1870s Wagga looking south down Fitzmaurice Street from Gurwood Street. Photo: State Library of NSW.
Reading through a report from the Australian Town and Country‘s Wagga correspondent from 151 years ago on 24 May 1875, the opening paragraphs could have been written today.
“The weather during the past week has been fine; the day bright, and though cold, not unpleasantly so. The nights however, have been very cold, whilst the mornings were ushered in with dense fogs,” they wrote.
“The previous week brought in lots of rain, and I believe in all parts of the Murrumbidgee district creeks are running, and water is everywhere abundant.”
In 1875 the growing municipality of Wagga Wagga was on the rise and wool, wheat and wine were being produced in abundance. With a modest population of around 2000, the streets were still unpaved and the nights dark but the council had just opened a free public library and work had begun on parks around the town centre.
The arrival of the Great Southern Railway was still four years away and the region relied primarily on bullock drays and coaches for transport with goods occasionally being floated up by riverboat during the high water months.
Along with a detailed account of recent trading, the Town and Country update offers a peek into the daily scuttlebutt and colourful characters of the past.
Top of mind for our correspondent was the announcement of the Murrumbidgee Turf Club program with a list of the upcoming races. 1875 would see the first running of the Wagga Wagga Cup in December with the iconic golden trophy presented the following year by Mr John Cox of Mangoplah, beginning a 150-year tradition of the Wagga Gold Cup.
The murder of a local man outside a wine-shanty on the Narrandera Road remained a hot topic locally.
“The official intimation that the sentence of death passed on Stringer, now confined in our jail, for the murder of James Mitchell, has been commuted to 10 years’ imprisonment has created a good deal of surprise here,” the correspondent said.
Following the inquest in Wagga in January, William Stringer had been sentenced to death in April for shooting his mate James Mitchell with a shotgun after a drunken argument at Clarke’s Shanty.
The incident had generated national headlines and the verdict was fiercely debated in NSW Parliament in June with some members arguing for clemency on the grounds that the two men had been close friends and Stringer had only pulled the trigger when Mitchel had approached him in a rage.
Wagga locals seemed inclined to agree but were surprised that the verdict was downgraded from death to 10 years.
“Though the jury uttered no word by way of recommendation to mercy at the trial we were prepared to hear that the sentence would be commuted, from some remarks of the judge, but that the commutation would be for such a short period of imprisonment, was never expected, and puzzles all who either heard or read the evidence in the case,” the correspondent mused.
Another inquest had recently been held into the sudden death of a bookkeeper named John Burn who had passed out at his desk at the Wagga Brewery Company.
While there was nothing suspicious about his passing, his colourful past caught the writer’s attention.
“The deceased was very well connected, and had led a chequered existence,” they noted.
Mr Burn was the son of an Irish gentleman who had worked for the Earl of Kenmare and had once been appointed by British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston in the diplomatic service of the Foreign Office.
He was also a former soldier, having served in the so-called ‘Pope’s Brigade’.
In 1860 Pope Pius IX had sent out a church-wide plea for help to defend the Papal States from Italian unification forces led by Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Around 1400 Irishmen answered the call, posing as pilgrims to sneak into Europe and join the Papal War. Like many of the disillusioned Irish Battalion veterans, Burn had set sail for the colonies rather than return to Ireland.
As our correspondent’s update drew to a close, there was one final mention of a religious scandal surrounding the fabulously named preacher Cuthbert Featherstonhaugh.
“Featherstonhaugh, who has attained some celebrity through the Dean of Melbourne’s inhibition of his preaching, has announced that his connection with the Church o’England has been severed,” they wrote.
In 1874 the 38-year-old Irish minister had preached and published a controversial sermon titled “Our Father” in which he suggested that the modern church had lost its way and focused too much on duty and ritual rather than true conscience and a desire to emulate the life and teachings of Christ.
His suggestion that gospel truth was inherent in the world and could be seen echoed in other faiths proved too much for the leading clergy of the day and Featherstonhaugh and the Church of England cordially agreed to part ways.
“This gentleman has a very numerous circle of admirers in the Urana and Billabong districts and it is supposed that an attempt will be made to put up a church for him in that part of the colony, and thus retain his earnest and upright services for the cause of religion,” the correspondent concluded.
Featherstonhaugh did indeed continue to minister as an “unsectarian” minister and went on to become a prominent pastoralist. His encounter with the Bushranger Blue Cap was immortalised in both a poem and a novel.
