V. Heiden Piano No. IV

Collection

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Object name and number

Von Heiden upright piano, (95.009)

Object description

Upright piano with a wooden case made of solid cedar with cedar veneer, and burr walnut veneer on the front surface. The piano is mounted on a double steel frame with castors, and two metal foot pedals. Solid cabriole brackets support the keyboard frame. The keys are made of ivory. The name “V. Heiden” appears under the sheet music rest. “V. Heiden Patent.” appears moulded into the steel frame in the upper left hand corner, and moulded in the upper right hand corner of the frame is the model number “Heiden No. IV”.

The piano was made by German migrant, Carl von Heiden who, with his wife Gertrude, resided at the Von Heiden Estate in Carramar, City of Fairfield. In the early 1900s, the property was a landmark for recreational boating users opposite at Latty’s Boatshed on Prospect Creek.

Von Heiden Estate, opposite Latty’s Boatshed, c. 1932. Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection

Carl Wilhelm Gunther von Heiden was born in Lichterfelde, Berlin, Germany in 1879, the only son of a Prussian army officer. Von Heiden states in his application for Naturalisation that he arrived in Melbourne from Shanghai on the S.S. Germania on the April 4, 1904[1]. Many of the Germans who arrived in Australia at the beginning of the 20^th century arrived as individuals and for individual reasons, and those with manufacturing skills were attracted to Sydney and Melbourne.[2] Von Heiden had been called up for military service, but it appears that that eventuality was avoided, as he came via Switzerland to Australia in 1904 as a Lipp Piano representative. He subsequently worked for Palings in Sydney.[3]

Carl’s ambition was to manufacture pianos. He started training at Carl Berstein factory in Berlin, then moving to work with Steinways in New York prior to his recall to Germany for compulsory army service. With that experience behind him, in Sydney he opened a factory in Little Oxford Street, Darlinghurst, and show rooms in Pitt Street, and at 96 Paddington Street, Paddington he sold his own brand pianos. Advertisements on his shopfronts, brand his pianos as either “V. Heiden” or Von Heiden.

Showrooms of the V. HEIDEN PIANOS at 290 Pitt Street – (Corner of Bathurst Street) – SYDNEY

The Von Heiden business flourished until the outbreak of WWI and although he was naturalized on 6 August, 1914, and not interned, he suffered financial loss, whether as a result of anti-German sentiment is uncertain, and closed his business in Sydney.

V. Heiden Pianos – Show Room at 96 Paddington Street, Paddington. Factory and Office are advertised as at Little Oxford Street, Darlinghurst[4]

Through promotions by German manufacturers and the German Government at the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879, German pianos became very popular with families in the early 20^th century, providing entertainment at social and family gatherings. Oral histories record that Carl tuned pianos for neighbours at Carramar, particularly amongst the German community[5].

In 1922, Carl moved separately from his family to Brisbane where he initially started a repair workshop in Melbourne Street, South Brisbane, and then re-established manufacturing pianos at the Heiden Piano Factory in Stanley Street, South Brisbane in 1932. Operating under the name of Carl Heiden, he also manufactured pianos for Palings, which were sold under the name of either Heiden, or Victor & Belling. For the manufacture of his pianos, he used English beech for tuning, planks and bridges, Swiss pine for soundboards with local timbers such as solid Queensland maple being used for the case and veneered panels, and either Schwander (English) or Higel (Canadian) actions and keyboards. The South Brisbane factory operated until his death in 1936.[6]

Following his death, the Von Heiden Estate at Fairfield, was bequeathed to the Protestant Church, and in 1955 an aged persons’ complex with small self-contained units was constructed on the site. Part of the former Estate on the banks of Prospect Creek are now a public reserve known as Heiden Park in Carramar, Fairfield, with little visible evidence of the remains of the Von Heidon Estate.

Vance George paints a picture of the ornate design that the former house and gardens displayed. “The von Heiden house had a high gabled roof and wide verandahs; the formal gardens were adorned in the fashion of the times. Balustraded steps and walled gardens led down to the water’s edge; there were fishponds with ornamental fountains, and white statues of water bearers lined the paths.”[7]

Remnants of the former ornate garden of the Von Heiden residence, Carramar.

The moulded square stone baluster base in the Museum’s collection, is a remnant of the grand balustrade staircase that led from a courtyard of the von Heiden house toward the banks of Prospect Creek. The stairway, and a fountain with a statue of a boy, remained in situ until the 1980s. Photographs in Vance George’s history of Fairfield 1982, show the boy statue still in place.[8]

Fountain and balustrade, Von Heiden residence, c.1950s Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection

Descendants of the von Heiden’s understand from family conversations that the grain shed and pigeon loft were built at the von Heiden Estate by Carl. The fact that Carl owned pigeons during WWI was translated by some residents to mean, that the pigeons were used to carry messages to Germans on submarines.[9] In fact, pigeon shooting was a popular sport in the 1920s and 30s.[10]

The piano is historically significant as evidence of piano manufacturing in Australia prior to the World War I through to 1936, as it is possibly one of the last upright pianos, made by Carl von Heiden in his Sydney factory between 1904 and 1914. Although others were made as gifts for family members, none other than the one in the Museum survives in descendant families. Family members recall fond memories of Heiden pianos being the centre of social occasions in their living rooms[11].

However, it is possible that a Heiden piano from Carl von Heiden’s Brisbane factory (1932-1936) may still survive. The story behind the piano is an example of how many migrants commenced their new lives with little, and made substantial professional contributions to the development of industries. In this case, it was von Heiden’s inventiveness in using native timbers in his piano cases.

The piano has strong provenance. Carl made pianos for his wife, Gertrude Elizabeth Miller whom he married in 1906, and for each of Gertrude’s siblings as gifts. The piano in the collection of the Museum, was made by Carl and presented to Gertrude’s brother, Christian Henry Miller and his wife Edith Maud Margaret Barter.

The piano was gifted to Christian and Edith’s daughter, Gladys Euphine Miller on her marriage to George Edward Johnston on 23 February, 1946. The piano was then transported to Wellington, NSW, where Gladys used to play the piano on a regular basis, with family members standing around the piano singing as her daughter Ruth Carolyn King recalls.[12]

In the early 1980s the piano was given to daughter Ruth King who lived in the Newcastle area. As Ruth did not play the piano, she donated it to Fairfield City Museum and Gallery because of the family connection with the area. The Von Heiden family were highly regarded in Fairfield for their concern for the community, especially for elderly people.[13]

The piano is good condition. Chips are visible on the veneer on the front and side panels of the piano, and the cast iron frame is cracked. The piano is not in working order. Dimensions: H 1420, D 670, L 1640mm.

Bibliography

Burnley, Ian H. The Impact of Immigration on Australia: A demographic approach. Oxford University Press, South Melbourne. 2001

Gapps, Stephen. Fairfield: evolution of a migrant city. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery. 2008

George, Vance. Fairfield: A History of the District, Griffin Press, Netley, S.A. 1982

George, Vance. Fairfield: A History of the District, 2^nd ed., Southwood Press, Marrickville, Syd. 1991

Websites

http://www.uk-piano.org/piano-forums

Footnotes

[1] Details from a copy of Carl von Heiden’s Application for Certificate of Naturalization, dated 16/9/1914. National Archives of Australia, digital copy No. 43315. The application states that he was living on the premises at Little Oxford Street, Darlinghurst at the time of the application.

[2] Burnley, Ian H., p. 75

[3] Piano Tuners & Technicians Guild (Qld) Inc., http://www.uk-piano.org/piano -forums. 17/9/2008

[4] J. Sands suburban and country directories for the period 1901-1923 indicates that his piano factory at Little Oxford Street, Paddington was listed at that address between 1911-1916.

[5] From oral conversations with members of the Konemann family, Fairfield City Museum, February, 2009.

[6] Garratty, Ted, History of the Heiden Piano. http://www.uk-piano.org – 17/9/2008

[7] George, Vance, 1982, p. 91.

[8] George, Vance. Fairfield – A History of the District. Griffin Press, Unley, S.A. 1982, p. 91.

[9] Telephone conversation with Ruth King, donor of the piano, March 2009

[10] Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection, image caption

[11] Telephone conversation with Ruth King, March, 2009

[12] Transcript of oral interview with Ruth King, 7 December, 2006 at FCMG.

[13] George, Vance, 1991, p. 95.

Commonwealth Hostels Ltd Recipe Book N0. 32 with German translations of cooking terms, 1959.

Collection

Fairfield City Museum & Gallery

Object name and number

Commonwealth Hostels Ltd. Recipe Book No. 32 and No. 66, ID No. 2003.003 & 2003.004, c. 1950s

Location

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Smithfield

Object Description

Recipe books, two, dark blue hardcover, with embossed gold logo Commonwealth Hostels of Australia, Nos. 32 and 66. The removeable pages are bound on the left hand side on two steel pins secured by metal caps, with section dividers indicating meal types. German translantions of cooking terms and ingredients are included at the front of recipe books, as many of the hostel’s cooks spoke German. Dimensions: L 280mm x W 201mm x D 90mm and L 280mm x W 201mm x D 45mm.

Two dinner plates, and four side plates, white porcelain with the brown logo Commonwealth Hostels of Australia centred on the rim, Australia, Maddock, England (2003.002.1-6); plate, side, white, procelain with a black logo Commonwealth Hostels of Australia centred on the rim, England; Jug, small porcelain; yellow glaze, concentric circles on body, Woods, England (2003.005); salt & pepper shakers, cylindrical, green glaze, porcelain, England (2003.006.1-2), glass, clear, with two concentric circles around the middle of the body, Duralex, France (2003.007), trays, rectangular, with moulded edge, one plastic, red and the other anodised aluminium, blue; and Christmas Day Menu, for breakfast, dinner and evening meal, foolscap paper, typed and centred, Villawood Migrant Hostel, 1959 (2003.008).

The City of Fairfield represents one of the most culturally diverse communities in Australia and reflects the spread of cultures that settled around familiar areas after leaving the nearby Cabramatta and Villawood Migrant Hostels over four decades from the 1950s to the 1990s.

The many migrants, displaced persons and refugees who came through the Fairfield migrant hostels of Cabramatta and Villawood, share a common experience of hardships, with new rules, a new language and a history and culture that had no meaning for them. For some there was the barrier of social exclusion, isolation, racism and a struggle for economic security. For many with limited or no English, it was a traumatic and an alienating experience. Arrival at the Villawood and Cabramatta Hostels was the last stage of a long journey, some having been introduced to the strangeness of Australian flora and fauna at other reception centres at Bonegilla, and Bathurst.

It was the hostel experience that made many realise that the picture painted by the advertisments at the Immigration Offices located in Britain and Europe, for a country glowing with opportunities was at variance with the reality they experienced. The Commonwealth Government was inadequately prepared for the influx of new arrivals. They were treated as an “add-on” to the communities in which they were injected, and for a considerable time, were also regarded as an “add-on” to Australian history. No integrated settlement strategy existed at any level of government and interpreting and translation services were virtually non-existent. Non-British residents who sought to tackle the immediate problems of work, accommodation, and schooling were unable to communicate their needs to service providers.

Commonwealth Hostels Limited operated the Villawood Migrant Hostel, known as a Reception Centre, for the federal Department of Immigration from the early 1950s to cater for the influx of post-war migrants, refugees and displaced persons. Prior to 1948, the nissen huts at Villawood operated as a munitions factory. In 1948, 10,000 migrants arrived in Sydney with an expected 5,000 arriving each month thereafter[1]. The Commonwealth Government needed to find accommodation for the new arrivals and to assist with their settlement with support services. The resumed land around the munitions factory was chosen as it had services alread laid, was close to Leightonfield Railway Station, and was located near a developing industrial area which would provide work opportunities.

