Leisure

AU” align=”JUSTIFY”>Little is known of the specific customs or favoured places of the Gringai people but Charles Boydell, who settled on the Allyn River, reports seeing paddy melon hunts in which Gringai boys drove the animals out of the bush and any game speared was cooked and eaten immediately ‘with great delight’.[1]

European settlers within the Williams River Valley have indulged in a diverse range of leisure activities that began with horse racing but soon included hunting, cricket, and polo. Fashions in leisure and sport that developed somewhat later include women’s cricket, tennis, swimming, golf and water skiing, as well as excursion boats down to Newcastle. Many of these more organised forms of leisure can be classified as sport.[2] Leisure activities, apart from those classed as organised sport, ranged from drinking to pigeon shooting, ploughing matches, billiards, euchre, gambling (legal and illegal), debating, reading, attending balls and dances, annual picnics, skating, attending bazaars and flower shows, listening to bands, boat trips, swimming, water skiing, fishing, motor touring, camping and attending concerts, theatricals and the moving pictures.

An early leisure activity reported in Dungog was viewing the ‘Flying Pieman’ who came to Dungog in 1848.3 William Francis King was an eccentric character, made so reputedly as the result of a romantic tragedy, who specialised in various pedestrian associated feats (such as walking continuously for several days), as well as making rambling speeches and selling pies. Based mainly in Sydney, he visited the Hunter Valley and in 1848 made an extended stay in Dungog.4 Similar entertainments that involved people gathering in the streets as spectators were the 1845 Boxing Day amusements put on by Stephenson, the publican of the Dungog Inn, or those organised by the owner of Finch’s Royal Hotel, which featured the sending up of some sort of balloon.5

Drinking & Temperance

That drinking as a form of leisure appeared with the first Europeans (particularly Europeans of British origin), is not to be doubted. This is a circumstance reinforced by the establishment in the 1870s of an Abstinence Society and, in the beginning of the 20th century, of a Temperance Hotel, as well as the holding of numerous temperance meetings in between.6 The temperance movement was part of an Australia wide anti-drinking movement popular in the late 19th and early 20 century, and the presence of such meetings does not imply that this leisure activity was excessive in the Dungog district or, from the following extract, on the Upper Allyn either:

In the course of the last few years, the temperance movement has made great progress in the upper parts of the Allyn, Williams, and Chichester rivers, owing to the exertions of the Rev. R Williams, who some five and a-half years ago took up his residence on the Allyn river, at Eccleston and commenced a work of evangelical and temperance reform.7

While drinking was a leisure activity, so might be attendance at a temperance meeting for those with few other forms of entertainment, as the report of this same meeting asserts:

Meetings are held from time to time on the different parts of the abovementioned rivers, at which addresses, dialogues, and recitations on temperance are given, which are well attended by young and old, and are of a highly entertaining and instructive character.8

In Dungog too, the ‘good templars’ or the I.O.G.T. (Independent Order of Good Templars) would participate in their temperance with a picnic followed by concert. In 1885, the Dungog lodge was reported to have had about 100 members.9

Reading & improvement 

Reading was another form of leisure much indulged by some. In May 1860, a Reading Room was established with members’ subscriptions purchasing periodicals such as the Illustrated London News, the Mechanics Journaland Punch. This group evolved into a Mutual Improvement Society and by 1872 was calling itself a School of Arts. It had a permanent library and reading rooms.10 A library associated with the School of Arts continued in Dungog until at least the 1950s with fees varying for those living in town and out of town. Paterson also early had a School of Arts and in 1885 reported that it had a library of 835 volumes, an increase of 77 on the previous year.11

