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Adelaide Hills - Annotations on People, Places and Things

ACKLAND, John (1879-1954).

Universally nicknamed Jack, he was the second youngest of eight sons of Richard Ackland and Esther, nee Fischer (RA d 12/11/1918, Esther d 4/7/1891). At first, Jack joined his brother Bert, also his next-door neighbour on Old Mt Barker Road, as a market gardener. They watered their crops from cold springs. Moisture gravitated through pipes with wooden plugs set at intervals. These plugs used to pop out on occasion and had to be hammered back using a wooden mallet. In preparation for market, the produce was washed clean with a cloth in half a tank of chill water. Once loaded onto one-horse trolleys, the fuit and vegetables made their way to the Adelaide Market. Jack Ackland also became a successful builder, which then absorbed his working time. He married Maude Pepper from the Bridgewater Hotel. Her mother used to supply suppers for local dances in the hotel’s assembly rooms.

ADDISON, James (c1819-d 26/4/1870).

Born Homerton, Middlesex, England. To SA 1839 Caroline. James first spent time as a pastoralist near Pt Lincoln. With some of his profits, he purchased the Dean family’s Cox Creek hotel in June 1850. A year later, Addison married Maria, nee Bailey. She was the eldest daughter of nurseryman John Bailey, proprietor of the famous Hackney Gardens, portion of which is now absorbed by St Peter’s College. During 1854, the Addisons shifted the inn to the new Mt Barker Rd, renaming their business the Bridgewater Hotel.

From April 1858, James took out the licence for the Southern Cross Hotel, King William St, Adelaide (existed 1846-1974 there - then demolished, and licence shifted to Gawler Place). Here, Addison died 26/4/1870 in bed at his home attached to the hotel. Well connected, J Addison was a nephew of General Addison of Essex, England, and a relative of Dr Addison of the Reedbeds, near Adelaide. Widowed Maria Addison remarried to another hotelkeeper, widower Edward Gandy, who had emigrated with Colonel Light in the Rapid in 1836. Maria Gandy d 12/2/1884. Gandy died 29/7/1902.

ADELAIDE.

On Christmas Eve 1836, South Australia’s first Surveyor-General, William Light, walked towards the tent of one of his assistant surveyors camped beside the Torrens River. Light suddenly realised that this was the perfect spot for the capital city. At the express wish of the King himself, the Surveyor-General named the settlement Adelaide, after King William IV’s consort. From the time that gardeners first established themselves at Cox Creek, Adelaide’s population was of prime importance as a market to dispose of the produce.

ALDGATE.

An Adelaide Hills village which gradually grew up around RD Hawkins’s Aldgate Pump Hotel and adjoining blacksmith shop. Opened in 1864, the Aldgate Pump stood at the junction of the New Mt Barker and Strathalbyn main roads. Anticipating the Nairne Railway by only a few months, the Hills Land & Investment Company bought the inn and surrounding property, on which the township (Part Section 92, Hundred of Noarlunga) rose during 1882 and gradually spread to adjoining sub-divisions. Like Bridgewater, Aldgate took its name from a hotel which had operated nearby for some years. Aldgate soon became a favourite residential spot for people who wished to live in the Adelaide Hills and travel by train to work in Adelaide.

ALDGATE RAILWAY.

Even in the late 1840s, certain SA colonists dreamed of a railway to the Adelaide Hills. Following many torturous negotiations, Government work gangs began to construct earthworks and excavate tunnels through the ranges from May 1879. Early during 1880, the contracting firm of Walker & Swan pushed ahead to finish the line as far as the present Mt Lofty station. Partners Baillie, Davies & Wishart signed in July 1881 to extend the railway as far as Nairne. The firm established its navvy camp in the former Lion Mill Buildings between Bridgewater and Aldgate. Building became far enough advanced for the Governor, Sir William Robinson, to open the line as far as Aldgate on 14 March 1883. Hence, the Adelaide Hills railway briefly became known as the Aldgate Railway until November 1883, when Nairne took over as the terminus for a much longer period.

ARBURY PARK.

Sir Alexander Downer purchased the property from the estate of the late Tullie Wollaston, in 1932. He retained Adelaide architect, Kenneth Milne, to design a Neo-Georgian English country house to be built there. Finished in 1935, the new house and estate took the name Arbury Park, after Arbury Hall, the family seat of Downer’s friends, the Sir Francis Newdigate (former Governor of Tasmania), in Warwickshire, England. Cleverly, the surrounding landscaped terraces, pools, water meadow and deer park incorporated Tullie Wollaston’s established trees, including notably a line of claret ashes high above the homestead, which gave the property a long-established appearance.

ARBURY PARK LODGE.

A four-roomed cottage, where the Arbury Park gardener lived. Further extensions after the war for a growing family. Back faced the drive-in for the big house. Done up with a porch to make it appear as though it were the front. Front garden faced Cox Creek. The Ivy room, wattle and daub, was separate and used as a laundry.

Ray Brodie House-bought by Tullie Wollaston. Did Brodie work for Tullie Wollaston. The road came out at Glenalta, where Sir Alec was staying with his father, when on holiday from Oxford. He walked down the road and found Wollaston’s property on a walk. He got Leonard Marriott, his accountant, to bid for

ASHHURST, Charles (17/3/1860- 1/11/1951)

Second son of John Ashhurst (c1834- d 7/11/1909) & Harriet Hall (1838-16/6/1935.), and grandson of Abraham Ashhurst, who first settled as gardeners at Cox Creek during 1851. Before emigrating, Abraham had been a saddler. Charles was born only months before his widowed grandfather Ashhurst died, and John inherited Section 1132, Hundred of Onkaparinga, on which to continue his gardening, and also go out as a day labourer. The Ashhursts originated from Delph, Yorks, in the Pennine Range between Huddersfield and Manchester. To SA 1850 Lady McNaughton. John & Harriet Ashhurst, nee Hall, married at St James’ Blakiston in 1857. John and Harriet Ashhurst brought up Charlie and other family members very strictly; none of the sons was allowed to smoke or drink until his 21st birthday. Education being a prized asset, the Ashhursts took great pride in the fact that John’s grandson, Thomas Junr, won an Oxford Rhodes Scholarship in 1924. Sir Alick Downer bought Charles Ashhurst’s Deanery Road home to make it part of Arbury Park and serve as a residence for his mother, Mrs Darcy Addison, the former Lady Downer.

BADENOCH, Alexander Senr (1799-28/8/1883).

Scottish-born Alexander brought his first wife and family to SA 1849 Ramillies. A cabinetmaker by trade, he took up land in the Onkaparinga district for a time, but then moved to Carey Gully, a Cox Creek tributary. Here, descendants have gardened ever since. Alexander Badenoch became a member of the first Crafers District Council in 1857. His son, William (by his second wife (Elizabeth, nee McVittie), became a baker for Rudd’s at Bridgewater during the late 1880s. Alexander Senr’s grandson, Alexander III, developed a market garden along Foxhill Rd, Bridgewater.

BAILLIE, Charles Sutherland (c1826- 30/10/1911).

To Vic 1850, where he built homes at Geelong and Ballarat. c1866 to SA, when Charles entered into partnership with Messrs Davies and Wishart. The firm constructed the Morphett St and Hackney Bridges over the Torrens River, as well as the Pt Adelaide lighthouse and the Gladstone Railway. In 1885, CS Baillie unsuccessfully tendered for Princes Bridge over the Yarra River in Melbourne; instead, JH Grainger, the father of Australia’s noted musician Percy Grainger, designed this structure. Despite his great age, Charles Baillie worked on new projects from his Flinders St office almost up to the time of his death.

BARBER, William.

A retired Colonel in the British India Army. The Barbers became one of the earliest families to build on Dunn’s Bridgewater Estate. An Indian bungalow rose above Cox Creek (c1859-1860), overlooking what later became the township’s recreation ground, to a design of a home the Colonel had lived in during his India service. When the Bridgewater Mill began constant operations during 1861, its waterwheel, old Rumbler, shook the surrounding countryside so much that the nearby Barber residence developed severe cracking. Barber’s daughter, Mrs LN Marriott, and then her son, Leonard, lived there after him. Colonel Barber became a JP and held often held local courts in his home, particularly while the Nairne Railway was under construction during the early 1880s. Name of wife. Date of deaths.

BARTON, Charles (1815-1898).

Educated London University and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated 1837 MA, as 12th wrangler. Professor of Mathematics at Sandhurst Military College for ten years, and then at Reading, where he prepared pupils for the army. To SA 1861 Harwich. Removed almost immediately to Cox Creek, where he remained for the rest of his life. Rather a large family - included spinster daughters. An MA. Lived at Fernhill. Bought the Easther family’s two cottages. Lived as a recluse for the last years of his life. He grew grape vines at Cox’s Creek. The hillside returned to scrub. Could still find traces of the vines by digging around in the undergrowth. The sturdy stone wine cellars still exist. Wife Amelia moved to Melbourne, where she died almost exactly a year later, aged 81. Mr & Mrs Evan Kyffin Thomas bought the property c 1912 and renamed it Foxhill, after Mrs Thomas’s family property in Warwickshire. Town residence 55 Pennington Tce, North Adelaide. She was Mary (Maisie), nee Smith d 6/3/1942. EKT d 27/7/1935.

Mr Barton was essentially a man of great refinement and artistic tastes … his home … the abode of refinement, culture and that grand old English courtesy which is often sadly lacking in these colonies.

Cox Creek, one of the most sequestered and loveliest of the valleys of SA. Observer 10/12/1898 p 28.

Section 1135 Hundred of Onkaparinga

10/4/1851 Land grant to William Easther farmer Cox Creek.

Land subdivided in 1855.

Subdivision 3

28/8/1854 To Alfred and Edward Easther sawyers Cox Creek, 59 acres for £60. W Easther was now a gentleman of Mitcham.

10/4/1855 JK Ashhurst bought two acres out of this land - the title subsequently lost.

6/5/1858 Mortgage to John Hamley gentleman of North Adelaide £150 at 12.5%.

7/5/1861 To Charles Howard Barton gentleman North Adelaide for £150.

30/8/1885 CH Barton a gentleman of Bridgewater. Placed the land under the RPA. Valued at £1000.

BARTON, George. (c1815-21/4/1875)

Born Croydon, Surrey, England. To SA 1837 John Renwick. Joined fellow passenger, William Finlayson, on Robert Cock’s 1837 exploration trip to the Murray River, when the party found Cox Creek. Carrier and labourer. Lived in Adelaide, Mt Pleasant where he died 1875. Wife, Mary, nee White. Married 19/12/1839 Adelaide. She died 14/12/1894 Adelaide.

BATT, Zebulon (c1815-d 28/1/1872).

Born Coombe, Hants, England. To SA 1840 William Mitchell. During the 1840s, Zebulon, accompanied by his wife, Thurza d 23/4/1882, lived in Hindmarsh and went out to work as a labourer. By 1854, when he bought his first land at Cox Creek, Z Batt was already a sawyer in the vicinity, a trade he had followed in England. Against Old Mt Barker Road, Zebulon purchased six acres of Section 1134, Hundred of Onkaparinga, from storekeepers Davies and Bruce, and settled to become a gardener, replete with District Council timber licence to take wood from nearby Crown land. Five years later, the great 1859 bushfire burnt out the Batts, who also had to contend with severe frosts which ruined their market crops too often. Understandably, Zebulon eventually decided to buy a farm in relatively frost-free Pt Gawler during 1871. He sold his Cox Creek property to Dunn & Co, who used the land to build a huge dam for the Mill waterwheel to work more efficiently.

At Cox Creek, Zebulon served for a long period as a District Council auditor. Long afterwards, his pioneer slab home became a gardener’s outhouse on AR Downer’s Arbury Park estate. Z Batt’s other parcels of land in the Deanery neighbourhood also became part of the Downer property. The Batts’ son Caleb became a flour miller in one of Pt Adelaide’s many milling establishments; perhaps he had served a Bridgewater Mill apprenticeship?

BEAUMONT. Samuel Davenport

laid out the village of Beaumont on Section 296, Hundred of Adelaide, in 1848. The origin of the name is uncertain, but perhaps to do with Davenport’s mother, who had Christian names of French origin. Before the formation of the Great Eastern Road in 1841, a majority of travellers between Adelaide and Cox Creek used the Beaumont Spur during their journey. Cox Creek gardener Joseph Steer had land at Beaumont before setting up in the Adelaide Hills.

BIBLE CHRISTIAN CHAPEL.

Cox Creek Bible Christians had their first services in Dunn’s Bridgewater Mill during 1860, when the congregation sat on convenient wheat bags; later that year, members built a chapel, for which John Dunn donated a scrubby hillside site on his Bridgewater Estate, high above the Bridgewater-Aldgate main road. This church has become a private home, but a number of grave markers still stand in the adjoining cemetery. Following Methodist union, and the encouragement of the circuit minister, the congregation moved to a central site I think this church has changed sites.

