TWEED REGIONAL MUSEUM - Key Persons
Angus McNeil operated as a professional photographer in Murwillumbah from 1912 to 1927. He was apprenticed to his father, Angus McNeil, who was a well-known photographer with a studio in Kempsey. Angus' brother, Leslie, also operated a photographic studio, in Lismore and later established ‘Tweed Studios' in Murwillumbah.
Angus McNeil opened his first studio in the old Imperial Hotel building, Main Street, Murwillumbah, in 1912. In 1923 he purchased land and constructed a building in Broadway, Queen Street, to house his new studio and other businesses and flats, taking a photographic record of the entire building process. McNeil worked out of this studio until he moved from the district in 1927.
He recorded thousands of local residents who had their portraits taken in his studio, documented people and scenes around town and captured major events such as floods.
Angus McNeil also built up a historical record of the area, including taking the very first aerial photographs of the Tweed in 1920. Newspaper reports tell us of one of his flights, in May 1920, and the fact that he established a record in taking 18 photographs in 12 minutes, which involved changing three spools of film, no easy undertaking considering the wind was blowing at 80 miles per hour.
Billy Moore's breastplate. S0776-98
Billy Moore's brass breastplate inscribed "Billy Moore - the famous Tweed Aboriginal" was found under a log with his boomerang in Bray's Scrub at Kynumboon in 1920.
Billy Moore was a full-blood Aboriginal man of the Tul-gi-gin clan, a Tweed sub-group of the greater regional Bundjalung/Yugambeh people. He is believed to have been born in the vicinity of Currumbin, circa 1860's, and died at Ukerebah Island on 13 October 1924.
Billy was a very tall well built man and history records that he was an excellent axe man, credited with clearing trees from much of the Nobby's Creek area for the Osborne family, who were among the first European settlers to that area.
He was one of the best trackers on the Tweed and his skill in throwing a boomerang was uncanny. He was also recognised as the last man on the Tweed who could climb any type of tree using just a small Aboriginal axe and piece of vine.
Billy had two sons, Dunnie and Coolum, and his best friend was another Aboriginal man, Long Jimmy. An obituary for Billy in the Tweed Daily records that his death was due to kidney disease, and that he was well known, having worked for many of the farmers on the Lower Tweed. Although he had a funeral service at the Tweed Heads cemetery it is believed he was subsequently buried by his people somewhere on the hills around Nobby's Creek.
The photograph above of Billy was taken in later years and suggests a man saddened by the many changes to his way of life and impacts on his culture and beliefs. Nevertheless he is one of the few Tweed Aboriginal men of that time who was widely recognised and managed in some way to accommodate European values.
Cedric Bassett Popkin was born in Sydney in 1890 to William (Dan) Bassett and Lilian Martha Popkin (nee Gilbert) 1. By 1904 the family was living in Grafton and Cedric's two older sisters were looking after the family as their mother Gladys had died in 1902 2. Cedric was working as a builder in Mullumbimby in 1908 and later moved to Brisbane where he married Nellie Ellen Bull on 10 March 1913. The couple moved to South Murwillumbah where Cedric found work as a tobacconist and had two sons, Roland and Michael. The family moved to Palmwoods in Queensland before the outbreak of WW1 3.
Cedric Popkin enlisted in the AIF in Brisbane on 6 May 1916, just before his 26th birthday. He was issued with Regimental Number 424 and his rank on enlistment was Private. He was attached to the Machine Gun Company 7, Reinforcement 6 and embarked from Melbourne, Victoria, on board HMAT A17 Port Lincoln on 20 October 1916 4. On arriving in Sierra Leone, Cedric and his Company were transferred to the Ulysses for the forward passage to England. They disembarked at Devonport, England on 20 December 1916 and were transferred to the Australian training camp at Perham Downs on Salisbury Plains on 29 December 1916. In April 1917 Cedric committed his only military offence and was reprimanded for using insulting language to a Non-Commissioned Officer (N.C.O.) whilst on active service 5.
Private Popkin was appointed Acting Corporal with the 24th Machine Gun Company on 30 August 1917 and proceeded to France with his Unit on 7 September. He was based at the Machine Gun Corp's depot at Camiers, where he attended training school 6. On 3 March 1918 he was promoted to Training Sergeant and in April to Sergeant when Sergeant McPhee went missing in action 7.
On his return home Cedric and his family returned to the Tweed area and by 1930 he had taken up the position of Postmaster at Tyalgum, near Murwillumbah. They remained at Tyalgum for about ten years before moving north to run the Cudgen post office. Cedric eventually returned to carpentry and aged 59 he and Nellie were living at Fingal Head.
