Supported by a Create NSW Arts and Cultural Grant
This chapter of the parsonage story may well have had its beginnings some four years earlier, in the impassioned discussions which took place within the Sydney diocese of the Church of England regarding the need ‘to provide the same opportunities for our girls in the Church of England, that are already enjoyed by our boys, and are afforded them in other churches.’[1] Their call was for educational equality specifically, and culminated in the creation of a ‘Girls’ High School Committee.’[2] At the Synod of the committee in 1891, chaired by former St. John’s Parsonage resident Archdeacon Günther, a report stated:
There is now some effective provision made in The King’s School and The North Shore Grammar School, to which might be added certain other Grammar Schools, in what were parochial school premises, for the education of boys in connection with The Church of England, but nothing has yet been done in this way for the higher education of girls.[3]
Given that Günther was himself an ‘old boy’ of The King’s School, Parramatta, a father of two daughters (only one living), and a former occupant of the parsonage who was thoroughly acquainted with the property’s features, as Hubbard suggests, it may be that Günther saw the historic church property as a perfect location where ‘the cause of the Girls’ High Schools Committee [could] be advanced….[T]hat while initially a private venture,’ a ladies’ college at The Cedars ‘might ultimately have been amongst the new breed of long-awaited Church of England girls’ infants, primary and secondary schools.’[4] The theory holds weight, because The Cedars’ links with the Church of England did not end with the historical church property of the parsonage or with Günther. The parsonage’s owner, Miriam Hayden, as we already know, was the widow of the late Reverend Thomas Hayden, rector of St. John’s Church, Darlinghurst in Cadigal Country, but even more telling is the fact that Reverend Hayden had also taught at St. John’s School, Darlinghurst, and was a passionate advocate for ‘instructing children in the knowledge of God’ in an era when the rivalry between church and state education had become pronounced.[5] As such, the wealthy widow Mrs. Hayden would have been an ideal benefactor when private, faith-based schools relied on ‘large endowments’ to make them a reality.[6] Considering the parsonage’s early connections to Parramatta’s first Sunday School, which helped to educate the earliest generations of colonial born children who might otherwise have remained illiterate, in many ways the building seemed destined to one day become a dedicated scholastic institution.
Yet again, Greenway’s parsonage design proved to be ‘excellently adapted’ for its new use.[7] Mrs. McLeod was barely settled in her new boarding establishment when a ‘Miss Gully, late of Potts Point’ announced in mid-December 1895 that, as of 13 January 1896, ‘The Cedars, Western-rd, Parramatta,’ would be a ‘College for Young Ladies,’ with herself at the helm.[8] Aged fifty, Miss Ellen Gully was an experienced principal, having worked previously in the same role at Ashford College, Potts Point, where she was held in such ‘high esteem and regard’ that on her final day there in February 1890, ‘pupils past and present, together with the teachers of the establishment’ gathered to bid her farewell and to present her with ‘a handsome illuminated address and travelling-bag tastefully fitted up.’[9] At her new ladies’ college, The Cedars, Miss Gully confidently promised the parents of prospective scholars that young ladies ‘may attend for any accomplishment desired. Particulars on application.’[10] When Miss Gully ran another advertisement for her college a year later, she described the tuition offered at The Cedars in greater detail, and the reasons for her earlier quiet confidence became plain:[11]
Music reverberated around the walls of The Cedars as Miss Gully’s young ladies studied under the expert tutelage of George de Cairos-Rego, Esq., ‘one of [Sydney’s] best-known professional musicians,’ a composer, and a music critic for the Daily Telegraph.[12] At the time, he was just two years away from publishing his composition Melba Waltz (1898), which was dedicated to the celebrated Nellie Melba—a lyric soprano every one of the composer’s young pupils would have longed to be able to sing like. He would go on to edit The Australasian Art Review (1899–1900), and not only become a ‘vocal advocate’ for the foundation of a Sydney Conservatorium of Music, but eventually also one of ‘The Con’s’ inaugural staff members in the repurposed Francis Greenway-designed Gothic Picturesque-style stables of Government House Sydney.[13]