BIBLE CHRISTIAN CHAPEL.

Old church built on land presented by John Dunn in 1863. A block on a scrubby hillside. Now a private home. A few pioneer graves in the yard.

BIRDSEYE, Cornelius ( ? - d 28/2/1880).

To SA 1836 Lady Mary Pelham, as the SA Company’s Overseer of Flocks and Herds, C Birdseye eventually bought Town Acre 55 in Hindley St (north-western corner of Hindley and Morphett Sts) during 1837. Here, he farmed until the late 1840s, when he prospered greatly and began buying large tracts of land elsewhere in the colony. By the 1850s, the Birdseyes had shifted to South Road, where official documents record Cornelius as a gentleman. A decade later, Cornelius had made enough money to retire in England.

His first wife, Charlotte, a daughter of William Wright, of Wymondly Bury, Herts, died in 1864. At this time, the Birdseyes were living in Burton Rd, Brixton. C Birdseye re-married, and when he died in 1880, he left all of his property, including the SA land, to his second wife, Emma. Apart from the small portion of Section 1142 (for the Lion Mill 1854) and the whole of Section he sold to William Wailes to build the Lion Flour Mill during 1854, Cornelius retained the rest of his substantial strip of land along the New Mt Barker Rd between Bridgewater and Aldgate. These assets included the Birdseye Quarry, managed by John Widgery of Grünthal for the Birdseye Quarry Company. Emma Birdseye sold a strip through the centre of her late husband’s land to the SA Government for the Aldgate-Nairne railway line during 1881. In 1883, she disposed of the remaining portions in a series of sales.

BREAKNECK HILL.

Several remarkably steep hills by this name exist on various roads in the Adelaide Hills. On the Mt Barker Road, Breakneck Hill is the long grade leading up to Crafers from the Adelaide side. From the late 19th century, the name Measday Hill supplanted the older name. William Measday and his family operated their Dunrobin general store clinging precariously beside the main road. Cox Creek produce gardeners had to use challenging Breakneck Hill on regular journeys to and from the Adelaide market.

BRIDGEWATER. John Dunn & Son

laid out Bridgewater on Section 89, Hundred of Noarlunga, in 1859. They named the sub-division Bridgewater, after James Addison’s Bridgewater Hotel, opened in 1855 on the re-routed Mt Barker Road between Crafers and Cox Creek. Thus SAs latest township joined well over twenty other settlements of the same name throughout the world, although it is still uncertain just why Addison chose that name for his hostelry. Quickly, the village took over from Cox Creek, as a service centre to the hotel, the mill and scattered surrounding gardeners and graziers. Until Bridgewater became the terminus of the suburban railway line, its population grew slowly. Now, the township became an irresistible lure for its cheap building allotments and ease of access to work in Adelaide.

BRIDGEWATER HOTEL.

Landlord James Addison, who followed the Deans at the Deanery, bought Section 1141, Hundred of Noarlunga, from John Dean, in 1850. When he shifted the inn from the Old Deanery government reserve behind the section to the new Mt Barker Road in Occasionally known as the New Deanery, Addison finally settled on the Bridgewater Hotel. He was landlord at Bridgewater between 1850-1858, as well as presiding over a mostly unsuccessful subdivision of Section 1141.

J Addison (c1819-26/4/1870)

Born Homerton, Middlesex. To SA 1839 Caroline. He spent time near Pt Lincoln as a pastoralist. During 1851, James married Maria, nee Bailey, in Adelaide. She was the eldest daughter of nurseryman John Bailey, proprietor of the famous Hackney Gardens, much of which is now part of St Peter’s College. James died in bed at his home, the Southern Cross Hotel, King William St (existed 1846-1974 there - then demolished and licence shifted to Gawler Place). Well connected, he was a nephew of General Addison, of Essex, England, and a relative of Dr George Addison of the Reedbeds, north of Glenelg. Widowed Maria Addison remarried to widower Edward Gandy, a hotelkeeper, who had emigrated with Colonel Light in the Rapid in 1836. Maria Gandy d 12/2/1884. Gandy died 29/7/1902.

BRIDGEWATER MILL.

John Dunn & Son bought two allotments of Section 1141 from J Addison in 1855. Larger one, just below the Deanery, used for building a large dam, which was finished in December 1857. August 1858, plans and specifications for a steam and water mill sent to Scotland. 21 March 1859, foundation stone of the new mill laid. Machinery, including three pairs of stones, arrived January 1860. A premature opening celebration held then. 1 Jan 1861, the new mill opened. Specialised in grinding wheat for export. Its flour won 1st prize in the International Exhibition held in London in 1862. A second dam of 2 million gallons built upstream from the 1st in 1870. A flood swept the whole structure away before the earthworks could settle down.

The mill continued to grind for local needs until the northern mills took over. Bridgewater quiet for 8 years towards the turn of the century. The wheel turned 6,000 gallons a minute over the bucket rim. Market gardeners in Piccadilly Valley and all the way along to Bridgewater decreased the water flow. The Mill nicknamed Old Rumbler. When the Dunn firm failed in 1899, the property went to J Edwin Thomas in July 1900. 1st of a bewildering maze of ownership. During 1958, the mill became the property of various wine companies which used the mill for bond store and later, a restaurant as well.

Restored at great expense.

Chronicle 18 June 1904 - It is upon record that the late Mr John Dunn stated that it was one of the most lucrative of his many ventures, and it certainly made Bridgewater for many years a source of substantial profit to the Railway Department.

Courier 1 July 1904 - The iron horse had not then been introduced, and from Eden Valley to Wellington, and from all the Southern towns, wheat used to be carted by teams, and it was not an uncommon sight to see both roads leading to the mill at Bridgewater blocked with teams waiting to unload the golden grain.

BRIDGEWATER PUBLIC SCHOOL

Until 1882, the Bridgewater district relied on unregistered private schools for local education. In that year, the arrival of many children belonging to navvies on the Aldgate-Nairne railway under construction forced the Education Department to open a state primary school in Bridgewater. Robin & Hack won a tender to erect a £149 wooden school building on a site between the present Bridgewater Institute and the new railway line. JG Ramsay (MP for Mt Barker), the Commissioner of Works, approved the expenditure. As a member of the Mt Barker Board of Advice (whose district included Bridgewater), the Commissioner also potentially had a chance to help guide Bridgewater public school’s future; however, ‘ Mr Ramsay’s time has been too fully occupied to attend board meetings’.

SCHOOL.

Up to 3-mile walk through bush country to reach school. Children became very knowledgeable about nature. Teachers made a point of getting children to make a short talk about what they had seen that day. Strict on late scholars. School sang Tardy scholar is your name. Snakes, goannas and plenty of birds. Favourite path for Cox Ck children to walk along the mill water race.

Mt Barker Board of Advice - J Trego Williams Chairman, Frederick May, Thomas A Stephenson, Louis von Doussa, AW Richardson, JG Ramsay (As Commissioner of Works, 1 visit to Bridgewater, besides casual visits. Institute, Mt Barker 1st Sat in each month. John D Flynn the 1st teacher and also conducted evening classes.

The Balfours established a store in the 1870s. Behind the shop was a room for a school (est 1880). Children from Bridgewater and Aldgate, as well as in the dense bush, came to this school.

BRIDGEWATER RAILWAY STATION.

The building of Bridgewater’s railway station and accompanying railway line along the northern edges of the township was of profound influence for that quiet agricultural region. Railway navvies and their families came to live temporarily in Bridgewater, whose social life brightened greatly, with dances at the Bridgewater Hotel, ‘to the sweet notes of the violin and harp’. Bridgewater’s village green became the site for a police encampment under the supervision of the new Stirling police station, and Colonel William Barber held regular local courts in his Wembley Ave bungalow to pronounce sentence upon drunken brawls, street fights and bouts of public swearing. Constables chained one roistering navvy on visit to Bridgewater to a log, which he dragged back to his camp some five kilometres away. The completion of the Nairne Railway and the opening of the Bridgewater railway station ended a brief, but colourful, period in Bridgewater’s intriguing history.

BRUCE, William (c1806-d 18/9/1894).

To SA 1847 China. Possibly to be identified with W Bruce, an importer of Currie St, during the early 1850s. In partnership with George Davies, W Bruce bought a section of land at Cox Creek, where the two men established a general store/bakery as part of Bruce’s humble cottage, in conjunction with a plant nursery. The shop took over the void which shopkeeper Caleb Crompton’s bankruptcy left during 1850, and kept going until the 1860s, when the new Bridgewater sub-division businesses proved overwhelming rivals. Also taking initiative, Mrs William Bruce (nee Matilda Turner) operated a school at home, probably the oldest school in the Tiers and the only one ever at Cox Creek. Until retirement with his son, Joseph, a grocer in Hanson St, Adelaide, William continued to earn his living from his plants. Date of death of Matilda Bruce.

BULL, JW

BUSBY, Myrtle (?-before 1956).

The widow of Walter George Busby? He was a wood machinist on the main road. These people lived in Bridgewater in the 1950s. A bustling person with several children from her first marriage. Pleasant person, neat, down the street to do shopping and go home again. Well-known Bridgewater identity. A Mrs Thornhill. Some children by her first husband. She went to Welfare Club late 1930s-early 1940s.

CARRIPOOK.

Aboriginal word for a hill. Downers and their employees used to catch the train to go to Adelaide. Guard used to pull the prams on for the married women. Great race up and down hill to reach the train. A shelter shed built later to make it comfortable for the people who were waiting. In 1914, the train killed Bertha Nichols, 14, who with her father was coming home from a greengrocery round with team of horses. Foggy day and they did not see the train. Died 8/5/1914. He was in hospital for a long time. A light engine was returning from Adelaide to Murray Bridge, when it ran into a fruiterer’s cart at Caripook level crossing at 10am. Engine and crossing only slightly damaged. Mrs R Pearson Unit 44/1075 Grand Junction Road, Holden Hill.b

CAREY, Patrick Paddy .

In his detailed description of the Tiers, written in 1893, EH Hallack mentions that Patrick Carey was a timber splitter who became the first European to settle (early 1850s) in the gully which bears his name today. Carey Gully residents used to point out with some pride the site of Paddy’s saw pit, which was next to his hut, a primitive affair constructed of bark propped against a convenient bent sapling. Perhaps to be identified with Patrick Carey, who later operated a shoemaking business at Wallaroo and then in Grenfell St, Adelaide. Died 6/1/1887. Where?

CAREY GULLY.

Originally known as Paddy Carey’s Gully until the 1870s. Now a rich market gardening and orchard area, whose stream forms one of the tributaries of Cox Creek. A high bridge across Cox Creek takes Carey Gully traffic to Old Mt Barker Road.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND, Bridgewater.

Services began in the Bridgewater Public School during 1887; the congregation moved to the Institute when that building opened in 1914. Finally, Anglicans built the present St Michael’s Church on its prominent main street site in 1960, when Bridgewater was fast becoming a popular town for permanent residents.

CLARKE, Andy.

Lived along Carey Gully Road, Bridgewater, in the 1950s. Dairyman. Returned serviceman. Emptied the clinker pit out after the trains had emptied clinkers into it. Worked for the SAR. Had a large herd of cows. Sold the property just before the Freeway came through, as their property would be altered. Had a young family when they arrrived. Portion of his property along Fox Hill and Radbone Rd subdivided. Owned part section 1136.

COCK, Robert (c1801-1871).

A native of Fifeshire, Scotland, Robert emigrated to SA with his wife and six children aboard the Buffalo in 1836. he was soon hard at work at his professions of carpenter and millwright. R Cock built a permanent home, which he turned into a store and land saleroom, and continued to live with his family in the temporary structure. Besides acting as Government auctioneer, Cock conducted his own agency and did much exploration in the Adelaide Hills to find suitable stock and agricultural land - this information he sold. R Cock and companions discovered Cox Creek (site of modern Bridgewater), which in corrupted form commemorates him, and the Hindmarsh River (modern Strathalbyn); in late December 1837, the men became the second group of Europeans to climb Mt Barker. Also during 1837, Cock explored Yorke Peninsula and country around Pt Lincoln. For some years, Cock farmed on Onkaparinga River-side property (Mt Annan) between Balhannah and Oakbank, before finally shifting to Mt Gambier, where he died.

COCK’S/COX CREEK.

Rises in the Black Swamp, near Uraidla, and falls into the Onkaparinga River.

Wherever the terrain allowed, the whole length of the creek quickly became a favoured place for market gardeners, who began sending the most enormous and flavoursome fruit and vegetables to the Adelaide markets. Cox Creek is one of the few SA streams which usually has water flowing the year round.

