Shopping on the Hawkesbury - Trove Tuesday

The Hawkesbury district covers a wide area and many inhabitants had to travel long distances to access businesses and shops. A characteristic fairly unique to the Hawkesbury were the floating store boats which travelled up and down the Hawkesbury waterways in the late 19th and 20th century, providing provisions to remote communities. 

The store boats came in varying sizes; there were smaller vessels as well as those that were very well set-up selling drapery, groceries, ironmongery and other commodities. Some were fitted with counters and the boats travelled up and down the Hawkesbury, Colo and Macdonald Rivers. Some of the early operators included John Dennett, Henry Walker, as well as brothers William and Charlie Wood. Entrepreneur Charles Hatte, a Newtown merchant, took over Theodore Chaseling’s store boat and general store at Wisemans Ferry in the 1890s. Along with Henry Macnamara, who was in charge of operating the boats. At a later stage, Henry in conjunction with Robert Cameron, established a new partnership trading along the river. One of their main vessels was the ‘Camac’ named after a combination of their surnames Cameron and Macnamara. 

Shop boat on the Hawkesbury.
Illustration from the Evening News  24 December 1904

The local newspapers on Trove are a wealth of information about the boats. In years gone by, farmers grew most of their own food but in an article in the Evening News newspaper in 1904, an old resident who lived along the Hawkesbury River stated "in the early days we knew nothing about new fangled things" - she was trying to decide "between the purchase of 'cold drawn' castor oil" or patent pills. All sorts items were sold including clothing, millinery and shoes and boots. Alcohol, soft drinks, are sold next to babies' teething soothers, crockery and hardware lines. The newspapers of the day state that the trader must be exceptional - not only must he carry everything, but he also has to "convince his customer of her needs and his complete ability to meet them." The prices must also be competitive particularly as transport improved in the early 20th century and settlers were able to more easily journey into Windsor or Richmond shopping. 

Several businesses also supplied residents along the river with the necessities of fresh bread and meat. The Moses family operated one of the bread boats for many years from 1910 whilst Walter Singleton, Barney Morley and Wal Jones are remembered as popular identities from the 1920s-1930s and later.

The boats provided a much needed service and also brought with them news. It wasn't always the women who wanted to find out was was happening. According to an article in the Windsor & Richmond Gazette in the 1930s, "men always stay to gossip, probably because men run the boat. Pipes are stuffed firmly and a comfortable seat is found on a sack of something. Then the news of the day is checked."

The storeboats are long gone, people drive to local shopping centres for their supplies or order things via the internet. It is hard to imagine the time when one had to wait for the storeboat to make its weekly journey up the river. 

1874 technical details of the Windsor Bridge

The Windsor Bridge over the Hawkesbury River was officially opened on the 20 August 1874. The town celebrated in great style with about 7000 attendees and the day was observed as a general holiday. The Australian Town & Country Journal published the interesting sketch below, as well as an informative article about the construction of the newly opened Windsor Bridge on the 22 August 1874.

The New Bridge over the Hawkesbury at Windsor. Australian Town & Country Journal, 22 August 1874, p. 20. 

 The article, retrieved from Trove, is reprinted in full below:

This want of a bridge over the Hawkesbury River at Windsor has been felt for many years. In 1864, [politician James Augustine Cunneen 1826-1899] presented a petition from the inhabitants of the district for the erection of a bridge at Windsor, but it was not until June, 1871, that the Legislative Assembly voted the necessary funds for the construction of a low level bridge.

There was much diversity of opinion as to the advisability of constructing a low level bridge at the site proposed, as the floods rise there to a height of more than 50 feet above low water. The Commissioner and Engineer for Roads was however, instructed by the Government to prepare designs for a low level bridge, and to invite tenders for its construction. Mr. Andrew Turnbull's tender was accepted in December 1871 and the work began on the 15 January 1872.

According to the original design, the total length of the bridge was to be 406 feet, composed of eight main spans of 44 feet each, and of two approaches 32 feet and 22 feet respectively. The abutments were to be of timber; and the nine intermediate piers of cast iron cylinders and screw piles braced with strong wrought iron beams. The screw piles and cylinders to be sunk to the rock, and lewised thereto by heavy wrought iron bolts, previous to being filled up with cement concrete.

In October 1872, three of the iron piers had been sunk 4 feet into the rock to the depth of 25 feet below river bed; each column was lewised with four inch bolt and filled up with strong cement and concrete, supporting a ring of 9-inch radiating bricks; enclosing a cone of concrete to the top of the pier. From the nature of the strata found in sinking those piers, it became doubtful whether screw piles could be used, as the bed of the river to the rock consisted of drift timber, silt, and boulders deposited by floods.