In addition to reading, the giving of lectures on various topics for a charge was also a popular form of both entertainment and fundraising. In the late 1850s, for example, a series called the ‘Dungog Lectures’ took place with such topics as ‘The Rise and Progress of Music’ and the ‘Post-Biblical History of the Jews; from the close of the Canon of the Old Testament, and the return from Babylon, to the Dissolution of the polity under Titus’. The Presbyterian Church also put on similar lectures, such as one for the opening of the Free Church in 1858 on the ‘new’ subject of geology (admission one shilling), and another to support both the Presbyterian Cemetery at Dungog and St Ann’s Church at Paterson in 1878 called ‘The Etruscans and their tombs; or Italy 2500 years ago’.12

A variation on both reading and lectures that took place in Paterson in the 1860s was the ‘Penny Reading’. This was designed to provide cheap, amusing entertainment by reading from literature; possibly with musical interludes.

The monthly penny readings entertainment by the members of the School of Arts, was held at the Odd Fellows’ Hall, on last Friday evening, and was a very successful affair. Upwards of two hundred persons were present. The entertainment gave every satisfaction.13

The Shows

A form of entertainment that today would probably be considered work were the many mowing and ploughing matches that were for long a popular part of the various agricultural shows of the district. These events were well organised and one held at Dunmore on the Paterson River in 1879 involved a number of classes of competitors: Class A for those who had previously won a prize, Class B for those who had not, and Class C for those under 18 years of age. A typical ploughing match might be for the fastest to plough a quarter acre; the depth of the ploughing needed to be 5 inches, but only 4½ for Class C.14

Ploughing matches were associated with agricultural shows, and Dungog held annual agricultural shows from the 1880s, and Gresford from 1927; both of which still run. Eccleston in 1903 was the first to hold such a show, though only for a short time, and Paterson held its first show in 1949, running until 1969.15 With prizes and displays, these shows always had a strong entertainment side, particularly for those isolated in the smaller settlement whose families were prepared to make the rare trip into town for the Annual Show; an event for which new clothes might be bought for the kids.16

The Drama & music

Throughout most of the history of the Williams Valley, community leisure activities associated with attending dramatic events and concerts have involved the community putting on such events themselves more than watching outside professionals. As well, such events usually served the double purposes of entertainment and fundraising. In 1871, for example, W H Smith lent his store at Bandon Grove for entertainment to raise a harmonium for the Union Church. The laughter for the 130 who attended was in part provided by the school master dressing up in ‘Negro character’.17 Another such event at the Dungog School of Arts was ‘A Grand Vocal and Instrumental Concert’ at which the program was of some 10 songs and piano pieces by various ‘Lady’ and Gentleman’ amateurs. This was followed by a ball with music supplied by the Dungog Brass Band.18

In the days before radio or records, and long before TV and CDs, music needed to be provided locally. Town bands were common and provided the music for a range of activities. At one point Dungog even attempted to support two such bands:

The Town Band having disbanded, the Dungog Brass Band has taken over the instruments and is now a strong combination. This is much better than the original state of affairs when the two bands fought against each other.19

By at least 1890, Dungog town had its own dramatic club, one of many over the years.20 Nevertheless outside entertainment was also common with regular returns by such as Mr Ashton’s ‘British and American circus’ or the Lynch Family Bellringers who would do a circuit that included at least Paterson, Gresford and Dungog town.21

Community Halls

While Bandon Grove in 1871, like many settlements, made use of private barns or stores, in later times, the mark of a community was the erection of its own hall. Bandon Grove erected such a hall in 1905 (replaced by the present one in 1930), as did Wallarobba, Fosterton, Martins Creek and many of the smaller settlements at various times. The hall at Tillegra was always a privately owned one and, when it was no longer required, was dismantled and the material used to build a new home for the daughter of the family.22 Sometimes these halls were described as Schools of Arts – as was that at Bandon Grove – and were used for a variety of functions including meetings, but as dancing became more popular, this form of entertainment was a predominant usage.

