Recollections

I remember when the loo was a dunny,
And the pan man came at night;
It wasn’t the least bit funny
Going out the back with no light.

The interesting items we perused
From the newspapers cut into squares
And hung from a peg in the outhouse –
It took little then to keep us amused.

The clothes were boiled in the copper,
With plenty of rich foamy suds,
But the ironing seemed never ending,
As mum pressed everyone’s duds.

I remember the slap on the backside,
And the taste of soap if I swore;
Skateboards and videos weren’t even heard of,
And we hadn’t much choice what we wore

Do you think that bruised your ego?
Or our initiative was quite destroyed?
We ate what was put on the table,
And I think our life was better enjoyed.25px

My mother and father and their three sons arrived from Scotland in 1885 and came by ferry to Bayview Wharf Road, now (Burwood Road, Hen & Chicken Bay). Three more sons were born here.

I’m the youngest of the family. All the others are gone now.

I was born in Mortlake in 1892, at the Post Office run by my mother, where we lived till I was seven years old. My brother Jim took over the Post Office for twelve months then we came to live here and I’ve lived here ever since – seventy-one years.

I was married fifty-one years ago and brought my wife here. She’s here today.

My eldest brother Jim later became Concord’s first Postman. He held the position forty-five years. He was well known around Concord and Mortlake. He used to ride on horseback to Burwood at six o’clock in the morning, pick up the mail and bring it back to Concord to be sorted. He then delivered mail to Cabarita, Mortlake, Concord West and as far as Rhodes.

Of course he’d ride a long way from one house to another. He had a Piebald horse which was well known around Mortlake.

I remember in the old days, years ago, when the Mornington Hotel was where the M.S.S. is today. It was run by A.T. Gale and after that I think it was Mr Priddle who took it over. There were no houses further down then.

Across the street from the Pub were two storey houses and a butcher’s shop; one had a bootmaker. Further round the corner was a barber’s shop and a draper. Behind those shops was a bus depot and stables for horse drawn buses and the horses, run by Favelle. The Gas Company owns all that land now. Down the bottom of Emily Street an old Concordite and gardener, Mr Lee, used to live.

Coming back towards the Holders the offices of the Gas Co used to face Tennyson Road, there was a bull nose verandah at the front and tall pine trees.

Further down were a couple of two storey places, on the corner of Lake Street. Next door was another butcher. We’d go down Lake Street towards Mort Street Wharf and the ferries, come to the river with nice sandy beaches, rocks, and trees.

Mother used to take unsold papers back to the Herald Office. In the olden days on Eight Hour Day the banner was picked at the Mortlake Pub. Marchers would go to the Gas Works Gates and be addressed by the Manager then catch the Ferry (free return trip) which would take them to Kent Street Gas Works and they’d go on to the procession. That was a big day for Mortlake.

Coming back to Mortlake, near the Wharf, was a boatshed owned by Benny Fitman, who used to row for Grammar School. Dick Arnst and Archie Priddle also trained there.

On top of the hill was the Palace Hotel with lots of rooms and a big balcony. Out at Green Point used to be a big hall, one of the famous dance halls of those days. Picnics were held there every holiday. The same Correy’s Gardens. Both served by ferries. My 21st birthday was kept up at the Mortlake.

It’s now all factories on Green Point. There was no punt there in those days.

Coming back this way were Bracey’s Baths and further along Ashton’s Baths, and up to the end of the Bay were all orchards. Many quinces and pears we got along near the river. The owners had all gone in my young days.

There were many orchards around here years ago – Adams, Ashes, Garners and others, like Cox on the corner of Cabarita Road and Phillip Street.

We had to walk to school. An old weatherboard place behind the present school and the infants, about half way. An incinerator now marks the spot. We used to pump the water from a big well then. Mr. Eggins was Head Master in my day. We used to play cricket in front on gravel road, and sometimes Zoellers the carriers used to cut across the corner with loads of coke.

Coming back again to Mortlake there was a big stone hall called the Pig and Whistle. Two houses on one side, two semi detached (still there). The Pig and Whistle was pulled down to widen the road, which now runs right through from Tennyson Road to the Punt.

The road didn’t come to Edwin Street till they pulled down a couple of houses and shifted another. The road goes straight through now.

Where Concord Golf Links is today used to be a big bush. Many a barrow load of wood I brought home for the fire. A man named Merrit used to look after it. Boundary Rider I think you’d call him. I think they also used to put police horses in there to spell them.