None other than Julian Ashton, Esq., the renowned painter and champion of Australian art, graced the visual arts department of The Cedars with his teaching prowess as a ‘visiting master.’[14] At the time, Ashton was President of the Art Society of New South Wales, President of the New South Wales Society of Artists, trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and founder of The Sydney Art School, also known as the Julian Ashton Art School, where ‘[a]s a teacher Ashton was without peer: ‘There is no better teacher in Paris,’ said artist George Lambert.[15] Given Ashton’s dedication to painting en plein air (that is, directly from nature rather than in a studio setting), and his particular love of the ‘unique qualities of the light of this great south land,’ it is probably no stretch to imagine Ashton moving his young pupils outdoors to conduct some of his lessons en plein air on parsonage hill, taking full advantage of The Cedars’ celebrated view.[16]
Dr. Étienne Thibault, the French language teacher at The Cedars in 1896, certainly appeared to be of the same calibre as his musical and artistic colleagues at the college. He claimed to be a ‘Docteur-es[sic]-Lettres, University of Paris, and had been appointed Lecturer in Modern Languages at the University of Sydney in the early 1880s.[17] But as Margaret Kerr notes, ‘it appears almost certain that he did not have this degree’ and Kerr’s investigation into the scope and emphasis of Thibault’s teaching of French at the university led her to deduce that the work he set was ‘elementary’ and the standard of his students was very low with little sign of any progression.[18] ‘Upon the recommendation of Dr. Badham it was resolved that six months’ notice be given to Dr. Thibault Lecturer in Modern Languages and that his engagement with the University be then allowed to terminate.’[19] He was ultimately ‘forced to leave,…very disgruntled.’[20] Yet Thibault was not unusual in this regard: as Kerr also notes, in these early years ‘most of the work done in French…was of a low standard…The careers of the early French teachers,’ including Thibault, ‘illustrate the problems of a long period of modern language teaching, when its standing was as uncertain as its aims, and the practical difficulties facing it seemed almost insuperable. Other countries had already attempted (or were still to attempt) to overcome these problems in their own way and in their own time.’[21]
The only other information we have for subjects offered at The Cedars dates from 1899, the period after Miss Gully’s tenure. We cannot assume that the subjects offered then were a continuation of those established under Miss Gully’s leadership in 1896, as the emphasis of the school’s 1899 curriculum may have changed to reflect the interests, expertise and aims of its new principals. Taken together, however, Miss Gully’s focus on Art, Music and French, and the post-Gully offerings of ‘English, Sewing, Music, Neatness, French, Conduct, Scripture and Improvement’ indicate that, in many respects, The Cedars was, as Hubbard has noted, ‘representative of a ladies’ school of its day,’ insofar as it emphasised ‘the ruling-class culture…the acquisition of the accomplishments of proper speech, manners, social ritual and connections.’[22] The Cedars’ embodiment of the classic Victorian ladies’ college, however, meant that it was also ‘rather traditional’ in terms of the ‘opportunities’ the college presented to young women at a time when other private girls’ schools were, by contrast, offering a broader curriculum, including subjects belonging to ‘traditional[ly] male realms,’ such as Woodwork, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology, which some educationalists considered too taxing for the female constitution.’[23] In an interview in 1965, Mrs. Patience Bedford Isaacs, an ‘old girl’ of The Cedars, stated that ‘every subject was taught to Junior and Senior Certificate, and then to matriculation for university,’ although researchers have never been able to corroborate the latter claim, as the school is never mentioned in pass lists.[24] In spite of a lack of reported academic success, Mrs. Isaacs claimed that ‘Upper School teachers…were always university graduates.’[25]
Perhaps purely on the strength of The Cedars’ ‘historic venue, prospectus, title of ‘college’ and noteworthy ‘visiting masters,’ as well as the conspicuous absence of any mention of ‘moderate fees’ in its advertisements, then, it appears to have successfully established itself as an ‘impressive’ school in the minds of alumni and the parents who chose to send them there.[26] Indeed, although it was not ‘officially a church school,’ just as Archdeacon Günther seems to have envisaged years earlier, The Cedars Ladies’ College was ‘closely affiliated with the Church of England’ and conceived of (among other early ladies’ colleges at Parramatta) as the female equivalent of The King’s School.[27] Hubbard’s meticulous cross-referencing of surnames in The King’s School Register, Anglican clergy lists, and The Cedars’ 1899 prize list, for instance, confirms that The Cedars and The King’s School certainly did attract students from the same families.[28]