In 1964 Cedric told the Brisbane Courier Mail, "I am fairly certain it was my fire which caused the Baron to crash, but it would be impossible to say definitely that I was responsible" 15. Perhaps he had forgotten his statement (see above) that was recorded in the 24th Australian Machine Gun Company's War Diary for April 1918. He recalled that everyone was scrambling for souvenirs, with one officer claiming the Baron's gold wrist watch. Cedric claimed a piece of fuselage but said he was "mainly interested in the £50 and month's leave that everyone was saying I would get - but never did". He said he had lent the piece of laminated timber fuselage to someone in Murwillumbah running a war souvenir display and never got it back. He regretted that he had not got the Baron's fur lined flying boots, saying they were "beautiful" 16. Cedric Popkin's Service Record notes that he was issued with the British War Medal and the Victory Medal in 1919.
Cited by Cedric Bassett Popkin, Adopt a Digger Project, http://www.adoptadigger.org/search-for-a-ww1-digger/search-for-a-ww1-digger/item/3-diggers-database/1230-popkin-cedric
Solomons carried his camera around the Tweed, often on horseback, to record the lives of neighbouring selectors and their families as they toiled in tough terrain to carve out a living. He was the son of Louis Solomons, a keen amateur photographer who processed his own photographs, often mounted in pairs to view in 3D. The Museum holds many of these 3D images, from both Louis and Douglas Solomons.
Douglas Samuel Solomons signed and dated his images D.S.S. and often sent them to friends as Christmas cards and mementos of gatherings in the bush and holiday camping trips.
Edward Fackerell owned a farm at Dungay, opened a cordial factory in 1902 and purchased the Imperial Hotel in 1911.
Edward John Fackerell was born in Rookbridge, Somerset, England in 1866 and came to Australia at the age of 16.
He was a carpenter by trade but was also involved in various other business activities in and around Murwillumbah. He owned a farm at Dungay; opened a cordial factory in 1902 and purchased the Imperial Hotel in 1911.
He was also very active in the community serving as an Alderman from 1903 to 1905 and was involved in a range of other community organisations.
He was a well-known business man in Murwillumbah until the early 1920s when he left the area to take up residence in Sydney where he remained until his death in 1941.
In 1904 Edward Fackerell's tender was accepted to extend the Dungay Public School. After some delay in completing the arrangements owing to a lack of funds, the work was carried out in September and October of that year. In 1905 Fackerell supervised the building of the Dungay Public Hall and was also Chairman of the Working Committee.
When Bert Fackerell died in 1926 he was in possession of his father's cedar tool chest. The chest was passed on to his sister Ethel and it remained in her family until 1986 when it was donated to the Murwillumbah Historical Society by John Dolan, E.J. Fackerell's grandson.
As well as his building and construction pursuits, Edward Fackerell also had other business interests in the area including a 285 acre property at Dungay in the Parish of Kynnumboon just outside of Muwrillumbah.
In 1902 he established Fackerell's cordial and aerated water factory in Murwillumbah which was managed by H.W. Dunn who later purchased the business. E.J. Fackerell codd marble cordial and aerated water bottles and glazed pottery ginger beer bottles are still sought after by antique bottle collectors both in Australia and overseas.
In 1911 Fackerell expanded his business portfolio when he purchased the Imperial Hotel in Murwillumbah for a price that was reported "to have been a big one, and considerably in advance of that paid" by the previous owner. He became well known as a genial proprietor noted for running a "splendidly conducted and finely appointed establishment which was under Vice-Regal patronage". He ran the Imperial until the early 1920s when he sold up his assets in the area and relocated to Sydney.
E.J. Fackerell's tool chest. MUS1986.21.10
As well as his own business interests in Murwillumbah and the surrounding area Edward Fackerell was also very involved in the local community.
In January 1901 he was elected to the Committee of the Murwillumbah School of Arts. In the 1903 municipal election he was elected Alderman, serving until 1905 and in the same year is listed as a Magistrate for Murwillumbah in the published list of 730 magistrates Gazetted for the Northern Rivers district.
He was also a member of the Tweed Masonic Lodge Number 136 and in 1903 constructed the new Lodge Hall "at a figure much below its cost". Fackerell was involved with the Tweed, Brunswick and Border Pastoral and Agricultural Society and served as a committee member for some years.
In 1905, he was elected as one of the first directors of the newly formed Tweed River Butter Company, Ltd. At a meeting in 1906 of the Tweed River Shire Council E.J. Fackerell was appointed returning officer for the polling centre at Dungay.