From here towards Mortlake were two or three wells were kids used to play. Further over was a quarry where they used to get sandstone bricks. I remember once in our schooldays, one of my mates, Teddy Chambers dived in, hit his head on a protruding tramline and split it open. Walkers Bush is today’s Golf Links. I did some caddying then

I remember there was a dam where Denison Street meets Mortlake Street. Some lady, I can’t think of her name, was drowned there. At the top end of Phillip Street, where the speed boat races start now, used to be called Connel’s Point. Round Cabarita Gardens where there was a pleasure ground, I remember as kids we used to go to the gardens on the opposite side of the road and chase the turkeys. A man used to raise and kill them for various functions that were held there.

In the old days Bill Solomon had a barber’s shop down towards Mortlake Wharf. He also had billiard tables. Later these tables were taken away and we used to hold dances there.

After the war I was secretary of a Cheerio Club. We had picnics in summer and dances in the winter. In later years Bill Solomon shifted to the top of Edwin Street and had his salon up there.

Phil Solomon, contracted to dig-out the foundations for tunnels, also foundations for new houses that were built in the Gas Works, as well as the big holder. They took out all the rock for that No.3 holder. (That was the Solomon family.)

(Provided by D.E. Younger – 4th March, 1971)

Private John Bray and his wife Mary reached Sydney in June 1790 on board the Neptune with the first detachment of the New South Wales Corps. Within three years John Bray had been promoted to the rank of sergeant and on 11th November 1794 he was granted thirty acres of land at the “Entrance of the Flats, on the South side of the Harbour of Port Jackson”, in the area later to be called Rhodes. It seem that he and his wife Mary (nee Downs, of County Galway, Ireland) settled on the land immediately, for the first stage of their home, Braygrove, had been built by the turn of the century.

John Bray died in 1797 but his wife Mary remained on the land at Concord and struggled to bring up her family of four children there. A fifth child, James, had been born at sea on board the Neptune but had died in infancy. In January 1800 Mary Bray received an additional grant of twenty-five acres adjacent to John Bray’s original grant. By then the Bray estate stretched from the present Mary Street (named in honour of Mary Bray) south to Alfred Street (named in honour of her grandson).

Mary Bray later married Edward Joseph Llewellyn, after whom Llewellyn Street was named. Her younger son, John Bray junior, inherited a Llewellyn family block on the Hawkesbury. Thomas, the elder son, bought up his family land at Braygrove and also acquired property at Binda near Crookwell. Thomas expanded the Bray estate in Concord and by 1828 owned thirty-four hectares. The whole estate was cleared and eight hectares of it were cultivated.

Thomas Bray married twice. His second wife, Ann Bloodsworth, bore him eight children, two of whom, Alfred Bray and Henry Bray, were to become mayors of Concord.

The eldest son, Alfred Llewellyn Bray, inherited Braygrove and became a prominent landowner and businessman in the Concord-Burwood District. Between 1883 and 1886 he served as the first mayor of the newly proclaimed Municipality of Concord. He died on 20th November, 1905.

The Bray property was purchased by R. Tulloch & Company in 1915 and Tulloch’s Phoenix Iron Works Ltd. was transferred to the property.

Henry David Bray, Alfred’s younger brother, was granted twenty-two acres of land at what is now North Strathfield on 10th January 1859. Concord Road formed the western boundary of the grant, which has the distinction of being the second land registered in New South Wales under the Real Property, or Torrens Title, Act and the first to be mortgaged under the provisions of that Act.

Henry Bray’s original home was built on the land in 1859; it was later used as a laundry. In about 1861 Clermont House was erected on the site. Henry Bray was the third mayor of Concord – between 1890 and 1891. He died at Clermont on 12th August, 1896 when, according to an obituary, ‘the business places of Burwood were draped with black’.

The estate was sold and subdivided in 1917. In 1918 the house and surrounding half hectare of land were bought by F.K. Olliver who, in the same year, donated both house and land to the Society for Providing Homes for Neglected Children. At this time the house’s name was changed from Clermont to Ardill House to honour the founder of the society, George Edward Ardill (1857-1944), who established the charity in 1887 to provide refuge for neglected, homeless and threatened children.

The property now houses several child-minding centres.

My father, Samuel Ashton, owned the Public Baths at Mortlake. As a matter of fact, he built the baths himself, all cut out from solid rock.

