AUSTRALIAN HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 2, 1984

People In the Landscape: A Biography of TwoVillages

J.H. WINSTON-GREGSON

Interpreting the Australian rural landscape is presently an uncommon skill. While developing anarchaeological test for historical and geographical locational models, the author, a consultantarchaeologist based in Canberra, discovered a string of deserted villages in the eastern Riverina.This paper summarises the historical material about two of the villages to indicate the scope ofdata that may be overlooked by other disciplines but rediscovered by archaeologically guidedresearch. The villages were a forgotten element ofsettlement that reflected both the regional strugglefor land ownership and the lines ofpower crucial to the outcome of that struggle. Archaeology can

substantively affect colonial settlement studies.

INTRODUCTION

The villages of colonial Australia have been rather aneglected area of study among historians and archaeologists.This is particularly true of those settlements beyond theNineteen Counties in the Intermediate and Unsettled Areas'whose foundation was more speculative than planned.Speculative development produced a variety of settlements,some of which survived. A number became gazetted villagelocations although this was no guarantee of success.Whatever their status, whether occupied or deserted, thesesettlements provide the historical archaeologist withopportunities to study both the growth and decline ofindividual settlements and to study in more nomotheticterms the factors that influenced settlement location incolonial Australia.

This paper presents two case studies of village foundationand desertion in the eastern Riverina, New South Wales. Itis a synthesis of research results drawn from documentary,oral and field data. It is written in a narrative fashion ratherthan the discussion of research method and excavatedmaterial that is more usual in archaeological circles. Thebiographical style of synthesis is deliberate. The two villages,and others found, were in an historical and archaeologicallimbo. The purpose of the paper is therefore to display apotential sphere for archaeological exploration into colonialAustralia and the development of the modern landscape, thatis a step beyond convenient documentary sources andhistorical models and even the fascination of excavatingpotsherds.

The initial research was designed to test interpretativelocational models such as the commonplace that pubs,villages and towns grow up beside water courses and roadjunctions (the creeks and crossings model). The generalfactors of village settlement location are to be dealt with morefully in a second paper- but an alternative set of fivelocational criteria was developed- and in the course of testingthese criteria a number of deserted and shrunken villageswere located" (Fig. 1). The villages had been overlooked orconfused by regional historians, with fatal consequences forthe creeks and crossings model that most proclaimed.' Interms of archival research the confusion is understandablesince two neighboring villages, for example, had nine namesin the space of a century, five of which names wereinterchangeable. The muddle is resolved by certainty thatthe two sites can be physically identified. The villages, as

discovered, represented a quite extensive rural populationengaged in a surprising variety of economic enterprise, thatranged from gold mining to wine making-the famedRutherglen and Ovens Valley vintners in Victoria owe muchto deserted Kyeamba in New South Wales.

Neither of the villages to be described was formallyplanned and they received scant official acknowledgement.They developed in response to local perceptions of need andopportunity. Settlements of this nature offer an insight intocolonial Australia that is relatively uncluttered by historicpersonae and the machinery of government. Repopulatingon paper the forgotten settlements of Hillside and LittleBillabong discloses some of the cultural forces that shapedthe landscape and dictated the nature and distribution of thearchaeological remains. The following reconstructiondemonstrates the effect had on rural settlement by theinteraction of entrenched pastoral interests with theproponents of the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1861(Robertson's Free Selection Act). In essence the Act concededthe right to select from 40 to 320 acres (16 to l30ha) ofCrown Land to create a freehold property. The Act createda new type of settler, the free selector, in direct competitionwith the long established squatters who held by leasehold(redefined by the Crown Lands Occupation Act of 1861) theland now liable to alienation. The competition was real andat times it was brutal. Anybody can hire bullies: Hillside andLittle Billabong display a more subtle chicanery that indicatesthe lines of power within colonial society.

HILLSIDE

Hillside was founded at the headwater of a major creek, theLittle Billabong (Fig. 2). The nucleus of the settlementremains essentially comprises two hotel sites, a cemetery, aschool site and a few house sites astride the Hume Highway.One of the hotels (Fig. 2:6) was also a coaching station which,with the cemetery (Fig. 2:13), visually dominates the remainsin the field. The hotel and coaching station has been apastoral homestead since about 1890. It poses two problemsto the colonial archaeologist. Firstly, to unravel thedevelopment of the hotel and its transformation into ahomestead and secondly to resolve the curiosity that aproperty called'Hillside' should stand on the floor of a valley.

Settlement began in 1847 with Thomas Ford. He built anhotel and claimed a leasehold of 320 acres (l30ha). It was

27

Weslhy

10I

15I

20 kilometresI

_ ••- ... Adelaide road

---_Port Phillip road

lumbeumba

noted by Commissioner Bingham on 14 April 1847 as 'NewInn, Port Phillip Road" and was recommended by SurveyorTownsend on 24 August 1848 as the centre of a publicreserve:

'At Little Billabong-Ford's Inn-a reserve of oneSection. There is an inn, stable on the property ofThomas Ford the claimant of the run, value about 60pounds.'?

Ford called his establishment the Woo/pack Inn (Fig. 2:5).This was the first of two hotel sites at Hillside. It was licensedto Edward Geary from 1850 to 1853. Henry Adamspurchased the hotel and 50 acres (20ha) ofland in 18588 butin 1860 he put it up for sale:

'... It contains twelve large rooms, the whole of whichare well furnished with every requisite, also a large stonecellar, together with a six-stall stable, coach house, andharness room attached. Kitchen, storehouses, large roomand pantry. The kitchen is well supplied with everyutensil necessary. There is also a good kitchen garden,adjoining the hotel. The proprietor has commencedbuilding a first-class stone store, a fourth of which isalready completed, and there is sufficient stone on theground to finish it.'?

The purchaser was James Keighran who called it TheAustralian Arms. At this point the fate of the building

28

Fig. 1: The study area.

Fig. 2: Hillside.

,x-----x

x··----x, ,~ r

1

raised path

c=J plot

posthole

--- 50'11 mark

-,I-,IHHH- iron railing

eucalypt

8 10 metres'--L--'--'-~'-,'

,f00

s: 11 \SOJ "-

CCl.Coccr.

