9 november, 2019 2.00 pm21 whistler street, manly i jumped the gun on this last issue when i...

Peninsula Historian Vol 12 #9 October 2019

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

For whatever reason, we are receiving an increasing numberof requests for help with local history enquiries. The majorityof them involve Manly, presumably because it is the oldestdeveloped part of the Peninsula. While we help wheneverwe can, most of the requests really should have gone to theLocal Studies Section of Northern Beaches Council. When wesuggest this to the enquirer it is surprising (and concerning)that most of them are not aware of this unit. It appears thatits profile needs to be lifted.

Still on the subject of approaches to the Society, as PresidentI get quite a number of invitations to give talks to variouscommunity groups. While, again, this can be timeconsuming, I accept as many as I can. It is a good way to bringour own Society to the attention of a wider audience and tohopefully get more people interested in our local history. Itraises our profile.

Speaking of local history, we were notified by the StateGovernment during the month that they have accepted therecommendation of the Heritage Council of NSW and listedIvanhoe Park, including Manly Oval, on the State HeritageRegister. This is reward for a lot of hard work over quite afew years by various people. I congratulate them on thesuccessful outcome.

Finally, given the success of last year’s event, we are againholding our Christmas party as the last meeting of the year.It will be Santa in lieu of a speaker The date will be Saturday9th November at the usual time of 2 pm. The notice is onPage 3. Please come along to what should be a veryenjoyable event. Guests are welcome and the charge is $20per person.

Richard Michell

NEWS AND VIEWS

NEXT MEETING, Saturday 12 October, 2019

Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Peter Sweeney RFD, will talk andgive a presentation on the submarine attack on Sydney Har-bour on the 31st May 1942. Peter served for 35 years inAustralian Army Reserve and was awarded the Reserve Force

FROM THE EDITOR

Further to the article by Keith Amos in the last Historian onthe Harbord Literary Institute, it has been realised that a timecapsule was “buried” behind the foundation stone when thebuilding was constructed a hundred years ago. The capsulehas now been retrieved and there will be an opening eventnext month. Keith is involved, as is the Society. There willalso be a process to replace it with a new capsule early nextyear. I will keep you informed.

This issue contains a continuation of the life of Lady Wake-hurst, the wife of a previous state governor and the source ofthe ferry name. I apologise that it contains probably far morethan you ever needed to know about her. It arose from mybeing asked to give a talk on the origin of the local nameWakehurst. If you would like to avoid having to read yetanother episode in a future issue, please send me somethingof your own!

Richard Michell

VOLUME 12 No. 9 October 2019 ISSN 1835-7628 (print) 2207-8401 (electronic)

DIARY

Meetings held at the NB Council Community Centre onthe corner of Abbott and Griffin Roads, North Curl Curl

12 October, 2019 2.00 pm

Midget submarine attack Peter Sweeney

Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Peter Sweeney RFD, will talkand give a presentation on the submarine attack on Syd-ney Harbour on the 31st May 1942. Peter is a militaryhistorian and a battlefield guide.

9 November, 2019 2.00 pm

Santa Claus Society Christmas Party

Come along to an afternoon of interesting and/or amusingvideos, some finger food and refreshments, and wonder-ful company. Cost $20 per person.


Decoration for his service. Today he is a military historian anda battlefield guide. His talk will include the wreck that lies offBungan Head.

LAST MEETING REPORT, Saturday 14 September, 2019

A record audience, including many visitors, watched a fascinat-ing newsreel of the early Sydney tram services and were thentreated to an impressive display of encyclopaedic knowledge -by Peter Kahn of Sydney’s tram services from all eras, includ-ing those on the northern beaches. Peter is the Public Rela-tions Officer with the Sydney Tramways Museum which isbased at Loftus.

The tram presentation proved so popular that we will have ashort film on the ones that ran on the north side of the har-bour at the Christmas party in November. So that is anotherreason to come along.