I was born in Sydney on 10 April, 1885. I don’t remember ever learning to swim, but I know it was at a very early age. My father, Samuel Ashton, owned the Public Baths at Mortlake. As a matter of fact, he built the baths himself, all cut out from solid rock. They were 33 yards long and built on the Parramatta River at Majors Bay.

The baths opened in 1886, and were of the basin type, and my father devised a method of emptying and filling the baths with the assistance of the tides. I remember that every fortnight the baths were completely drained, and the bottom and sides all scrubbed down and whitewashed.

Admissions which included use of a towel and vees was threepence (2.5 cents). These baths were the first of their kind in the metropolitan area. I swam in races before I was in my teens. We had a swimming carnival every month and I competed in the racing events.

Our costumes were neck to knees with a collar band, short sleeves, and an all-over skirt. We had long capes that were worn until the race was being started, and we threw them off at the last moment. Very few girls went swimming in those days.

At the age of 16 years, I was teaching swimming. Then, one day, Major Reddish of the Boy Scouts, suggested I go to the Public Schools and see if some arrangement could be made about the pupils coming to Ashton’s Mortlake Baths to learn to swim.

I went to the schools, and it was arranged that the teachers would bring the girls, providing I would be responsible for them. I always went in with them and gave them lessons. I showed the girls the way to use their arms and legs in the breast-stroke method.

I had each pupil wear a specially designed canvas belt, buckled at the back, with a rope attached to the front, the girl would then swim toward me as I took up the slack in the rope. This proved a very successful method of teaching them to swim because the firmness of the belt, and the sight of the rope in the hands of the teacher produced in the pupil’s mind a feeling of security and safety from drowning. The girls from the schools came to the baths for many years, and there were never any accidents during that time.

Ladies were admitted during the classes of the schoolgirls, but at no other time. That was until “Continental” bathing was introduced at my father’s Mortlake Baths. This type of bathing meant that a man was not admitted unless accompanied by a woman. This bathing was only allowed at night.

I was trained for my life-saving certificate by the Sylvester method and was examined at the Domain Baths, receiving my certificate in March 1904 (see Sydney Morning Herald, 4th March 1904). As a matter of interest, I was the first single girl in New South Wales (and, I believe, the first in Australia) to receive a life saving certificate.

The Drummoyne Baths were built along the same lines as my father’s Mortlake Bath, a Drummoyne Council alderman had asked his permission to copy them.

I applied for the position of manageress of the Lavender Bay Floating Baths at the age of 20 years. I had many references as well as my life saving certificates which were submitted to North Sydney Council, and I had little trouble in obtaining this position.

The Council had built a pile bath, and the old floating baths were passed on for the ladies. I remember that the swimming costumes available there were made of unbleached calicos and were hired out for one penny. As far as I can recall, admission for adults was threepence, schoolchildren twopence.

My salary was thirty shillings ($3.00) a week for the summer months, the baths being closed during the winter. They opened from 6 am to 6 pm. I gave private swimming lessons there. The Sydney Ladies Swimming Club came each Saturday and held races.

In 1933, when the first Olympic Pool in New South Wales was to be opened at Bankstown I was appointed as manageress.

It was a pleasure to read the very able letter penned by your correspondent in last week’s “Recorder”.

Concord is certainly a progressive Municipality and we, the residents who lived here at the turn of the century, have watched with pride the amazing growth and prosperity of our home town.

When the writer went to World War I, Central Concord, as such, did not exist. It was known as Hillcrest.

The shopping “centre” was Mrs. Wray’s General Store or shop at the corner of Ludgate and Wellbank Streets and the dwellings around could be numbered on the fingers of both hands: Josselyn’s two-storeyed weatherboard (they say timber now) house in Majors bay Road, the semi-detached stone houses over the hill, Flavelle’s mansion and some cottages in Spring Street.

All the rest, cow paddocks – Bolton’s Dairy and Hygienic Dairies Ltd. – and scrub.

In the latter was a cleared two-up ring from which concealed pathways radiated, and were guarded by “cockatoos”.

Round about 1904-5 I’d say, the clearing of Walker’s Bush commenced to make way for the now famous Concord Golf Course. What a forest Walker’s Bush was! Tall timbers of immense girth and dense undergrowth! A saw mill was erected on the site to deal with the fallen trees.

