Chapter 1 - Meadows and Marshes

MEADOWS AND MARSHES
 
"THE FINEST MEADOWS IN THE WORLD"
 
Captain James Cook, April 1788
 
The chronicle of the Beverley Park Golf Club must be preceded by an historic portrayal of the regions in which it lies, and the consequential era of inhabitation, settle­ment, development and subdivisions of the environs.
 
As we glance through the pages of Captain James Cook's journal, we discover that in 1770 he wrote that there were fine green meadows around Botany Bay. Eighteen years later when Captain Arthur Phillip arrived in Botany Bay with his miserable human cargo to found a convict colony on this new southern prison continent, he immediately wrote to Lord Sydney in London:- "[ presume the meadows mentioned in 'Captain Cooks Voyages' were seen from high grounds about Botany Bay, and from whence they appear well to the eye, but when examined are found to be marshes, the draining of which would be a work of time, and not to be attempted by the first settlement". So recorded is the earliest impression of the site of the Beverley Park Golf Club.
 
In early December 1790 a hunting party of red-coated soldiers and convicts were undertaking one of their usual hunting expeditions for kangaroos, birds and 'Indians' as they called the aborigines. Mr McEntire, Governor Phillip's gamekeeper and his party crossed the Cooks River and he was speared by the natives. A revenge squad of 42 soldiers set out to capture six natives to punish as an example of discipline to the rest of the tribes. They came to Kogarah Bay swamp, Captain Tench, the leader of the party, recorded the area:- "We had passed through the country which the discoverers of Botany Bay extol as 'some of the finest meadows in the world'. These meadows, instead of grass, are covered with high course rushes growing into a rotten, spongy bog, into which we were plunged knee deep at every step," So Kogarah Bay was left to the natives and its own devices, and because of the isolation also became infested with escaped convicts and bushrangers.
It was half a century later that the Cooks River Dam, built by convict labour to supply Sydney with fresh water, proved to be an unsuccessful venture. The water upstream remained too salty for use but the top of the dam became a major thoroughfare for traffic to the south, opening up new regions for settlement and access to the Georges River and Botany Bay.
 
Sydney distiller, Robert Cooper Jnr. married Catherine Rutter, daughter of the proprietor of the Brisbane Distillery and inherited the 100 acres they named Charlotte Point in honour of her mother. This became more widely known as Rocky Point. Access to their home was by horse along the Seven Mile Beach (Brighton) then inland to what is now Rockdale. Their children were baptised in the St Peter's Church which was also attended by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps. He was concerned at the infrequency of Cooper's attendance at church and upon asking why this was so, Cooper told him that there was no road from his home. Sir George wrote to the superintendent of convicts demanding that the convicts clear a track so that Cooper would not be absent from the church again. Rocky Point Road was then cleared. Over the years squatters and settlers took up land along the Rocky Point Road. Industries developed - bark collectors, shell collectors, lime and charcoal burners and loggers came too. The mangroves of Kogarah Bay were sought for". . . the superior quality of soda obtained by the incineration. . . that led to the establishment of two or three manufacturers of soap." Dingos were an ever present problem, they attacked stock and killed the settlers young horses. Eventually because of the swamps and heavy rains Rocky Point Road was often impassable. Cooper began distilling at Rocky Point but he found that the track was totally inadequate for his packhorses to transport his precious cargo of spirits to Sydney. He put the estate up for outright sale. The gold rush of the 1850s was enticing most of the men in search of easier profits in the Victorian goldfields.
 
