Unlocking the Past 2021

When the Northumberland Hotel closed its doors in 1979, it ended 70 years of operation as a major Cessnock venue. It opened in May 1909 and like many others in the Hunter Valley was owned by Tooth and Company Limited.

Hotels were an important public gathering place for the community. They provided accommodation for locals and travelers, were a place to meet friends and socialise and could be a site for political and union meetings. So it is not surprising that over its long history the Northumberland Hotel certainly saw plenty of drama, celebration and even heartbreak.

We will never know what desperation led Cessnock local, 42 year-old David Morgan, to check into the hotel and take his own life. He was found in an upstairs bedroom in August 1912, with his throat cut from ear to ear and a bloody razor lying next to his body. His sad funeral notice described him as his mother’s ‘beloved son’.

The hotel’s first female licensee, Mrs. Anstey, certainly had a baptism of (literal) fire. She took over in 1916 and in June that year a dramatic blaze almost burnt the hotel down. Shortly before midnight a fire began in the first-floor kitchen when a chimney overheated and caught alight. Seeing a reflection of flames in a window Mrs. Anstey leapt into action rousing all the residents and moving them outside to safety.

A barmaid at the hotel, Miss Gowing, lived-in at the hotel and her bedroom was close to the centre of the outbreak. Emerging from her room, she faced a dilemma. The fire had cut her off and in order to get to safety she had to bolt down a narrow passage way filled with smoke and fire. Miss Gowing gathered her courage and ran through the flames, the fire becoming so close that it singed her hair. She was uninjured, but reports of the incident say she ‘suffered terribly from shock’.

Also living at the hotel was Cessnock Shire Council engineer, G. F. Lindeman, who attempted to douse the fire with a jug of water from his bedroom. That proved ineffective, so he ran from the scene severely burning his feet.

Cessnock residents came running to assist, along with the Cessnock Fire Brigade, led by Captain Craig. Hoisting a fire hose up and over the upstairs balcony, they aimed it directly onto the site of the fire, saving the Northumberland Hotel, which would go on serving drinks for decades to come.  

If you are a regular at Cessnock Library, you will have noticed a stunning new tapestry up on our walls. If you are not a regular, pop your head in the door and have a look at this huge woven artwork called ‘Rescue’.

Its story begins nearly 40 years ago when the Board of the South Maitland Mines Rescue Station at Abermain commissioned Mary and Larry Beeston to produce a tapestry reflecting the station’s work. The couple were well-known Hunter artists and were particularly renowned for their beautiful tapestries. Mary Beeston designed the artwork and Larry did the weaving. 

They spent an estimated 700 hours and 10 months working on the enormous tapestry, hand weaving the wool into a semi-abstract design depicting a collapsed tunnel and rescue workers searching through rubble for trapped miners. The dramatic artwork perfectly reflected the vital work of the Rescue Station, who were   mining accident first responders. On 15 August 1983, after 57 years’ operation, the Mines Rescue Station closed.

The large tapestry was donated to Cessnock City Council. At the handover Mary Beeston, saying that she and her husband were grateful for the commission and hoped that the artwork would be meaningful to the community. The tapestry stayed on display in the Library for many years.

Later the Council gave permission for the artwork to hang in the Abermain School of Arts, but they remained caretakers of the tapestry. It has now returned to the Library, been thoroughly cleaned and is up on the wall for everyone to enjoy. In a sense, the tapestry has come home.

Larry Beeston died in 2001 and Mary four months later. Their art lives on as a powerful legacy of their creative vision and life partnership. Other significant artworks by them are held in the Newcastle Region Art Gallery and in the Great Hall, University of Newcastle. 

The United Nations has designated 2021 the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, raising awareness of the nutritional value and health benefits of consumption of fresh produce. It also seeks to strengthen the role of small landholders and family farmers in sustainable production practices.

