History revisited - problems with tribes

In my last column, I said that Norman Tindale (1974) concluded that the Anaiwan language group occupied the New England Tableland from Guyra and Ben Lomond south to Uralla and Moonbi Range; north to Tingha; at Bendemeer and Armidale. He listed a variety of different spellings of the name: Anaywan, Anewan, Nowan, Enni-won, Yenniwon, Ee-na-won, En-nee-win, Eneewin, Inuwan, Inuwon, Nee-inuwon, Enuin.

While I think that the small locality now known as Armidale was in Anaiwan language territory, there is a huge problem with Tindale’s work, one that bedevils us today. To Tindale, a “tribe” was an entity speaking a common language and occupying a clearly defined territory that could be mapped. In the way Tindale defined it, tribal and language boundaries were identical.

Tindale’s work has been incredibly influential, in part because it can be expressed in defined map terms. It has also been enshrined in things like land rights legislation demanding that Aboriginal people show specific defined connections with land capable of being mapped. It is also reflected in conflicts over things like welcome to country, since this has now become an ownership matter.

This is, in fact, another case of European ideas being imposed on and creating conflict within Aboriginal society.

In traditional Aboriginal life, customary ownership rested with the local group, each speaking its own dialect. Individuals had kin connections with other groups and therefore rights in other territories. Further, there were also customary rights that allowed people to travel or groups to come together. Land ownership was a cobweb of rights and responsibilities.

The Anaiwan language group or nation, to use modern terms, was not a defined entity, but the territory occupied by local groups who spoke a broadly common language and shared cultural links.

In my last column, I suggested that the Tablelands’ language groups were squeezed between powerful neighbours, making them and the territory they occupied the meeting place of multiple nations, the dividing line between the coastal and riverine traditions.

In the north, the Anaiwan language shows powerful Gumbaingirr influences, for Gumbaingirr speaking groups were neighbours, interconnected with the Anaiwan. As we move south, Dainggati influences appear. In the far south of the Tablelands, I suspect that we would find Birpai or Gadhang influences on the Anaiwan language. On the west along the length of the Tablelands, we would find Gamilaraay language connections.

There is a story to be told here, if only we can break from the obsession with who owned what at a point on the map. We can never know for certain, but we now know enough to start to start charting some of the dynamics of traditional Aboriginal life as it played out in the territory that we all now call home.

Note to readers: This post is a column that was scheduled to appear in the Armidale Express Extra on 18 December 2013. It was bumped because of the need to allow a reader a follow up response to my column History revisited - geography plays a role in language. I do not object to that, but am running the column here so that its is available.

You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - geography plays a role in language

For some time, there has been a dispute about just which Aboriginal language group occupied that small patch of land now known as Armidale. I know that this has caused a degree of confusion among non-Aboriginal people who do not understand either the reasons for, or the significance of, the dispute. For that reason, I thought that I should provide you with some background material over the next few columns.

In this first column I want to start looking at the historical evidence, pointing to some of the dynamic elements involved. I write with caution and with great respect for all those involved. I fully accept that my views may be challenged on the basis of evidence.

To understand the dispute, we need to understand the geography of the Tablelands and surrounding areas and the relationship between that geography and traditional Aboriginal life. We also need to understand that Aboriginal language groups were not single entities, but combinations of local groups each speaking their own tongue that could vary greatly, while also displaying common features across space and time.

If you look at the geography of the Tablelands you can see to the east the coastal river valleys. These were occupied by large and powerful language groups whose territory followed watersheds, extending onto the Tablelands. These groups were not united, but displayed differences between those in the lower and upper valleys. Some modern Aborigines call this the salt water, fresh water divide. It was the upper valley Aborigines who were most closely linked to the Tablelands.

To the west, the geographic barriers between the river valleys are smaller. This allowed one powerful language group, the Kamilaroi or Gamillaraay. to spread so that their territory broadly stretched along the length of the Tablelands.

In geographic terms, the Tablelands stretches north-south, but is much narrower west-east. Further, it was a poorer area in ecological terms than either the coast or western slopes and plains. This made for smaller populations whose territories were relatively narrow in east-west terms, but elongated in north-south terms.

Squeezed between their powerful neighbours, the Tablelands’ language areas were the meeting place of multiple nations, the dividing line between the coastal and riverine traditions. This did not always make for an easy life, with the patterns of interaction including marriage varying greatly from place to place depending on just who the neighbours were.

Writing much later, Norman Tindale (1974) recorded the location of the Anaiwan language group in this mix as occupying the New England tableland from Guyra and Ben Lomond south to Uralla and Moonbi Range; north to Tingha; at Bendemeer and Armidale. He listed a variety of different spellings of the name: Anaywan, Anewan, Nowan, Enni-won, Yenniwon, Ee-na-won, En-nee-win, Eneewin, Inuwan, Inuwon, Nee-inuwon, Enuin

The evidence I have seen broadly supports this conclusion, placing Armidale squarely in Anaiwan territory. I believe that to be true. However, and as you might expect from the geography, the on-ground position was a little more mixed than that.

In my next column, I will look in more detail at the distribution of the Anaiwan language and the relations with other groups.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 December 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - bringing to light the advent of electricity

Continuing the story of Armidale’s electricity supply, the tepid response by ratepayers at the October 1920 Council poll on the establishment of an Armidale electricity scheme left Armidale Council in something of a quandary. The enthusiasts still wished to proceed, but how to do it?

By November, a Council committee was investigating the possibility of supplying Armidale from a hydro-electric scheme. The possible use of hydro-electricity to meet electricity needs and to support Northern industrial development was much under discussion at the time.

The chief protagonist was Earle Page, a South Grafton doctor who had just become member for Cowper in the Australian Parliament for the newly formed Country Party. Page was a passionate advocate for Northern development, as well as a key leader in the campaign for self government for Northern New South Wales,

In March 1917, Page had toured hydro-electric projects in Canada and the United States. In 1918, he became mayor of South Grafton. In that role he initiated the Nymboida hydro-electric scheme, as well as pursuing his broader vision of the electrification of Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland.

Armidale’s electricity protagonists were interested, but cautious. The Nymboida project was still just a project. It would be September 1923 before Page, now Commonwealth Treasurer and Acting Prime Minister, laid the foundation stone, November 1924 before the power was turned on. Then, too, there was the case of Hillgrove.

The mines at Hillgrove required a heavy investment in power to light the mines, carry men and ore up the sheer gorge sides and to operate the processing machinery. The steam engines used consumed large quantities of water and timber. The residents of Hillgrove complained about constant problems in getting access to water supplies monopolised by the mining companies.

Hydro power was seen as the answer. Work began in 1893 on a plant on the Gara River. When the lights of Hillgrove were turned on in late February 1895, Hillgrove became the first town in Australia to be lit by hydro power. There were immediate problems with the small dam size, the wood flumes carrying the water to the power plant and with drought. In the end, the venture would fail, but it showed what was possible, as well as the costs and risks.

By August 1921 when Council had decided that it was all just too hard, salvation came in the form of H A Marshall, a Sydney electrical engineer. At this point, I have very little information on Mr Marshall. That’s a pity, for he is quite an important figure in Armidale’s history.