The four towns had a variety of halls with both East Gresford and Dungog having a Victoria Hall, and at one time Dungog town had at least three community halls in addition to those of the Churches; so many in fact that the Centennial Hall at Dungog was eventually converted into a skating rink.23 These halls were all used in similar ways to those in the settlements for a variety of social and entertainment activities.

Bazaars & Fetes

In addition to amateur dramatics and concerts, and often closely associated, were the Church bazaars and fetes. These were perhaps more obviously fundraising activities but certainly provided a form of leisure for those attending, whether they spent much money or not. In 1881, a bazaar was held in Clarence Town to raise money for an enlargement of St John’s Church.24 In 1888, the Public School at Caergwrle held a concert followed by a dance to raise money to buy ‘prizes for the scholars’ – they raised £7 5s 6d.25 The Catholic Church in Dungog for many years held an annual Catholic Bazaar in the Dungog Picture Palace [James Theatre], which went all day and ended with a dance at night. The other Churches held variations on these; though neither the Presbyterian nor the Baptists condoned dances.

While the Protestant Churches always interpreted the concept of Sunday as a day of rest to mean no organised activities, one Sunday leisure past-time that seems to have arisen early on was Sunday shooting. This was an activity that caused some controversy at a time when Sunday rest was interpreted strictly by many.26

The shooting of Wonga pigeons at Jerusalem Creek is reported, and while generally carried on casually, it could also be organised:

Pigeon Shooting. We would remind knights of the trigger that the meeting of the Dungog Gun Club takes place on Monday, when no doubt the blue rocks will have a very unhealthy time of it. Shooting will commence at eleven o’clock.27

Picnics & Swimming

Apart from Sunday hunting there were the occasional picnics, such as a Boxing Day picnic on the river at Fosterton.28 A vivid account of a much earlier picnic at a then popular spot near Dungog shows that some effort might be spent on these leisure activities:

  I shall only mention in this letter one remarkable place, called Mount Pilcher, which lies south-west of Dungog, and is distant therefrom about three miles. This mount, which rises very abruptly on the north-eastern side to a height of 300 feet above the surrounding country, is much resorted to by holiday-making folks and picnic parties. It requires considerable exertion to clamber to the top, which is nearly level for half a mile, and covered with grass and various trees and shrubs. The south-western side is almost a perpendicular precipice, and at the bottom, underneath rocks, is a great cavern on which the sun never shines, called the Devil’s Hole, where pure cold water may be obtained on the hottest summer’s day.

  The scenery from the top is delightful as far as the eye can reach, and a view of Nobby’s Island at Newcastle can be obtained with the use of a telescope on a clear day, a distance of fifty miles. Pleasure-seekers, with a band of music, may frequently be seen, with their baskets of refreshments, clambering up its sides, to enjoy its pure air and feast their eyes on the country round.29

Visiting the bush for its own sake gradually became a more regular leisure activity. The recognition of this growing interest led to the establishment of the Dungog and Barrington Tops Tourist League in the 1920s along with a number of guest houses from which visitors could take guided horse rides into the Barrington Ranges. Later, the Chichester Dam picnic area was also very popular, as well as bushwalking in general, eventually leading to the declaration of a number of National and State Parks and the construction of associated walking trails. In more recent years camping, caravan parks and touring have grown in popularity with various facilities provided both publicly, in the form of camping grounds, and privately in the form of Bed & Breakfast and other forms of temporary accommodation.

The most famous of these guest houses was undoubtedly the Barrington Guest House built in 1930. Large for a guest house, it could accommodate more than 50 people and did so in a ‘guest house’ style (shared bathrooms, trivia nights, and communal meals), until well into the 1980s. People continued to visit the Barrington Guest House, often coming to the Dungog area solely for that purpose, right up until its destruction by fire in 2006. Even today, many visitors to the Dungog area request information about the Barrington Guest House and are disappointed to learn it no longer exists.[30]

The practice of visiting the bush was not always a peaceful one and as the ability to drive up from Maitland or other centres became easier, so too for a time did the popularity of night time shooters. Such campers and their activities created much concern in the 1950s and 1960s.[31]

Just as bushwalking only gradually became a leisure activity, so too did swimming. Swimming has not always been considered a natural way to spend a hot summer’s day, but the creation of a swimming pool incidental to providing a water level sufficient for the Dungog town water supply and pumping station led to this becoming a major leisure spot for many years. Thereafter, the building of community pools has largely replaced swimming at river pools. Until the Seaham Weir was put in place in 1967, water skiing on the Williams River was also popular.