There is a direct local connection back over a century to our Harvest Festivals, much-loved annual celebrations in our local Christian churches. They celebrated the importance of locally grown fresh fruits, vegetables and grains from small family farms. No matter the denomination, Catholic, Protestant or Salvation Army, beautiful displays of locally grown food were on show in our regular Harvest Festivals.

According to Christian belief, God alone controls the weather and so enables the riches of the Earth to grow, therefore a glorious display of produce in a church setting is a visible way to thank God for a bountiful harvest.

The origin of Harvest Festivals go back much earlier than Christianity; they are central to pagan commemorations of the changing seasons. A common belief was that a spirit resided in the last sheaf of grain picked, sometimes called a ‘corn mother’, when this was cut it signaled that the hard work of harvesting was over. Community festivities and feasting could then take place.  

As early as 1913 the Kurri Kurri Congregational Church was putting on a spectacular Harvest Festival with a specially organized concert and ‘humorous character sketches’ performed. The gala began on the Sunday when large crowds admired the beautiful display of ‘products of the soil’ arranged by the women of the church (men were allowed to assist them).  Sermons were given on agricultural themes and the Festival continued until the following Tuesday, finishing with the selling of the produce.

Over at the Kurri Kurri Church of England the church was described as ‘tastefully decorated with a profusion of fruit, vegetables, grain and flowers’. A concert was held and the Rector preached to a capacity crowd, using the agricultural display as a metaphor for the ‘great harvest of souls’ which was coming on Judgement Day. Such exuberant celebrations were not unusual. In 1921 the Harvest Festival at the Cessnock Methodist Church started on Sunday morning and continued until Monday night.

At St. John’s Church of England, Cessnock there were not enough seats for all the people who turned up on Harvest Sunday. The Rector told of the feast of harvest concluding with ‘for the heart grows rich in giving, all its wealth is living grain, seeds which mildew in the gainer, scattered, fell with gold the plain’. The following day super auctioneer Sam Horne organized the sale of the harvest goods with all funds raised going directly to the church.  

War memorials are the most sobering of all our public monuments. They signify the remembering of particular wars, or wartime events, but more importantly they remind us on a communal level of the cost of war, starkly recording the cost of freedom.

Memorials continue to have a particular and special significance for the families and friends of soldiers, sailors and aircrew who did not return to Australia. For many who died overseas and were buried there, or whose bodies were never located, lost in the fury and confusion of battle, Australian war memorials become the place where they were honoured at home.

This was especially true for World War I veterans, where a significant number of bodies were not repatriated after their deaths. The Australian War Memorial records that the building of public memorials was well underway before World War I had ended. In retrospect, this is not surprising; with almost two-fifths of men between the ages of 18 and 44 enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force, no community was untouched.

For families and friends the local war memorial became the surrogate grave of their loved ones, the only place that their name was publicly listed. With no individual grave to mourn at, flowers could be left at these monuments instead of at a headstone and every year they continue to be a focus for Remembrance Day and Anzac Day services. This public listing of names connects the dead to the living.

Across the Cessnock Local Government Area war memorials, both grand and humble, record the names of those who served their country. It is sobering to read these lists, often of young lives cut short, but also for those who were able to return to their communities – ask ‘at what personal cost?’ We know now that veterans were often forever changed by their experience of war and many never recovered their former lives.  

Well-known memorials are public and visible, such as those in the TAFE park at Cessnock or Rotary Park in Kurri Kurri, but our region also contains some small hidden memorials. A photographic exhibition now on in the Cessnock Library foyer explores the diversity of our local war memorials, showcasing some of the lesser known ones. It is on until 30 May.

Memorials seek not to glorify war, but to honour the sacrifice of everyone who went to war and remind us of the real cost of armed conflict.

Young people have always sought to distance themselves, their music and their culture from those of their parents and it was no different in the past. In May 1935 the Cessnock Municipal Younger Set formed with the aim of organising their own dances and other functions and at the same time raising money for the Children’s Ward at Cessnock District Hospital. Their venue of choice was the Soldiers Memorial Hall, which still stands in Vincent Street.

