Stories from right here 2024

Photos above: Michael Gray

Photos below: Lea Hawkins

Research findings:

The research which culminated in this exhibition was conducted in the University of Wollongong (UOW) Library Archives, for the inaugural Liz Hilton Memorial Fellowship 2022-2023, as part of the project ‘Cross-reading South Coast Histories’. Two main collections were consulted in the research project: D217 Archibald Campbell (1834-1903) and D92 Frank McCaffrey (1865-1932).

Key findings from the ‘Cross-reading South Coast Histories’ research project include:

• Campbell (1834-1903) – a politician, and McCaffrey (1865-1932) – a dairy inspector, shared a common interest in the agricultural and civic progress of South Coast NSW but their archives show a curiosity about how Australia’s colonial origins affected their own times. Both men were appalled by the brutality of the convict system and curious about the Aboriginal people they came into contact with on the South Coast of NSW. McCaffrey is particularly damning of what he terms ‘English savagery’ and the tendency for historic records to be burned, thrown away or ‘tidied up’. Campbell made a point of collecting Aboriginal words and placenames from well-known Wodi Wodi and Yuin Elders, including ‘Queen’ Rosie, William Saddler and William Buthung.
• McCaffrey, from a family of dairy farmers and as a state dairy inspector, was particularly interested in the early tracks and paths which allowed farmers to transport their produce to market. The escarpment and deep gullies of the Illawarra and Shoalhaven regions made access by road difficult well into the mid-1800s, and McCaffrey’s catalogue of Aboriginal paths to and from the coast to the tablelands demonstrates the extent to which explorers, surveyors and later, farmers, relied on Aboriginal knowledge. Of the celebrated explorer Hamilton Hume, McCaffrey writes: “Many of our writers claim for Hamilton Hume wonderful powers, almost equal power with the native bee that is capable of winging home from any direction. He was different to the ‘bee’ in this – he invariably had a guide – an Aboriginal – when travelling” (McCaffrey, The History of Illawarra and its Pioneers, 1922, p. 169).
• The Aboriginal origin of the name Jerry Bailey (colonial name for Shoalhaven Heads, until the 1950s): a widely held view has been that the origin of ‘Jerry Bailey’ is unknowable, a mystery. However, in the list of South Coast place-names collected by Archibald Campbell in August 1900, from William Buthung, his Aboriginal interlocutor, I found the word “Djerrabaly”. Buthung connects this name to “that spot, back of garden” at Alexander Berry’s Coolangatta Estate, now Shoalhaven Heads (Campbell collection D217/11).

Please cite my research as: Saunders, J 2024, ‘Stories from right here’, vennsquidink/Jen Saunders, viewed [day month year], <vennsquidink.com.au/?page_id=507> Thank you!