Billards

Billiards was, for along period, a popular leisure activity, though not one always seen as quite moral. An application for a ‘bagatelle license’ [an early form of billiards] was refused in 1863 on the grounds that a similar license had already proven to be ‘a social pest’ and would not ‘improve the moral tone of our younger population’. A generation later, in 1901, the same Dungog hotel, ‘had a billiard table erected …, which promises to be well patronised’ and to which it seems moral objections were no longer raised.34

For many years a billiard table was present in most barber shops, which were generally known as Sports Hairdressers. Later, the Dungog School of Arts became dominated by its billiard tables with little other activity apart from its aging library. Billiards, however, began to decline after the First World War and at least one retailer of billiard tables became desperate at this decline in billiard playing:

because men have allowed Pictures, Night Tennis and Jazz with the companionship of the fair sex to attract them away from this classic among games that for the last 400 years have stood unrivalled in scientific interest.35

The firm wrote to the Dungog School of Arts to encourage ‘the ladies’ to use billiard tables that were idle during the day. The same letter advertised Miss Ruby Roberts, ‘the greatest living lady exponent of the game of billiards’, who would play exhibition games and teach the game in return for her ‘1st class return fare, hotel expenses’ and £2 fee per class.36

Children of course have always provided their own leisure activities, about which we have few glimpses. One we have refers to how ‘poor old Granny Redman used to keep the only toy and marble shop, just about where T Carlton’s shop is now. Granny used to put a couple or three pickle bottles full of marbles in the window, with a label on like this – Marbles 16 a Penny – and how the kids used to rush it, but even pennies were scarce in those days.’37

Dances

The establishment of bus transport from the 1920s on had a big impact on social outings and entertainment, especially for the smaller communities scattered around the district. It meant not only greater access to the towns such as Dungog, Clarence Town, Gresford and Paterson but also a mixing of peoples as they attended events held regularly in each locality. There were dances held each Saturday in rotation at Wallarobba, Bandon Grove, Tillegra, Stroud and Dungog with a bus taking participants to each in turn.38 Such dances were accompanied by a supper usually supplied by donations and prepared by a women’s group such as the Wattle Club or the CWA. Alcohol was not served at these dances but was commonly brought and consumed semi-surreptitiously outside between dances. From the 1930s through to the 1950s, these ‘adult’ dances were often paralleled with dances for children. These were usually held on a following night and were called juvenile balls or frolics. An alternative fundraising style was euchre nights, which were sometimes combined with dances.

The Moving Pictures

From just before the First World War the moving pictures began to play a major part in weekly entertainment and leisure. The Dungog cinema was established in 1912 and cinemas in East Gresford, Paterson and Clarence Town all ran until the 1950s or early 1960s. At East Gresford was the Garden Theatre, begun as an open air theatre, it was also used for dancing, boxing and skating.39 In Clarence Town, the School of Arts was used as a cinema from 1930 until the early 1960s.40 The cinemas usually played twice a week, perhaps every Tuesday and Saturday night, and not until the development of TV in the 1960s did the routine of regular cinema-going fade, leading to the permanent closure of all but the James Theatre in Dungog.

