Pissing down raining today. It's so long since it rained I'd forgotten what it looked like. I'm sitting here with a hot cuppa enjoying the rain and the cold and blogging some more photos from Wednesday.
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Looking down the hill to The Broadwater (Brisbane Water) and the ferry with the war memorial park on the left. The hill in the background is Point Clare.
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View from the top part of the park over The Broadwater to Fagans Bay and the Kariong hills. The ramp on the right is the Pacific Hwy overpass, the road in the bottom left is Dane Drive. The footy stadium is on the far right. The Kariong Hill lookout is up there on the left side of the ridge somewhere.
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The main memorial in the park. Nice and quiet and appropriately surrounded by rosemary.
Annotated photos of the whole memorial.
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Boer War memorial.
"Erected
In Memory Of
OUR SOLDIERS
WHO, IN SOUTH AFRICA,
FELL IN DEFENCE OF THEIR NATION
DURING THE BOER WAR
1899 - 1902
They obeyed their country's call".
Annotated photos of the whole memorial.
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On the Boer War memorial.
"Corporal
FRANKYN HARCOURT
LEGGE
of 'Woodport'.
20th May 1901".
The date is wrong, according to the library. They say the official record has him dying "exactly a year earlier". Trooper Sidney S. Mayo and Legge are both "listed as killed in action". Rooksberry, author of Every Mother's Son (copies in the Gosford Lirary system) found out they probably died of enteric fever, which during the Boer War killed more men that combat did.
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Some people don't like guns being included at war memorials. Mechanism of death and all that. There's no National Service now in my country and I've never joined voluntarily. For me the guns show some of the mundane detail of what it was like every day for the troops on the front line. I can sit on the gunner's tiny seat and put my hands on the levers and wheels he touched and imagine what it was like to sit there firing and hoping death didn't come that day.
Engraved on a small panel on this side near the gunner's position:
"SADDLE. 25 Pn/r
No. [blank section] Mk [blank section]".
Engraved on the barrel:
"C. of G.
Q.F.25Pr MK.II.
M.O. 1941 JACKET No L/6136
8 - 0 - 4
25PII
M.O. 1944".
Engraved on a small panel on the other side:
"CARR. 25 Pr MKI|L|
RUWOLT 1942
REG. No. 4033 [or 4933]".
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Over the left wheel you can see the tiny seat theat is the gunner's position. Not very big and probably caused terrible cases of Gunner's Bum. The big flat circular section swings the barrel round in response to the gunner's actions on the levers and wheels.
There endeth my knowledge of guns 'n' ammo.
Somewhere on the water side of the barrel:
"CONTROLLING SPEED OF
RUN OUT
TO INCREASE TURN VALVE A
ANTI-CLOCKWISE".
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Gunner's view. Except that he'd had the peephole open. Click for the annotated version.
Annotated photos of all five memorials.
9 comments:
G'day Spike,
I'm enjoying your blog particularly as my family came from Gosford in the early days. Have you been walkies through the old Ourimbah Cemetery? My great grandparents Joseph James Frewin and his wife Christiana are both buried there. Joseph died by drowning in Brisbane Water near Half Tide Rocks in 1877. I heard about your blog from a rellie in the UK who enjoys it. Regards, James (Jim) Frewin jfrewin@gotalk.net.au
Hi Jim. Thanks, it's good to hear from residents past and present.
Have't been up to Ourimbah cemetery yet. What street is it on?
So far I've walked all the woy Woy Peninsula including Pearl Beach and Patonga (old archives), Phegans Bay and the other bays there and all the way up the western side of Brisbane Water to West Gosford.
I'm doing Gosford now, albeit slowly, and I'll getting up to Ourimbah eventually. I gather there's a lot of old WWII stuff still up there.
Frewin is a familiar name. I think I read a bit about that drowning. I'll keep my eye out for more. And of course, anything you have to add on the subject is more than welcome.
Thanks for reading and hi to your UK rellie :)
Regarding your War Memorial picture in Mann Street. The name is Frank Gell - not Cell. He was my grandfather's brother.
My great grandparents William and Elizabeth Gell came to Gosford approx 1888 from England - she from Shropshire and he from Gillingham, Kent. Her maiden name was Tinsley.
Today on my way back from the Hunter Valley to Sydney I called into Brady's Gully and was thrilled to find William Henry Gell's grave although the worst for wear. it was amongst the trees on the Edward Parry Poad side of the park.He died in 1910 and his death certificte stated he was buried at the General Cemetery, North Gosford. Is Brady's and North Gosford one and the same?