Existing buildings at Villawood were hastily converted to living quarters, kitchens and laundries. Many of the Managers of these centres were ex-army and ran the hostels like troops on the move. Between 1948-1952, 400,000 migrants passed through Villawood Migrant Hostel, as only temporary accommodation was provided until migrants could support their own place in the community. “Reception and training centres were established to be places where migrants learnt English and and the ‘Australian’ way of life. Hostels became a place where their immediate future was decided for them”.[2]

The early nissen huts had curved corrugated iron roofs lined with Malthoid, a tar coated membrane to prevent leakage, lower walls were lined with thin masonite, and the floors were covered with bituminous felt. Two families shared the three room division in each nissen hut with children sleeping on the fold-up couches. The interiors were hot in summer and cold in winter. The laundry and toilet blocks were some distance away, as were the communal dining areas.

Erling Sorenson celebrating his confirmation at Villawood Migrant Hostel – 1960s. Fairfield City Library and Museum Collection

Remaining original Nissen Hut, Fairfield City Museum Collection, 2003. Fairfield City Library and Museum Collection

Provision of services was at the discretion of each hostel manager who usually recruited staff from migrants living at the hostel to assist with translations, catering, laundering and cleaning. The company provided all meals, as having kitchen facilities in the small Nissen hut accommodation was viewed as a safety hazzard. In the early years of the Hostels, bank agencies and a Post Office were established. Additionally, a housing officer, (to assist with purchasing and renting accommodation on leaving the Hostel), welfare and employment officers, compulsory English classes for adults until the early 1960s, and a kindergarten were provided at no charge. Former residents describe the atmosphere as that of a global village.

Services such as weekly room cleaning and laundered sheets were also provided by Commonwealth Hostels Limited.

Laundry, one of three buildings remaining on site since 1950s. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery Photographic Collection

Families were issued with serving trays, crockery, cutlery and glassware on arrival at the hostel, and they were accountable for them on leaving. The style of the durable hostel tableware changed very little over 40 years, with the most identifiable changes being the logos on the hostel’s crockery when the name of the hostel service provider changed.

Foreign and tasteless is how many migrants remembered hostel food, but they were impressed with its abundance and regularity. Lunches were packed in a paper bag with two sandwiches and a piece of fruit. Camp pie, date spread, tapioca, sago (‘frog’s eggs’), food cooked in dripping, and the smell of vegemite and mutton are still remembered vividly. Jam was always available on the tables and could be added to desserts to make them more palatable. Packed lunches were readily discarded in school bins until schools in the 1970s provided more culturally acceptable food in school canteens.

Standard Commonwealth Hostels Limited issue hostel crockery

Christmas day menus were not remembered as being ‘special’, although they were very British in content reflecting the country of origin of forty percent of residents initially. For many, Christmas was an occasion for celebrating exta days “off” from working extremely long hours in nearby factories at Villawood and Bankstown.

Christmas Menu – 1959 at Villawood Hostel

Christmas in the canteen at Villawood, c.1970s

While residents at the hostels paid for food whether it met their dietary needs or not, a 1951 Hostel Catering file indicates that non-meat meals could be provided on special days of religious observance. Further attempts were made to remedy complaints about the same kind of soup monotonously being served for lunch and dinner each day.[3] According to the procedures, Hostel menus would be submitted and reviewed monthly. A Standard Recipe Book like the two in the collection of the museum, was compliled by the Department of Labour and National Service, and issued to all Migrant Hostels. From the insert in the front of one of the recipe books, it appears that European cooks were encouraged to work in the kitchen with the translation of English cooking terms into German. However, the traditional English food recipes remained.

The opening of the Westbridge brick units at Villawood Migrant Hostel in 1968, brought more substantial accommodation for residents including internal bathrooms and toilets. Kitchens were not provided and laundry facilities were still shared. Communal meals were still only available at the canteen, although many al fresco meals were made “without the knowledge of management” on small portable stoves when various nationalities gathered to celebrate. More varieties of international ingredients were becoming readily available at stores in Cabramatta, Villawood and Fairfield from the late 1960s.

After leaving the hostels, many residents missed the social occasions that the regularity of meals provided, but not the meals. They all looked forward to home cooked meals. Many chose to settle in Fairfield because of the cosmopolitan atmosphere, the ready availability of their own foodstuffs, social clubs, newspapers in their own language, and a supportive cultural network.

Although there were periods of dislocation, disorientation, and desolation, hostels are remembered fondly as places of security and certainty where families could retreat from the demands of new life beyond the fence. Parents worked long hours and sometimes at two jobs, while weekends were spent cooperatively with other migrants building their own homes on the edge of Sydney. For many, interim homes between the hostel and building their own homes, were garages. Regardless of country of origin or year of arrival, setting up house was a priority. The publicity given to migrants said that ‘you could own your own home in Australia’. In reality it was not easy. In the first years after the war, houses and building materials were in short supply, and many found themselves living in hostel accommodation for months and years.

A former Hostel Manager at Villawood Migrant Hostel reflected that “Hostels were a part of the flowering of Australian multiculturalism. The migrants took Australia by its bootstraps and brought a different culture – where would we be without them?”[4] The Villawood Hostel changed its function from a “receiving” centre for all migrants and refugees, to a “detaining” centre to accommodate increasing numbers of ‘unwanted refugees’.

The Villawood Migrant Hostel recipe books and dinnerware are historically significant as evidence of the daily ritual of communal dining at the Hostel from 1948 until the mid 1980s. The recipe books, the dining settings and hostel life represent for many migrants, refugees and displaced persons who arrived at the Villawood Migrant Hostel in Fairfield from 1948 until the early 1990s, a staging post where they become acquainted with a very different culture and climate.

The communal dining allowed for an interaction between different nationalities that many would never have encountered otherwise, had they not made the journey. Friendships made at the hostel have been enduring and many reflect on the supportive role that the hostels played in giving direction to their lives.

The narrative evoked by these small objects shows the important role that the temporary accommodation had in the settlement of Fairfield’s expanding and culturally diverse population. For many, Villawood Migrant Hostel was their first home in Australia, and for others it meant freedom and a safe haven, something that they had not experienced in their recent past. Many have reflected on what Villawood has meant as a Detention Centre for those refugees who have left for the same reasons as they did over the last twenty or thirty decades, but without the freedom that they had experienced.[5]

The Villawood Migrant Hostel recipe books and dinnerware have interpretive significance. Hostel food often gave residents a peculiar sense of what food was familiar to Australians. As one young teenage resident from El Salvadore in the 1990s recounted ‘Australian food such as curries were very unpalatable’. Pasta and curries had become regular meals on the menu for the prior ten years to meet the needs of the predominant migrants at the time, thus becoming ” Australian food” for the next decade of migrants. It was for many residents at the hostel, the first opportunity to understand different cultures and appreciate their differences – a shared experience, and the shared friendships across cultures that endured and eased the settlement process.

The hostels themselves were points of entry into the unknown, and while providing some respite on a long journey, traumas still continued in silence, as all members tried to deal with isolation, rejection, being misunderstood through lack of communication, and poor support services. The feelings of drifting apart from family left behind, and the families being torn in different directions in their new homeland, were at times overwhelming.

The mostly empty shells of the original kitchen and dining room, laundry and two nissen accommodation huts are still located on the site and fenced off from the Detention Centre complex, holding ‘not so empty’ memories of the strangeness of this new life. A legacy of Villawood Migrant Hostel was that it provided a sense of community, which in turn, spawned communities of settlement in the familiar areas around Fairfield. The suburbs of Fairfield became the reality of the “global village” atmosphere that became a way of life at Villawood Migrant Hostel.

Remaining kitchen and dining room complex. Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection

Kitchen entrance from the 1950s at Villawood.
Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection

The Villawood Migrant Hostel recipe books and dinnerware  have strong provenance. These two recipe books were used at the Villawood Migrant Hostel between 1952-1983 by Commonwealth Hostels Ltd/Commonwealth Accommodation and Catering Service. They were removed from storage in 2003 after the hostel became the Villawood Detention Centre under the management of Australasian Correctional Management Pty Ltd (A.C.M), who donated the recipe books to the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery.

The serving trays, salt & pepper shakers, milk jug, drinking glass, the dinner and side plates as well as the Villawood Hostel Christmas dinner menu (1959) were also donated to Fairfield City Museum & Gallery at the same time by A.C.M.

The Villawood Migrant Hostel recipe books and dinnerware are in good condition. The two recipe books show signs of use, while some of the plates were still in their original wrapping. The other dining objects show little use, and the trays are in fair condition.

Burnley, I.H. The Impact of Immigration: A Demographic Approach. Oxford University Press. South Melbourne. 2001.

Gapps, Stephen. Fairfield: evolution of a migrant city. Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Smithfield. 2008.

Oral Histories of six migrants recorded on DVD for the FCMG exhibition Childhood memories of migration: Images, Imaginings and Impressions, available at the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery and the Migration Heritage Centre, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.

Websites

http://www.immi.gov.au/statistics/publications

http://www.heritage.gov.au

Footnotes

[1] Letter from Prime Minister Ben Chifley to the Dept.of Labour & National Service, 1949. National Archives File No. SP857/10PR 1924.

[2] Sluga, Glenda. Bonegilla and Migrant Dreaming. In Darian-Smith, Kate & Hamilton, Paula. ‘Memory and History in Twentieth-Century Australia’. Oxford University Press. 1994.

[3] Hostel Catering – Menus – Procedures, 24/9/1951. National Archives File No. SP 446/2 E 108/4/1

[4] From discussions on 21/6/2001 with Mr. Terry Astor-Smith who was the Manager at Villawood Migrant Hostel for lengthy periods from 1964 until he retired in 1984.

[5] Information relating to the hostel and former residents, was recorded at community forums held on the 10/10/2002 and 14/11/2002 at the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery.

Model of the smallest ‘Candombe’ drum, the ‘chico’. Fairfield City Museum and Gallery Photographic Collection

Collection

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery (FCM&G)

Object name and number

Uruguayan Candombe drum, model of chico drum, c. 2005. ID No. 2005.140

Location

Permanent display, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Smithfield

Object description

A small wooden chico drum painted in segments outlined in black, on a red, white, and blue background with yellow symbols of a star, a sun and the Sydney Opera House. Metal bands surround and secure a stretched and cured cowhide at the top and contain the laths around an open ended base. A hanging strap is attached to metal loops below the metal band around the top. Dimensions: H 330mm, top Diam. 130mm, base Diam. 90mm.

The drum is a symbol for the Candombe Yauguru, an Afro-Uruguayan drumming and dancing group that formed in Fairfield to continue the rhythmic tradition that is at the heart of Uruguayan culture and heritage. Condition: Excellent.

This is a model of the smallest Candombe drum known as chico, which is one of three tambores (drums) that forms the Uruguayan cuerda, a unique Afro-Uruguayan rhythm. Candombe is a generic term for all Afro-Uruguayan dances that has become an important part of Uruguayan culture for over 200 years. It has its origins in the Spanish slave trade, which brought Africans mostly from Bantu areas in Eastern and Equatorial Africa and the remainder from Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Ghana to Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay in 1750.