The parsonage property, however, had long attracted a less savoury element of Parramatta society, too. The thief who absconded with £40-worth of the Pile family’s silverware and gold jewellery soon after they moved into the old parsonage in 1888 may well have staged a repeat performance at the old parsonage almost a decade later. ‘Just after midnight’ on Friday 25 June 1897, Miss Gully ‘was awakened by a noise in her bedroom.’[29] When she ‘struck a light’ she was confronted with the terrifying sight of a strange man ‘only a few feet away, evidently bent on carrying off some of the more portable valuables.[30] She called out to other members of the household, and the visitor at once ran downstairs and escaped through the dining room window, through which he had, earlier in the night, effected an entrance,’ dropping ‘a quantity of clothing’ he had ‘just annexed’ ‘on the lawn in his flight.[31] The thief did successfully abscond with £10-worth of silver kitchen and dinnerware.[32]
Miss Gully resumed teaching just a fortnight after her scare, and in August, even ‘non-pupils’ could ‘attend for accomplishments’ with the masters De Cairos Rego, Ashton, and Thibault all still visiting teachers at the school at the time and for the months afterwards.[33] Advertisements through to late September 1897 continued to name Miss Gully as principal ‘assisted by masters of ability,’ and despite the recent invasion—or perhaps because of it—the school’s first boarders, the Bedford sisters, arrived that same month. ‘A few weeks later they were joined by Mary and Irene Fryer, daughters of Reverend Fryer of Emu Plains and Hilary and Winnie Best of Seven Hills.’[34] According to The Cedars ‘old girl’ Patience Bedford Isaacs, Annette Kellermann was also a boarder at the Parramatta based ‘Ladies’ College,’ presumably until she moved with her family to Naarm (Melbourne) in Boon Wurrung and Woiwurrung (Wurundjeri) Country in 1902 and began attending Mentone High School for Girls.[35] Over the next decade, Kellermann would become the first woman to attempt to swim the English Channel; invent synchronised swimming; be arrested for indecency in Massachusetts when she wore a fitted one-piece instead of the well-known Victorian dress and pantaloon ensemble, thus pioneering women’s modern swimwear; and in 1916, became the first major actress to do a fully nude scene in what was the first million-dollar Hollywood film production—all of which earnt her a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[36]
The Cedars college was clearly in a state of transition, having taken on boarders for the first time, but while filling up the capacious old parsonage building with more occupants would have made it a less appealing target for home invaders, it may be that Miss Gully’s preference was to run a day school rather than one in which she had the additional responsibility of boarders. Or perhaps other opportunities or responsibilities coincidentally brought her time at The Cedars to a natural end at the same time boarders were first taken in. The first boarders did not mention Miss Gully during their mid-twentieth-century recollections of their earliest school days, so there does not appear to have been anything especially noteworthy about her departure. As no advertisements announced the resumption of teaching in early 1898, we can only assume Miss Gully finished out the year of 1897 and moved to Petersham in Cadigal Country where she soon established another school, which, as before, she named ‘Ashford.’[37]
In mid-July 1898, the Cumberland Argus published an advertisement that The Cedars, now not a ‘Ladies’ College’ but a ‘High Class Boarding and Day School for Girls,’ would ‘Re-open, Thursday, 28th July, 1898’ with Mrs. Annie Bond and Miss Mary Elizabeth (Joan) Waugh, ‘an active parishioner of St. John’s, Parramatta’ as principals.[38] When Miss Waugh arrived to teach at The Cedars, she did not just become a part of the property’s long history; her presence there also brought the former parsonage property into the history of a major independent girls’ school, which she founded. This is because Miss Waugh’s teaching career began at three heritage properties in Parramatta: St. Ronan’s High Class Boarding and Day School at Roseneath Cottage, then St. Ronan’s George Street site, then The Cedars, and eventually led to Waugh moving her classes in 1912 to her family home Tara, in George Street, Parramatta.[39] As such, St. Ronan’s three early sites, including The Cedars, are now acknowledged as the early incarnations of what ultimately became (and remained) Tara: an Anglican school in Parramatta that is the female equivalent to The King’s School—in other words, a school that is officially everything Archdeacon Günther had long hoped for.
