North Shore Historical Society Inc.
PO Box 399 North Sydney NSW 2059
Email: [email protected]
ABN 58 742 490 986
Secretary ph: 9929 6637
President ph: 9450 1552
BULLETIN for JULY 2015
NEXT MEETING
The next meeting of the Society will be held on Thursday 9th July 2nd floor Conference
Room, Stanton Library, Miller Street, North Sydney. Light refreshments are served from
6.30pm prior to the meeting which commences at 7pm.
Speaker: Dr Perry McIntyre
Dr Perry McIntyre was born in Cremorne, educated locally and
went to university at Armidale. Her passion for researching the
family connections of nineteenth century Irish families began her
involvement in the Great Irish Famine Commemoration
Committee where she is the current historian and manages the
website.
For many years she has lectured widely in Australia and overseas
to academic and community groups.
She regularly spends time in Ireland on research, working
through primary documents in archives for a new project on
convicts. Her PhD on convict family reunion was published in
Ireland in 2010 as Free Passage: the reunion of Irish convicts and
the families in Australia 1788-1852. She has co-authored several
books on single free female emigration with Elizabeth Rushen and they are still working on this
aspect of colonial emigration to Australia. Their book on the pilot scheme for this emigration, Fair
Game: Australia’s first emigrant women, included an analysis of the Princess Royal which brought
women to Tasmania in 1832. Perry is working on 4,114 women who left the workhouses of Ireland
during the famine; a task which includes managing the website of biographies of these women
[www.irishfaminememorial.org].
She has served on many historical committees including, the Royal Australian Historical Society,
the Australian Catholic Historical Society, Society of Australian Genealogists and the History
Council NSW (2 years as Chair). She worked for six years as the Archivist at St John’s College within
the University of Sydney and has wide interests in colonial Australian history.
Topic:
Remembering and Commemorating in Australia
the Great Irish Famine
In the mid-1990s the Irish-born Australian community responded to a call by the then president of
Ireland, Mary Robinson, to remember the millions who had died in the Great Irish Famine in the
mid-1840s. This is a global story but it is also a very special Sydney story that reaches back to the
establishment of the colony. In remembering the orphan girls, the Great Irish Famine
Commemoration Committee also remembers modern-day refugees by contributing to the
education of a current refugee.
June 2015 Meeting Report
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Talk by Dr Ian Hoskins
"We Will See a Town Rising" - the History of North Sydney
Over 90 members and guests came to hear the North Sydney Council's
Historian, Dr Ian Hoskins, deliver an address to celebrate the
quasquicentenary of the municipality of North Sydney and its Council. The
municipality was proclaimed on 29th July 1890 as a result of the
amalgamation of three boroughs so that this year marks the 125th
anniversary of the Council's existence. Ian, however, commenced his talk by
pointing out that the history of the area is many millennia older than this,
radiocarbon dating of middens in Cammeray showing that the ancestors of
the Cammeraygal clan were living there at least 5,800 years ago.
Notwithstanding this, the white settlement of the northern shore of Port
Jackson after settlement of the southern shore in 1788 was relatively slow,
perhaps because of its steeper topography and transport difficulties, such as
crossing the Harbour. In 1840, it was said that viewed from the south, there
was still only a sprinkling of houses on the northern shore. Even in 1856, the
census showed that there were only 464 residents on the lower North Shore.
Originally, the name 'St Leonards', which was formally gazetted in 1838,
applied to the whole area from Gore Hill to the present suburb of North
Sydney, not too surprising given its sparse population. The name itself
probably came from that of the British statesman Thomas Townshend, 1st
Viscount Sydney of St Leonards, after whom Sydney itself was named by
Governor Phillip. However, by the 1880s, the population of the present day
North Sydney and its surroundings was well established, with a thriving
commercial centre and some grand houses. Three separate boroughs had
been formed (East St Leonards {Milsons Point-Cremorne area}, St Leonards
and Victoria {Lavender Bay area}) and it was their amalgamation that
brought North Sydney into existence. Francis Punch, an Irish Catholic, was
the first mayor and all of the Councillors were men, women being excluded
by law but paradoxically able vote if they satisfied the electoral voting
requirements.
Ian then reviewed some of the important figures who were influential in the
history of North Sydney, a number of whom were the builders of the grand
houses mentioned above. These included the successful businessmen James
Milson ('Grantham'), Edward Wollstonecraft ('Crows Nest Cottage') and his
brother-in-law Alexander Berry (the larger 'Crows Nest House', whose gates
still adorn the entrance to the Demonstration School on the Pacific
Highway). Other important houses alluded to by Ian included 'Kirribilli
House' (now one of only two official residences of the PM) and 'Penshurst'
(the Government Architect WL Vernon's house). Ian believes that
architecture is important because it provides a reflection of the social
conditions of the time.
