians and further research is necessary in this direction. The original school closed in January 1863, and it was not until about the middle of the year 1868 that Mr. John Mills opened a second school, which, according to Mr. Phillip Geeves, “was held in a room which had three walls of stone and one of slab. For furniture church seats were used”. Through lack of attendance this school closed in 1873. Again the exact site does not appear to be known. The original building of the present Arncliffe School, formerly known as West Botany, came into use during July 1880, under the control of Mr. W. T. B. Bateson, who had an initial enrolment of twenty-seven pupils. Since this small beginning the Arncliffe School has grown into a fine institution, replete with many educational facilities which are housed in well designed buildings at the crest of Arncliffe Hill.

The opening of the first section of the Illawarra Railway, between Sydney and Hurstville, took place on October 15, 1884, and was responsible for a spate of housing allotment subdivisions. Streets were formed in all directions, many of very narrow width, and Arncliffe quickly lost its rural atmosphere and became a populous suburb. Small shopping centres became scattered here and there along the highways, and also at the railway station precincts, whilst the “corner shop”, well stocked with essential commodities, flourished throughout the area. These latter emporiums, the bug-bear of enthusiastic but unrealistic town planners, are also well stocked with local gossip and the happenings in detail of the nearby community.

Another epoch in the history of Arncliffe was the opening, on October 13, 1909, of a steam tramway to Bexley. This system, in its planning stage, was to have formed portion of a grandiose scheme of cross-country lines linking both the Sydney Tramways and the Kogarah to Sans Souci Tramway. However, this extensive plan was shelved by reason of its cost. The Bexley service proved unremunerative, largely, so it has been claimed, to the outmoded accounting procedure adopted by the Tramway Department. Uncontrolled bus competition forced its closure on December 31, 1926.

It is only in comparatively recent years that the industrial development on the Arncliffe flat lands commenced. Practically all of the once fertile vegetable gardens have been devastated to provide factory sites. However, the suburb is fortunate in preserving its southern precincts as a residential area, in which there are many fine homes of historic interest.

Images courtesy of the Bayside Library Service Local History Collection.

This article was first published in the April 1966 edition of our magazine.

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by Laurice Bondfield

Several years ago near Christmas, I went looking for a recipe for Christmas cake. The recipes I’d tried from modern cookbooks had not turned out to taste as good as I remembered from childhood, so I went searching for older cookbooks using imperial measurements in their recipes. Stuck in the back of a drawer, battered, torn, with pages coming loose and yellowing I found my mother’s electrical cookbook. Having found the fruitcake recipe in it no different to the ones I had not liked, I began to look through the pages, at first attracted by the old fashioned advertisements but then by the idea of the book itself, so I began to examine it more carefully.

The cardboard cover was printed in a red and pink checked pattern featuring the title and “Issued with the compliments of St George County Council” with the familiar logo of St George slaying the dragon, and the inside front cover told me that it had been issued by “St George County Council Electricity Supply Undertaking”. A black and white photo showed twelve women in a cookery classroom, of which the text informed me that there were two – one at Kogarah, another at “Electricity House”, Hurstville. The text also let me know that free cookery classes ,”open to all St George residents” were held weekly and that they “also provide advisory services to women in their homes.” The opposite page showed that it had been “compiled by Mrs F.V. McKenzie, Director of the Electrical Association for Women (Australia), 9 Clarence St, Sydney” and that it was the third edition published in 1940. This gave me plenty of ideas to consider and mysteries to solve. Why did my mother need to take classes in electrical cookery? Who was Mrs. F.V. McKenzie and the Electrical Association for Women? How was this association connected to a cookbook issued by St George County Council?

The first question caused me to consider the way society copes with new technology. Today we press a switch and the light comes on, plug a kettle, a heater, an iron and any number of devices into a wall socket and think nothing of it. But I was reminded of a story by American humorist James Thurber about an eccentric aunt of his who was quite convinced that electricity was “leaking” into the air from the lights or wall sockets to the detriment of the health of the inhabitants of the room. We might laugh at her but we often think of dangers in the unfamiliar by analogy to something we do know, in her case obviously gas heating and lighting. Do you remember when microwave ovens first became common? Not only were new cookbooks written for novice users but there were all sorts of rumours about microwaves “leaking” out of badly sealed oven doors and causing harm to users among other dangers.