Cafes & Hotels

Dungog also had a number of cafés where people could simple go for coffee and a chat as they do today. The Globe Refreshment Café made its own chocolates.41 While the Busy Bee Café and the Sunshine Restaurant were run by Greek immigrants, the Barraboutis family.42

While the sport of horseracing has always been popular, the leisure activity of gambling required more than the occasional Dungog district race. With off-course betting illegal for many years this meant a variety of SP bookmakers operated, such as one that ran from the back of the Busy Bee Cafe in Dungog.43 Other illegal gambling included the playing of a numbers machine in the back of a bakehouse.44 A legal TAB opened in Dungog in 1971 but closed in 1993 as unprofitable.45

Licensing laws also restricted the opening hours of hotels and this led to the popularity of licensed clubs, such as the Bowling Club and the RSL Club (1956), which could serve members on a Sunday.46 Not that this stopped the occasional hotel, such as the Courthouse Hotel, from serving drinks on a Sunday – sometimes with a nod from the local police.47

A form of leisure now associated with these clubs are poker machines. These machines have expanded in popularity as restrictions have eased and the Dungog RSL, after many years expanding so as to provide space for dance floors, in the 1980s built a dedicated space for its poker machines that cut into the now seldom used dance space.

TV

Dances, bazaars, concerts and fundraising events were very popular forms of entertainment throughout the 20th century until the 1960s. Thereafter a number of factors have both focused leisure activities on either the home or on activities outside the district. TV and an increasing range of home-based forms of entertainment have directly led to less community-based entertainment and recreation. In addition, greater access to cars and reduced travel times to larger centres such as Maitland, Raymond Terrace, and even Newcastle and Sydney, has meant travel to these places for leisure as well as shopping and employment have become commonplace, particularly among teenagers and younger people.

