Riverina Rewind: In February 1875 Wagga was talking about sly-grog shootouts and stinky pigs

One hundred and fifty years ago, the growing municipality of Wagga Wagga on the banks of the mighty Murrumbidgee was a very different place, but some of the names and issues echo into the present.

As residents sweated their way through a steamy February, police magistrate Henry Baylis was cracking down on sly-grog shanties in the wake of a recent murder, the new mayor was fighting fires in his backyard and the community was fed up with the smell of pigs.

An article from a correspondent for the Australian Town and Country Journal published on 27 February 1875 offers a fascinating glimpse into the goings on of the town. The names mentioned in passing, such as Bolton, Baylis, Fitzhardinge and Forsyth remain memorialised on our streets, and humidity and cost of living pressures also strike a familiar note.

Like all good updates, our scribe starts with the weather and the description could have been written last month.

“We have had a liberal supply of rain in occasional showers, and the country around begins to show up in the welcome green of the springing grass. The weather has, however, continued to be very warm, the nights being most oppressively sultry.”

Herds of cattle and sheep were fattening up and a brisk trade was being done in stock. The cost of transporting goods was becoming “exorbitant” however, and locals were discussing forming their own carrying company.

Land prices had also skyrocketed with many new properties coming onto the market and commercial spaces were in high demand.

“Every bit of ground here now available for business sites is bringing very high prices,” the correspondent wrote.

“Some property in the main street, put up by auction by Mr A T Bolton, was withdrawn from sale, though £20 a foot was offered; the owner, it is said, having been offered a much higher price privately.”

The municipality of Wagga Wagga had been formed four years earlier and had recently elected its second mayor with alderman Tomas Hodson stepping up to replace the inaugural burgomaster George Forsyth.

Mr Hodson, a well-respected local builder, had no sooner accepted the chain of office than a fire burned down the stables of his Mount Pleasant homestead.

“Fortunately its ravages were confined to the stables, and the house was not injured,” the story confirmed.

In early 1875, the Riverina had been making national headlines after a man was shot outside a wine-shanty on the Narranderra Road in an incident dubbed “the Berembed Murder”.

An inquest in Wagga in January had heard how William Stringer shot-dead his mate James Mitchell after a drunken argument at Clarke’s Shanty.

While the cause of the conflict was unclear, Stringer was seen shoving Mitchell with a shotgun and shouted, “You bloody dog, I’ll shoot you twice over!” before pulling the trigger.

According to the Town and Country scribe, police magistrate Henry Baylis had taken the opportunity to crack down on unlicensed premises and shanty owner John Clarke was charged will selling “sly-grog”.

He swore under oath that neither man had been served alcohol before the murder but his story was at odds with reports of rum drinking from other witnesses. Despite being defended by the renowned Harry Fitzhardinge, Clarke was found guilty and jailed for three months along with a £30 fine.

“The punishment is heavy, but the mischief done by some of these bush shanties is very great,” the correspondent said.

“I suppose Mr Baylis deemed it necessary to make the punishment severe enough to act as a warning to those who hold colonial wine licenses, that the sale of spirits by them would be rigorously put a stop to.”

As for the shooter, Stringer was found guilty of willful murder in April 1875 and condemned to death.

The final item of note in the Town and Country’s February wrap on Wagga captures some of the business of the first meeting of the newly elected council and the increasing complaints about pigs.

“Pigsties, nuisances of serious magnitude this summer, are doomed to banishment from the municipal boundaries,” the scribe predicted.

“If it were possible to convey in language any sense of the odor with which we have been afflicted from this nuisance during the hot weather, it would be easily understood that much cause of rejoicing lies in the decision of the council.”

It is arguably a decision that Wagga residents continue to benefit from 150 years on.