4 railcornerpost

o

oc»

o

x

__ -x 0~--ci

)(j----- -':'·~O, 'x x

x-- -x, ,o •, ,o x x

::'----_ .. ~I

, I,

,

x~~~-----x

x, /',,/

Hume

Highway

Reservation

becomes obscure for there are no further references to itamong the Publicans' Licenses. James Keighran is next heardof in 1874 as the licensee of the Traveller's Rest at Dickson'sSwamp (now Woomagarma) many kilometres to the south,Henry Adams, after proposing himself as a prospectivestorekeeper and Post Master at Tarcutta,'? is once againresident at Hillside in 186611 but the last specific referenceto the hotel is in 1865.12It is possible that Keighran remainedthere for a while as licensee, without a surviving record, butan 1871 survey of the neighbouring portion 18 does notmention the building which had earlier served as a datum.A small quantity of molten glass on the site suggests thatthe building suffered from fire. Clearly it did not long survivethe loss of license.

The village cemetery deserves notice at this point in a briefdigression from describing the sequence and distribution ofsettlement. It is visible from the Hume Highway as two smalliron-railed enclosures immediately south of Henry Adams'Woo/pack Inn. Figure 3 shows that there were twocemeteries, one at an angle to the other. This interpretationis confirmed by portion surveys from 1858 and 187113whichshow a burial ground beside Henry Adams' garden alignedfrom north-west to south-east. The present alignment ofnorth to south was imposed by the reservation of 'Lunt'sVale' cemetery in 1873,14 It is reflected in the alignment ofgraves at the north end of the cemetery. Apart from theseplans no records are known to have survived. Nothing wasfound in diocesan archives and there are only threeheadstones.

Fig. 3: The Hillside cemeteries.

Although as much as a third of the earlier graveyard hasbeen lost superficially to ploughing, there may be as manyas 140 graves in 90 plots in the remaining two thirds. UnlessHenry Adams' ale was a particularly virulent brew, this isan astonishing total for such a small settlement in the shorttime between 1847 and 1873, For comparison, there are 67known and conjectured burials (1854 to 1922) at LowerTarcutta 50 kilometres north, and 37 plots (1873 to 1924)in the Lunt's Vale cemetery. It suggests that Hillside was anode for a large area. This unrecorded burial ground hasobvious implications for regional settlement studies and isbut one of many forgotten settlement indicators that areaccessible initially only to the field worker.

Large scale pastoralism, as distinct from the few acresfarmed around the Woo/pack Inn, began with FrederickManning who established himself three kilometres east ofthe hotel on a slope overlooking the east branch of the LittleBillabong Creek (Fig. 2:1), It is not known when Manningarrived but presumably it was after 1847 since he is notmentioned by Bingham whose records stop in April of thatyear. It is significant to the development of the area thatManning called his property 'Hillside'. Manning's homesteadis shown in Figure 4. The figure was produced by recordingsurface marks, it corresponds closely to a survey drawn in1890.15 An earlier map from November 187016 shows asimpler establishment of house, garden, log fencing and awashpool for the sheep where the dam was later built. The

29

@stables

;,..,.rubble ,,,,­mounds

Ohut

well & pumpa

DO

25

N

4

150 75m

Australian Town and Country Journal politely described itas '... a comfortable little sheep station of about 12,C)00acres'."

The site is an extensive complex of structural remains.earthworks and exotic plants. The 1890 survey was extremelyuseful for identifying the function of the various remains.The garden noted in 1870 is visible as a series oflinked soilmarks and three superb poplar trees, Populus nigra itaiica.There is also an area of ridge and furrow ploughing whichruns up-slope. It displays an identical erosion pattern to thatillustrated by Twidale. IS The site was apparently wellpreserved until the 1950s when it was stripped of usablematerial and bulldozed.'?

The Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1861 did not becomeoperative immediately in the study area." This allowed thesquatters several years in which to observe the inroads madeon pastoral holdings by free selectors elsewhere. Manninghad spread his homestead buildings over several hectares andhe apparently held a proportionate view of his pastoralrequirements. When Thomas Lunt selected 41 acres (over16ha) opposite the Woolpack Inn in 1864 he precipitated abitter struggle.

It is not known whether Manning made any overt movesagainst Lunt in the middle 1860s but by 1869 the disputewas open. In the intervening period Lunt had selectedanother portion and a second man, Fred World, had takentwo more, again on the creek flats close to the WoolpackInn. Manning resorted to the law in concert with hisneighbours. Early in 1869 thirteen strange sheep appeared

Fig. 4: The original Hillside homestead.

Fig. 5: Land selection at Hillside 1866 to 1886 (for 'AustralianArms' read Australian Hotel') .

__ road

..---- creek

-- boundary

and otherselectors

4000 metresI

3000I

Ross

2000I

8 @ The "Australian

~ Manning Manning (entaileo)

1{)00I

30

N. B. UPPER CASE = pastoralist or mortgagor

Table 1: Land allocation near Lunt's Vale, 1858 to 1883.

Name

Henry AdamsThomas LuntThomas LuntFred. WorldFred. WorldJOHN MANNINGFe. MANNINGGeorge W. LuntThomas LuntG.H.G. MANNINGChurch of EnglandChurch of EnglandEdward DunnEdward DunnFred. WorldJames Henry LuntRobert LuntRobert LuntA.J. LuntJOHN E.G. MANNINGALEX MANNINGH. TugwellA.G. MANNINGFG. MANNINGA.w. MANNINGThomas LuntJames Henry LuntFG. MANNINGH. TugwellDavid LuntGeorge W. LuntFG. MANNINGFG. MANNINGFG. MANNINGFG. MANNINGROSSROSSROSSBUCHANAN & MORTFG. MANNINGROSSROSSA.W. MANNINGFG. MANNING

18581864186618691869187018701870187018701871187118701870187018711871187318731874187418741874187418741874187418741875187518751875187518751883188318831883188318831883188318831883

Year

I2389

10II12141516171819202122252627282930313239404142434445466163646566676869707273

ParishPortion

Source: Crown Registrar's Office, records for Parish ofLittle Billabong, County Goulburn

1870 he had been content to purchase three small portionsscattered about his lease to secure his grazing rights, but in1874 he adopted an aggressive policy of purchasing landbeside Lunt and other free selectors to prevent theirexpansion, despite their right to the 'prelease' of an area threetimes the size of their original purchase. The legality of themanoeuvre was never tested by the local judiciary. TheCrown Lands Alienation Act (1861 and subsequentamendments) endeavoured to prevent the manipulation offree selection by making land purchase conditional inter aliaupon improvements to the land, residence on the land andby limiting the acreage which could be held by an agreementto purchase. Neither Lunt nor Manning appears to have useddevices such as Conditional Purchase for Mineral Purposesbut both made liberal use of family names to evade theacreage limits. The size of the house and garden at Figure2: 11 suggest that some of the Lunt purchases may have been

in Manning's stockyard. They were a distinctive breed from'Humula', an adjoining station, and they carried the brandsof both Humula station and Thomas Lunt, who hadpreviously purchased some Humula sheep. James Wilson,the manager of Humula station, claimed the sheep as hisown and charged Lunt with sheep stealing.

