Читать книгу The City of Sydney (John Arthur Barry) - fully illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition) - John Arthur Barry - Страница 7

WRITING of Sydney in about 1821-2, a visitor remarks: “This town covers a considerable extent of ground, and would, at first sight, induce the belief of a much greater population than it actually contains. This is attributable to two circumstances—the largeness of the leases, which, in most instances, possess sufficient space for a garden; and the smallness of the houses erected on them, which, in general, do not exceed one story. From these two causes it happens that the town does not contain above seven thousand souls. There are in the whole upwards of a thousand houses; and although they are, for the most part, small, and of mean appearance, there are many public buildings, as well as houses of individuals, that would not disgrace this great metropolis (London). Of the former class, the General Hospital and the Barracks are, perhaps, the most conspicuous; of the latter are the houses of Messrs. Lord, Riley, Howe, Underwood, and Nichols. Land in this town,” the writer goes on to say, “is in many places worth £1000 per acre, and is daily increasing in value, rents are, in consequence, exorbitantly high. It is very far from being a commodious house that can be had for a hundred a year unfurnished.”

He visited the market, already described, and was rather pleased with it, finding it well supplied with grain, vegetables, poultry, butter, eggs and fruit. It was held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

The Bank of New South Wales, he thinks, “promises to be of great and permanent benefit to the colony in general.” Its capital at that time was £20,000, divided into two hundred shares, and its paper was now the circulating medium of the colony.

Education was spreading, and the schoolmaster was going, comparatively, far afield. “There are in this town,” says a historian of these early twenties, “and other parts of the colony, several good private seminaries for the board and education of the children of opulent parents. The best is in the district of Castlereagh, which is about forty miles distant, and is kept by the clergyman of that district, the Rev. Henry Fulton, a person peculiarly qualified both from his character and acquirements for conducting so responsible and important an undertaking. The boys in this seminary receive a regular classical education, and the terms are as reasonable as those of similar establishments in this country” (England).

Compare this “seminary” business with the first school, already mentioned, of the Rev. Mr. Johnson, and it will be acknowledged that we were making rapid advances indeed. Here, bearing on the same subject, is an extract from the “Sydney Gazette” of the day:—

“Sydney Academy, No. 93, Phillip-street.—Wanted a Drawing and a Dancing master; persons properly qualified, and who can give satisfactory testimonials as to character and abilities, will meet with liberal encouragement by applying as above. Likewise, wanted a good laundress.”

And also: “Boarding and day-school for young ladies by Mrs. Hickey, Bent-street Sydney; opened for a limited number, where they will be instructed in English Grammar, writing, geography, and the French language. Terms: Under ten years, board and tuition, including English grammar and plain work, per annum £20.”

Then, for the opposite sex: “To parents, guardians etc.—Mr. Cuffe begs leave respectfully to acquaint his friends and the public that he has removed his day and evening schools from his late residence in Pitt-street to Macquarie-street where every attention is paid to the education of youth in all its branches, by himself, and able assistants, terms as usual. N.B.—A Sunday-school will be spiritually and morally attended to.”

All this sounds very fine; but it must be kept in mind that the city proper was as yet scarcely more than a collection of huts, with, dotted amongst them, the comparatively huge buildings of Macquarie’s regime: that the waters of the Cove still washed up to where the Paragon Hotel now stands, and that the gallows, upon which men were hung in batches, was a prominent feature of the city.

The first place of execution, by the way, was, as nearly as can be gathered, near Hyde Park, not far from where St. James’s Church now stands. But, although accounts differ in this matter, it seems pretty certain that the site of the original gallows afterwards formed part of a garden, taking in the ground upon which is erected the Supreme Court; and, probably, this garden ran up to the corner of our King street. However, this may be, the gallows, in 1804, began a series of journeys; close to the corner of Park and Castlereagh streets, occupied in 1848, as it is now, by the Barley Mow Hotel; thence it was taken to some part of Sussex-street, where, in the same year, stood Barker’s Mills: then it was moved to a piece of ground near Strawberry Hills; then to the back of the Military Barracks; from there, in the beginning of the twenties, this much-travelled machine found a resting place on the summit of a cliff in Princes-street, at the rear of the gaol in Lower George-street. Its final journey was to the front of the new gaol at Darlinghurst, where it performed its first duty on two men convicted of murder, in October, 1841.

Innumerable arguments have taken place about this matter of the precise situation of the original gibbet. But by what can be learnt from careful research, the above is as nearly as possible its early history.

