Hello everybody, welcome to season two of the
Dairy Lane podcast. My name's Therese Sweeney
and I'm a social historian and I work with media
and the written word to produce histories embedded
in community, in the landscape. Season two is
starting in Jasper's brush. I'll define the lanes.
of Jasper's Brush. On the north side, it runs
from Silo's Estate to Anderson's Lane. On the
southern side, we start at Muller's Lane and
we run down to O 'Keefe's Lane. So they're the
boundaries. Where did the name Jasper's Brush
come from? Well, it's contentious and yet to
be definitively proven where. But I'll talk about
it briefly. So brush is fairly easy to decipher
because the colonial people referred to forest
and rainforest in the region as brush. So they
describe a brush forest. I think that's acceptable
for the name brush. Jasper is a bit different.
I spoke with Laurel Price. whose mother is a
Devitt and father was an Ingold. John Ingold
originally arrived in Australia in the 1850s
down in Milton and he had a very large family.
He set up a cattle station. Now, his brother
Jasper actually died. He lived in Essex and he
died before migrating out here. That's one theory.
There are other theories. A sawyer who worked
for Alexander Berry obviously had the name Jasper.
But I think I'll leave it at that for the time
being. It was cited by a John Robson, 1997, who
was a volunteer at the Berry Historical Society,
that he had found evidence prior to 1860 of the
name Jasper being used in the area. I have seen
Jasper's Creek, but I've only looked at maps
from the 1860s. So we'll see how we go over the
season. The book Shoalhaven, written by W. Bailey,
two editions, cite that Jasper's brush was named
after John Ingold's father, called Jasper. The
writer himself was sceptical because of the evidence
found prior to migration. So I have written to
the relevant historical bodies to get a particular
myth scratched. My quick research uncovered evidence.
of press articles from at least 1852, where Jasper's
brush is mentioned as a place. And I'm sure with
more thorough research, if I had time, I'd go
back to the previous decade. What has come to
light recently is people like Colin Host and
Pam Hitchcock were taught where the name Jasper
came from at school. Now, Colin has no memory,
but he acknowledges they were taught. was an
Aboriginal name. So there's a lead, again, going
to keep investigating and debunk the myth that
John Ingold was travelling down the highway and
named it after his father. His father was actually
called William. Now, I say this with no disrespect
to the people that have perpetuated this story.
W Bailey was sceptical of the story and he states
that. in his written book. I'll leave it at that.
My primary sponsor for season two is Ian Zanstra,
a very experienced dairyman on the other side
of the river from Pirie. Season two would not
be happening without Ian's support. I'm very
grateful he stepped up. Thank you, Ian. Let's
set the scene for the early migration to the
area of Jasper's Brush. The first shipment of
cedar occurred in 1811 from my sightings on the
ship Speedwell and arrived in Sydney. Various
things happened over those couple of years after
and there was a hold on chopping down cedar until
Alexander Berry and Edward Wollstonecraft took
up their land grant of 10 ,000 acres in 1822.
From 1818 to 1820, there was a new class of person
in the area and it was those sawyers and timber
cutters who were working for Sydney merchants.
There must have been a hell of a lot of them
because when Alexander Berry began the cedar
cutting, massive amounts were transported to
Britain. Why were they transported to Britain?
It was happening because... Both he and Wollstonecraft
were in a lot of debt. They had to tick. As merchants,
they had to borrow money. So they had to pay
in sterling back in Britain, and until their
debts were paid, all the cedar in the region
to Britain. I'll give you an idea of the amount
at the time of some of the cedar, the amounts.
Okay, so from 18... 26 when they really got going,
to 1838, there is evidence existing of the amount
of timber being shipped to Britain. And in fact,
two thirds of the total colonies timber came
from this region. Overall, there were 81 ,315
cubic metres of cedar shipped to Britain. Cedar,
blue gum and other timber that would have filled
3 ,250 modern semi -trailer loads. Just taking
a minute there to get an idea because I've looked
at a photo or two I've seen around in some of
our cafes and I can't believe how barren the
landscape looks. And it must have been a bit
further on. It must have not only environmentally
affected the area, of course, but it must have
devastated the Indigenous from Dharawal country.
Okay, all the timber's been cut. They started
shipping again in the 1840s to Sydney because
their debts were paid off, obviously, but they
shipped for another decade. It all started with
James Meehan, who was the Assistant Surveyor
-General at the time, and he was in the Shoalhaven
-Jarvis Bay area in 1805, and he made it known
there was cedar in the area. Hence the first
cargo of cedar left the Shoalhaven shores in
1811. Berry and Wollstonecraft also had other
lands where they were cutting timber. That's
on the central coast and at Pennant Hills. Well,
let's just go back to the 1820s. They announced
the dawn of coastal dairying had been announced,
where they were clearing brush and creating grasses.
