Shelly Beach Refreshments

This is the Refreshment Kiosk at Shelly Beach, in around 1908.  The kiosk was owned by Elizabeth and Arthur Mead, who ran it successfully for many years.  Mr Mead died in 1932 and Mrs Mead in 1942.  What more could you want - hot water for tea or cocoa, some chocolate from the slot machine, and you could weigh yourself after your picnic.

    

Thanks to John Morcombe for allowing us to copy this postcard of Shelly Beach from around the same period showing the Refreshment Kiosk.

JMacR

Von Bieren (II)

  A correction - the police photo of von Bieren was unearthed by Dr Keith Amos, whose diligent research into the later movements of Carl von Bieren in the USA should also be acknowledged.  My apologies to Keith for overlooking his contribution to Mr and Mrs Champion's article.

JMacR

What Became of Von Bieren?

     In the 1880s, many local businessmen were drawn into the schemes of American businessman Carl Clinton Hiram Walbridge von Bieren.  Von Bieren, a chemist, claimed that he had been the manager of a gunpowder mill in Pennsylvania, and was eager to set up a factory for the manufacture of gunpowder at Ingleside.  Assisted by two Manly businessmen, Robert Evans and Samuel Bailey, both Aldermen of Manly, he formed the Australasian Powder and Explosives Manufacturing Company, and purchased 130 hectares at Ingleside – the suburb itself is named after his grand house.  At that time, Australia imported all its gunpowder, so there were many influential people who were keen for von Bieren to succeed.  In August 1885 he announced that the construction of the works was nearing completion, and Mayor of Manly Charles Austin, Evans, Bailey and other local dignitaries visited the site. But von Bieren was pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes.  Just when his schemes were about to unravel, he fled the country.  A warrant was issued for his arrest, and a senior constable from Manly Police was sent in pursuit of him, catching up with the fugitive's ship as it sailed up the English Channel.  That policeman's expense account must have been substantial.

     George and Shelagh Champion have spent many hours researching the subsequent trials of Carl von Bieren, and what became of him.  The results of their research can now be read in the article Narrabeen Powderworks, available on the Manly Library website at

http://www.manly.nsw.gov.au/library/local-studies-collection/history-of-manly/

     They found the mugshot above, showing von Bieren looking like the bulldog that licked the nettle, attached to his police file.

 

JMacR

Philanthropist Albert Dalwood

    Dalwood House at Seaforth is well-known as a family care centre operating under the responsibility of Manly Hospital, but who was the building named after?  Albert Edwin Dalwood was born at Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset, England on 25 April 1863, son of Henry and Matilda Dalwood (nee Braine) and educated at Martock Grammar School,   He came to Australia when he was 20, and he married Julia Pettman, daughter of William Pettman, on 21 January 1886.  They had three children, Stanley (born Glebe 1887, died 1887), Olive (born Bowral 1889, died 1906) and Harold (born Marrickville 1893-1931). The family lived at Springfield, Springfield Avenue, Woollahra.

     Dalwood was a successful financier and land and property owner, working out of offices at 82 Pitt Street, Sydney.  He became NSW Governing Director of the Sunday Times Newspaper Co Ltd; the Chairman of Directors of NSW Associated Blue Metal Co Ltd, Automatic Bread Baking Co Ltd and Great Western Portland Lime and Cement Co Ltd; and a director of Road Lighthouses Ltd, and the Southern General Insurance Co of Australasia Ltd.

     Dalwood House had been known as ‘Clavering’, and was formerly the residence of Professor of Mathematics Theodore Gurney. After Gurney’s return to England in 1902 the building lay vacant for many years.  It was acquired by Albert E Dalwood who sold off some of the land surrounding the home in 1922.  He retained the house and a small acreage around it.  In 1928 Albert Dalwood generously donated his property to the Food For Babies Fund, which cared for mothers and babies from disadvantaged families.  Nurses’ quarters were added in 1929, the gift of Mr and Mrs E Myerson, and a playroom, the gift of Mr and Mrs George Fitzpatrick.  These were officially opened by Dr Richard Arthur, MLA.  It was reported that during the first ten months the home had been opened, it had entertained 50 mothers and 158 children for periods of not less than two weeks each, “and in this way had been the means of restoring them to normal health.  The home was a preventorium, and it was intended it should save many women and children from becoming hospital cases.”

