BLUHEISTMOORYUNJOTUARINNASL Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage Organisations Issue 9 November 2019 Blue Mountains History Journal 9 2019 Cover Picture Courtesy BMCL Local Studies Collection, PF 753 Mount Victoria in the early 1870s, with the One Tree Hill Hotel at the top right. ii Go to Index Blue Mountains History Journal 9 2019 Blue Mountains History Journal Editor Dr Peter Rickwood Editorial Board Associate Professor Carol Liston AO Dr Peter Stanbury OAM Design Mr Peter Hughes The Blue Mountains History Journal is published online under the auspices of BMACHO (Blue Mountains Association of Cultural Heritage Organisations Inc.). It contains refereed and fully referenced articles on the human history, and related subjects, of the Greater Blue Mountains and neighbouring areas. Anyone may submit an article which is ‘intermediate’ in size between a Newsletter contribution and a book chapter. Hard copies of all published articles are to be archived in the National Library of Australia, the State Library of NSW, the Royal Australian Historical Society, the Springwood Library, the Lithgow Regional Library and with the Blue Mountains Historical Society Inc. Go to Index iii Blue Mountains History Journal 9 2019 iv Go to Index Blue Mountains History Journal 9 2019 BLUHEISTMOORYUNJOTUARINNASL http://www.bluemountainsheritage.com.au/journal.html (A publication of the BLUE MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ORGANISATIONS INCORPORATED) ISSUENo.9 NOVEMBER2019 ISSN1838-5036 CONTENTS Editorial Peter C. Rickwood v Travelling to Wonderland: the Emergence of Coach Services from the Blue Mountains to Jenolan Caves in the Pre-Motor Era JohnLowOAM 1 Caves House, Jenolan Caves: The Evolution of the Cultural Landscape from First European Settlement to the Present Day Chris Betteridge 23 Henry Rienits: Amateur Geologist and Peter C. Rickwood & Principal of The School at Mt Victoria Joan E. Steele 43 George Kitch (1843-1914): Katoomba Photographer and Businessman(1889-1914)–Part2 TedSzafraniec67 Associate-ProfessorR.IanJack(1935-2019) PeterC.Rickwood109 ProfessorBarrieG.R.Reynolds(1932-2019) PeterC.Rickwood111 Cumulative Index 113 EDITORIAL First news of three of our principal members. I need to report sad news concerning two of them: • our President, Associate-Professor R. Ian Jack died on 5 September; • and our initial Secretary, Professor Barrie Reynolds died on 3 November Appreciations are given at the end of this issue. On a happy note our Correspondence Secretary Jan Koperberg, who for a long time was Secretary and even Treasurer, is to be congratulated as it was announced in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list that she had been awarded an OAM Issue 9 ofThe Blue Mountains History Journal contains four papers; two are on different topics relating to the Jenolan Caves, the third concerns a 19th and early 20th Century resident of Mount Victoria and the fourth is the second part of a review of the activities of a photographer and former mayor of Katoomba. Go to Index v Blue Mountains History Journal 9 2019 John Low has tackled the history of the ways that were used in earlier times to get to the Jenolan Caves. This paper reveals the hardships that 19th Century tourists had to undergo in order to get there and even after the train started to operate to Mount Victoria, and then to Tarana, there still was a lengthy horse drawn vehicle journey often terminating with a walk down to Jenolan. Not for the faint hearted and nor were the cave inspections in those years. While some of that travel is mentioned by Chris Betteridage his main topic is the development of the ‘village’ and specifically Caves House and gardens. His account of the sequential growth of Caves House, is followed by a description of the severe damage caused by a flood, and then the recovery and development of what is there today. With the eye of a heritage consultant versed in botany, Chris has revealed the importance of the gardens to the setting of the village. Mount Victoria has had a number of residents who became well known and a number of buildings that became heritage listed. The third paper relates to Henry Rienits - a neighbour of the more well known John W. Berghofer - and to his private educational establishment for boys with the curious nameThe School which was opened in 1885 almost two decades after the village became the rail head and gained importance. Herein is presented new investigative research of this second phase of the life and activities of Henry Rienits. In Issue 8Ted Szafraniec introduced readers to the work of the renowned Blue Mountains photographer George Kitch and now he has provided the sequel. This second part concentrates on the images that still exist and the methods that had to be used to produce them. As such it is a most valuable insight into Kitch’s