In the 1840s, a couple of things happened. What
brought further migration to Jasper's Brush was
in 1940, the British Parliament... passed a bill
that convict labour was to cease exporting to
New South Wales. Berry had to work out labour
and dairying, who he was going to get, so he
gave the Chinese labourers a go in dairying and
they did pretty well. He also bought out Germans.
They were hired from Hamburg. In 1850, David
Berry had 36 tenants who paid 20 shillings an
acre for clear ground and five years free rent.
to clear the timber. By 1863, the tenants had
grown to 300, who occupied 8 ,650 acres, paying
£6 ,000 annually in rent. 1862, they built a
road from Broughton Vale to Bomaderry, which
allowed the villagers to bring in their butter,
and they were being shipped from Broughton Vale
to the Sydney market. By 1853, the estate had
increased by a combination of grants and purchases
from its original 10 ,000 to 60 ,000 acres. There
are listings of those purchases in a couple of
books that I've cited, which I'll list in the
written introduction. at the podcast site. Although
in 1996 the Department of Urban Planning wrote
a report for citing that it was 57 ,000 acres
and that was from a source organ and oil in 94.
But the 60 ,000 acres was part of the sale. booklet
in 1892 that I've cited and is available online
as a download through the National Library. David
Berry introduced the practice of share farming.
We have a list of tenant farmers from the 1870s
in the Jaspers Brush region, but I'll leave that
to one of my interviewees down the track to go
over that for you. When David Berry inherited
the estate, it was valued at, for 60 ,000 acres,
valued at 400 ,000 pounds. In September of 84,
the Jaspers Brush Public School was opened in
a temporary structure. A new permanent brick
building was completed by a man named A. Johnson
for £417 in October 1897. It was in the Sydney
Morning Herald. Two years earlier, the school
teacher, Mr Larkham, died of exposure and shock
following his efforts to save the property during
a bushfire. And then in 1920, the schoolmaster's
residence was destroyed by fire and the teacher,
Mr Balbin, was badly burned about the face and
hands and his family lost everything in that
fire, sighted in the Northern Star. I know the
community had to lobby greatly to get a school
because it was too far to go to Maroo or Broughton
Vale and they ended up getting it. The dairy
co -op, well... Jasper's dairy co -factory was
established in 1888 at the corner of Jasper's
Brush Road and the main south road. So what we
know as Jasper's Brush Road today was actually
called Stations Lane because they had a railway
station. From at least 1893, it appears in a
map. So around 50 local dairy farms supplied
the Jasper's Brush factory with milk, which was
transported to Sydney. The Jaspers Brush Post
Office was established following the opening
of the Jaspers Brush Butter Factory in 1889 and
was originally located near the railway line.
It was later moved to a residence on the south
side of the highway between Strong's Road and
Railway Lane. In 1890, the importance of the
local butter factory in the social life of the
settlement was noted in a description of Jaspers
Brush. that appeared in the Australian Town and
Country Journal that year, quoting, here there
is a large butter factory. The farmers for miles
round bring their milk and this and other factories
are becoming centres where the men who before,
in inverted commas, separators were introduced,
were really separated one from another and only
saw a newspaper once a week. Now they meet and
talk. Now the separators bring them together.
The wives and daughters of the dairy farmer have
only as a memory the white slavery of which they
were the subject and the dairy and the churn
and the labour they had to undergo every day,
Sunday included. So in July 1898, Jasper's Brush
Dairy was reportedly the first factory to commence
a new system of payment to milk suppliers based
on the commercial butter contained in milk instead
of the butter fat. A year later, the Jaspers
Dairy Co. adopted pasteurisation. That was in
1899. But the very central creamery postponed
it until 1913. The Jaspers Dairy Co. claimed
to be an innovator under the management of its
engineer, Mr C Wood, who moved from the butter
-producing district of Coiroit in Victoria. K
-O -R -O -I -T. In 1892, a series of newspaper
articles described innovations by Mr Wood in
controlling milk temperature during the separation
process. A steam -powered winch was also stated
to be a local first. Mr Wood was described as
taking steps to protect his innovations by letter
patent. That was in the Capricornian. Between
1897 and 1899, the factory was one of the first
places to erect a facile or improved steam turbine,
Habcock machine, for treating milk. By this time,
the factory was separating cream and sending
it to the Berry Central factory, as were most
of the local dairy companies. So how's that?