     Sadly, Albert Dalwood outlived his own children, and died on 24 June 1948.

 

JMacR

The Volunteer Defence Corps at North Head

Platoon of C Company, North Head, c1943-4  Roy MacIntosh, Steve Byrne and Fred Byrne marked.

     During WWII the 7^th Battalion Volunteer Defence Corps, also known as “The Green Hornets”, provided forces to protect the home front.  It took over key defence positions from younger men required for front line service.

     The first members of the 7^th Battalion were enrolled on 18 June 1940, and within a fortnight, it was 10,000 strong, under the command of Major-General H Gordon Bennett. The Northern side of Sydney Harbour was the responsibility of 17^th Battalion area and 18^th Battalion area.

     Volunteers had to be physically fit, and service was expected at night or weekend parades or lectures pending a state of emergency, at which time all members would be expected to take their place in their units and devote their whole time to it.

     Initial training for 17 Battalion area took place at Frenchs Forest A&H Society Showground.  Rifles were loaned by the Shore School Cadet unit.  A review of the whole Corps was held at Centennial Park on 17 November 1940, when the men were inspected by the Governor-General, Lord Gowrie.  Companies were: A North Sydney, B Mosman, C Manly and D Warringah, with a platoon at Northbridge.

 

Camouflaged 9.2" gun at North Head, c1943

 

     By July 1941 the 17 Battalion area had become 7^th Battalion, and command of the Battalion was assumed by Captain N F Bremner, DSO.  The Battalion provided continuous guard at key vulnerable points on a roster basis.  Uniforms, arms and equipment were provided.  The men wore a green uniform.  Members undertook attestation in March 1942, when the Corps became an official body.

     In the latter part of 1943, 7 Battalion personnel were posted to various units of coastal defence and anti-aircraft batteries.  Men from Manly were trained to take on the role of gunners at North Head.  They referred to the 9.2 inch guns as ‘Big Bertha’.  They also laid barbed wire along the beaches, and guarded the Balmain Power Station and coal area.

     Training at times consisted of route marches through Frenchs Forest, night manouevres in all weathers, erecting barbed wire defences, filling sandbags and clearing roads.  There were occasional mock assaults on the Bantry water tower, one side attacking, one side repelling, with heated arguments as to who had been killed and wouldn’t lie down.

     At the end of the war, the Manly contingent formed a branch of the Volunteer Defence Corps Association, which met regularly until 1975.

     Their wartime service, and that of many others, is commemorated at the Defence of Sydney Monument 1939-45 at North Head, unveiled by Rear-Admiral Peter Sinclair AC in 1995.
 

JMacR

John Gordon Griffiths

     Another suggestion as to the naming of Griffiths Street has been put forward by Betty Graham, a descendant of Mr John Gordon Griffiths.  John Gordon Griffiths was an actor, theatrical manager, and latterly hotelier, being licensee of the Pier Hotel, Manly from January 1856 to his untimely death in March 1857.

     He was born in Shropshire, England in 1810, and upon leaving school went onto the stage.  He joined a troupe led by Scottish actor Charles McKay, and worked in theatres in Glasgow and Edinburgh.  Later he worked in theatre in Shrewsbury, and then in London, where he was a colleague of the great William Macready.  In 1842 he was contracted to the Royal Victoria Theatre, Sydney, for three years as actor and manager.  The Sydney Morning Herald of 23 January 1843 announced his Australian debut in Hamlet, “The character of Hamlet by Mr Griffiths from the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, his first appearance in the colony.”  From then on he was a mainstay of the Royal Victoria company, and managed the theatre for a total of nine years.  He appeared in Shakespearean roles such as Iago (the National Library has a dramatic drawing in its collection of him in this role) and in adaptations of the works of Sir Walter Scott.  He was also cast in dramatic opera roles, and appeared in the premiere of Edward Geoghegan’s ballad opera, The Currency Lass, an Australian work, in 1844.  The impression is that he was able to learn parts at speed in all sorts of drama – Dickens would have loved him.  Indeed, Griffiths appeared in a blatant adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby entitled The Fortunes of Smike.  He also starred in a Shakespearean farce “by Mr Nagle” with the jaw-breaking title, ShaksperiConglommorofunnidogammoniae.  He hosted Lola Montez when she packed the house in 1855.