21 WHISTLER STREET, MANLY

I jumped the gun on this last issue when I reported that NBCouncil had placed an interim heritage order on the remnantof Thomas Rowe’s 1877 house. Rowe was the first Mayor ofManly. Council had actually decided to give a one month stayon the Development application in order to receive a heritagesignificance report and let the applicant make a submission. Iam pleased to report that the outcome of this process hasbeen the imposition of an interim order.

WORKING BEE

There is still more sorting of material and general cleaning upneeded at our Cromer room. A working bee is planned forSaturday 26 October between 9.00 and 11.30 am. If youwould like to help please contact Richard on 0417 255 726.

DATA ENTRY OF ARCHIVE ITEMS

We are going back to some of our older archived material andentering more detailed or descriptive information about someitems into our database. This is to facilitate future searchingand retrieval.

The work can be done at home provided you have a computerwith Microsoft Excel installed. If you would like to help pleasering Richard on 0417 255 726.

NSW STATE LIBRARY

The Library has recently released a new podcast - The BurialFiles - about the old Devonshire Street Cemetery that oncestood on the site of Sydney’s Central Station.

They are keen for as many people as possible know about itand have asked us to publicise it. Go to this linkhttps://audio.sl.nsw.gov.au/podcast/burial-files or to thelibrary’s web site and search for “The Burial Files”.

Wreckage of M24 midget submarine off Bungan HeadOffice of Environment and Heritage NSW

Current building at 21 Whistler Street,Manly

Manly tram depot, cnr Pittwater and Balgowlah Roadsc.1941 shortly after tram services had ceased


POT POURRI

Not so obscure now

One of our members, Henri Quin, has written to me asfollows:

I made a bit of an exciting discovery yesterday, whilebrowsing ST Gill's paintings. I have informed a few people,and thought perhaps you would like to hear of the discov-ery of probably the as yet oldest image of the originaltower built by Henry Gilbert Smith in 1856 which was, Ibelieve so far, the first camera obscura. John Morcombewas a big help in identifying the tower. The painting is atpresent in the hands of someone who is authenticating it.

They were completely wrong about the painting, thinkingit was of a semaphore tower that was never built onDobroyd Point. I got suspicious, and asked John. He hadnever seen the image before.

Vince, from Day Gallery has thanked me twice for identifying the tower in the picture. He said he had spent months researching itand felt he was going mad, the tower had to be SOMEWHERE. There are other photos of the camera obscura tower on oldpostcards. But the image Day Gallery in Blackheath has is a new find, painted around 1860.

Cadman’s Baths

Some time ago we had several articles related to the original Ladies’ Baths at Manly which were run by Mrs. Cadman of Cadman’sCottage fame. In sorting our archives we recently came across a copy of a newspaper advertisement from 1861 which isreproduced here. It is interesting to note that Mrs. Cadman was also a part owner of The Phantom.

Manly Cove and South Head From Constitution Hill(Fairlight) Manly, c1860, ST Gill

Early warning

Christmas party 9th November, 2019

2.00 pm

North Curl Curl Community Centre

Cnr. Abbott and Griffin Roads

$20.00 per head

Guests welcome

Payment method (EFT or cheque) as perdetails on Membership Form on next page

or cash at October meeting prior

Advertisement for Cadman’s Baths 1861


ARTICLE

LADY WAKEHURST (Continued)

Part 1 of this summary of the life of Lady Wakehurst (Margaret “Peggy” Tennant) was in the June issue. It covered her greatgrandfather and his creation of a large chemical manufacturing enterprise in Glasgow based on the production of bleach for cottoncloth.

In spite of the great wealth around her, Peggy’s childhood was a rather gloomy affair, made sadder when her handicapped sisterJean, born just a year after her, died aged 12 and she was not even told where she was buried. She was raised mainly by a nannyand, being a girl, did not go to school but was instead educated at home by a governess, in her case a rather unpleasant and notparticularly competent German woman.

