| Historical notes: | The original inhabitants of the Campbelltown area were mostly people of the Dharawal (sometimes referred to as Tharawal) language group, who ranged from the coast to the east, the Georges River in the west, north to Botany Bay and south to Nowra. However, Campbelltown was a meeting point with the Dharug language group (whose area extended across the Blue Mountains), and early history of the area includes references to both peoples. (Liston, Carol: Campbelltown: The Bicentennial History, 1988; www.abc.net.au/indigenous). Mount Annan, to the south-west of the Campbelltown City Centre, was known as Yandel'ora to its original owners, the Dharawal people and was an important meeting place for Aboriginal people from as far away as northern Queensland and southern Victoria. (http://www.daff.gov.au/natural-resources/landcare/publications/making_a_difference_a_celebration_ of_landcare/section_6_-_indigenous_landcare).
With the establishment of the convict colony in Sydney Harbour in 1788, the displacement of Aboriginal people began. A smallpox epidemic decimated many of the coastal clans, but was less destructive amongst the inland peoples.
Escaped cattle from the settlement moved south and bred in the Campbelltown/Camden area and after their discovery in 1795, the area became known as The Cow Pastures (or Cowpasture). In 1805, John Macarthur obtained a grant of 5,000 acres (later expanded to 10,000 acres) in the area, some of the best grazing land then known in the colony.
By 1809, 34 settlers had received grants in the newly named Minto district (named after Lord Minto, the Governor-General of India) in the northern portion of Campbelltown. Many of these early settlers were Irish, including surveyor James Meehan, who allocated himself a generous portion (now Macquarie Fields). Prominent settlers included surgeon Charles Throsby, who was allocated 600 acres (now Glenfield), Dr William Redfern (Campbellfield), Dr Robert Townson (Varroville) and Richard Brooks (Denham Court).
Though peaceful, the Dharawal bore the brunt of a punitive expedition led by Captain James Wallis in 1816. At least 14 Dharawal people were massacred at Appin, to the distress of sympathetic settlers such as Charles Throsby of Glenfield. The Appin massacre of 1816 was a devastating and tragic event for the Dharawal people and other local clans, and was a difficult period in terms of the relationship between Indigenous people and European settlers. Corroborees and other ceremonies continued under the protection of the Macarthurs of Camden, though numbers steadily declined, with diseases introduced by the Europeans also having a devastating effect on the Dharawal population.
As the district became more closely settled, a town was needed further south than Liverpool. Campbelltown was formally established in 1820 and named 'Campbelltown', in honour of Mrs Elizabeth Macquarie's maiden name of Campbell. In 1826, the town plan was formalised.
Between 1835 and 1845, the number of Aboriginal people in the Campbelltown Police District had decreased from twenty to none. However, limited tribal life continued and corroborees were still held at Camden Park and Denham Court until at least the 1850s. During 1858, approximately 200 Aboriginal people attended the celebrations at Campbelltown that were held to mark the opening of the railway line (LEP, 2016).
Campbelltown:
Permanent European settlement in the Campbelltown area had begun in 1809 as an alternative to the flood-prone Hawkesbury district. Work on a road from Sydney to Liverpool was started in 1811. It was opened in August 1814 and was soon extended further south to Appin. This road, variously known as Campbelltown Road, Appin Road or the Sydney Road, passed through Campbelltown. The section through the town was called the High Street until the last decade of the 19th century when it was renamed Queen Street (Orwell & Peter Phillips, 1995, vol.2, 1-2).
The land on which the Queen Street cottages stand was part of a grant of 140 acres to Joseph Phelps in 1816. He had been working the land for some years before receiving formal title to it. Phelps was one of the farmers of Airds and Appin who subscribed funds for a Sydney courthouse in July 1813. His grant was seized, possibly as soon as it was formally issued, by the Provost Marshal, William Gore in lieu of payment by Phelps of debts totalling 170 pounds. The land was auctioned in January 1817 to William Bradbury for 100 pounds plus twelve cattle and the grain produced from the crop growing on the land (ibid, 1995).
Immediately north of Phelps' grant, Assistant Surveyor James Meehan had informally reserved 175 acres for a village (AMCG, 1994 say 'in 1815'.) In 1816 most of the land in the area was granted, leaving a portion of 175 acres unalienated, and surrounded by several grants (AMCG, 1994, 9).
The reserved land was formally declared a town by Governor Macquarie in December 1820 and named Campbelltown in honour of his wife (Elizabeth)'s family (ibid, 1995).
William Bradbury (1774-1836) a native of Birmingham, was transported to NSW aboard the 'Guildford' in 1812. His wife Elizabeth remained in England but his daughter, Mary (1797-1852) followed her father to Australia in 1815. Bradbury had no other children in NSW, though he established a relationship with a woman named Alice and in April 1836 married a Campbelltown widow, Catherine Patrick, nee Acres (c.1801-1883). Bradbury died two months later (ibid, 1995, 2).