     Griffiths retired from the stage in his mid-forties.  Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer announced on 26 January 1856: “J Gordon Griffiths, for 13 years manager of the Sydney Theatres, begs to announce to his kind friends and patrons the Public, that he has thrown up all his old parts and will appear before them in a new character on the Stage of Life, that of THE HOST, in the entirely new production of “The PIER HOTEL” at MANLY BEACH, which he trusts will not prove to be one of his least successful personations.”  It must have given Manly considerable cachet to have had a star of his reputation hosting the popular venue.  Like Russell Crowe running the Steyne Hotel nowadays, perhaps.  However he was not to enjoy his new career for long.  He died at Manly on 4 March 1857, and was buried at Camperdown Cemetery.  His obituary in Bell’s Life in Sydney stated that he had been “an actor when the colony was in need of actors.”

     As a man of renown associated with Manly, perhaps he was in the minds of the surveyors when they drew up the plan of Balgowlah in 1858 and devised the name Griffiths Street – it is easy to imagine that they might have experienced his hospitality on earlier visits.

     The photograph shows Griffiths late in his life and is reproduced with permission of his descendants.

Some Balgowlah Street Names

     Unearthing the origins of street names can be problematic, and there are various names of Manly streets whose origins remain unclear.  Les Wellings, former Town Clerk of Manly, went into the matter, but there were a few that stumped him, including Griffiths Street, White Street and Boyle Street.  However the survey plan above may shed light on some of these names.

     The ‘Survey of Portions in the Village of Balgowlah, North Harbour’ was prepared for a sale of subdivision of lots held in Sydney on 19 May 1858.  This 1858 survey included several other street names that have survived to the present, including West, Condamine, Boyle, Hill, White Griffiths and Beach Street, as well as Electra Street, which has not.

     George Boyle White, born in 1802, came to Australia in 1826 and was employed as an assistant surveyor then a surveyor.  He surveyed the Maitland area in 1829.  In 1858 he became MLA for Northumberland and the Hunter, and that year was appointed chairman of a select committee into the administration of the Surveyor General’s department.  It seems likely that when Balgowlah was surveyed in 1858, Boyle Street and White Street were named after him, in token of his influence.  White died in 1876.  The Mitchell Library has a photograph of him (DDS 49898), and an interesting article about him by Les Dalton appeared in the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society for December 2008 (p126-146).  White’s unpublished diaries are held by the National Library.

     Another street named in the 1858 survey was Electra Street.  This referred to the stretch of what is now Sydney Road between West and Woodland Streets, and survived as a street name until 1900.  It has always seemed an unlikely sort of name for a street, with its suggestion of Greek drama.  However, a search of Trove for 1858 revealed that there was a ship of that name trading out of Sydney; and on the date of the survey, 19^th May 1858, the Electra entered Sydney Harbour.  Could it be that the surveyors, casting about for another street name, saw the ship from their North Harbour vantage point and said “That’ll do”?

     As regards Griffiths Street, it was at one time thought that it may have had something to do with Arthur Hill Griffith (1861-1946), Labor member for the seat of Sturt, who owned property in Manly; another possibility was that it referred to a boot-maker named Robert J Griffiths, who had a house on the north side of Sydney Road in 1892.  But when we see that the name Griffiths Street was recorded in 1858, the street must have been named after an earlier Griffiths.  One contender may be George Richard Griffiths (1802-1859), a Sydney merchant with the firm of Griffiths, Fanning and Co, who had extensive land-holdings around NSW.  So far I have not found a record of him having land in Balgowlah or Fairlight, but there is a tenuous local connection - his daughter-in-law was the sister of Rev Robert Willis, the first minister of St Matthew’s Church in Manly.

 

JMacR