The slaves’ African culture may have been repressed by the Spanish, but their need to express and preserve their ancestral memory was maintained through their rhythmic drumming on their tambores, the tambor piano, the tambor chico and the tambor repique. Candombe was considered by the authorities at that time ‘to be a threat to public morals’[1], and the practice was banned and participants were punished. However, the African dance rituals known as tangós survived after slavery was abolished in Uruguay in 1846, and the word tangós includes the drums, dances and the places where the rituals were held.

A traditional Candombe group (Comparsa) consists of the following dancing characters: Lubolo, a white man with face paint who plays the drums; Mama vieja, the matriarch of the tribe; Gramillero, a medicine man responsible for the wellbeing of the people, and Escobero, who dances with a stick or broom to rid the presence of evil. All of these characters have unique appearances and different ways of dancing.

Candombe, as performed today in Uruguay, is a procession of drummers who perform Ilamadas or calls, as they march slowly down the streets in the manner of being in chains, a reference to the slaves of the past. As part of the costume used by drummers in the parades, the laces which tie their shoes on are crossed several times and tied around their legs to symbolise the lashings the slaves were given. Competing groups are distinguishable by their own rhythms, which reflect the origins of their local or regional culture.

The three drums are at the heart and soul of the Afro-Uruguayan tradition with the piano being the largest in diameter (approximately 40.5cm) with a bass sound; the repique (ricochet) having a diameter of approximately 30.5cm and a tenor sound; and the chico (small) having a thinner drumhead with a diameter of approximately 21.5cm and a soprano sound. All drums are played with the butt and fingers of both hands. The drums of the original slaves were made from tea or coffee barrels covered with cow, donkey or horse hide that was treated and stretched. The stretched hide, which was originally secured by steel bands that were nailed in place, needed to be warmed in front of a fire before playing to achieve the correct pitch.

Workshop of Candombe Yauguru drum maker – Raul Pamies – Raul and Juan-Carlos Quijano (Director, Candombe Yauguru) attaching shoulder straps to drums – left to right the tambor chico, the tambor ripique and the tambor piano. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery Photographic Collection

Uruguay is an eastern South American country the size of the state of Victoria, wedged between two regional giants, Argentina and Brazil, and currently with a population of 3 million people. During the first half of the 20^th century, it was one of the richest countries of South America with a favourable climate, agricultural exports of wool and beef, and a small population. Unlike many countries of Latin America, progressive Uruguayan governments during this period were able, in free and democratic environments, to provide advanced social reforms, which allowed Uruguay to become a recognised for its progressive welfare and education policies.

Uruguay was one of the most highly urbanized societies in Latin America, with the capital Montevideo holding half the nation’s population, and the other cities having populations not much larger than 100,000. It was not widely recognised by the nation at the beginning of 1970, that Montevideo could possibly provide the backdrop to what was to tear the city and the nation apart. Montevideo was a city with a large population of skilled middle class residents and literacy rates were high.

In 1960, unemployment increased with the drop in the demand for Uruguayan primary products. The currency was devalued, and high inflation and social unrest resulted. A new crisis added to Uruguay’s problems in the form of urban guerrillas, the Tupamaros (taking their name from the Inca leader Tupac Amaru), who worked in the cities rather than in the hills outside the towns, successfully destabilising the everyday life of the nation.

Conservative governments were not committed to continuing with welfare reforms, and demonstrations were brutally repressed by the police and the armed forces. Systematic abuses of civil rights by the military were used as “government policy” to deal with civil unrest.[2]

From the mid 1960s, after years of influence within the government of the day, the military staged a Coup de Etat in 1973. The military regime became repressive and systematically used torture, leaving approximately 160 people unaccounted for, and accumulated the largest number of political prisoners per capita in the world.[3] After 12 years of dictatorship, democracy was restored in 1985.

From 1960, a country that had previously been a country for receiving migrants from Italy, Spain and Germany before and after both World Wars, Uruguay became a country of emigrants. While some Uruguayans migrated to Australia in the early 1960s, most arrived in 1969. During the 1970s, migration to Australia increased and a large proportion of Uruguayan migrants were housed at the Endeavour, East Hills, Westbridge and Villawood Migrant Hostels. Approximately 9,000 Uruguayans live in Australia and approximately 78% live in Western Sydney with the most concentrated populations living in Fairfield[4].

Candombe Yauguru (Uruguay in reverse) began with very little experience in Fairfield, but came together in 1997 to help raise funds for hospitals in Uruguay. The majority of members are from, or descendants from Uruguay, with some members from other Latin American countries.

In January 2005, Candombe Yauguru was invited to participate in Uruguay’s most popular festival of Candombe, Las Llamadas held in the streets of Montevideo. Candombe Yauguru performed with the group “Sarabanda” that invited them to perform at the festival and were successful in winning first prize in the Drumming. The Candombe Yauguru are able to play with other groups at Las Llamadas, because they have learned the rhythms from many groups to the amazement of traditional drumming groups who play only those rhythms that they have lived with, in their region, area or neighbourhood.

Symbolism on drums designed by Juan Carlos Quijano, Director Candombe Yauguru. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery Photographic Collection

Candombe Yauguru attend the festival in Uruguay each year, and their costumes and the designs on the group’s drums are changed to reflect the colours and symbols that identify the group as Uruguayan-Australians. The drum, with the black background and the radiating sun, provides a symbol that has meaning for both Uruguayans and Australians, and was used in the festival of 2009. The design was inspired by the sun symbol of Uruguayan artist, Carl Paez Vilaro. The Australian symbolism on the white drum in the background was designed to represent ‘Earth Care’ with koori dot painted outlines.

Candombe Yauguru performing, 2008. Photograph by Josecuccovillo[5]

The condombe drums have historical and cultural significance for the Uruguayan community in Fairfield. Just as it provided respite for the African slaves who brought this rhythmic drumming from Africa, it continues to remind South American migrants of the difficult social, political and economic hardships that caused their families to migrate. The cultural continuity for Uruguayan migrants and descendants is maintained through drumming schools and workshops for children as young as three through to teenagers.

Each hand made drum is unique and with the continuing changes in the decorative designs on the drums, it tells the story of the evolution of Uruguayan culture in Fairfield, and how it makes its presence felt at community celebrations in Western Sydney, and in Montevideo, Uruguay.

The drums are well provenanced. The maker of the model drum in the FCM&G collection is Fairfield resident Raul Pamies, who was born in Australia of Uruguayan parents. Raul began making the drums out of interest and learned the basics from a wine vat maker. With each visit to Uruguay, he continues to acquire new techniques to refine his designs. For example, his new drums have hides that are now secured by steel hoops instead of a fixed steel band. This allows the hoop to be tensioned by adjustable brackets allowing the correct pitch to be reached without the need to warm the drums by fire prior to playing. Making the drums is still a hobby, although time consuming, with each lath (mostly oak) being steam bent and cured by Raul in his backyard workshop. The finished drum takes approximately two weeks to make, depending on weather conditions.

Cowhide stretched on a Uruguayan drum with new tension fittings. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery Photographic Collection

Uruguayan Juan Carlos Quijano, also a resident of Fairfield, is the designer of the decorative theme on the model drum, and for all designs on drums that Candombe Yauguru use.

Each year since 2005, the Candombe Yauguru group has participated in Uruguay’s festival of Candombe in Montevideo. For the 2005 Las Llamadas Festival, Juan-Carlos Quijano decorated the group’s drums with the symbols of the sun and the Sydney Opera House so that their Australian connection was clear in the festival’s parades. This is the design replicated on the model drum in the Museum, and reflects the primitive constructivist art work of Uruguayan artist Joaquin Torres-Garcia.

Juan Carlos Quijano is the Director of Candombe Yauguru drumming and dancing group. The group performed at the My Culture, Your Culture exhibition & events series at Fairfield City Museum and Gallery in October and November, 2005 and the model chico drum was donated to the Museum after that event.

Candombe Yauguru at Las Llamadas, Montevideo, 2009. Photograph by Juan Carlos Quijano

Candombe Yauguru – Uruguayan drumming and dance. My Culture, Your Culture Exhibition & Events Series. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, Community Space, 6 October – 6 November, 2005. NSW Ministry for the Arts & Fairfield City Council.

Burnley, Ian H. The Impact of Immigration on Australia – A Demographic Approach. Oxford University Press. South Melbourne. 2001.

Porzecanski, Arturo C. Uruguay’s Tupamaros: The Urban Guerrilla. Praeger Publishers, New York, 1973.

Kaufman, Eddy. Uruguay in Transition. From Civilian to Military Rule. Transaction Books, New Brunswick, New Jersey. 1979.

Websites

http://www.candombe.com

Footnotes

[1] Carambula, Ruben. El Candombe. Del Sol Publishing, 1995.

[2] Uruguayan Consultative Committee of Sydney correspondence, 1/4/09

[3] Ibid

[4] Burnley, Ian, 2001, p. 265

[5] http://www.cuccophoto.com

Spaghetti maker – chitarra. Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Collection

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Object name and number

Spaghetti maker, ID No. 2004.151

Location

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Smithfield

Object description

Spaghetti maker, wooden frame, rectangular, with fine wire stretched lengthwise across the top. The spaghetti maker is called a chitarra (”guitar” in Italian), a stringed instrument used in Abruzzo to cut pasta. It was handmade by the late Giuseppe (Joe) Bianchi in Smithfield in the 1980s to replicate familiar equipment from his village life in Abruzzo, Italy. The chitarra is in unused condition. Dimensions: L 500mm x W 220mm x H 110mm.

Giuseppe Bianchi was born in Manopella, Pescara, Italy in 1920, and migrated to Australia from Italy in 1956 after serving as a conscript with the Italian Army during WWII and helping with the reconstruction of the city of Pescara, which was destroyed during the war. This was Giuseppe’s second attempt to immigrate; the first was to Argentina in 1950. The return to his home town with his family was forced by a recession in Argentina which affected the building industry that he was employed in. He needed to find a country where he could fulfil his lifetime dreams, and as Australia was looking to Europe for skilled tradesmen, he made application through an Australian immigration agency, and was successful. On landing in Melbourne in March, 1956, Bianchi soon found work on the construction of Melbourne Dam.

Fourteen months later Giuseppe Bianchi moved to Wetherill Park because of contacts there from the same village in Abruzzo. Once settled in Sydney, he applied for his family to join him in May, 1957. Although Giuseppe had taken short courses in his spare time to learn to read and write English fluently, life was tough for the rest of the family with their lack of English, and no close family support. Mrs Bianchi even helped on building sites in small ways, and it was with pride that many Sunday outings included a drive to the current building site so that the family could admire his work.[1]

As a young boy, Giuseppe Bianchi always wanted to work with metal, but family circumstances meant that it was not possible to pay for an apprenticeship in that trade. Giuseppe attended school only until 4^th grade, thereafter he spent time as a farm hand and as a bricklayer’s labourer. He observed tradesmen at work and practiced until he became a master bricklayer.

Giuseppe began to follow his hobby of making and repairing things in earnest when he retired from bricklaying in the mid 1970s. He initially bought himself a lathe and taught himself the principles to make replacement parts for machines that were no longer available. His passion for making models grew out of a longing to make the toys that his single mother could not afford to buy for him as a child. He began making his miniature replicas of vintage cars in 1984, and displaying them at community events in Fairfield. One of his models won the Fairfield City Festival prize in 1986.

Unlike his scale model toys, the handmade wooden spaghetti maker was made to the same dimensions as the ones he was familiar with in his homeland village. He recreated those memories, even though modern metal pasta machines were in use in the kitchen of his home in Smithfield.