Colonel Barber’s grandson, Len Marriott, and Alf Rudd used to breed trout for fishermen in Cox Creek. They caught yabbies firs to use for bait. Pool at the bottom of the Bridgewater Oval and Germantown Hill a very good place for trout. Hawthorn’s Pool further down. Jaensch’s Paddock pools. Football players on Bridgewater Oval used to kick balls into Cox Creek.

The sand pool where Cox Creek joined the Onkaparinga River filled with sand and logs after a flood - good for trout hidden under the logs. The pool 200 yards by 10 yards wide - apple tree grew on the bank as well as ordinary and oakleaf blackberries with very large, juicy fruit. Also willows. Trout flipped out after flies. Quiet and sheltered. Faehrmanns used to go in with horse and trolley to get sand for building. Much of the vegetation burnt out in the 1980s bushfire.

Vestiges of the waterwheel about half a mile back up Cox Creek from the junction.

CRAFER, David (c1796-1842).

Born at Buxton, nr Norwich, Norfolk, England. Shortly before emigrating to SA aboard the Lord Goderich in 1838, Crafer married Mary Ann Leggatt at East Dereham, Norfolk. Following a stint as a timber splitter in the area, during March 1839, he opened the Sawyers Arms at what is now Crafers in the Adelaide Hills to serve the scattered numbers of farmers and woodcutters living in the neighbourhood. Only days afterwards, the Germans passed by to establish Hahndorf, the first township in the ranges. From late 1840, David called his business the Norfolk Arms Hotel, in honour of his native county. Crafer gave up his inn in April 1841 and took on the licence of the South Australian Hotel in Hindley St, Adelaide, for some months. David died at Brighton, after a lingering illness. He left no sons and therefore the Crafer surname no longer kept going in the colony. Crafer’s wife, Mary Ann, remarried, to Brighton gardener, William Coleman, and then to farmer John Robinson. After her death, 20/5/1878, he became a pioneer of Balaklava.

CRAFERS. David Crafer

opened his hotel, the Sawyer’s Arms, beside the bush track later known as the Mt Barker Road in March 1839. The public house soon became known familiarly as Crafer’s place. For some decades, Crafers remained little more than a district, with scattered labourers’ cottages in the thick valley scrub, crowned by summer mansions for Adelaide’s wealthy classes on the heights. Two sub-divisions, Crafers Park and Crafers Summit, were laid out in 1880 by Richard Searle and Edward Ashwin, and RA Patterson respectively.

CROMPTON, Caleb. (23 July 1821 - 29 December 1854)

Lived at Hindmarsh before setting up as a storekeeper along the Great Eastern Road at Cox Creek during 1849, when land came up for public sale following the Government survey. Something went wrong! By 2 February 1850, Caleb had become a bankrupt. John Hance, the Government assignee, shook a sad head over Crompton’s assets - a cow, calf and foal, together with household furniture, altogether worth £10. On a grey winter day in July 1850, Sampson, Wicksteed & Co auctioned Crompton’s Cox Creek land for £26. Caleb left the colony soon afterwards, never to return.

[Following added by Richard Crompton 29 August 2017 and revised 19 June 2019]  -  Caleb Crompton of Nafferton, East Yorkshire, arrived in VDL on 04 April 1842 onboard the 372 tons barque Branken Moor. He was a freeman farmhand to Frederick Manning of Trafalgar, Evandale, living at what is now Springvale.  On 14 August 1844, he married Frances Lombe at York Street Baptist Chapel, Launceston, VDL.   On 08 May 1830, Frances (Fanny) arrived in the Swan River Colony on the brig  'James' , her mother having died on the journey.  Her onward journey to Hobart was by the Bombay, where she arrived aged 8 on 26 July 1830 and was abandoned by her stepfather to the care of Major Donald McLeod of Talisker, Evandale, VDL.

Caleb traded his hay and other people's horses to Adelaide where in 1849 and 1850 insolvency proceedings were taken by James Cairns over the sale or not of horses. At this time Caleb was of Jane-street, Hindmarsh a property he duly lost in his insolvency.

On 07 April 1850, his only son, Charles Walter, was born at Cox's Creek.  (Charles Walter Crompton became a contractor who lived at 344 St Kilda, Melbourne, now the site of the Indian consulate.)  Accrording to his insolvency of 1849, Caleb had property at Section No.1136, at the head of the Onkaparinga, on the Old Mount Barker Road.  On 11 June 1850 Caleb applied for a Licence to Slaughter at Cox Creek, where he must still have been living.

According to death certificates, Caleb arrived in Daisy Hill in the vicinity of Miners Rest, Victoria in 1852.  At sometime before his death Caleb was the proprietor of the Newmarket Hotel, Miners Rest, closely associated with the Cobb and Co. coach runs to the goldfields.  It is also believed that Caleb was a founder member of the Dowling Forest racecourse as, ironically, it was on the 2.5km return journey that a drunken Caleb fell off his horse and was killed.  He died on 29 December 1854.

Fanny remarried, suffered from 'lunacy' and died on 15 September 1900.

See www.rgcrompton.info/crompton/cr1821.html for further information.

General dealer Hindmarsh. He had received a party of Van Diemen’s Land horses to sell on consignment. ‘He sold, bartered and exchanged the horses for various kinds of property.’ Court case arose when he tried to complete a deal concerning the entire horse Lincoln Hero at the Balhannah Show. J Frew had supplied him with the horse. (Observer 23/3/1850. p4. Pt Adelaide Police Court 19/3/1850. 13/4/1850).

CURNOW, James. (c1805 - d 17/4/1869)

Commercial Hotel, Grenfell St 1845-1849. Sturt Hotel, Grenfell St 1850-1851. Plough & Harrow, Rundle St 1851-1859. Rob Roy, Halifax St 1862. Leased the Bridgewater Hotel 1859-1861. Again 1869, until his death in April of that year. Mrs Curnow in 1869-1870. Wife Susanne, d /4/1884. Daughter Emmeline married Walter Hackett the seed merchant.

CURRAN, Henry.

A NSW ticket-of-leave convict, who escaped to SA by early 1840. With two mates, he determined to become a bushranger. The trio held up three groups of colonists in the vicinity of Gawler and Mt Crawford, before reaching Crafers in the Tiers.

Police captured Curran and Hughes, following a tip-off that the bushrangers were involved in riotous behaviour in the Sawyers’ Arms taproom; the capture of Fox occurred later. Curran appeared to be the ringleader of the group. He and his cohorts were kept in the Police Barracks (where Curran played the violin to keep the prisoners’ spirits up) on North Terrace during the subsequent trial in March 1840. Before a large crowd, Curran and Hughes were hanged from a tree near the Torrens River in the North Parklands. Comforted by a Roman Catholic priest in the moments before his death, Curran remained composed enough to quieten Hughes, who became extremely violent.

CURRIE STREET, Adelaide.

Named after Raikes Currie, a wealthy British banker and member of Parliament, who combined radical thought with a tendency to gamble money as well as ideas. He became a foundation member of the South Australian Association set up in 1834 to instigate the formation of the colony.

DAVIES, George (1817 -15/7/1892).

To SA 1842 Guiana. London-born G Davies practised as an accountant in Adelaide. During August 1850, he bought 90-acre Section 1134, Hundred of Onkaparinga, with gardener William Bruce at Cox Creek. Besides their plant nursery, the pair operated a general store somewhere just by the Deanery Hotel to take the place of Caleb Crompton’s business further up Old Mt Barker Road, which had gone bankrupt in February of that same year. The shop operated Sub-divided the land in 1854. During 1858, George took his seat on the first Crafers District Council to represent Cox Creek and environs. Eventually, Davies moved in the 1860s to Pt Augusta, where he was a representative for the Yudanamutana Company and later a general agent in Commercial Road. Likely to be a relative of successful society doctor, Charles Davies, at Beaumont.

DAVIES, Maurice (1835-1913).

London-born Maurice Davies emigrated with his parents to a Tasmanian farm when he was four years old. Later, Davies crossed to Victoria to take part in the 1850s gold rush, and then moved to SA, where he married Sarah Salom, a sister of the Hon Maurice Salom (auctioneer and MP). From a Grenfell St mercantile business, Maurice Davies began to undertake engineering projects with John Wishart, and later invited CS Baillie to join the firm. The partners undertook a long list of construction, both in SA and interstate. In 1884, soon after the completion of the Mt Lofty-Nairne railway contract, M Davies shifted to Perth, to take charge of huge pastoral and timber interests he had been building up there since the late 1870s.

DEAN, Benjamin ( ).

A farmer from Saighton, Cheshire, England. To SA 1840 Lysander. He and his wife, Elizabeth, opened the Rural Deanery (built on Crown land) on 8 April 1841 at Cox Creek. Dean gave up the licence on 29 March 1848 to his wife, Elizabeth, but had died before 1 August 1849, when his 57 year-old relict, Elizabeth, died.

Daughter Elizabeth Dean married Charles Hentig, while her sister Anne Dean married John Peter, in 1844 and 1845 respectively. Both the Benjamin Dean’s sons-in-law had close links with nearby Hahndorf’s German settlers. Hentig, the son of Wilhelm Hentig, the Prussian Trade Consul in Hull, Yorks, England, farmed his absentee father’s section immediately to the west of Hahndorf, but left the colony soon after his marriage. John Peter farmed Oatlands, a watershed property between Hahndorf and Balhannah. In 1853, he sold the property to Friedrich Paech Senr, who established his eldest son there, and the estate henceforth became the well-known Ravenswood. The Peters went innkeeping at Mt Torrens.

When Elizabeth Dean died, her second son, John, took over the Deanery licence. He continued until mid-1850, when he sold the business to retired squatter James Addison. Dean next farmed in the Onkaparinga Valley and became the first poundkeeper for the new township of Woodside. Gregarious and fond of sport, John owned a racehorse named Billy-go-by-’em. In St James’s Blakiston during 1852, he married Sophie Anderson, daughter of William Anderson, landlord of the Woodside Inn. Briefly, in 1853, John ran his father-in-law’s business. Evidence suggests that the John Deans then decided to farm near Crafers, before taking on the licence of the Crafers Hotel between 1857-1859.

DEANE, Charles.

A graduate in law and medicine at Edinburgh University, Scotland. To SA 1875 Orient. Settled at Nairne; then in New Zealand during 1878-1880. Back in SA, C Deane practised in Mt Barker. Extremely community-minded, Charles belonged to the Mt Barker Agricultural Society, Institute, Tennis Club and Prince of Wales Lodge, as well as being a pillar of the Anglican Church. Much public attention followed his unsuccessful attempt to become the Member for Onkaparinga in the 1880 parliamentary elections. Possessing a tremendous sense of humour, CM Deane was in great demand as an after-dinner speaker. Deane was also fearless in speaking out against injustice. Down-to-earth, the doctor maintained a fine garden, and fossicked at the Echunga gold diggings. No wonder that Charles got on well at Bridgewater, where he hired a hotel room to consult, when navvies lived in the district in large numbers while the Mt Lofty-Nairne railway line was under construction during 1880-1884. Amid much public sorrow, Dr Deane and his family left for Silverton NSW during early 1886, just as the Broken Hill Mines were becoming established.

THE DEANERY, Cox Creek, Bridgewater.

Benjamin Dean and his wife opened this hotel in April 1841, on the eastern bank where the Old Mt Barker Road crossed Cox’s Creek. Legend quickly arose that the inn was a centre for stolen beef sales. Bullockies drank drugged beer and while they slept, people killed the bullock teams and profited from the freshly-slaughtered meat. More prosaically, in addition to the various road users and nearby inhabitants, there were the needs of an advancing party of some twenty government employees engaged to carry the Mt Barker Road from Crafers to Hahndorf to think about. Dean handed over his business to his wife during early 1848, no doubt shortly before his unregistered death. SA 14/3/1848 Her application granted ‘with an admonition to the applicant that her house stood in need of repair and enlargement. Mr Giles remarked that the case was peculiar; the site of a permanent house could not be fixed on till the line of road were determined’. Benjamin Dean’s widow, Elizabeth, died in August 1849, after which John Dean (second son, aged 25) took over until 1850, when he sold the premises to James Addison, an ex-squatter with perhaps some money to invest. He immediately took out numbers of mortgages on the Deanery property and in 1855, he shifted the business to the newly-routed Mt Barker Road to the south of the original Deanery.

Briefly, the brand-new hotel became known as the New Deanery, but some months later, disappeared into history as the Bridgewater Hotel.

DEANERY BRIDGE.

Convict stores and equipment to be used on the Echunga goldfields.

DEANERY FORD.

