Our Public Utilities

Article by Max Farley reprinted from the Society Newsletter October 2008
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 Our Public Utilities

For many years most of Ku-ring-gai has had easy access
to a range of public amenities including electricity, gas,
telephones, water and sewerage, postal services, and regular
garbage collections. Though the Lane Cove Post Office,
renamed Gordon Post Office in 1879, was established in
1860 in what are now the grounds of Ravenswood, most of
the other facilities did not begin to appear until the 1890s.
These notes tell in chronological order something of their
arrival. They draw significantly on a paper by our member,
structural engineer Ken Wyatt, which was published in THE
HISTORIAN of June 2001.

Water
From the outset, water was from creeks, rain water tanks
and wells with creeks sometimes used for doing household
washing. In 1896 the Public Works Department installed
two large water tanks at Wahroonga which were filled by a
pipe-line from Chatswood. A reservoir was built at Pymble
in 1900 and this supplied residents between Pymble and
Chatswood. A pipe-line from Ryde to Wahroonga was built
in 1905. Additional reservoirs came later at Wahroonga
(1915); Killara (1930) and St Ives (1975).

Gas
Lighting at first was mainly by kerosene lamps and candles with
cooking being done over open fires or on fuel stoves. “Slush
lamps” consisting of fat in a tin with a piece of wick were also
used for lighting. At the turn of the century, parishioners attending
evening services at St John’s at Gordon used to leave their
hurricane lanterns in the Church porch. With the building of De
Burgh’s bridge, 1896 saw the coming of gas from Ryde to Gordon
and Wahroonga. It was first used for public lighting of public
places. The Pymble News of 25 April, 1901, reproduces a letter
from the Railways Commissioners agreeing to a Pymble Progress
Association request to have gas lights installed on Pymble Railway
Station and level crossing.
Gas for lighting and cooking slowly found its way into private
homes and was used for many years until electricity came
after 1917. Even today superseded gaslight fittings can still
be seen in some of our older homes such as Tulkiyan and
many cooks still prefer gas.
The gasometer on the corner of the Highway and Ryde
Road was a feature of our landscape for many years until
demolished in the 1960s with the arrival of natural gas.

Telephones
In addition to the coming of water and gas, 1896 was
obviously a year of progress and saw Ku-ring-gai’s first
telephone line. It came from Hornsby to Mr Boyne’s store
at Wahroonga when his wife was appointed as the local
postmistress. An exchange was installed there in the
following year. The demand for telephones grew rapidly as
did the proliferation of unsightly telephone poles. Initially
many residents visited their local post office to make calls.

Sewerage
Cesspits were banned and a nightsoil service begun in 1913.
The “sanitary cart” remained a feature of Ku-ring-gai, and
most of Sydney, until well after water was piped into homes.
Depots were initially at Hampden Avenue in Wahroonga and
Koola Avenue in Killara. These depots were understandably
the source of much controversy but their sites are now valued
recreational assets. Parts of Wahroonga were “on the sewer”
by 1915 through the Hornsby Treatment Works. A pipe-line
from North Head had to cross Middle Harbour at Clontarf,
and the West Middle Harbour sub-main built, before the sewer
came to Roseville in 1927. It then connected to Gordon and
Pymble in 1929. Even so, by 1951 the sewer lines were only to
locations within one or two miles either side of the Highway.
By 1971 most of Ku-ring-gai was “connected”. As with all
these services, new and outlying areas usually had to wait longer.

Electricity
As with gas, electricity was at first mainly used for street lighting.
Sydney’s first publicly-owned power station was at Pyrmont in
1904 but cables did not come to Cammeray until 1916 and
spread north to Ku-ring-gai from there in 1917. Transformers
were put at Shirley Road (Roseville); Beaconsfield Parade
(Lindfield); Stanhope Road (Killara) and Park Avenue
(Gordon). Power was available to sites along the Highway. It
was not until 1920 that electricity was carried north from Gordon
to Wahroonga. In 1925 Ku-ring-gai Council decided to change
all street lighting to electricity instead of gas.

Garbage
Garbage collection by Council began on an experimental
and voluntary basis in 1914. The Koola Avenue nightsoil
depot was used for this purpose. The charge was sixpence
a week. An incinerator designed by Walter Burley Griffin
was opened in 1930 where the Bicentennial Park is now in
West Pymble.

Postal
An examination of the development of postal services is
beyond the scope of these notes and historical records
sketchy. Before the 1850s, residents on the north shore had
to collect their mail from the GPO and until the end of the
1850s from the North Sydney Post Office. In 1860 a Post
Office opened at Gordon with one mail a week. Individual
locations gradually were appointed as de facto post offices.
These were shopkeepers, railway stations and individuals.
Delivery services did not begin until the 1890s.

(Appreciation is expressed to Ken Wyatt for his kindness
in casting his eye over an early version of these notes.
MF)

Roseville Boys' College

An article by Max Farley. Reprinted form the Society Newsletter, June 2008.

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Roseville College, a girls’ school, recently published a history
to mark its 100 years. It was in 1908 that Miss Isobel Davies
took over Hinemoa School in Victoria Street, Roseville and
renamed it Roseville College.

