VOLUME 7 No. 8 August 2014 ISSN 1835-7628 FROM THE EDITOR ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING I am pleased to advise that Jim Boyce is back home and With Jim’s illness, the Executive has made the decision to recovering from his hospital excursion. However, he is on delay this year’s Annual General Meeting. It should have light duties and we again wish him well. Our Vice Presi- been held by the 30 June but application has been made dent Phil Colman gives some further thoughts in News and to the Department of Fair Trading (and granted) to delay Views below. it. The accounts have been audited and you will receive the formal notice in the near future. Thank you again to George Champion who has, with the support of Barbara Davies, supplied two more summaries The outcome of the inaugral meeting of the Society, as of the lives and contributions of former Presidents of the published in the Sydney Morning Herald of 23 September, Society. Thanks also to Merryn Parnell for getting into the 1924, is reproduced below. Please do not roll up at the spirit of the Secret Sites and supplying this month’s candi- Manly Town Hall on a third Thursday. date. Richard Michell NEWS AND VIEWS FROM THE V ICE P RESIDENT : I have just had an email from (editor) Richard Michell, to say that the next Newsletter is ready to go. However, he does not have a President’s Report, nor details of the next meeting. This points out, very clearly, especially to those of us who make up the executive, just how much we rely on Jim (for those who don’t know, Jim has had a sojourn in hospital which took him away from us for over a week) - on the burrowing everywhere for the next speaker; on the activities and the inspiration that comes out of his new , beloved “Ephemera Room” at Cromer; and most of all on the sometimes eight days a week that Jim devotes to the Society. Oh, as well, Jim has a wife currently in intensive DIARY care but who should be out soon. August We (all) need to keep this in mind, and try to find a way to spread the load. It could be making more effort to supply Date/time: 2pm, Saturday 9 th articles. Or helping to arrange speakers. Or there are many things we could do. Venue: Tramshed, Narrabeen Our recent Newsletters have documented the lives and Speaker: David Carment activities and input from past Presidents. Jim has another 50 years at least, and we must do all we can to help him to Topic: Mosman Historical Society that date. Phil Colman Peninsula Historian Vol 7 #8 August 2014 Page 1 POT POURRI power. They, however, proved of very little service and, shortly after starting, Mr. Daly used his hands. The wind did LIFE-SAVING APPARATUS more than either to send the apparatus along. The boat kept him company until he got to the slight break near the beach, On Saturday afternoon [22 November 1879], a trial of “Hu- and then returned to the steamer. He was then seen from me’s Life-Saving Apparatus” was made off Ocean Beach at the steamer to reach the beach in safety, but whether with Manly. A number of invitations had been issued to influen- the apparatus or not, could not be discerned by those on tial persons to be present, and in response, there appeared board. on board the steamer Commodore , which was to convey the passengers, four representatives of the Press, a lieutenant of There were about 200 persons on the beach where he land- the Rhin (?), Professor Hamilton (a friend of the “inventor”), ed. The Commodore’s head was then turned homewards, Mr. Hume himself, and four ladies and two gentlemen friends and in due course she arrived alongside at the Circular Quay. of the “man who was going to be thrown overboard.” This, after waiting half an hour past the advertised time for starting. Transcribed by George Champion from: The Echo , a Sydney daily evening newspaper, published by Fairfax and Sons, A move was at length made and soon the Commodore was 1875-1893. It cost one penny. Only limited issues are now steaming gallantly down the bay, the afternoon being beauti- available. It is not on Trove . fully fine, with a stiff breeze from the south-east. The Heads were rounded without any of the company on board showing JAMES MEEHAN signs of mal-de-mer and shortly afterwards the Commodore had taken up a position about three-quarters of a mile from the shore, and preparations were begun for the trial. The apparatus is in the shape like unto a Gothic window, without any “sill”; the sides are constructed of tin, are airtight and covered with canvas, with canvas bottom, on which the person to be rescued lies or sits. At one end is an air-tight drum, and there are two smaller drums at the other. The steamer’s boat was lowered in case of emergency, and then the apparatus, with a line attached, was thrown over- board. The sea was comparatively calm and there was no surf whatever until within a very short distance of the shore. The gentleman who was to “experiment”, and who is said to be a remarkably good swimmer, then made a melancholy attempt at a joke and plunged into the sea; he was not “thrown overboard”, and in so far as this was a breach of the programme, as the advertisement expressly stated that he was to be “thrown overboard”, there was cause for dissatis- faction at the very outset. But feelings of this nature were speedily dispelled by seeing the position in which Mr. Arthur Daly (for that is said to be the name of the gentleman who jumped overboard) was placed. He could not get into the apparatus, as each time he attempted to do so it turned over; and some alarm was beginning to be felt by those on the steamer. But the boat When in the city recently I noticed the fresh-looking statue of came to the rescue, and, after a little delay, he was sent on James Meehan in an alcove at near street level on the SE his journey. corner of the Lands Department building. With Meehan’s close connection to the Northern Beaches via his early sur- The means of propelling the apparatus were two pieces of veys, presumably its 2010 addition was reported in the Histo- wood on each side, fastened together by hinges; these pro- rian at the time. In case you missed it, the information from jected over the end of the apparatus, and connected with the the Lands Department website is reproduced below (with handles which Mr. Daly worked by a thick wire. When he some editing as parts of it do not make coherent sense). For pushed, the pieces of wood opened and gave the resisting Peninsula Historian Vol 7 #8 August 2014 Page 2 a full and far more readable coverage of Meehan see A most He continued to work on departmental duties and, from excellent surveyor, Crossing Press 2004 , by Tony Dawson. Ed. difficult beginnings, rose to be an important colonial surveyor, explorer and settler, surveying and mapping large ‘11/2010- a new statue of colonial surveyor James Meehan areas of the country. The early towns of Sydney, Parramatta, (1774-1826) was created and placed in an empty niche on Bathurst, Port Macquarie and Hobart were all explored, laid cnr. Loftus/Bent Streets. out and measured by Meehan. Meehan was also associated with Macquarie Field House, Campbelltown, an early country Meehan was transported to NSW due to involvement in the estate and farm, separately listed on the NSW State Heritage Irish Rebellion of 1798. He arrived in Sydney in 1800 and, as Register a teacher and skilled surveyor, was assigned as a servant to Acting Surveyor-General, Charles Grimes. Within two years The statue was commissioned by the Land & Property he had been on two major expeditions and, by 1806, had been Management Authority to commemorate Meehan, in close conditionally pardoned. collaboration with NSW Public Works Heritage Services and the Government Architect's Office (Devine, 2011).’ SECRET SITES If the previous month’s secret site stumped everyone there was no such difficulty last month. Many readers recognised the ancient figure as none other than our own Phil Colman. For reasons that perhaps only Phil could explain, back in 1982, when the Australian Museum - where Phil worked - held a function to mark the 100 th anniversary of the death of Charles Darwin, the then-Director, Dr. Ronald Strahan, decided that Phil should dress up as the famous figure. The photo records the outcome. However, many readers were not fooled. As several noted, nothing could disguise those eyebrows! While it is perhaps not fair, under these circumstances, to single out one respondent, I do think that Marcia Rackman does deserve a special mention. She emailed: “The mystery gentleman in this months newsletter would have to be the wonderful Phil Colman, though the image looks as though it could have been taken last century!” She added: “Do hope that Mr Boyce is well on the road to recovery.” This month we are back to inert objects. What and where is the building in the photo below? It has been submitted by Merryn Parnell who lives towards the northern end of the Peninsula, which may or may not be a clue. We will return to one of Bryant Lavaring’s original mysteries next issue.