Pretty cool for Jasper's Brush in those early
years. They were leaders in the region. There
was an undated sales poster promoting the sale
of land in Jasper's Brush. I think it was a Koolangatta
and Berry Estates poster that also mentioned
Illawarra District Farms. It was a yellow and
red poster. For private sale. So it looked like
it was the southern side of the highway for Jasper's
Brush. Now you can see the railway line. And
it's got a railway platform that's emphasised
on this poster. So it's undated, but it must
have been at least 1893 because that's when the
railway line was implemented. Things to note
that I saw on that poster was a waterhole on
the north side that was gravity fed across underneath
the road to the southern side. And there were
drains as well shown on that map. There's a school
identified on the southern side. It was situated
just north of Jaspers Creek. There was a road
off the highway that led directly to the railway
platform. Of course, there's Jaspers Brush Wharf
evident, and it was located at the time at the
end of Wharf Road. We know it today as O 'Keefe's
Lane. It was where Jaspers Creek met Broughton
Creek. It's an interesting map. The cream separators,
I saw a Miloti cream separator advertised in
the book written by Frank McCaffrey. It was his
first Century of Daring in New South Wales. He's
written two books. I promoted his second book
in my last season. This is also available to
download, this one. It was written in 1909. And
the Melotti Cream Separator is advertised as
king of them all. So I'll get an image of that
for you. And where I quoted the dawn of coastal
dairying came from that book. The Jasper's Brush
subdivision sale. We're going to talk about the
landowners and what year they purchased the land.
There are maps that cite where, but they're just
difficult to read for me at the moment. And we'll
have those available down the track before the
season finishes. But I'm going to read the names
and the years those lands were purchased. So
those, they were previously owned by W. Berry,
220 acres, 101 acres and his 640 acres. And also
they were land grants and also part of land grants
of Hughes and Hoskins. And that was 640 acres.
So that total of lands was available for sale.
And there's three map plans that I referenced.
So we'll talk about Plan A, which is on the north
side of the highway. I'm going to read a series
of names of those landowners. Plan A, 1916, Alexander
Micklejohn. 1912, Philip Dunn. 1896 and 1900,
Louis Host. Two parcels. 1901, William Strong.
1901 Samuel Timms. 1901 William Fletcher. 1906
Joseph Pestle. 1900 Thomas Crozier. 1901 Fanny
Hannigan. Plan B joins Plan A. 1918 Arthur Basil
Emery. 1913 Thomas Boxall. 1911 David Charles
Host. 1911 Albert Schofield. 1918 Ernest Thompson.
1914, William Moffat. 1904 and 1913, William
Alcorn. 1911, Martha and Jane Nyland. 1912, Adam
Devitt. Plan C, three names on the north side
and then we move to the southern side. Frederick
Wiley in 1913. 1925, John Shepard. 1913, Arthur
Oak E. On the southern side, the railway side,
1916 Thomas Daly, 1914 Isabel Morton, 1912 C
.A. Heane, H -E -E -N -E, 1911 Hector MacLeod,
1911 Frederick Oakey, 1913 Dennis O 'Keefe, 1913
James Quilty, 1912, Thomas McIntyre. Someone
sent me a photo of that family last night. I'll
put that up. 1913, H &J Williamson. 1911, Patrick
Walsh. 1912, Henry Hitchcock. 1915, Mark Morton.
1911, Henry Smith. 1916, Alexander Lammond. There
you go, folks. A school of arts hall was established
at Jasper's Brush prior to 1898 and served as
a focus, of course, for community and social
activities up to its demolition in 1949 following
damage from strong winds. The site of the hall
was removed during excavation works for highway
improvements in 75. You know, the highway's always
in transformation which changes boundaries and
roads. all throughout colonisation. I'll give
you a bit more information on the Jaspers Brush
Dairy, just with some other articles. In 1924,
the Jaspers Brush Dairy Co. acquired the Jaspers
Brush branch of the Shoalhaven Milk and Ice Company
Limited. In 1927, the company installed a new
fuel oil engine and compressor. In 1930, a profitable
year was reported by the Jaspers Brush Dairy
Co. However, shareholders expressed alarm at
the decision of milk companies to pay only a
certain amount per gallon for milk, meaning that
dairy farmers would soon only be receiving a
price for milk equivalent to that of butter.
And that was in the Sydney Morning Herald in
1930. There was a profit reported in 1935. Three
years later, the company went into voluntary
liquidation and that was in the Herald in 1938.
The Jaspers Brush Railway Station, it was officially
opened in 1893. The early station consisted of
a near 200 -foot platform, a waiting room, amenities
and a goods shed. There was a milk depot siding
on the downside and a goods siding on the upside.
In the early years, the station was a hub of
activity. The nearby milk factory sent milk to
Sydney and the ice factory sent ice to Berry
every day. Other local products such as peas,
mushrooms and poultry were sent to the Sydney
markets. The train was also used as a means of
transport by many residents. During the 30s and
40s, children attending high school in Nowra
travelled by train to Bomadere and then caught
the bus to Nowra. Many a trip to Sydney began
by flagging down the train with the lollipop
sign at the Jaspers Brush railway station. As
other forms of transport became more readily
accessible, the demise of the railway station
began. The milk factory closed in 1939 and the
siding was removed in December that year. Strong
winds blew the railway buildings down in the
late 1940s and the rebuilding did not incorporate
a good shed. The Goods Siding was removed in
December 1951. The remaining buildings were removed
in the 70s. In 1988, the platform was removed
and Jaspers Brush Railway Station is now just
a memory. The gates to the railway. Although
there were several sets of railway gates in Jaspers
Brush, the only staffed gates were in Railway
Lane. now known as Jasper's Brush Road. These
gates were shut by the gatekeeper when a train
was nearing the station and reopened after departure.