FROM CAUSEWAY TO CLUBHOUSE
 
Thomas Holt bought the Cooper property in 1853 and renamed it Sans Souci, meaning 'without care', after the summer palace of Frederick the Great located in his wife's native Germany. Holt took Sir Hercules Robinson and Lady Robinson to his Sans Souci for an outing, Lady Robinson was thrilled at the sight of the wonderful beach, and went for a gallop along the entire seven miles of sand. Despite the beautiful location Sop hie Holt hated the isolation and the dangerous road so Thomas Holt disposed of these holdings in 1865. On 13th October, 1874 at the request of Thomas Holt, the Seven Mile Beach was renamed Lady Robinson Beach.
In 1864 the Kogarah Road (now Princes Highway) was built to link the Rocky Point Road to Tom Uglys Point to provide access to the south coast.
Edmund English was 31 years old when he and his young family from Limerick in Ireland came to Sydney in 1851. He was a businessman and was also fired by the gold rushes. He dug a fortune in Ballarat then bought 75 acres of land fronting on to what was to become the Kogarah Road (Opposite the St George Leagues Club). English built the first stone house in the district as well as the Kogarah Hotel in 1882 (refurbished in the late 1980s and now a Chinese and seafood restaurant and the only inn building still remaining in its original form) on the corner of English's Paddock and the Kogarah Road, and he' built the Gardiners Arms Hotel on the intersection of Rocky Point Road and Kogarah Road (demolished to build the first St George Leagues Club, now a Roman Catholic School).
The popularity of the district was again growing after the miners returned from their diggings. Kogarah Road, the beach road and Rocky Point Road remained the only access routes because of the Pat Moore's Swamp (later Moorefield Racecourse and now two high schools and a TAFE college) and the Kogarah Bay Wetlands. The area was named Kogarah by the aboriginals meaning place of the bullrnshes or reeds. There have been several corruptions of the name, it has been called Coggera, Coggerah, Koggery, Kuggarah, Kogerah, Cooghera.
It was on 16th December, 1885 that Joseph Carruthers, the Colonial Secretary (living in the district) approved of the petitions to form the Kogarah Municipality.
 
THE KOGARAH BAY WETLANDS
 
Some of Captain Cook's meadows were the reeds and rushes of the swampy bog in the head of Kogarah Bay.
Kogarah Bay once resembled an ink bottle which had been tipped on its side, the main reservoir retaining the bulk of the waters, and the spill-over appearing to ooze beyond the confines of the neck, soaking into the lowlands between undulating grassed and tree-studded hillocks. These wetlands were a haven for wildlife foraging in the marshes and feeding among the gnarled roots and the miniature forests of the mangrove aeriols in the tidal waters. The vast variety of birds, fishes, kangaroos, wallabies and deer which had escaped over the Cooks River made it a hunters' paradise.
Ramsgate was the first subdivision in the district and Thomas Saywell developed an incredible tourist and amusement resort at Lady Robinson's Beach. In 1886 he opened large enclosed tidal swimming baths (women were permitted to use them only between l0am and 2pm each day), he provided amenities such as hot sea-water showers as a cure for rheumatic conditions. He built a promenade pier some 500 feet in length to facilitate pleasure boating to and from Kurnell, Sans Souci and Cronulla. He also built another bathing enclosure for women only on the southern side of the promenade, so that the ladies could swim at any time of the day. (Mixed bathing was not permitted at this time.) He set aside a picnic area known as Shady Nook in which he built a bandstand. to provide entertainment and an impressive palatial hotel and pavilion for his patrons. Saywell recognised the appalling lack of access, so at his own expense he installed a tramway to link with the Illawarra railway at Rockdale.
 
Market gardens flourished in the lowlands, the popularity of the region increased, but there was still no link between the now main Illawarra Highway, the Rocky Point Road and Taren Point Punt and the beach resorts.
As human inhabitation increased, the natural fen odour of the mudflats at ebb tide disturbed the otherwise pleasant surroundings, becoming less tolerated as more people sought the peaceful area for their homes.
In 1890 the Kogarah Progress Association lobbied their five-year-old Municipal Council to secure the head of Kogarah Bay as parkland. The Council did possess foresight and energy, totally supporting the request. They agreed with the Progress Association and were fired with ideas of the transformation of the swamp. So stimulated, a deputation from the Kogarah Municipal Council approached Mr Carruthers, the Colonial Secretary, who in turn put their request to resume the upper reaches of Kogarah Bay for a public park, to the Government.
Unfortunately, this was the time of the 1890s decline in the economic climate, the bank crash of 1893 and the depression, consequently the Government rejected the plan due to lack of available funds. Kogarah Council, now anxious to create a park, selected the less expensive portion of Mr Edmund English's paddock beside the Kogarah Hotel and bought it in 1896, temporarily settling the argument and quest for recreational facilities in the Municipality. Here they created Kogarah Park (now Jubilee Oval) to provide facilities for cricket, football and athletics, and the swamp was left to its own devices.
By 1905 the urgency for a cross route between Rocky Point Road and the Kogarah Road once more became a pressing issue. Mr D.J.O'Brien, Mayor of Kogarah convinced Council that the short cut was imperative, the Council in turn, went in deputation to the Minister for Works. This time they proposed the construction of a causeway to connect Ramsgate Road with either Lacey Street or Park Road, and the reclamation of the backwaters to provide a park. This was met with success and work was commenced in 1906 on the Ramsgate cutting to bring the road down to the causeway but the park project lapsed into obscurity.
 