Childhood was also made sinister by her mother's involvement, after her father’s death, with a man of the occult, Count Hamond,who persuaded her to invest a lot of money that was soon lost. On the positive side, her father left trust funds for each of histhree daughters by his second marriage, which was unusual and forward looking.

Following her mother’s remarriage, the family moved to a house, Greenhill, in Sutton Veny, Wiltshire. The outbreak of WW1liberated her to an extent. The German governess had to go and Peggy was sent to school for the first time, at age 14. She lovedit and was enormously relieved to find that she was not stupid, as her governess had told her continuously, but well up with theother girls.

So this was the family that Peggy was born into, almost exactly 100 years after hergreat grandfather received his bleaching patents. Her father, named Charles after hisgrandfather, was the son of John Tennant (1796–1878) and Robina Arrol. He tookover most of the family’s business interests, being president of the United AlkaliCompany, steering it into the formation of ICI. He was also chairman of the UnionBank of Scotland and of the Nobel Explosives Company. He sat as Member ofParliament for Glasgow from 1879 to 1880 and for Peebles and Selkirk from 1880 to1886. He was a Trustee of the National Gallery and was appointed a Member ofthe Tariff Commission in 1904. In 1885 he was created a Baronet.

In 1852, Tennant purchased The Glen, an estate in southern Scotland, and commis-sioned architect David Bryce to design a new house, which was completed in 1855. Hedied in June 1906 in Broadoaks, Byfleet, Surrey, aged 82.

Charles Tennant's first marriage was to Emma Winsloe, daughter of Richard Winsloe,in 1849. They had 12 children. After her death in 1895 he remarried in 1898 toMarguerite Agaranthe Miles, daughter of Charles William Miles and cousin of Sir PhilipMiles. They produced a further four children, all girls. His second wife was a talentedamateur musician and he bought the Lady Tennant Stradivarius violin for her as a gift.(On April 22, 2005, the Lady Tennant Stradivarius sold for a record US$2,032,000at Christie's auction in New York).

The Tennant’s Glasgow chemical factory in1933, shortly after the formation of ICI

Sir Charles Clow Tennant, 1st Baronet(4 November 1823 – 4 June 1906)

Glen House, still owned by the Tennant family


But this situation did not last long. The village of SuttonVeny was close to Warminster and Salisbury Plain, wheretroops were barracked and trained prior to deploying tonorthern France. After the British battalions left SuttonVeny for France in 1915 and 1916, the Australian Com-monwealth Military Forces, who were stationed in thevillage and in the area, took over Greenhill House as anR&R establishment and the family moved out.

Referring to Greenhill, a 1915 brochure stated: Situatedin the midst of the largest A I F training and convalescentdepots in Great Britain, this mansion, containing over 50rooms, and with spacious lawns and grounds, offeredideal possibilities for rest and recuperation for war wearytroops.

With the change in family circumstances Peggy was taken out of school and put under another governess with her three siblings.However, wanting to do more, she became a Red Cross volunteer, working with blind soldiers. This activity came to an end in1918 when she caught the Spanish flu in the epidemic that swept Europe.

The war also meant that she did not go to a finishing school in France as would have been her lot in peaceful times. With its endjust a few days after her 19th birthday, her mother decided to give her a coming out ball and she was also presented to Court atBuckingham Palace. She went briefly to a finishing school in London, run by some French ladies, and also enrolled in art school.

Greenhill House, Sutton Veny

However social life did not interest her much. Inspired by her Red Cross work and thewounded soldiers at Greenhill, she wanted to be a doctor but this was impossible givenher lack of education.

Early in the war Peggy met Lady Sybil Smith. They met through golf which both playedwell. Lady Smith was the daughter of William McDonnell, 6th Earl of Antrim, and LouisaMcDonnell, Countess of Antrim, and the wife of Hugh Smith, 1st Baron Bicester. Shewas a politically active woman who had been a suffragette and she impressed Peggygreatly. She saw that there could be another life for women outside of the social worldand motherhood.

