St Marys Post Office courtesy of National Archives

By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc.

IN January 1884 James Richard Woodland known as “Japonica” wrote in the Nepean Times saying how he longed to see the old faces and their kindly looks again. He  had revisited St Marys his hometown where he noticed that considerable changes had taken place over the last few years and quite a number of dear old friends who were familiar to him from childhood had gone up Church Hill (St Mary Magdalene cemetery) including the old familiar names of Sherringham, Paskin, Behan, Andrews and Kendall. He mentioned that the old hands were rapidly passing away and that strangers were rapidly filling their places. On this visit he said that the place seemed excessively dull, that the old tannery full of life a few years ago was now idle and the tanning trade was dull indeed. At one time there were no less than twelve tanneries both large and small in full swing. Those were lively times indeed. Curriers at that time could easily earn £5 a week and spend it too in twenty-four hours. Byrnes’ pub had a blind musician who sang pathetic songs nightly “to enliven the billiard players” and he remembered that because the man who sang was not very polite, singing one tune that citizen Dowling was always morally indignant while that song was being sung and would call to all his sons from the street and lock them up in the bakehouse until the song was over.  Citizen Dowling was born too late to be a “Saint” but James thought he was. Citizen Dowling was the “boss” grocer in those days and generously sold quarter sardines to the carriers at a bob (shilling) a tin. James said that speaking of carriers reminded him that in olden times it was no normal thing to see around thirty or forty bullock teams on Victoria Square (Victoria Park) and in flood times he saw over a hundred and the Square was a “bully old spot” in those days and the battlefield where groggy men from the pub opposite went for each other in anger. He said that Ashton’s Circus visited the place annually at that time and stayed for several nights. He thought the Square had greatly improved and the South Creek people should be proud of it with its pretty white fence fringed with shrubs, its mowed lawn and its pavilion, but it looked somewhat different to when Sir Maurice O’Connell opened it to the public. The locality had greatly improved in buildings too since his last visit. The Protestant Hall made a fine assembly room and greatly needed reflecting the great credit upon the Order. The Presbyterian Church a neat and substantial building, but to James seemed wrongly situated. He said that Churches and schools should not be built on the principal thoroughfares saying small towns required all their front streets for business places.  He thought the white ants must have eaten the Wesleyan Chapel completely as he could  see nothing of it, however at one time it had quite a lively time when Messrs Gardiner, Hockey and the Giles Brothers sang in it. James said he attended Sunday School there at one time and got a prize from the Reverend for repeating, without a mistake, the 82nd chapter of Exodus. However, he thought it was very nice to recall those memories, but he was not much on the Book of Exodus anymore. He noticed the new Post and Telegraph Office built cottage-like and back from the Western Road and said that this may be the best position for it to occupy or else he supposed the authorities would not have put it there in the first place, but he didn’t know whether the people of St Marys admired the position, but he was sure that he didn’t!. Perhaps the architect or surveyor who fixed it anticipated of big things there, and left room for an additional frontage when the occasion may require it or having a view that they left ample room for the proper alignment of the street to be made. At any rate he thought that after thirty-nine years of dull life and eight changes of residence the post office at St Marys was now like his friend and school-mate John Burgess, “settled in life”. He said that it may be of interest to the young people of St Marys that the Post Office was first opened by his father William Woodland in 1844 and the building first used was a long terrace of three rooms opposite Victoria Square where he kept the Post Office in one of the rooms for thirteen years and then poor old School Master Lincoln of happy memory took charge of the office in the old red schoolhouse and occupied it until his death in 1868. Then John McLaughlin kept it for a short time in the cottage occupied by Johnny Stevens. It then moved one door east into W Newel’s hands who removed it to Church Hill where he built a new office and opened a general store close beside the Church of England burying ground and his sign outside as large as the church door read as follows “W Newell, Auctioneer and Commission Agent”.  To James’ knowledge Newell was the only Auctioneer and Commission Agent who opened that business in St Marys that was in 1865 but he didn’t think it was a paying speck (business) unless he may have done a clandestine trade with the Anglican ghosts and it was a wonder the ghost of Captain Gidley King R.N., didn’t leave the family vault and slay him. Mr Newell’s stay was only of a brief duration as he like many others caught the gold fever and “sought fresh fields and pastures new”.  The Post Office then transferred to the lowlands near Hackett’s bridge and kept this time by William Draper, Tailor and Outfitter. He also kept a fruit stall under the veranda and James particularly remembered this because he frequently borrowed choice fruit whenever he  went for letters, and he always went for letters when he wanted choice fruit. James said that Mr Webb of the Waterloo Stores followed Mr Draper as Postmaster and kept it for about thirteen years then it was shifted back to the old spot first opened by his father. James said that this was a brief history where in the early days the Postmaster’s lot was a miserable affair. His father had the magnificent salary of £8 per annum and he held a very undesirable position. The times for opening and closing of the mails was very irregular. The mail coaches scarcely ever ran to time and the result was that country Postmasters were called for duty at all sorts of hours.  James was born in 1849 and became a tanner who owned the “Federal Tannery” in Botany. He died in 1906 at the age of 57 and is buried at St Mary Magdalene cemetery, St Marys. 

Source: Nepean Times, Trove, BDM website, History Page May 2017.