Mr Marshall was clearly something of an entrepreneur, for on August 12 1921 he presented a proposal to Council construct a generating plant if Council would provide a franchise for electricity supply. This was accepted, and the City of Armidale Electric Supply Company Ltd was formed.

Twelve months later to the day, the new plant built at a cost of £14,000 opened. Armidale was lit.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 4 December 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - city joins the revolution as the world lights up

Armidale, Saturday 12 August 1922. Watched by the crowd gathered inside the works, Mrs Marshall cut the blue ribbon holding a bottle of champagne above the great six ton fly wheel as the 100 horsepower Ruston Hornby suction gas engine began operation. As the band played, the 110 customers of the City of Armidale Electric Supply Company Ltd received their first electricity. 

Almost 34 years earlier, on Friday 9 November 1888, a similar ceremony had been held in Tamworth as that town of 3,000 people turned on its arc and incandescent street lighting, becoming the first town in Australia to be lit by electricity.

It was just ten years since US inventor Thomas Edison had developed the first commercially viable replacement for gas lighting and heating, seven years since the first streets had been lit by electric light in the Surrey town of Godalming.

Despite Tamworth’s early adoption, electricity generation and supply spread quite slowly. By 1906, there were only 46 electric light and power stations throughout Australia with an aggregate capacity of 23,000 kW. Of these, eighteen were operated by municipal or local authorities.

There were practical reasons for this slow spread. Power and lighting was seen as a municipal function. As happened in the City of Sydney, councils who had invested in gas lighting could be reluctant to invest further in or even allow a new and competing lighting supply, Ratepayers, too, were often opposed to any actions that might increase their rates. There were legal difficulties as well, for councils (and private interests, too) did not have the explicit power to act. Individual legislation was required.

There was initial interest in Armidale in electric supply. In 1889, electricity was much mentioned at the public meeting held in Armidale to consider the purchase by Council of the Armidale Gas Works established three years earlier. However, this was a matter for the enthusiasts, and Council decided to proceed with the purchase. Thereafter, interest lapsed.

By the spring of 1920, the establishment of a local electricity scheme was again a matter for debate, this time driven by enthusiastic aldermen. Ratepayer interest can best be described as tepid. After a poorly attended public meeting in October 1920, a subsequent Council poll was just as poorly supported. Scarcely 20 per cent of ratepayers bothered to vote, with 86 in favour of electricity, 53 against.

This tepid response left Council in something of a quandary. The enthusiasts still wished to proceed, but how to do it? Then, just when Council had decided that an electricity scheme was beyond its resources, salvation came unexpectedly.

I will continue this story in my next column.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 27 November 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

Writing history - organising material 1: record

This series of posts is especially addressed to those who write "big" history, although I hope that they will be useful to others. What do I mean by "big" history? Simply those whose topic(s) cover a wide span\ in space or time, who have to organise a volume of material that sometimes seems beyond them,

They are also addressed to those who, like me, write in multiple formats where you tailor your work to that format and then find that the material you have written is not useful in another and especially more formal format. For example, I write a weekly history column for the Armidale Express, Those columns are directly relevant to one major project, my history of the broader New England over the last 50,000 years.

This is where my present frustration with myself comes in. The columns are only 500 words, yet each year, I write the equivalent of a large honours thesis measured by word length, an MA every two years. Because the columns are for popular consumption, I do not give references, they are compilations and interpretations. But then when I come to use them in later writing, I have a problem: where do I find the sources? Now I have to waste time replicating my work to find the original references.

The lesson? Record your sources even if they are not included in the material you publish. It sounds simple and dumb, but its true!

History revisited - fast-forward back in time for quick service

I had no idea how bad water borne diseases were.....  typhoid was common killer.

I am constantly surprised at just how efficient Governments were in the nineteenth century, far more so than today.

The Municipality of Armidale was formally proclaimed on Tuesday 17 November 1863. Before an election could be held, a receiving officer had to be appointed. The Police Magistrate C T Weaver therefore nominated Christopher Dawson Fenwicke.

Mr Weaver’s letter nominating Mr Fenwicke is dated 23 November 1863. It was received in Sydney within four days and the required Executive Council minute was prepared on 28 November. The minute went to the Governor on 1 December and within a week both Mr Fenwick’s appointment and the date for the election were proclaimed in the Government Gazette. The election itself took place 22 December 1863.

Truly remarkable.

It would, I think, be unfair to say to much about those early councils since I suspect that the forthcoming Armidale Our Town production may have something to say. I am very much looking forward to it. However, those early councils could be quite fractious as local rivals fought for control. This was not limited to Armidale, but occurred in all the new councils across the North.

As always, questions of rates and debts were key; what should we spend, how do we fund it? The new councils had quite wide powers, in some ways wider than today. As today, they were also constrained by rate and borrowing caps imposed from Sydney. However, their key concerns were a little different from those we know now.

There was none of the angst over planning or environmental issues. That came much later. Rather, the focus was much more immediate.

The new municipalities’ roads were generally unmade, often still with tree stumps. Potholes were everywhere, while the roads became bogs during wet weather. The first concern was to remove those stumps, fill those potholes, place gravel on the roads. Then over the second half of the nineteenth century came four more concerns, fire, water, sewerage and lighting.

Fire was an enormous problem with wood buildings and no fire brigades. All Northern towns suffered, some very badly. Councils and aldermen helped from new brigades.

Water and sewerage was more difficult, for this involved real money. Until I came to research New England history, I had no idea just how bad water borne diseases were in our urban localities. Leaving aside the 1905 outbreak of plague in Lismore brought in via ship, typhoid was common killer.

Typhoid? What else would you expect with sewerage being dumped in creeks or polluting ground water and wells from sewerage pits? It really was a killer. Because of the cost to rate payers, all the new councils were reluctant to act. In the end, all had too.

That leaves lighting. Here there is a special story, one that I will leave to another column.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 20 November 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

Ending a Never Ending Story

It was in 2007 or early 2008 that I set myself the target of completing my history of New England as soon as possible. If I could complete just 300 words per day, I told myself, I can have my first draft completed in a year. Now, five years later, I seem to have made little progress!

It's not that I haven't written a lot on New England history. I have, several hundred thousand words including my weekly Express column, two book chapters, three major seminar papers plus multiple blog posts.

It's not that my knowledge hasn't deepened. It has. It's deepening all the time to the point that I can genuinely claim to be an expert in knowledge terms. However, herein lies the first of my problems, my increasing knowledge of the gaps in my knowledge.

The history I am writing now is very different from that I would have written in 2008. The basic structure is the same, but the texture and depth is far greater. New topics have emerged, older ones shrunk in importance. The political dimension has shrunk, for example, although it retains its role as a basic framework. By contrast, economic, social and cultural topics have expanded.

Five years ago, for example, I wondered whether we could speak of a New England literary tradition despite the many books written by New Englanders or about New England. Now I know that there is not just one but several New England literary traditions. Unseen, they still exert influence. They are a story in themselves.

