This is the eighth article in a series of monthly columns written by Alan Henderson about Deniliquin district historical events and issues. Alan’s grandfather purchased ‘Warragoon’ on the Finley Road in 1912. Alan was born in the Deniliquin Hospital in 1944 but moved to Canberra in 1967. In retirement he has written a family history, Boots, Gold and Wool, and will share some of his research in this local history column.
Family historians frequently marvel at the hardships endured by their ancestors in regional Australia: No mains water, flush toilets, electricity, or automobiles.
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It is unlikely our great-grandparents saw it that way.
Like us, they were more likely focussed on the Jones’ down the street, or on the neighbouring farm, or thinking about life in Melbourne or overseas.
As to overseas, the comparison would have been heartening because “for some period during the latter half of the nineteenth century it appears (that Australia) recorded the world’s highest standard of living”. (Ian McLean, Why Australia Prospered, 2012).
Nineteenth century Australians did not travel as frequently as we do in the absence of a pandemic, but a huge proportion of them were born overseas.
In the decade before my great-grandfather arrived in Melbourne with his parents and siblings in 1853, he owned a boot shop in Glasgow.
He had moved to Glasgow because it had become “the centre of a cotton spinning region”, at the forefront of the industrial revolution in Scotland.
However, the social consequences of industrialisation were severe.
One report described Glasgow as “possibly the filthiest and unhealthiest of all the British towns of this period”.
As the alluvial gold rush in Victoria faltered, sales at my great-grandfather’s boot shops slowed, and opportunities for his brothers narrowed.
They all entered the 1860s selection ballots for land, rather than pursue opportunities in Melbourne, Geelong, or Ballarat.
Melbourne may have had too much in common with Glasgow.
Sanitary conditions were poor, contributing to higher mortality rates than in regional Victoria.
Its population increased by more than 50 per cent in the decade to 1871, and most public facilities “were stretched beyond their limits. In particular the city was badly drained, its inhabitants were poorly housed, and the provision of water supply and sewerage had been outpaced. In many ways, Melbourne was simply a large unsanitary village.” (J M Powell, 1973).
My great-grandfather selected land east of Echuca in 1865.
I do not know whether he ever visited Deniliquin, but if he had caught the train north he would have been impressed.
In the early 1880s, the eminent Sydney Morning Herald journalist Charles Lyne wrote that Deniliquin was:
“Prettily situated by a river, and with the well-formed streets nicely planted with trees, the green appearance of which contrasts very agreeably with the colour and material of the buildings, a first view of the town is very pleasing. One of the hotels is kept in the very best style and is equal to first-class hotels in Sydney.”
No doubt he was referring to John Taylor’s Royal Hotel in End Street, built in the late 1850s.
It was a “handsome two story, red brick slate roofed mansion, complete with verandah and balcony. It included a billiard room, bowling alley, shower rooms, bathrooms and 14 suites with lounge rooms”.
Initially, prosperous guests at the Royal Hotel would have arrived by coach or in their personal horse drawn conveyance.
The journey by coach from Moama would have taken seven to eight hours.
From July 1876, they would have arrived on the train, with the journey both faster - about 2.5 hours - and much more comfortable.
Most guests continuing beyond Deniliquin would have travelled on coaches until automobiles emerged in the early decades of the 20th century.
Mains water came from the Memorial Park water tower, which operated from late 1883.
The hotel would have been able to access mains water from the tower which operated from late 1883, somewhat later than planned because the original water pump engine was on a ship lost at sea on the journey from England.
The streetlights in the town were powered by gas from April 1887.
In 1909 the powerhouse opened, and the town continued to generate its own electricity until the Electricity Commission of NSW took over in 1961. (John E P Bushby, Saltbush Country, 1980)
The powerhourse for the Memorial Park water tower opened in 1909.
In the post-World War II decades, automobile ownership increased dramatically.
Following developments in the US, the emergence of motels and single brand service stations transformed streetscapes, including End St, Deniliquin.
Late in the 1950s a syndicate of locals acquired the Royal Hotel with a view to securing its future.
However, as the chairman of the syndicate, Jack Webb of Lindifferon, wryly observed that too many of the syndicate members were more familiar with the customers’ side of the bar than the manger’s side.
It was sold to the McGrath family, Sydney hoteliers, and demolished in 1962 to make way for the Coach House Hotel Motel.
Nearby, the Highlander Inn was demolished to make way for a Caltex service station (where Homes Out West now stands).
The 19th century squalor of Melbourne has been addressed, but in 2017, Melbournians spent an average of 65 minutes each day commuting to and from work.
Would it be more than ten minutes in Deniliquin?
Deniliquin’s Royal Hotel in 1862. It was demolished 100 years later to make way for the Coach House Hotel.