The paddock mentioned by Mr. Lofts, where the Housing Commission cottages are, was once used by Mr. Delfosse Badgery, an amateur aviator, to make a forced landing in his bi-plane, a machine of William Hart vintage.

Ian Parade was once a tidal eroded foot track over the swamp with a wooden bridge over Saltwater Creek, which is now the stormwater channel bisecting the Municipal Golf Links.

The Sydney Ferry steamers used to call at Burwood Wharf, which is now Bayview Park, and parishioners and their families used to walk from near Burwood Station to the wharf to board the ferry on the occasion of St. Luke’s Sunday School Picnics.

Prior to the advent of the steam trams, a horse-drawn bus – three horses – used to ply from Ireland’s Hotel, Liverpool Road and Burwood Roads to Mortlake Gasworks. The owner, I think, was Clyde Favelle’s grandfather.

The team trams came about 1905, first to Mortlake from Ashfield and later an extension at the famous Correy’s Gardens Pavilion, where the music was dispensed by Boxall’s String Band.

On King’s Birthday, 9th November, 1909, one of the steam trams had a boiler explosion at Stanley Street loop, then the one penny section from Burwood Station.

It was stationary alongside the engine coming from Burwood, which had three crowded cars of holiday makers behind it. Two men were killed outright and one died in hospital. Their bodies were hurled over 50 yards away. The huge headlight of one motor was hurled over the top of Concord School and landed on the lunch shed near Salisbury Street, 160 yards away.

Concord Council efficiently ran the Municipality, with a Town Clerk, Jim Bolster, Jim Casey on his dark chestnut gelding Billy was overseer, health inspector and engineer, with a staff of, at the most, four men. There were no kerbs and gutters and these men with mattocks and shovels kept the gutters free of water buffalo – paspalum was then unknown.

Access to Ryde was by means of a hand punt, where a man and his son used to turn a six feet diameter grooved wheel to wind the punt across the river.

The only industries in Concord then were the Gas Works and a couple of tanneries.

Concord Park was enclosed by a five rail post and rail fence of split timber. Ashton’s Baths, 33 yards long, and Bracey’s Model Baths, 25 yards, were the Mecca of swimmers and the cradle of many famous Concord swimmers.

There are quite a few natives of Concord who could tell of seventy years ago, ten years more than I can, and it would be interesting to read what they have to say.

“Now I Confess”, says Frances, 90.

It took a tomboy to talk the young ladies of Enfield, Mortlake and Concord into taking swimming lessons back in 1901.

The schoolmarms of the day were scandalised when young Frances Ashton, then 16, walked in bold as brass and offered to teach their pupils how to swim. Some of the more progressive, however, decided to give it a try and the pupils came down to her father’s public swimming baths once a week for lessons.

Samuel Ashton built the first basin-style swimming baths in NSW in 1886. He blasted the baths out of rock near Majors Bay, on the shores of the Parramatta River, and devised a way to empty and fill the baths with the tides. Every fortnight the baths were emptied out and the sides and bottom scrubbed and whitewashed.

Bathers were charged threepence (2½ cents) admission which included use of a clean towel. “I swam in races before I was in my teens”, recalls Mrs Frances Coskerie (the former Frances Ashton).

Mrs. Coskerie, now a patient at Concord Nursing Home, will be 90 years old tomorrow. Ashton’s public baths were filled in long ago and a paint-works was built on the site, but Mrs Coskerie remembers the swimming carnivals held there every month. “I wore a neck-to-knee costume with collar band, short sleeves and an all-over skirt”, she said. “Over it I wore a long cape which I flung off right at the last minute as the race started.

“No I haven’t a photograph of the outfit. It was improper enough to be seen in it. It would have been outrageous to be photographed. Very few girls went swimming in those days.

“When I was 16 Major Reddish, who was a Scout leader, suggested 1 approach the public schools and offer to teach swimming to the girls. My pupils wore a specially-designed canvas belt which had a rope attached at the front. I took up the slack as the girls swam towards me, it gave them confidence”.

Samuel Ashton allocated special times for women to use the baths until the new fangled “continental bathing” (mixed bathing) was introduced.

First Lifesaver

In 1904, when she was 19, Frances Ashton became the first single woman in NSW to win a life saving certificate. She trained at the Domain baths, using the Sylvester method. A year later she applied for the position of manageress of the floating baths at Lavender Bay, which had been handed over to women when the council built new pile baths for men.