Noticeboard 2017.1

Lane Cove Historical1 Society Inc. NOTICEBOARD JAN/FEB 2017 DATES FOR YOUR DIARY John Lanser practiced as an economist and a lawyer, served with the RAAF Specialist Reserve and was Chairman of the It promises to be an interesting year in LCHS and Carisbrook NSWAFL Disciplinary Tribunal. He is immediate past doings. Our 2017 line-up of guest speakers for LCHS Monthly president of the Australasian Pioneers’ Club, which owns a Meetings is certainly wide with the topics varied and large table made of oak salvaged from the Dunbar wreck. interesting. Join us for the presentations and some friendly conversation at the suppers afterwards. A gold coin would be appreciated. Parking under Woolworths after 6pm is free. Here Tue Mar. 28: Dr Perry McIntyre The reunification of is the line-up: convicts and their wives and children in Australia Dr. McIntyre has been involved in Irish history and genealogy SCHEDULE OF SPEAKERS 2017 since the late 1970s. Her PhD in History was on convict family reunion was published by Irish Academic Press in late Tue Feb. 28: John Lanser, The wreck of the Dunbar and the 2010. North Shore connection John Lanser will present the story of Sydney's first major Her talk details the subsidised reunification scheme that maritime disaster—the 1857 wreck of the Dunbar which operated for British convicts. Over 2000 men applied for their founded in gale swept seas at the foot of the Gap. families to receive free passage to Australia—60% of whom All sixty-three passengers and all but one of the fifty-nine were Irish with 40% from England, Wales and Scotland. crew perished. Two days later, twenty-thousand Sydneysiders lined the route of the funeral procession which conveyed the Because Anzac Day falls on the usual meeting date there unidentified remains from Circular Quay to St Stephen’s will be no meeting for April. Church cemetery, Camperdown. This was undoubtedly the first Australian example of the type of public horror we feel Tue May 23: Stephen Dando-Collins, The Heromaker and today at tragic events. the Movie star / Paul Brickhill and Peter Finch, the boys Two north shore pioneers figured largely in the salvage from Greenwich operation and the recovery of bodies from, as the 1857 poster on the right above says, “the wide dark bosom of the angry Tue Jun. 27: Rob Shipton, The History of Clocks and Time deep". Tue Jul. 25: Janette Pelois, Popular Entertainment In The Colonies 1840s-1850s 2 VALE Tue Aug. 22: Brian Wilcox, The Struggle for Unity: a story ARTHUR PIETRO HINVEST of the Federation of Australia Arthur Hinvest's death occurred on Wednesday, 2nd Tue Sep. 26 Jill Curtin, Rose Venn-Brown, Lane Cove's November last, after a short illness in the Royal North Shore Unrecognised WWI hero Hospital. Arthur, a member of the Friends of Carisbrook and of the LCHS, was our voluntary clock winder. Every Oct. 24: Presentation of the 2017 Lane Cove History Prize Thursday, for the last seven years, he would wind all the historical clocks in Carisbrook House. He also volunteered on _________________________________________________ weekends and with group tours as a Carisbrook guide. TWO COMING EVENT DAYS He was born on 15 March, 1933, in Longueville, the only son AT CARISBROOK HISTORIC HOUSE of Arthur Edward Hinvest and Margharita Fanny Rezzonico, who married at Longueville in 1926. Arthur did not marry and was aged 83 years when he died. He worked as a commercial photographer and later as a security officer. His elder sister, Kay, now living in a retirement village at Port Macquarie, survives him. Her two daughters and Arthur's nieces, are Mrs. Janneke Teutelink (Lake Cathie) and Mrs. Dina Haddow (Woombah). Arthur was remembered by a gathering of Friends and members in November at the Woolwich Pier pub. He will be missed by his friends and fellow volunteers. May he rest in peace. _________________________________________________ HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY TO ALL OUR MEMBERS! No matter where you stand on the controversies and debate over January 26 as Australia Day or 'Invasion Day', Michael Pembroke's address to the First Fleeters Australia Day Luncheon held on 21 January is an eloquently argued request to think about how we celebrate the recognition of our nation. I am republishing it here because it is an issue which, each year, gains ground and I believe that providing an argument— for either point of view—that prompts thought, rather than knee-jerk reaction, is a responsibility of all who have an interest in Australian history. AUSTRALIA DAY Sunday 12 March: Seniors Festival: Try something different at Michael Pembroke an afternoon tea with a twist. 