The council born in a pub
It was hardly a hanging offence. A young Londoner was convicted for selling stolen goods. Many people selling second hand wares admit that it’s often impossible to tell… It was the same in the 1830s.
The English prison authorities had been asked to select young, fit felons who did not appear to constitute any serious menace to society. So it was a case of “You’re off to Botany Bay, m’lad!”
In 1833, three years after his arrival in Sydney, William Newland was free to return – once he had earned the price of a passage home. But like so many, he soon asked himself “why bother?”
Two decades later, Newland had earned the respect of his community as a businessman and acquired a licence to open a hotel. He even managed to secure a bank loan for £600 to build his new Charing Cross Hotel. And when the Colonial Government of New South Wales passed the Municipalities Act in 1858, Waverley’s landowners were quick off the mark and a year later their new council was elected (hence the current 150th birthday). Newland was one of those elected.
The Minutes of Council’s first meeting state that members gathered at the Tea Gardens Inn, which still trades at the same location, and elected their chairman.
So the very first meeting of Waverley Council was held in a pub!
So how would the new councillor, proud publican William Newland, have felt about holding the meeting in someone else’s hotel – a country pub along the road to Sydney, not even in the main village of Waverley? As the proud owner of the new Charing Cross Hotel, it’s very likely he felt slighted.
Newland promptly offered to accommodate the fledgling council free of charge. The first meeting elected the chairman then closed to celebrate. It is likely Newland put his proposal during those drinks. At the council’s second meeting, it was resolved to accept Newland’s offer for six months.
So Waverley Council’s unorthodox inauguration was due to an appropriately named ex-convict, one who had proved his worth in his “new land”.
Waverley Council was born in one pub and “found its feet” in another.
We acknowledge Waverley’s Local Studies Librarian, Kimberly O’Sullivan Steward’s set-piece address, It’s our Birthday: Waverley turns 150, for the material from which this article is drawn.
The Society’s next talk will be “How Trams stirred settlement in Our Municipality” by The Sydney Tramway Museum’s Education Officer at 4 pm at Club Bondi Junction’s (RSL Club), 1st floor Auditorium and on June 1 when Talkies, a review of early films will be shown.
– BY PETER McCALLUM