To use this particular pasta machine, “pasta alla guitar” because of its visual likeness to a guitar, the dough would be rolled out and folded into strips many times until thin, then wrapped around a rolling pin and placed over the metal strings and then pressed down with the rolling pen to make shredded pasta. The frame is tilted, and the thin spaghetti would roll out onto the bench, and then eaten fresh. “My Dad loved to make replicas of the past. At home he also had a model of a threshing machine, of how they used to collect and grind the wheat into flour in his village”[2].

The Bianchi’s Smithfield house, garage, shed and backyard filled with recreated memories of their homeland. Images were made of life-sized statues of soldiers, a papier-mache reproduction of the 6^th Century stone statue of the Warrior of Capestrano; and models of the Roman colosseum; the Altare della Patria in Rome, which is a monument to Italy’s first king, Vittorio Emanuele; and the Santa Maria Arabona church in his birthplace, Manopello. Giuseppe had detailed knowledge of the church from working as one of the bricklayers reconstructing the tower of the church which had been damaged during the war.

The Bianchi collection is housed in Giuseppe’s personal museum known as the Abruzzo Museum of the Arts, adjacent to his home in Smithfield. He made his collection accessible to the public during his lifetime, and particularly to school children who come away with an enjoyable understanding of Italian culture.

A model of the leaning tower of Pisa, a model 1919 Fiat pedal car, and a platoon of model artillery soldiers made from plaster casts in his image, were donated to the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery in 1986, by Giuseppe. The model 1919 Fiat pedal car was the first model Giuseppe made, and subsequent cars acquired bigger engines that allowed the cars to be driven at 20 kph. Each of his cars took approximately 6 months to build.

Model of The Artillery, 1990s, wood, plywood & papier mache. Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Giuseppe’s passion for recreating village life extended to making five life-size statues of people in costume representing important aspects of village life. They include a carabinieri (policeman); an alpine ranger; an infantry soldier; himself as a World War II artillery soldier; and a reginella di campagna (a village woman carrying a metal jug of water on her head as there was no running water in the village of Manopella when he left).

Two very large wooden male and female festival dolls, which were traditionally associated with May harvest festivities in the Abruzzo region of Italy, take a dominant place in his collection. Dressed in traditional costume, they are hollow inside so that people could dance while holding the frame from inside. When the festival was completed, the dolls were burnt so that the crops would grow well. These particular dolls were used in May celebrations at the Abruzzi Club in Wetherill Park, but burning was never considered an option.

May Festival doll. Collection of the Abruzzo Museum of Arts.

The dolls are historically significant as evidence of migrant folk art transplanted from Italy to the suburbs of Sydney. Guiseppi became involved in Italian cultural events in Fairfield, particularly with the Abruzzi Club when it was operating and made a significant contribution to the maintenance of the memories of Italian life for the older migrants, and for the younger generations born in Australia. He effectively re-established a connectedness with older relatives and their way of life. The replicas of Italian life that Giuseppi Bianchi created will assist visitors to the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery in understanding the hardships, which forced many migrants to leave villages and towns despite the cultural heritage and history they were leaving behind.

The models are aesthetically significant as examples of Italian folk art brought to Australia by Italian migrants. The models of the cars and buildings are scaled replicas, with metal details on the cars such as Fiat emblems and handles being hand cast. Details on the uniforms and costumes, demonstrate aspects of everyday life in Italian villages and amplifies the time that Guiseppe Bianchi dedicated to bringing an awareness of Italian culture to future generations.

The models have interpretive significance. The handmade chitarra (spaghetti maker) is an indicator for visitors of how basic village life was for many migrants who saw migration as a way to make a better life, particularly for their descendants.

The models have well documented provenance. The wooden spaghetti maker was donated to the Fairfield City Museum in 2001 by the late owner, Mr Giuseppe Bianchi from his collection of handmade toys; miniature vintage cars, some with motors; and models of Italian buildings which are housed in The Abruzzo Museum of Arts at his home in Bronsden Street, Smithfield.

Bibliography

Culture & Cultivation. Backyards in Fairfield. Exhibition Catalogue, Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, 8 August – 10 October, 2004. Developed in partnership with the Centre for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney and the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery.

Gapps, Stephen. Fairfield: evolution of a migrant city. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, 2008.

Websites

www.coasit.org.au/Heritage/Exhibitions/FromtheBackblockstotheFrontlines.aspx

[1] Eulogy presented by Anna Canto celebrating the life of her father Giuseppe (Joe) Bianchi, 2008.

[2] Interview with Anna Canto, Giuseppe Bianchi’s daughter, Fairfield City Museum & Gallery December, 2008.

Collection

Fairfield City Museum & Gallery

Object name and number

Embroidered sampler by Caroline Stimson, age 10 years, 1879, (82.159); and the International Exhibition Sydney 1879 bronze medal awarded to Caroline Stimson for the sampler (82.160)

Location

Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, Smithfield, permanent display

Object Description

Sampler, embroidered onto a linen base, with coloured wool threads outlining the alphabet in upper and lower case, the numbers 1 to 13, and four lines of verse: ‘How busy doth the bumble bee/ improve each shining hour/ and gather honey all the day/ from every opening flower’, Caroline Augusta stimsons/ 10 years old June 1879.

Dimensions – 360 x 340 mm. Condition is good, with parts of the wool on a few of the letters and numbers is worn/missing.

Sydney International Exhibition bronze medal, round with a raised rim and legend with the inscription ‘Orta recens quam pura nites’ (Recently risen, how brightly you shine). Obverse depicts female figure in profile with right arm raised holding a laurel wreath and a shield with the New South Wales coat of arms in the left hand. Dimensions – 50 x 5 mm.

Sydney International Exhibition Bronze Medal. Fairfield Museum and Art Gallery

Bronze medal obverse side. Fairfield Museum and Art Gallery

On 17^th September 1879 Australia’s first international exhibition opened in Sydney to showcase raw and manufactured goods and industry from around the world. To house the exhibition, the Garden Palace was built in the Governor’s Domain, just south of the Government House Stables (now the Conservatorium of Music).[1] Alongside displays from twenty kingdoms, republics and colonies, Australia presented its products to the world for the first time. Large displays from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, were featured, and school children were given the chance to display their handiwork in the Sydney Juvenile Industrial Exhibition organised by the Council of Education.

Designed by Colonial Architect, James Barnet, the Garden Palace was a huge Victorian cruciform building with a central dome. The exhibition which included produce and manufactured goods brought from around the world, ran for roughly seven months and attracted over one million visitors, which represented over half the population of Australia at that time.

Leading up to the Exhibition, students at Old Guildford Public School, in Guildford in Sydney’s west, were working under the supervision of Mrs Cookson, wife of the school principal to produce needlework to display at the International Exhibition. Sisters from Fairfield’s pioneering Stimson family who attended the school, all created needlework to exhibit, including the detailed embroidery sampler produced by ten year-old Caroline Stimson. As a requirement of the school curriculum for young girls, the practice of embroidering alphabets and numerals in various styles was regarded as a desirable ability. A lady’s maid was always required to monogram household linen so that it could be assigned to the relevant owner’s chest of drawers. However with the shortage of servants and the colony’s dependence on imported materials for clothes, meant that nearly all colonial women were required to do some sewing[2]. By the beginning of the 20^th century, the practice of schoolroom samplers had disappeared.

Caroline Stimson’s sampler was shown amongst the work of hundreds of school children from Public Schools around New South Wales, organised by the Council of Education: ‘…the schools of the Colony contributed to the Garden Palace display numerous exhibits, chiefly of crayon drawings, maps, illuminations, and needlework, and the pupils of these schools secured between five to six hundred awards, bearing testimony to the general merit of their handiwork.[3]

Judging of the 14,000 exhibits began in early 1880 by 254 unpaid judges. They rewarded exhibits that showed ‘originality, invention, discovery, utility, quality, skill, workmanship, fitness for purpose intended, adaptation to public wants, economy and cost’.[4] Among the exhibits from around the world, 7554 awards were given out and the exhibitors were awarded medals and certificates.[5]

The Public Schools Exhibits were judged as part of the Educational Systems, Methods and Libraries Class, and 21 awards were given to children from Caroline’s school. Caroline’s sisters also won awards – Barbara (aged 5) and Grace (aged 5, probably a cousin), received Honourable Mentions, and Caroline (aged 10), Sarah (aged 7), Emma (aged 14) and Eliza (aged 16) were Commended by the judges.[6]

The official medal for the Sydney International Exhibition was designed by a Sydney craftsman named Samuel Begg, but later modified by English engravers J.S. and A.B. Wyon. On one side, a classical female figure personifies New South Wales, surrounded by artefacts of learning and advancement that were on display at the exhibition, including musical instruments, books, a pickaxe, a wheel, an anchor and ceramic ware.

The Garden Palace is depicted in the background, and above are the words Orta recens quam pura nites, which after 1879 became the motto of the State of New South Wales. The gold and silver medals were struck at the Sydney Branch of the Royal Mint, while the bronze medals were struck in London.[7] On the reverse side of the medal awarded to Caroline is a wreath of native Australian flowers, with a space in the centre for an inscription. However, Caroline’s medal was never inscribed with the details of her award.

The sampler and medal are historically significant as evidence of the migration of liberal entrepreneurs from Britain and the prosperity they achieved in 19^th century NSW through hard work, chaste and piety.

Caroline Stimson was born in 1868[8] and lived with her parents and nine siblings in a grand Victorian mansion in Fairfield named Cambridge House, which for many decades was a local landmark. Caroline’s parents, William and Eliza Stimson had migrated to Sydney from England in 1849. Stimson first worked at Byrnes Timber Mill, and then bought land along the Dog Trap Road at Old Guildford, where Fairfield Road joins Woodville Road. William was one of the early pioneers of Fairfield who cleared the bush on his land and planted orchards, a vineyard and a market garden. The rapid development of small farms in the area created a demand for timber, and as much of Stimson’s land was heavily timbered, he established a sawmilling business at Fairfield near the railway yards.

William Stimson became the largest property owner in Fairfield. His business prospered to such an extent that in the late 1870s, he engaged Varney Parkes, son of Sir Henry Parkes, to design his home. Using the plans, Charles Furner of Camden, built Cambridge House in 1877-78 next to the railway station at the Crescent, Fairfield. The house had gables and iron lace balconies, and was set in an English style garden with English trees and a large pond crossed by a bridge and an elegant carriage drive. The family lived there for the next 20 years.

Cambridge House c.1870s. Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection

William Stimson concerned himself with the welfare and advancement of others and was elected to the first Council of Smithfield and Fairfield in 1888 and continued as Councillor until a few years before his death in 1902. William Stimson’s son Walter, also served as Mayor several times and another son George, was Mayor of Cabramatta-Canley Vale Council. The Stimson family was virtually a dynasty that provided the area with three generations of local government administrators and provided many houses with timber from their sawmills.

In the early 1970s Cambridge House became the centre of public debate when a proposal was submitted to make the house the centre of a new large-scale home unit development. Despite strong opposition from the National Trust and the public, the proposed development was given permission to proceed. Although an economic slump delayed the commencement of the development, a fire on the 15^th February, 1975 destroyed the interior of the house, and the remains were demolished within a week.

The sampler is provenanced to Caroline’s daughter Ethel Jean Lee (nee Furner) who donated it the the Museum. The bronze medal awarded for the sampler at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879 is also on display in the Museum.