So not only would an authority (in this case, St. George County Council) want to accustom more people to using electricity, which they supplied, but to use it safely and to dispel any myths about its dangers. The book not only encouraged women to use electric stoves but published advertisements giving ideas about other appliances using electricity for lighting, heating, cleaning and washing in the home which could change the lives of housewives and, of course, to increase the use of electricity that St. George County Council provided (courtesy of the Commissioner for Railways from 1923 – 1952) (1). After all, women in the 1930s were still using cement washing tubs, gas or wood burning coppers, clotheslines,clothes props and externally heated irons just to do the washing and ironing, let alone the other tasks which fell to their lot. As the notice on page 39 about other services available from the County Council points out, “This is an electrical age, and most of the daily tasks of humanity can be done better by electricity than by any other method.” St. George County Council gained a reputation in the 1920s and 30s for the innovative ways it used to promote the use of electricity. For example, women demonstrators were sent from the Council to any furniture store which was having a promotion of electrical equipment, especially stoves. A photo from the book “St George County Council Electricity Supply Undertaking First Fifty Years 1920-1970” shows an early electric cooking demonstration at Diment’s Store Hurstville. Another shows a “demonstration platform” which could obviously be moved from place to place as needed for cookery demonstrations. The slogan above the platform reads “Cook by electricity. Cool and Convenient. No Waste. No Fumes”. Later, demonstration kitchens were opened in Kogarah and Hurstville headquarters as mentioned before. Other clues to making the housewife the “electrical expert” in the home come on page 31 “A Page for Menfolk” headed “Tell your menfolk about these risks!” on how to avoid accidents involving electricity. The page has three photos: one of a man on a ladder painting the guttering perilously close to the wires supplying electricity to the house, the second showing a man in a shed using a lathe plugged into a possibly faulty light fitting, and the third has a man using a portable electric lamp to check under the house footings, warning that a faulty lamp socket or cord could cause the current to earth. Each photo has a dotted line showing the earthing effect of an electric current through the body in each case. Page 38 headed “Safety First” advises that all appliances and flexible cords should be kept in perfect order accompanied by two photos. One of a boy (“Neville Musto kindly posed for this picture”) about to touch the electric wires exposed by a frayed cord on an iron, another of a boy about to climb up to a shed roof to retrieve a kite hanging dangerously from the electric wires. There are other pages devoted to explaining safety in the kitchen – including an electric hairdryer! – and the safe use of an upright vacuum cleaner.

Last of all, with an eye to future users and their preservation is a children’s page which explains about the “tiny electric imps sent out from the power station, along the copper wires you can see high up on poles in the street”, how to avoid the electrocution of your pet cat, why birds are safe sitting on wires, and why you must never go near fallen power lines. This was published in the “School Magazine” (which many of you may remember getting free each month in primary school) several times over the years. It was written by F.V. McKenzie, who invited her readers to write to her “if you want to know more about the Electric Imps” which brings me to my next question: who was Mrs F.V. McKenzie?

The search for an answer to this question at the beginning of my research sent me to the Dictionary of National Biography – nothing. My question went unanswered for a few years until an article in The Sydney Morning Herald in April 2012 put me on the track. This year serendipity came to my aid! After showing the cookbook at a “Show and Tell” session of the Society the RAHS e-newsletter appeared in my inbox. In it was an advertisement for a talk at Benledi House, Glebe on “The Electric Violet McKenzie” by Catherin Freyne of the Dictionary of Sydney!(2) This filled in a lot of the gaps in knowledge. Catherine Freyne and Lisa Murray have researched Violet McKenzie’s life and Catherine Freyne has published a detailed biography on the Dictionary of Sydney website, along with an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Research into her life is ongoing.

Violet McKenzie (nee Wallace) was born in 1890 in Melbourne. Her family moved to Austinmer on N.S.W south coast when she was small. By her own account she was always interested in bells, buzzers and lights as a child and successfully set up an automatic light in one of the dark household cupboards. After completing primary school she won a bursary to study at Sydney Girls High School. In 1915 she studied science at Sydney University, then approached Sydney Technical College to study electrical engineering.In an oral history recorded in 1979 she recounted her reception! She was told students were apprenticed to a firm, so showing the enterprising spirit she maintained through her life, she had some cards printed with her name as an electrical engineer, found an advertisement in a newspaper requiring someone to install electricity to a house “way beyond Marrickville, a mile from the end of the tramline.” Could it have been in our district? She presented her business card and the contract at the College and was accepted as a student. She graduated in 1923.

