When Hudson Street hummed

At the northern end of Hudson Street, Hamilton, amid residential houses, was a veritable hive of industry. But it was more than that – it was a community. Three large commercial enterprises were interlinked, bartering their goods and services in a friendly, mutually beneficial exchange.

The towering wheat silos of McIntyre’s flour mill were a Hamilton landmark for many decades. Between 1899 to 1989, the mill supplied flour to bakers in Newcastle and beyond, including overseas.

The Michelangelo Centre

It had been his dream for a dozen years or more – an opulent function centre in the heart of Hamilton, a dazzling extravaganza of imported sculptures and marble floors, fountains, hand painted murals in the fresco style, and 60 crystal chandeliers. Recapturing the splendor of 15^th century Rome and the Renaissance, the centre would also reflect the twin loves of its creator, Giuseppe Risicato - his Sicilian home, and immortal Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti.

One bet each way - Tony and Clare Rufo

Over the past decade, Hamilton residents Tony (Antonio) and Clare Rufo have travelled regularly to San Donato Val di Comino, Tony’s ancestral home town in Italy. Accompanied by family and friends, they fill a dozen rooms in a large B&B, and revel in the festival atmosphere that takes over each August. The population triples, as people make the journey home from far afield. Not just within Italy, but from places popular with emigrating San Donatese like Boston, New York, Toronto, and Ireland, for a month of parties and celebrations.

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.