The case has two intriguing features. Firstly, the sheep werenever in Lunt's possession. Secondly, only thirteen sheepwere involved but no fewer than three squatters gaveevidence; even Wilson's book-keeper was subpoenaed by theprosecution. The squatters were Charles Bardwell, Manningand W.H. Williams. They ran adjoining properties stretchingfrom Oberne, near Tarcutta, south almost to Holbrook. Thecharge aroused considerable attention. The Wagga WaggaAdvertiser of 10 April 1869 published a pained letter fromone of the Magistrates rebutting an editorial (no longerextant) of the Express which had fulminated against the'utterly senseless and unsatisfactory' conduct of the case. TheExpress was apparently curious as to why an estimated 200pounds had been spent to arraign a selector over a matterof thirteen sheep. The case was indeed poorly conducted.The improbability was never canvassed of Lunt stealing adistinctive breed of sheep, then allowing the animals to roaminto Manning's hands without even altering the simpleHumula brand. The magistrates would not admit therelevance of the fact that the sheep were never claimed tobe in Lunt's possession. Further, the denial by theprosecution that Humula had sold any sheep to Lunt wasat best disingenuous, for Lunt had bought his Humula sheepthrough Henry Adams. The Wagga Wagga Advertiserreported the case at length on 7 April 1869 and a spiritedcorrespondence followed, especially after Lunt was sentencedto twelve months hard labour.

There seems little doubt that the affair was arranged todemonstrate the ability of squatters, acting in unison, to dealfirmly with free selectors. Carnegie goes so far as to producehearsay evidence that W.H. Williams had bribed the selectorFred World 50 pounds to apply Lunt's brand to the sheepwhich were then 'found' in Manning's stockyard." However,Lunt was not easily intimidated. Upon his release in 1870he returned to Hillside and immediately selected more land.Edward Dunn also selected 50 acres (20ha) there. Fred Worldmoved, perhaps tactfully, to a 320 acre (130ha) purchase onWilliam's run at Little Billabong.

Figure 5 and Table I show the contest for land ownershipwhich was pursued for twenty years between Lunt andManning. Lunt concentrated his energies around his originalselection until by 1873 Lunt and his family held nineadjoining portions totalling 526 acres-' (213ha). At the sametime the Church of England appropriated two Small Portionsfor a church and parsonage" and the graveyard wasresurveyed and dedicated as Lunt's Vale Cemetery. 1873 isalso the year when the second hotel, the Australian Hotel(Fig. 2:6), is first mentioned. The licensee was Thomas Lunt.

The structure deserves special mention as one of thedominant remains of Hillside. At the time of research in 1980the building was over one hundred years old and was in theprocess of acquiring its fifth owner. The building has beenroughly doubled in area by extensions so that the originalcore is almost entirely concealed. There are ninecombinations of style and material in the window and doorsurrounds, for instance. The distribution of Flemish,Colonial 3 and Colonial 7 brick bonds in Figure 6 delineatethe Australian Hotel within what is now Hillside homestead.

The origin of the brick is unknown but there is a largeclay pit (Fig. 2:3) 600m to the south. The bricks in the kitchenwalls are a coarse, unevenly fired, material which suggestslocal manufacture. Elsewhere in the walls the bricks visibleare finer, an even colour and hard. Some bear the mark ofa wire clay-cutter.

Like 1869, 1873 was a watershed in the development ofHillside. Stimulated by Lunt's determination, Manningretaliated with an extraordinary string of land purchases. In

31

Fig. 6: Hillside homestead, formerly the Australian Hotel.

' ... offers a fair accommodation to anyone favouringthe house, both for man and horse. Cobb & Co'sCoaches start from the Hotel for Tumbarumba evenWednesday, Friday and Sunday, returning Tuesday.Thursday and Saturday,"?

The coaching station is a remarkable group of timberbuildings adjacent to the hotel. There is a blacksmith, a barn.stockyard and a combination stable and coach house. Theblacksmith has been partly sheathed in corrugated iron andtwice extended as a machinery shed but beneath theadditions it retains its integrity as a structure. The roof wasformerly bark but the walls still are vertical slab with large,unglazed, openings for ventilation. The hearth and flue arecement-mortared sandstock brick. Even the fuel store isintact and there is a deep layer of charcoal on the flooralthough the smithy clearly has been used as a lumber roomfor decades.

The barn is an unusual building. Although it is nowsheathed in corrugated iron it was constructed without theuse of metal. The rafters and purlins, for instance, are lashedwith hide. The core of the barn is a hollow oblong 15 metresby 13 metres with a double door at each end, one of whichopens onto the stockyard. The ridge-pole is about 10m fromthe ground. A skillion runs the length of the barn on bothsides. The upper skillion plates, and the high roof plates, restin natural tree forks. The outer skillion walls are vertical slabresting in hollowed plates. There is a chaff-cutting roomimmediately alongside the barn.

The stockyard is now much altered so that only a few four­rail posts remain, without any apparent linear relationship.

The stable and coach house was also built without usingmetal except as door hinges. It is double pile with timberslab walls, a bark ceiling and a hay loft covered by a shingleroof. The floor plan makes no allowance for sideways thrustand there is no appropriate roof truss built in, so that thebuilding has slumped badly. However, in company with theother structures it constitutes a well preserved rural coachingstation and is an outstanding example of what some arepleased to call vernacular architecture. .