A dominating feature of the Sydney landscape, to which reference has already been made, was the windmills crowning some of the most prominent heights, and forming, as will be seen in the old prints, a not unpicturesque element in the scene.

Steam, for the purpose of grinding com, was not utilised until about 1828. Says the “Gazette” of 1819: “Mr. John Blaxland begs leave to inform the public that he has erected a mill for the grinding of grain, the stones of which are the production of the colony; and that he will grind wheat at 1s per bushel. Any person found taking stones from his Luddenham Estate will be prosecuted.”

The last intimation shows that the editor of the “Gazette” had to suffer imposition as well as his modern prototypes, it being, to all intents and purposes, a separate advertisement. But, then, Mr. Blaxland was a person of weight in the community, whilst the poor newspaper man of those days had to tramp round the country for many miles, and in all weathers, humbly soliciting payment of two, and even three, years’ overdue subscriptions.

Although the readers of this book should be able to form for themselves, aided by the pictures, a fairly accurate idea of Sydney at the various ages of its growth already touched upon, yet, to give effect to these, something must be said of the men and women, our forbears, who had their being, and lived their lives under so much less happier auspices than do we the present day.

But contemporary historians have not given us, in this respect, very much to go upon. Their time was too greatly taken up by chronicling political squabbles, and the gradual expansion of the colony outside the capital, to afford any leisure for more in a glimpse now and again into the social life of Sydney itself.

Says an early visitor, writing just about the advent of Governor Brisbane:

“Society is upon a much better footing throughout the colony in general than might naturally be imagined, considering the ingredients of which it is composed. In Sydney the civil and military officers with their families, form a circle at once select and extended, without including the highly numerous respectable families of merchants and settlers who reside there. Unfortunately, however, the town is not free from those divisions which are so prevalent in all small communities. Scandal appears to be the favourite amusement to which idlers resort to kill time and prevent ennui; and, consequently, the same families are eternally changing from friendship to hostility, and from hostility back again to friendship.”

These conditions, it may be remarked, will still hold good at present of many other towns, besides Sydney some eighty years ago.

Continues our author: “Of the number of respectable persons some estimate may be formed if we refer to the parties which are given on particular days at the Government House.” Even now many people gauge respectability by much the same test. And notice that word “respectable.” It occurs throughout the old chronicles, and is pregnant with meaning. To be respectable in those days was apparently to be “pure merino,” with no taint even of the emancipist, let alone of the actual convict, about you. And that such spotless ones among the flock were very far from being numerous is shown by the fact that at one of these Government House festivals, in 1822, there were about 160 “respectable” ladies and gentlemen.

Writing a year or two later, the author, already quoted above, remarks rather significantly: “There are at present no public amusements in this colony. Many years since there was a theatre, and more latterly annual races. But it was found that the society was not sufficiently mature for such establishments.” Reading here between the lines, one seems to have unpleasant visions of what our early “general public” was like. Later on, as we shall see, they matured, and, presumably, improved.

From all that can be gathered, and that is but little, our folk of the early years led lives, that, if busy, were none the less monotonous, void of social amusements, except, perhaps, at long intervals, a supper and ball at Government House, or some public celebration like that of the Anniversary Dinner. Of their home life, there has been no word-painter, and of it we know little or nothing.

This function, the Anniversary Dinner, merits rather more than passing notice. The first one on record seems to have been on January 26, 1817, and was held by Isaac Nichols, Postmaster of Sydney, at his house in Lower George-street, at the head of the Cove, to celebrate the 29th anniversary of the foundation of the colony. There are forty select, and presumably thoroughly “respectable” guests, who sit down to table at five in the afternoon, and retire at ten that night.—There are loyal toasts proposed after the cloth is removed; and the “Muse of Mr. Jenkins,” who is the chairman, has composed a song, which is sung to the tune of “Rule Britannia.” A verse or so will suffice to give the reader an idea of this, undoubtedly the first Australian patriotic song:—

When first Australia rose to fame,

And Seamen brave explored her shore

Neptune with joy beheld their aim.

And thus express’d the wish he bore.

Chorus—

Rise, Australia! - with peace and plenty crown’d

Thy name shall one day be renown’d.

Then Commerce, too, shall on thee smile,

Adventurous barks thy ports shall crowd;

While pleas’d, well pleas’d, the Parent Isle

Shall of her distant sons be proud.

Chorus—

Rise, Australia! with peace and plenty crown’d,

Thy name shall one day be renown’d.

