| Historical notes: | AREA HISTORY
Aboriginal people inhabited the Sydney basin for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Europeans. The northern coastal area of Sydney was home to the Guringai people, western Sydney was home to the Dharug clans, and southern Sydney was inhabited by the Dharawal clans. The Guringai lived primarily along the foreshores of the harbour, and fished and hunted in the waters and hinterlands of the area. All clans harvested food from their surrounding bush. Self-sufficient and harmonious, they had no need to travel far from their lands, since the resources around them were so abundant, and trade with other tribal groups was well established. The British arrival in 1788 had a dramatic impact on all of the Sydney clans. Food resources were quickly diminished by the invaders, who had little understanding of the local environment. As a result, the Aboriginal people throughout the Sydney Basin were soon close to starvation. The Sydney clans fought back against the invaders, but the introduction of diseases from Europe and Asia, most notably smallpox, destroyed over half the population. The clearing of land for settlements and farms displaced local tribes and reduced the availability of natural food resources, leaving Aboriginal people reliant on white food and clothing. The French surgeon and pharmacist Rene Primavere Lesson, who visited Sydney in 1824, wrote: "the tribes today are reduced to fragments scattered all around Port Jackson, on the land where their ancestors lived and which they do not wish to leave." (Information taken from City of Ryde Aboriginal Site Management Report, Aboriginal Heritage Office, 2011).
In the early years of European settlement of Sydney, the Ryde area was found to be highly suitable for farming and orchards, and early colonial land grants to marines were given to encourage agriculture. In January 1792 land in the area which extended from Dundas to the Lane Cove River along the northern bank of the river, was granted to eight marines. The area was named by Governor Phillip the “Field of Mars”, Mars being the ancient Roman God of war, named to reflect the military associations of the land grantees. Two of these land grants were made in the modern area of the suburb of Ryde. Isaac Archer and John Colethread each received 80 acres of land on the site of the present Ryde-Parramatta Golf Links (now in West Ryde).
These grants were followed soon after by grants to ten emancipated convicts in February 1792, the land being further to the east of the marine’s grants, in the area now central to Ryde. Most of the grants were small, from 30 to 100 acres. This area was called Eastern Farms or the Eastern Boundary. By 1794 the name Eastern Farms had given way to Kissing Point, a name believed to have originated from the way in which heavily laden boats passing up the Parramatta River bumped or ‘kissed’ the rocky outcrop which extends into the river at today’s Kissing Point. Further grants were issued in 1794 and 1795, gradually occupying most of the foreshores between Meadowbank and Gladesville. Some of the grants were at North Brush, north of the Field of Mars settlement, in the area of Brush Farm and Eastwood.
Much later these were bought by John Macarthur, Gregory Blaxland and the Reverend Samuel Marsden. The district remained an important orcharding area throughout the 19th century.
The land on which Ryde House (now Willandra) was built was part of the emancipist John Small's 1794 grant and was acquired by James Devlin in 1828 from Thomas Small, James' step-father. James Devlin (1808-1875) was born in NSW, the son of Irish exile Arthur Devlin and his colonial-born wife Priscilla Squire. Devlin was originally a wheelwright, and later became a successful developer and contractor. James Devlin was a warden of St Anne's Church, Ryde and also a trustee for many years, and a Trustee of the Field of Mars Common, Devlin was instrumental in advocating for the proclamation of Ryde as a municipality and was one of the first Ryde aldermen in 1871. Devlin's Creek and Devlin Street are named after James Devlin. (Pollen, 1996).
About 1840 the name Ryde began to be used in the locality, with Devlin's 1841 subdivision being the earliest documented use of this name. Megan Martin has shown that the names Ryde and Turner Street were both chosen by James Devlin to honour the new Anglican Minister, Rev. George Turner, whose wife was a native of the English Ryde. Devlin and his neighbour, James Shepherd, had some 40 lots surveyed in a subdivision they named the Village of Ryde, with Devlin's 'East Ryde' facing St. Anne's Church and Shepherd's 'West Ryde' facing the road to Parramatta.
Devlin designed and began building the house now known as "Willandra" in 1841 on the old Small's farm and the Devlin family moved into the house in 1845. At that time it was called Ryde House.
ITEM HISTORY
Although there were Catholics among the first settlers, there were few priests in the Colony to minister to them prior to the arrival in 1835 of Dr John Polding, later to be constituted Sydney's first Archbishop. No records survive of Catholic services in the Ryde area prior to the 1840s, but in 1841 a public meeting was held at Parramatta "to take into consideration the propriety of erecting a Catholic church at Kissing Point", to be named for "St Theresa". Collections were taken up but plans languished, and the population continued to be served by itinerant priests residing at Parramatta. Services in the Ryde area were held in barns and private houses.
In 1847 the Marist Fathers, from France, established a base in the area at Tarban Creek, Hunters Hill, from which they could support their missionaries in Oceania. While Archbishop Polding maintained his dream of a Benedictine abbey-diocese he refused them a formal responsibility in the Ryde area, but he was content to allow them to help the priests from Parramatta in their itinerant ministry.
In 1849 plans to build a Catholic church in Ryde were revived when Daniel McMahon, a successful ex-convict, gave land for the church east of the village of Ryde, on the ridge overlooking the river. In 1849, Daniel McMahon conveyed land in the Kissing Point district to "a nominee for Archbishop Polding, Abbot Gregory VG, Rev Michael Brennan of Parramatta and Peter Casey to build a church or chapel of the Holy Catholic Religion".