The sampler and medallion has social significance as evidence of Victorian attitudes to the role of women. Early colonists were concerned with providing an appropriate elementary education for young females so that they could be equipped for the domestic roles that may be required of them. The interdenominational Irish National School system was adopted in New South Wales in 1848. It listed a table of minimum attainments for each child at each class level in each subject undertaken in programmed lessons which could be assessed against similar attainments completed by students in Dublin.

Walter Stimson’s Copy Book – Caroline Stimson’s brother – An example of the Irish National Education syllabus adopted by schools in New South Wales. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery Collection

The syllabus included daily sessions in the needlework sampler for females over six days. The sampler’s or exampler’s purpose was to store on fabric, the needleworkers repertoire of stiches or techniques, usually in the form of a rectangular piece of linen fabric hand stitched with upper and lower case alphabets, numbers, figurative motifs and biblical or moral verses that was signed and dated by the maker.

The sampler and medallion has interpretive significance as an example of how the role of children was melded by the education system so that they would fulfil their role in a settler community. The requirement for girls to learn such skills could be an issue to be considered by visiting school children when participating in schoolroom activities in the 1940s schoolroom at the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery.

The sampler and medallion has research value. The Powerhouse Museum has other examples of children’s work that was displayed in the Public Schools Section, at the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879. All the examples provide an insight into the priorities of education authorities in the late 19^th century.

Gapps, Stephen. Fairfield: evolution of a migrant city. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, 2008.

Official Record of the Sydney International Exhibition, 1879. Thomas Richards, Government Printer, Sydney, 1881.

Proudfoot, P., Maguire, R. and Freestone, R. (eds.) Colonial City, Global City: Sydney’s International Exhibition 1879. Crossing Press. Darlinghurst, 2000.

Windshuttle, E, ‘Educating the daughters of the ruling class in Colonial New South Wales, 1788-1850′.

Melbourne Studies in Education, 1980. Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1980.

[1]Robert Freestone, ‘Space, Society and Urban Reform’, in Proudfoot, P., Maguire, R. and Freestone, R. (eds.) Colonial City, Global City: Sydney’s International Exhibition 1879. Crossing Press. Darlinghurst, 2000, pp. 15-35.

[2]Windshuttle, E, ‘Educating the daughters of the ruling class in Colonial New South Wales, 1788-1850′. Melbourne Studies in Education, 1980. Melbourne University Press, Carlton, Vic., 1980, p. 124.

[3] Official Record of the Sydney International Exhibition, 1879. Thomas Richards, Government Printer, Sydney, 1881, p. 363.

[4] Sydney Morning Herald, 21 April, 1880, p. 9.

[5] Young, Linda. ‘Interested, entertained and instructed: Looking at the Exhibition’. In Proudfoot, P. (et al), op. cit., p. 115.

[6] Their surname ‘Stimson’ is misspelt as ‘Stinson’ in the Official Record of the Sydney International Exhibition, 1879, p. 377.

[7] Proudfoot, Ann. ‘Exhibition as Idea for the Powerhouse Museum’, in P. Proudfoot (et al.) (eds) op. cit., p. 213.

[8] NSW Register of Births, Deaths and Marriages Index, 14297/1868.

Bellow basting machine. Fairfield Museum and Art Gallery

Collection

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Object name and number

Tailor’s basting machine, ID. No. 96.051; and Tailor’s overlocker, ID. No. 208.023.1-2.

Location

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Smithfield

Object description

Bellow basting machine, electric belt drive (motor is not attached), metal, green and black, Class 17/2 made by Bellow. Dimensions: L 370 x H 280 x W 160mm. Condition: In used condition and without the electric motor and belt drive. The machine is not in working order.

Overlocking machine, electric belt drive (motor and belt are not attached), metal, black and nickel plated, DC-1, made by Yamato Manufacturing Company. Dimensions: L 220 x H 240 x W 165mm. Condition: Parts of the machine are not replaceable, and it is not in working order.

Yamato Overlocking Machine. Fairfield Museum and Art Gallery

The machines were donated to the Museum by an Italian migrant, Antonio Pasqualini, who was trained as a tailor and operated his own business, known as Roma Tailoring, for 10 years at Shop 9, Main Street, The Mall, Fairfield from 1964-1974. These specialised machines and the sewing machines in the business were bought from distributors in Australia.

Roma Tailoring – Mr Pasqualini 1962. The lamp and the spool holder on the sewing table were also donated to the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery. Fairfield Museum and Art Gallery Photograph Archive.

Between 1947 and 1971, Australia became involved in one of the most stimulating, challenging and irreversible experiments in social engineering in the world. The mutually convenient and converging needs of war-weary Europeans and Australia’s population and defence requirements became official government policy.” [1] In March 1951, Italy and Australia signed an Assisted Migration Agreement whereby both countries began financing the passage of Italian migrants.

Assisted migrants arriving in Australia from Italy undertook to work in occupations and locations as directed by the federal government for a period of mostly two years. Along with many other young migrant men, Antonio Pasqualini was assigned to Greta in the Hunter Valley. Greta Migrant Hostel became a supply source of young single men for employment in the large manufacturing industries at Newcastle and the mining industries in the Hunter Valley. Between 1947 and 1961, Newcastle’s population expanded by nearly 8% as a result.[2]. The compulsory requirement for assisted migrants to stay in designated locations was discontinued in 1953, allowing many single males the opportunity to explore the larger cities.

Antonio Pasqualini was born into a poor family in Callalto, Teramo, Abruzzo in Italy in 1932. It was a poor village with no electricity or running water. In his early adult life, he lived in Roseto, 20km from Callalto on the Adriatic coast where he did his cutter-tailor apprenticeship before coming to Australia. At 23 years of age and with a dozen or so other young Italians, he left Genoa on the Aorelia on the 15^th November, 1955 as an assisted migrant. He left Italy because there was no work in Roseto for tailors, and as he says now, ‘when you are young, you want adventure, and to discover’.[3]

Before coming to Australia, Antonio was called up for compulsory national service training for 15 months in the north, in Piaceza near Milano with young men from all over Italy. This was the first time that he had seen other parts of Italy as he had only a push-bike, no car. It was the beginning of the desire to see other parts of the world where there would be more opportunities and less hardship.

Arriving in Sydney on 18^th December, 1955 as an Italian migrant, Mr Pasqualini recalls looking up under Sydney Harbour Bridge and thinking that this bridge must be really high because the ship was passing underneath.[4] From the Darling Harbour terminal, the young men travelled by train to Greta Migrant Centre in the Hunter Valley. The new arrivals were shown to wooden sheds with bunk beds with one sheet, a couple of blankets, some soap, and the key to the hut. Meals were in a big canteen and the bathrooms were separate.  His sole possessions in his suitcase were a couple of suits that he had made. One of the suits he brought with him was worn when he got married in 1962. Every weekend he and his Italian friends went to Singleton to the picture show and to the restaurant owned by Greeks, for steak and eggs. “It was a good life, you have no worries when you are young”[5].

After 3 months in the Greta camp, Antonio Pasqualini was offered a job at Ravensworth, in the coal mining area of the Hunter Valley, replacing old sleepers on the railway line. Although he came here as a tailor, he had to take any job as he could not speak English. There was no permanent accommodation at Ravensworth, so the railway gangs slept in tents. The owner of the only store there kindly supplied them with credit to buy food until their first pay. After a year working on the railway, he went to Newcastle to work at BHP with another Italian for three years as an electrician’s assistant.

With little social support provided by government agencies for single male migrants, it was inevitable that the large Italian community in Fairfield in the 1960s would become a magnet for young Pasqualini. It was in a butcher’s shop in Fairfield that Antonio Pasqualini met his Italian mate from the railway days in Ravensworth, in the Hunter Valley. He had not seen him for over four years. It was through an invitation to his friend’s home that he met his friend’s sister, who became his wife.

In 1960 Pasqualini finally found work as a tailor and cutter with Anthony Squires at St Mary’s, and worked there for four years. From working in the clothing industry, he met some friends who were also Italian tailors. In 1964, the three Italians jointly decided to open Roma Tailoring in Shop 9, Main Street Mall, Fairfield, as they all lived in Fairfield. However there was not enough work for three persons in the business, so Pasqualini went back to work at Anthony Squires. Things did not work out with his friends who stayed on at Roma Tailoring, so he acquired the business to operate for himself for the next 10 years.

The demand for formal men’s tailoring in Fairfield in 1974 decreased and Roma Tailoring business inevitably closed. With migration from South East Asia concentrating in Fairfield and Cabramatta, different tailoring and outfitting needs were required, and undertaken by outworkers in homes and garages.

To make a living, Antonio returned to work as a tailor and cutter at Silvatex Suits in Greenfield, and at two other places before Glenford Clothing closed down in 1981 and Huntingtons in 1983. Two later jobs in tailoring at Dina Tailoring in Fairfield in 1983, and Hepworth Industrial Wear in Parramatta in 1985 did not last, and with retrenchment, it became obvious to Antonio that the garment industry was not a stable industry.

Tailoring and cutting skills assisted Antonio Pasqualini in gaining more secure employment with the Department of Corrective Services, Silverwater in 1985. Here he was a supervisor in the Cutting Room for 12 years, cutting material for uniforms, bed sheets, and surgery gowns for the hospital, shirts and trousers for the inmates, and the training of inmates to cut material in layers (e.g. 200 layers at one time) with electric cutters.

“Today you will not find many tailors who can do all the jobs of a tailor as many just specialise in one job. I still repair my own clothes but don’t do anymore tailoring. If I had stayed in Italy, I would not have had many opportunities to work. In Australia, I was always able to get work.”[6]

The textiles machines are of historic significance as evidence of the transfer of haberdashery and tailoring of clothing from the Italian village to the Australia suburbs. The Roma Tailoring business formerly owned by Antonio Pasqualini and located in the Mall, Fairfield from 1964-1974, reflects the impact that cultural transitions of various migrant groups have had on the business centres of Fairfield and Cabramatta. At that time, Italian cafés, coffee shops and delicatessens would also have been part of the streetscape. Village life was imported and implanted, with the role of the tailor being central to outfitting the Italian community for the many formal, family, religious, other occasions that were publicly celebrated, most likely at Club Marconi, which was established in 1959.

Antonio Pasqualini’s life story is also an example of how European professional skills were transferred, through his work as a supervisor and trainer at the Silverwater correctional facility.

Bibliography

Burnley, Ian H. (2001). The Impact of Migration on Australia – A Demographic Approach. Oxford University Press, South Melbourne.

Cresciani, Gianfranco (2003). The Italians in Australia. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne.

Gapps, Stephen. Fairfield: evolution of a migrant city. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery. 2008.

[1] Cresciani, G., p. 125.

[2] Burnley, Ian, p. 115

[3] Oral history interview recorded with Mr Pasqualini, 18/11/08, Fairfield City Museum and Gallery.

[4] Oral history interview 18/11/08

[5] Oral History interview recorded with Mr Pasqualini, 18/11/08, Fairfield City Museum & Gallery

[6] Oral History interview recorded with Mr Pasqualini, 18/11/08, Fairfield City Museum & Gallery

Crowbar and farriers pincers c. 1930s

Collection

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Object name and number

Farriers pincers, maker’s inscription ‘Sheffield/Sissorse/Od. Co. Ltd’, ID No. 2004.128; and forged iron crowbar, c. 1930s, ID No. 2003.024

Location

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Smithfield

Object description

Farriers pincers, steel, with rounded jaws, one handle has a clawed end and the other has a knob end. These particular pincers would have been used to remove old horse shoes before cleaning the hoof for reshoeing. The pincers were made in Sheffield, United Kingdom, and used by Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Konemann who was a blacksmith and farrier in Fairfield in 1904. Dimensions: 215mm x 50mm. Condition: Used, with no signs of deterioration.

