Circumstances at this period made me decide upon leaving home. I went to
Newtown and spent nearly three happy years with a family there. My
pupils were a boy and girl, the elder son riding to his school at
Wooloomooloo every day. I was treated more as a daughter than governess.
Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were English gentlefolks, and Mr. Johnson was one
of the leading solicitors in Sydney. I had access to an excellent
library, and also mixed in the best society as well as with the best
musical talent of the colony. Our drives were picturesque and
delightful. Sometimes we strolled across the paddocks to Redfern without
meeting more than half a dozen people.
Newtown was very sparsely populated at this time, there being only a few
houses on the main road. Away from the road there were several large
houses surrounded by beautiful and well-kept grounds, such as “Enmore,”
“The Pines,” “Linthorpe,” “The Grange,” and towards Cook’s River “Bella
Retiro,” “Tempe,” and others. I knew these places well, and visited them
with my friends. The nearest church, St. Stephen’s, was at Camperdown,
where the third cemetery near Sydney was formed. The first, I think,
was in George Street, in which stood St. Andrew’s Church, now the
cathedral; the second, the one I have alluded to before, in Elizabeth
Street. I am not quite certain about Cook’s River Church, but think it
was built about this time, and had its churchyard round it.
All these places which I remember so well have been formed into streets
and filled with houses. I used to walk across the sandhills to Pitt
Street, Redfern, passing Henderson’s Nursery and Calder House, with its
gardens and paddocks; round it to Woolcott’s Cottages, and so on, to my
father’s house without meeting a single person. Then on the other side,
now called Kingston, Petersham, Stanmore, Norwood, Marrickville, only
some half-dozen houses, and these surrounded by gardens and paddocks.
Now the railway passes through the gardens of most, if not of all of
these places, and some of the houses have gone also; but my home is
still left, though built in at the back, and the garden ending at the
railway fence. I became thoroughly acquainted with this portion of
Sydney, quite unknown to me till I went to live at “The Grange.” My
relatives lived in another direction, and had never been to this part
before. My friends, being young, possessing means, and wishing to make
me happy and contented, we had many delightful excursions, picnics, and
pleasant days at Botany, Kissing Point, and Cook’s River. Botany was
most interesting to me, as being the first spot trodden by my
countrymen. La Perouse’s monument is quite a relic of the olden time.
Botany Bay was a bleak unpicturesque place compared with Sydney Harbour,
and the drive to it, through the Waterloo Estate, sandy and barren. I
had some knowledge of this district before, having been introduced to a
family that had a wool-washing establishment at Botany. A few years
after I visited the Water-works, just finished, for supplying Sydney
with water from the Botany Swamps, and I have been twice since to the
Sir Joseph Banks Hotel; but there had been little improvement on the
road. Waterloo has now become the Whitechapel of Sydney, the abode of
questionable white humanity and Chinese.
We had now a larger influx of emigrants, and consequently domestic
matters were carried on more smoothly. We knew many bright and agreeable
fresh arrivals from home, bringing with them new books, music, fashions,
dances, and ideas. How well I remember Mr. Hamlyn, his two pretty
daughters in the first Irish jaunting car I had ever seen drive up:
their teaching me the polka after dinner one evening, and then singing
some of Moore’s melodies. Then the Mayor’s Fancy Ball held in the
Victoria Theatre, a very grand affair, dances at Enmore, our own house,
and many others near.
Sydney was always a musical place. The members of the Choral Society and
others were indefatigable, and by this time we had some good teachers
wending their way to our distant shores. There was only one good music
shop when we first arrived; but by this time others were established.
The family I lived with were of great assistance in this respect. One
member was the organist at St. James’s Church, another at Christ Church;
so my musical education was not neglected.
I have often thought since my duties were very light, and how kind
everybody was to me. A governess’s life at the Antipodes in 184- was an
ideal one; but all were not so fortunate as myself. I have since heard
of some who were in very different homes, and were treated as upper
servants, slighted and neglected; but fortunately I never experienced
such treatment then or at any future period. Leaving home was entirely
my own act, as my mother felt that I was too young for such
responsibility; afterwards she acknowledged the wisdom of the step, as
it took me away from cares that might have crushed my spirit. And I was
near enough to see her often and to be with her at the last when, weary
and worn, she went to rest, her last hours soothed by my dear friend and
pastor, the Rev. W. H. Walsh. My sister went to the country with my
brother, the two younger children to school, and so for a time the home
was broken up.