For many years she ran a successful radio shop in the Royal Arcade in Sydney, becoming the only woman member of the Wireless Institute of Australia. Early radios were not easy to use, and enthusiasts like Violet were often radio hams as well, learning Morse Code to send signals. By 1932 she had set up the “Women’s Radio College” on Phillip St, Sydney where she provided training in Morse Code and how to build and set up radio receivers. In 1924, she had married Cecil McKenzie, a young electrical engineer employed by Sydney County Council. It was this connection which, in my opinion, later led to Violet creating the “Electrical Association of Women”. To see why she did, we have to look at the different ways that St. George and Sydney County Councils were set up to supply electricity to their customers.

The St George County Council, the first of its kind, was set up in 1920 when Bexley, Hurstville, Kogarah, and Rockdale Councils were faced with increased charges for the supply of gas, particularly for street lighting, just at the time the Illawarra Railway was being electrified. The St. George District was becoming increasingly suburban. Small farms were being sold to developers for new estates, houses were being built near the railway stations for the new “commuter class” like my grandfather, Ernest Bondfield, who lived in Grey St, Allawah with his young family and took the train to the city to his job at the Lands Title Office, even before electrification. Thus St George County Council was in the enviable position of having very little existing gas supply infrastructure, lots of customers keen to live in “modern” homes and a readily available source of electric power, that could be sold at low cost. The original St. George scheme had been to erect distributors to supply 2,000 consumers in 5 years but within 12 months mains had been erected to serve over 10,000. In contrast, Sydney County Council faced a city which had built gas pipes and generators in the early twentieth century to supply heating and lighting to both residential and commercial premises. Moreover SCC had to build their own electric power stations, like White Bay, which increased the initial cost of setting up a reliable supply. Potential customers in Sydney already had gas heating, lighting, and stoves which worked perfectly well – why would they change? The best way to increase residential electricity demand was to increase the use of electricity for heating, lighting, and cooking. Both Councils had had to obtain loans to begin initial construction of a network and they were keen to repay them. In 1922, the City Electrical Engineer, H.R. Forbes complained of “thousands” of consumers whose annual consumption amounted to 70 – 140 KwH whose only use of electricity might be for a radio or gramophone, perhaps a reading lamp(3). So any way that householders could be persuaded to use more electrical appliances was to be encouraged.

In 1934, Violet McKenzie, set up the Electrical Association of Women in King St, Sydney. Photos from the time show a room that was part electrical demonstration showroom set up by Sydney County Council part club room. Violet McKenzie was keen to educate women about the generation and use of electricity – the club room had a poster diagram of an electricity generating power station as its only art work! Any woman who was interested in buying anything from an electric jug to a stove could come in and learn how to use it free of charge. In 1936 she published the EAW Cookery Book, which ran into seven editions and remained in print till 1954. Obviously at some stage St. George County Council had obtained permission to publish an edition for use in its cookery schools with its own cover, the 1940 edition of which was my mother’s cookbook. You can see how the innovations pioneered in St George were adapted to suit Sydney County Council’s different circumstances.

Violet McKenzie went on to have a distinguished career. In 1939, she founded W.E.S.C. (Women’s Emergency Signalling Corps) to train women in Morse Code to replace the male telegraphists in the Post Office who would be called up for military service when war broke out. By the time war was declared she had trained 120 women. She was instrumental in persuading the RAN brass to set up the WRANS by proving to them that women could use radios just as well as men. Throughout the war she trained men and women in the Army, RAAF, and merchant navy operators including contingents from other allies such as India and USA. No government grant or allocation of accommodation was ever given to her, the WESC instructors paying 1/- per week towards the rent of the premises housing the school. By war’s end she had trained over 3,000 women, one third of whom joined the services, others remained at Clarence St as instructors. The only official recognition she ever received during wartime was to be made an honorary Flight Officer in the WAAF so she could legitimately train Air Force personnel. After the war she continued to train men for the merchant navy, commercial pilots and anyone who needed a “signallers’ ticket”. Many of them spoke affectionately of learning with “Mrs. Mac.” In 1950 she was awarded an OBE for her wartime service. She died in 1982.