The Younger Set’s first dance was Monday, 22 July 1935. The mid-week night and the mid-winter temperatures were no deterrent to the large crowd which came along to dance the night away to Chris Callaghan’s Orchestra. At the end of an evening of dancing, just as patrons were hungry, an ‘excellent supper’ was provided.

The event’s success saw the Cessnock Municipal Younger Set put on regular, fortnightly Monday night dances. There was an M.C., a live band, novelty games and prizes, specialised dances, finishing with the now traditional supper provided by the Ladies’ Hospital Committee.

As the years went by the dances became progressively more theme-based, with ‘‘Grand Easter Carnival Night’ and ‘Sports’ styled parties inspiring patrons to come in fancy dress. It’s tempting to ask now “How many people would regularly attend a Monday night dance in mid-winter?”

Around the same time the Kit Kat Klub, sometimes spelt Kit Kat Club, had started. Ken Oliver ran this Klub, with its name was most likely inspired by the wild London nightclub of the same name, which had been making waves in that city since the 1920s.

Our local version seemed to have been much tamer though, with the Kit Kat Klub’s ads promising ‘modern and old-time dancing’. The Klub also ran its dances at the Soldiers Memorial Hall and Chris Callaghan’s Orchestra was a fixture at their Saturday night dances too. The Kit Kat Klub kept going well into the 1940s before fading away.

It was assumed by the community that behaviour at dances met a certain standard. And if it didn’t? There were consequences. In the early 1930s a dance was underway at the Soldiers Memorial Hall when at the rear of the building two young men, Clifford Parker and Thomas Henderson were heard using ‘indecent language’. The police were called, the men were charged, found guilty and fined £1 each in default of two days in gaol. 

London’s Kit Kat Club in 1926

A passion for soccer runs deep in Kurri Kurri, with the first soccer club formed in 1904. For years soccer matches were held on the open ground next to the Drill Hall in Lang Street. Although it was a great central location, it was a poor quality ground.

Players, fans and officials looked for a more suitable local site, eventually deciding on a bushland area known as the Victoria Street Reserve. Local State member for Kurri Kurri, George Booth, used his influence to get a long lease on seven acres of the Reserve. The site was located in Mitchell Avenue, near the corner of Northcote Street, not far from the (then) North Kurri Kurri railway platform.

While it was a great site, the dense scrub meant that it was unusable. An enthusiastic group of volunteers started work, toiling for three years through Kurri Kurri’s cold winters and hot summers, to turn it into a first-class soccer ground.

To show her support for the project, the Licensee of the Kurri Kurri Hotel, Molly Waugh, donated a gallon of beer and two bottles of lemonade to the workers on the days they laboured on the site. Although its creation had truly been a collective effort, the club decided to name the park after long-time volunteer Richard Goold.

On 4 April 1931 Goold Park was opened with due ceremony. A blue ribbon was stretched across the ground’s gateway and Molly Waugh was given the honour of cutting it with silver scissors. A large crowd surged in to find that as part of the celebrations a miniature goal post had been built in the centre of the playing field. Hanging from it, by a ribbon, was a bottle of champagne. Still armed with her trusty scissors Molly Waugh cut this ribbon and the bottle smashed to the ground – and with this George Booth officially declared the ground open.

One of the distinctive features of Goold Park was the outer circle where the fans sat. This part of the ground had been built up, so that an uninterrupted view was available to all spectators. It was believed that this first-class ground would be a soccer centre for decades to come, but it was not to be.

The last game reported as being played at Goold Park was in September 1950. After that the ground closed and eventually became an industrial site. But if you look closely the distinctive banked sides of the ground remain on the site, along with the original fence, all telling the story of Kurri Kurri’s once grand soccer ground. 

The Newcastle Automobile Club formed in 1915, possibly inspired by the launch of the Model T Ford in Australia that year. The Automobile Club was passionate about cars and about car racing, holding a hill race at Whitebridge shortly after it was founded.