Five years ago I considered that the history was important to provide a picture to New Englanders of their own history and life. Based on feedback through comments and emails as well as discussion, I am convinced that this is even more important than I realised, especially for New England's Aboriginal peoples who often lack access to basic details about their past.

I am not good at setting targets. More precisely, at personal level I set many that I then fail to achieve. I get distracted. Still, I have set 2014 as the year of the book, My aim is to have a full draft completed by year's end. This time, and like my weekly column, I will write to time and not to perfection. After all, once its done I can get on with other things, including bringing out a second edition if that seems sensible.

The book is broken into three parts, Aboriginal New England, Colonial New England, New England in the Twentieth  Century. I will allocate three months to each section, leaving three months for introduction, follow up and polishing.

Do I have the discipline to stick to this in the face of other pressures? We will see. I'm not sure. But to impose an external public discipline, I will report progress here.     

History revisited - Armidale by periods and themes

As we come up to Armidale’s Sesquicentenary, I thought that I would give you an overview of the city’s history. I think of it in terms of periods, each with its own themes.

By far the longest period, of course, is the Aboriginal period before the town’s foundation in 1839. We don’t know when the Aborigines first came to the Armidale area. We have dates in Southern Queensland of around 22,000 years ago, older dates not far away. Dates for the Tablelands are much more recent, suggesting that the Aborigines came or came back to the Tablelands perhaps 10,000 years ago as the dry and icy conditions created by what was called the Late Glacial Maximum finally ended.

The Aboriginal settlers established a sophisticated life style developing new technology, including Bondi points, small stone blades used in the fearsome death spears. As they walked their familiar runs, they used fire to cultivate and built bora rings and other ceremonial grounds, including substantial stone constructions. At night as the smoke from the fires drifted into the star-lit sky, they told stories, passing knowledge and sometimes tall tales onto the young.

From 1788, European diseases such as smallpox spread from Port Jackson, bringing social destruction decades before the Europeans actually arrived. By the time the squatting rush reached the area around Armidale, traditional Aboriginal society had been seriously weakened. Now it would be largely destroyed.

The arrival of the squatters marks the start of Armidale’s often wild and largely male frontier period. Crown Land Commissioners were appointed to control the flooding settlement. Armidale’s founder, Commissioner Macdonald, was a hump-backed romantic who sat in his hut writing poetry about love that, in the end, he would fail to find. Thus began the Armidale poetic tradition.

The frontier period culminated in the New England gold rushes. A mass of moving humanity spread across the landscape; Thunderbolt preyed on the gold shipments. Now began the second period of Armidale’s colonial history, the establishment of social order.

Men may feature in the formal books, but it was the newly arriving women who strongly formed this period because of the need to establish order for them and their families. This was the period of the growth of towns, the firm establishment of pastoral dynasties, the rise of the small farmer. There was money to be made and Armidale prospered, creating the buildings that mark the old city today. In political terms, the fights over separation were replaced by fights to unlock land and then by disputes over tariffs.

Federation started a new period. After the depression of the 1890s and the great drought that marked the start of the new century, there was optimism that would be damaged first by the Great War, then the Great depression and the Second World War. Still, Armidale prospered because of its place at the heart of new political movements, a resurgent new state movement and the new Country Party. Armidale became the prospective capital of a new state. First the Parthenon on the Hill appeared, then a university college.

Driven by education, Armidale grew rapidly from the end of the Second World War. New suburbs emerged, along with the first flats. By the early 1970s, official forecasts saw Armidale’s population exceeding that of Tamworth. . Within Armidale, debate shifted from a focus on growth to worries about the impact of growth, blind to troubles on the horizon, for largely unseen, New England had entered a process of social and economic change that affected every aspect of city life.

The new state agitation that had supported Northern development largely collapsed after the plebiscite defeat in 1967. Old industries declined, locally owned businesses were taken over, tertiary education went through a forced restructuring process that saw first the forced merger of the University and College of Advanced Education then the failed creation of a networked university. For the first time in its history, Armidale’s population declined.

The city has largely come through that turmoil. Optimism has returned, and with it a new stage in the city’s history.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 13 November 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - the "pink ribbon" gang

There are many stories hidden within the history of Northern New South Wales, stories now forgotten or little known. Have you ever heard of the 'Jewboy gang'? I had not.

Edward Davis was born 1n 1816. His place of birth is uncertain, as indeed is his real name. However, it does appear that he was Jewish.

In April 1832 under the name George Wilkinson, Davis was centered to transportation for seven years for attempting to steal a wooden till along with some copper corns. He arrived in Sydney in February 1833. Convinced of the wrongness of his sentence and determined to find freedom, Davis made the first of three unsuccessful escape attempts in December 1833. Now with an ever lengthening sentence, in July 1838 Davis made a further escape attempt, this time remaining at liberty.

In the summer of 1839, Davis formed a gang of runaway convicts. Davis’s biographer G F J Bergman suggests that they were not hardened criminals, but more juvenile delinquents who considered themselves chevaliers of the road. Davis himself bore curious tattoos, while gang members wore gaudy clothes and tied pink ribbons to their horses.

The gang based themselves at Pilcher’s Mountain near Dungog. Formed by tectonic stresses, Pilcher’s Mountain is a maze of massive boulders, with many caves and hiding places. From this base, the gang launched a series of raids across the Hunter and onto the Liverpool Plains as far north as Tamworth. They adopted a Robin Hood approach, distributing part of the booty to assigned convict servants.

By December 1840, the gang had grown to seven members. On 21 December, they descended on Scone. Davis had always insisted that they should use violence only for their preservation of their own liberty, but this time things went wrong.

The gang broke into two groups. Three including Davis went to rob the St Aubin Arms, four to rob the store of Thomas Dangar, a member of a family that would become well known across New England.

At the store, the store-keeper’s clerk, a young Englishman named John Graham, fired a shot. The gang’s John Shea returned fired, killing Graham. Learning the news, Davis realised that the gang was now in deep trouble. Gathering his men, they fled to one of their hiding places, Doughboy Hollow near Murrurundi.

Retribution was swift. Police magistrate Captain Edward Day organised a party of mounted men to pursue the bushrangers.

Day is another of those important minor figures in New England history; in June 1838 he was in charge of the party sent to arrest the men responsible for the massacre on Henry Dangar’s (Thomas’s uncle) Myall Creek Station; later he would be police magistrate for the Northern Districts.

Day’s party surprised the gang. With one exception, they were captured after a short battle and later sentenced to hang. Davis himself attracted considerable public sympathy, but appeals for clemency were rejected.

On 16 March 1841 Davis, assisted by the reader of the Sydney Synagogue, was hanged at the rear of the old Sydney goal together with his companions.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 6 November 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - picture-perfect book gives a simply brilliant insight into the region

I have a rather special book on my shelves. Called simply Armidale, it is number 21 of a print run of just 78. It is clearly a semi-commercial publication, for it carries advertisements at the back. But it is also quite a sumptuous book.

