1900s

1900

Maria Smith nee Lock is living with her children on a public reserve at Terrey’s Creek, Epping. (J.L.Kohen, The Darug and their Neighbours, Darug Link, 1993, p. 88)

Aboriginal Protection Board minutes; Rooty Hill. Rations discontinued to family of George Stubbings. According to his granddaughter, Anne Dival, he was selected to tour England with an Australian cricket team in late nineteenth century.

  • Rations were given to Aboriginal people from this house at Sackville Reserve
  • Rations for Sackville reserve

1901

The ethnographer Bennett records a sentence in Gandangara meaning ‘I’m going to get off’. The sentence has many associations for Gandangara people. The historian Jim Smith writes, [of the word Katoomba] ‘It would have evoked the memory of groups of women digging up fern roots, washing them in the Cox River, and beating the roots with their special “Katoom” stones, all of this activity taking place under the brooding eyes of one of the monoliths overlooking the fern fields. Katoom fern harvesting would have been time to exploit the maximum starch levels in the roots, probably in summer. The sound of Katoomba was the beat of “Katoom” stones on wooden boards. Katoomba was located at the junction of many pathways from all directions, including those connecting the fern fields to King’s Tableland, the Upper Kedumba Valley, Kia Range, Kiaramba Range by the Policeman Ridge, and the Lower and Middle Cox River areas via the Riverside pathways. Katoomba lies on the Dreaming pathways of Gurangatch and Mirragan and was the site of one of the ancestor Gurangatch’s excursions to Reedy Creek. It was the location of one of the deep pools where Gurangatch rested. Katoomba would have also been located, in Gandangara minds, within the area of many salt springs, near a small cave of medicinal water. It was close to the pathway through the clearings, maintained by burning to attract macropods, and a few hours walk away from the Cedar Creek Art cave. All of the associations would have been brought up by the word Katoomba. All of the associations would have brought the word Katoomba alive for Gandangara people and precisely located it in their mental landscape. Smith, p. 631.

  • Rock engravings
  • Map of Western Sydney
  • Mangrove Creek in Western Sydney, 11,000 years of Aboriginal habitation

Petition from the Aboriginal residents of Black Town, Freemans Reach for the clearing, forming and gravelling of a portion of the main Blacktown Road.

  • Freemans Reach, where a Black Town camp existed until 1908
  • Freemans Reach, west Darug archeaological site
  • Freemans Reach near Windsor had its own Black Town
  • Freemans Reach- original Black Town, Silcrete artefact

The United Aborigines Mission (UAM) is established on land donated by William Locke, known as the Plumpton Mission.

Billy Lynch moves to the Gully, Katoomba. He may have chosen to move to the Gully to avoid the restrictions of the managed reserves of the Aborigines Protection Board. (Johnson 21, 80)

  • King Billy Lynch elder of Kedumba

Families represented in the Annual Census of the Aborigines Protection Board are Shepherd, Hughes, Cooper, Stubbings, Lynchs, Susans, Armato and Cole. Seven Locke men and three Stubbings are eligible to vote. (J.L.Kohen, The Darug and their Neighbours, Darug Link, 1993, p. 112)

  • Gilbert Cooper, Frank Cooper, James Shepherd and Los Cooper, 1910

Katherine Anne Reynolds (Mrs Thomas Fiaschi), an ex nun, teaches music to the Darug families living at Sackville Reach . They learn violin and piano and singing. An Aboriginal performing group plays gum leaf and guitar at community gatherings around Windsor. The Barber and Everingham families are involved. Chrissy and Milly Barber daughters of John Luke Barber from Sackville become fine musicians.

  • Millie and Chrissie Barber, daughters of John Luke Barber

1902

Grand children of Martha Hobbs Everingham (Madha Hibbs) live on a farm near St Thomas’s Church, Windsor, and at Sackville Reserve. Some of the family are buried at St Thomas' Cemetery, Sackville.

  • Alfie Everingham, son of Mildred Saunders (Budha), Epraim Everingham and his wife Martha (Madha)
  • Sackville Reserve houses at Maggies Bight

Australian Town and Country Journal, 14 June p 15 Article. The Court heard the case of Jack Johnston, Aboriginal, who was charged with alleged manslaughter of another Aboriginal.

1903

Darug man, Alfred Locke dies at the gully. He is descended from Maria and Robert Locke.

  • Alfred James Lock, Mary Ward and Mary Webb
  • Webb family Katoomba

Kohen believes that the ethnographer R.H. Matthews referred to ‘Dharruk’ (Darug) probably for the first time in print. (J.L. Kohen, A Dictionary of the Dharug Language’ 1984, p. 2)

1904

Birth of Kathleen Moran, she marries Roy Burke.