There were also two schools at Hillside. The schoolroomshown in Figure 6 was private to the Ross family but thereis an intact .public school 30m north of the Australian Hotelin a 250-square-metre enclosure. It was built as a verticalslab single room, with a brick chimney at the east end anda verandah on the north and south faces. There was oncea pony hitching rail. The building appears to have beenslightly modified in the early twentieth century and used asa residence but it is substantially untouched. Fletcher andBurnswoods-" do not list a school at Lunt's Vale but theyrecord one for Forest Vale. Forest Creek is a parish whichlies 2.5 kilometres to the south-west. It is possible that thenames have become mingled. The dates of 1874 to 1887 for'Forest Vale' school neatly match the apogee of Lunt's Vale.

The arrival of the Ross family in 1885 sealed the futureof Lunt's Vale. There is no suggestion of malice on their part.Lunt's Vale was tiny in comparison to the major propertieswhich they were in the process of acquiring but they wereassiduous in buying up mortages and in seizing onincomplete purchases which had become forfeit through abreach of condition. Throughout the late 1880s Lunt'sboundaries were steadily shrinking. In 1890, after a decadeof struggle with the railways in the Riverina, Cobb & Co.withdrew from the study area. The Postal Receiving Officewas also withdrawn.l? The hotel was thus deprived of two

Hotel as a source of income independent of pastoralinterference. The 1879 closure of the Traveller's Rest atKyeamba for temperance reasons must have been anoticeable benefit and may have assisted the Australian Hotelto become a coaching station. The consequent rise in statusand business caused the hotel to be proclaimed a PostalReceiving Office in 1882.26 Lunt advertised that his hotel:

laundrypantrycovered

,Joint il1'l

floor \

5 metres'----------',

timber floor

genuinely independent farmlets (Figures 2 and 5 show thatthe selection is separate from other Lunt holdings) but thesame cannot be said for Manning. It is hard to envisage thetiny hut at Figure 2:2 as anything more than a stockman'sshelter. In fact there is still at Hillside a hut on wheels whichclosely resembles the notorious portable residence.f whichcould be moved between paddocks in anticipation of aninspection by the Lands Board.

Manning's new policy cost him dearly. His success incontaining settlement is evident in Figure 5 but whileconfronting Lunt he was unable to adequately protect hisback country. It can be seen that by 1875 he was beginningto use mortgagors to protect his flanks. By 1883 about onethird of his titles were entailed and he was unable to resistfurther encroachment. In that year the Ross family purchasedland on the exposed west, north and east faces of Manning'saggregate of purchases: so confining him, as he had done toLunt, and separating him from nearly half of his run. TheRoss' also purchased the few remaining acres around Lunt'sVale. Manning's position was untenable and in 1885 he soldout to Janet Ross.

Mrs. Ross was the matriarch of an extraordinarilysuccessful pastoral family which first took up land nearHolbrook in 1867. By 1890 the Ross' had leasehold orconditional purchase title to virtually the whole 45 kilometreroad frontage between Holbrook and Kyeamba Gap, mostlyon the west side of the road, and extending to a depth ofup to 15 kilometres." Lunt was now confronted by a ratherdifferent calibre of opposition.

Lunt had continued to purchase land up to 1875 butthereafter he concentrated on developing the Australian

~ Rendered Colonial, 3 Brick B?nd

~ Flemish Brick Bond

Hearth

::::::::::::::::::::::;:;:;:i Colonial 7 Brick Bond

~Fibro

___ Timber

i ..JI-" Colonial 5 Brick Bond

h.".-tIl------'t'rT""7"---'--'i, breezeway

32

'Mr. William Williams

steady sources of revenue. Carnegie suggests that Lunt'senclave lasted 'for several years' after 188530 but by the early1890s he had left and Lunt's Vale died. The hotel was closed,occupied by the Ross family and called 'Hillside Station'.Manning's homestead was abandoned. By 1900 the wholeof Lunt's Vale was Ross freehold or subject to Ross purchaseas part of Hillside. Lunt's name occurs on modern cadastraland topographic maps as Lunt's Creek and Lunt'sSugarloaf. Neither one is in Lunt's Vale which is nowhereacknowledged. There is a vague local memory of Lunt'sPaddock (Fig. 2: II). The eradication of this remarkable manhas been as thorough as the prevention of settlement.

LITTLE BILLABONG

Little Billabong and Hillside are so close together whentravelling by car or looking at a small scale map, that theyappear to be residual elements of a single linear settlement.Such is not the case. Although Little Billabong has beensocially mingled with Hillside, the settlements developedquite separately (Fig. 7).

Settlement is known to have begun in 1848, when ThomasMitchell established the Little Billabong Run around the baseof an oddly shaped hill now called Lunt's Sugarloaf."

Townsend." noted 'Mitchell's Head Station' on theTumbarumba road 2.6 kilometres east of its junction withthe Port Phillip Road. A newspaper correspondent passedthrough in 1872 and remarked on a plot of vines-' but LittleBillabong Station has otherwise escaped attention.Nonetheless, until its abandonment about 1890 it was apolitical and economic focal point.

Unfortunately the site (Fig. 7:3) has become part of a fire­break, so that its archaeological value is somewhat reduced.It is visible 6m north of the Tumbarumba road reserve, asa scatter of granite and shale hearth stones interspersed withglass and potsherds. There are small earthworks resemblinga series of ponds 32m north. The vines were not found.

Mitchell, J1{e original owner, soon sold the run to ReubenSherwin, who also left after a short time. In 1855 the runpassed to William Henry Williams, who is the last knownoccupant of the homestead site. A small collection oflettersrelating to Williams' family and property>' casts aninformative light on the lives behind the potsherds.

Williams came from a family based in Gundaroo, nearYass, and he had family links with both Goulburn andSydney. The family had some legal background but waspredominantly engaged in unskilled rural pursuits. The moveto Little Billabong was a major initiative chronically besetby financial irregularity and uncertain title. Even when Mrs.Mitchell sold the run to Reuben Sherwin she had apparentlyretained the Crown Lease document.v so that there wascontinuing doubt as to what Williams was purchasing-"Sherwin himself had departed for the Bendigo goldfield butfirst he stated his view of the sale:

MelbourneSeptember 101855

Sir I am willing to comply with the letter you roteto my/the number of stock on it is 8 bullocks and adray and 7 head of cattle on the 4 mile creekbranded J-W Joins/I don't now the brand of theBullocks/there is seven acres of wheat on the stationout of that you have to return 30 bushells of wheat

. to John Chancy/with respect to the transfer if youdon't think my letter sufficient I will apply anattorney to draw it out when you pay the sum of250£ to Mr. Evans by receiving a reseat of all duesand demands and send the receat down to my andsend a draught down for the other 250£ payable on

one of the banks in Melbourne/I authorise you totake possession of the goods and chattles of Littlebillibung station

I am yourReuben Sharwin'

(for 'my' read 'me'; sign / is a suggested punctuation).