More secrets of the long lost building’s 1890s interior are revealed to us in memories shared by The Cedars’ ‘old girls.’ ‘The house…was most imposing with a semi-circular drive and entrance steps, [and] white tiled verandah,’ with the Library ‘built on the side of the home’ Mrs Patience Bedford Isaacs recalled at the age of eighty-two, when she was the oldest living pupil of the school. ‘[I]nside,’ Patience continued, ‘there were large rooms, marble mantles, chandeliers and a beautiful, spiral staircase.’[41] However, Patience and her fellow young boarders were not just captivated by the building’s beauty and grandeur; they were also hypersensitive to the many layers of history that had built up in the building—especially at night.
The large old heritage building, its presumably audibly creaking and groaning structure, and its concentration of very young, impressionable girls who were separated from their parents probably for the first time, provided a context in which certain areas of the building were inevitably identified as haunted regions of the boarders’ scholastic world. ‘[O]ne of the bedrooms…on the left of the front entrance with a door on to the garden and side verandah’ was one such area of the property: ‘Girls would never sleep here alone or walk along the side verandah alone late in the evening. There was a strange chill and dancing lights were seen on several occasions running into the ground,’ the elderly Patience recalled in 1965, still convinced that they had been troubled by otherworldly apparitions at the old parsonage, and no doubt with the memory of her old, departed school friends’ terrified squeals ringing in her ears.[42] Another spooky area of the property was subterranean: there were ‘large stone cellars with very high archways and one archway was barred,’ said Patience before elaborating further that she remembered a story being told that the barred archway ‘led underground to Old Government House although it may have led to St. John’s [C]emetery.’[43] As Hubbard notes, Quentin Tapperell published a booklet in 1988 which included information on ‘Ancient Tunnels, Honeycombed Parramatta,’ in which he mentioned a ‘network of tunnels…around Lennox Bridge…employed from the earliest days of European settlement for smuggling.’[44] Hubbard does not discount the possibility that the barred archway below the old parsonage may have also been part of a similar network of tunnels, although she offers a far less exciting, but plausible explanation that the tunnels were simply ‘part of the early sewage lines coming from the government establishments,’ especially given that 1880s newspapers reported a heavily polluted river and ‘the awful afternoon stench which would result from the return of waste on the afternoon tide.’[45] Whatever the truth of the tunnels and the reported phantasmal presences, according to Hubbard, The Cedars’ ghost became a part of the school’s oral tradition of boarding house ghost stories, surviving the school’s relocation from The Cedars to St. John’s Parish Hall, and even being told at Tara’s Masons Drive site.[46]
For three years, Bond and Waugh were co-principals at the old parsonage. Under their leadership, The Cedars pupils attended St. John’s Church where Miss Waugh sang in the choir, students learnt elocution from Waugh’s sister Bel, and Signor E. Rossi also offered ‘mandolin, guitar, banjo and violin classes at The Cedars, where he ‘met with gratifying success’ after his pupil, ‘Miss Pearce, daughter of Mr. G. W. Pearce, of Seven Hills…passed the Senior Violin Examination, Royal Academy and Trinity College.’[47] On Sundays, the pupils donned white dresses ‘and in winter, navy serge was worn, when boarders would form a crocodile and wend their way to St. John’s Church,’ no doubt also wearing the school’s instantly recognisable ‘straw boaters,…with a navy hat band [and] pale blue stripes either side and…The Cedars embroidered in white [with] a pattern of cedar leaves surrounding the name.’[48]