Governor Macquarie visited Campbelltown in January 1822. He and his party ate a 'hearty' breakfast at 'Bradbury's', indicating that Bradbury had built an inn. This was probably the inn later known as the Royal Oak, on the western side of the High Street. Macquarie noted in his journal that 'Bradbury is building a very good two storey brick house on his own farm and on a very pretty eminence immediately adjoining Campbell-Town as an inn for the accommodation the public and having asked me to give his farm a name, I have called it Bradbury Park. In 1826 Bradbury Park House was considered by William Dumaresq, inspector of roads and bridges, as the best building in Campbelltown when he reported on buildings suitable for military use (ibid, 1995, 2).
As the main street of Campbelltown, High Street or Sydney Road and later Queen Street, was at the edge of town, one side of the street was not within the town boundary while the other was. Canny traders soon realised that either side of the main road was as good as the other and leased or bought land from the grantees bordering the town proper. By the 1840s more than a few shops and hotels occupied the western side of the High Street (AMCG, 1994, 9).
The Queen Street terraces were identified by Helen Baker (Proudfoot) in the early 1960s as a unique group of two-storey late Georgian vernacular buildings which were considered to form the only surviving late-1840s streetscape within the County of Cumberland. The buildings were acquired by the Cumberland County Council and its successors, the State Planning Authority and Department of Planning, to ensure their preservation (ibid, 1995, 1).
The coming of the railway in 1858 aided in securing the commercial focus of the town on Queen Street (ibid, 1994, 9).
The Queen Street terraces were identified by Helen Baker (Proudfoot) in the early 1960s as a unique group of two-storey late Georgian vernacular buildings which were considered to form the only surviving late-1840s streetscape within the County of Cumberland. The buildings were acquired by the Cumberland County Council and its successors, the State Planning Authority and Department of Planning, to ensure their preservation (ibid, 1995, 1).
Campbelltown Post Office (fmr.):
The Commercial Banking Company (CBC) of Sydney opened its first (leased) Campbelltown office in 1874, across the other side of Queen Street (Branch Manager's report, 100/85, 26/3/1985). AMCG (1994, 14) states that CBC bought 263 Queen St. from Samuel Parker (not Morris) in 1876 and had the present bank building built in 1881. The bank moved into its new premises in 1881 (Branch Manager's report, 100/85, 26/3/1985).
The bank sold a portion of the land it bought from Parker in 1880. The land was purchased in the name of the Queen for a new post office. That building was completed the same year as the CBC chambers (AMCG, 1994, 14).
Campbellttown was one of the seven first country postal depots in New South Wales, with postmaster John Scarr appointed in 1828. It was constructed in 1881 and designed by James Barnet. A small central pedimented panel containing a clock, designed by local architect A.R. Payten was inserted in 1883.
James Johnstone Barnet (1827-1904) was made acting Colonial Architect in 1862 and appointed Colonial Architect from 1865-90. He was born in Scotland and studied in London under Charles Richardson, RIBA and William Dyce, Professor of Fine Arts at King's College, London. He was strongly influenced by Charles Robert Cockerell, leading classical theorist at the time and by the fine arts, particularly works of painters Claude Lorrain and JRM Turner. He arrived in Sydney in 1854 and worked as a self-employed builder. He served as Edmund Blacket's clerk of works on the foundations of the Randwick (Destitute Childrens') Asylum. Blacket then appointed Barnet as clerk-of-works on the Great Hall at Sydney University. By 1859 he was appointed second clerk of works at the Colonial Architect's Office and in 1861 was Acting Colonial Architect. Thus began a long career. He dominated public architecture in NSW, as the longest-serving Colonial Architect in Australian history. Until he resigned in 1890 his office undertook some 12,000 works, Barnet himself designing almost 1000. They included those edifices so vital to promoting communication, the law and safe sea arrivals in colonial Australia. Altogether there were 169 post and telegraph offices, 130 courthouses, 155 police buildings, 110 lockups and 20 lighthouses, including the present Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head, which replaced the earlier one designed by Francis Greenway. Barnet's vision for Sydney is most clearly seen in the Customs House at Circular Quay, the General Post Office in Martin Place and the Lands Department and Colonial Secretary's Office in Bridge Street. There he applied the classicism he had absorbed in London, with a theatricality which came from his knowledge of art (Le Sueur, 2016, 6).
In 1959 the bank sold off another portion of its 1876 purchase to the Commowealth of Australia, presumably for the creation of a telephone exchange (AMCG, 1994, 14).
Following the sale of the Post Office and as a requirement of the sale, the Commonwealth Government sought the placement of a Permanent Conservation Order over the building. A Permanent Conservation Order was placed over the building on 22 July 1983. It was transferred to the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. |