In 1907 Murwillumbah experienced a disastrous fire which destroyed much of the town. However, this adversity was soon seen by the town's citizens as an opportunity to rebuild a new and improved Murwillumbah which included widening "the street from Fackerell's Cordial Factory on Church Hill to Wharf Street" .
This required more land - "five feet on either side of all property fronting the street" and Edward Fackerell was among the first to sign the agreement to give the necessary land for this undertaking. Fackerell also made generous donations to the War Fund in 1915 and the Murwillumbah Hospital building fund in 1918.
Job Titles:
- New South Wales State Secretary of the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement
Frederick Peden (FP) Hobbs took some of the earliest known photographs of the Tweed District. Hobbs' business in Main Street, Murwillumbah, was called Joyland and as well as photographic items, it stocked books, stationery, toys and gifts. Hobbs called himself the ‘Ringmaster of Joyland'.
Although he worked as a photographer for less than ten years, Hobbs was renowned for his scenic images of the surrounding region. His obituary in 1946 claimed:
His mountain and cloud studies of the Tweed have rarely been equalled.
Just prior to WWI, Hobbs organised for the printing of scenic souvenir booklets with photographs from his collection, as well as descriptive articles that would attract both visitors and new settlers. Due to the outbreak of war, his plan was never realised.
His image, "Sunset Murwillumbah", illustrates his experimentation with light and mood and shows why he was especially remembered for cloud studies. Hobbs most likely set up his camera on the Murwillumbah Bridge to take this image of the Tweed's first butter factory in Commercial Road and the atmospheric scene behind it. In 1914, Hobbs convened a meeting to form the ‘Tweed Amateur Camera Club' so that ordinary citizens could explore photograph as a hobby. A local amateur photographer, Mr L. Solomons (father of Douglas Solomons, more on him below)), became the President.
His image, "Murwillumbah No. 1", c1910, gives us valuable information on the township of Murwillumbah. We can see the first Murwillumbah Bridge, built in 1901, and the small building just to the left of the entrance to the bridge, which was the first Fire Station. The large, L-shaped building at centre right is the Murwillumbah Hotel. It is also interesting to note the number of buildings in South Murwillumbah - this was a bustling business district at the time.
In 1917, Hobbs sold his business but remained in the area as a fruit grower. He approached this endeavour in the same way as he had photography; through experimentation, and inspiring others via his involvement with the Tweed Fruit Growers Association and his encouragement to locals to attempt new varieties of fruits and nuts.
Job Titles:
- Teacher, Lecturer and Demonstrator Now of School of over 500 Pupils
When Joshua Bray died in 1918 his obituary referred to him as the King of the Tweed,
Joshua Bray was born in Appin, New South Wales on 3 July 1838, the sixth child of John and Charlotte Bray (nee Storer). Two years later the family moved to "Denfield" three miles from Campbelltown. Joshua received an elementary education at St. Peter's Parochial School in Campbelltown.
In 1855 Joshua's father took up land on the Tumut River to raise cattle on his station "Brungle". Joshua and his brothers ran the property with Joshua making many trips droving cattle to the saleyards in Campbelltown.
In 1861, brothers Frank and Edward Nixon took up a selection on Brungle Creek and the following year their parents George Russel and Rosalie Adelaide and their three younger brothers and three sisters arrived, including 16 year-old Rosalie Gertrude Nixon, who would later become Joshua's wife.
The Nixon family had lived in Europe and the UK and had been educated by their father, an MA and Honours graduate from Cambridge University. The family had a great interest in literature and the arts and could speak both French and German. Joshua and his brother James met the Nixons at this time and provided valuable support and advice to the brothers, Frank and Edward.
Joshua Bray became a prominent community leader and held many public offices and Kynnumboon became a focal point for the settlers scattered around the district. Joshua had first been appointed a Magistrate of the Colony in 1862 when he was still living and working in Tumut and when the first Post Office was established in the Tweed in 1866 Joshua was appointed the first postmaster, a post he held until 30th April 1876.
Prior to this Joshua had used Aboriginal men to carry mail to and from Ballina. He later organised horseback mail deliveries between Wollumben and Casino and another between Wollumben and Nerang Creek in Queensland. A small room on the west side of Kynnumboon had become the Post Office. Joshua's daughter Florence recalls,
Joshua Bray also officiated as Justice of the Peace (1870-1875), Gold Warden and Coroner and from 1875 he took on the roles of Crown Land Agent and Clerk of Petty Sessions (previously held by his brother James Bray), Protector of Aborigines and in 1873 was appointed as a member of the Public School Board for Murwillumbah .
