| Historical notes: | Background
The first official postal service in Australia was established in April 1809, when the Sydney merchant Isaac Nichols was appointed as the first Postmaster in the colony of NSW. Prior to this, mail had been distributed directly by the captain of the ship on which the mail arrived, however this system was neither reliable nor secure.
In 1825 the colonial administration was empowered to establish a Postmaster General's Department, which had previously been administered from Britain.
In 1828 the first post offices outside of Sydney were established, with offices in Bathurst, Campbelltown, Parramatta, Liverpool, Newcastle, Penrith and Windsor. By 1839 there were forty post offices in the colony, with more opened as settlement spread. During the 1860s, the advance of postal services was further increased as the railway network began to be established throughout NSW. In 1863, the Postmaster General WH Christie noted that accommodation facilities for Postmasters in some post offices was quite limited, and stated that it was a matter of importance that 'post masters should reside and sleep under the same roof as the office'.
The first telegraph line was opened in Victoria in March 1854 and in NSW in 1858. The NSW colonial government constructed two lines from the GPO, one to the South Head Signal Station, the other to Liverpool. Development was slow in NSW compared to the other states, with the Government concentrating on the development of country offices before suburban ones. As the line spread, however, telegraph offices were built to accommodate the operators. Unlike the Post Office, the telegraph office needed specialised equipment and could not be easily accommodated in a local store or private residence. Post and telegraph offices operated separately until January 1870 when the departments were amalgamated, after which time new offices were built to include both postal and telegraph services. In 1881 the first telephone exchange was opened in Sydney, three years after the first tests in Adelaide. As with the telegraph, the telephone system soon began to extend into country areas, with telephone exchanges appearing in country NSW from the late 1880s onwards. Again the Post Office was responsible for the public telephone exchange, further emphasising its place in the community as a provider of communications services.
The appointment of James Barnet as Acting Colonial Architect in 1862 coincided with a considerable increase in funding to the public works program. Between 1865 and 1890 the Colonial Architects Office was responsible for the building and maintenance of 169 Post Offices and telegraph offices in NSW. The post offices constructed during this period featured in a variety of architectural styles, as Barnet argued that the local parliamentary representatives always preferred 'different patterns'.
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).
The construction of new post offices continued throughout the Depression years under the leadership of Walter Liberty Vernon, who held office from 1890 to 1911. While twenty-seven post offices were built between 1892 and 1895, funding to the Government Architect's Office was cut from 1893 to 1895, causing Vernon to postpone a number of projects.
Walter Liberty Vernon (1846-1914) was both architect and soldier. Born in England, he ran successful practices in Hastings and London and had estimable connections in artistic and architectural circles. In 1883 he had a recurrence of bronchitic asthma and was advised to leave the damp of England. He and his wife sailed to New South Wales. Before leaving, he gained a commission to build new premesis for Merrrs David Jones and Co., in Sydney's George Street. In 1890 he was appointed Government Architect - the first to hold that title - in the newly reorganised branch of the Public Works Department. He saw his role as building 'monuments to art'. His major buildings, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales (1904-6) are large in scale, finely wrought in sandstone, and maintaining the classical tradition. Among others are the Mitchell Wing of the State Library, Fisher Library at the University of Sydney and Central Railway Station. He also added to a number of buildings designed by his predecessors, including Customs House, the GPO and Chief Secretary's Building - with changes which did not meet with the approval of his immediate precedessor, James Barnet who, nine years after his resignation, denounced Vernon's additions in an essay and documentation of his own works. In England, Vernon had delighted his clients with buildings in the fashionable Queen Anne style. In NSW, a number of British trained architects whow were proponents of hte Arts and Crafts style joined his office and under their influence, Vernon changed his approach to suburban projects. Buildings such as the Darlinghurst First Station (Federation Free style, 1910) took on the sacale and character of their surroundings. Under Vernon's leadership, an impressive array of buildings was produced which were distinguished by interesting brickwork and careful climatic considerations, by shady verandahs, sheltered courtyards and provision for cross-flow ventilation. Examples are courthouses in Parkes (1904), Wellington (1912) and Bourke, Lands Offices in Dubbo (1897) and Orange (1904) and the Post Office in Wellington (1904)(Le Sueur, 2016, 7).
Following Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth Government took over responsibility for post, telegraph and telephone offices, with the Department of Home Affairs Works Division being made responsible for post office construction. In 1916 construction was transferred to the Department of Works and Railways, with the Department of the Interior responsible during World War II.
On 22 December 1975, the Postmaster General's Department was abolished and replaced by the Post and Telecommunications Department. This was the creation of Telecom and Australia Post. In 1989, the Australian Postal Corporation Act established Australia Post as a self-funding entity, heralding a new direction in property management, including a move away from the larger more traditional buildings towards smaller shop front style post offices.
For much of its history, the post office has been responsible for a wide variety of community services including mail distribution, an agency for the Commonwealth Savings Bank, electoral enrolments, and the provision of telegraph and telephone services. The town post office has served as a focal point for the community, most often built in a prominent position in the centre of town close to other public buildings, creating a nucleus of civic buildings and community pride.