In late January 1901, the students would have resumed lessons days after learning of Queen Victoria’s passing. The Queen had lived for almost as long as the old parsonage had stood upon the hill but, as one preacher remarked with reference to a biblical passage, ‘the cedar is fallen’—and, though not immediately, The Cedars itself would follow soon enough, first as the school, then as the building.[49]
Things appeared to be rosy at The Cedars throughout the first year of the new Edwardian era. In June the school was represented by a number of its pupils in a local ‘fancy dress’ competition for the Hospital Ball Carnival, and things apparently continued in the same vein when ‘a large and fashionable gathering at the Breaking-up proceedings’ of The Cedars School took place at St. John’s Schoolhouse in December.[50] At the gathering, Archdeacon Günther congratulated Bond and Waugh ‘on the good results achieved’ and spoke highly of the students, who received prizes, performed a stage play, and sang Christmas carols.[51] In the months that followed Miss Waugh helped organise a garden fête in the grounds of The Cedars to raise funds for St. John’s Organ Fund.[52]
By 21 June 1902, however, Bond and Waugh had a major falling out. For the first time, Bond flew solo in an advertisement in the Cumberland Argus: ‘Mrs. Bond desires to notify Parents and Others interested that she intends to carry on [The Cedars] with the aid of an efficient Staff of Teachers.’[53] Regardless of Bond’s intentions, the school did not ‘carry on’ at The Cedars. Mrs. Annie Bond and Miss Joan Waugh announced the dissolution of their partnership on the very day that their latest school term was supposed to have commenced: 12 July 1902, and it was the well connected local Waugh, not Bond, who subsequently relocated the school to St. John’s Parish Hall. Four days after announcing the dissolution of their partnership, auctioneer and then Mayor of Parramatta, Edward Pascoe Pearce, placed an advertisement in the paper for the forthcoming auction of ‘the whole of the Furniture’ at The Cedars, as Mrs. Bond and Miss Waugh were ‘relinquishing their Scholastic institution.’[54] This auction included the sale of their ‘Drawing-room Suite, Overmantel, Carpets, Occ. Tables &c.’[55] The fact that an ‘almost new’ and ‘very Superb Piano by Carl Ecke’ was also among the items to be auctioned strengthens the impression that the split was sudden, or else the significant investment in the instrument likely would never have been made.[56] By 23 July, the Cumberland Argus could report (in a fittingly abrupt manner, considering the circumstances) ‘Mrs Bond’—who only a month before had been poised to continue teaching at The Cedars without Waugh—‘is going to New Zealand.’[57]
Edward Pascoe Pearce ended up being far more than just the auctioneer of the school’s furniture; he, his wife Catherine and their large family of six children at the time were The Cedars’ next and, as it turned out, final inhabitants. On 23 September 1903, Alderman E. P. Pearce, Mrs. Pearce and family ‘cosily and cheerily entertained some 20 young guests’ in a ‘very enjoyable children’s evening at The Cedars.’[58] A mere eight days later, Mrs. Pearce gave birth to another daughter, Beaumont Pascoe Pearce, at the former parsonage.[59] Another child, Harcourt ‘Bill’ Pascoe Pearce would be born there on 9 July 1905.[60] All the while, the old parsonage building continued to be a preferred setting for local community functions, with everything from Masonic Lodge fundraising events to a bridal ‘kitchen tea’ being held there.[61] Precisely when or why the Pearce family vacated the property is unclear, but the kitchen tea held there in December 1905 seems to be the last time the property was mentioned as an occupied private residence.
