LAND SOUTH OF COOK’S RIVER The colonial lives of the Saywell and Roseby families Mary Saywell Land south of Cook’s River Mary Saywell Land Cook’s of south LAND SOUTH OF COOK’S RIVER THE COLONIAL LIVES OF THE SAYWELL AND ROSEBY FAMILIES Mary Saywell Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1 - John Dunmore Lang in the Illawarra 5 Chapter 2 - Lacemakers on the Agincourt 11 Chapter 3 - Settlers in Maitland 17 Chapter 4 - Stone masons from the industrial north of England 21 Chapter 5 - The 1860s and early 1870s 25 Chapter 6 - Thomas Holt and ‘Camden Villa’ 29 Chapter 7 - John Andrews’s school in the Wesleyan Chapel 33 Chapter 8 - Camden College 37 Chapter 9 - Arthur Aspinall’s education 41 Chapter 10 - Arthur Aspinall’s Marrickville congregation 45 Chapter 11 - Vale of Clwydd Colliery 49 Chapter 12 - Sydney tobacco manufactory 55 Chapter 13 - The Argyle School, Arthurleigh 61 Chapter 14 – Suburban development 65 Chapter 15 - John Roseby 69 Chapter 16 - Thomas Roseby 71 Chapter 17 – Brickmaking 75 Chapter 18 - The Metropolitan and Illawarra Railway 81 Chapter 19 - Lady Robinson’s Beach 85 Chapter 20 - Great Western Zig Zag Colliery 91 Chapter 21- Ringwood Coal Company and the new Mount Kembla mine 95 Chapter 22 - Bellambi 103 Chapter 23 - South Clifton 107 Chapter 24 - The New Brighton Hotel and Rockdale 111 Chapter 25 - Rev. Aspinall’s return to Marrickville 115 Chapter 26 - Locating premises for a boys’ grammar school 121 Chapter 27 - The Scots College 125 Chapter 28 - Brighton le Sands 135 Chapter 29 – Saywell descendants 139 Chapter 30 - The Roseby educational legacy 145 Bibliography 150 Endnotes 152 Index 161 Introduction SPACER Sydney 1869. In 1869, Thomas Saywell was a tobacco merchant with a shop at 4 Park Street, Sydney. He was married to Annie Ellen Fawcett, the daughter of a stone mason from Oldham, Lancashire. They had just moved into ‘Ada Terrace’, 8 Jane Street, Balmain with their three young children George, Ada and Frederick. The family was friendly with other stone masons from the industrial north of England, in particular the Roseby and Aspinall families. Thomas Saywell had family in Bathurst and Maitland and was involved in min- ing ventures in the Lithgow area. (1873 Town Hall Clock Tower View, City of Sydney Archives, 055/055466. In 1873, Sydney photographer Francis W. Robinson undertook a perilous ascent of the clocktower of Sydney Town Hall. Signs on buildings include Saywell’s - Thomas Saywell, tobacconist, 4 Park St.) 1 stations along the route. Saywell’s Tramway resulted in an influx of holidaymakers to John Aspinall was about the same age as Thomas Saywell. John had married Sarah Ann Lady Robinson’s Beach; it also allowed children to travel at no cost to Rockdale Public Dunton in December 1862, just one month after Thomas Saywell married Annie. The School. Aspinalls had two daughters, Millicent and Annie, and in 1869 their son Herbert John Aspinall was born. John and his brother Albert were stone masons, like their father and In 1893, The Scots College was established at Lady Robinson’s Beach in Thomas uncle. John also carried on business at a general produce store at 789 George Street, Saywell’s New Brighton Hotel. The first principal was Rev. Arthur Aspinall, whose Sydney for and on the account of Thomas Saywell. John Aspinall appears to have built concerted action with Rev. Dr. Archibald Gilchrist and Rev. William Dill Macky, with ‘Ada Terrace’ in Balmain for Saywell. Both John Aspinall and his brother Albert worked the support of Rev. Dr. James Smith White, had persuaded the Presbyterian church to in the building industry, however their younger brother Arthur was being educated for approve the first Presbyterian boys’ secondary school in New South Wales. Thomas the ministry at Camden College. Roseby is likely to have helped Rev. Aspinall to locate these premises, as he had been heavily involved with plans to establish a Congregational boys’ grammar school, how- John Roseby was also a friend of Thomas Saywell. He owned Roseby’s Monumental ever the project had insufficient liquid resources and the school was never built. Works at 781 George Street, near the Devonshire Street Cemetery on Brickfield Hill (now the site of Central railway station). This masonry business was close to the gen- Thomas Roseby’s daughter, Amy Roseby, was headmistress at Ascham under principal eral produce store that John Aspinall operated at 789 George Street. John Roseby had Herbert Carter from 1908 and purchased Redlands in 1911. Samuel’s daughters, Clara inherited the business from his father, a stone mason and lay evangelist from County and Minnie, were co-principals of Kambala from 1914 to 1926. John Roseby’s grand- Durham called Thomas Roseby, who died in 1867. Thomas Saywell’s eldest daughter, daughter, Edith Roseby