THE QUEST FOR
THE ULTIMATE FACILITIES
 
The Kogarah Bay park project did not raise its head again for a further decade. It was round about the beginning of World War One that the ex-Mayor Mr R.J. Smith and the then Mayor, Mr W. Pritchard produced a visionary project for the development of the mosquito infested, evil smelling bog beyond the causeway. Smith idealized a Utopian garden of greater beauty than the Sydney Botanic Gardens, while Mayor Pritchard had created in his mind a magnificent recreation and sporting complex. He foresaw swimming baths, marinas, boat sheds, football ovals, tennis courts, cricket pitches, nature walks, pleasure grounds in his sporting dream. Fund­ing would not be a problem, they would sell the English paddock, Kogarah Park. But with a change in Council administration and the installation of a new Mayor came the out­right rejection of any suggestion that Kogarah Park be disposed of. It was their one and only public facility. Nevertheless he did wish to advance his Municipality and create more facilities for the residents, so the State Government was approached with a request to fund the project. Again the economic climate and the war put a lid on any monies which may have been forthcoming for their extravagant scheme. Fortunately Council was pressured by its residents into buying the Carss Estate when it came onto the market. It appears that it may have been the success of Carss Park which again turned the Kogarah Bay park project into favour with Council.
In 1926 the Municipal Engineer was instructed to investigate the dormant swamp and to provide figures and possibilities for its reclamation. His report gave the Council a profitable project. 125 acres could be created at a cost of somewhere between £12,000 and £16,000. They would dredge the bay to the south of. the causeway to give a better waterway and the sludge and spoil from this would be pumped over the causeway to fill the swamp, thus reclaiming 125 acres of use­able land. To aid in the financing of the park they could subdivide 70 acres for housing and auction it off, with their superior town plan­ning skills they would establish a model residential estate out of land which did not previously exist, at the same time they would retain 55 acres to develop their recreational paradise and dispense with the market gardens which was the unhealthy breeding ground of the disease carrying mosquitoes so rampant there. Again the timing of the proposition was against them. It was the era of the post war Great Depression, almost all of the useable land in the Municipality had been subdivided and the Council was over extended financially to provide paving, road­works and kerb and guttering, added to this the Government could not provide any funds for them. However, the Great Depression was the reason the council engineer pushed for the commencement of resuming the land. Land values were at rock bottom, so too were council's own resources. Again the scheme was deferred indefinitely. Another ten years passed before the matter was raised again by the persistent engineer. Again he met with rejection. Fortunately, the old 1906 Local Government Act was amended in 1935 to allow local councils to build roadways and to develop water and sewerage facilities for their residents. Acting on this new turn of events, the engineer successfully re-submitted his plans and within two years the work was under way.
 
The final proposal provided for the following:
1. The reclamation of 72 acres of swamp and low ground.
2. The dredging of 25 acres of Kogarah Bay to a minimum depth of 6 feet at low water.
3. The inclusion of 180 acres of surrounding  land in the scheme.
4. The setting aside of 80 acres for parks (this was finally 65 acres)
5. The subdividing and sale of residential blocks of land, 400 blocks envisaged, but records show a total of 360 blocks auctioned.