North Shore Historical Society Inc. PO Box 399 North Sydney NSW 2059

Email: NorthShoreHS@Hotmail.com ABN 58 742 490 986

Secretary ph: 9929 6637 President ph: 9450 1552

BULLETIN for June 2017

NEXT MEETING The next meeting of the Society will be held on Thursday 8th June

2nd floor Conference Room, Stanton Library, Miller Street, North Sydney. Light refreshments are served from 6.30pm prior to the meeting which commences at 7pm.

Guest Speaker: Hastings Pawsey Hasting’s working career has been associated with large commercial jet aircraft and their operation (evaluation, purchase, as well as maintenance procedures and system management). He worked with Qantas for 33 years and 11 years with UNISYS (a Global corporation, similar to IBM). This is the second time we welcome Hastings to our Society- his last talk in February’15 - “Antarctica - the best 3 weeks of my life” was extremely well

received by all who attended.

Topic: Radio Astronomy, Collaroy Plateau and the origins of Wifi

In this talk, Hastings, will outline some of the radio astronomy pioneering work undertaken by physicist Joseph Pawsey (Hastings’ father) and the development of technologies that formed the basis of today’s radio astronomy and telecommunications; including Wifi and the tie between Collaroy Plateau and radio astronomy.

Dr J.L. Pawsey FRS (1908-1962) is considered the father of radio astronomy in Australia. He made important discoveries about the relationships between solar radiation and sunspots. His team made many discoveries about radiation and radio emissions from the Milky Way and external galaxies.

Named in his honour, the Australian Academy of Science Pawsey Medal recognises outstanding research in physics by scientists. It is restricted to candidates who are normally resident in Australia and for research conducted mainly in Australia. In further recognition of Joe Pawsey’s work, the Perth Supercomputing Centre was named after him. The centre operates multiple supercomputers, data-intensive machines and storage systems that use the most advanced technologies available.

This will be an interesting talk - explaining how a farm boy from Victoria became a leading Australian scientist. It will include some of the basics of radio astronomy, as well as how this relates to today’s communication technology. This presentation is for the layman.

For further reading: Explorers of the Southern Sky: A History of Australian Astronomy ISBN-13: 9780521365758 and ISBN-10: 0521365759 See also http://www.eoas.info/biogs/P000698b.htm

May’17 Meeting Report

Talk by Duncan MacAuslan – Horse Buses of Sydney and the North Shore

As Sydney grew inland from the settlement around Sydney Cove travel between home and work began to exceed a comfortable walking distance.

Water boatmen and ferries solved the problem for those who could both afford harbour side residences and the relatively high fares. But for those in the new suburbs around Paddington, Newtown and Glebe horse buses became the mode for the middle class.

Sydney’s first horse buses appeared around 1840 operated by various hoteliers and stablemen. Described as boxes on wheels, Jonathon Howard’s Invincible line of buses to Glebe was Sydney’s first company operator. By 1860 his competitors were described as dirty, slow, cheap and nasty. Buses operated from the city to Glebe, Tempe, Woolloomooloo, Marrickville, Watson’s Bay Balmain, Burwood and Enfield. Horse buses operated by John Woods replaced the unloved Pitt Street tramway on 1 January 1866.

Sydney City Council saw the buses as a source of revenue and licensed many more buses than were needed leading to racing and buses described as ‘wretched and comfortless, the horses are pitiable, the ragamuffin screeching conductors intolerable, and the drivers uncontrolled’.

By 1870 it was apparent that the industry’s 178 buses, 226 drivers and 140 conductors needed regulation and the Metropolitan Transit Commission was created to fulfil the need. Around the same time several entrepreneurs decided to invest in the industry resulting in most services being acquired by companies such as the Newtown Omnibus Company and the Woollahra and Waverley United Omnibus Company.

Pitt Street operator Woods and associates formed the largest company, the Sydney Omnibus Company purchasing the operations of most of the Glebe, Forest Lodge and Millers Point operators. With Henry Hoyt in 1872 it became the Sydney United Omnibus Company and in 1887 Sydney Tramway and Omnibus Company (ST&OC) which acquired the other companies and was known as the ‘monopolists’. Hoyt introduced the ‘American style’ bus which became the standard Sydney horse bus with seats on two decks. At its peak the ST&OC operated 120 buses, required 967 horses, employed 270 staff and built a new bus every fortnight. It had stables in Glebe, Ultimo and Rushcutters Bay.