I was very disappointed not to find the grave of my great grandmother Elizabeth Gell. She died in 1936 and was buried in Brady's Gully General Cemetery.
Thank you so much for your wonderful photographs
Kim Rossleigh
Regarding your War Memorial picture in Mann Street. The name is Frank Gell - not Cell. He was my grandfather's brother.
My great grandparents William and Elizabeth Gell came to Gosford approx 1888 from England - she from Shropshire and he from Gillingham, Kent. Her maiden name was Tinsley.
Today on my way back from the Hunter Valley to Sydney I called into Brady's Gully and was thrilled to find William Henry Gell's grave although the worst for wear. it was amongst the trees on the Edward Parry Poad side of the park.He died in 1910 and his death certificte stated he was buried at the General Cemetery, North Gosford. Is Brady's and North Gosford one and the same?
I was very disappointed not to find the grave of my great grandmother Elizabeth Gell. She died in 1936 and was buried in Brady's Gully General Cemetery.
Thank you so much for your wonderful photographs
Kim Rossleigh
Kim
Regarding your War Memorial picture in Mann Street. The name is Frank Gell - not Cell.
Thanks for the correction. That memorial is hard to read.
I called into Brady's Gully and was thrilled to find William Henry Gell's grave
Excellent.
Is Brady's and North Gosford one and the same?
Bradys is now in North Gosford but wasn't always.
I was very disappointed not to find the grave of my great grandmother Elizabeth Gell. She died in 1936 and was buried in Brady's Gully General Cemetery.
That's a shame. I saw some grave markers there that had been worn entirely blank. But whether you ever find her marker or not, you know she's spending eternity in a lovely spot.
Thank you so much for your wonderful photographs
Yer welcome.
Photos & potted history of Bradys Gully
G'day again Spike,
Sorry I haven't been back in contact before this. The old Ourimbah Cemetery is now the Lisarow Cemetery. Ourimbah, when my folks first settled there after arriving from England in 1852, was known as Blue Gum Flats. I have been told that they were only the second white family there. Eight of their nine children were born locally, some stayed, and bred more little Frewins.
The next generation kept up the good work with my grandfather Joseph fathering a further nine - 4 girls & 5 boys - my father being the youngest.
Saw the name Blue Gum Flats recently and wondered about it.
Ta for the extra info. I love knowing what happened to the families I see in the graveyards.
I'm currently doing major research on the Brady's Gully Cemetery at North Gosford. This cemetery was the original old cemetery of Gosford along with that of the Church of England, being the one at the end of Point Frederick originally called 'Long Nose Point'.
Sadly, both these Central Coast Pioneer and Early settler Cemeteries were neglected by our Shire Council of the time and well before when it was called the Erina Shire Council. What is now known as the Brady's Gully Cemetery or North Gosford Cemetery was in fact 'GOSFORD CEMETERY',the name has continued to change over time. This cemetery ceased having burials, I believe, sometime between 1949 and the very early 1950's. Another suspicious bush fire (as you mentioned the 1916 one) happened in the winter time of 1964. A local resident wrote in the local newspaper of 1964 just after this fire, voicing hs outrage and concern of the Gosford Shire Council's neglect, hoping for them to 'do the right thing' and respect this cemetery by maintaining and restoring it to its rightful and more respectful state. This was not to be! Within 3 months after his article in paper, this cemetery land was gazetted (behind closed doors, of course!)and land resumed, headstones taken away (what ones where left and could be removed) for Public School purposes. The residents of the time were outraged, however, there was little one could do, during this era. In 1990's a very small section of the cemetery land was restored to a 'Pioneer Park' due to the 'Gosford Cemeteries Act of 1970'. So consequently, all of the Roman Catholic, a major portion of the Church of England, the Wesleyan, the Presbyterian and a portion of the Unsectarian is used as a school having had demountables come and go. It is currently (2009/2010) in use by the NSW Department of Education, as The North Gosford Learning Centre. The North Gosford Private Hospital also leases some of this land from the D.E.T.as extra carparking space.
If any of you out there are as outraged as I am, please write both to the NSW Department of Education and the Gosford City Council, as I so desire for this land, as it was originally gazetted in 1882 to become all PIONEER PARK, for the people interred here to be respected and their future generations to have a monument listing all the people known within its sacred be placed within this ground.
Regrettably the Foreshore development proposal is to remove the memorials from Gosford Memorial Park, re-site them further along Mann Street and demolish by undercutting the site.
Unhappily the cliff area at the edge of the memorial to be demolished is the original line of the foreshore of Gosford, before the bay was filled in, beginning in the 1880s.
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