Heritage Survivals

former halls

former cinemas & James Theatre Dungog

3 Maitland Mercury, 1/3/1848, p.2 & The Australian, 3/3/1848, p.3.

4 Williams, The Flying Pieman, pp.1-2 & p.14.

5 Sydney Morning Herald, 23/12/1845, p.1 & Maitland Mercury, 17/1/1861, p.3.

6 Hunter, Wades Corn Flour Mill, p.25 & Ah, Dungog, p.17.

7 Maitland Mercury, 12/10/1889, p.7.

8 Maitland Mercury, 12/10/1889, p.7.

9 Australian Town and Country Journal, 7/2/1885, p.16.

10 Hunter, Dungog School of Arts Centenary 1898-1998, pp.5-6.

11 Maitland Mercury, 14/2/1885, p.17.

12 Maitland Mercury, 11/12/1858, p.3, 17/3/1859, p.1, 24/8/1858, p.2, & 27/6/1878, p.2.

13 Maitland Mercury, 30/9/1869, p.2.

14 Maitland Mercury, 20/5/1879, p.4 & Maitland Mercury, 11/6/1874, p.1.

15 Archer, Social and environmental change as determinants of ecosystem health, p.154.

16 McCormack, Show and tell, p.29.

17 Sydney Morning Herald, 2/3/1871, p.3.

18 Maitland Mercury, 12/4/1887, p.1.

19 Dungog Chronicle, 1/4/1903.

20 Hazell, A Centenary of Memories, pp.5-7. [1888, 1889, 1890]

21 Maitland Mercury, 13/8/1881, p.4, 13/5/1893, p.4 & Sydney Morning Herald, 3/7/1886, p.2.

22 Don and Thelma Redman, interviewed 3/1/2012.

23 Williams, Ah, Dungog, p.20.

24 Maitland Mercury, 13/8/1881, p.4.

25 Maitland Mercury, 1/9/1888, p.7S.

26 Loban, A Substantial Handsome Church, p.22. Dungog Chronicle, 10/7/1888.

27 Maitland Mercury, 30/10/1886, p.4.

28 McCormack, Show and tell, p.17.

29 Maitland Mercury, 21/1/1865, p.5.

30 Collison & Handcock, Gresford 170 years, p.103.

31 Sydney Morning Herald, 1/12/1924, p.10.

32 For the Barrington Guest House see, 4.2 Accommodation.

33 Archer, An Environmental & Social History of the Upper Webbers Creek Catchment, p.15.

34 Williams, Ah, Dungog, p.47.

35 Home Recreations to Secretary, School of Arts, Dungog, 6/5/1926.

36 Home Recreations to Secretary, School of Arts, Dungog, 6/5/1926.

37 Dungog Chronicle, 9/3/1926.

38 McCormack, Show and tell, p.57.

39 Collison & Handcock, Gresford 170 years, p.61.

40 The Sunday Herald, 3/6/1951, p.13.

41 McCormack, Show and tell, p.4.

42 McCormack, Show and tell, p.48.

43 McCormack, Show and tell, p.49.

44 McCormack, Show and tell, p.50-51.

45 Dungog Chronicle, 4/8/1993, p.1.

46 McCormack, Show and tell, p.68 & Dungog Chronicle, 12/7/1995, p.1.

47 McCormack, Show and tell, p.69.

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1. Transcript a1604003, Journal of Charles Boydell, 1/3/1830.
  2. See Sport.
  3. g=”en-AU” align=”JUSTIFY”>Little is known of the specific customs or favoured places of the Gringai people but Charles Boydell, who settled on the Allyn River, reports seeing paddy melon hunts in which Gringai boys drove the animals out of the bush and any game speared was cooked and eaten immediately ‘with great delight’.[1]

    European settlers within the Williams River Valley have indulged in a diverse range of leisure activities that began with horse racing but soon included hunting, cricket, and polo. Fashions in leisure and sport that developed somewhat later include women’s cricket, tennis, swimming, golf and water skiing, as well as excursion boats down to Newcastle. Many of these more organised forms of leisure can be classified as sport.[2] Leisure activities, apart from those classed as organised sport, ranged from drinking to pigeon shooting, ploughing matches, billiards, euchre, gambling (legal and illegal), debating, reading, attending balls and dances, annual picnics, skating, attending bazaars and flower shows, listening to bands, boat trips, swimming, water skiing, fishing, motor touring, camping and attending concerts, theatricals and the moving pictures.

    An early leisure activity reported in Dungog was viewing the ‘Flying Pieman’ who came to Dungog in 1848.3 William Francis King was an eccentric character, made so reputedly as the result of a romantic tragedy, who specialised in various pedestrian associated feats (such as walking continuously for several days), as well as making rambling speeches and selling pies. Based mainly in Sydney, he visited the Hunter Valley and in 1848 made an extended stay in Dungog.4 Similar entertainments that involved people gathering in the streets as spectators were the 1845 Boxing Day amusements put on by Stephenson, the publican of the Dungog Inn, or those organised by the owner of Finch’s Royal Hotel, which featured the sending up of some sort of balloon.5

    Drinking & Temperance

    That drinking as a form of leisure appeared with the first Europeans (particularly Europeans of British origin), is not to be doubted. This is a circumstance reinforced by the establishment in the 1870s of an Abstinence Society and, in the beginning of the 20th century, of a Temperance Hotel, as well as the holding of numerous temperance meetings in between.6 The temperance movement was part of an Australia wide anti-drinking movement popular in the late 19th and early 20 century, and the presence of such meetings does not imply that this leisure activity was excessive in the Dungog district or, from the following extract, on the Upper Allyn either:

    In the course of the last few years, the temperance movement has made great progress in the upper parts of the Allyn, Williams, and Chichester rivers, owing to the exertions of the Rev. R Williams, who some five and a-half years ago took up his residence on the Allyn river, at Eccleston and commenced a work of evangelical and temperance reform.7

    While drinking was a leisure activity, so might be attendance at a temperance meeting for those with few other forms of entertainment, as the report of this same meeting asserts:

    Meetings are held from time to time on the different parts of the abovementioned rivers, at which addresses, dialogues, and recitations on temperance are given, which are well attended by young and old, and are of a highly entertaining and instructive character.8