Forged crowbar, metal with a rammer head at one end for ramming, and the other end is a chisel point, made by Carl Konemann, c. 1930s. This type of crowbar would be used for fencing.[1] Dimensions: 1720mm x 50mm. Condition: Good condition, used, and with no signs of deterioration.

Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Konemann worked as a blacksmith, farrier and coachbuilder from 1904 to the 1940s operating initially in The Crescent, Fairfield, on the site of the old Commonwealth Bank in The Crescent. After war broke out in 1914, Konemann relocated his business adjacent to his home in Vine Street, Fairfield. He was one of a handful of blacksmiths who had their own smitheries in Fairfield and Smithfield in the early 20^th century. The larger estates on the edge of Fairfield, for example Horsley at Horsley Park, had their own blacksmith’s shop on site, not only because of the distance, but also in this instance, they were also horse breeders.

Konemann’s blacksmith’s shop at The Crescent location would have been in the centre of transport and trade around Fairfield Railway Station, although the street was only a dirt track in 1908. Across from the railway station there were a line of brick shops adjacent to the Railway Hotel opened by Henry Cain in 1881, with Wheatley’s general store as a landmark. The work of a farrier or shoeing smith would have been in high demand in those early years in Fairfield with horse and cart being the only transport of goods and passengers from the railway station.

Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Konemann c.1900. Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection

Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Konemann was born in Neukirchen in Pommem Germany in 1875. As a young man Carl Konemann served in the Germany Navy on the survey ship Moenie and, as it is stated on his Certificate of Naturalization in 1907, he disembarked from the “Moenie” at the port of Sydney in 1899. As the Moenie was a German survey ship and not a passenger ship, there is some conjecture as to Carl’s arrival as a migrant. However, within seven days of his arrival he was a naturalized citizen, had been married twice, and had set up his business as a blacksmith.

By the 1900s many German assisted migrants had already settled in the Camden, Fairfield, Liverpool and Penrith areas after the completion of their contracts that were specifically allocated to assist with the development of a viticulture industry. Many were able to buy land in the area and continued with viticulture, market gardening and orchards. No doubt, these connections attracted Konemann to locate his business in Fairfield.

Carl Wilhelm Heinrich Konemann, c 1899, (1875-1967)

In the early years of the 20^th century in Fairfield, blacksmith’s skills would have been vital to maintain the work horses, the wheels for the carts, coach building, and the crafting and repair of steel and iron tools, and agricultural equipment. The blacksmithing business operated out of a large galvanised shed supported by roughly hewn tree posts. On his “Bill Head” (Invoice Statement), Carl referred to himself as a Blacksmith, Farrier and Coach Builder[2].

Carl Konemann on the right wearing his protective leather apron, outside the blacksmith’s shop. (Photograph courtesy of the Konemann family)

Carl Konemann’s smithery had a coal fired Champion forge on a brick base with bellows and a chimney flue to allow the gas fumes from the coal to escape. The coal was delivered regularly, and the iron and steel were sent by train in the early days from William Aitkins, Sussex Street, Sydney. His son, Cecil recounts the standard equipment of swages (which he made himself)[3], vices, anvils and grindstones for sharpening, with all his tools hung on racks ready for quick retrieval so that there was no delay when working with molten metal[4].

In an extension at the back of the blacksmith’s shop, Carl had a carpenter’s bench with coach building tools to build sulkies fitted with carbide lamps. He would make the metal wheel on an iron wheel plate heated over a bark fire, then doused in cold water to shrink the wheel to the required size and thickness. Sledgehammers were used to drive the tyre onto the wheel. Harry Clements would do the painted finish. Carl made a sulky for his eldest son Carl, so that he could carry his drum kit to play in his band at local dances at the Springfield Hall, Old Guilford and at Liverpool Town Hall[5].

Punctually from 7.30am to 4.30pm, Carl made all manner of ironmongery, especially during the 1930s depression, tools like hoes, picks, crowbars to meet the immediate needs of farmers. Saturdays were set aside for making and replacing springs in cars as that was a dirty job and much time needed to be spent cleaning the greasy tools afterwards.

The blacksmith shop no longer exists, although their original Georgian cottage still survives at 97 Vine Street. The blacksmith’s shop operated on the Vine Street site by Carl and later his son Paul until the 1940s. When the business closed, most of the smithing and farrier equipment was sold to the local sanitary contractor, E.C. (Jim) Goodsell of Wentworthville, and the shop was dismantled.

From oral accounts, Konemann’s paddock and the blacksmith’s shop holds many childhood memories for long time residents of Fairfield interviewed by Kim McKerihan in his Reflections of Fairfield[6].

From Konemann’s paddock you could walk over to the wool wash where the wool was washed and sorted. Konemann’s blacksmith shop used to be another favourite spot to spend some time when kids. You could watch them shoe the horses from the various bakers’ yards or play in the horse drawn sanitary carts that were there for repair. Then when you got home you were in big trouble because of the smell of your clothes.

[7]

Konemann’s Bridge across Prospect Creek adjacent to the existing “Konemann’s” Cottage, Vine Street, Fairfield Photograph courtesy of Marlene Riley, c. 1995

The existing Konemann’s Bridge across Prospect Creek at Vine Street is the third bridge built on this site. The original timber bridge that was built by Carl was constantly being washed away and replaced by Council until the first concrete bridge was built and named after Carl[8]. Three of the four cast iron lamp posts that were mounted at each end of the first concrete bridge, opened in 1959, are now in the collection of the Museum. This bridge too, was subject to flooding with the 1956 flood coming up to the windows at the side of Konemann’s cottage, and was replaced by the existing concrete bridge at a higher level in 1997.

Carl and his wife Alice (nee Jentsch, whom he met in Sydney) had a large family of twelve boys and three girls.[9] Alice’s brother, Gustavus Jentsch was the Mayor of Fairfield from December 1925 to June 1928. Carl spoke only English at home with a definite German accent, and German when in the company of local German farmers and friends such as Carl von Heiden, the Sydney piano maker whose estate was a short walk away, opposite Latty’s boatshed on the banks of Prospect Creek at Carramar. Although the house in Vine Street had only three bedrooms, there was a large verandah across the back of the house that had beds. The family all fitted somehow, as the older siblings left[10].

The Fairfield Woolwash, across Prospect Creek from the rear of Konemann’s property which operated from the early 1900s to the late 1930s. Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection

On the property of 3¾ acres, the family was self sufficient with home grown vegetables and fruit, as well as cows, pigs, fowls and ducks. Carl Konemann built a weir across Prospect Creek at the rear of his house, to hold back the salt water, and to contain the fresh water for washing the wool at the wool scourers. Carl built drains for the “used” water from the wool scourers to run onto his property to irrigate his vegetables and orchards. The weir was demolished as part of flood mitigation strategies for Fairfield.

Ironically Carl did not own a horse or plough and borrowed from Harry Dreis’ vineyard (later Asmuss’ vineyard on the site where the Patrician Brothers College is now) to plough the fields. His eldest son Carl Heinrich, worked at the wool scourers (located approximately behind where the Leisure Centre now stands), and at Asmuss’ vineyard.

The pincers and crow bar are historically significant as the were made by Carl Konemann. The Konemanns’ are regarded as one of the early pioneering families in Fairfield, providing the essential services of horse shoeing, tool making and repairs and coach building. One of Carl’s sons, Cecil is a Fairfield resident, along with many of the Konemann’s descendents.

The Georgian style late Federation cottage in Vine Street, formerly owned by the Carl and Alice Konemann, is an identified, although unlisted heritage item in Fairfield City Council’s ownership, and the future potential use of the house and its curtilage is still to be determined.[11]

The pincers have strong provenance. They were used by Carl Konemann in his blacksmithing business either at The Crescent or at 97 Vine Street, Fairfield, from 1900 to the late 1930s, and were donated to the Museum by his grandson, Victor Konemann in 2004. The crowbar, which was forged by Carl Konemann, was donated to the Museum in 2003 by Mr Ron Amos. Amos’ father had purchased the crowbar from Konemann in the 1930s. Farming implements such a scythe, a pitchfork, a shovel, a sickle, and other blacksmithing tools such flat and round sharpening stones, and a sledgehammer used by Carl Konemann, were also donated to the Museum by Victor Konemann.

The pincers and crow bar have interpretive significance. The pincers, sledgehammer, sharpening stones and the crowbar could be appropriately displayed in the recreated blacksmith’s shop on site at the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery where a blacksmith plies his trade over the forge, for visitors two or three times a week.

Gapps, Stephen. Fairfield: evolution of a migrant city. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, 2008.

Smith, Keith, (compiled by). The Settler’s Guide – A biased selection from The Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, 1810-1910. Thomas Nelson. Melbourne. 1981.

Synnott, K. (ed) The Farmers’ Handbook. Department of Agriculture, Sydney. Government Printer. 1938.

[1] Smith, Keith (1981), p.95

[2] Interview with Cecil Konemann

[3] Ibid.

[4] Interview with Cecil Konemann, November, 2008.

[5] Interviews with Carl’s descendents – Cecil Konemann, Marie Konemann, Margaret Brookes, Marlene, Riley, Victor Konemann, Phil Konemann and David Leroy, January, 2009.

[6] McKerihan, Kim. Reflections of Fairfield. A Fairfield City Council Project. 1989

[7] Mr Ken Morris’ account, in Reflections of Fairfield.

[8] Information provided in interviews with Cecil Konemann and his sister Marie, two of Carl’s three surviving children, November, 2008.

[9] Doris (1901), (her mother was Carl’s first wife Jessie Scott, who died),Carl Heinrich (1906), Elfrida (1907), Augusta (1909), Albert (1912), Paul (1913), Rudolph (1914), Max (1916), Arthur (1918), Victor (1920), Cecil (1922), Morris (1924), Marie (1925), Roy (1927), and Percy Konemann (1930).

[10] Interviews with extended family members, January, 2009.

[11] Information provided by Graham Hall, Heritage Advisor, Fairfield City Council, November, 2008.

Fairfield Oktoberfest beer steins

Collection

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Object name and number

Beer Stein, with the Fairfield Oktoberfest inscription, 1990 and the German-Austrian Society of Australia Logo, ID No. 2004.031 and Eisstock (Icestick) wooden game piece, ID No. 2004.033

Location

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Smithfield, permanent exhibition

Object descriptions

Beer stein with handle, pale grey ceramic, 500ml, made by Ellscho/Australia for the German-Austrian Society of Australia and its Fairfield Oktoberfest, 1990. The emblem on the stein shows a map of Australia with a centred motif of an edelweiss flower and the date ‘1990′. The emblem is surrounded by the inscription, “Fairfield – Original Oktoberfest City”. The stein is in new condition.

The eisstock game piece has a solid wooden base, domed shaped with a turned wooden handle in the centre. The entire piece is made of oak and the base has a metal rim.

‘Eisstock’ game piece

The 1990 Oktoberfest beer stein along with the traditional large three litre Lowenbrau beer steins have been used each year at Fairfield Oktoberfest celebrations from the first Oktoberfest in 1970 until 1990. Held on the Labour Day long weekend (the first weekend in October) at Fairfield Showground, Sydney’s original Oktoberfest attracts in the order of 30,000 people to the festival of German food and beer tasting, brass bands, yodelling and folk dancing, particularly Schuhplattler, a popular German slap dance.