Until some time into 1852, travellers between Adelaide and the Mt Barker district had to cross Cox Creek by means of a ford. When one of that stream’s frequent floods erupted, traffic temporarily ground to a halt as well. No doubt, the Rural Deanery profited, if people happened to be marooned on the right side of the creek.

DOWNER, Alexander (1910-1981).

The only child of Sir John Downer and his second wife, Una Russell the artist, young Alick Downer received an excellent education in Australia and Britain. After practising as an Inner Temple barrister in London for a period, he returned to his native SA and bought Arbury Park in 1932, from the estate of the late Tullie Wollaston. Still an eligible bachelor, Alick built a pseudo-Georgian mansion in the style of the many Georgian homes which had inspired him in England. Following service in the AIF during World War II (including several years in the notorious Changi prison), Alick Downer married Mary, the only daughter of Sir James and Lady Gosse, of Wairoa, near Aldgate. Following a successful federal political career in Canberra, Alick served with distinction as Australian High Commissioner to the UK. The Downers sold Arbury Park in 1964, because, after fourteen years of negotiation, the SA government decided to put the new S-E Freeway right through the garden near the house. In retirement, Sir Alick returned to SA, where he lived near Williamstown until his death.

The Downers married in 1947 on the same day as Alick Downer bought the original Arbury Park in 1932.

DRY CREEK STOCKADE.

Erected to take the convicts formerly sent to Van Diemen’s Land, a practice stopped with the ending of transportation in 1851. The building became well-known as the Yatala Labour Prison. Meanwhile, a temporary stockade of iron erected at Cox Creek served for 12 convicts to work on the Great Eastern Road and build the Deanery bridge during 1852. Later that same year, the Cox Creek stockade building was taken to Pt Elliot to be used as a police station; the equipment and stores went to support police efforts on the newly-opened Echunga gold fields.

DUNN, John (1802-1894).

A native of Bideford, Devon, England, J Dunn arrived SA 1840 Lysander, with his wife and family. Eventually, his parents and most of his brothers and sisters also emigrated to live in the Mt Barker District. Amongst John Dunn’s manifold business interests was the Bridgewater Mill. For some years in the 1850s, he leased the failed Lion Mill on the Mt Barker Road between Bridgewater and Aldgate. Following a false opening during 1860, Dunn’s own water-powered flour mill began making flour in 1861. Much less well-known is the fact that teetotal John Dunn also owned the nearby Bridgewater Hotel from 1864, bought out of the estate of bankrupt John Curruthers.

EAGLE-ON-THE-HILL HOTEL.

Opened in May 1853 by William Anderson, who had pioneered the Mountain Hut Hotel at Glen Osmond in the 1840s. Abraham Fordham took over the licence in August of the same year; he installed the caged eagle, which gave the inn its present name from 1855. The Eagle’s taproom cheered travellers involved in getting in or out of steep Glen Osmond a little to the west. Between Eagle-on-the-Hill and the next hotel at Crafers lay Breakneck Hill, a further challenge to safe journeys.

EAKINS, John.

A gardener. Died 27/4/1903?

EASTHER, Alfred (c1819-26/5/1871?)

Born Middlesex. To SA 1850 Stag. Wife Sarah. A sawyer with his brother Alfred at Cox Creek from at least 1854 - they bought part of section 1135, Hundred of Onkaparinga, from William Easther. Sold the property to Charles Barton in 1861 - this became the well-known Foxhill estate on the slopes of Mt George.. Daughter born Cox Creek 1854. Bible Christian Methodists. Name of wife. Dates of death.

EASTHER, Edward. (c1823-Died 27/12/1886).

Married Mary, nee ? . Date of death - Mary Easther. In SA by 1847. At Cox Creek in the 1850s. Later had a sawmill in Gilles St. Landlord of the Belair Hotel 1882-1884. Died at Unley, linked with brother William? Son Edward d 28/8/1907 Wolseley.

EASTHER, William (c1814-30/6/1889).

Born Middlesex, England.  To SA 1837 Katherine Stewart Forbes. He operated as a tailor in in turn, in Wright, Sturt and Currie Sts, Adelaide, until the mid-1840s; then lived in Mitcham and Cox Creek as a farmer, with a spell during the 1850s as a Hahndorf sawmiller on part of the site of the well-known Academy. W Easther apparently continued sawmilling activities between Cox Creek and Grünthal during the early 1860s. On 21/5/1860, the Crafers District Council granted him permission for ‘putting up such erections on the Crown lands of the District as he may find needful, having fully stated to him, that they cannot grant him legal authority for so doing’. William retired to Mitcham; then to Unley Road. He took a great interest in the Mitcham District Council and became the leading person to get the Institute built. Something of an actor, W Easther used to play in the old Adelaide theatres during the years immediately after his arrival in the colony. Much to public delight, he could recite long passages of lines from memory well into old age. Not surprisingly, William kept his energy until within a few months of his death. Wife Sarah (c1814-25/7/1885).

Section 1135 Hundred of Onkaparinga

10/4/1851 Land grant to William Easther farmer Cox Creek.

Land subdivided in 1855.

Subdivision 3

28/8/1854 To Alfred and Edward Easther sawyers Cox Creek, 59 acres for £60. W Easther was now a gentleman of Mitcham.

10/4/1855 JK Ashhurst bought two acres out of this land - the title subsequently lost.

6/5/1858 Mortgage to John Hamley gentleman of North Adelaide £150 at 12.5%.

7/5/1861 To Charles Howard Barton gentleman North Adelaide for £150.

30/8/1885 CH Barton a gentleman of Bridgewater. Placed the land under the RPA. Valued at £1000.

Section 1153 Hundred of Onkaparinga.

6/3/1854 Land grant to Michael Cullen and Thomas Powell gents Adelaide 60 acres for £94/10/-.

7/11/1854 To William Easther gentleman Cox Creek £153. together with all buildings, fences, timber minerals, ways, waters, water courses, right, easements, members and appurtenances whatsoever to the said section ...
William Easther subdivided the Section.

10/8/1857 To Samuel Sisson . 5 acres for £37/10/-. This is against Section 1135, where Sisson bought a strip of adjoining land. He brought it under the RPA on 15/10/1868.

ECHUNGA.

In 1849, wealthy Quaker businessman Jacob Hagen laid out Echunga in the Hundred of Kuitpo, a few kilometres south of Hahndorf. Three years later, the quiet agricultural hamlet became the scene of South Australia’s earliest gold rush, when the population grew fast. in 1854, the Hagens returned to England , but retained much property at Echunga, which they left in the care of their land steward, George Sanders. Echunga’s Hagen Arms Hotel commemorates the efforts of the township’s founder.

FERGUSON, William (1809-1892).

Born in Roxburghshire, Scotland, W Ferguson emigrated to SA 1836 Buffalo, with his wife of only a few months. On arrival, William went into various business partnerships with fellow passenger Robert Cock. Besides building the province’s first auction room, the men also laid out the Magill Estate, where W Ferguson took charge of the farming aspects. As well,the partners discovered Cox Creek on their 1837 journey to find a route across the Adelaide Hills to the Murray River. Despite such initiatives, the Fergusons lost their property in the 1841 economic crash, and retired to a farm at Myrtle Bank, with some of the stock which well-wishers bought for the family at the mortgage sale. William saw his children marry into prosperous pastoral families - Cudmores, Hawkers, Mortlocks, AB Murray, Tennants - and enjoyed a comfortable old age.

FINLAYSON, William (1813- d 17/12/1897).

To SA 1837 John Renwick, from his native Glasgow, Scotland, with his new wife, Helen, nee Harvey d 20/10/1884. Finlayson arrived with the intention of conducting a Baptist mission to the Aborigines; throughout the rest of his life, he took an intense interest in these people. Upon landing, William found employment with the SA Company and subsequently rented Company land, with the right to buy, along Brownhill Creek at Mitcham. Here, the Finlaysons remained for the rest of their lives. William’s crossing of the Mt Lofty Ranges in 1837 with his two companions brought the group such praise as only cross-continental explorers usually earn. For many years, W Finlayson remained as pastor of Zion Chapel, Adelaide, even in retirement, keeping up his duties there to within eight weeks of his death. His large number of children married into the ranks of other well-known pioneer families

FISHER, Seth.

Died 8/9/1868? Mitcham, aged 56.

FOWLER, George Junr (1893- d 29/19/1973).

Eldest son of James Fowler, eldest son of GS Fowler Senr. George Senr and two brothers had established D & J Fowler, wholesale grocers on North Tce, Adelaide, and at McLaren Wharf, Pt Adelaide. JR Fowler attended Prince Alfred College and graduated in MA with a History major with honours from Cambridge in the 1880s. He returned to SA to help his father in the family firm. George Fowler Junr spent his youth at Sunnyside, a great Burnside mansion created by Sir William Milne, who was a prominent colonial businessman and parliamentarian. In 1901, the Fowlers moved to Osmond Tce, Norwood. George Fowler Junr’s mother was Esther Murray. Her father, William Murray, was a brother of the Mt Crawford brothers of Merino sheep fame. William operated a jam factory beside his home on the Glen Osmond Road at Glenunga and planted an extensive nursery in nearby Fullarton. The Murray jam factory was strategically situated to receive Cox Creek fruit as it came down from the Mt Barker Road into suburban Adelaide. George Junr moved to Bridgewater c1922 to become a gardener. He had a chest complaint and his father thought he needed Hills air. Lived on dividends from D & J Fowler. Rode around in a horse and sulky. Also drove in a taxi. Chairman of the Stirling Hospital. Hired local men to work the property. Very meticulous in his methods.

He and his wife very community minded. On the school committee. Very patriotic and on the District Council committee during WW 2. Cows and garden, apple trees. Milked the cows himself; got other people to do the gardening. Today, the property is called Cooinda.

FOX, James.

A 24-year old English labourer, who emigrated to Van Diemen’s Land, and then moved to SA in the middle of 1839. He had the misfortune to fall in with two runaway NSW ticket-of-leave convicts, Curran and Hughes, and acted mainly as an accomplice with them in several armed robberies around Gawler and Mt Crawford. Fox initially escaped for a time after police captured Curran and Hughes at Crafers; constables systematically warned isolated Adelaide Hills settlers in the vicinity that Fox was still at large. At the subsequent trial, the Judge recognised Fox’s subsiduary role in the robberies. Transported for life to NSW, James Fox died aboard the barque Mary Ridgway while on his way under guard to Sydney in April 1840.

FYFFE, Henry Stanton (2/11/1821-12/12/1863).

A native of Tottenham, Middlesex, London, HS Fyffe emigrated to SA 1849 Royal Sovereign, as a bachelor. After setting up as a Mitcham storekeeper, he married Hannah, youngest daughter of Thomas Mugg, founder of a well-known pioneer Mitcham district family. H Fyffe prospered in his retailing and bought part of Section 1153 H of Onkaparinga, at Cox Creek, from gardener Samuel Sisson, as a prudent investment to rent out to a gardener - it is very doubtful that he himself ever came to live on the property. By the late 1850s, the Fyffes had removed from Mitcham to Edwardstown, where Henry died, aged 43 - still a young man.

GATES, Joseph ( - d 4/11/1953).

Lived on Old Mt Barker Road on the lower reaches near the Deanery. Likely to be son of John Gates, a Carey Gully farmer and timber cutter. Wife Jane Gates, nee Nichols, who sold the Arbury Park School site to Tullie Wollaston in 1911. She died 20/11/1947. Went reguarly to Bridgewater every Friday to do his shopping according to a pre-arranged order. A dear old man. Was a market gardener on his wife’s family’s land. Barry Nichols lives on Waters Rd. His daughter Pearl, Mrs Sinclair Dixon, lived there from Woodville. Mrs Margaret Pearson, nee Nichols, lives at Balhannah, Lindsay Pearson. Very happy man with good sense of humour. Helped in the Arbury Park garden, as well as at the Ray Nursery. Likely to have been working for Tulli Wollaston for many years. He grafted the claret ash, which became the famous Raywoodii. Did a lot of digging. Children loved him, as he put them on his knee, sang ditties and made jokes. Home called The Oaks, Ann Welfare brought out the acorns from England.

GERMANTOWN HILL.

The steep eastern watershed slopes down which Cox Creek flows from Bridgewater to the Onkaparinga River. This hill carries the Mt Barker Road to Hahndorf-Grünthal, two of the earliest Adelaide Hills settlements, and both established by German immigrants - hence the nickname which British colonists quickly coined soon afterwards. When SA names with Germanic associations were abolished following World War I, Germantown Hill became Vimy Ridge, commemorating a strategic French north country ridge and village re-captured by the Allies from the Germans during 1917.

GOLD ESCORT.