This brings me to the final question – Why did my mother need to learn to cook on an electric stove? Well, in 1939, she and my grandparents moved to a rented property in Arncliffe. I suspect the house had an electric stove, which she hadn’t used before, and probably attended cooking classes at one of the St. George County Council kitchens, purchasing or being given the 1940 edition of book after finishing the course.

So, so far I have found answers to some of my questions, only to raise others. Who were the “lady demonstrators” employed by the St George County Council, especially the “Home Service Supervisor, Mrs Gardiner”? There also seem to have been quite a number of women clerks/ typists employed in the Council offices – remarked on in passing in one of the two histories of the Council but their experiences never detailed. If anyone knows of any information about them, especially in the period 1920 – 1940,I would love to find out more!

Finally, a foreword in the EAW Cookbook by Dr. Frances McKay, led me to search in a different direction again – but that is the subject of another article.

Notes and References

1. St George County Council Electricity Supply Undertaking: The First 50 Years 1920-1970.
2. Dictionary of Sydney. https://dictionaryofsydney.org/person/mckenzie_violet
3. Electrifying Sydney: 100 Years of Energy Australia by George Wilkenfield and Peter Spearitt. Sydney 2004.
4. St George County Council: 12 Years of Progress 1920- 1932.

This article was first published in the January 2016 edition of our magazine.

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by Bettye Ross

Continued from part 1.

So Eliza Harris Tompson was the daughter of Charles Tompson and Jane Armytage (nee Morris) and with a little leeway from the 1828 Census that looked right. The St. George & Sutherland Shire Leader published my results and I received a very nice phone call and letter from a lady descended from Charles Tompson, but before I move on to my conversation with her I’d still been playing with the research tools!

I had now come up with the fact that Charles Tompson had not come free but as a Convict, on the Coromandel I as the Census stated, and he and Jane had only married in 1822. Eliza Harris Tompson had been born c.1817 (naturally there is no birth or baptism registration) so was she being claimed as a Tompson or was this an adopted surname, perhaps she was really an Armytage?

Further research into Jane showed she had been born in the Colony to James Morris, a private in the New South Wales Corps, and his common-law wife Elizabeth Watts and that Jane had a younger sister Hannah (same parents) who also had married a Charles Tompson. Now I was in trouble, two Charles Tompson.

Meanwhile back to the phone call and letter from the Tompson descendant, she verified that she was the great granddaughter of Eliza Harris Tompson’s brother and that Eliza had been given the second name of Harris after the surgeon John Harris who obviously had delivered her, and that Eliza Harris Johnson’s maiden name had definitely been Tompson and that she was not the daughter of Charles Tompson’s marriage to Jane Armytage (nee Morris) but that her mother had been Elizabeth Boggis, the first wife of Charles Tompson and that Elizabeth had died in 1822 when Eliza H. (Harris) was almost five years of age. Charles Tompson had then remarried to Jane Armytage (nee Morris) who was widowed the same year as Charles and she brought three children to join his seven motherless children. They then went on to have another eight children and the third one was named Eliza H. in the 1828 Census but was actually baptised Elizabeth Henrietta.

Incidentally Eliza’s brother Alfred had the second name of Fulton (after Rev. Henry Fulton) and her half-brother Ferdinand’s (mother Jane Armytage nee Morris) second name was Macquarie, and her half-brother Theodore’s second name was Lachlan. All very relevant to the new Colony!

Eliza Harris Tompson married William Jonathan Johnson in 1838 at Clydesdale, Windsor which was the home of the Tompson family. Her adoptive mother Jane Tompson (was Armytage nee Morris) had a younger sister Hannah Morris who as I said above married Charles Tompson and he was the brother of Eliza Harris Johnson (nee Tompson) and like his father he was Charles Tompson but he was born 1807 of the first Tompson wife, Elizabeth nee Boggis.