On the North Shore horse buses operated from: • Milsons Point to Georges Head in 1877 Richard Hartnett as ‘Jean Bianconi’ • Milsons Point along Lane Cove Road (Pacific Highway) to Great Northern Hotel, Chatswood

and on to Gordon and Hornsby, Richard Hartnett • Lavender Bay to Suspension Bridge, Charles Clark, 1883 • Manly to Mona Vale at the Rock Lily Hotel, • Neutral Bay Wharf to Military Road, Neutral Bay Omnibus Co, 1894 • Spit Junction to Ridge St to feed the tram • Turramurra to Bobbin Head, J R Toyu, 1896 • Gladesville Bridge to Ryde

Horse buses were economically unsound depending on the health of the horses, the cost of feed which rose and fell with succeeding droughts. The Government’s decision to introduce trams and in particular the George Street lines was their death knell and by 1900 the ST&OC had sold all it lies and was liquefied. A few operators tried to compete but by 1904 the electric tram provided cheap, fast and frequent travel and the horse bus disappeared from Sydney’s streets.

Mount Street c1920 – Mitchell Library photo

Wading through the Archives

This month I am focusing on one incident which evolves from a body of correspondence between two public officials, neither of whom was prepared to concede ground. It covers an acrimonious altercation in 1921 between the State Fisheries Department General Manager Mr.

A.B. Summergreen and the Municipal Council of North Sydney through the Chief Health Inspector, Charles Trickett1, about the sale of fish in Mount Street. It appears to have begun on 25th April 1921 when Health Inspector Mr Trickett wrote a report to the Council stating that “At noon today I saw an employee of the State Fisheries Department selling fish on the Council’s land in Mount Street. In answer to questions I put to him he said that he commenced to sell fish there at 7 a.m. and his stock consisted of 2 boxes of skate, 4 of gurnard and 14 leather jackets. Now all that is left, two half boxes of gurnard, were exposed to the sun, dust and flies. The newspaper in which the fish are wrapped is kept on the table by means of two dirty old stones procured on the ground. This is in my opinion a disgusting way for the Department to carry on its business. I have previously warned the men in charge of the stall and interviewed the Chief Inspector of the Department and he promised that it would not occur again. Seeing that nothing has been done to remedy the trouble and in the interests of those who buy the fish, I recommend that his Department should at least conform to the health laws regarding the sale of food stuffs the same as a private person is compelled to do”. In a follow-up letter the next day, on 26th April, the Town Clerk wrote to the State Fisheries Department informing the Mayor had accepted a report from the Sanitary Inspector recommending that the sale of fish be discontinued until State Fisheries were in a position to provide proper covering for their stall.

Then, just two days later, on the 28th April, Council received a prompt and clearly aggrieved letter in response from the General Manager of N.S.W. State Trawling Industry pointing out that the Sanitary Inspector was informed over the telephone that stands had been ordered and that they had asked the sale be allowed to continue until the stands became available.

1 Charles Thompson Trickett, North Sydney Chief Health Inspector and Building Surveyor 1913-1951

The General Manager, Mr. A.B. Summergreen, went on to state “Seeing we have had no trouble from any other municipality and that we are trying to do our best, which must be admitted takes time, I think your Council has not treated this Industry in a sympathetic manner”. As you can sense, the dispute is gaining momentum and forthwith, on 30th April, Mr Trickett wrote to the Council in response to the letter from Mr. Summergreen, criticising him for “appearing to try to shift the responsibility of stopping his fish sales in North Sydney onto the Council because it has required him to act according to the law, rather than to his primitive insanitary method of wanting to dispose of his fish to the public.” (Fighting words indeed!) Mr Trickett went on to say that “The Department has not even bought a cover for their stall over here, (meaning north-side of the harbour) and it would appear they have no intention of doing things properly. I therefore recommend that Council stand by what it has already communicated to Mr Summergreen on the subject.” Following this, it appears the media became aware of the dispute as an article appeared in The Sun newspaper on 5th May on page 11. Given the stance taken by the newspaper in their reporting of the

issue, one could confidently assume that someone from the State Trawling Industry phoned the

newspaper, hoping to undermine the stance taken by the North Sydney Municipality. Under the heading: State Fish. North Sydney Sales. The People Suffer – it was reported:

The manner in which State fish have been offered for sale

at North Sydney has stirred up the North Sydney

authorities, the local health Inspector (who at the last

council meeting, pointed out that they were exposed to the

sun, dust, and flies) declined to allow a continuance of

the sales. His report was adopted.