And who shall say that “Mr. Jenkins” did not make a very fine forecast indeed, and one fulfilled to the very letter?

Next year the celebration became official, taking place at Government House, while in the evening Mrs. Macquarie gave a ball. Mr. Howe, the editor of the “Gazette” was graciously allowed the privilege of a look round during the evening—not being “respectable” that, of course, was as much as he could expect—and he appears to have been very much taken with a portrait of Admiral Phillip, which was suspended at one end of the room, encircled with wreaths and banners, and an inscription running:—“In commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the colony of New South Wales established by Arthur Phillip, whose virtues and talent entitle him to the grateful remembrance of this country, and to whose arduous exertions the present prosperous state of the colony may chiefly be ascribed.” Which goes to show that contemporary recognition of the first Australian pioneer was stronger than that of succeeding generations; and, indeed, until quite recently, in our own day. The artist was a Mr. Greenaway, the Colonial Architect; and it would be of interest to know if that old portrait is still in existence.

The thirty-second anniversary (1820) was celebrated by a public dinner at Hankinson’s rooms, in George-street, which was attended by “sixty or seventy respectable persons.” But on this occasion there was no enthusiasm to speak of, owing to the fact of the guests being over-charged. The tickets for the dinner cost 40s—“without any kind of refined articles, such as jellies or blanc manges, and the elegance of a tip-top tavern table, such as could be had in London for a quarter of the money.”

Some of these good people had probably been glad enough, in the starvation years, of a feed of hominy, and now they are growling because mine host had not provided blanc manges and jellies! And, by the way, it is remarkable that now we find this function left chiefly to the emancipists, who, apparently, have been admitted to call themselves “respectable.” This was, of course, Macquarie’s doing; for only a month or two after landing he had shown very clearly where his sympathies lay by making a convict a magistrate. Certainly, the person in question had been transported for some petty offence at the age of 16. But the affair, nevertheless, gave a tremendous shock to the untainted members of the community.

In 1821. the thirty-third anniversary was perhaps the most successful of any so far. It took place at Gansdell’s Rooms, Hyde Park, when 101 emancipists sat down to a great spread. Dr. Redfern was president, Simeon Lord was vice-president, and there were eight stewards. It is particularly noted by the chronicler of the affair that both dinner and wines were excellent.

Succeeding celebrations all partook of the same non-political and partially representative character until 1825, of which more anon.

Major-General Sir Thomas Brisbane, K.C.B., was now Governor of New South Wales—the second of our military Governors. For the city, in the way of adding to or beautifying it, Brisbane did little or nothing. Indeed, during the whole of his four years stay, he was more or less in hot water. In the first place, he, with a stroke of his pen, altered the financial policy of the colony. and with such disastrous results that wheat rose to £1 per bushel. Wheat, when he arrived, was practically the currency of the country, and was exchangeable at the Government store for vouchers representing an average rate of 10s per bushel. These receipts were as good as cash in Sydney. Brisbane suddenly changed this circulating medium from sterling to colonial currency, with the result of raising the pound sterling 25 per cent above the pound currency; the effect on the small farmers, already many of them deeply in debt to Sydney merchants, may be imagined. Before this, however, he had fallen out with the Scotch Presbyterians. And this was the more curious, inasmuch as Brisbane was himself a Scot, and a Presbyterian to boot.

Dr. Lang arrived in 1823, and at once set about getting a church built, collecting, in a few days, upwards of £700 for that purpose. A memorial was now addressed to the Governor, praying for Government monetary aid for the undertaking. To this a sharp and insulting reply was sent, refusing the wished-for help. The committee, indignant, applied for redress to the Home Government, who severely reprimanded Brisbane, and ordered him to advance not one-third of the cost of the erection, but also to pay the officiating minister a salary of £300 per annum, “regretting,” at the same time “that his Excellency put to their probation members of the Church of Scotland in the colony—the Established Church of one of the most enlightened and virtuous portions of the Empire.”

Thus Brisbane got his snub, and the Scots their church. Later on the Governor, however, showed himself anything but a small minded man; for, perceiving that he had been quite in the wrong, he replaced his name on the list of subscribers, off which, in anger, he had caused to be taken. Nay, more, he laid the foundation-stone of the Church in July, 1924. Such is the story of St. Andrew’s, or, as we, at this day, more generally know it, the “Scots Church.” Standing at the south end of Church Hill, it is practically unchanged; looking as stiff, sturdy, uncompromising, and rugged as the man through whose enterprise it was built.