It has a velvet cover, glossy pages with full colour reproductions of paintings from the Hinton Collection carefully separated by tissue paper bound into the book and many photos of Armidale scenes. The printers are Reg G Pogonoski Pty Ltd of Newcastle whose proprietor proclaims himself as a proud Armidalian.

What is the book? It is the limited edition of the book published in 1938 to mark the 75^th anniversary of the proclamation of Armidale as a municipality.

In some ways, it is a triumphal book, the story of a small city secure in itself, confident of its achievements, proud of its progress.

Harold J Robinson’s newly rebuilt Tattersall’s Hotel proclaims that it is equipped with every modern convenience: electric light, steam heated bedrooms, air conditioned throughout. Indeed, by then standards, it was a quite a luxurious establishment, a place well suited for visiting parents coming to see their children at school.

Many years later, I remember sitting an armchair in the lounge at the front, waiting nervously to meet a girlfriend’s parents for the first time. Even then, it carried the trappings of its past glories.

To mark the seventy five years, a special Back to Armidale committee has been formed to organise the festivities. Chaired by F K Lamb with P N Harrison as secretary and W S Forsyth as Treasurer, the committee has no less than 82 members representing every section of the city. Mayor W H McBean acted as president of the celebrations themselves.

What did the local citizens then consider worthy of celebration? In many ways, current residents would find the themes quite familiar. There is a general history section prepared by students from the Teacher’s College, along with special sections on Captain Thunderbolt and the story of the newspaper press in Armidale. The local homesteads are featured, as is the Council and its aldermen.

The largest sections in the book are devoted to education, churches, public institutions and societies and to sport. What were the main sports in 1938? Seven are featured: shooting, racing, rugby league, rugby union, cricket, hockey, golf, bowls, tennis, and fishing.

I see that Rugby Union had fallen into decline, kept alive by the schools. Now the New England Rugby Union is being reborn, with the aim of running a full competition in 1939. That happened, with the New England University College fielding its first team coached by the New Zealand born Jim Belshaw.

Throughout the book, black and white photos display the beauty of the New England countryside. “See the Beauties of New England”, proclaims Charles Purkiss. “Travel by Woodward and Purkiss Motor Services.”

Beautiful then, just as beautiful now.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 30 October 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

The photo of Armidale in Autumn comes from Gordon Smith.

History revisited - Ursulines forged a future from Armidale

Count Otto von Bismark was an iron willed, bigoted man.

The German Empire he helped create with its pride, military power and weak democratic structures would have a dramatic impact on Armidale through the First World War, the war of the European dynasties. However, Bismark had another and far more positive impact, one that affects Armidale to this today.

In 1870, Bismark’s intrigues sucked Emperor Napoleon the Third of France into declaring war on Prussia. Swept by patriotic fervor, the other German states came to Prussia’s aid. French Imperial pride was crushed, a defeat that changed the political landscape of Europe.

The French Empire was destroyed. A second, the German, was born. On 18 January 1871 in a symbolic gesture that would haunt European politics for seventy years, King William of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

Bismark had achieved his political objectives, but he had still to create a unified German state. As part of this, in 1871 he launched an anti-Catholic Kulturkampf ("culture struggle") in Prussia. Partly motivated by fear that Pius IX and future popes would use papal infallibility as a weapon for promoting a potential "papal desire for international political hegemony", it was also intended to help create a unified state.

Kulturkampf led to confiscation of church property and the exile of many clergy. Finally, the waves reached the ancient Hanoverian town of Duderstadt, forcing a small order of nuns, the Ursulines, into hurried exile in London.

On the other side of the world, Armidale’s newly created Roman Catholic Bishop Elzear Torreggiani had a problem. In 1879, Archbishop Vaughan of Sydney and his three suffragan Bishops issued a joint pastoral letter that condemned State schools, among other things, as “seedplots of future immorality, infidelity and lawlessness”.

The letter raised a storm of controversy, for it played into the local sectarian and anti Roman Catholic feelings that had been inflamed by the decisions of the first Vatican Council. One result was the passage in NSW of the Public Instruction Act of 1880, withdrawing all state support for church schools.

The Roman Catholic response was immediate. “I will solve the school question in a way that will astonish them,” Vaughan declared. The solution lay in the creation of a new school system. This was a tad of a problem for Bishop Torreggiani in Armidale, for he had no money, no buildings and no teachers!

Torreggiani set about raising money and acquiring buildings. To attract teachers, he wrote to the exiled Ursulines in London inviting them to come to Armidale. They accepted the call, arriving in Armidale in September 1882. Their impact was profound.

Today we see this in buildings, but it was far more than that. The Ursulines were highly educated middle class women with a far broader view of women’s education than was common at the time.

They and their girls contributed to every aspect of Armidale and New England life. At a time when the Church’s view of the role of women was very limited, the Ursuline girls were entering university. I think that’s rather wonderful.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 23 October 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - Torreggiani makes his mark

In my last column, I referred to the unfortunate political circumstances that led to the sudden departure of Armidale’s first Roman Catholic Bishop, Bishop O’Mahony. I also suggested that Elzear Torreggiani was selected as replacement because he was neither English nor Irish!

Aloysius, he received the name Ezra when he joined the Order of St Francis, was born in Italy in 1830. After studying philosophy and theology at Ancona, he volunteered for the foreign missions. To his surprise, he was sent to England: “I knew it must be the will of God” he said later, “because there was none of my own in it.”

His success in Wales and England as a missioner and administrator drew him to the attention of Archbishop Vaughan of Sydney as a possible replacement to Bishop O’Mahony. Torreggiani accepted the call, arriving in Sydney in March 1879.

Torreggiani’s new post was a real challenge. It was geographically huge, covering the Western Slopes, Tablelands and much of the North Coast, with no railways and very few defined roads. There were some 10,000 Catholics in the diocese, served by only nine priests and two schools. He had to heal the divisions created by the disputes over Bishop O’Mahony, while managing fundamental changes in the Church itself.

The new Bishop decided that his first task must be to visit every corner of his vast territory. Over the next three years, he traveled by steamer, by coach, in buggies and by horseback, crisscrossing east to west and north to south. In all, he covered over 64,000 km (40,000 miles), returning to Armidale briefly in breaks to carry out necessary business.

Torreggiani’s weight (133 kg) added to his difficulties, but he seemed to thrive. Later, he would delight in recounting stories of his travels. He had, he would say, wrecked two buggies and almost wrecked two steamers, one of which had run aground on a sandbank near Lismore.

To those who feared for his safety during this time, he said that instead of getting killed he had become stouter and was increasing daily in health and strength!

Torreggiani’s personality shines through in the stories about him. In the twenty-five years he shared a house with the Bishop, Patrick O’Connor later wrote, he had never seem him once ruffled despite circumstances that would almost tempt a saint.

As we shall see next week in the last episode in this story, Bishop Torreggiani would need those strengths.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 16 October 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - even the church couldn't escape political infighting

Short of height but large in girth, he tipped the scales at 127 kilos (twenty stone), Bishop Elzear Torreggiani arrived in Melbourne in November 1879. Two weeks later, he arrived in Armidale to take up his new bishopric. This was, in some ways, a very political appointment, but also an inspired one.