In November 1885 he was appointed a Warden of the Clarence and Richmond Mining District and to issue Miners' Rights, Business and Mineral Licenses and in 1889 he was appointed District Registrar in Bankruptcy for the district of the Tweed River .
As well as these public offices Joshua Bray was interested in road construction and was involved in the building of Old Ferry Road and the Tumbulgum road along the west bank of the Tweed River and in 1869 had an area of 161 acres on Hospital Hill in the present town of Murwillumbah gazetted as a water reserve. This later facilitated plans for the development of the village of Murwillumbah.
Even before Joshua took up official offices his sense of public duty was apparent. In a letter he wrote to Gertrude Nixon on 29 July 1863, he said that,
Margaret Kay was born in the Northern Rivers but sent to a welfare home around 1915. She joined local history groups in the Tweed. She became known as a keeper of Aboriginal artifacts and eventually opened her own museum in the front of her home.
Margaret Kay was born in the Northern Rivers but sent to a welfare home around 1915 under the Aborigines Protection Act (1909). She became a nursemaid to a white family, who she worked with until 1948 when she retired to Tweed Heads.
Proud of her Aboriginal heritage and wanting to preserve her culture, she joined local history groups in the Tweed. She became known as a keeper of Aboriginal artifacts and eventually opened her own museum in the front of her home.
Margaret Kay in the museum she created in her home. Photographer unknown. Tweed Regional Museum Collection M14-7
Margaret took on the responsibility of maintaining a nearby Bora Ring previously used for initiation ceremonies. In 1961 she successfully lobbied the Tweed Shire Council to have the area preserved. It was gazetted in 1961 as a Nature Reserve for "the Preservation of Aboriginal Relics", at a period when conserving Aboriginal sites was unusual.
Margaret led school students on conducted tours, explaining the history and significance of the site. Margaret sadly passed away in 1967. In 1980, the management of the nature reserve was taken over by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, and it was declared a Historic Site.
In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of the gazetting of the South Tweed Heads reserve (and coincidentally the 40th anniversary of the appointment of Neville Bonner, the first Aboriginal senator in Australia, who was born on nearby Ukerebagh Island), the Senate of Australia acknowledged Margaret's work in conserving Aboriginal heritage, at a time when that was rare.
To find out more about Tweed's Indigenous history, visit the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage page.
Neville Bonner was born on Ukerebagh Island in the Tweed River in 1922. His early life was hard, with no opportunity for formal education. In 1971 he became Australia's first Aboriginal senator and was re-elected in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1980.
Neville Bonner was born on Ukerebagh Island in the Tweed River in 1922. His early life was hard, with no opportunity for formal education apart from one year of attendance at school when he was 14. He worked as a stockman, cane cutter, tree feller and married Mona Banfield in 1943.
In 1946 Neville and his family moved to Palm Island. Over the next 17 years he became interested in working to improve the Palm Island community's way of life, rising to the position of Assistant Settlement Overseer.
Back on the mainland in the early 1960s, Neville joined the One People of Australia League, an Aboriginal advancement body which worked cooperatively with the Queensland government to improve Aboriginal welfare, housing and education.
Following the successful 1967 Referendum (whereby the Constitution was amended to allow the Commonwealth to make laws for Aboriginal people and include them in the census), Neville decided it was time to enter politics and he joined the Liberal Party. In 1971 he became Australia's first Aboriginal senator and was re-elected in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1980.
During his parliamentary career he represented the interests of his people, often crossing the floor to vote with the Opposition on Indigenous issues. While Neville was initially "viciously attacked" - as he put it - at the 1970 Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI) conference for standing for parliament, he was invited to address the FCAATSI annual conference in 1974 on the topic of Aborigines and politics.
He opposed the formation of the National Aboriginal Consultative Council, seeing it as a separatist move. Instead he urged his people to ‘learn the intrigues of politics' and work to enter parliament and become a part of the decision-making process.
In 1984 Neville Bonner was awarded the Officer of the Order of Australia. Neville passed away in 1999.
Ralph Thornton's embalmers certificate. MUS2013.19
In 1895 Ralph and Louisa moved into Murwillumbah where Ralph built a small timber and iron cottage for the family on what is now known as hospital hill.
On settling in Murwillumbah Ralph established himself as a cabinet maker, carpenter and builder. Murwillumbah was a growing township and would have offered many opportunities for someone with Thornton's skills.