Whatever her failings, her mother did encourage the sisters to be independent. Theyhad their own bank accounts from 18 years onwards.

It was through Lady Smith that, in 1918, Peggy met John Loder. Four years older, he wasthe eldest son of Gerald Loder, Conservative MP, whose father was descended from aprominent Sussex family and whose mother traced her heritage back to an illegitimatechild of Charles II. He was educated at Eton College, where he excelled in history andlanguages, with a particular interest in drama and, although originally intending to goto Trinity College, Cambridge, with the outbreak of the First World War he was insteadcommissioned into the 4th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment.

He was sent to Gallipoli and took part in the disastrous Suva Bay offensive where 20,000 troops were lost. He survived but camedown with jaundice and was hospitalised in Cairo where he was declared not fit for active service and transferred to Intelligencein Port Said. Loder had an interest and some knowledge of the Middle East as his mother held the delusion that she had lived inEgypt in a previous incarnation. He served as an intelligence officer in Egypt and Palestine.

John Loder was a shy man of whom Peggy Tennant wrote: 'His appearance was rather startling, with his auburn hair and a deepsunburn from his years in the Middle East during the war.' He left the British Army in 1919 with the rank of captain and moved toLondon, working with the Foreign Office. For his services, he was Mentioned in Despatches. Peggy Trennant was also living inLondon and they became friends.

Through John Loder, Peggy learnt about, theatre and music. His mother had made him lead a sheltered life while growing up andhe and his siblings had developed a talent for self-entertainment, putting on plays with full costumes and elaborate sets. Althoughshy, he retained a talent for dressing up and playing a role all of his life.

Loder proposed to Peggy during a walking tour on the Isle of Skye, just a year after they met, and the couple married on 3 June1920. Loder immediately introduced Peggy to his passion for travel. They spent their honeymoon travelling in France and theirfirst Christmas in Carthage, North Africa where they also went by camel to Tunis and Algiers.

John Loder in 1937, nine yearsafter his marriage


In London they lived at her home at 31 Lennox Gardens,a five-storey house, which they supported jointly on hispay and her allowance. Lennox Gardens is one of themost exclusive garden squares in theKnightsbridge district of London and Peggy retainedownership of this house all of her life.

John Loder’s grandfather Giles had gone to St. Peters-burg in Russia in the first half of the seventeenth centuryto work for the Busk family who were Baltic merchants.With the growth in prosperity following the industrialrevolution, Britain could not supply all of its needs forgrain and some of the shortfall was made up by sourcingfrom Prussia, Poland and Russia. Giles Loder did verywell from this trade and, when he died in 1874 he hadamassed a fortune of three million pounds. He also lefthis future grandson with a passion for travel.

John Loder’s father Gerald Loder, was a keen gardener and in 1903, to indulge his passion, he bought a 16th century mansion inWest Sussex, set in 500 acres. The name of the property was Wakehurst Place and when Gerald was raised to the peerage in1934 he was given the title Baron Wakehurst.

From 1919 to 1922 John Loder worked as a clerk in the Foreign Office in London and then for two years at the League ofNations in Geneva. The couple’s first child, a daughter Henrietta, was born in 1922. Loder still found time to indulge his interestin Egyptology and wrote his first book: The Truth about Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine (1923).

John and Peggy Loder shared an interest in the wider world. John’s family fortune had been generated through the activities ofhis grandfather in Russia and Peggy had grown up in a family with business interests in, and connections to, many places, includingRussia. But it was John who had the great passion for travel.

In 1924 he resigned the Geneva position and the couple went on a world tour, leaving their young daughter behind with a nanny.The tour was incredibly ambitious. They went to South America, to Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Panama. They thendecided, seemingly spontaneously, to go to Australia and boarded a moving cargo boat which had agreed to take them but notto actually stop to pick them up. On board were two officers, 20 crew and four male passengers. They arrived in Brisbane andthen visited Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, before catching the train to Perth.