The Wellington Valley:
At the time of European settlement, the land between Bathurst and Wellington was occupied by the Wiradjuri people whose land extended from the Great Dividing Range in the east and bordered by the Macquarie, Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers. The rivers acted as an important travel and trade routes with each clan group having a clearly defined area of responsibility. The people from this area settled along the main rivers during the summer months and moved to other favoured and drier campsites in the winter months. Evidence of the occupation of the Wellington area by the Wiradjuri in pre-contact times survives in the form of rock shelters with deposits, carved trees, scarred trees, open camp sites, grinding grooves sites, bora (ceremonial) grounds and burial grounds (AHIMS). The name Nubrygyn derives from the Aboriginal name "Lubrygee", said to mean junction of the two creeks (Australian Town and County Journal, 1882, 25 Feb:15).
The first Europeans officially travelling through this country were members of the expedition party led by John Oxley, Surveyor-General for the Colony. It was during his exploration of the Lachlan Valley that he discovered the Wellington Valley on 19 August 1817, when the explorers entered the valley through Glenfinlass (Curra Creek) finding and naming the Bell and Macquarie Rivers. Oxley called the valley "The Vale of Tempe" after the Duke of Wellington.
Wellington township:
In 1823 the first penal settlement west of the Blue Mountains was established near the Bell River. The convict settlement operated until 1832 when the site became a joint Anglican / Lutheran mission. Wellington was declared a town in 1849 and a municipality in 1879. The railway arrived in 1880 and by the First World War, the population numbered around 3000 (RAHS, 2017, 16)
The Wellington Valley was settled as a convict stock station for the breeding of cattle, far removed from the interference of free settlement and any comforts that they may provide. Despite this, free settlers soon followed using Wellington as a staging post for settlement further west. Free settlement began in the late 1820s and the town of Wellington began to grow.
Wellington Post Office:
The first Post Office was opened in Wellington on 1 April 1838 with William Turner, the Clerk of the Chamber of Magistrates, as Postmaster. The Post Office initially operated out private homes and businesses in Montefiores, where the early settlement was centred, on the opposite side of the river to Wellington proper. The early years of the mail service between Sydney and Wellington were hampered by bushrangers, with the mail coach being held up twice in the year 1840. In 1848 the mail service ran between Penrith and Bathurst three times a week and then onto Wellington, and Molong once per week and was worth (Pounds)1,200 per annum, with Henry Rotton being named as the successful contractor.
In 1862 Cobb & Co. extended their service into western NSW, buying the mail contract for Wellington in the same period. Bushranging was still a concern for mail coaches particularly after the 1850s when gold was discovered in the western districts. Both the Orange to Wellington coach and the Bathurst coach were bailed up in March 1864. Gold bought several thousand miners into the Wellington district, creating a boom period through the 1850s and 1860s.
In 1868 the people of Wellington made representations for the erection of a new Post Office by the Government. On 3 May a public meeting was held concerning the matter, with tenders for a Post and Telegraph building being called for in November. The successful contractor was William Moffatt for (Pounds)1,298. The building would house both post and telegraph offices, which had operated separately since the arrival of the telegraph to Wellington in 1862. The new building was built in Maughan Street, close to the centre of town, with the Colonial Architect reporting it completed on 12 October 1868. Curiously, while the telegraph was relocated to the new building and a branch of the Government Savings Bank opened in December 1871, the Post Office was still operating out of a private dwelling in 1872. The delay had been caused by the joint duties of Thomas Croft as telegraph master and postmaster. With seventy miles of telegraph line to maintain, Croft was often away from the town for several days doing repairs and checks. Due to illness, his wife was unable to take charge of the Post Office duties so Henry Lambert operated the post office from a 'suitable premise' in Wellington. A petition forwarded by residents in 1872 asked that the Post Office be conducted from the new Government building, as it was currently inconveniently located.
The Post Office was relocated to the new building in 1872, operating from here until 1904. In 1900 the PMG directed that a new post office building should be built in Wellington, as it was no longer viable to 'patch up or add to the present structure'. Plans were drawn up for a new building which included a 30 feet x 30 feet office, mail room, public space and telegraph room. A residence was included with living room, sitting room and five bedrooms. The estimated cost for the project was (Pounds)2,450. In 1902 the PMG decided to spend (Pounds)1,200 on renovating and extending the old building and to rent a temporary premises for (Pounds)25 per annum while the alterations were carried out.
The new Post Office was finished on 8 February 1904 at the cost of (Pounds)1,391.7s.0d, and opened on 26 March by Postmaster General Sir Philip Fysh. The new office was an extension of the 1868 building, built to the north of the original, joining it at the northern wall. Matching bricks were used in the construction. Adjoining the office to the rear was a single-storey kitchen block, with a stable, a store, fuel store and toilets also in the back yard. The entire site was enclosed by a picket fence with gardens on the east and west.
In March 1905, the Wellington Telephone Exchange was opened within the Post Office, with a continuous service being provided from April. The service was further updated in January 1906 with a trunk line to Sydney becoming available.
There have been a number of changes to the building since that time, including infill of the western and rear verandahs during the mid-twentieth century, the bathroom fitout on the first floor and division of the ground-floor southern room in thec1970-80s, and the western post box addition in the 1980s. |