Highly alarmed by the real prospect that SA could lose permanently its goldminers and their valuable discoveries from the Victorian diggings, the government shrewdly proclaimed a Bullion Act. Gold sold in Adelaide would realise far more money than in Melbourne. Moreover, a special police escort under the control of redoubtable Alexander Tolmer was set up to bring back the gold and miners’ letters overland. During 1852-1853, 18 escorts delivered safely some 328,500 oz of gold worth nearly £1,200,000, together with over 7,600 articles of mail.

HACK, Theodore (1840-1902)

A son of well-known pioneer JB Hack, T Hack was born on his parents’ property at Echunga. Following time in the Customs and Public Works Departments, Theo went into partnership with his sister, Stella, as managing director of her late husband’s timber yard at Pt Adelaide, in September 1874. After a disatrous fire destroyed the premises in November 1884, T Hack operated as an architect, land and commission agent until his death. When in business for himself, Theo held office in the Pt Adelaide and Semaphore Councils. He also became a member for Gumeracha in the House of Assembly and took part in commercial discussions during negotiations for the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia. While in Parliament, T Hack headed the Select Committee which eventually recommended the building of the Monarto South-Sedan railway line to help Murray Flats wheat farmers shift their grain to market. Died 27/12/1902.

HAHNDORF.

Captain DM Hahn negotiated with the three landowners in January 1839 to obtain the site of the present township of Hahndorf for his Zebra passengers to settle. They named their new home after the captain who had done so much for them. Cox Creek gardeners and timber cutters soon grew to know Hahndorf’s settlers, regularly wending way by lumbering German waggon or on foot to Adelaide to sell farm produce. Between 1918-1935, Hahndorf was known as Ambleside.

HARDY, Arthur (1817- d 13/7/1909).

Born at Birksgate, Yorks. A breakdown in health prevented Hardy from practising law in Britain. To SA 1839 Planta, where he established a mixed farm along the Torrens River at what is now known as Paradise (then called Shepley). Improved health encouraged A Hardy to accept Governor Gawler’s invitation to assist at Government prosecutions in the Supreme Court. A Hardy married Martha, nee Price, on a trip back to England in 1849. d 18/6/1904. The young couple returned to Birksgate, a new house Arthur had built at the entrance to the Glen at Glen Osmond, behind which grew an extensive vineyard. Later, A Hardy built Mt Lofty House, the first stately home on the Mt Lofty summit slopes, as a summer residence. At Glen Osmond, Arthur developed stone quarries for homes and roads, established a local branch of the volunteer corps during 1859 and was the first person to suggest building a tram system in Adelaide. He belonged to the influential Education and Central Road Boards, and for a time became a Member of the House of Assembly. At the time of his death, in Liverpool House, Glenelg, Arthur Hardy was the oldest member of the legal profession in the state

HUGHES, George.

A NSW ticket-of-leave convict, who escaped with Henry Curran (another ticket-of-leaver) to SA by early 1840. Joined by a young free colonist, James Fox, the trio determined to become bushrangers. They robbed three groups of settlers in the vicinity of Gawler and Mt Crawford, before reaching Crafers in the Tiers. Police captured Hughes and Curran, following a tip-off that the bushrangers were involved in riotous behaviour in the Sawyers’ Arms taproom; the capture of Fox occurred later. Hughes and his cohorts were kept first in a small stone building, nicknamed the stone jug , in the Adelaide Gaol, and later in the Police Barracks on North Terrace, during the subsequent trial in February/March 1840. Before a large crowd, Hughes and Curran were hanged from a gum tree near the Torrens River in the North Parklands. Hughes smoked a pipe to steady his nerves as he approached the gallows, and swore volubly, to the disgust of his mate, Henry Curran.

HUNBY Family.

Mrs Hunby was a teacher in her cottage - the first school in Bridgewater township. Her husband was a labourer at Dunn’s mill. Name of husband. Date of deaths.

WHALLY, Joseph (c1801-6/10/1881)

Died Piccadilly SA. From Manchester, Lancs, England. Came to Cox Creek c1853 to work in the sawmills. After they closed, he became gardener on the Woodhouse Estate. Esteemed by Sir Richard Hanson and his brother, William. Blind for the last five years of his life. Wife Hannah died 10/71878, aged 74, also worked for the Hansons c25 years. ‘one of our old residents in the hills and much respected by all who knew him’. Bible Christian.

IRRGANG, Johann Ernst (? -30/4/1965, aged 57).

Lived on Section 1201, Hundred of Onkaparinga, near the Deanery in 1950. Came from the Barossa Valley. Worked for the Downers in their dairy, helped look after the garden. Lived in the Welfare home. Took over from Edgar Nichols and lived at the Lodge. Edgar Nichols’ widow went to live there. Downers had bought the place at the end of 1946. Stayed there until 1964, when the Downers sold the place. Retired to Stirling. A dairy hand. The Cox Creek post office was in front of his house, near the Deanery Bridge. This must have been the property where the Radfords lived. Worked for the Ray Nursery and then the Downers. Date of deaths. Barry Irrgang lives at Holden Hill/Teatree Gully. MB Irrgang 11 Cedric Ave 251 3352. Adrian Irrgang 19 Ashhenden road 339 6751.

JAMESTOWN,

JOHNS, David.

Bought an 83-acre section at Cox Creek from Cornelius Birdseye in 1858. Johns was a Second Creek nurseryman. Also a nurseryman at Cox Creek. Possibly (c1811 Devon- ?). To SA 1852 Sultana, with wife, Frances, and young family. Date of deaths.

KAIN, Martin Senr. (?-14/10/1902)

wife Katherine (?-3/11/1902). Arrived Ship Hooghly (5/12/1848). Farmer, contractor at Hay Valley and Murdoch Hill, Balhannah, before moving permanently to Bridgewater. Martin constructed the first ford over the Onkaparinga River - near Hugh Kerr’s property at Bonney Flat. Bullock teams brought large stones and logs to make the ford, which remained in use for many years. Martin Kain bought the Lion Mill c1865. He worked in Dunn’s Mill. 4 sons and 5 daughters. Connected with many well-known families in Mt Barker, Nairne and Kanmantoo districts. Died three weeks apart in 1902.

KAIN, Martin Junr (//-//).

Married Martha Jacobs at Mt Barker on 21/4/1881. Son of Martin. Family lived in the Lion Mill, after it closed down. A farmer at Cox Creek from the mid-1860s.

KAIN FAMILY.

Great tellers of tales about the cattle stealing and salting down of meat at the Deanery. Martin Kain bought the Lion Mill c1865. He worked in Dunn’s Mill. Family sold in 1920. Land excellent for gardening, but the property spoilt in 1880 when the railway built. Three generations lived in the Mill. The junction of Kains Road and Old Mt Barker Road often called Kains Corner. People on foot, in buggies and on horseback stopped here to chat after service in the old Methodist Chapel on the opposite slope. 5 Kains grandchildren lived in the Mill. People brought hand carts from far around to get a week’s supply of fruit and vegetables. Sons were the best sporting family in cricket and football.

KENNEDY, Richard Patrick (10/3/1889-16/8/1966).

RP Kennedy served as a trooper with the Third Light Horse during World War I - he fought in Egypt, Gallipoli and France, before returning to SA in July 1918. Soon afterwards, Richard purchased The Chestnuts, a quaint house on the lower slopes of Mt George, near Bridgewater, where he maintained a market garden for the rest of his working life. Stately chesnuts still surround the residence, which stands above Foxhill Rd, next to Foxhill, the pioneer Easther and Barton family property. A quiet, reclusive person, he had relations to stay with him occasionally , but few local residents came to know him well. Did The Chestnuts form part of Arbury Park estate?

KENNERICK, John Ken (1893-1966).

Son of a Brooklyn Park contractor, John Kennerick Junr (after leaving school) helped his father cart building sand from the many sand hills in the neighbourhood to supply metropolitan building firms. Enlisted 10th Battalion 1914-1915 in Egypt & Gallipoli - returned to Australia wounded; re-enlisted 5th Battalion 1916-1919 France & Belgium. During the 1930s, after marriage to widowed Merle McFadyen, with young children, John managed a 365-acre property (for timber cutting and sheep grazing) on the River Road, near Hahndorf, where Cox Creek joins the Onkaparinga River. c1941, the family moved to Bridgewater. Besides looking after his own small mixed farm on the corner of Carey Gully and Old Mt Barker Roads, John made trips to SAs Outback as a member of Frank Walsh’s boring team; later, J Kennerick did the same work locally for another Walsh employee, Jimmy Forbes. Shortly before John’s death, the Kennericks relocated their home on the farm to avoid the Freeway’s path.

Married the widow Merle MacFadyen, nee Slater, originally of Scotts Creek. In 1930s. Managed Otto Haebich’s property on River Road. Sheep and woodcutters. . Frank Walsh’s boring plant in Finke etc. Then with Jimmy Forbes, one of the team, and worked around the hills. His wife was from Scotts Creek and knew Mrs Kennerick in her young days. JH Kennerick lived in Bridgewater during the 1950s. Labourer for the Jimmy Forbes family with boring. House went under the freeway. A labourer. Returned soldier. Name of wife. Date of deaths. Possibly Michael Kennerick (1854- ?) To SA 1880 Corona from Ireland. Agricultural labourer. 365 acres in Haebich’s property. ; 5th Battalion 1916-1919.

KING, William.

A prosperous grazier with a young family in the 1950s, who lived at the foot of Germantown Hill, above the junction of Cox Creek and the Onkaparinga River. Patches of undisturbed scrub, noted for glorious spring wildflowers, separated the King’s property from surrounding landowners. Generously, William permitted neighbours to walk cross-country over his land to Bridgewater (often to catch the train) instead of having to take a much longer route by road.

KNIGHTON, Frederick (c1845-Died 2/10/1899).

A native of Monmouthshire, an English county on the Welsh marches, F Knighton emigrated to SA 1865 Lincoln. Ship-watchers marvelled at this ‘handsome vessel of iron, with every late improvement introduced in construction … ‘ which ‘averaged 280 miles a day across the Southern Ocean for 35 days … ‘ Frederick disembarked at Pt Adelaide in the company of over 400 other migrants, ‘for the most part labouring classes, mingled with a few artisans’. Because the SA harvest had just about finished, many people worried how such a lot of new settlers would obtain jobs, especially as another four emigrant ships berthed at about the same time as the Lincoln.

A life-long bachelor, F Knighton must have prospered as a labourer, despite initial fears for employment, because eventually he bought property at Cox Creek, where he remained as a gardener for the rest of his life. Sadly, he died in the Adelaide Hospital, aged only 54, and was buried in the Stirling East Cemetery. Kind friends announced his death in SAs weekly country newpaper, The Chronicle, of 7/10/1899.

LION MILL

Erected by William Wailes in 1854. Wailes bought the site (two acres of Section 1142, Hundred of Noarlunga) from Cornelius Birdseye on 16 Jan 1854. Three months later, a three storey mill was nearing completion. By the end of the year, Wailes was in financial difficulties and, with the concurrence of the chief creditor, Nathanial Oldham, sold the property to Philip Levi. Leased to Dunns from January 1857. Run by steam power. Excellent site, as it faced both the old and new Mt Barker Roads. 1857-1859 leased by John Dunn & Son, until the firm built the Bridgewater Mill near the point where the new Mt Barker Road crosses Cox Creek. The Johnston brothers operated the Mill in the 1860s. The century-old Mill and the chimney badly damaged in the 1954 earthquake. Pulled down and some of the stone used to build the new RC Church in Bridgewater. The Ryan family, who have operated a service station since 1959, live in the miller’s house and the former mill wall remains form part of a rock garden.

LION MILL ROAD,

A local road joining the Old and New Mt Barker Roads just before the old road turns to swing across the Deanery Reserve.

Between 1851-1854, Lion Mill Road formed part of the New Mt Barker Road as it swung back to join the Old Mt Barker Road at the Deanery - prior to the completion of the new main line as we know it through Bridgewater. Formerly, the Lion Flour Mill stood just down from the corner of Lion Mill Road and the New Mt Barker Road. Lion Mill Road has been long renamed Kain Ave, after the family of Martin Kain Senr, who lived in the Lion Mill building from c1883, after it closed.

MARSH, Mrs.

Took over Bridgewater township’s private school from Mrs Hunby. Mr Marsh worked at Dunn’s Mill. Mrs Marsh had a Dame’s school. Children sent outside when he came home for lunch, but they used to watch through the open door as he ate. Still to be identified.

THE MEADOWS.

MEASDAY’S STORE.

William Measday (c1829-1905) and family arrived in SA 1852 Steadfast. They made their way to the Tiers, where William became an agricultural labourer, and then opened a general store along Breakneck Hill, Crafers. d 30/7/1905. Mrs Measday d 11/9/1944.

MOUNT BARKER.