Ball, established Danebank in 1933 with the support of a group Ada, would marry John Roseby’s son Herb in the Petersham Congregational Church in of Hurstville parents led by Valerie Crakanthorp, Ada Roseby’s daughter. In 1934, Edith 1886. John had two younger brothers, Samuel and Thomas, and a sister Ann. Samuel acquired the Walker residence on Park Road for Danebank with the help of the Crakan- was educated at home and from 1867 was a public school teacher at Gunning, near Yass. thorp family. Rosemary Crakanthorp was Danebank’s first pupil and Thomas Saywell’s Thomas Roseby was one of the first students to attend Camden College in 1864, just a great-granddaughter. few years before Arthur Aspinall. Thomas Roseby was to become a prominent minister, educator and scientist. Thomas Saywell had arrived in Australia as a young boy. He was from a family of mechanics and tullistes who had fled political upheaval in France in 1848 and arrived in Australia on the Agincourt. This family history sets out information about Saywell’s early life in Calais, Maitland, the gold fields and Sydney prior to his move to Brighton le Sands in 1887. Saywell’s movements in Sydney reflected the suburban expansion of the time, from Balmain to Hyde Park, Enmore, South Kingston, Petersham and Rockdale. From the late 1860s, Saywell was involved with collieries in Lithgow where he estab- lished the Vale of Clwydd and Great Western Zig Zag Collieries. He had brickmaking operations and property developments in Sydney, particularly in Alexandria and Mar- rickville. By the 1880s, he was investing in collieries in Newcastle, Bundanoon and the Illawarra, where he established the new Mount Kembla coal company and the South Bulli Colliery and built a jetty at Bellambi. He also owned the South Clifton Colliery for many years from 1891. These collieries, along with his manufacturing operations and property developments, helped fund his capital investment in his many projects in Rockdale. The suburb of Brighton le Sands was developed in the 1880s by Thomas Saywell, who built Saywell’s Tramway from Rockdale to Lady Robinson’s Beach after recognizing that the new Illawarra Railway line would open up opportunities in land south of Cook’s River. The railway enabled the development of new suburbs around Rockdale and other 2 3 Chapter 1 John Dunmore Lang in the Illawarra This story begins with John Dunmore Lang, who arrived in the Colony of New South Wales on 23 May 1823. Lang was the first ordained Presbyterian Minister in New South Wales. He laid the foundation stone for the Scots Church in July 1824 and the church was opened in July 1826. Lang was politically active and involved with both immigra- tion and education. The Scots College was the first Presbyterian boys’ secondary school in New South Wales, but it built on work started by Lang. The British government’s decision in the 1820s to provide education through the Church of England was short-sighted.1 John Dunmore Lang was fearful in 1826 that Presbyterians would not receive fair treatment in a proposed school run by the Colony’s Anglican Archdeacon William Grant Broughton. “…I was utterly astounded …at the promulgation of a royal charter appointing a church and school corporation for the religious instruction and for the general education of youth, on the principles of the church of England exclusively… It will scarcely be believed that men could have been found in the nineteenth century to perpetrate so gross an outrage on the (Rev. John Dunmore Lang 1841, best feelings of a numerous body of watercolour by William Nicholas, State reputable men.” 2 Library of New South Wales) 4 5 Lang founded a primary school called the Caledonian Academy in 1826. The school was not successful and operated for less than a year.3 Its first pupil was John Robertson, who The Australian College opened at the beginning of 1832 with 50 pupils. One pupil of became a leading colonial politician.4 The Australian College was James Smith White. He was born in Glasgow and came to the Colony as a child with his father, Andrew White, on the Mountaineer, which left On 14 August 1830, Lang went to Britain on the Australia to make arrangements for from Liverpool and arrived in Sydney on 7 September 1832. Andrew White was a shoe- building a secondary school in the Colony. Part of the plan involved arranging for the maker who had enlisted as a mounted trooper in the Scots Greys. He was sixteen when migration of a group of artisans to help build what was to be called ‘The Australian Col- he joined up and served for eight years.7 Andrew was part of the courageous charge of lege’. Lang engaged Rev. Henry Carmichael to teach classics and Rev. William Pinker- the Scots Greys at Waterloo, however he sustained serious injuries (13 sabre, gunshot ton to teach English.