Hubbard notes that since the parsonage property was ‘on leasehold, the Church of England was still ultimately involved with the use and future of the property,’ a point that is supported by the evidence that St. John’s, Parramatta had paid the insurance on the property in 1905.[62] It has been suggested that the parsonage was subsequently renamed Bondo, and was used as The King’s Junior or Preparatory School in 1908, but Bondo appears to have been another property on Campbell Street entirely, as it was still standing in the late 1910s at which time it was described as ‘substantially built of brick, cemented and painted, on stone foundation, slate roof, bay window, with balconette,’ with fewer reported rooms than The Cedars.[63] Had The King’s School been occupying The Cedars in 1908, then by September that year it would not have been described as ‘rapidly decaying all over, making habitation unsafe, if not an impossibility, … the once beautiful garden and grounds speak of desolation, and the fences are very much broken down.’[64] And had it not fallen into such a woebegone state at the time, then it might have still been one of the ‘Parramatta beauty spots’ to this day.
<< PART II: VICTORIAN MANSION ♦ PART IV: EDWARDIAN RUBBLE >>
CITE THIS
Michaela Ann Cameron, “Lost Landmark: St. John’s Parsonage, Parramatta,” St. John’s Online, (2020), https://stjohnsonline.org/about/the-parsonage/lost-landmark/part-iii-ladies-college/, accessed [insert current date].
Notes
[1] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 45.
[2] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 45.
[3] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 46.
[4] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), pp. 46, 55.
[5] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 45.
[6] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 46.
[7] “Local and General,” The Cumberland Free Press (Parramatta, NSW : 1895 – 1897), Saturday 8 August 1896, p. 4; “Advertising. Ladies’ College,” The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 – 1930), Wednesday 18 December 1895, p. 7.
[8] “Advertising. Ladies’ College,” The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 – 1930), Wednesday 18 December 1895, p. 7.
[9] “No title,” The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Monday 3 February 1890, p. 7.
[10] “Advertising. Educational,” The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 – 1930), Thursday 16 January 1896, p. 2.
[11] “Advertising. Ladies’ College, “The Cedars,” Western Road, Parramatta, Conducted by Miss Gully,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 30 January 1897, p. 3.
[12] Graeme Skinner, “de Cairos-Rego, George,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2011), http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/de_cairos_rego_george, accessed 23 April 2020.
[13] Graeme Skinner, “de Cairos-Rego, George,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2011), http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/de_cairos_rego_george, accessed 23 April 2020.
[14] “Advertising. Ladies’ College, “The Cedars,” Western Road, Parramatta, Conducted by Miss Gully,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 30 January 1897, p. 3.
[15] Julian Ashton Art School, “History,” (2010), Julian Ashton Art School, https://julianashtonartschool.com.au/about/history/, accessed 26 April 2020.
[16] Julian Ashton Art School, “History,” (2010), Julian Ashton Art School, https://julianashtonartschool.com.au/about/history/, accessed 26 April 2020.
[17] Margaret Kerr, “Four Early French Teachers at the University of Sydney,” Arts: The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, Vol. 10, (1975): 38–55, especially pp. 48–52, https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/ART/article/view/5488/6088, accessed 26 April 2020.
[18] Margaret Kerr, “Four Early French Teachers at the University of Sydney,” Arts: The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, Vol. 10, (1975): 38–55, especially pp. 48–52, https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/ART/article/view/5488/6088, accessed 26 April 2020.
[19] Margaret Kerr, “Four Early French Teachers at the University of Sydney,” Arts: The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, Vol. 10, (1975): 38–55, especially pp. 48–52, https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/ART/article/view/5488/6088, accessed 26 April 2020.