William was the son of Richard Johnson, a watchmaker, and Elizabeth Phillips and he and Eliza Harris Tompson had eight children – three boys and five girls living and one boy and three daughters dead when William died at Newtown after an illness of dropsy 3 October 1866 aged 55 years. He had been born at Islington, London 1811. He built the first organ in the Colony “of two manuals and nine stops which today stills stands in its original place in St. Matthew’s at Windsor and had major restoration in 1986 but still has most of its original parts. The one other surviving piece of Johnson’s organ building – an 1844 chamber organ is now in the Powerhouse Museum.” *

He also built 12 other organs, gave singing and music lessons, edited books of psalms, was a founder of the Sydney Vocal Harmonic Society and when forced through bankruptcy sold English organs to churches in Bathurst, Mudgee and Darling Point. *

By the time Eliza died her stepmother had been dead two years but Eliza’s death seems to have been an extremely lonely one and not even a note of it in the newspapers with no word from any of her children of sorrow, nor did any of them witness her burial, so who arranged for the inscription, on William Jonathan Johnson’s headstone, to her. To the eye of those standing by a sad indictment to family life.

All this led to other avenues of research, for Charles Tompson Snr. turned out to be the second owner of the “Bexley” Estate on which Lydham Hall stands for he bought it from James Chandler who had run into financial difficulty. Charles Tompson could have lived there (for the home of Chandler’s “Bexley” had been built) though it’s thought he didn’t, for his home Clydesdale was in use at Windsor however Charles also ran into financial trouble and it was sold in lots.

Charles Tompson Jnr. (educated by the Rev. Henry Fulton), the son of Charles Tompson Snr and Elizabeth Boggis, became a famous Australian poet and like Henry Kendall came from the Hawkesbury area. He is supposed by some to have been the first Australian poet. So now we find a link to St. George area in the Tompson name by the purchase of the “Bexley” Estate, just as in the last issue of the Society’s bulletin we found a link with it through Henry Kendall’s poem Woolli Creek and Henry Kendall’s sister’s employment as a music teacher at Caroline Chisholm’s new School Green Bank formerly known as Tempe House.

William Boggis (sometimes spelt Bogus, Boge, Boggie or Biggis) was a fisherman 18 years old when charged at Surrey with theft for which he was to be “whipt for two hours at the back of a cart traveling between the County Gaol and St. Thomas’ Hospital”. However he must have offended again for he was sentenced to seven years transportation to America, which actually brought him to Port Jackson instead. He arrived on the Scarborough in the First Fleet and within six months received 50 lashes for gambling and the next month received 100 lashes “on the bare back with a cat o’nine tails” for throwing a female to the ground and trying to assault her. The following year he received another 200 lashes and was to have an iron on his leg and the words “THIEF printed on and made fast to his clothes”. Early 1790 he was sent to Norfolk Island and had a common law marriage to Elizabeth Smith who as a convict had arrived in the Colony on the Lady Juliana in 1789. They had a child Elizabeth Boggis in 1792 and it was this child who married Charles Tompson (ex-convict) and died in 1822 and her mother Elizabeth Smith had died two years earlier in Sydney.

Charles Armytage, the first husband of Jane Morris (natural daughter of Private James wife Elizabeth Watts who arrived Free), arrived here as a convict on the Fortune in 1806 and he died in April 1822. He received a Spirits Licence for his dwelling in Pitt St early 1811 and was a publican by 1816.

Elizabeth Watts aged 18 years arrived Free in the Colony from Dorset on the Bellona as a dairymaid to the Rose family. This ship left Deptford 28 July 1792 carrying only settlers and 17 female convicts, one of whom was Sarah Mason. Also on board was Frederick Meredith who had come here earlier on the Scarborough, the same ship as William Boggis, but Frederick had come as a steward to the captain and he stayed two years before returning to England on the Waaksamheid and then sailed back to New South Wales on the Bellona as a baker. He married Sarah Mason the young convict girl he’d met on the voyage out here and it was their daughter Ann Meredith who married John Gibbins and one of their children was Frederick Gibbins of “Dappetto” – another St. George note of interest!

* from information supplied to the St. George & Sutherland Shire Leader shortly after the news of the find of the Tombstone which commenced this search, by Graeme Rushworth, the author of a history of colonial organmakers.

This article was first published in the July 2002 edition of our magazine.

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by Bettye Ross

Just over two years ago an article appeared in the St. George & Sutherland Shire Leader titled “The Grave Mystery of Will and Eliza’s Death”.

I thought it was a pretty eye-catching headline and on reading through it, found that a headstone had been found in bushes in a backyard in Como which is the next suburb to Oyster Bay where I live. Now the headstone had been thrown over the fence of this property some years before, presumably as a party piece, and had ended up in the bushes. New occupants clearing the block had found it and wondered where it came from, why and whose was it?