"We conduct sales throughout the country and the suburbs," said Mr. A.P. Summergreen, General Manager of the State Fishing industry, when the matter was brought under his notice this morning, "and we have never been hampered in our operations before. It is the present management's policy to get all the fish from the seven trawlers placed before the public immediately on arrival. With reorganisation in progress everything cannot be done at once. Stands are now being prepared and the Mayor might at least have waited till they were completed. It is apparent to the management that there is something more than meets the eye in so sudden a stoppage of the sales”. "I consider that before the Mayor took any action it was his duty, as chief citizen, to consult his Council. I am positive that the Council would have allowed the sales to proceed until the stands, were ready. Through their Mayor's arbitrary action, the people of North Sydney suffer, and some other centre benefits. I am, however, still prepared to continue the sales at North Sydney, provided that the council, and not the Mayor, sanctions their being pending the completion of the stands." So now it’s clear the issue has become personal, with a none-too subtle attack on the Mayor’s decision-making ability by Mr Summergreen on behalf of the State Trawling industry. The next day on 6th May Mr Trickett dashed off a response to The Sun newspaper “I have been instructed by the Mayor Alderman A.E. Whatmore to make the following statement” That Mr Summergreen has not so far denied the fact that the fish which I saw for sale at noon in Mount street had been exposed in the open to flies, dust and sun from 7 a.m. This is a distinct breach of the Ordinance regulating the sale of fish and the Pure Food Regulations relating to the exposure of food for sale. His department therefore is entirely responsible for depriving the residents of North Sydney of their share of its fish”.

Finally, Mr Trickett concluded “Council would be pleased to grant Mr Summergreen a permit to sell fish forthwith in this Municipality if the sale of same is conducted in accordance with the requirements of the law.” Clearly putting the ball back in Mr Summergreen’s court! Unfortunately, the correspondence ends here. There are no further newspaper articles on the subject, and no further correspondence available on the dispute between the parties involved so we might speculate that the matter lost momentum and newsworthiness and was resolved. It is one of the frustrating issues when dealing with archival material and historical documentation, as it is not uncommon for material to be missing, and simply not documented for a variety of reasons – e.g. not considered of historical significance. We could speculate that the State Fisheries erected covered stands and took out a permit to sell fish. Or the Council and the Health Inspector relented and relaxed their demands? I would love to know the resolution of this clash between two Government officials. Was it a State versus Local Government tussle which got out of hand do you think? …………..……… Susan Wade

July 2017 Outing

Sydney Bus Museum, Wednesday 19th July 2017 at 9.30 a.m.

Our July excursion is a tour of the Sydney Bus Museum located in Derbyshire Road Leichhardt. The over 100 year-old Leichhardt Tram shed has a collection of vintage buses, and World War 2 exhibition. We finish our tour with a ride aboard a vintage double-decker bus to the Queen Victoria Building (QVB). From here you will need to make your own way home from the city. Meet at the Top Car Park of the North Sydney Council Chambers Car Park promptly at 9.30 am. We will travel by the Community bus to Leichhardt. Maximum number is 20. The tour of the Bus Museum costs $10 or $8 concession (pay at the Museum door) and includes the vintage bus ride to the QVB. To participate, please register at the 8th June General Meeting or by emailing the society at NorthShoreHS@hotmail.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Sydney Bus Museum originally built as a tram depot in 1914 to cater for future tramway extensions, never opened as such and was mainly used for storage of surplus trams. In 1937, the building was setup as the Government Bus Workshops for maintenance and overhaul of the growing bus fleet. The Workshops were relocated to Chullora in 1958 by which time Sydney's vast tram fleet was on its last legs. The photo right shows Albion Valkyrie half cab 1595 (fleet no 395) freshly overhauled and repainted in 1940 in a view looking southwards towards 'the cable store' - used for storing Sydney's overhead tram wires.