photographic work and his associated business activities and is likely to become regarded as the most significant account of the photographic work of George Kitch. For the convenience of readers, at the end of this issue there is a cumulative list of the papers that were published in Issues 1 to 8. Extracts from this publication may be reproduced provided that the source is fully acknowledged. Dr Peter C. Rickwood, Editor vi Go to Index Blue Mountains History Journal 9 2019 TRAVELLING TO WONDERLAND: THE EMERGENCE OF COACH SERVICES FROM THE BLUE MOUNTAINS TO JENOLAN CAVES IN THE PRE-MOTOR ERA John Low 7 Church Street, Portland, NSW 2847 [email protected] Abstract Jenolan in 1884) that quickly assumes a principal During the second half of the nineteenth century, place in travel itineraries. an age when the horse was a central feature of social and economic life, the far-flung Fish River (Jenolan) Caves became the ‘jewel in the crown’ for the emerging Blue Mountains tourism industry. From their European ‘discovery’ and early visitation, through the gradual development of improved road access, this article tracks the growth of regular horse coach services to the Caves from the upper Blue Mountains (with an emphasis on Mount Victoria), reaching maturity in the 1880s and 1890s and then declining in the BMCL Local Studies Collection, PF 638 early twentieth century under the impact of the Figure 1. Katoomba ca.1900. internal combustion engine, an innovation which brought to an end the long era of human We often speak of this period as the ‘pre-motor dependence on the horse. age’ or the ‘horse age’ but with little real sense of how completely that world - its sights, sounds Key Words: horses, coaching, Jenolan Caves, and smells - has vanished. In the towns and Blue Mountains. villages of the Blue Mountains an array of both private and public horse-drawn vehicles plied the INTRODUCTION streets (Figure 1), while livery stables, To begin, we must set the scene: It’s the Upper blacksmiths, harness and saddle makers, Blue Mountains during the closing decades of the wheelwrights and coachbuilders were all features 19th century, a time when the arrival of the of the urban landscape. railway is a recent memory and the horse is still an integral thread in the fabric of daily life; local With tourism dependent on good horses and well- government is minimal and towns like maintained vehicles, it is the emergence of Katoomba, Blackheath and Mount Victoria are regular horse coach services to the Fish still in their formative years. River/Jenolan Caves (with a special emphasis on Mount Victoria) that I wish to explore in this But the population of the region is increasing and paper. a new tourist ‘industry’ is emerging in response to the growing numbers of local, inter-state and Early Access to the Caves international visitors wishing to see the While Gundungurra legends and stories – for picturesque views, ferny gullies and waterfalls example, ‘Gurangatch & Mirragan’ (Stockton being popularised in the press and railway guide 1993, pp.111-113) and ‘Walga the Sparrow- books (e.g. Anonymous 1886a). And, among hawk’ (Mathews 2003, p.29) - suggest that the these wonders, it is the subterranean limestone Caves (‘Bin-noo-mur’) were familiar and world of the Fish River Caves (officially named important to the indigenous inhabitants of the Go to Index 1 Blue Mountains History Journal 9 2019 who joined him as guide. Lucas’s published account (Lucas 1863) clearly describes a difficult horse ride across unforgiving (though beautiful) country and, while he would have made use of cart roads and tracks where they existed among the outlying settlements and farms, his description of the shredding of his and his companions’ clothes suggests a considerable ‘off- track’ component to his journey. JCH&PS Figure 3. Jeremiah Wilson’s coach at the Caves SLNSW, V1B/Blu M/13a Figure 2. The Devil’s Coach House, wood There is a misleading footnote in the 1886 edition engraving, 1880s. of The Railway Guide to New South Wales (Anonymous 1886a, fn. p.144) which implies region, knowledge of them was slow to filter out that “a good road” from Mount Victoria to the to the new settler community. Caves had existed from the time the Lucas party made their journey. It is an idea that has been As late as the 1850s their presence was still said repeated in subsequent local histories. But, while to be “very imperfectly known” (Anonymous a ‘parish road’ was apparently opened between 1856) and, while visitation was increasing by the Hartley and Oberon via Binda in 1867 (Havard & end of that decade (Whiting 1860), to visit them Dowd 1936, pp.28-29), there is no evidence of a at this time was not an easy matter, involving direct, serviceable carriage road linking Mount cross-country treks through rough country on Victoria with the Caves until the 1880s.