For example, in 1902 Thornton's tender was accepted to erect a new building for the Wollumbin Public School and over the following years he was involved in a range of building activities both in Murwillumbah and Tweed Heads. Around 1901 Ralph built a new house in Murwillumbah on the east bank of the Tweed River which still stands today and in 1907 after the devastating fire which destroyed much of the main part of Murwillumbah Ralph was among the builders who assisted with rebuilding the town.
Building on his early experience with Walter Haigh, Ralph undertook training in Embalming with J.S.J. Pengelley, Teacher, Lecturer and Demonstrator and received a document which certifies that Ralph Thornton had received full instruction in the art of embalming and disinfecting works.
Ralph also played a role in local politics and in 1902 he was elected as an Alderman in the first Murwillumbah Municipal Council, serving until 1903. In 1904 Ralph returned to England to see his mother and family and was away from his wife and children for close to a year. This was his only trip back to England.
Ralph participated in the development of Tweed Heads, and was involved in a range of building projects including the original St Cuthbert's Church of England which was dedicated on 25th January 1907 where both Harold and Ralph jnr were married in 1924, the public school at Tweed Heads winning the tender for this project in 1908, Morley's Store, Greenwood's Grocery Shop and a row of shops leading up to the Railway Station in Bay Street, Wells Hotel Tweed Heads, the Grande Hotel in Coolangatta which was built in 1913 but subsequently burnt down in 1923, and in April 1913 Ralph received permission from the Tweed Shire Council to erect a cottage.
Ralph Thornton was born at Bramham, Yorkshire, England in 1866. In his early teens Ralph was apprenticed to Walter Haige, Builder, Joiner and Undertaker in Manningham UK becoming a skilled tradesman.
He would also have learned to make coffins and observed something of the work of an undertaker during this period. Ralph came to Australia in 1889 working his passage as a ship's carpenter on the Jumna. He landed in Cooktown in far north Queensland in December 1889 and worked his way down the Queensland coast.
Accompanied by Tom Boyd, Joshua rode along the beach from the mouth of the Richmond to Ballina and then on to a small settlement of sawyers at Terranora near the mouth of the Tweed River. He was then guided to the North Arm, where Samuel Gray had established his run, by a local Aboriginal man, Wollumbin Johnnie.
Sarah Collins was presented with an inscribed sterling silver tea and coffee service on behalf of the officers and members of the Seaman's Union in testimony of the valued services rendered by her husband as treasurer to that society.
Hannah is referred to as a ‘Photographic artist' in local newspaper articles as early as 1924; he supplied the local Chamber of Commerce with photographs to use in tourist booklets in 1925 and the 1930s and began advertising his studio in Wharf Street, Murwillumbah in 1928. He promoted his relationship with local pharmacy Whittles; photography services could be booked through the pharmacy and a car provided to transport clients to and from Hannah's studio.
Given the wider availability of cameras and the growth in amateur photography, the need for professional photographers operating out of local studios to ‘value add' is perhaps reflected in W J Hannah's promotion of the artistic merit of his photography.
William Collins was born in the Casino area in 1848 and was baptised at Grafton. His family moved to Sydney during the 1850s and took up residence in Erskine Street, Sydney.
William Collins was held in high esteem by those who knew him particularly for his involvement in Masonry and Oddfellowship as treasurer for the Seaman's Union.
On 20th September 1883, on the eve of his departure for the Tweed, a garden party and banquet were held for William at the Sir Joseph Banks Hotel in Botany, Sydney in recognition of his public services and sterling qualities as a private citizen . At this event William was presented with an illuminated address which says, in part,
After a long illness William Collins died at Tweed Heads on 23rd August 1896. His coffin was conveyed by steam launch from Tweed Heads to Murwillumbah.
His funeral procession started from the Club House Hotel, for the Church of England portion of the cemetery. The procession was headed by the Murwillumbah brass band, playing the "Death March", followed by Oddfellows' Lodge and the Masonic Lodge members all dressed in full regalia. The hearse was attended by his near relatives and friends.
William was survived by his wife Sarah and their nine children. Sarah succumbed to heart failure in 1902 aged 52.
William Julius arrived at Cudgen around 1878 and set about building a sugar mill. He employed around 200 Islanders from Queensland who had completed their contracts to clear the land and remove stones from the fields, which were used to build fences. He also leased out the land to Islanders to grow sugar which was then processed in the mill. John Robb purchased the Mill from William in 1892. Wages in 1903 were around £1 per week, plus food, and the plantation site also included barracks for housing, a dining hall, a post office, a pub, police station, guest house, workmen's cottages, a store, a school and three churches. For recreation there was also a choir and a cricket team. The Robb farm became well known amongst Islanders and was a place of refuge for those escaping harsh working conditions in Queensland.