John Loder had perhaps become more aware of Australia while at Gallipoli and in Egypt during the war. Peggy Loder may alsohave had an interest in Australia and in visiting it. Australian troops took over her mother’s home during the war and her family’sindustrial company sourced zinc and possibly some other metals from the BHP company in Broken Hill.

John Loder was initially unimpressed with Australia, describing Sydney as "afflicted with so much Victorian architecture of theworst kind", but by the end of their visit he had warmed to it, writing that Australia was "a splendid country with splendid people"possessing a "democratic spirit".

The train trip across the Nullabor had an enormous and lasting impact on Peggy. She met people on the train from backgroundsshe had never encountered. But it was the women she saw and spoke to at the stops at incredibly remote places that most

Lennox Gardens, Knightsbridge

Wakehurst Place, West Sussex, now a National Trust propertyand source of the local name Wakehurst

affected her. Quite a few of them were British,having married Australian servicemen they had metduring the war. She realised that they had to bestrong and independent, strongly self-sufficient. Itchanged her view of who she wanted to be.

Their return route to England was just as adventur-ous – Darwin, Singapore, Shanghai, Peking, Seouland finally Japan. She did not like Japan because ofthe very inferior and subservient position of wom-en. Overall, it was Australia that left the bigimpression. She saw what humans could do andcontrasted the welcoming “come in” nature of Aus-tralian society with the closed “keep out” mentalityin England.

To be continued.

Richard Michell


Manly, Warringah and PittwaterHistorical Society Inc.

Established 1924

PatronCurrently vacant

Websitewww.mwphs.com

Postal AddressPO Box 695 Manly, NSW 1655

PresidentRichard Michell0417 255 726

[email protected]

Senior Vice PresidentKevin Martin

[email protected]

Vice PresidentPhilip Dart

SecretaryDi Farina

[email protected]

Membership SecretaryAllan Burrowes

[email protected]

EditorRichard Michell0417 255 726

[email protected]

WebmasterBill Slessor

TreasurerRichard Michell

[email protected]

Assistant TreasurerDi Farina

ArchivistJan Tinkler

[email protected]

CHRISTMAS IN AUSTRALIA. (1865, December 16). Illustrated Sydney News (NSW : 1853 - 1872)Scene from East Esplanade, Manly with the Camera Obscura on the hill above Fairlight


Manly Warringah & Pittwater Historical Society Inc.

Membership Renewal/Application Form - 2019

Title: Dr/Mr/Mrs/Ms (please circle)

Name:

Age group (please tick): □ 10 – 18 □ 19 – 50 □ 51 – 70 □ 71 – 85 □ 86 – 95[Note: this information is required for insurance purposes; if two persons included in this application fall into different age bands please tick bothboxes]

Address:

State Postcode

Phone: (Home) (Bus.) (Mobile)

E-mail:

Signature:

Date:

MEMBERSHIP FEES $20 Single $25 Household (2 persons) or Organisation

FEE: $………..... as above, includes emailed copy of the Peninsula Historian

$12.00….. only if you require Peninsula Historian by post

DONATION: $..............

TOTAL: $.......….…. Do you require a receipt? Yes/No

PAYMENT METHODS

· By cheque or money order

Please make payable to ‘MWP Historical Society Inc’ and mail with the completed Renewal Form to:The TreasurerManly Warringah & Pittwater Historical Society IncPO Box 695MANLY, NSW 1655

[DO NOT MAIL CASH. If paying in person place cash, cheque or money order in an envelope together with the completedRenewal Form)

By Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)Account Details: Commonwealth Bank, Manly

Account Name: MWP Historical SocietyBSB Number: 062-197Account Number: 00907384

(If paying by EFT please ensure that you enter your name in the ‘to account description’ box and confirm your payment bysending an email to the Treasurer at [email protected]. This is essential for your correct identification and is particular-ly important if your payment is made through a Credit Union)

Join now and

get 15 month’s

mem

bership

9 november, 2019 2.00 pm21 whistler street, manly i jumped the gun on this last issue when i...

Documents