'Everything old is new again' Fellowship of First Fleeters - Australia Day Luncheon Champagne High Tea 1pm - 4pm. Come and enjoy the food 21 January 2017 and the music from Jim Middleton and Bob Bellini. Please book early by email to [email protected] with a Introduction preferred time and we will confirm. Otherwise phone 0418 Dame Marie, Sir Nicholas, distinguished guests, Denis Smith 276 365 and we can take down your booking. and ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting Gillian and me to lunch. And thankyou for the privilege of addressing you Sunday Apr. 30: National Trust Heritage Festival A delicious on this auspicious occasion. day at Carisbrook! Voices from Lane Cove's Golden Days featuring good old sing-a-long, bush poetry and an Australian From Colony to Federation band. 3pm to 5pm. Once again, book by email to As some of you may know, my roots go back to the [email protected] with a preferred time and we establishment of the colony of New South Wales and the will confirm. Otherwise phone 0418 276 365 and she can take foundation of modern Australia. My mother can trace her down your booking. lineage to John Lucas, seventh child of Nathaniel Lucas and Olivia Gascoigne, who arrived safely - courtesy of Arthur Phillip - in Botany Bay in January 1788. Nathaniel became a 3 favourite of Philip Gidley King, Phillip’s trusted lieutenant notwithstanding the modern-day clamour from some less and subsequently a Governor himself. In 1806, King appointed generous souls. Nathaniel as the colony’s Supervisor of Carpenters – a job description that we would probably now call ‘Director of Phillip demonstrated his humanity in several ways. You all Public Works’. know his attitude to slavery. He had witnessed Portuguese slavery in Brazil and Dutch slavery at the Cape of Good Hope In 1817, Nathaniel’s son John married the daughter of Captain and well knew the dominant role played by British Rowley of the Marine Corps. Their eldest son, also called commercial interests in the Atlantic slave trade. From London John, lived from 1818 until 1902, seeing in the new century before departing, at a time when slavery underpinned the and the new nation. He had a successful career in politics and prosperity of all of the world’s colonial powers, he wrote that business, and was much favoured by Henry Parkes, who ‘There can be no slavery in a free land and consequently no appointed him to the Legislative Council. Parkes was, of slaves’. At the same time, on the other side of the Pacific, in course, the ‘father of Federation’ and Phillip was, as the the newly-formed United States of America, some politicians plaque laid recently in Westminster Abbey attests, the and citizens clung so tenaciously to the institution of slavery ‘founder of modern Australia’. that eighty years later it would cause a civil war. My mother can therefore justly claim that her ancestors were Phillip’s treatment of the convicts was another example of his ‘present at the creation’ – at the establishment of the colony of compassion. He was lenient – surprisingly so – while being New South Wales in 1788 and at the founding of the correspondingly harsh on any marines and seamen who Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Lucas, by the way, transgressed. Some Englishmen complained about Phillip’s opposed Federation because he thought it would diminish the egalitarianism. Some found it baffling and unsettling. Major revenues available to New South Wales. Some things never Ross, his difficult and irascible deputy, expostulated in a letter change. home – ‘Could I possibly have imagined that I was to be served with no more butter than any of the convicts, I most Parkes and Phillip certainly would not have left England!’ It was all part of the There is another connection between the visionary Henry absurdly ambitious social experiment that Phillip sought to Parkes and the inspirational Arthur Phillip. Parkes, more than implement – to improve and reform the convicts; to anyone else, appreciated the significance of Phillip’s emancipate them and make them the pillars of a simple rural foundational achievement. It was he who commissioned the society; to give them small acreages so they could settle and colossal statue of Phillip that stands just inside the Royal cultivate the land, raise children and be re-born through Botanic gardens opposite the State Library. Phillip is facing physical labour and subsistence farming. Nothing like it had towards the Heads at the entrance to Sydney Harbour, the been tried before. But the experiment worked. majestic sandstone portal through which he first came in an advance party, in a longboat rowed by seamen, on 21 January Phillip’s humanity was also evident in his attitude to the 1788; the same entrance through which so many hundreds of Aborigines. And it deserves to be better understood. The thousands of grateful, sometimes desperate, migrants have foundational emblem of the early relationship was Phillip’s since arrived in this wonderful country.

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