The Catholic diocese of Armidale was created in November 1862, but the first bishop, Dr Timothy O’Mahony, was not consecrated until 1869. Bishop O’Mahony’s arrival in Armidale was delayed by his attendance at the First Vatican Council (December 1869- October1870). Finally, on 23 March 1871, he took possession of his new see.

Bishop O’Mahony threw himself into the organisation .and development of the Armidale diocese. However, scandal now intervened. To understand this, we need to understand a little of church politics.

The then head of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, Archbishop John Polding was an English Benedictine. Polding’s views on the role of the Church were opposed by some of the majority Irish clergy. In February 1873 and at Polding’s insistence, Roger William Bede Vaughan was appointed coadjutor Archbishop.

An Englishman like Polding, Vaugan’s appointment was supported by Cardinal Manning, the Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury and indeed the British Government itself. However, Vaughan proved to be a somewhat difficult man who soon formed an extremely critical view of Polding’s administration.

O’Mahony, friendly, hospitable and a bright conversationalist, was initially favoured Vauhan. However, not long after Vaughan arrived, O’Mahony involved himself in colonial church politics, signing with his fellow Irish suffragans a post-factum objection to Vaughan as Archbishop.

Rumours began circulating the clergy and laity in the north. O’Mahony’s jovial habits were interpreted as intemperance, while a claim against him by a young woman about the paternity of her child became public knowledge. Later this charge was withdrawn and the author of the blackmail, a priest whom O'Mahony had trusted, was named. However, by then it was too late.

In 1874, Archbishop Vaughan formally referred the rumours and charges against O’Mahony to Rome and was directed to investigate. He was then accused of bias in his selection of witnesses by Bishop James Quinn of Brisbane.

Quinn was concerned for the prestige of the Irish bishops and scented a conspiracy against them. He therefore sent Father George Dillon to Armidale to obtain evidence to clear O'Mahony from the charge of being 'a perpetual drunkard' and mounted a violent counter-attack in Australia and the Irish College.

In 1875, Vaughan reported to Rome that he found the main charge unproven, but recommended that O'Mahony resign and go to Rome. Mahony had little choice but to accept. Vaughan then appointed Torreggiani, an Italian, as O’Mahony’s replacement in part on the grounds that he was neither English nor Irish!

In my next column, I will continue the remarkable story of Elzear Torreggiani and the mark he left upon Armidale.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 9 October 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - pressed for change

One current exhibition at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum is called Technologies that Changed Our Minds. The display looks at some of the technologies that fundamentally changed our concept of who we are and our place in the universe.

That’s interesting in itself, but I was interested to discover that one exhibit had a uniquely Armidale connection. This is an Albion cast iron hand printing press manufactured by A Wilson & Sons, London, in 1850.

While heavy, it’s not an especially large piece, with a height of 1.4m, a width of .87 metres and a depth of 1.8m. However, the story of that press is partly the story of Australia itself.

On 26 July 1839, Henry Parkes and his wife arrived in Sydney as assisted immigrants on board the Strathfieldsaye, along with a baby born just two days before. Parkes had limited formal education, but loved writing and began publishing poems and articles. He also developed an interest in politics and was attracted to the radical wing in colonial politics.

In April 1850, he joined with the Reverend John Dunmore Lang and J R Wilshire to establish the Australian League to work for universal suffrage and the transformation of the Australian colonies into a 'Great Federal Republic'.

Lang occupies an important place in New England history, for having campaigned successfully for self-government first for Port Phillip (Victoria) and then Moreton Bay (Queensland), he turned his attention to the achievement of self-government for Northern New South Wales. Here he failed, although the campaign would continue.

In the fluid politics of the time, Parkes began to shift his support to the liberals who, like the radicals, were opposed to the constitutional views of the conservatives led by William Charles Wentworth,

Late in 1850 Parkes found support to set up as editor-proprietor of the Empire, using the Albion printing press The paper began as a weekly, but quickly moved to a daily as it became the chief organ of nineteenth mid-century liberalism

Sadly, Parkes was no business man. Indeed, he spent much of his working life on the edge of bankruptcy to the sometimes distress of his family. By 1856, the Empire was in financial trouble. The Albion press had to be sold.

The purchasers were William Hipgrave and Walter Craigie who loaded their newly acquired printing press onto a bullock dray and set out from Maitland early in 1856 to found the Armidale Express,

The press remained in Armidale until 1929 when it was given to the Technological Museum by Armidale Newspapers Ltd. Now, all these years later, you can see this historic piece of machinery.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 2 October 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - New England rode high in rodeo past

For Father’s Day, youngest (Clare) gave me Alwyn Torebeek with David Gilchrist, Life in the Saddle: Adventures of the Legendary horseman the Kokotunga Kid, Michael Joseph, Melbourne 2011). My family tease me sometimes because I can always find a New England connection. This case proved to be no different!

Investigating the history of rodeo in Australia, I found that on Thursday 28 March 1946, a group of bushmen had gathered at the Imperial Hotel in Maitland. They had important business to consider, the formation of a new association, the Northern (N.S.W.) Bushmen's Carnival Association.

In 1960, the name was changed to the Australian Bushmen’s Carnival Association and then in 1985 to the Australian Bushmen’s Campdraft & Rodeo Association (ABCRA). Today, the Tamworth based ABCRA along with its rival, the Warwick based Australian Professional Rodeo Association (APRA), are the largest national rodeo bodies.

By that Thursday in 1948, events based on riding or stock activities including roughriding and camp drafting had a long history. During the 1880s, newspapers were recording Victorian roughriding events, included rough riding and bullock-throwing. In 1885, the first formal competition involving the uniquely Australian sport of campdrafting was held at that year’s Tenterfield Show.

The first draft was not held in the ring, but just outside the Tenterfield Showground on a vacant area. One of the competitors, Clarence Smith, a cattleman and horse breeder from Boorook Station, drew up the rules that remain the basis of the sport today.

From the 1890s, there were many Australian and some international Wild West shows travelling the country. Bushmen's Carnivals, the Australian equivalents of American rodeos, originated in Northern New South Wales in the 1920s and were well established by the 1930s. In 1930, Warwick, Queensland added the American-style contests of clowns, ropers and trick riders

The Americanisation of language and later equipment that had begun to take place did not please all. By the mid 1930s Mick Bruxner, the Member for Tenterfield and NSW Country Party Leader and Deputy Premier, was complaining at the way that the popularity of American westerns seemed to be affecting the language surrounding bush events.

Bruxner’s cousin was the noted Australian film maker, Warwick born Charles Chauvel. Annoyed by the dominance of American films and the pernicious effects on the language, Bruxner persuaded the NSW Government to attempt to introduce quotas requiring NSW cinemas to show a certain proportion of Australian films. This first ever Australian content rule seems to have failed, although the specific reasons for that are unclear.