Gatekeepers over the years have included Mrs
Carr, Mrs Long, Mrs Ball and Mrs Burgess. When
the Burgess family left in 1970, the gates were
left unstaffed. The Fettlers. There was a Fettlers
cottage in O 'Keeffe's Lane. For many years,
the Barron family lived in this house. Mr Barron
had to walk the line after floods to ensure that
the tracks were clear. Other Fettlers remembered
by residents are Mr Carr and Mr Brown. Railway
tracks are known to attract snakes. On a sad
note, Myra Gould, a resident of Railway Lane,
died when she was bitten by a tiger snake at
the railway gates in the late 1930s. This incident
was very distressing for the close -knit community.
Now, we have a mention of Sunday School. We can't
forget Sunday School for the mob in Jasper's
Brush. The records are a bit sketchy of the Sunday
School, but it appears the Sunday School was
held in the School of Arts. Several denominations
organised the school over the years. The earliest
records of the Sunday School are from 1898, when
it was ran as a union school. Miss Nylons was
the teacher. Pupils included Broughton, Stanley
and Osborne, McIntyre, Olive Somerville, Sidney
and Alice Smith, Ruby and Pearl Spruill, Pearl
Forburn and William Nicholls. In 1899, the known
pupils were Maud and Janie Harrigan, Sarah and
Flory Penny, Hilda Nylons, Florence Gox and Sarah
Allen. Miss Hitchcock was the teacher in 1906
and Mr Oakey was the superintendent. There were
25 scholars. From 1919 to an unknown date, the
school was organised by the Salvation Army. The
teachers being Captain English, Mr and Mrs Evans,
Adjutant Hull. Pupils included Gwen and Bessie
Taylor, Doris, Alice and Beryl Hackman, Olive
Fawkes, Mary Hannigan, and Merle, Vera and Elva
Host. In the late 1920s, it is thought that the
Sunday school was organised by the Anglicans,
with Arthur Lidbetter as teacher. Pupils included
the Harvey girls, who walked three miles to get
to lessons. During the 40s, the Sunday school
was again a union school. The teachers were Miss
Clayton MacDonald, Una Eisen, Nora Campbell,
Mrs Williams and Gwen Williams, who played the
piano for the gathering. Pupils included the
Turner family, the Herbert family, Hauser family,
Betty and Val Mafal, Marina Barron, Alan and
Bruce Harvey and Vera and Jill Alexander. Sunday
school met on Sunday afternoons from 2 to 4pm.
End of year concerts and prize givings are still
fondly remembered. And there is a document here.
They have a signature presented to William Strong
from Jasper's Brush Union School 1914 by Alfred
Strong, who was the superintendent. I just have
one final thing to add. Hope you're all awake.
Jasper's Brush, when the milk factory closed.
They had to choose between going to Berry or
Nowra Dairy Co -op. So I just have a shareholders
list from 1972 from Nowra. List the Jasper's
Brush residents who had their milk collected
from Nowra Dairy Co -op. I'll go through the
names. From Jasper's Brush, there was D .H. Barham,
Mrs. U .M. Barham, L .T. Bate, Mrs. M .J. Bate,
P .C. Bate. ISIN, AR and Mrs. ISIN, Stan and
Mrs. VS ISIN, BJ Jones, MM Jones, Mrs., Mrs.
RE Jones and WF Jones, MD Matthew, JF Matthew,
Mrs., KF Stanbury, FP Walsh, JM Walsh, FJS Wiley,
PJ and MA Young. So that's from the 72 list.
It's probably enough for a brief intro. Send
me an email if I got anything grossly wrong,
but I did quite a bit of research and a lot of
the stuff was provided with great gratitude by
the community, especially Karen Eisen. She's
very keen on those maps because she used to work
for Department of Lands, I believe. There are
many maps and all... of this work in the end
sound maps digitizing and scanning private records
and memorabilia will all be delivered to Nowra
library and that will be available online the
sound because they've already set it up there
at Nowra so they're really excited that they're
going to be receiving this entire project okay
it's a goodbye from me episode one Friday night
We've got Ray Strong talking from Strong's Road.
Thank you very much, and I really appreciate
the support you've given Season 1, and let's
hope we attract more for Season 2, and I hope
you're enjoying it. I know those that are participating
are loving it, and there is a bit of talk around
about it, which is really great.