The fat stock were presumably the subject of a separateagreement, leaving subsistence resources of working bullocks,dray, dairy cattle and wheat as part of the station. Sherwinlater sought another 100 pounds sterling for horses. The FourMile Creek is about 8 kilometres south of the homesteadwhere it formed the run boundary with the next property.

Williams' first problem was not, as might have beenexpected, finding 500 pounds sterling (which he did notpossess in his bank account) nor even wondering how muchwheat would be left for the coming year after payingSherwin's debt of thirty bushels, instead he had to wrestpossession from Mrs. Sherwin. His agent's laconic advice was'give her notice to leave the Station immediately and upona recurrance of her violence, apply to a Magistrate.'37 Legaldifficulties beset Williams for over a year in a clear expressionof both the impotent centrality of colonial government andof the pervasive influence of the larger, successful, squatters.

The pastoral licence for the Little Billabong Run had tobe issued in Sydney, upon the recommendation of CrownLands Commissioner Mr. Lockhart, who was based inTumut. It took eleven months and two false starts toimplement this basic gesture of occupancy. Meanwhile, andfor some time after, Williams was vainly trying to completethe sale. Thus Pierce, a member of the land agent's staff,wrote to Williams:

'... Since you were here, the deed went down to Sydney,back again here, the Registrar objecting to the deed asit was executed in Melbourne, before an attorney there­then to Melbourne when it was found that the Attorneyhad left Melbourne; we then endeavoured to get Sherwinto execute it over again, this he would not do-withouthe got the money; and it has since been to Ballarat andBendigo where it was made all right by Mr. Ward theSolicitor who first attested it.-It has been one of themost crooked affairs I have ever had to deal with.'38

It was not easy to join the ranks of the squatters and moredifficulties were in store. Sherwin had agreed to acceptpayment over a period of time-? but as the negotiationsbecame protracted he apparently required a lump sum.Thomas Mate of Tarcutta, one of the major figures in theRiverina, also became involved in this. Pierce sent Williamsanother sardonic revelation.

'Dear SirAt last Sherwin has got the money-I have been

engaged this morning for upwards of four hours,before I could get the various parties who have beenmixed up in this affair to come to a settlement-itwas almost impossible to fancy the difficulties thatMate & Co's past and present Agents threw in theway of a settlement the fact being that Watson hadhad the use of the money and did not like torelinquish it.'

Williams never escaped the grasp of men with largerresources. He even had to cart his wheat to Albury to beground at McLaurin's steam mill." It was McLaurin whoultimately purchased the run from Williams, therebyachieving a continuous twenty-five kilometre frontage to theGreat South Road north of Holbrook. The alternatives toMcLaurin's mill were a water-powered mill at Oberneestablished by Thomas Mate's brother-in-law or the Nixons'mill at Wagga Wagga. Mate regained his hold on Little

33

(reek

creekroad

____ former line of route

9 Little Billabong site number

land above 400 metres

o 1000 2000 3000metresI ! I !

Billabong run in 1861, when Williams negotiated a loan usingthe deeds of his father's grant on the Yass River atGundaroo."

The loan may have been used to establish an hotel.Camegiev describes Williams as the publican of the LittleBillabong Hotel but the licensee was actually his brother-in­law, William Rial." Williams signed himself 'squatter' ontwo occasions when acting surety for a Postmaster" anddescribed himself as a squatter in the Lunt sheep stealingcase.

At this time the hotel was called the Traveller's Joy. Thelocation could not be verified because of modernconstruction work but an informant identified a place on theeast bank of the Little Billabong Creek close to the formerTumbarumba road (Fig. 7), saying that it had also served asa general store and post office until 1925.45 This recollectionis supported by the Post Office records, which disclose thesame surnames during the l890s and early 1900s for thePostmaster and his Assistant as occur in the Return ofPublicans' Licenses 1884 to 1900. The Post Office wascreated in 1874. It was run first by Plunkett and then byKirby until 1891 when Mrs. Emily Williams took it over fortwo months. William Henry Williams may have owned thebuilding after the death in 1867 of his partner and brother­in-law, William Rial.

In the beginning Little Billabong was shaped to aconsiderable extent by family relationships. W.H. Williams'northern property boundary ran beside Lunt's Vale. Williamsis said to have married Mary Dean, the sister of Lunt's wife.A child's scrawl of names across a poem in the Williamspapers includes 'Mrs. Williams Esq Mary Williams'.Williams' south boundary, Four Mile Creek, is also calledDean's Creek. John Dean acted in concert with Williams toselect the best portions of the Little Billabong run, for despitehis relationship to Thomas Lunt, Williams never alliedhimself to the cause of free selection. He spent the years 1865to 1870 instituting the purchase ofland within a 3 mile (circa5 kilometres) radius of his homestead, in the names ofhimself and his family. Like Manning, Williams also'selected' small areas on the outskirts of his run.

The first independent selectors appeared between 1875 and1880. Fred World, Crowe, Plunkett and Clark selected land

34

Fig. 7: Little Billabong.

at the extreme west of Williams' run, beside the Great SouthRoad. They were the progenitors of Little Billabong as acommunity. To the east of Williams' homestead T.J. Hudsonselected three portions. Hudson's role as a selector isintriguing, for Hudson and his brother E.W. Hudson, nevercompleted a purchase. Furthermore, Williams seems to havemade virtually no attempt to restrain them, so that by 1888nearly one fifth of his run bore the name of Hudson on theconditional purchase documents. By comparison, Williamswas careful to prevent Crowe, Plunkett et al. expanding theirholdings from the rough, hilly, country beside the GreatSouth Road down onto the rich creek flats closer to hishomestead. Indeed the advent of free selectors inspiredWilliams to renew at least six land claims which he hadallowed to lapse.

