Knowing the Gow family of Fettercairn, Hamilton

There was no celebratory clinking of glasses of Scotch whisky when Fanny Gow, aged 42, gave birth to a boy in 1886, after 10 girls in succession. Temperance was the watchword of this prominent Hamilton family. Ramsay Gow, Fanny’s husband, was a foundation member of the Sons of Temperance, a member-only organization devoted to a life of abstinence from alcohol. Fanny herself was a great worker for the temperance cause, though her father was a publican.

Born to perform - Elma Gibbs

The pulling power of a high media profile was obvious even in the Newcastle of the late 1930s. When ‘sweetheart of the airwaves’ Elma Gibbs resigned to get married in 1942, thousands packed the Town Hall for her farewell. When she married Charles Puddicombe, a Newcastle Sun journalist, at Wesley Church, Hamilton, the press of people was so great that as she left the church, she ‘had to be carried to her car over the heads of the spectators’. [1]

Saving an AA Company house in Hamilton

It continued to await its future, concealed in a battle axe block behind 195 Denison Street. This compact nineteenth century residence was once the home of two AA Company Overmen and a Viewer (manager) of collieries.

In 1994, a chance discovery by a young postgraduate student cycling over Cameron’s Hill along Denison Street was to bring hope to this historic house. Vacant since 1963 and the passing of owner Charles Little, it was becoming increasingly derelict.

Which David Murray was he?

The repetition of given names, especially naming first born sons after their father or grandfather, is a tradition with centuries of history behind it. I find it extremely  confusing, especially when trying to understand how the many different Murrays that scatter Hamilton’s history are connected.

Murray Street, Hamilton runs parallel to Beaumont Street to its east, neatly truncated at its northern end by Lindsay Street and south at Denison Street. The Scots Kirk, dedicated in 1887 and considered one of the finest pieces of church architecture in the Northern District, occupies the corner of Tudor and Murray Streets. Inside the Kirk are three stained glass windows – each a memorial to a man with the name David Murray. Were there three?

A community celebrates its stories

It wasn’t until I took my place near the lectern, ready to speak, that I saw the crowd that had been tucked around the corner, out of my line of sight. Momentarily, I was shocked at how many people had gathered. I’d been immersed in signing books, focused on a queue of people that just kept on replenishing itself.

Bernie's Bar

It was a yawning gap in my story about gay Hamilton of the 1970s and 1980s and the wine bar at the corner of Beaumont and Donald Street.

I wrote in that post  about the O’Beirne Grocery, established around 1915 at 34-36  Beaumont Street. Already selling bottled wine, it became a ‘wine saloon’ in 1926. Remodelled in 1970 by new licensee Bernard Sarroff, the ownership of what had been Bernie’s Bar changed again around 1974.

The Queen's Arms on Cameron's Hill

He was a man of influence in Hamilton – James Cameron. So influential was he that the locality boasting his hotel, the Queen’s Arms, became known as Cameron’s Hill. Cameron’s Hilll supplanted Winship’s Hill, which had been named for James Barron Winship, a mine manager for the Australian Agricultural Company from 1860.

Deitz Hardware - a Hamilton fixture

Guest blogger Sandra Hargreaves

Sandra Hargreaves is a Novocastrian who lives and works in London. She is the granddaughter of Charlie Reilly Deitz, who began working in the hardware store at 88 Beaumont Street, Hamilton [1] after World War 1. Reilly (as he was known) purchased the business in 1932 and after World War II, his son Charles Douglas Reilly (Doug, Sandra’s father) joined him.

The American's wife

It was a house everyone admired – an elegant, two story residence at the west end of Hamilton – belonging to the Americans. A medical doctor, Silas Rand, and his brother Thomas Rand, a dentist, had their practices there, and their homes. They’d grown up in Minnesota. Their house had once been a Turkish bath house. Visitors reported pipe works still visible on interior walls.

Coming soon – the book Hidden Hamilton

There’s a big event coming up, for everyone who loves Hamilton, has a connection with Hamilton, or who simply wants to know more about one of the oldest suburbs of Newcastle. The book Hidden Hamilton, featuring popular stories from the blog, will be published in November, 2014.