[20] Margaret Kerr, “Four Early French Teachers at the University of Sydney,” Arts: The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, Vol. 10, (1975): 52, https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/ART/article/view/5488/6088, accessed 26 April 2020.
[21] Margaret Kerr, “Four Early French Teachers at the University of Sydney,” Arts: The Journal of the Sydney University Arts Association, Vol. 10, (1975): 55, https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/ART/article/view/5488/6088, accessed 26 April 2020.
[22] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 41.
[23] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 41.
[24] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 41 and f.n. 16 on p. 237.
[25] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 41.
[26] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), pp. 41–2.
[27] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 49.
[28] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 49.
[29] “Current News. Burglary at The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW: 1888 – 1950), Saturday 3 July 1897, p. 4.
[30] “Current News. Burglary at The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW: 1888 – 1950), Saturday 3 July 1897, p. 4.
[31] “Current News. Burglary at The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW: 1888 – 1950), Saturday 3 July 1897, p. 4.
[32] “Burglaries, &c. Parramatta,” New South Wales Police Gazette and Weekly Record of Crime, Wednesday 30 June 1897, No. 26, p. 227. “Parramatta.—Stolen, on the night of the 25th instant, from the residence of Miss E. Gully, Western Road, Parramatta,—A silver soup tureen and ladle, plain pattern, lid chased, on edges, 15 inches by 18 inches oval-shaped; a round silver tray, chased fern pattern; a silver salad fork and spoon, porcelain handles; and a silver sugar. Basin. Value, £10. Identifiable.”
[33] “Advertising. Educational. Ladies’ College, The Cedars,” The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 – 1930), Wednesday 14 July 1897, p. 2; “Advertising. Educational. Ladies’ College, “The Cedars,” Western Road, Parramatta, Conducted by Miss Gully, Visiting Masters…,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 10 July 1897, p. 9; “Advertising. Educational. Ladies’ College, The Cedars…non-pupils attend for accomplishments,” The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 – 1930), Saturday 7 August 1897, p. 16.
[34] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 49 citing Patience Bedford Isaacs’s interview with June Hauff in 1965.
[35] Annette Kellermann is named as a boarder by The Cedars Old Girl Mrs. Patience Bedford Isaacs, cited in Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 49. In f.n. 67 on p. 238 Hubbard notes, that the ‘reference to Annette Kellerman [sic] has not been verified despite various searches at both The Mitchell Library and The Australian Opera House. Dennis H. Phillips’ book, Australian Women at the Olympic Games, (Kenthurst: Kangaroo Press, 1992), pp. 18–21, notes Kellerman’s year of birth as 1886, which would have made her…a suitable age for acceptance as a pupil at The Cedars.” For the year the Kellermanns moved to Melbourne, see G. P. Walsh, “Kellermann, Annette Marie (1886–1975),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1983, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kellermann-annette-marie-6911/text11989, accessed online 6 May 2020.
[36] “The First Nude Woman on Screen: Annette Kellerman,” National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, [n.d.], https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/first-nude-woman-screen-annette-kellerman, accessed 6 May 2020.
[37] “Advertising. Educational. Ladies’ College, The Cedars, Parramatta…,” The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 – 1930), Saturday 25 September 1897, p. 5. Regarding Gully’s departure and establishment of Ashford at Petersham, see Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 47.
[38] Regarding Waugh as active St. John’s parishioner, see Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 52; “Advertising. Musical. High Class Boarding and Day School for Girls. “The Cedars,” Principals: Mrs. Bond, Miss Waugh,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 16 July 1898, p. 4. When a new term began on 1 October 1898, and school duties resumed on 4 October, in addition to the principals Bond and Waugh, the advertisement stated that there were ‘two resident governesses included in the staff: see “Advertising. Educational. High-Class Boarding and Day School The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 24 September 1898, p. 9, but by December there was just one, albeit one who was noted as ‘B.A., Syd. University.’ See “Advertising. Educational. High-Class Boarding and Day School, The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 24 December 1898, p. 9.