Geography provides a clue to the Hudsons' activities, inthat there are four creeks on the western side of Williams'run. Tom Lunt's Creek and Vokin's Creek both had a portiontaken up along their banks by independent selectors.Williams promptly matched the selections to prevent theirexpansion. The other two creeks were entirely taken up bythe Hudsons. They also took up land alongside the otherselectors and at the confluence of the four creeks and alongthe major creek thus formed, as far as the portions held byWilliams himself. It seems likely that Williams hadrecognised the weakness of Manning's strategy at Hillsideand employed dummies instead.

The pattern of settlement established by Williams nevervaried. Genuine free selectors remained largely confined toa small pocket astride the Great South Road, bounded tothe east by the Little Billabong Creek and to the west by alow ridge which marked the beginning of Ross familycountry. The pocket of land, which is roughly three squarekilometres in area, is bisected by the Great South Road thatjoins a track to Westby and the Tumbarumba road at thispoint.

The tiny settlement derived trade from three sources.Firstly, from traffic using the services of the hotel and thePost Office. Secondly, from the hire of labour. It wascommonplace for a small holder's income to be substantially

derived through shearing, fencing, or ploughing for asquatter. Thirdly, the Four Mile Creek Goldfield wasproclaimed in 1875. The first two are directly linked tosquatting interests at Little Billabong, so that there is a clearlyexpressed period of Williams' dominance between 1856 and1889. The period is marked by the creation of the majorhomestead, the hotel and Post Office, and curiously, by theerection of a church.

The church (Fig. 7:14) was a single-nave, nee-Gothicstructure of machine-fired brick on granite ashlar footings.The roof was corrugated iron. A porch opened to the east.The origin of the bricks, some of which are hand-pressed,is unknown. Albury, Tumut and Wagga Wagga hadcommercially operated brick kilns at this time and the firstedition of the Germanton Times and Tumbarumba Advocatein 1884 refers to a local brick-making plant. It is also knownthat two and a half million bricks were forwarded to theRiverina from Lithgow," although it seems more likely thatthese were used for building railhead hotels in the 1880s. In1878 the church was dedicated as St. Paul's, Churchrnount,Little Billabong." It was presumably intended to serve bothLittle Billabong and Lunt's Vale to the north, where thecemetery had been recently rededicated.

No diocesan records have become available for the churchbut the gaunt ruin is eloquent of the failure of closersettlement. Adjacent land reserved for a parsonage was neverused for that purpose. For although Wyatt remarks of thechurch 'its situation is awkward of access for older peopleand remote from any houses'," it was actually built alongsidethe former Port Phillip Road (Fig. 7:15) near the nub ofsettlement. It was surrounded by James Weston's 1876 freeselection and it overlooks to the south the huddle of selectors'portions along the Little Billabong Creek. The location ofthe church, remote on a hilltop without obvious access anddifficult to see from any line of route used in the last 140years, is the key to understanding the pattern of settlement.The pattern was established not because of the supposedattraction of a creek crossing or a road junction (the 1878creek crossing at Fig. 7:7 was a kilometre from the church)but because a nexus of property boundaries and roads hadcreated the only land available t9 selectors. Little Billabongis a rare example of a post facto survey being unable to realignfree selections into neat rectangles, although in 1922 a futureDeputy Surveyor General contrived to amalgamate portions84 and 118 into an elegant isosceles triangle.

As long as Williams controlled land, employment andcommerce, the settlement prospects were slight but real.Williams' account book exists in fragments between late Mayand early September 1856.49 These early entries illustrate theimportance to the local rural economy of even a strugglingtyro squatter. In 1856 Williams was still trying to obtain titlebut during the first nine days recorded, Williams spent oversixty-six pounds on services and in July 1856 he madepayments to fifteen creditors. Some of them must have beenlocal labour since only a couple received sums like eighteenor thirty pounds which are equatable to a carrier's fee.

D nfortunately the first phase of settlement at LittleBillabong ends with Williams' ruin. His title to the land usedas collateral for the 1861 loan and for subsequent loans wasapparently disputed, along with two decades of rent fromthe land and other matters of inheritance. Williams' mother'sfirst marriage had been to a scion of Clan Campbell and thereis an ominous letter from Scotland discussing the best meansof seeking reparation from Williams without causing ascandal. 50 The sums were not large but they were sufficientto sink Williams' endeavour to become a squatter. In 1889James McLaurin began purchasing the run at a mortgageesale.>'

The second phase is one of stagnation which lasted untilthe early 1900s. The Ross family had successfully eliminatedLunt's Vale by about 1890 and there was no attempt at freeselection either there or at Little Billabong during the 1890s.McLaurin apparently demolished Williams' homestead

almost at once and relocated the station home in a shallow,concealed, valley 2 kilometres further north. The 'new'homestead, where his son James McHardy McLaurin lived,is not currently available for research but beneath modernrestoration and improvements there appears to be a lateVictorian single-storey villa which would correspond to thetime of Mel.aurin's land purchase.

At the heart of settlement. the Little Billabong Hotel, asit was called in 1884. remained in operation and in privatehands.v When the hotel first opened in 1861 William Rialhad indulged in a controversial experiment with horse racing,presumably on the creek flats near the hotel.>' It is not knownwhether the race meetings continued into the 1880s but thehotel prospered. It was on the mail run to Tumbarumba evenafter Cobb & Co. withdrew their frequent passenger servicein 1890. 54

About the turn of the century, James Quinlan removedthe hotel to the west bank of Little Billabong Creek (Fig.7:8). The original building was retained as a general store.There is not a great deal left of the newer building whichwas burned down in the late 1950s. The site has beenbulldozed and subsequently turned over by bottle-hunters.A concrete-lined well with tank stand remains, as do someexotic shrubs. A floor plan is discernible.

In its heyday the hotel stood beside the original track toTurnbarumba, close to where it crossed the Little BillabongCreek (Fig. 7:7). In 1929 the road was moved 500m northof the hotel, the creek was straightened and a substantialbridge was erected (Fig. 7:6). The hotel remained in operationhowever and an aerial photograph from 194455 clearly showsthe building and the old line of route.

