BATHURST IN THE 1830's

by an anonymous widow
From the Bathurst Times, 14 December 1901

First Impressions

We stayed at Kelloshiel till suitable quarters were secured fo us at Saltwater Creek, behind Kelso, in a house latterly used as a woolwash. Kelso was then the "city", and Bathurst the penal settlement. Kelso boasted of two public houses--one at each end of the village--and a number of straggling, low-roofed cottages. The only shop in the whole district was carried on in a small end-verandah room of one of the public houses, and prices ran decidedly high. The name, so full of memories, to a Scot, of one of the sweetest of old world towns, seemed most inappropriate; and yet there was pathos in the very inaptness, for it suggested pictures of the unknown early settler who named it Kelso--either, homesick and disappointed, shutting his eyes, and letting imagination play, until the untidy village of the wild west became the city of his dreams; or hopeful and strong, taking the wilderness in hand to subdue it, and plant in it a new Kelso, more glorious than the old, in the land of undimmed sunshine. There was no church building. The Rev. Mr. Kean lived in a cottage parsonage, which occupied the site of the present handsome rectory at Kelso, and celebrated Divine Service in an old barn behind the parsonage. In this year (1831) the ministry and worship of the Scotch church were established in the district, the chaplain being the Rev. Mr. Thompson. The spiritual needs of the Roman Catholics in the district were attended to by the occasional visits of Father Terry (a brother of Judge Terry), from Sydney. Bathurst consisted of six brick cottages and two mud houses, occupied by the military, police, and government officials, the hospital, and Government officials, the hospital, and the convict establishment, with its lumber yard. The main building was on the site of the present police barracks, and was a two-storied building, with the barracks above and the gaol below. On the other side of the road--the stump of a tree, which grew in the middle of the garden, still marking the site--was the building which, under one roof, combined court House, Post Office, and quarters of the Police Magistrate, and Colonial Surgeon. Adjoining was the stockade, and quarters of the mounted police. Major Croaker was commandant, and Dr. Busby surgeon. At least one of the officers was a scion of a noble house, and there were five ladies in the "City of Bathurst". As all lived almost under the same roof, visiting, even in the summer time, was not an arduous duty. The commandant's wife was a singularly sweet and amiable lady, universally beloved. The little community, however, was not confined to its own resources, for the families who resided in the surrounding districts (many of whose descendants are still with us) were the embodiments of hospitality. The pleasant occupation known as "shopping" took a strange form in those days, for, unless on our rare visits to the metropolis, it meant sending an order to Sydney and then waiting, perhaps, two months of longer till the goods arrived (often much damaged by the war and tear of road and weather). Up to-date fashion could hardly be adhered to under the circumstances, and winter clothing had to be ordered in midsummer, and vice versa. There was no bridge over the river, and often, in flood times, considerable difficulty was experienced in getting mails and supplies across. One occasion comes to memory, when the bread and meat contractor, who lived at Kelso, being suddenly cut off by a flood, hit on a novel method of delivering his stores. A blackfellow threw across the stream a boomerang, to which was attached a string. This was the guide to a rope, and soon a washing tub was being pulled across, the contractor steadying it by a rope fixed to its side. This original cable punt crossed the water several times, till the whole of the bread and meat supply was safely landed. A similar method was frequently resorted to in the transmission of the mails. The servants were all convicts, and considerable difficulty was experienced in the way of getting suitable female servants, as at that time they had to be got from Sydney. A woman's factory was, however, added later to the penal settlement at Bathurst. A lady, the wife of one of the officials had an excellent servant, who had one filing, a lining for strong drink. She was frequently found in a state of intoxication, and on one occasion set fire to a child's cot. Where she got the drink was a mystery, till she was carefully watched, and then a romance was revealed. She was seen to steal out and take up her position at the closely barred gate; shortly, a man came along with a pannikin, and the woman, producing a long straw thrust it through the bars, the man holding the pannikin as close as possible. After a long pull she withdrew the straw with a sigh of satisfaction and the watcher came forward to smell rum, and detect a male convict outside his yard. It turned out that the man, almost nightly, managed to slip out of his quarters and secure some rum, which he gallantly, and under difficulties and danger of discovery, shared with the distressed damsel. The story ought to finish with their release, a wedding, and a joint pannikin for the rest of their lives. But; as a matter of fact, I am happy to say the girl, on her release, married a decent man with no liking for rum, gave up the rum herself, and became a in an old township in a neighbouring district.