Its inscription read:

“William Jonathon Johnson
Died, October 3, 1866, aged 55
This sweet remembrance of the
just shall flourish when he
sleeps in dust. Psm CXII.6″

underneath in smaller letters a smaller tribute stated:

“Eliza Harris who died on December 8, 1878, aged 65”

Eliza’s name and tribute had a pretty insignificant tone about it compared to William’s. Was Harris her surname? The Leader asked this as well as wondering whether the pair were sister and brother or “star-crossed lovers who thwarted convention by not marrying more than a century ago?”

This threw me into a mood of this has got to be solvable so I set to looking up newspapers of the time and found a nice long obituary to William and other notices of his occupations and abilities in various other articles, but so little about Eliza it amounted to nothing. But was she Eliza Harris or was she Eliza Johnson or was she Eliza the de facto of William Johnson or had she remarried after her husband William Johnson died? It didn’t matter what or where I looked she was not there. So if she wasn’t there, when and where had she come from? I was fairly certain of one thing – she had been “lying in state” wherever that headstone had originally stood – I hoped! There was not even a birth registration for an Eliza Harris or Johnson if she’d been related before marriage to William Johnson. There was only a marriage for a William Johnson to an Eliza Tompson. No way you wrote Harris could it look like Tompson!

There were two deaths registered who possibly could have been her, so I sent for both certificates, one didn’t fit because it was a death of an Eliza Johnson before the above date, but the other one did have a possibility although it was for a burial for 2 January 1879 – 25 days after she died! Not only that but between Eliza and Johnson was an H.! That certainly could stand for Harris. Naturally this death certificate didn’t have any more helpful details than that – no date of death, she was a female and she had been buried 2.1.1879 at Camperdown by Mrs. Kinsela & Sons of Sydney and witnesses were Henry Kinsela and William O’Dwyer. No date of death as I said, no age, no birthplace, no husband and no children!

Well I swung into research action – I eventually found where Kinsela’s burial registers were but they were scant and some years missing, but Eliza Johnson was there no date but round about 1879-80, no more details than I had. So I started looking around the date of burial instead of death, nothing. I was starting to get to know Eliza – she appeared in my mind as a pathetically lonely lady, living on her own, her children gone or estranged from her, alone since her husband’s death! Perhaps she’d fallen, lay injured on the floor with no one to hear her cries, no one to come and comfort or cover her emaciated body. Perhaps she’d died of thirst, exposure and loneliness! I knew she was emaciated because I’d now worked out how pathetic were her circumstances! If it wasn’t 120 years ago I’d probably have considered going and forcing her door open to find her!

I didn’t though – I went back to the old registers looking for more clues and decided to follow all the indexes of William Johnson marriages. The one that fitted was Eliza Tompson because the groom had the second initial of J. When hooked it up they had married 21 July 1838 at St. Philip’s, Sydney, her name given as Eliza Harris Tompson and the groom as William Jonathon Johnson. The witnesses were Charles Tompson, Richard Johnson, James Johnson, Jane Ann Armytage and Mary Ann Johnson.

A lot of Johnson’s to say the least and who was Jane Ann Armytage, was she a relation?

This took me back to the 1828 Census and I found Charles Tompson aged 44 who had arrived Free on the “Coromandel” in 1804, his wife Jane aged 34 and children Charles Jnr. 21, Frederick 14, Eliza H. 11, Edwin 9, Alfred 7, Emma 5, Ferdinand 3, and another Eliza H. aged 18 months, but how could wife Jane aged 34 years have a son aged 21? All except Charles Snr. had been born in the Colony.

Then when I looked under the Census for Armytage I found it stated Charles aged 12, George 9 and Jane Ann aged 10 months were the children of Mrs. C. Tompson and in the appendix it states “Children of Jane Morris by former husband”.

I now had two Eliza H.’s, two Charles’ and a Jane Ann Armytage – back to the drawing board and after a few more delvings into archives I came up with Eliza Harris Tompson daughter of Charles Tompson and Jane Armytage (nee Morris) marrying William Jonathon Johnson. I’d solved it!

My findings were sent off to the Leader a couple of months later and it was inserted under the heading “Mystery of Como Tombstone Known” BUT, read part 2 to find out how I fell on my face, and the stories and twists this riddle took me into!

This article was first published in the May 2002 edition of our magazine.

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