The ethnographer Matthews describes Gu-ru-gnaty living in a lagoon near Sackville ‘Gu-ru-gnaty is the name of an aquatic monster. He resides in deep waterholes, and would drown and eat strange blacks, but would not harm his own people. He usually climbed a tree near the water, from which he kept a look out. If he saw a stranger approaching, he slid down and dived into the water, without making a splash, or leaving any ripple on the surface. As soon as the individual began to drink, he was caught by Gurrugnaty.

  • Lyndal Marshall performs the Quoll cat chasing Garangatch the Eel, 1988

William Castle marries Sarah Ann Lock and has children Hilda Webb 1909, Eva Agnes Castle nee Webb, Darcy David Webb, Stanley Lesley Webb 1911, Jack Joseph Theodor Webb 1904, Mona Eileen Webb, Helen Jean Webb, Harriet (Bunny) Webb.

  • Parramatta R C orphanage, once Parramatta girls home
  • Webb family Katoomba
  • Mary Fletcher, Mabel brooks, Alfred Stubbings, Mary Hannah and Jackie Brooks

Eva Agnes Lock marries Darcy David Randolph Webb Plumpton, 23rd June. Born 16th may, 1895.

  • Western Sydney map

1905

John Luke Barber dies at Windsor Hospital.

  • Andrew Barber

26 Kooris are listed as living at Katoomba, 93 at Sackville Reach, 2 at Parramatta, 26 at Blacktown Road. Aboriginal Protection Board Report, 1906, p.10). A number of children are removed by the Aborigines Protection Board from the Gully at Katoomba. Some are transferred to Bakersville Home and some to Bomaderry UAM Home.

  • Bomaderry Infants Home - 1928

1906

The UAM church at Sackville reserve is booming. People travel with the missionaries to the Georges River and La Perouse, Katoomba, and to St Clair reserve, near Singleton.

  • St Clair Mission, Western Sydney
  • North West St Clair Mission Courtsey of NSW State Library

Rachel Everingham marries Alfred Barber in Windsor, NSW.

1908

The death of Mrs Castles leaves Thomas Castles to look after six children. One of them is Edward George Castles, all of the children are taken from their father and placed in the Bomaderry Home for children.

Children of the Castles/Castle family are removed from the Plumpton Mission to Bomaderry United Aborigines Mission Home. Members of the families begin to disperse to other areas of the state, including Nowra . (J.L.Kohen, The Darug and their Neighbours, Darug Link, 1993, p.85)

Sackville Reach and Blacktown Rd, listed together, hold 93 Koori people, Katoomba: 26, Penrith: 1; Ryde (probably Marsfield): 1 (Aboriginal Protection Board Report, 1909, pp. 16-17) It is not clear whether ‘Blacktown Road’ refers to the settlement at Freeman’s Reach, or the Locke family estate at Blacktown itself.

After heavy rains, a deadly epidemic of influenza affects many people at Plumpton. 2 Koori babies are buried by the Eastern creek in the burial grounds.

  • Site of Colebee Grant at Richmond Rd, Plumpton
  • Site of Colebee grant on Richmond Road Plumpton

Commonwealth Invalid and Old Age Pension Act, excludes Indigenous Australians from receiving pensions.

Irene Joyce Castles marries Albert. Photograph of Albert Thomas (Bukal) of Wreck Bay whaling at Eden from Lone Hand. pp. 265

  • The Locks and Castles

1909

Commonwealth Defence Act: excludes Indigenous Australians from the Armed Forces. Indigenous Australians have already been barred from employment by the Post Office.

The Aborigines Protection Act, 1909 (NSW) grants the Aborigines Protection Board full control and custody of Indigenous children including the power to apprentice Indigenous children aged between 14 and 18 years. [The first 'Aborigines Protective' legislation was in Victoria in 1869, Aborigines Protection Acts (Vic.) (1869, 1886), which became a model for others].

Death of Mary Ann Bartle nee Thomas, she is buried next to her husband William Bartle at St Matthews Church of England cemetery, Windsor.

  • Burial markers from Mary Bartle and William Bartle near daughter, Mary Reynolds
  • Yvonne Bartle, Darug and Gurangai descendant

Church life at Sackville begins to decline as missionary Retta Dixon (Long) is transferred away from Sydney. The APB Annual Report lists the combined populations of Windsor, Blacktown Rd and Sackville Reach as only 83 (Annual Report, p. 18)