This Centenary publication, Memories and Dreams – Roseville
College 1908-2008, was written by Denise Thomas, an
educator and historian, and includes much of interest not just to
those closely associated with Roseville College but also to
Roseville residents. On the lighter side is the revelation that in
its early days the College enrolled boys up to eight years of
age. It continued to do so until as late as 1979.

These boys included Robert and John Fowler who lived in
the nearby Firs cottage in Roseville Park, as well as Colin
Begg and Paul Toose, who became judges, and Chester
Porter QC. John Fowler, who attended from 1920, is
reported by Denise Thomas as recalling “that life was
sometimes difficult for boys attending Roseville, because
they were mocked by boys from other schools. Fortunately,
he said, the girls of Roseville College were happy to have
them”.

Though this history does not dwell on the topic, the earlier
Hinemoa School had been conducted for several years by
Mrs Maria Tingcombe who lived in Hinemoa cottage with
her husband George, daughter Dorothy, and Ellen Tingcombe,
a spinster cousin. Maria had operated the school for several
years. The name, Hinemoa, was that of a legendary Maori
maiden of noble birth and the heroine of a romantic love affair.

How attitudes have changed

Reprint of an article by Max Farley originally published in Vol. 29 No. 7 August 2011 of the KHS Monthly Newsletter 

“Once families dreaded exposure of their convict connections. Today the discovery that a convict belongs in the family tree is a matter for celebration. ”

Most would today agree with these words expressed in Babette Smith’s recently published “Australia’s Birthstain – a Startling Legacy of the Convict Era”. For over 100 years, however, the existence of convict ancestors within families was kept a secret by later generations. So much so
that in many cases family members were not even aware of their convict’s existence themselves.
By the time the colony was 50 or so years old it was peopled in large numbers by emancipists who had served their time, by many Australian-born who had reached adulthood, as well as settlers who had come and prospered.

They all regarded themselves as “free”. Though crime, corruption, loose moral standards,  gambling, profanity, drunkenness and violence existed in large measure, Babette Smith puts it that there was growing pride in what was being achieved in the new country. People were accepted for
what they were and not for what they or their parents had earlier been. Opportunities for advancement existed which were not available for them in their homeland. Ideas of introducing democratic institutions in the colony were being discussed, with WC Wentworth in the forefront.
Why did having a convict ancestor later come to be a guilty secret?

At the risk of oversimplifying her views, Babette Smith puts forward the theory that three main groups in the “Mother Country” saw their interests as likely to be best served by emphasising the sinfulness existing in New South Wales and ignoring the positive aspects. These were:-
• those who had opposed transportation in the first place and wanted it stopped in favour of penal reform being developed in Britain itself;
• the clergy, too, opposed transportation., although their mission was to reform sinners and it was important that the wickedness of the colony be recognised and, with it, the need for their services, which also offered opportunities to spread church influence; and
• fine-intentioned people whose liberal inclinations applauded the abolition of slavery in America and who saw a similarity with the transportation of convicts to Australia.

For the most part they, as individuals, were totally ignorant of the true position in New South Wales. A 27-year old, Sir William Molesworth, became Chairman of the Transportation
Committee of the House of Commons. A Report of that Committee was destined to cause great damage to the status of the young colony.

These groups may not have been alone in spreading the belief that sin was rife in the colony, but they spread it with success. As an example, the Reverend Thomas Arnold, principal of the Rugby School, is quoted by Babette Smith as saying in c1834 “that the stain should last, not only for
one whole life but for more than one generation… that no convict child should ever be a free citizen: and that even in the third generation, the offspring should be excluded from all offices of honour or authority in the colony.”

The Molesworth Transportation Committee Report, released in 1838, painted an unhappy picture of the colony’s moral state. Though seen within five years as a failure, the inhabitants were taken aback by the Report because they had been expecting praise for the progress they had achieved.
Not only was their pride hurt, but there was alarm at the political and economic damage to the colony’s reputation. Not surprisingly, the Report was widely condemned by many
who had practical knowledge of the actual conditions. However, the bad publicity given it in England was lasting and widespread. Babette Smith believes Molesworth’s “version of the convict stain” was to infect the colonists themselves. The seeds of shame had been sown.

For many years afterwards there was a conspiracy of silence, both in government and private circles, to keep convict ancestry a secret. Babette Smith points out that, even as late as the 1950s, hundreds of priceless photographs of convicts were destroyed when the old Fremantle Gaol was
being renovated. Even more indicative of secrecy was the controversy that arose, as recently as 1980, when the 1828 Census was privately published by Johnson and Sainty of the Library of Australian History. Amongst other things it disclosed which people living in 1828 had come as convicts.

The 1980 publication angered some people who saw it as a threat to their ancestors’ reputations. However, “more enlightened academics” took a different view, and information about our pioneers, convicts and otherwise, is happily now freely available. The outdated sensitivities have now been discarded to the dustbin and many older Australians have come to be delighted to find they have a dinky-di convict amongst their ancestors. It may not be stretching the imagination to suggest
that Australia over recent decades has recaptured the pride so unsympathetically beaten out of it 160 and more years ago.

(Babette Smith was Guest Speaker at our Family History meeting 6 November 2010.)
Max Farley