Twenty years after their foundation the Club members were still just as enthusiastic and had now found somewhere near Cessnock perfect for their motoring exploits. Mount View, with its twists, turns, hairpin and ‘S’ bends had become the site of an annual motoring event, with the mountain providing challenges to the drivers and a wonderful day thrills and spills for the locals.

The following year, 1936, the event got even bigger. The Mount View hill climb had now become a whole weekend in April, with multiple events all framed around the main attraction, the hill climb. Organised by a consortium of car clubs it was billed as ‘one of the most ambitious hill climb and speed events that motor cars have attempted in NSW and serious competitors drove from as far away as Sydney to take part.

On 19 April a crowd estimated at 6,000 turned up, perching on rocks at natural vantage points, or climbing up trees to get a great view, or most spectacularly, standing at the top of the mountain to watch the cars ascend toward them. Spectators had been encouraged to bring a picnic basket and rug, with free hot water available so that no-one missed out on a cup of tea!

Buses ran from Cessnock to the base of the mountain and a local band played to add to the atmosphere. The hill climb drivers kept everyone entertained with their thrilling antics, including the winning car a high-performance Bugatti, who sped up the hill in 1.5 minutes.

But Mount View was the real winner with lavish praise for this ‘show piece’ of the Cessnock district in the newspaper coverage of the event. The Newcastle Morning Herald raved about the magnificent panorama which unfolds at the top of the mountain. ‘The scene embraces a bird’s eye view of Cessnock [and surrounds]…on a clear day the Hunter can be seen like a silver snake wending its way to the sea….Scarcely a visitor to Mount View yesterday failed to comment upon the splendour of the view’.

For most of his sensational career notorious crime boss Abe Saffron was dubbed ‘King of the Cross’ because his empire was based in the inner Sydney suburb of Kings Cross. What is lesser known is that for a year he owned a hotel in Kurri Kurri.

In September 1944 Evelyn Sophia Kincaid bought the licence for the Station Hotel in Victoria Street, Kurri Kurri. She was the wife of Hilton Granville Kincaid, a business partner of Abe Saffron.

Hilton and Abe had just embarked on what went on to become their pub business model, buying hotel licenses in the name of dummy owners and operating them behind the scenes. Hilton’s wife Evelyn was named as the Licensee of many of their venues and so it was in Kurri Kurri.

Abe Saffron had been a WWII serviceman. He left the Merchant Navy in July 1944 and shortly afterward hooked up with his equally dodgy friend Hilton Kincaid, together they bought the Station Hotel and moved to the country.

At this time the Station Hotel was well established and had been operating for four decades, named for the (then) nearby Stanford Merthyr railway station. It had opened in 1904, operated by Scottish hotelier Robert Robertson and was designed by renowned Maitland-based architect James Warren Scobie. It was then and still remains a beautiful two-storey building with spacious full-length balconies and inside boasts a large dining room and an enormous public bar.

Abe’s son, Alan Saffron, recalls his father telling him that he rode a horse to work at the pub every day and was very sociable, knowing all his regulars by their first name. He also routinely took the train back to Sydney to visit his parents, his brothers and sisters.

Was Abe Saffon just enjoying a tree change after his war service, or was there something more sinister at play? A country hotel and its large basement could be just the place to hide many ill-gotten goods. Or was the hotel’s licence purchase a way to launder dirty money?

Ultimately Abe only spent five months in Kurri Kurri. The bright lights of Sydney beckoned and in February 1945 he sold the hotel’s licence. Luckily for the town he seems to have enjoyed his time in the Hunter and while he was a local didn’t feel the need to burn the Hotel, or any other competing premises, to the ground.

Tiny post offices are important social centres in rural and remote communities, where a trip to the post office takes on a greater significance than just collecting letters and parcels. It’s the chance to meet up with far-flung neighbours, hear local news and gossip and talk over public events and the state of the world with the Post Master or Mistress. It must have been just like that at Sweetmans Creek over a century ago.