The major centre of population in the eastern Adelaide Hills. Mt Barker was laid out in 1840 as the service centre for a rich agricultural district with poor links to the outside world. Churches, schools and a police station rose to serve a scattered population. Until recent years, the town grew slowly, proud of its English air and placid way of life. Mt Barker is now irrevocably linked to become an outer urban development of the Adelaide metropolitan area. A majority of travellers between Mt Barker and the Adelaide Plains have traditionally taken the Great Eastern Road skirting Bridgewater/Cox Creek.

MOUNT BARKER COURIER.

With experience from a Mt Barker job printer’s apprenticeship and later work as a professional printer for SAs respected metropolitan newspaper, The Register, CMR Dumas founded the Mt Barker Courier during 1880. Numbers of proprietors have owned the business since that time, but the Courier has survived continuously to stake its claim as the second oldest newspaper in the Adelaide Hills.

MOUNT BARKER DISTRICT.

For South Australian colonists in the 1840s, the old Mt Barker District stretched from approximately Macclesfield and Meadows in the south to Mt Torrens in the north. The District’s eastern borders were the Bremer-Scott Creek headwaters, while the New Tiers directly across the Onkaparinga River marked the boundary to the west. Mt Barker township rose strategically in the centre of the region. Captain Collett Barker was the first European to make a recognised sighting of the Mt Barker summit, during his ill-fated coastal journey to the Murray mouth in April 1831, when Aborigines speared him to death.

MOUNT GEORGE.

A heavily-timbered hill on Section 1135, Hundred of Onkaparinga, forming a backdrop to Bridgewater. Although of uncertain origin, the name was first in use during the 1930s. In colonial times, folklore has it that the thick scrub on Mt George hid stolen stock until police moved their search to other areas or called off the investigation altogether.

BRIDGEWATER

Well over 20 through the world. At the foot of Mt George. Fence posts and roofing shingles from late 1830s. Land surveyed in 1849. Private ownership led to the growing of fruit trees, berries and vegetables. Steep slopes abandoned to grazing and poultry, with high cost of modern labour and the difficulty of using machinery on slopes. After Bridgewater became the terminus of the suburban railway, more people who worked in Adelaide came to live in the township.

MURRAY RIVER.

For some 650 km (a quarter of its entire length), the Murray River flows through SA, to empty into the Southern Ocean. The state’s greatest waterway is filled with historical associations - from the Aboriginal dreaming time, through the early European explorers, the wealthy pastoral industry, the paddle-steamer trade and modern stories of the 1956 flood.

NAILSWORTH FOREST.

Land agent George Rolfe laid out the village of Nailsworth, north of Adelaide, in 1850. Since early colonial times, people had called the area The Pine Forest, descriptive of an extremely thick stand of native pine some kilometres square growing here. Builders used the wood to erect the colony’s first Government House and other landmarks. The growth of villages like Nailsworth hurried timber-clearing to a point where the forest all but disappeared.

NEW SOUTH WALES.

The oldest of the six Australian colonies was founded as a convict settlement in 1788. With several boundary changes, NSW occupied over half of the continent (plus Tasmania and New Zealand for a time) until , in 1836, the new province of SA was formed from portion of its area. Following further divisions, NSW assumed its present size in 1863. The colony became a state of the new Commonwealth of Australia during 1901.

NICHOLS, Noah. (18/3/1822- d 3/5/1904)

A native of Norfolk, Noah emigrated SA 1851 Ascendant. Settled at Clare, then went to the Victorian gold fields. Afterwards bought land at Bridgewater. Married Ann Welfare, A labourer at the Bridgewater Mill and planted the poplars along Cox Creek at the mill. Lived in a cottage on the site of The Oaks, which Ann Welfare brought out as acorns from England. Another cottage against the junction of Kain Ave and Mr Barker Rd ‘Cherry Cottage’, now rebuilt and added to. Early purchaser of allotments in the new township of Bridgewater. He had bought Section 1201, Hundred of Onkaparinga, near the future Cox Creek village in 1850. Generally, land around Cox Creek was surveyed in 1849. A foundation trustee for the Bridgewater Methodist church. Hard worker, honest and charitable. Married Ann Welfare, daughter of John and Ann Welfare, who came to live on portion of the Nichols’s land. They had James, Elizabeth, Benjamin and Jane. 1st two died young, unmarried. Ann d 18/3/1911.

Discrepency between dates of emigration, purchase of land and date of marriage.

NICHOLS, Edgar. (7/1/1907-21/3/1950)

Grandson of Noah Nichols. Son of Benjamin Nichols, who worked the Nichols property, which was then only part of what they had formerly owned. Benjamin Nichols lived in a cottage which was the former post office - only a pile of rubble there now. Edgar took the produce to market, especially when his father was becoming blind - started this work at 16. Worker for the Ray Nursery. Then Edgar Nichols work for the Downer family from July 1935. Home vegetable garden and got the wood in, went fishing. Foundation Bridgewater firefighter, with badge on arm - no proper uniform. Chairman, Bridgewater School Committee. Five children in the Lodge. Name of wife. Date of deaths. Died on the day that Sir Alic made his maiden speech in Federal Parliament. Remarried, and lived in cottage from original Nichols property. ADA Pearson, Mrs Ron Pearson.

SECTION 1201 HUNDRED OF ONKAPARINGA

28/4/1853 Land grant to Noah Nichols farmer Milbank. 114 acres.

Subdivision 1 Application 5013.

18/2/1859 41 acres to Thomas Gill yeoman Glen Osmond, for £61/10/-.

9/4/1864 Brought under the RPA. Gill was than a gardener of Glen Osmond. Title made out to Thomas Robinson gardener Stirling.

Subdivision 2 Application 16464

27/11/1877 Noah Nichols, now a farmer of Cox Creek, brought the land under the RPA. 74 acres valued at £400. A John Welfare farmer Cox Creek was associated with the land - father-in-law to Noah Nichols.

O’HALLORAN GILES, Thomas (1863-1958).

A grandson of William Giles, second Resident Manager of the SA Company, T O’Halloran Giles had family connections which struck deep into SAs earliest European pioneer years. His mother, Mary O’Halloran, was a niece of redoubtable TS O’Halloran, founder of O’Halloran Hill; Thomas’s wife, Jean, happened to be a daughter of well-known pastoralist and benefactor Robert Barr Smith and niece of equally generous Sir Thomas Elder. The O’Halloran Giles lived in palatial Hillcrest, a property which stretched for some distance along both sides of Old Mt Barker Road, with vistas towards Cox Creek. Various Cox Creek families worked part-time in the Giles’s garden; at Christmas, every member benefited from specially chosen presents.

OLD MILL CORNER.

The junction of Kain Avenue and the Bridgewater-Aldgate main road. Now demolished, the Lion flour mill operated on the adjoining property intermittently during the 1850s-1860s.

OLD MOUNT BARKER ROAD.

Following much public agitation, a mixture of government and private effort finished an all-weather track (the Great Eastern Road) to the Mount Barker district as far as the head of Glen Osmond by the end of 1841. Although the private company had fourteen years to take the road right into the Mt Barker region, the Government soon after took sole responsibility to complete the new road as far as Crafers and then construct a northerly route generally following the existing main bullocky tracks along the ridges to Cox Creek, Hahndorf and beyond; the private company undertook instead to form a southerly route mainly along various valley floors to what is now Aldgate and then Echunga. A short-lived Cox Creek encampment of convicts constructed new bridges across Cox Creek at the Deanery and on a nearby tributary during August 1852, as part of a general upgrading which involved re-routing the Mt Barker Road between Crafers and Bridgewater over portion of the hitherto southern portion to Echunga. The redundant northern route of the Great Eastern Road as far as Cox Creek logically now took the name of the Old Mount Barker Road.

ONKAPARINGA RIVER,

PEDDER, Robert.

Of North Tce, aged 66. Died 10/10/1882?

PLAYFORD, Thomas Junr (1837-1915)

Arrived as a child in SA c1843 from his native London. His parents, Thomas Playford Senr & Mary Ann, nee Perry, settled the family on a farm at Mitcham. In adulthood, Thomas Junr set up for himself as an orchardist at Norton Summit and then entered local and colonial politics. With very few breaks, he represented one or other Adelaide Hills electorates between 1868-1894; for just under a year in 1884-1885, T Playford Junr acted as Commissioner for Public Works in the Colton Government, when he authorised the erection of Bridgewater Public School’s shelter shed. Three years later, Playford himself was Premier.

Although by then in his 60s, Thomas Playford Junr became one of SAs foundation Senators in the new Commonwealth Parliament during 1901. He was the grandfather of another notable SA politician, Sir Thomas Playford.

PORT ELLIOT

PRESGRAVE, John Charles. (c1830-28/8/1896).

Born 1830 England. To SA 1854 Irene. Congregationalist. Surveyor. Lived at Norwood.

PRESGRAVE, JC.

The surveyor who laid out the township of Bridgewater. Bankrupt in Feb 1870.

RADFORD, William. (1829-1908)

Born at Loxton, Somerset, England. To SA 1857 Henry Moore, with his wife, Sarah, nee Kidner, and young family. Radford set up as a bootmaker and the first postmaster at Cox Creek during 1857, in a cottage diagonally across the stream from the Deanery Hotel; in 1859, he shifted his enterprises to his new home, Hutton Cottage (Hutton, Somerset, is a village a few kms north of Radford’s birthplace, Loxton), in the new Bridgewater township. Nevertheless, W Radford kept the name Cox Creek post office until 1873, when he organised local residents to petition the Government to call the post office Bridgewater - a logical, successful move. He gave up the post office about this time to widowed Mrs Sisson, but retained his bootmaking trade.

A Primitive Methodist lay preacher since the age of 18, W Radford frequently walked up to 20 miles to the various Primitive Methodist Chapels in the Adelaide Hills, often preaching three times a Sunday. Sternly opponent of alcohol, he became a leading figure in establishing a Cox Creek Branch of the Rechabite Society during 1863. For many years, William represented Bridgewater in the Crafers and Stirling District Councils.

Died 12/9/1908. Wife, Sarah, nee Kidner Died 1/9/1892. George Rudd was his son-in-law.

RAY NURSERY, Bridgewater.

At the height of his wealth and fame, opal dealer Tullie Wollaston established the Ray Nursery in 1925, on his Raywood Estate at Bridgewater. A local nurseryman, Englishman ER Beckett, and Edgar Nichols, became his partners in the venture. Beckett did the propogating. They kept the business running while Tullie was out and about with his opals. At weekends, Edgar kept the fires going in the hothouses and did the watering in the summer, also sales manager for Tullie. Mortimer Wollaston took over the nursery; Sir Alic bought the property in 1946; kept cows there and gave plants to the Bridgewater school and public gardens. Nursery did not pay well, because in the depression and income depended on what plants were sold. In its career of less than five years, the nursery became notable for the development of the sport Claret Ash Fraxinus Raywoodii, derived from a batch of plants purchased at Sewell’s Nursery, Aldgate. The nursery closed down when Tullie Wollaston lost his fortune in the Great Depression. Beckett came from England

Ray still to be identified.

ROBIN, Stella (c1837-1916).

One of the daughters of JB Hack, Stella married wealthy Adelaide merchant Theophilius Robin. The Robins lived at Woodville, conveniently between Theo’s business interests at Adelaide and the Port. Shortly after his death in 1874, Stella formed a business partnership with her brother, Theo Hack, and established the prosperous timber firm of Robin & Hack, which foundered in the great fire of November 1884. The Widow Robin moved from her Archer St, North Adelaide residence to Kyabram Vic, a flourishing fruitgrowing district in the Goulburn Valley, south-east of Echuca. She died in 1916 and was buried in the old Walkerville Cemetery beside her husband. A liking for timber must have been in the Hack family blood, for Stella’s son, TH Robin, became manager of the well-known Globe Timber Mills (for which he was also a partner), at Adelaide and Pt Adelaide.

ROBIN & HACK,

timber merchants, North Tce and Commercial Road, Pt Adelaide. This business grew out of the firm of Robin & Le Messurier, formed in 1865. Following Theophilius Robin’s death in 1874, Le Messurier sold his interest to Theo Hack, T Robin’s brother-in-law. T Hack and his sister (Theo Robin’s widow) now supervised operations.

With Theo Hack as managing director, Robin & Hack traded between 1874-1884, when a disastrous fire burnt the timber yard to the ground on the night of 10 November 1884. Times were depressed. The Chronicle of 15 November 1884 billed the conflagration as the greatest ever seen at the Port: By 10pm, the whole shed was blazing, and the flames gathered up to an immense height, sending forth volumes of smoke filled with scraps of burning charcoal, which were so thick that they did not disperse until at a great height. The scene was indescribably beautiful. There was neither more nor less than nearly an acre of flame, one great sheet, extending half-way down the shed, and innumerable huge forks surrounding it on every side.