In some ways, the period from the end of the Second World War until the advent of television marked the peak of rodeo and bush carnival activities. These were massively popular events in country Australia. Still, they remain popular with the smell of the dust and the horses, the noise, the sudden sharp excitement.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 25 September 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - turning the page on a new chapter with newspapers

In the early 1980s, a young Armidale historian named Brendan O’Keefe and his wife decided to renovate their house in Faulkner Street. There they made a remarkable discovery. They knew the house was one of the oldest surviving buildings in Armidale. Now, removing the inner walls, they found newspapers pasted to the inside of the outer walls as insulation. They proved to be the only copies ever found of a vanished newspaper, the Armidale Telegraph.

Our story begins on 1 December 1855. Armidale citizens concerned that their new town did not have a newspaper did as all civic activists have done to the present day. They convened a public meeting to consider the best way to establish a local paper for the New England district. A fund raising committee was formed and finally raised £89 12s and 6d.

The results of the meeting were advertised in the Maitland Mercury, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Empire. Two staff members from the Mercury, then the North’s premier newspaper and still the second oldest surviving paper in NSW (the Sydney Morning Herald is the first, the Armidale Express the third) decided to accept the challenge,

Early in 1856, William Hipgrave and Walter Craigie loaded their newly acquired printing press and other kit onto a bullock dray and set out from Maitland for Armidale. It took them twenty seven days. They called their paper the Armidale Express, with the first edition appearing on 5 April 1856. The photo shows the actual press they used.

Now, as is often the case, there was a perceived problem with media bias. Despite its editorial claim of independence, the Express supported the liberal cause and was anti-squatter from the beginning. Note the small l in liberal. In the still ill-defined political spectrum of the time, this placed the Express on what we would now call the left.

In 1856, this created some difficulties when Express campaigning help defeat T G Rusden, the then squatting member for New England and the Macleay. Moves began to create a new paper to oppose ‘the mendacious and one-sided’ coverage of the Express. This took time, but in January 1865 the squatting candidate Theophilus Cooper and his supporters persuaded Frank Newton to establish a new newspaper in Armidale.

Newton had just established a new paper in Grafton called the Grafton Herald. It took him time to close this and move his plant to Armidale where he launched the Armidale Telegraph on 4 March 1856. By then, the election was over and Cooper in fact triumphant.

Frank Newton now faced a problem that became worse with time. The fights over land tenure that lay at the heart of the dispute between liberals and squatters were largely resolved later in 1856. The cause that had brought Newton to Armidale had largely lost its relevance.

Newton struggled on for some time in the face of an entrenched competitor. Finally, on 29 June 1872, he closed the Telegraph and moved his entire plane to Inverell where he opened a new paper, the Inverell Dispatch, vanishing from our sight until the O’Keefe’s discovery. .

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 18 September 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - revolution born out of England's loss of war

Chatting to a friend the other day, I was asked why the British Empire became such a successful power. Books have been written on this subject, often focused on the Navy or economic developments. Samuel Pepys, I said. My answer surprised.

Today, Pepys is best known for his famous diaries, his love of fashion and his varied love life. However, he was far more than that.

The Second Dutch War (1665-1667), one of four fought between the English and Dutch for control of the  trade routes, was a disaster for the English side. Inefficiency and endemic corruption had sapped the strength of the navy. A humiliated England found itself humbled by a rival with a quarter of the population.

The painting by Pieter Cornelisz van Soest shows the Dutch Attack on the Medway, June 1667. The captured ship Royal Charles is right of center

Bitter recriminations followed. This provided Pepys with the opportunity to reshape the English Navy as a professional naval and industrial force. The Navy with its dock and shipyards became the world’s largest industrial complex. Pepys’ reforms also helped create a competent and professional civil service.

The power of Empire rested on the shoulders of its public servants. They recorded the letters and processed the payment orders flowing in from around the world. A naval captain in a strange place thousands of miles from London could issue an order for supplies because he and the supplier knew that the order would be honoured.

This may sound remote from modern Armidale, It’s not as remote as might seem, for the city’s existence and shape have been influenced by the things that I am talking about. Fairly obviously, the city would not exist at all without the decision to send the First Fleet. However, it’s more than that.

Published in 1975, Australian Space, Australian Time explored the impact on the Australian landscape of Government decisions in London and the colonies over the first hundred or so years of European settlement.

In London, the key early figure was the Third Secretary of State dealing with war and the colonies, a Cabinet member. He operated in the political environment, while day to day business rested with his Under Secretary, the top civil servant. In Sydney, power rested with the Governor, supported by the Chief Secretary as his top civil servant. In both cases, power slowly shifted to the officials.

The varying lay-out of our cities and towns, the names on our maps, all represent the interaction between London and Sydney.

There were always tensions between the needs and desires of metropolitan Government and local conditions. From 1825 these became more acute as Westminster sought to impose metropolitan theories of land settlement on NSW. The conflict that resulted would lead to self-government for NSW. But that’s another story.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 11 September 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - likeable man drove development

The one portrait I have seen of Archibald Clunes Innes presents him in army dress uniform as a young captain in the English 3^rd or Buffs Regiment. His formal jacket encloses his neck, creating an elongated effect; his head with its black hair and brown eyes seems to sit a little uncomfortably on the jacket’s buttoned top, somehow separated from his body.

By all accounts, Innes was a likeable man. He was certainly an interesting one who left an imprint on the North that survives to this day. Glen Innes carries his name,

In 1822, Innes arrived in Sydney in 1822 as captain of the guard in the convict ship Eliza. He was twenty two. In December 1826, Innes was appointed commandant of the penal settlement at Port Macquarie.

Growing up in New England, I had no idea that the then sleepy sea side town had been such a big place and so early in the colonial history of New South Wales.

To put this in context, in 1788 the total European population of New South Wales was 1,030. At the time that Innes took control of the Port Macquarie penal settlement, the convict population was around 1,600. In just five years, a totally new colony had been built from scratch.

The story of early Port Macquarie is an interesting one that I might tell later. For the moment, my focus is on Archibald Innes.

Innes only stayed at Port Macquarie for six months before returning to Sydney. There he worked as a military officer before resigning his commission and becoming superintendent of police and magistrate at Parramatta. In 1829 he married Margaret, the daughter of colonial secretary Alexander McLeay, in one of the most lavish social weddings the colony had yet seen. We remember McLeay today in terms of a river (the Macleay), a Sydney Street (Macleay Street) and Elizabeth Bay House, the magnificent home built by Andrew McLeay.

With the opening of Port Macquarie to civilian settlement, Innes returned in 1830 as police magistrate with a 2,568 acre (1,039 hectare) land grant and a contract to supply the convict population with food. From this point, he built a business and pastoral empire that included Waterloo, Innes Creek, Kentucky, Beardy Plains and Furracabad on the Tableands. The last became the site for the new township of Glen Innes.

Innes owned stores and hotels and organised the building of the first road between Port Macquarie and the Tablelands as a way of getting supplies up and bringing wool back for shipment from Port Macquarie.. Using convict labour, he built a major house at Port Macquarie and transformed the surrounding land into the fabled Lake Innes, for many years the greatest pastoral property north of Sydney. There he entertained lavishly.