After the loss of my mother I returned home and lived in a pretty
cottage on the Glebe Road, owned by the grandfather of a man whose
marriage I saw announced in a society paper a few days since to a
daughter of one of our old Scotch families. Australia is not by any
means a bad place for daughters of good families to visit, as they often
find desirable _partis_ with plenty of means, houses, and lands. Some
of the sterner sex have found Australia by no means an undesirable
country to seek a wife, as gentlemen from the naval and military
services can attest. They have shown their good sense and taste in doing
so; for without being partial, our Australian girls are fair,
fascinating, accomplished, and more useful than their English sisters. I
have seen two generations of girls, so may give an opinion.
The cottage at The Glebe was surrounded by a perfect bower of flowers,
and opposite the then church glebe land, now covered with numerous
streets and houses. The house we lived in has now a shop front added to
it in the dear old garden, and all the old associations are vulgarised.
We had a fuchsia growing at the side of an outbuilding nearly twenty
feet high. Where the shop counters are now, arches of roses stood. Well,
I suppose it is one of the signs of progress. Change brings change, and
perhaps if the property had been mine, £ _s._ _d._ would have proved a
panacea, as it has done to many who have seen the homes of their fathers
pass into the hands of strangers. So many changes have taken place in
Sydney and its suburbs that at times it is difficult to realise them.
Very few of the old landmarks are left. One still remains that is dear
to me--the resting-place of my mother in God’s Acre at the top of
Elizabeth Street; but every year I expect to learn that it too has
disappeared. Had “The Golden South” been more generous to me with her
wealth, it would have been devoted to the building of a church there, as
it is a splended site. One of our wealthy merchants, whose family
rested there, suggested removing “Christ Church to the spot,” and as it
was the parish church for some years it would have been most
appropriate, and to myself and all whose dead are lying there would have
been a source of consolation. Christ Church for so many years had been
my sanctuary in times of trial and disappointment. I taught in her
Sunday Schools the lessons learnt from the two most earnest Christians
in every sense I ever knew. The elder was the beloved teacher and guide
of the younger, of whom his father once said, “My eldest son is, like
Nathaniel, without guile;” and in truth he was. His church was built in
part of the parent parish nearly forty years ago, where he lived,
laboured, and died, deeply regretted and beloved by all.
My class in the school, its members’ dwellings scattered over many
miles, and our pastor wishing us to visit our scholars in their homes,
necessitated my taking many walks from the Glebe to Baptist Gardens in
one direction, in another to Darling Harbour. In those days Sunday
School teaching was not easy work; sometimes I had as many as thirty
scholars in my class. We also did our best to assist in visiting the
sick and sorrowing. The Benevolent Asylum being in our parish, we
undertook the visiting there. I could relate many a tale of loneliness,
sorrow, and sin heard in those days, of waifs and strays drifted to
these shores, in which “Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.”
We were at this period looking forward to the commencement of railways
in New South Wales, and I was present at the turning of the first sod by
the Hon. Mrs. Keith Stewart, daughter of Sir Charles Fitzroy, the
Governor; she having taken up the duties of her lamented mother, Lady
Mary Fitzroy, who was accidentally killed in the Parramatta Domain. Her
death was a great loss to the colony, as she was a kind and noble woman,
interested in every good work for the benefit of the colony. What a day
it was for the commencement of our railways, the rain pouring down in
torrents! Such a sea of umbrellas everywhere, excepting under the
marquee, where the invited guests adjourned for luncheon and speeches,
naturally called forth on such an eventful ceremony, and where for the
time the weather was forgotten! It was a great day in the annals of the
colony when every one looked forward with hope to the future opening up
of the country; but no one could have fully anticipated the rapid
strides the colony was about to make, or the position these colonies
were to arrive at in the world’s history. Now people too often forget
when writing or speaking of “The Golden South,” the great distance from
Europe, or that a hundred years ago it was only inhabited by almost the
lowest type of humanity, who had little idea beyond satisfying the
cravings of nature. Poor things! they are nearly driven out by the white
settlers, who have shown little thought for their wellbeing. Our boasted
civilisation has culminated in the weaker going to the wall, or rather
in their extermination. The first white settlers did not tend to make
what was then known as Botany Bay a desirable place for the better class
to select for a home when crowded out of England. So the first
half-century of the Australian colonies was spent in a struggle for a
better reputation, and the last half-century paved the way for results,
such as the Exhibition in Melbourne last year.