Governor Macquarie gave Edward Wollstonecraft, who was the nephew of
the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and cousin of Mary Wollstonecraft
Shelley (the author of Frankenstein), a land grant that extended from St
Leonards to the Harbour foreshore and it is on a subdivision of this land that
the Don Bank Cottage, now in the Council's care, was subsequently built. However, it was a
second, much larger land grant on the Shoalhaven River (the Coolangatta Estate) approved by
Governor Brisbane to the Wollstonecraft and Berry partnership that was to secure their fortunes.
Wollstonecraft managed the Sydney business while Berry managed their southern estate and the
local historic town there is now named after the Berry family.
Ian then outlined the role of the newly formed North Sydney Council in the provision of services,
such as street lighting, and the control of health, through mains water and a sewerage system. He
further noted the growth of local industry, such as boat building in Berrys Bay where a number of
ship building firms operated.
The commencement of WW1 saw 10% of the local men enlist and the Cenotaph in St Leonards
Park is testimony to their high mortality rate. Built in 1924 and recently renovated, it was the
biggest such memorial in NSW at the time. The construction of the Harbour Bridge,
photographically recorded by the local minister, Rev Frank Cash, and opened in 1932, saw North
Sydney change from being a transport hub to being a transport corridor. This was underlined
further in 1970 with the advent of the Warringah Expressway that required 600 homes to be
demolished for its construction, far more than was required for the construction of the Bridge. A
town has certainly risen in North Sydney, as predicted by the The Australian newspaper in the
1820s.
Ian recalled that the North Shore Historical Society was established in 1958 to oppose the
proposed Blues Point redevelopment plan. Harry Seidler had proposed that McMahons Point be
redeveloped as a high-density residential area with hundreds of apartments, all with Harbour
views, rather than being zoned for industrial use. Neither the money needed nor the support
required for Seidler's proposal was forthcoming so that Blues Point Tower was the only element of
the plan to be built. However, as Ian noted, while in some cities such as Bath and Venice,
redevelopment has been halted, this is certainly not true of North Sydney where construction
proceeds apace to this day.
Ian's far reaching historical overview, covering some six thousand years of the history of North
Sydney, was enthusiastically received by the large audience and provided a fitting tribute to the
longevity and success of the municipality.
Don Napper
Welcome new members -
Alyson O’Mara, Mark Shalovsky, and John Wrigley
Our Annual General Meeting is on Thursday 10th September 2015
All Committee positions fall vacant on the 10th September 2015
The Committee works hard to ensure the Society runs efficiently and offers members information
and events of historical interest. However, we will always welcome additional hands to spread the
workload and most importantly, bring new ideas and variety to improve the Society. If you are
interested or would like to know more, please speak to the President 94501552 or any other
Committee person. Two unassigned positions are available on the Committee for members not
wanting a specific role.
Nomination Forms for the 2015-16 Committee positions are available from the Secretary Gaynor
Austen- phone 9929 6637. Nominations must be in writing, signed by the candidate and two
members and lodged with the Secretary no later than the 13th August 2015 General Meeting.
A Spoonful of History ©
Geoff Huntington
The Big House on Gore Hill
This impressive brick and iron fence was the gateway to one of the last grand estates on the lower
North Shore.
The land now occupied by the Gore Hill TAFE, was originally part of provost-marshal William
Gore’s extensive land-holdings in the Chatswood and St. Leonards district. Gore built on the
present-day TAFE site a modest cottage he called “Artarmon” (after his ancestral home in Ireland).
This is where he retired poverty stricken and in disgrace; having been sentenced for life for the
killing of a soldier. He was later pardoned by Governor Brisbane and died here in 1845 at the age
of 80.
In 1861, Artarmon was obtained by Richard H. Harnett (Mayor of Willoughby 1870) and he lived in
it for some time before building a more substantial 2 storey dwelling next to it. This was in 1869;
he called the new mansion “Artarmon House” and demolished Gore’s old cottage.
In 1882 property developer and wealthy Hunter Street merchant George R. Whiting bought
Artarmon House and renamed it “Valetta”. He lived there with his wife Louisa (nee Hobson) and
daughters Lucilla and Evelyn until his death in 1922. During his 40 years of ownership, Whiting
transformed his seven acre property into a very fashionable lower north shore estate. He chose
and imported numerous tree and shrubs which he combined with suitable native species along
with rare roses, gardenias, palms and giant strelitzia. Included in the landscaped lawns were a
bowling green and a tennis court, plus paddocks for his livestock.
The North Shore Brick and Tile Co. purchased the Whiting estate and demolished Valetta in 1939.
The stable and gardeners cottage at the northern corner still remain and is a heritage classified
structure. It is the only reminder of what once was a part of a “grand place” on the crest of Gore
Hill.