Reading the diaries and descriptions of life at Lake Innes, this is a very Jane Austin world: visits by dignitaries, military officers or young men from the New England, dances and decorous rides, collecting flowers and the beauty of nature. We know that it won’t last, that the crash of the 1840s is coming, but we can still share some of the joys.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 4 September 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - punching sky high for big dreams in region

SHOW That WOULD PULL THE CROWD: the local show occupied a special place full of strange things. Jimmy Sharman's boxing troup was one such.

I have been trying to write a piece dealing in part with Armidale rhythms when I was a child. Not musical rhythms, but the rhythms of life. These were formed by the interacting rhythms of town, gown and country.

Town patterns included school and church, the shops, the local play, sport, the events such as the show. Country patterns included the rhythms of pastoral and agricultural life, the regular visits to town by country people, lambing and shearing. Gown patterns were set by the rhythms of life in the young university college and then university; the three terms still carrying their old English names; the examination cycle; the major academic ceremonies; the various university functions including games and fetes; and the academic visitors who had to be entertained and shown the district.

Within these interacting patterns, the local show occupied a special place full of strange things. Jimmy Sharman’s boxing troupe was one such.

The drum would start beating to draw the crowd. Those like my brother and I would be attracted by the noise, and come drifting across the rutted dusty ground towards the stand. There we would stand, while the spruker expounded the virtues of the fighters. "Come on, come on, come on. Give it a go. Survive three rounds and we will give you five pounds."

Each fighter would be brought forward and introduced to the crowd. "Surely some of you blokes can beat him. Three rounds, five pounds." The locals would hold up their hands and be called into the stand to be fitted out.

Inside we got near the ring, sat and waited on the hard seats while the dust motes drifted in the sunlight streaming down onto the ring. The fighters were brought out and introduced, the troupe fighter and then the local challenger. The bell sounded, and the fight began.

In today's terms it would all seem quite brutal, although we did not see it that way. It was just sport. It was only when fights were completely unbalanced that it became cruel.

Generally the locals were outclassed and it was over quite quickly. The local retired bearing his scars to the beer tent, there to stand in glory with his friends for giving it a go. However, there was one fight I remember that did not go according to plan.

The troupe boxer was a young, good looking, blonde bloke. He ran up against a very tough local who cut him to pieces. By mid way through the second round the troupe boxer's face was bruised and cut, his lips smashed. He kept going, but the crowd started to call for an end to the fight. It was no longer sport.

I actually saw a fair bit of boxing. Yes, I am aware of the health risks, but I am glad that I did see Jimmy Sharman's touring stadium before new regulations forced an end to the tent shows.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 28 August 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013

History revisited - technology, transport and our view of the world

One of the things that fascinates me wearing my historian’s hat is the way that technology affects our view of the world. Last week, I talked about the bicycle. This week I want to talk about feet and hooves.

We live in an accelerating world. Our world has expanded, but also contracted. The intensity of immediate place has been lost.

This has practical implications for places like Armidale that have been sidelined by time because they are outside the main transport nets. However, for now, my interest is more basic.

As a rough starting point to our discussion, human beings on a long distance ramble walk at around two and a half miles (a bit over 4k) per hour. At this speed, they can go and go.

A Roman Army was expected to be able to march in full kit perhaps 24-32k per day and then set up camp. Alexander the Great’s army was estimated to occupy 26k of road without baggage animals. This meant that the leading elements would be setting up camp before the previous camp had emptied fully!

Now introduce hooves. Surely things went faster? Well, not necessarily.

Travelling with stock, speed is determined by the speed of the animal. From my limited experience with sheep, I haven't travelled with cattle, travel becomes a slow amble, less than a normal walking pace. Say eight hours to drove from Uralla to Armidale. You may have horses, but your speed is determined by the stock.

A bullock dray is not much faster. You now have the capacity to carry heavier loads, but the pace is slow. There are a number of recorded stories of women and children leaving the dray on foot and arriving home hours before it. Just walking like them, you might get to Uralla in five hours.

Say you have a horse. The fastest sustainable speed for a horse is a trot, a speed that can be maintained for an extended period. My research suggests that this equals about 8 mph (13 km/h). Now, speeding, you can get to Uralla in a bit under two hours. Presumably roughly the same speed equation would hold for something like a sulky.

Growing up in Armidale, I was probably closer to this old world than modern Armidale kids or indeed their parents.

We travelled by foot or bike. When we went by car along the dirt roads to a picnic at, say, the Gwydir River, we knew the exact patterns of country, the precise point at which the Tablelands suddenly turned to the Western slopes. It was a very particular peak on the road.

When I first returned to history, I was absorbed in the present. I couldn’t properly understand some of things I read. They seemed strange, odd. Then I realised that I had to put myself back into that past, into a world marked by the vast presence of the immediate locality. My writing is the better for it.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 21 August 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013. The photo comes from John Caling.

History revisited - rhyme and reason for bicycle mania

Written by Banjo Patterson and first published in the Sydney Mail on 25 July 1896, one of Australia’s favourite traditional poems begins “Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze.” I think that most Australians who have read the poem would think of it a good poetic yarn, but it’s also culturally significant.

Growing up in Armidale, bikes were everywhere. I actually resented this, because I didn’t get one until I was in year five. That bike lasted me until the end of secondary school!

Very few people went to school by bus, almost none by parents’ car. The congested tangle we see today outside schools as mum or dad wait to pick up their child or children was unknown. You walked to school or you rode. That was it.

Even though I grew up at a time when bicycles were still very common, I had no idea of the cultural and economic importance of the bike at the time that Patterson wrote.

Bicycles have quite a long history. However, it wasn’t until John Dunlop's reinvention of the pneumatic bicycle tire in 1888 that biking really took off.

For the better off, it became a means of touring, of seeing new places. Like the airlines today, the North Coast Steam Navigation Company wanted passengers. “Come on one of our steamers”, the Company said. “We will drop you of at one of our ports and then you can tour by cycle to the next port to catch the return steamer.” Their promotional photos featured shots of the beautiful country to be seen.

The emerging middle class took to cycling as a craze, in so doing making a blow for female emancipation, for this was a sport that women could join in. However, it was the working class person who gained the greatest benefit.

In urban areas, a bike provided a way of getting to work, of delivering things or taking orders. In Armidale as late as the early 1950s, the salesmen from local stores would ride around with bicycle-clipped pants, their order book in their back pocket, collecting grocery orders.

Today, the kamikaze messengers bike though Sydney streets, weaving through the traffic, delivering documents far faster than other physical means. Their numbers drop as on-line becomes more important, but they are still there for deliveries where physical documentation is required.

It was in the bush that bikes arguably had their greatest impact. Bikes were cheaper than horses and faster over distances. Bush workers of all types travelled by bike, with their possessions in panniers or just strapped to the frame.

Those days are long gone. But Banjo Patterson’s poem was published at the height of the biking fashion.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 14 August 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - colleges provide character for Uni

The story of the establishment of the University College is fairly well known. I have written on different aspects of it in this column. Given that, I thought that I would take you in a different direction in completing my series on the early days of Armidale’s two colleges

There was no great public demand for an establishment of a university college in Armidale. The Depression was still very much in people’s minds. Politicians, officials and voters were very conscious of limited government funds, while demands on government for immediate services were great.