In 1905 a ‘postal receiving office’ first opened on the front veranda of Walter and Matilda Lumby’s home. It was a tiny 8-foot by 8-foot space with Matilda working as a postal officer on a salary of £5 per year. She must have done a good job in her new role, a year later the tiny postal agency became an official Post Office and Matilda’s salary doubled to £10.

The house was close to Sweetmans Creek, which bore Matilda’s maiden name, on the left-hand side of Wollombi Road as travellers journeyed into the town. It was one of the original houses in the area, built c. 1870.

In 1925 Walter and Matilda built a new home for themselves and their growing family. This new house, not far from the previous one, had a special room added onto the back veranda for the post office, which now had its own side door entrance and a dedicated small flight of wooden steps for its customers.

That same year technology came to the small settlement, with a telephone service connected, via the post office, for the first time. There were only two locals with phones, but its existence meant that telegrams could now be received and sent.

But the most amazing thing about the little post office was its Post Mistress. She not only ran the postal business, but reared a family of eleven children, a feat which is almost unbelievable. Matilda was a local, born in Millfield in August 1878 and marrying Walter Lumby, who lived on an adjoining property, when she was 18 years old.

Matilda Lumby was not only Sweetman Creek’s first Post Mistress, but remained in the role for almost 58 years right up until her death in December 1962. As such she is an important figure in Australian postal history, particularly in the Hunter Valley. 

On Armistice Day, 11 November, we remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice during war, but also those who came back from the horror and had to try to make a new life.

The tragic arms of World War I spread across the world, reaching from Europe as far as Australia and into our region. The patriotic fervour whipped up by war propaganda inspired many young men to enlist and one of them was young Wollombi baker, Philip Sloan. He was to find himself fighting for his life on the front line in France.

Philip, born in 1898, was the eldest of seven children born to Alexander and Louisa Sloan, who moved to Wollombi in about 1905. Alexander was a baker and he operated a bakery in the town until his death in 1911. His wife Louisa carried on the family business, despite also having to look after her large family, until she died in 1914.

When World War I was declared Philip was 16 years old and had lost both his parents. He and his younger siblings continued to live at Wollombi and Philip became a baker like his father. When he turned 18 he enlisted in the army, becoming part of the newly created 34^th Battalion. This battalion planned to draw most of its recruits from the Lower Hunter Valley, but importantly it also included the men of the famous recruiting march known as the ‘Wallabies’. 

Philip was sent overseas and he saw active service in France for the next two years, becoming wounded in action multiple times. In 1919 he returned to Australia and came home to live in Wollombi. 1921 proved to be an important year, he married Neredah Sharp and later that year they welcomed their first child, Bernard Philip.

The family’s bakery business had been sold after his mother’s death, but in early 1921 Philip bought the family’s old bakery back and re-opened it. He was able to employ his younger brother, William, who also became a baker, eventually having his own bakery in Cessnock.

After a couple of years Philip moved to Cooma, where he opened ‘The Royal Bakery’ and became involved in the local community, standing successfully as an Alderman on Cooma Municipal Council. A daughter, Rita Lorraine, was born and a number of years later a second daughter, Ruth Helen.

Life had seemingly become successful for the Wollombi former soldier. In 1938 he was appointed Head Teacher of Practical Baking and Pastry Cooking at Sydney Technical College. But tragedy lay ahead. In 1942, Philip and Neredah’s youngest child, 13 y.o. Ruth died suddenly in a shocking accident at their Lane Cove home.

Their marriage broke down soon after and they divorced.

Philip was disconsolate; he sent desperate letters to Neredah pleading for her to come home and professing his love. Neredah eventually re-married, but Philip did not. He concentrated on his career as a talented teacher of bakery and fancy pastry making at Sydney Technical College, working up until his death aged only 60 years.