A test screw-pile, 2 foot 6 inches in diameter, was, however, put down in the middle of the stream; but the rock could not be reached, owing to the difficulty of removing the drift timber. Mr. Bennett, the Commissioner and Engineer for Roads, then decided to give up the screw-piles and to use cylinders for all the piers.

Many freshes and several heavy floods retarded operations; and the sinking of all the piers could not be completed until December, 1873. Although a few feet only of the iron columns appear above water, the cylinders reach to an average depth of 40 feet below summer level. By the use of the sand-pump and air-lochs, boulders, drift-wood, and logs, several feet in thickness, were removed at considerable depths, and each pillar firmly bedded and lewised four feet into the solid rock. The bracing beams were also fixed below water by divers, before the erection of the superstructure.

The extraordinary floods at Windsor which reach to a height of 51 foot above low water, or 36 feet above the decks of the bridge, made it necessary to have the superstructure unusually strong; and much ingenuity is shown in tho design for securely fastening it to the piers. The deck is 21 feet 6 inches wide; and is composed of planks five inches thick, securely fixed to five ironbark girders 17 and 18 inches by 16 inches and 44 feet long, strongly bolted to corbels and capsilla firmly secured to-the iron piers. The whole of the timber is ironbark, which has little buoyancy under water, and the girders are fine specimens of our colonial wood.

All the joints are covered with iron fish-plates, bolted with inch bolts, and it is evident from the massive fastenings throughout, and the great strength of the structure in every detail, that the engineer has taken every precaution to prevent the floods from making a breach in any part of the bridge. The handrail is also ingeniously contrived to protect it from the large quantity of drift timber brought down by the floods. The foot of every rail post swings on a stout bolt secured to the girders, and the top is jointed to a two-inch wrought iron pipe, provided with sockets and collars at every 44 feet; the total length being held in place by two iron couplings in such a manner that one man can lower the whole alongside the girders in ten minutes.

The amount of Messrs. Turnbull and Dixon's contract was £8287; but an additional expenditure of about £2000 was rendered necessary by the substitution of cylinders for screw piles in the piers, and by the addition of two spans to the bridge to prevent future encroachment on the approaches. It was observed that moderate floods bring large deposits of sand and drift; but that heavy floods scour the river bed to a considerable extent.

The total length of the bridge as completed is 480 feet. The abutment on the Windsor side is built of iron backed with masonry in cement; and that on the opposite bank is protected by sheet piling reaching below summer level. A new cutting has also been made on the Wilberforce side for the approach, which is covered with ironstone gravel. The number of cast-iron cylinders used in the piers is 130. They are six feet long, and 3 feet 6 inches in diameter, and their weight exceeds 150 tons. They were cast at the Mort's Dock and Engineering Works at Balmain; and are another instance of the facility afforded for such works by colonial establishments.

The inhabitants of the district may well be pleased at the completion of this fine bridge; and it will be satisfactory for them to know that it has been ascertained by the officers of the Department of Roads and Bridges, in reference to the traffic and the disastrous floods of the Hawkesbury River, that, while the deck of the Windsor bridge is free from flood, the Richmond bridge is covered with three feet eight inches of water, and that the Windsor bridge is crossable twenty-two hours after the stoppage of the traffic at the Richmond bridge.

Great credit is due to the contractors, Messrs, Turnbull and Dixon, for their energy and perseverance in carrying out, without any accident, such an important and difficult work, to the satisfaction of the Commissioner and Engineer for Roads.

More about the official opening of the bridge will follow.

Early days of Windsor

In 1916 the Publishing company Tyrell's Limited published the local history book titled "Early Days of Windsor" The book was originally written as a weekly series which appeared in the Windsor & Richmond Gazette from about 1914. The original series can be access via Trove.

Rev James Steele was the Presbyterian minister in Windsor and obviously took an interest in the history of the Hawkesbury. He spent "much time and labour in gathering his material and in disinterring from the somewhat dusty chambers of the past."

The book was reprinted by the Library of Australian History in 1977 and has been always been in demand. It recently became available under the auspices of Project Gutenberg Australia and Early Days of Windsor is now available to access for free. 

The book is based on Windsor and chapters are included on early settlement, origin of names, history of churches, schools, bridges, Hawkesbury Benevolent Society, local government as well as pioneering families and identities. The book is indexed and illustrated. If you have not consulted this little treasure, check it out.

Cover of  Early Days of Windsor