[39] For more on Roseneath, see Michaela Ann Cameron, “Roseneath Cottage,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2015), https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/roseneath_cottage, accessed 2 May 2020; Michaela Ann Cameron, “The Private Schools of Roseneath,” Dictionary of Sydney, (2015), http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_private_schools_of_roseneath_cottage, accessed 2 May 2020; Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), pp. 25, 28–30, 32–34, 164.
[40] Regarding Günther’s dream of a female equivalent of The King’s School and his demonstrated interest in The Cedars School, see Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), pp. 47–8, 51–2, 55; on The Cedars as an ‘embryonic Tara’ see p. 53.
[41] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 49.
[42] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 50.
[43] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 50.
[44] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 50.
[45] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 50.
[46] Hubbard asserts, “Writing in 1969 of her school days at St. John’s Parish Hall, Mrs Marie Wilson Thompson noted, ‘…I have heard of the ghost stories about The Cedars from the older girls.’ Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 50.
[47] “Personal. Signor E. Rossi…,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 27 April 1901, p. 4.
[48] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 77.
[49] “The Late Queen. In Memoriam Services. Centenary Hall,” The Australian Star (Sydney, NSW: 1887 – 1909), Monday 28 January 1901, p. 3.
[50] “The Hospital Ball Carnival,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Wednesday 26 June 1901, p. 1 and “At ‘The Cedars,’” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 21 December 1901, p. 7.
[51] “At ‘The Cedars,’” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 21 December 1901, p. 7.
[52] “Advertising. St. John’s Organ Fund. Grand Garden Fete and Sale of Work…in the grounds of The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 25 January 1902, p. 9.
[53] “Advertising. Educational. Ladies’ College, The Cedars, Western Road, Parramatta. Mrs Bond desires…,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 21 June 1902, p. 9.
[54] “Advertising. Auction Sales. Unreserved Sale of Household Furniture, Piano and Effects,…The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Wednesday 16 July 1902, p. 3.
[55] “Advertising. Auction Sales. Unreserved Sale of Household Furniture, Piano and Effects,…The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Wednesday 16 July 1902, p. 3.
[56] “Advertising. Auction Sales. Unreserved Sale of Household Furniture, Piano and Effects,…The Cedars,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Wednesday 16 July 1902, p. 3.
[57] “Chips. Mrs Bond (of The Cedars) is going to New Zealand,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Wednesday 23 July 1902, p. 2.
[58] “Brevities,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 26 September 1903, p. 1.
[59] “Family Notices. Birth. PEARCE,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 3 October 1903, p. 4.
[60] “Family Notices. Births. PEARCE,” The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Saturday 15 July 1905, p. 10.
[61] Re: masonic events see “Brevities,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 12 November 1904, p. 1; “The Proposed Masonic Fete,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 8 April 1905, p. 4. For Miss Lilian Kemp’s bridal kitchen tea see: “Kitchen Tea,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 2 December 1905, p. 12.
[62] Bronwyn Hubbard, Tara: A Telling of the Tapestry, (Masons Drive, North Parramatta: Tara Anglican School, 1997), p. 53.
[63] “Advertising. Auction Sales. For Positive Sale. The Pick of Parramatta. That Choice Residential Property called ‘Bondo’,” The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954), Thursday 10 July 1913, p. 4. See the report of a military wedding in 1917 in which the bride is identified as residing at Bondo, Campbell Street, Parramatta: “A Military Wedding,” The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate (Parramatta, NSW : 1888 – 1950), Saturday 27 October 1917, p. 6. The Cedars was already demolished for almost a decade at that point.
[64] “The Cedars,” Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 – 1931), Saturday 26 September 1908, p. 10; “Historic Parramatta House. Over 100 Years Old. Now Being Demolished,” Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 – 1931), Saturday 2 January 1909, p. 3.
© Copyright Michaela Ann Cameron 2020
St. John's 