The original Oktoberfest wheat beer brewed according to traditional German purity laws, which only allows water, barley, malt, hops and yeast to be used in the brewing process, is served on tap. The festival is opened when the President of the German-Austrian Club taps the first barrel of beer and cries out, “Ozapft is” (”it is tapped”).

The ceramic beer steins were in use until they were replaced by glass steins in the 1990s. With the growing number of patrons increasing each year, safety was a consideration and plastic steins have been used for the past ten years. The German-Austrian Society purchases 11,000 steins for the event and each beer stein is inscribed with the date and a new design emblem each year to record the occasion.

The 500ml Oktoberfest beer stein and wooden eisstock were donated to the Fairfield City Museum and Gallery by Walter Schmied, on behalf of the German-Austrian Society of Australia in 2003 The Oktoberfest beer stein dated 1990 was one of the last ceramic steins made for the Club before they introduced glass steins. Walter Schmied has been the President of the Society for the past 23 years, and is still a team eisstock player.

Walter Schmied was born in Neda, Austria in 1935, and went to school in St Polten, where he later worked as a cabinetmaker and joiner. The school was located in the Russian occupied zone where Walter was educated in Russian and English. His wife-to-be was torn between staying in Austria with Walter because of his good job, and being separated from her parents who were migrating to Australia. To alleviate the separation, Walter agreed to migrate to Australia for two years as an Assisted Migrant on the Toscana, arriving in Sydney on 16^th June 1959. A return visit to Europe in 1969 helped Walter decide that his future lay in Australia.[1]

Walter’s skills allowed him to undertake employment in shop-fitting and furniture making and over 26 years he worked his way up to Production Manager at Chiswell Furniture. With the plane his uncle had given him in Austria, he put it to professional use, in the building of his house in Canley Vale, and in the making of numerous tables and chairs to furnish the German-Austrian Club at Cabramatta.

Walter’s most prized possession is the Golden Award Cross, which was presented to him on 21^st April, 1994 by the President of Austria for the contributions he has made to the Austrian community in Australia.[2]

Following an agreement between the Australian Government and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1952, the numbers of Germans entering Australia would be determined annually by mutual consultation. By 1954 the Census figures listed the German population as 65,422, reaching 109,315 in 1961, with 84% being Assisted Migrants.[3]

German clubs that operated before the war could no longer accommodate the needs of increasing numbers arriving after 1950. The idea to form a Club in the western suburbs began in the mid 1950s when German and Austrian community members held social occasions and dances in various hired halls in Cabramatta, Liverpool and Blacktown. The Club was registered under the Companies Act in 1956 with over 600 members, but without a specific venue. Proceeds from numerous fund raising events, enabled two properties to be purchased at 73-75 Curtin Street on the eastern side of the railway line at Cabramatta in 1961, with the foundation stone being laid by the former Prime Minister of Australia and member for Cabramatta, Mr Gough Whitlam in 1965.

Later that year the chalet-style club house was opened as the Deitsch-Österreichische Gemeinschaft (the German-Austrian Club) to support leisure and welfare activities of migrant settlers. Polish, Croatian, Swiss and Yugoslav migrants who spoke German also became involved.

German Austrian Club, 73-75 Curtain Street, Cabramatta. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, March 2009.

The entrance and interior to the main auditorium of the German-Austrian Club are decorated with scenes of various cities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland painted by a Club member, Rolf Sieber, with German and Austrian flora and flags embellishing each side of the stage in the auditorium and capturing the essence of both cultures.

In the planning of the first Oktoberfest in Fairfield, alternatives had to be considered as the Club’s premises were not suitable as a venue. The first Oktoberfest was held at the Fairfield Showground in 1970, setting the scene for many other cultural clubs and organizations to celebrate national occasions at the showground. Mr Schmied recalls:

It was an extremely hot day, and the numbers predicted to attend were underestimated. It was something new and Australians poured in and discovered our foods, drink and music. It was a huge success and continues to be so.[4]

In addition to organising the annual Oktoberfest, the Club originally offered an extensive programme of entertainment and sporting activities focusing on traditional German and Austrian card games such as Kniffel, Jäergruppe, Schnapsen, Skat, and recreational pursuits such as Eisstock schiessen (icestock shooters), air-rifle shooting and folk dancing. Folk dancing in traditional costume is no longer a regular event at the Club, but the broader community are privileged to experience the spectacle at the Oktoberfest each year.

Folk dancing at the 2008 Oktoberfest. Photograph – Fairfield City Champion, 1 October, 2008

Patronage is dwindling with the age of members, the limited involvement of the second generation, many because they do not speak German, and the decrease in migrant numbers to perpetuate the cultural activities of the club. Some of the activities of the Club have discontinued as a result. With changes to Australia’s immigration policies, the German migrants from 1980s onward were of a different type to those arriving in the 1950s and 1960s. Those arriving after 1980 were well educated, had sufficient command of English and had left their home country for completely different reasons. “The old-fashioned atmosphere is said to hold little appeal for them”.[5]

In Germany and Austria, the game of eisstock (ice stick shooting) is a team game played on ice in winter and a smooth surface in summer. Each team member, with 6 as the minimum number, throws the piece by the handle at a small metal puck, with the challenge being to move the goal away from previous contestants who were closer to the target puck.

Eisstock game, German-Austrian Club, Cabramatta. Photograph by Jurgen Steiner, 19/3/09

The Club’s Ice stock shooters originally played in teams on the polished wooden floor surfaces of the Club’s Auditorium with solid wooden ice sticks with weighted metal gliding plates on the base like the one donated to the Museum. As the name implies, the game piece was intended for use on ice surfaces either indoors or outdoors in the countries of origin of the game. In 2001 the Club and the Icestock Shooters built the outdoor arena adjacent to the Club, to international competition standards with voluntary labour. Members meet weekly and over the years have performed extremely well in Australian and International competitions.

On the concrete playing surface of the arena, the Club uses modern and highly technical metal ice stock game pieces. Each eisstock has various metal plates that are screwed onto the base to modify the direction or speed at which the hurling of the eisstock will finish in relation to the target puck at the other end of the arena.

The wooden turned eisstock is now a ‘museum piece’, although still used on ice in Europe.

Metal eisstock and detachable plates and on the left, and a wooden eisstock on the right. Photograph by Jurgen Steiner, 19/3/09

The Bier stein and eisstock game piece are social and culturally significant. The German-Austrian Society of Australia Club was formed to assist Post World War II migrants to resettle into suburban Fairfield community life between 1945 and 1960, and fulfil an important social and cultural role in an alienating culture. After moving from the temporary accommodation at the Migrant Hostels at Cabramatta, Villawood and Scheyville, German and Austrian migrants were able to congregate and engage in familiar cultural and recreational pursuits after long days working, sometimes at more than one job.

The Club is now an integral part of community life in Fairfield and attracts many other nationalities to celebrate milestones in their lives in the large Auditorium. Through the annual Ocktoberfest organised by the Club, Fairfield residents and beyond, have become acquainted with the food, beer, wine, folk dancing and the spirit of German-Austrian culture. The popularity of the Oktoberfest helps to maintain the operation of the Club[6].

The beer stein and the eisstock have interpretive significance as reminders to future visitors to Fairfield City Museum & Gallery of the impact that German and Austrian cultures have had on Fairfield. The mentioning of “Oktoberfest” becomes synonymous with ‘Fairfield’, the largest Oktoberfest event in the southern hemisphere and the third-largest in the world[7].

50^th Anniversary publication, German-Austrian Society 1956-2006

Gapps, Stephen. Fairfield: evolution of a migrant city. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery, 2008.

Kaplan, G., ‘Post War German Immigration’, in J. Jupp (ed.) The Australian People: An Encyclopaedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press, 2001

Tampke, Jürgen, The Germans in Australia. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2006

Websites

www.goethe.de/ins/au/lp/lrn/syd/enindex.htm

Footnotes

[1] Oral history interview with Mr Walter Schmied, September, 2008. Transcript held at the Fairfield City Museum & Gallery

[2] Oral history interview with Mr Walter Schmied, September, 2008. Transcript held at the Fairfield City Museum & Gallery

[3] Kaplan, G. In J. Jupp (ed) pp. 377-8

[4] Oral history interview with Mr Walter Schmied, September, 2008. Transcript held at the Fairfield City Museum & Gallery.

[5] Tampke, Jürgen, The Germans in Australia. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, 2006, p.148

[6] Personal conversation at the Clubhouse with Walter Schmied, 5/3/09

[7] Fairfield Advance, 1 October, 2008.

Convict bricks from the remains of the blacksmith’s shop at Horsley. Fairfield Museum & Art Gallery

Collection

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery

Object name and number

Convict sandstock bricks, “Horsley”, Horsley Park. ID No. 2005.156.1

Location

Fairfield City Museum and Gallery, Smithfield

Object description

Convict bricks, terra cotta in colour with evidence of sand and shell, with an indentation on one side, and a rough and pitted surface. Condition is fair. Dimensions: 2.3cm (9 in) x 1.10cm (4½ in) x 6.0cm (2½in). Typical of sandstock bricks produced up until 1850, they are smaller in depth than later sandstock bricks ranging from 6.4cm (2½ in) to 7.1cm (2¾ in).

The convict bricks from the former blacksmith’s shop at Horsley, were donated to the museum by Mrs Helen Kerfoot, the present owner of the historic homestead at Horsley Park, Fairfield. These particular bricks were from the site of half of the blacksmith’s shop that fell into disrepair in 1939 after winds in a storm blew off the roof. The central loft and the other half of the blacksmith’s shop remain and still house the large bellows used to flame the forge. Fire damaged exposed timbers of the remaining half of the blacksmith’s shop in 1983.

Lack of available tradesmen during the early years of WWII prevented the repair of the building. Also, a lack of building materials in general, saw many of these remanent bricks being given by the Moffitt’s to other families who were building in the area.[1]

Horsley Blacksmith Shop, the symmetrical building in the centre. Photograph courtesy of Grant Weston Pike from the Weston family album commissioned by Blanche Weston in 1880

Remaining half of the blacksmith’s shop 2009. Fairfield City Library and Museum Photographic Collection

Horsley stands on part of Colonel George Johnston’s 2000 acre land grant received in 1805 from Governor King for Johnston’s part in quelling an Irish convict uprising at Vinegar Hill in 1804. After Johnston’s death in 1823, his youngest daughter Blanche inherited the property, which was known as “King’s Gift”. Blanche married Captain George Edward Nicholas Weston who had served in the British army and as a judge in India[2]. Weston had come to N.S.W. in the 1820s to visit his brother William Francis Weston and liked what he saw of the colony.

In order to settle permanently in New South Wales, the Westons left for India in 1829 for two years to finalise Captain Weston’s private affairs and on their return in 1831, they brought with them George Weston’s two children. The family was extended by 4 girls and three boys, 9 children in total living at Horsley.

With the help of convict labourers, they built their large hipped roofed bungalow which in style, emulated Indian colonial architecture and the life Weston had experienced in India, complete with a team of Indian servants[3]. The house was named “Horsley” after Captain Weston’s family home, West Horsley Place near Ripley in Surrey, England.

To continue the fox hunting tradition of West Horsley Place, George Weston set up the first pack of fox hounds in Australia and basically lived a life of a gentleman.[4] The hounds were maintained at The Kennels on Western Road near Prospect[5], and were a proud possession as evidenced by an advertisement placed in the Australian, 2 September, 1904 by Weston threatening dire consequences if anyone is found to have a dog and a bitch of his that had strayed. Weston also established a vineyard, an orchard, reared bloodstock horses for local race meetings and exported horses to India[6], and kept deer as pets.

