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