Category - South Coast Pioneers

Emily Wintle’s fascinating story, as a South Coast pioneer, certainly deserves inclusion here.
But, there is also a second lesser-known story concerning her - one that Mark McKenna, Professor of History at the University of Sydney, indicates (writing in 'Meanjin', Summer 2018) 'is a story that continued to unfold long after it was published, unsettling the memories of the families involved, revealing previously hidden details and shifting at the edges as more information came to light' – that is just as intriguing...

Guboo (Ted) Thomas was a Yuin tribal leader. He was committed to pursuing Aboriginal land rights and preserving Aboriginal culture. The pioneering work he undertook became the basis of all future Aboriginal land claims along the South Coast...

R.W. Thatcher built, and in many cases designed, many of the buildings around Bega that were constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many of these have survived to this day. Without any question, he has been the town's most significant, most prolific builder...

William Roohan was a pioneer South Coast mailman...

William Rixon was the South Coast’s leading businessman and a noted sportsman. He was well-known and highly-respected throughout the area south from Milton to the Victorian border...

Mei Quong Tart was a significant community leader on the Araluen-Braidwood goldfields. He ultimately became a successful Sydney businessman and philanthropist, and became the unofficial Chinese Consul in Sydney...

Arthur Halley Preddey (1876 - 1952) was a builder, sawmill owner and operator, coffin maker, undertaker, garage owner and operator, hire car operator, cinema and dance hall owner-operator, President of the Moruya Chamber of Commerce, Secretary of the Moruya Mechanics Institute, the town’s Deputy Chief Air Raid Precautions Warden in World War II (‘he was constantly seen with a set of binoculars at his ‘look-out’ at the Air Raid Pub’ in Moruya), Secretary of the Moruya Hospital, local Coroner…perhaps the most practical man in town…and the scourge of eleven Matrons at Moruya Hospital...

Thomas Newing was the Kiama district's prolific Dry Stone-Wall Builder...

Thomas Sutcliffe Mort has variously been described as an art gallery owner, auctioneer, coalmine owner, company director, copper mine owner and manager, dairy farmer, dairy products manufacturer, financier, grazier, horticulturalist, industrialist, investor, landowner, land speculator, manufacturer, philanthropist, wharfinger and wool broker. Eventually he was to also own 38,000 acres in the Moruya-Bodalla-Tilba area, and the Bodalla Estate and its produce, particularly dairy products, became widely known and very highly regarded...

John Logan was a visionary ‘ideas man’ and a practical ‘doer’…a leader who contributed enormously to the development of Eden and its surrounding district...

Charles Harpur was Australia's first native-born poet. When he was dying, he wrote his own, perhaps bitter, epitaph: ‘Here lies Charles Harpur, who at 50 years of age came to the conclusion that he was living in a sham age, under a sham government, and amongst sham friends…and having come to this conclusion, he did his dying and now lies here with one of his sons.' 'Here' is at the top of a very steep hill alongside a cutting on Eurobodalla Road near the junction with Nerrigundah Mountain Road, Eurobodalla...

Francis Guy (of Nelligen and Batemans Bay) was one of those influential larger-than-life characters typically found in pioneering communities - opportunistic, manipulative and often operating on the edge of the law...

John Grant was the first man to take a boat up the Bega River whilst investigating whether the river would be navigable to trading vessels. He later farmed at Tantawangalo and became the area's first post master...

Daniel Gowing was an innovative, pioneer farmer on the Jellat Jellat flats (to the east of Bega) and is regarded as 'The Father of Tathra'... (He is honoured with a Heritage NSW 'Blue Plaque' on Tathra Wharf.)

F.S. Goetz was once a well-known businessman in Bega - his name prominently displayed above several shopfronts in different locations around town...

John Gilmore was the Quarry Manager at the Moruya Granite Quarry from the time it was taken over by Dorman, Long and Company (who were building the Sydney Harbour Bridge) in late 1924 until it was closed in early 1932...

Dr Montague Evershed was, from 1873, the only doctor serving the South Coast area from Tilba to the Victorian border and west to Bombala...

Syms Covington was Pambula's postmaster, but his real claim to fame was he previously had been Charles Darwin's servant. Whilst at Pambula he sent specimens of local barnacles to Darwin...

NSW Premier, Sir Henry Parkes wrote of William Montague Clarence Campbell "I think this man is mad...", yet Parkes gave him a job in the tiny town of Eurobodalla, possibly following approaches from the Duke of Edinburgh...

Arguably, Benjamin Boyd was more responsible for the early development of the NSW South Coast than was any other pioneer. At that time, most other settlers were only interested in establishing their own businesses or farms in the area, whereas Boyd had a vision for developing the whole area, had plans and the capital required to establish a major town, and intentions to provide links between the South Coast, Sydney, Melbourne…and indeed the world. But, as the Australian Dictionary of Biography notes, ‘eventually Boyd’s grandiose ideas and his complicated and somewhat dubious financial transactions were his undoing. His schemes were wrecked by unfavourable public opinion, changing economic circumstances and management failure.’ To suggest that he was ‘a colourful character’ is perhaps an understatement!

In 1822 Governor Brisbane granted Alexander Berry and his business partner Edward Wollstonecraft 10,000 acres along the banks of the Shoalhaven River. This area was chosen because, as Berry wrote, 'Everybody was flocking to the Hunter River, Bathurst and other places…and all were elbowing one another. But we neither wished to elbow any one nor to be elbowed.'

Governor Brisbane also assigned 100 convicts to Berry and Wollstonecraft’s care, enabling them to build the first European settlement on the South Coast. This was the Coolangatta Estate which developed into what is now the town of Berry, named after Alexander and his brother David.

...but that's just part of Alexander Berry's interesting story!

H.J. Bate moved to his Mountain View farm in Tilba Tilba in 1869 and employed local Aboriginals to help clear his farm and then to work on the farm. Evidently ‘he gave them a big steak, bread and stew as pay…and they cleared all the property.’ This led to H.J being respected by the local Aboriginals, and he respected the local Aboriginals. Later H.J. was instrumental in having land (now the Wallaga Lake Koori Village) set aside at Wallaga Lake 'for the use of the Tilba Tilba tribe of aborigines'...

Walter Bruce ‘Curly’ Annabel was the Proprietor and Editor of the Bega District News from 1946 to 1969. He ‘operated his newspaper more as a public service than as a business. He pursued excellence well ahead of profit. He believed that personal popularity or pecuniary gain should always be second to public benefit. He believed the Rotary motto, ‘Service Above Self’ was a fundamental practical principle, not an airy ideal’...