Theo J Walter and Charles R Morris (a Robin & Hack employee since 1876, at the age of 13), two energetic young men, bought the goodwill of the business and re-opened in 1886, as Walter & Morris. By the mid-1890s, trade had increased by 25%, employing some 75 people. One of the company’s greatest achievements to that date was to supply the fittings for the new Exhibition Building on North Tce, Adelaide.

ROSENTHAL, Heinrich (c1828-d 12/2/1904).

A native of Clausthal, Hanover, GHA Rosenthal emigrated SA 1853 Dockenhuden, with his wife, Christiana Louise Wilhelmine, nee Heiseke. It is likely that he was perhaps a nephew of ECJF Rosenthal and his wife, AJ, nee Bartholomaeus, who arrived with their family 1851 Herder. H Rosenthal’s emigration papers describe him as a carrier and word worker. When Heinrich applied for Government rations 1855, he was listed as a shepherd at Stepney. Afterwards, H Rosenthal became a blacksmith for some years in St Helena St, Adelaide. During the mid-1870s, he re-established himself in premises behind Radford’s post office at Bridgewater. Heinrich sold the smithy to George Rudd in 1877, who straight way turned the business into a general store/post office, and added a bakehouse c1882. Meanwhile, H Rosenthal laboured in Dunn’s mill across the road. The Rosenthals then moved to Prospect, where Heinrich’s wife died 1/10/1882, of cancer, aged 55.

A Mrs Christiana Louisa Wilhelmine Rosenthal died of cancer at Prospect 1/10/1882, aged 55. She was the wife of H Rosenthal, late of Bridgewater. Heinrich Rosenthal re-married to Sarah Ann White, on 16/8/1888.

Heinrich’s brother, Carl, ran the Rosa Guest House in Colonel Barber’s former bungalow on Wembley Ave. Famed for their excellent cooking, the Rosenthals kept a hospitable table, which lured holidaymakers year after year. People warmed to Carl’s noisy sense of humour and delighted in his imperfect command of English - ‘jet white calves’ and similar phrases were quoted years later. Upon Carl’s death, several of his daughters continued the business for some time. G & M Rosenthal.

ROSINA STREET

RUDD, Alfred (1867-1963).

A nephew of George Rudd, Bridgewater’s prominent baker, general storekeeper and postmaster. Children Maisie and Joe helped in the shop. Name of wife. Date of deaths.

RUDD, James (1800-1886).

Born 1800 Lothbury, London, England. To SA 1836 Buffalo. Woodcutter, Thebarton, Cox Creek. Died 20/5/1886. Jemima, nee Wickes d 14/11/1883?

RUNAWAY SAILORS.

James Rudd used to hide them behind a hill bank in the scrub when the ship’s captain and police came looking. Much in demand for labour-intensive gardening. Musicians sought out runaway sailors to whistle them the latest tunes from London, which could then immediately brighten the colonial repertoire. Cattle duffers used to take the best part of stolen beasts to use as meat; the rest burnt in secluded places - the stench from the smoke warned the district that further thefts had taken place. Market gardeners had to break the ice on the ponds to get water to wash vegetables. Aborigines used to walk through the area on their way to Adelaide to get blankets on Queen Victoria’s birthday. Settlers used to give the Aborigines cups of tea and a rest. One lady had a wooden leg - would not sit on one verandah, because the subterranean water gave her strange sensations - three streams of water found there in later years.

THE RURAL DEANERY.

The official name of the Dean family’s inn at Cox Creek, which operated between 1841-1855 under several owners.

SCHOOL BOARD OF ADVICE.

The Board of Advice was a controversial aspect of the 1875 SA Education Act. All government schools in the settled areas belonged to a district Board composed of local community representatives. Boards met monthly, with at least an annual inspection of all schools under their control. Chasing up absconding pupils took up much time. Never before had SA education been so centralised; Thomas Playford, Bridgewater’s parliamentary representative, was particularly scathing of the trend, including the obnoxious Boards. Never-the-less, Board supervision had to occur.

SCHUMACHER, Franz Frank.

A member of a windmilling family in Germany, F Schumacher emigrated to SA to become miller at the Rosenthal (Rosedale) steam-flour mill (originally water-powered). After that business closed, the Schumachers ran a shop on Magill Rd, Stepney, and then Franz took a position with Gill, Gellert & Co’s flour mill at Glanville. When that firm bought the Bridgewater Mill during 1903, FR Schumacher became head miller there. In all, he worked for three proprietors until retirement in 1924. The Schumachers lived in a house, marked by a huge pine tree, against the Mt Barker Road, on the Aldgate side of the Bridgewater Hotel. Franz’s daughter Celia was a pupil teacher for CH Walker, headmaster of the Bridgewater Public School, just before World War 1.

SEARLE, Allen.

Lived on Carey Gully Road in the 1950s. A labourer. Returned WW 2 solider - New Guinea. Tramways conductor. Then a shoeshop in Bridgewater; later a chemist shop. Then retired. Also a traveller. Retired to Queensland. Close to the station to go to work. Built to avoid the Freeway, which then came through anyhow. BName of wife. Date of deaths.

SECOND CREEK.

Rises in an extremely rocky, narrow gorge to the north of Greenhill. Because arable soil occurs here only in pockets, the headwaters became a favourite spot for illicit brandy stills in early colonial times. Wildlife abounded in the thick scrub and yabbies thrived in the stream’s unpolluted water. Cox Creek’s discoverers, Robert Cock and William Ferguson, farmed on Section 289, Hundred of Adelaide, where a Second Creek tributary begins. Once on the fertile Adelaide Plains, Second Creek soon serviced a mixture of grand estates and scattered villages, which sub-division rapidly filled in with closer settlement.

For some years into European colonisation, Second Creek was initially named Hallett Rivulet, after John Hallett, one of the province’s most influential pioneers.

SHARRAD, Gilbert Allan Horace ‘Gill’. (4/2/1894- ?).

Son of Robert Sharrad, gardener, Stirling West. Gill’s grandfather, Allan Sharrad Senr, a Surrey labourer, aged 31, emigrated SA 1857 Lady Ann with his wife and three sons. During his 25 years working for Sir Thomas Elder at Birksgate, he brought out the 1st camels for Elder’s expeditions. Athol pines (Tamarisk Aphylla) the staple food for camels in Afghanistan, brought out as well for the camels to eat. Sharrads lived in a cottage on the Birksgate estate, on the corner of Glen Osmond and Cross Rd. Allan Sharrad Senr also carted the stone for Elder’s home, Carminow, on Mt Lofty. Gill Sharrad lived on Woodbury Road. Was he a butcher. Names. Names. Names.

SISSON, Samuel ( ? -Died 20/10/1868).

A sawyer, Samuel and his family arrived in Cox Creek 1854. He became an early purchaser of allotments in the new township of Bridgewater, opposite the Bridgewater Hotel, and also bought small portions of Sections 1135 & 1153, Hundred of Onkaparinga, in the vicinity of Mt George. Samuel brought these properties under the provisions of the Real Property Act only days before his unfortunate death. In time, S Sisson became a foundation labourer at the Bridgewater Mill. Late in 1868, Bridgewater citizens learnt that Samuel had fatally shot himself in a paddock beside the house garden. ‘He was a man of sober, temperate habits, and highly respected by everyone that knew him ... He leaves a wife and four children.’ The Widow Sisson succeeded William Radford as Bridgewater’s postmistress during 1873. She sold her business to George Rudd in 1881. Who was Mrs Sisson?

STEER, Joseph (c1819- d 20/3/1892).

Born Devon. To SA 1856 Gomelza, as an agricultural labourer. He married Jessie, nee Richardson, also Devon-born, who emigrated SA Catherine 1851. The young couple first lived at Beaumont, where Joseph was gardener to Sir Samuel Davenport at Beaumont House. c1868, the Steers removed to Bridgewater. Here, J Steer became a market gardener for the rest of his life. Descendants remain in the district. The pioneer Steer property is now called Hilltop, on Radbone Rd.

STIRLING EAST PRIMARY SCHOOL.

In 1860, backed by wealthy landowners Arthur Hardy and Peter Prankerd respectively, certain citizens of Crafers and Stirling struggled against each other to have the honour of getting the next public school built in the district. No doubt sickened by the wrangling, the Government suddenly favoured the efforts of Stirling East residents who began erecting a school out of their own resources. The new licensed schoolhouse opened in early 1864. Surrounding farmers and market gardeners, including those from Cox Creek, began holding an annual produce Show in the school grounds from that same year.

TASMANIA.

about the size of Ireland, the island is the most mountainous of all the Australian states. People generally believed Tasmania to be part of the Australian mainland until the discovery of Bass Strait in 1798 proved otherwise. The colony became the haunt of whalers around the coast and fishermen in the numerous streams. between 1803-1853, Tasmania was a convict settlement. Quickly, though, free settlers came there, lured by fine sheep pastures and tall timber. before South Australia became self-sufficient in food and livestock during the early 1840s, a busy intercolonial import trade from Van Diemen’s Land helped solve the deficiency. Runaway convicts were an unwelcome further import. The older name Van Diemen’s Land gave way to Tasmania in 1856, after the abolition of penal settlements and the advent of responsible government.

TICKET-OF-LEAVE CONVICTS.

As a reward for good behaviour, certain convicts in Australian penal settlements received tickets-of-leave. These people could leave prison and work for themselves within a certain distance of the gaol. They had their ticket withdrawn if they failed to report to the police regularly or committed any crime. When the original sentence expired, exemplary convicts obtained free land grants, varying in size according to the number of people in their family. Any ticket-of-leave convicts found in South Australia were automatically returned to the prison to where they had been sent originally.

TIERS, THE

The old name given to the western slopes of the Mt Lofty Ranges particularly around Mt Lofty itself. Here, the ridges rose in distinct rows covered with dark, silent stringybark forests. Soon, the area rang to the sound of log cutters, many of them Tasmanian ex-convicts, who felled masses of timber for building and fencing. During the 1840s-1850s, it became customary to speak of the Old and New Tiers. The Old Tiers stretched from Glen Osmond eastward to Cox Creek; the New Tiers sloped east from the ridges between Mount Lofty and Norton Summit. A further set of Tiers, the Company Tiers (after the SA Company), fell westward from these same ridges.

TIERSMEN, The

At first, the mixture of runaway convicts and sailors and petty lawbreakers, who lived in the Tiers (late 1830s-early 1840s) and earned a reputation as superb bullockies and timber getters; some of these people also stole livestock and indulged in a little highway robbery. Later, the first respectable settlers and their descendants also liked to hear of themselves described as Tiersmen.

TOLMER, Alexander (1815- d 7/3/1890).

To SA 1840 Branken Moor, just as the opening of the trial of three bushrangers captured at Crafers gripped public attention. Upon presenting his already action-packed credentials to Governor Gawler, 25-year old Tolmer immediately received a posting as sub-Inspector in the SA police force. Alexander found himself fully employed in keeping Curran, Fox and Hughes from escaping from gaol and then accompanied Curran and Hughes to their execution. Tolmer duly rose in the ranks to become Police Commissioner; however, his difficult personality caused him to lose that post in 1853 and to resign from the force three years later for work in the Lands Department. In retirement, Tolmer wrote a series of detailed reminiscences of his countless adventures with the SA police force.

TRILLING, Albert (c1832- d 19/12/1877).

Land titles reveal that Albert Trilling did not buy the Lion Mill property at Cox Creek, but apparently purchased the machinery at the dispersal sale held in 1872. This equipment helped establish Trilling’s new Jamestown mill in SAs mid-north. Five years later, the former Lion Mill steam engine turned out to be a killer. Albert Trilling became caught in the flywheel and then fell into the pit beneath, as he tried to shut down the works at 6.30pm on 19 December 1877, just before Christmas; a half an hour later, he died from horrific injuries. All shops closed and general work ceased, while Jamestown mourned at the funeral the next afternoon. Bachelor Albert was extremely popular for his unstinting community work and fair judgements as one of Jamestown’s leading JPs.

VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.

Another name for Tasmania, discovered by Abel Tasman in November 1642, while he was on a tour of discovery through the South Seas for Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Tasman named the new countryside after his patron. Colonists gradually began to dislike the name with its overtones of penal colony excesses and successfully petitioned the British Government to honour the memory of the island’s founder - Abel Tasman.

VERDUN.

The new name for Grünthal which applied after January 1918. Some ten German families bought sections of land in 1841 where the present outlet from the S-E Freeway leads off to Hahndorf. and began a flourishing market gardening community on the flood plain of the Onkaparinga River. Quickly, the area became a mixed settlement of British and Germans living between two popular roads coming down from Cox Creek. At the base of the more northerly route, Grünthal township itself became established around the Stanley Bridge Hotel, near the Onkaparinga River bridge on the main road to Balhannah.