Horsley, c. 2000. Fairfield City Museum & Gallery Photographic Collection

Records show that the assisted immigration of Germans to help develop early colonial vineyards began with the voyage of Beulah, which arrived in Sydney on 4 April, 1849 from London. On board the Beulah were German vinedresser families assigned to owners of vineyards in New South Wales. These vinedressers, who were shipped down the Rhine from wine producing areas of south-west Germany to Rotterdam then London, were part of a scheme to supply labour for those occupations which could not be filled by British workers.[7]

Captn. Struben’s List of German Migrants per Beulah[8] shows two vinedressers, Jacob Dries and Adolph Johan Gustav Roese and wine cooper, Jacob Krallick were assigned to Edward Weston (Major George Edward Weston) of Horsley Park, Liverpool for a period of two years. It is not known how long after that indenture period that these vinedressers stayed on with the Westons or stayed anytime at all, as they often were “traded” between other vineyards in the area. While landowners may have applied for vinedressers, they may have been put to work as shepherds, general farm labourers or gardeners.

Vineyards extended over the surrounding hillside tended by the vinedressers, some of whom lived in the workers’ cottage adjacent, like the one still standing at Horsley. The German immigrants who worked at Horsley were among a strong contingent who helped to develop the wine industry in Western Sydney at that time, an industry which contributed to the nation’s exports towards the end of the 19^th century.

Vineyards and worker’s cottages, Horsley. Photograph courtesy of Grant Weston Pike from the 1880s Weston Family Album

An extensive cellar was included under the house for making wine, complete with long sloping timber rails to roll the casks into the cellar[9]. The southern cooler side of the cellars, separate rooms were used as butchery with a chopping block, another for milk, and the third for cheese and butter making, all in close range to the kitchen, and helping to sustain a large family and workers on the western extremity of Sydney.

Crushing grapes in the cellar at Horsley early 19^thCentury[10] Courtesy State Library of NSW

Blanche Weston continued to live in the house after her husband’s death in 1856 until her death in 1904 at the age of 98yrs. The home remained in the possession of Blanche Weston and her descendants for 110 years, including her daughter Mrs Augusta Smart and Miss Perry (granddaughter of Mrs Weston), who operated Horsley as an unofficial guest house in the 1920s.

Just over a century later from when Horsley was built, Frederic and Nell Moffitt bought Horsley in 1939, passing it on to their two daughters in the 1960s, Mrs H. Kerfoot and Miss J. Moffitt. Horsley is still in their ownership.

One of the specifically Indian features of the Indian style bungalow was the large canvas hanging blind (known as a punkah) suspended from the ceiling in the centre of the dining room. A rope and pulley device was attached and passed through a metal loop to an adjacent hallway where a servant, (a waller) would pull the rope to fan diners. When the Moffitts arrived at Horsley just months before the outbreak of WWII, Mrs Moffitt had the punkah removed as “there were no punkah wallers to operate the fans”, and replaced them with electric lights.[11]

To their surprise, the Moffitts found that there was no bath house or room, as bathing was taken in a hipbath which was moved from bedroom to bedroom. One of the six bedrooms was promptly turned into a bathroom[12]. As Frederic Moffitt worked in Sydney as an accountant, sharefarmers were engaged to use the 65 acres for market gardening during WWII and later for dairying. The sharefarmers were accommodated in the cottage once used by workers in the vineyards.

Convict Bricks

While the many bricks, like this example in the Museum’s collection, were used to build and make Horsley homestead and its outbuildings a significant historic asset in Fairfield, the role the makers of the bricks played in the development of the colony is also important.

The brickmakers were transported convicts who were assigned to the private owner of Horsley, Major George Weston. The convict gang used in 1831 at Horsley Park, were one of the last consigned to private developers prior to the cessation of convict servitude and the handmoulding of bricks was replaced with brickmaking machines. While the house and other brick buildings on the site were being built, the Westons themselves lived in a marque on site. By 1841, the Census showed that the number of assigned convicts working on properties were a mere handful.

For properties on the outskirts of Sydney, it was cheaper to hand mould the bricks and either cure them in temporary kilns, or to sundry the bricks on site, rather than to have them transported to the site by drays over rough roads. The bricks made at Horsley were sun dried.[13] The hand moulding brick makers, whether convict or free labourers, were in demand as it was a skill which took months to acquire. The clay for the bricks was obtained from the dam paddock which is now part of a residential subdivision[14].

The mould would have been an open rectangular wooden frame and the top edge may have been fitted with metal strips to keep the shape and to prevent ware. The size of the wooden brick mould was made to allow for shrinkage during firing and drying. An Australian authority on the manual process advised that the mould should measure 9½ x 4½ x 3¼ inches to achieve the required size of 9 x 4½ x 3 inches[15], although there was no standardised size for bricks throughout the nineteenth century. The mould was then dusted with sand to allow the clay to slip away easily, hence the origin of the term ‘sandstock’. Bricks were coated with dry sand to prevent them adhereing to other surfaces, and allowed to dry. Bricks from this process were often soft and of low quality due to the inefficient temperature control of the wood fire or the sun.

The marks on the brick relics show that of a heart, which, along with the diamond, spade and club, were popular symbols. The desired imprint mark was usually handcarved from wood and screwed or nailed to the stockboard attached to a workbench, which the upper or ‘strike’ face of the brick was placed over. Frogmarks were used to identify either the brickmakers or the owner of the house to avoid theft. 

Wooden brick mould used by hand moulders

The lack of natural deposits of lime for mortar in the Sydney region meant that the quality of many bricks was poor, making it necessary for adding hair, animal or human, with the sand and water to bind the brick. While there was surveillance of assigned gangs by the military, there was not the same requirement to oversee the quality of the output. The problem of leaky brickwork and dampness plagued early buildings, which needed to rely on regular whitewashing with lime and water to retard dampness. Fashion as well as necessity from the early 1830s required the brick walls of houses to be stuccoed. As the walls of the house are double brick and without cavities, living conditions experienced by the current owner, Mrs Helen Kerfoot, are that the interiors are cool in summer and cold in winter.[17]

Convict clay brick drains are still visible around the base of the house and their purpose was to channel water from the roof, which was originally gutterless, to an underground water well to the west of the kitchen.[18] The dome covered well or tank remains visible on site, and gutters now feed rainwater to an aboveground tank.

The original grant was 2000 acres, and the current curtilage of the homestead is 9½ acres, having been reduced substantially by a number of subdivisions. Some of the brick walls on the outbuildings are lime washed and need to be regularly rewashed. The bricks of the main house are lime plastered, although rising damp from the porous bricks is a continual problem to be managed.

The convict brinks are historically significant because Horsley House is the only Australian colonial house that can be directly related to Anglo-Indian architecture. Not only the design with a punkah in the dining room to fan diners, but also details and fittings such as the folding casement doors and the louvered jhilmils (shutters)[19] made of teak, all purchased through connections the Westons had in India.[20]

Additionally, the house and complex is an excellent example of a self-contained country estate of the early 19^th century, with extensive out-buildings behind the house including an estate office/library, kitchen, servant’s quarters, and stables still existent. The former kitchen, office and house retain much of the original lathe and plaster internal walls, original windows, doors, and hardwood board floors and shingle roof under corrugated iron roofing. Servants’ bells, which linked the service area to activities in the house, are still visible under the roof of the back verandah.

Horsley and its complex of outbuildings and cultural landscape is of National, State and local significance and, as a residential building, is the second oldest building in Fairfield, the oldest being the Male Orphan School Superintendent’s residence built in 1826 at Bonnyrigg.

The convict bricks have interpretive significance as evidence of building skills and economic growth that occurred on the outskirts of Sydney through the homestead estates, and no doubt enhanced by the use of free convict labour. The convict constructed home and outbuildings at Horsley bear witness to the many pioneering endeavours that flourished there for some 75 years. It is a tribute to all the owners and carers that this important part of our colonial built environment has been preserved for future generations.

The Horsley estate represents one of the last examples of a purpose built village on the fringe of Sydney supplying and maintaining all the needs of the occupants down to cheese and butter making and storing cellar rooms, although most of the outbuildings are now not used for their original purposes.

Bibliography

Broadbent, James, Rickard, Suzanne and Steven, Margaret. India, China, Australia: Trade and Society 1788-1850. Historic Houses Trust of NSW. Glebe, 2003.

Gemmel, Warwick. And so we graft from six to six – The brickmakers of NSW. Angus & Robertson Publishers. London. 1986.

Mort, Eilene. The Westons of Horsley. Transcribed and arranged from records collected by Nora Kate Weston, daughter of the second son (Frederick Weston) of Major General George Edward Nicholas Western. Mitchell Library MSS 1462/4x

Patterson, Jenny. “German Immigrant Ships to Eastern Australia – Resources and Problems. Part 1: Beulah 1849“. Ances-tree, vol. 16, no. 1, March, 2003.

Ringer, Ron. The Brickmasters 1788 – 2008. Dry Press Publishing Pty Ltd, Horsley Park, N.S.W. 2008.

Roxburgh, Rachel. Colonial Farm Buildings of New South Wales. Rigby, Adelaide. 1978.

The Horsley Park NSW – Architectural Assessment, January 1982, prepared for the Heritage Council of NSW by Clive Lucas Pty Ltd.

Varman, Robert Victor Johannes, Bricks and Nails: Building materials as criteria for dating Sydney and environs from 1788. A Documentary Survey and Assessment of Dating Potential. A thesis submitted for Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Prehistoric and Historical Archaeology, University of Sydney, September, 1993.

Weston, Bert E. Personal documents, Mitchell Library, DOC20136, relating to Weston land grants at Horsley, Horsley Park and West Horsley at Dapto.

[2] Weston, Bert E. Personal documents. Mitchell Library dated 20/11/1972, p. 3

[3] Cumberland Argus, 3 September, 1904

[4] Weston, Bert E., p. 4

[5] Mort, Eilene. The Westons of Horsley. 1943.

[6] Australian Town and Country Journal, 25 March, 1871

[7] Patterson, J. Pp. 17-23

[8] SRNSW Immigration, CES5239. Letters received from miscellaneous persons re migration to NSW, 1864-1897; 9/6193 with letter No. 49/3275

[9] Roxburgh, R., p. 135

[10] Mort, Eilene. Mitchell Library MSS 1462/4x

[11] At an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney in 2003, a replica of the dining room at Horsley complete with a set of shutters from Horsley, and a reconstructed punkah, coincided with the launch of James Broadbent’s India, China, Australia Trade and Society 1788-1850. Following the exhibition the punkah was given by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW to Mrs Kerfoot to be eventually reinstated at “Horsley”.

[12] Personal telephone discussions with Mrs Helen Kerfoot, 29/1/09

[13] Conversation between Mrs H. Kerfoot & Blanche Weston’s great-grandson, Bert Weston, personal telephone discussions with Mrs Helen Kerfoot,.29/1/09

[14] Personal telephone discussions with Mrs Helen Kerfoot, 29/1/09

[15] Varman, R., p. 16

[16] Ringer, R., p. 14

[17] Oral History interview with Mrs Helen Kerfoot, as part of the interview series The Way We Were, at the Whitlam Library, 3 September, 2003.

[18] Horsley, Architectural Assessment prepared by Clive Lucas Pty Ltd, January, 1982 for the Heritage Council of NSW, p. 9.

[19] Jhilmils – timber shutters with adjustable blades that could be angled to control the flow of natural light and breezes.

[20] Broadbent, James, p. 15.