After the 1875 goldfield proclamation noted above, miningcontinued into the 1890s, so that by 1899 mining boundarieswere amended to include Hillside and Little Billabong withinthe Tumbarumba Gold Field.w Local mining activityproduced no major strike to influence closer settlement butit did generate local commerce. Mining may also haveprovided temporary employment to selectors as hired hands.The Annual Mining Report for 1895 refers to a party'working on the Old Sam Claim on The Four Mile GoldField'. Little Billabong lay midway between the alluvial goldand tin deposits at Westby and the reef gold at the Four MileGold Field, which was roughly twelve kilometres distant.Records are almost non-existent and, apart from isolatedcosteans (shallow trenches to test the mineral deposit),pasture improvement and cereal cropping have obliteratedmining traces on the plain within four kilometres of thevillage, but the activity was evidently sufficient to contributeto the continuation of Little Billabong as a service node.

As an indication of the population in the area of LittleBillabong at the start of the second phase, a provisionalschool was opened in 1897.51 A school (Fig. 7:12) was builtnear the church in 1903 and remained there until 1918. Thelocation is visible as a shallow terrace with a stone edgingnear the top of Churchmount. A series of post holes delimitsthe schoolyard which slopes quite steeply towards the presentHume Highway. As with the church, access was gained alongthe Port Phillip Road which is seen as a terrace on thehillside.

The school had a population catchment area ofapproximately 140 square kilometres, within a line drawnmidway between Little Billabong and the nearestcontemporary schools. Not all of the children within thatarea attended. Some of those who went to school would havebeen sent to Sydney or Melbourne. Alternatively there wasthe private schoolroom at Hillside. Except for two years ofreduced status (1897 and 1912) the minimum enrolmentrequired at Little Billabong by the 1880 Public InstructionAct was twenty children aged between six and fourteen years.The reduction to half-time status in 1912, and the temporaryclosure 1913-1917 prior to removal, indicate that thesettlement of Little Billabong was a brief phenomenon ratherthan a continuing or self-regenerating process. The same is

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evident in the archaeological record, for although the hotellicense was renewed annually until after the Second WorldWar, by 1914 the major homestead was long deserted, theschool was abandoned and the church was derelict. Noresidential site is known to date between 1899 and 1914.Mining, also, had ceased. 58

Little Billabong experienced a slight renaissance after theFirst World War, when it became a satellite of Holbrook.The small holdings provided a nucleus for dairying, whichwas made practicable by the beginning of motorisedtransport. Although the school had moved away, LittleBillabong otherwise continued its community servicefunctions. The Post Office was maintained by a small holder,Mr. J. Graham, the church was restored and rededicated asSt. Thomas's>? and in the mid 1920s a community hall wasbuilt (Fig. 7:4). A recreation reserve was gazetted nearby,9 June 1922.

The economic basis was tenuous however. Closersettlement had been encouraged by breaking up stockreserves around Little Billabong, but in three cases whichare documented on Lands Board files of the 1920s the smallholder gave his principal occupation as 'labourer'. LittleBillabong vanished in the shadow of the great Depression.For example, in March 1929 Charles Campbell asked thatthe residence condition be lifted from his lease of portion84, since he could find 'no employment in the immediatelocalitv'w The lease was sympathetically altered to 'Grazingand Vegetable Garden', enabling Campbell's partner, CharlesWoodland, to carry on. The site (Fig. 7:5) was still used in1981 by a Holbrook family as a weekend farmlet. The churchwent out of use in 192961 and shortly afterwards it wasincorporated within the Hillside Station lease." The PostOffice ceased about the same times" and the hotel passed outof local hands."

This third and final phase is archaeologically dominant.Little Billabong between 1861 and 1900 was primarily aservice node for a shifting population of selectors and miners,who have left only the most fragmentary earthworks andhearth-stone scatters. Crowe's hut, for example, isrepresented by only two pieces of glass and a half dozengranite stones scattered across 30m by ploughing. Themajority of the surviving residential sites belong to theperiod 1900 to 1930. Such sites are distinguished by thepredominance of introduced materials, especially bricks andcorrugated iron, a quantitatively greater surviving populationof metal and organic detritus and large quantities of brownbottle glass. These sites, for example Figure 7: II, are foundonly near the service node. They were in any caseconcentrated at that point and elsewhere agriculture hasremoved even the mining traces.

The interest in Little Billabong is that whereas the othersettlements such as Hillside may offer clear archaeologicaland historical statements, Little Billabong generatedinterpretative problems. A ruined church demands a formercongregation. Little Billabong indicates the value of archivalresearch, for without the plans and title deeds obtained fromthe Crown Registrar it would not have been possible toseparate the developmental phases within the archaeologicalrecord except in the most general terms. In particular, thedocuments enabled a distinction between an aggregation ofgenuine free selectors and a dispersed population of two orthree selectors surrounded by the squatter's dummies.

CONCLUSIONThe villages of Hillside and Little Billabong were essentiallyenclaves of minor enterprise and free selectors forced intonucleation by the land policies of large graziers. Servicefacilities were offered to a catchment area that may havevaried considerably between the time of the first Hillsidecemetery and the closure of the Little Billabong church, butevidently the service facilities were not self-sustaining. Theywere a symptom of settlement but not its cause. The

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correlation between the distribution of sites, the history ofsettlement and the practices of the local squatters is too closeto argue that the villages were primarily service nodes.Rather, the villages were the product of an intense struggleto possess land.

The effect of the Robertson Land Acts and their Victorianequivalents has been controversial since their proclamation.They remain a steady source of debate among historians.wIt was intriguing to discover in the Riverina a quantity ofhitherto unsuspected archaeological evidence to co-ordinatewith the documents and to direct archival research to formthe core of this paper. Thus Figure 5, that summarises thestruggle for Hillside, is a synthesis of title deeds, ruins.vegetation and fencelines. At the risk of disappointing theartefactually inclined, the physical remains of a full centuryof occupation have been described only in passing, as specificcomponents of village reconstruction. However, discoveringand figuratively repopulating these forgotten settlementsdiscloses possible commonplaces of colonial New SouthWales that have become ignored, perhaps to the detrimentof our understanding.