In March 1851 a parish was constituted, and Dr Charles Davis, Bishop Coadjutor to Archbishop Polding, wrote to the Colonial Secretary applying for aid towards the erection of a Catholic church at Ryde, and a stipend for a minister under Governor Bourke's Church Act of 1836 which aimed to advance Christian religion and the promotion of good morals in the Colony by providing aid, without denominational discrimination, for such purposes. The application was supported by a list of 221 names. Fr Michael Brennan, the Parish Priest of Parramatta, was put forward as the priest responsible for the area. In December 1851, the foundations of the new church were set out. Several Catholics from the neighbourhood were described as attending with spades and other implements to assist Archbishop Polding, Bishop Davis, and Frs. Brennan and Hallinan. Within 3 hours the ground had been fully prepared for the mason. The Archbishop then addressed and blessed those attending. The following month, Bishop Davis celebrated Mass nearby, then laid the foundation stone for the church, proclaiming it to be under the patronage of St Joseph.
The discovery of gold near Bathurst in 1851 and the gold rushes that followed set back the building however. Labour was scarce and building expensive for some years: the Parramatta area was described as "almost depopulated". In 1854, Fr John McClennan, who had taken over the responsibility for the Ryde area, reported that the church was still in the course of construction. 120 persons were attending Divine Service in temporary accommodation provided by Mr J.K. Heydon at his property "Ermington House" at the western end of the district; congregations of 60 and 35 were meeting elsewhere in the district; and the Marist Fathers had a chapel at their base at "Villa Maria", Tarban Creek.
The property was consecrated as a cemetery in 1856, with the first burial in that year.
In 1856 Archbishop Polding was forced to give up the dream of the abbey-diocese, and he offered the care of the parish of Ryde to the Marist Fathers. Fr Jean Louis Rocher took over from Fr McClennan, and took up the task of completing the church at Ryde with zeal and energy.
St Charles Borromeo church Ryde was built to a Gothic design of 1842 attributed to English architect A.W.N. Pugin (1812-1852), significant in the Victorian Gothic revival movement. Although of 1857 vintage, at a time when Polding had been resorting to Charles Hansom designs for a decade, this church is unlike Hansom's work, and is too sophisticated for local architects that Catholic patrons were then employing. It is characteristic of Pugin's work whom Polding had commissioned for other churches in the 1940s. Following a trip to England in 1841-1842, Polding's diary of December 1842 recorded delivery of a package of drawings for church building designs from the office of architect A.W.N. Pugin. The village church design for St Charles Borromeo church at Ryde was developed from the design of St Michael’ s, Long Stanton, Cambridgeshire, the Ryde church being the one most faithful to the plan form of St Michael's.
The construction of the church was almost finished when the famous Dunbar gale, in which the ship of that name was wrecked at The Gap, forced workmen to stop and blew slates off the roof. It was reported in September 1857 that "This neat little church, situated on the Bedlam Road, and belonging to the Roman Catholic denomination, is now nearly finished - the contracts for roofing, flooring, and for the windows being almost completed, since the last account sent of this building. A belfry has been added to the western gable, 45 feet in height, which gives the building a very good appearance. In it are placed two bells." (SMH, 24 September 1857 page 2).
In November 1857 however the church was completed, when it was reported as follows:"St Charles Church - The first stone of this building was laid about five years ago, when a contract was entered into and the walls carried up about five feet, in which state it remained for nearly three years. About twelve months ago it was recommenced, and the work carried on vigorously to completion. It is a very neat building, in the Gothic style, and consists of a nave and chancel, with side aisles, and at the south-east corner, sacristy. The length of the church, including the chancel, is 58 feet; the width of the nave and side aisles, 32 feet; width of chancel 19 feet. In the east end, over the altar, is a neat window, fitted with stained glass, and at the west end a belfry. Sunday, the 8th instant, was the day fixed on for its being publicly opened for divine worship. Mass was then celebrated by the Rev. J.L. Rocher, the appointed preist of the church. There were four other preists in attendance, also the Venerable Arch-deacon McEnroe, by whom the sermon was preached.." (SMH, 14 November 1857, page 6).
St Charles was named for St Charles Borromeo, a sixteenth century Archbishop of Milan, the patron saint of Bishop Charles Davis, who had laid the foundation stone but had not lived to see the work finished.
In 1934 remodelling and enlarging of St Charles Borromeo Church, Ryde to increase its capacity from 250 to 600, was undertaken by the architects, Messrs Fowell & McConnel (Kenneth H McConnel). All but the facade and westernmost bay were demolished in 1934, the remnant subsumed into a large new aisled clerestoried church designed by Fowell & McConnel architects, The old nave columns and arches, as well as the windows, were re-cycled into the new church.
Many of the Marist Fathers, in whose care the parish was placed up until 1890, were buried in the cemetery. So too were Marist Brothers and Religious sisters. Prominent historical figures buried in the cemetery include Didier Numa Joubert and his wife (of Hunters Hill), the Collingrides, the Makinsons, the Heydons, Andrew Lenehan and others mentioned in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. There are a number of early settlers after whom streets, sub-divisions and localities have been named. There are a variety of graves of non-English migrants (Germans, Italians, Swiss, French, Irish, Scots etc.). In 1890, The Echo 'praised the good order and appearance of the cemetery". In 1947, a local historian, Levy wrote: "Dominating the graves is a large, handsome iron crucifix which was used by visitors to the cemetery. It had been a focus for devotions for over sixty years, since its erection by the French Marist Fathers in c. 1870."
The St. Charles Borromeo’s historic churchyard cemetery closed officially for public burials in 1900. |