VICTORIAN DIGGINGS.

The extensive Victorian gold discoveries of mid-1851 had a profound effect upon SA. Within months, most of the male population had deserted, either overland or by sea, to the new fields. Oliver Ragless and six companions set out from Adelaide for the Mt Alexander field, on 23 January 1852: Camp for the night was made by a small spring about two miles from the public house at Cox Creek. The grass was very bad. In due course, gold returning across country to SA under Alexander Tolmer’s armed escort passed the Deanery Hotel on route to Adelaide.

WAILES, William.

He arrived SA 1847, as a single man aboard the ship Medway. Early land records in SAs General Registry Office show that W Wailes was a clerk when he bought Lot 89 in the township of Hindmarsh later that same year. Considering Wailes’s apparent consuming interest in grain, it is likely that he worked at John Ridley’s nearby flour mill, founded in December 1840 and probably the oldest in SA.

Early in 1854, William bought a strategic two acres of land with links to both the Old and New Mt Barker Roads, near Cox Creek. Within a few months, he had built a substantial stone mill and installed steam-driven equipment. Sadly, by the end of that year, Wailes had to declare bankruptcy at the hands of Nathaniel Oldham the money-lender.

Not to be daunted, W Wailes moved to Gawler, where he borrowed money from Willaston cornfactor Thomas Scown to purchase allotment 58 in the newly-established estate of Bassett Town; fate again proved merciless and Wailes resumed his bankrupt state in July 1859. With this blow, mention of William Wailes disappears from SA records.

WELFARE, John (c1804-1867).

Born Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire, England. To SA 1852 Standard, with wife, Ann, and adult family. 1st lived at Alberton and Norwood. c1859, the Welfares arrived in Cox Creek, where they lived in the comfortable slab home which William Radford had recently vacated when he re-established his post office at Bridgewater. John Welfare became a successful market gardener in the damp gully, a tributary of Cox Creek. He also established a small library in the former post office building (boasting a new door, as the original green one with the letter box slit accompanied the Radfords to Bridgewater), as a branch of the Carey Gully Institute Library. Book borrowers could admire the riot of flowers which flourished beneath the spreading oaks nearby. Fruit trees in season increased the floral display.

Following John’s death in 1867, Ann continued to live alone, although blind and forced to move to the post office room when a bushfire destroyed her pioneer home. Daughter Ann, who married gardener Noah Nichols, lived further up the rise; her daugher, Eliza Gates, sold the Welfares’ property to Tulli Wollaston in 1911. He knocked down the former post office building when establishing the Ray Nursery in 1925.

Died 25/3/1867. Ann died 8/2/1887.

WEMBLEY AVENUE, Bridgewater.

The present name for the Wheat Road (qv).

It is likely that it received its name as a result of Tullie Wollaston’s resounding success with his glamorous opal display at the Wembley Empire Exhibition, held through much of 1924 to advertise the world-wide British Empire. The well-known Wembley soccer stadium was erected as part of this exhibition.

The entrance to Wembly Ave known as Rosenthal’s Corner. A phone booth put there in 1935.

WHEAT ROAD, Bridgewater.

A thoroughfare across John Dunn’s Bridgewater Estate, laid out in 1859, directly linking the Echunga Road with his flour mill on the New Mt Barker Road. If left to double back from Aldgate to bring wheat to Bridgewater, Southern Adelaide Hills graingrowers would be tempted to off-load groaning waggons at the Lion Mill, at Caripook, instead of continuing to Dunn’s. The Dunn family still leased the Lion Mill to do their milling in 1859, but just over a year later would shift operations to their own mill, still under construction in the late 1850s. Then the Dunns would have no control over who operated the Lion Mill - hence the importance of the Wheat Road to minimise potential opposition.

WHITE BRIDGE.

Takes Onkaparinga Road traffic over the Adelaide-Melbourne railway line on the northern edge of Bridgewater. This street forms part of the route of the Old Mt Barker Road. The White Bridge soon became a favourite spot with local train watchers, who used to get covered with sooty smoke as steam locomotives made slow way up the steep Germantown Hill grades along the approaches to the bridge.

WHITTY, Mr.

A young Sydney businessman with a wife and son, who lived on a property called Karkoo, on Foxhill Rd, Bridgewater, near where it joins the Deanery Road. Mr Whitty went to Adelaide each day to work, while his son roamed far and free across the countryside, counting only on a great St Bernard dog for protection. The Whittys remained in Bridgewater for only a few years. Before the Whittys, the Ramsay family conducted the Karkoo Nursery on the property. The Ramsays were famous for their fruit trees and odourless onions. In the early 1960s,

Karkoo homestead was demolished to make way for the Freeway. Still to be identified. Date of deaths.

WIGG, Edgar S (1818- d 14/10/1899).

Born Tunstall, Suffolk, England. To SA 1849 William Hyde. He became Adelaide’s well-known bookseller and stationer in Rundle and Hindley Sts. In retirement after his wife Jane’s death, ES Wigg removed permanently to Alderwood, the family’s weekend home in Shannon Parade, above the Bridgewater railway station. His two unmarried daughters, Nellie and Florence, cared for him. Books and paintings filled the gracious home, through which lavender picked from the rambling garden lent a delightful perfume. Gardening remained an important priority, together with encouraging wildlife to feel at home in the extensive grounds. The family’s town home in Lefevre Tce, North Adelaide, served as a pied-a-terre for occasional trips to the city. Edgar revelled in acting as a JP for Bridgewater citizens who required his services, and lent a generous community hand wherever he could.

Following ES Wigg’s death, the Misses Wigg remained at Bridgewater for some years, active in Institute, Red Cross and World War I fund-raising efforts. HH Shannon, the district’s long-serving state MP, lived at Alderwood from the 1930s until his death in 1976.

WILLS, Thomas. (? -1857)

At 1st lived in Jamaica, with his wife Hannah, and a family of step-children. Through his contact as a first cousin of Mrs John Dunn , Thomas’s three eldest stepsons emigrated to SA in the early 1850s, where they all obtained work at Dunn’s Mt Barker flour mill - James Taylor, who had been Deputy Postmaster-General for Jamaica, became Dunn’s Mt Barker accountant; later, half- brother, Charles McConnell, secured a similar position at the firm’s Cox Creek mill for a period, while brother Henry found his life’s work there as a labourer. Encouraged, no doubt, by reports of favourable living conditions, Thomas and Hannah followed to SA, settling first at Langhorne Bridge, where the main Strathalbyn-Wellington road crossed the Bremer River However, the climate proved too hot and dry, especially for using a grand 4-room tent home the Willes brought out from England. Name of the emigration boats for the Willis and Taylors.

In early 1857, T Wills decided to buy a small cottage with 35 acres of scrub land (portion of Section 1135 Hundred of Onkaparinga) for £350, immediately north of the Deanery, at Cox Creek, from farmer Simon Boase. Unfortunately, Thomas died several months after the move; Cox Creek leeches bled him during his last illness and the family buried him under a pear tree in the front garden, close to the Old Mount Barker Road. The Wills’s maid, Mary-Ann Jacobs (sister of Mrs Michael Kain), slept in a small detached room nearby, whose calico-covered window overlooked the grave. Tragedy struck again in 1864, when Hannah’s son, James Taylor, died of consumption. For a time, the widow remained on the Cox Creek property, in which she had a life interest. Toughened from dealings with Jamaican slaves, she developed a reputation amongst local labourers for being a hard task-mistress. However, in 1867, Hannah Wills retired, and the farm passed to Beaumont farmer Joseph Steer. Hannah d 8/12/1880. Charles Richard McConnell d 30/6/1881. He lived Norwood Parade, aged 49.

Did the Wills family live in The Chestnuts?

WILSON, Mr.

Lived at Crafers in 1837 and had some stepsons. Still to be identified.

WISHART, John (1835- d 20/7/1906).

Born in Carstan, Stromness, Orkneys, Scotland. To SA 1865, from Vic, where he had married. Builder, contractor, civil engineer, mostly for the Governments of SA, the Commonwealth and Fiji. Built the Granite Island causeway. one of the contractors for the Mt Lofty-Nairne Railway line £150,000. The firm Built Hackney Bridge, Morphett St Bridge, Largs Bay pier and railway, Grange railway. Lived North Adelaide. Died Suva, Fiji, where he had been constructing wharfs, bridges etc since the death of his wife. Poor health from many accidents on his construction sites. Wife, Caroline Walter, nee Webster d 24/7/1901.

WITTWER, Wilhelm (c1800-1864).

A water miller from the tiny village of Guhren, some 5km north-west of Züllichau, the Kreisstadt for Kreis Züllichau-Schwiebus, Brandenburg.

Guhren is on a tributary of the Oder, which enters the major stream a little to the west of Tischerzig, where the Wittwers set off by river barge on the 1st stage of their journey for SA. Wilhelm also brought out his milling assistant, 28-year old Gottlob Schirmer. The Cox Creek water mill, established in early 1842, must have been one of the most active businesses of Grünthal, a settlement formed by some 10 families c1841 as an outpost of Hahndorf. After the Wittwer mill on Cox Creek was washed away later 1840s, the family moved to the Windmill on the Hill, between Hahndorf and Mt Barker. The Cox Creek grinding stones are now in St Michael’s churchyard, Hahndorf.

Newspaper article May 1842 - Some Germans have bought land near the junction of Cock’s Creek and the Onkaparinga River and have commenced the erection of a water-power mill and are far advanced in the undertaking. As this is the only creek so far as we are aware within a reasonable distance of Adelaide and which runs all the year through and with a rapid descent, we have no doubt in a few years it will be occupied with mills through its whole course.

September 1843 - The Germans ... have erected a good water mill which is abundantly supplied from Cox’s Creek during 6 or 7 months of the year and it is expected that even in the summer months the supply of water will be sufficient to keep at least one pair of stones a-going.

WOLLASTON, Tullie (1863 -17/7/1931).

Born at Lake Hamilton Station, near Pt Lincoln, the son of pastoralist George Wollaston, who in turn was a son of the first WA Anglican priest, the Rev’d JR Wollaston. Tullie married Emma Manthorpe, daughter of the Rev’d Charles Manthorpe, a pioneer SA Congregational minister. Suddenly, despite the responsibilities of a growing family, TC Wollaston gave up his secure position in the SA Survey Office and pursued a wildly successful career in opal and emerald dealing. In 1904, Tullie began buying land at Bridgewater to establish a grand estate he named Raywood. He had an intense interest in native Australian trees and shrubs (experimentation with Bridgewater nurseryman ER Beckett produced the popular claret ash sport, Fraxinus Raywoodii) and wrote extensively about these and his other great love - opals. During 1924, Wollaston became known world-wide - for his glistening opal display assembled for the Wembley Empire Trade Exhibition near London. Sadly, the Great Depression devestated the Wollaston fortune. Undermined in health, Tullie died in 1931, and his family sold the Raywood estate to promising young politician, AR Downer.

in 1933.- his initiative Surveyor and gem dealer. Instrumental in opening up White Cliffs opal fields and Tasmanian emeralds. The 1st to exploit the Qld opal. Interested in the North-western WA pearl fisheries. Wrote gem text books The opal, the gem of the Never-Never. Interested in native trees and shrubs and wrote books on wattle etc. Had been establishing a garden there since 1904, and nursery with ER Beckett since 1925, called the Ray Nursery. They produced the sport Claret Ash Fraxinus Raywoodii, derived from a batch of plants purchased at Sewell’s Nursery, Aldgate. 1st vice-president of the Bridgewater Institute, when it was established in 1912. Eldest child, Wynnis, married Cecil Madigan. Died .

WOODSIDE.

Evidence points to the fact that James Johnston, Oakbank’s brewer, established the township in 1849, although land transfers did not occur until 1850-1851. Enjoying a central position in the Onkaparinga valley, Woodside quickly became the service centre for the numerous SA Company tenant farmers, together with a select band of landed proprietors - the Kellys, Lorimers, Murdochs etc. The town became the headquarters of the Onkaparinga District Council in 1853, the fifth local government organisation formed in SA. It was not unusual for Cox Creek gardeners such as John Dean to seek more genial and larger patches of farmland around Woodside.

WYATT, Valentine (1814- d 26/12/1862).

Born Lambeth, to SA 1837 John Renwick. Married Sarah Wade 1836, Kennington. He accompanied fellow explorers Finlayson and Barton in their discovery of Cox Creek during 1837 on a trip over the Adelaide Hills to the Murray River. Brazier, smith, storekeeper, landlord. Died Semaphore, buried Hindmarsh. Anglican. Family of 2 boys and 4 girls. Death of Sarah Wyatt.