If problems of settlement and landscape analysis are to beaddressed, then the realities of life for the miners, shepherdsand graziers should be sought beyond the pit-head and thewoolshed. This is neither arcane local history nor stampcollecting.s? for in the midst of problem-oriented researchwe are still dealing with people's lives and humanmotivation. Hillside village does not exist in publishedhistory but it is a lode of enquiry and information for thehistorical archaeologist. Simply being able to recognisesimilar sites should influence regional studies and there arelines of related research that archaeologists are well placedto pursue. Deserted or shrunken rural settlements are astratum of colonial society that will repay close study.

NOTESI. Proclaimed by 1847 Order in Council embodying the

Imperial Waste Lands Occupation Act of 1846.2. Winston-Gregson, A guide to locating settlements (in

preparation).3. -a concentration of parish portions with low numbers;

-a concentration of portions of small area;-a junction of land routes;-a major topographical feature;-a major homestead.

4. Winston-Gregson 1982.5. Buxton 1967; Carnegie 1973, 1975; Swan 1970.6. Bingham, Itinerary.7. Townsend to Surveyor General AONSW 2/1583.1.8. Crown Registrar plan M73-1457.9. B.P. 25/5/1861.

10. Australia Post, Historical Section, 1-75.II. Whitworth 1866:30I.12. Crown Registrar plan G I 08-1475.13. Crown Registrar plans M73-1457, G707-1475.14. Crown Registrar plan MS1498 W92.15. Crown Registrar plan G2868-1475.16. Crown Registrar plan G658-1475.17. A.TC.J.9/3/1872.18. Twidale 1971:210, Fig. 5.19. A. Locke, pers. comm. 18/5/80.20. Buxton 1967:18.21. Carnegie 1975:55.22. Crown Registrar, records.23. Crown Registrar plan G238-1984.24. Buxton 1967:159.25. Ross 1967:16,26.26. Australia Post. Historical Section, 5-1535.

27. G.TTA. 18/7/1884.28. Fletcher and Burnswoods 1977.29. Australia Post, op. cit.30. Carnegie 1973:193 below.31. N.S.W. Government Gazette 18/9/1848.32. Townsend, op. cit.33. A. T c.i. 30/3/1872.34. Williams, papers in private hands.35. Grantham, W., Albury land agent, letter to Williams,

1/12/1855 (Williams).36. Grantham to Williams, 16/1/1856 (Williams).37. Grantham to Williams, 1/12/1855 (Williams).38. Pierce, J.e., to Williams, 20/9/1856 (Williams).39. Grantham to Williams, 1/12/1855 (Williams).40. Receipt dated 19/12/1857 (Williams).41. Williams to Mate, 23/1/1861 (Williams).42. Carnegie 1975:54.43. N.S.W. Government Gazette, return of publicans' licenses,

1861.44. Australia Post, op. cit.45. Macneil, J., pers. cornrn., 18/1/80.46. Lithgow Regional Library, n.d.: II, 79.47. Wyatt 1937:284.48. Wyatt, ibid.49. Williams, papers.50. Campbell to Aunt Adelaide, n.d. (Williams).51. Crown Registrar, records.52. N.S.W. Government Gazette, return of publicans' licenses.53. B.P. 16-28/2/1861.54. Australia Post, Historical Section, 3-760.55. Germanton, run 701, print 16369.56. N.S.W. Department of Mines.57. Fletcher and Burnswoods 1977.58. N.S.W. Department of Mines, 1911:15, 1914:15.59. Wyatt, op. cit.60. Crown Lands Office file, LB 39-214.61. Wyatt, op. cit.62. Crown Registrar plan G4094-1475.63. Australia Post, op. cit.64. Crown Registrar, title deeds, Portion 60 Parish Carabost.65. Powell 1977.66. See Buxton 1967 for Riverina.67. Connah 1983.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Published sources and thesesBUXTON. G.L. 1967. The Riverina 1861-1891, MelbourneUniversity Press.CARNEGIE. M. 1973. Friday Mount, Hawthorn, Melbourne.

CARNEGIE, M. 1975. Morgan the bold bushranger, Angus andRobertson, Melbourne.CONNAH, G. 1983. Stamp collecting or increasing understanding?:the dilemma of historical archaeology, The Australian JournalofHistorical Archaeology 1:15-21.FLETCHER, J. & BURNSWOODS. J. 1977. Government schools forNew South Wales, N.S.W. Department of Education.LITHGOW REGIONAL LIBRARY (ed.). n.d. Lithgow Pottery:a sourcebook, parts 1 and 2, Occasional Paper nos. 4 and 5, AustralianSociety for Historical Archaeology, Sydney.POWELL, J.M. (ed.). 1973. Yeomen and bureaucrats: the VictorianCrown Lands Commission 1878-1879, Oxford University Press,Melbourne.NEW SOUTH WALES DEPARTMENT OF MINES. 1879-1935. AnnualReports.ROSS, A. 1967. The Ross Family 1719-1967, Ross, Holbrook.SWAN, K.J. 1970. A history of Wagga Wagga, City of WaggaWagga.TWIDALE, C.R. 1971. Farming by the early settlers on ridge andfurrow, Tools and Tillage 4:205-233.WHITWORTH, R.P. (ed.). 1866. Bailliere's New South Walesgazeteer and road guide, Bailliere, Sydney.WINSTON-GREGSON, J.H. 1982. Colonial archaeology in the easternRiverina, M.A. thesis, Australian National University, Canberra.WYATT, R.T. 1937. The history ofthe Diocese ofGoulburn, Bragg,Sydney.

Unpublished sourcesAUSTRALIA POST, Historical Section, Files for Riverina.BINGHAM, H. Itinerary of Henry Bingham Esquire, Commissionerof Crown Lands for the District beyond the Limits of Location;County of Murray. Deposited at Archives Office of New SouthWales.CROWN REGISTRAR'S OFFICE NEW SOUTH WALES. Plans and titledeeds.CROWN LANDS OFFICE, WAGGA WAGGA. Lands Board Files1884-1950. Deposited at Riverina College of AdvancedEducation Archive.TOWNSEND, T.S. Correspondence with the Surveyor General 1848.Deposited with Archives Office of New South Wales.WILLIAMS, W.H. Unedited papers in hands ofC. Crowe, BerrimaBridge Nurseries, Berrima 2577.

PeriodicalsAustralian Town and Country Journal (A.TC.J.)Border Post (B.P.)Germanton Times and Tumbarumba Advocate (G. T TA.)New South Wales Government GazetteWagga Wagga AdvertiserWagga Wagga Express

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