There was also a measure of distrust at the very concept of a university in the North. Universities were elite institutions. Very few people had had any contact with a university. Many were actually distrustful of the impact on their children, or saw a university of any type as irrelevant to their family needs.

Distrust is difficult to measure, but there is little doubt that it existed. On top of that, the proponents still had to manage deeply held local parochialisms that might translate into opposition at Armidale receiving a benefit at the perceived cost of others.

Limited funds, a slowly receding depression, limited support for the very idea of a university and the risk of arousing local parochialism; all would seem to make the task impossible. And yet, somehow, it happened and in quite quick time.

Two things were absolutely critical here.

The first was the successful establishment of the Teacher’s College. By the time the University movement was really growing, the Teacher’s College halls again echoed with students. The idea of co-locating a University there to take advantage of under-utilised facilities was no longer feasible. However, the College had demonstrated that a country college would work and had also consolidated Armidale’s place as the pre-eminent education centre, the Oxford, of the North.

The second was the Northern leadership linked together by battles for Northern development over more than twenty years.

David Drummond may have been Minister for Education, he may have helped drive the concept, but he did not get the University College for that reason. He helped bring it about because he was an integral part of a Northern leadership that he was able to convince and that was committed to a new vision.

That powerful base provided credibility that helped draw in others and could be used by those who already had or could be drawn to the vision of both the North and the desire for a very specific Northern university. They knew how to cooperate, to work the levers of power and to manage local objections.

This history had a profound influence on the character of the new institution. The academics that came and many of the Northern leadership had an Oxbridge vision of the role of a university. However, the leadership also saw it, as they had in 1920 with Australia Subdivided, as a place that educate Northern kids, that would help preserve the history and culture of the North and would contribute to its development.

They would not be disappointed, although it would take decades for some elements of their vision for the new institution to be realised.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 7 August 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - if you want something, build it fast

At the end of my last column I suggested that Drummond, Smith, Hicks and Newling proved an irresistible combination when it came to the establishment of the Armidale Teacher’s College.

The pace of events was truly remarkable. Drummond was sworn in as Minister in October 1927. The College opened for business in February 1928 using temporary buildings. Each man played a different role over those few frantic months. .

Smith marshaled the Department’s resources to support his Minister’s dream. Hicks provided critical on-ground logistics and other support. As new Principal, Newling dealt with the myriad practical details required to create a new institution from scratch.

Drummond was determined that his new baby would be healthy with every chance in life. He also wanted the College to be seen as a college of the North, not just Armidale. An activist minister, his ministerial letter books are full of instructions, suggestions and requests as he looked for resources for the new College.

He also worked behind the scenes to marshal broader Northern support. This College, he told Armidale Mayor Morgan Stephens, must be seen as the College of the North, not just Armidale.

The new state campaigns of the early 1920s had been led by key Northern pressmen. Drummond knew the editors and proprietors; he was now a newspaper man himself, so gaining friendly newspaper coverage was not hard.

With the College open, Drummond turned his attention to ensuring that it was properly housed in a building befitting its Northern status. He paid attention to every detail. Later he would be criticised for this, for extravagance, but his approach proved to be wise.

None of the players in those hectic days in 1928 and early 1929 realised that a cataclysm, the Great Depression, was about to break. As it hit, state revenues declined and cuts had to be made, including the number of student teachers. Student intakes dropped and dropped again.

The halls of the new College echoed to the sound of fewer and fewer footsteps. The College became known as Drummond’s White Elephant, There were demands to close it.

Drummond was unrepentant, although he had a sneaking sympathy for William Davies, his successor as Minister in the Lang Labor Government. Davies came to visit and the College was saved. The project was really too far advanced to cancel.

I will finish the early story of Armidale’s two colleges in my next column.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 31 July 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013.

History revisited - how Armidale became a hub for educators

I started my last column by posing a question: just how did Armidale get not just one but two higher educational institutions in the space of ten years? I spoke of the way that the combination of the re-emerged New State Movement with the formation of the Country Party helped set the ground. But I also said that beyond these factors was the simple rivalry of two educators with very different views about teacher training.

The announcement in December 1927 that a Teacher’s College was to be established in Armidale was not welcomed by all. Newly appointed Principal CB Newling later recalled that the Armidale proposal met active hostility within the Sydney press, among city interests and within the NSW Department of Public Instruction. Importantly, potential students fearful of the likely standards of the new college were reluctant to leave Sydney for the bush.

The College also had some powerful supporters fully aware of these reservations. To David Drummond as Minister, the College was a chance to establish a country college for country kids. The College was also intended as one key building block in the creation of the infrastructure required to support a Northern State. To S H Smith as head of the Department, the College was a chance to put his own ideas into practice.

Smith was then in his early sixties. Handsome and intelligent, with a commanding presence and a beautiful speaking voice, he was also shy, fussy, sensitive and vulnerable to personal attack.

Smith had started as a pupil teacher and then worked his way though the ranks, becoming Under-Secretary in 1922 upon the retirement of the famous Peter Board. Smith knew that there were those who affected to despise him because of his lack of formal education and was deeply wounded by it. Drummond was sensitive to Smith’s feelings and the two men became close.

Smith had clashed with Professor Alexander Mackie, the head of Sydney Teachers, College. Mackie, a brilliant Scottish-born academic, had come to Sydney in 1906 to head the newly established Sydney College. He was a man of strong views who believed that that the main emphasis in teacher training should be academic, that the independence of Sydney Teachers’ College must be preserved, and who had little time for financial or other constraints on his activities.

Smith took a different view. Bound up in the day-to-day problems of State education, he regarded the College’s job as training those teachers the Department required in the way the Department required. Smith also disagreed with Mackie as to the most desirable form of teacher training: while not opposed to academic training, Smith thought that Mackie’s academic bias meant ill-trained teachers, and instead supported a more vocationally-oriented training.

These differences in approach would have made for difficulties anyway, but their personalities compounded problems. After Smith made a surprise inspection of Sydney Teachers’ College in 1927, Mackie wrote to him that such inspections could ‘only be done competently by a person with the necessary qualifications.’ He went on: ‘The inspection of highly qualified specialists on the College staff should be entrusted to men and women with similarly high academic qualifications and with extensive experience of College work.’ Not surprisingly, Smith found this letter ‘offensive’. For Smith’s part, he later commented sarcastically to Drummond that Mackie had ‘that type of mind which is usually associated with the Scottish metaphysician.’

The combination of committed Minister and Under-Secretary would have been irresistible in any case. However, they were joined by two other men.

A W Hicks, the very able local inspector who became a key Drummond aide and who would later occupy senior positions in the Education Department, took care of local logistics, while C B Newling as the College’s first Principal provided very strong leadership. Newling’s authoritarian style, his nickname was Pop, would not be acceptable today but was critical at the time.

Drummond, Smith, Hicks and Newling proved an irresistible combination.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 24 July 2013. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because the columns are not on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013. The photo shows the laying of the foundation stone for the new Teachers' Colle.