    In Dungog too, the ‘good templars’ or the I.O.G.T. (Independent Order of Good Templars) would participate in their temperance with a picnic followed by concert. In 1885, the Dungog lodge was reported to have had about 100 members.9

    Reading & improvement 

    Reading was another form of leisure much indulged by some. In May 1860, a Reading Room was established with members’ subscriptions purchasing periodicals such as the Illustrated London News, the Mechanics Journaland Punch. This group evolved into a Mutual Improvement Society and by 1872 was calling itself a School of Arts. It had a permanent library and reading rooms.10 A library associated with the School of Arts continued in Dungog until at least the 1950s with fees varying for those living in town and out of town. Paterson also early had a School of Arts and in 1885 reported that it had a library of 835 volumes, an increase of 77 on the previous year.11

    In addition to reading, the giving of lectures on various topics for a charge was also a popular form of both entertainment and fundraising. In the late 1850s, for example, a series called the ‘Dungog Lectures’ took place with such topics as ‘The Rise and Progress of Music’ and the ‘Post-Biblical History of the Jews; from the close of the Canon of the Old Testament, and the return from Babylon, to the Dissolution of the polity under Titus’. The Presbyterian Church also put on similar lectures, such as one for the opening of the Free Church in 1858 on the ‘new’ subject of geology (admission one shilling), and another to support both the Presbyterian Cemetery at Dungog and St Ann’s Church at Paterson in 1878 called ‘The Etruscans and their tombs; or Italy 2500 years ago’.12

    A variation on both reading and lectures that took place in Paterson in the 1860s was the ‘Penny Reading’. This was designed to provide cheap, amusing entertainment by reading from literature; possibly with musical interludes.

    The monthly penny readings entertainment by the members of the School of Arts, was held at the Odd Fellows’ Hall, on last Friday evening, and was a very successful affair. Upwards of two hundred persons were present. The entertainment gave every satisfaction.13

    The Shows

    A form of entertainment that today would probably be considered work were the many mowing and ploughing matches that were for long a popular part of the various agricultural shows of the district. These events were well organised and one held at Dunmore on the Paterson River in 1879 involved a number of classes of competitors: Class A for those who had previously won a prize, Class B for those who had not, and Class C for those under 18 years of age. A typical ploughing match might be for the fastest to plough a quarter acre; the depth of the ploughing needed to be 5 inches, but only 4½ for Class C.14

    Ploughing matches were associated with agricultural shows, and Dungog held annual agricultural shows from the 1880s, and Gresford from 1927; both of which still run. Eccleston in 1903 was the first to hold such a show, though only for a short time, and Paterson held its first show in 1949, running until 1969.15 With prizes and displays, these shows always had a strong entertainment side, particularly for those isolated in the smaller settlement whose families were prepared to make the rare trip into town for the Annual Show; an event for which new clothes might be bought for the kids.16

    The Drama & music

    Throughout most of the history of the Williams Valley, community leisure activities associated with attending dramatic events and concerts have involved the community putting on such events themselves more than watching outside professionals. As well, such events usually served the double purposes of entertainment and fundraising. In 1871, for example, W H Smith lent his store at Bandon Grove for entertainment to raise a harmonium for the Union Church. The laughter for the 130 who attended was in part provided by the school master dressing up in ‘Negro character’.17 Another such event at the Dungog School of Arts was ‘A Grand Vocal and Instrumental Concert’ at which the program was of some 10 songs and piano pieces by various ‘Lady’ and Gentleman’ amateurs. This was followed by a ball with music supplied by the Dungog Brass Band.18

    In the days before radio or records, and long before TV and CDs, music needed to be provided locally. Town bands were common and provided the music for a range of activities. At one point Dungog even attempted to support two such bands:

    The Town Band having disbanded, the Dungog Brass Band has taken over the instruments and is now a strong combination. This is much better than the original state of affairs when the two bands fought against each other.19

    By at least 1890, Dungog town had its own dramatic club, one of many over the years.20 Nevertheless outside entertainment was also common with regular returns by such as Mr Ashton’s ‘British and American circus’ or the Lynch Family Bellringers who would do a circuit that included at least Paterson, Gresford and Dungog town.21

    Community Halls

    While Bandon Grove in 1871, like many settlements, made use of private barns or stores, in later times, the mark of a community was the erection of its own hall. Bandon Grove erected such a hall in 1905 (replaced by the present one in 1930), as did Wallarobba, Fosterton, Martins Creek and many of the smaller settlements at various times. The hall at Tillegra was always a privately owned one and, when it was no longer required, was dismantled and the material used to build a new home for the daughter of the family.22 Sometimes these halls were described as Schools of Arts – as was that at Bandon Grove – and were used for a variety of functions including meetings, but as dancing became more popular, this form of entertainment was a predominant usage.

    The four towns had a variety of halls with both East Gresford and Dungog having a Victoria Hall, and at one time Dungog town had at least three community halls in addition to those of the Churches; so many in fact that the Centennial Hall at Dungog was eventually converted into a skating rink.23 These halls were all used in similar ways to those in the settlements for a variety of social and entertainment activities.

    Bazaars & Fetes

    In addition to amateur dramatics and concerts, and often closely associated, were the Church bazaars and fetes. These were perhaps more obviously fundraising activities but certainly provided a form of leisure for those attending, whether they spent much money or not. In 1881, a bazaar was held in Clarence Town to raise money for an enlargement of St John’s Church.24 In 1888, the Public School at Caergwrle held a concert followed by a dance to raise money to buy ‘prizes for the scholars’ – they raised £7 5s 6d.25 The Catholic Church in Dungog for many years held an annual Catholic Bazaar in the Dungog Picture Palace [James Theatre], which went all day and ended with a dance at night. The other Churches held variations on these; though neither the Presbyterian nor the Baptists condoned dances.

    While the Protestant Churches always interpreted the concept of Sunday as a day of rest to mean no organised activities, one Sunday leisure past-time that seems to have arisen early on was Sunday shooting. This was an activity that caused some controversy at a time when Sunday rest was interpreted strictly by many.26

    The shooting of Wonga pigeons at Jerusalem Creek is reported, and while generally carried on casually, it could also be organised:

    Pigeon Shooting. We would remind knights of the trigger that the meeting of the Dungog Gun Club takes place on Monday, when no doubt the blue rocks will have a very unhealthy time of it. Shooting will commence at eleven o’clock.27

    Picnics & Swimming

    Apart from Sunday hunting there were the occasional picnics, such as a Boxing Day picnic on the river at Fosterton.28 A vivid account of a much earlier picnic at a then popular spot near Dungog shows that some effort might be spent on these leisure activities:

      I shall only mention in this letter one remarkable place, called Mount Pilcher, which lies south-west of Dungog, and is distant therefrom about three miles. This mount, which rises very abruptly on the north-eastern side to a height of 300 feet above the surrounding country, is much resorted to by holiday-making folks and picnic parties. It requires considerable exertion to clamber to the top, which is nearly level for half a mile, and covered with grass and various trees and shrubs. The south-western side is almost a perpendicular precipice, and at the bottom, underneath rocks, is a great cavern on which the sun never shines, called the Devil’s Hole, where pure cold water may be obtained on the hottest summer’s day.

      The scenery from the top is delightful as far as the eye can reach, and a view of Nobby’s Island at Newcastle can be obtained with the use of a telescope on a clear day, a distance of fifty miles. Pleasure-seekers, with a band of music, may frequently be seen, with their baskets of refreshments, clambering up its sides, to enjoy its pure air and feast their eyes on the country round.29

    Visiting the bush for its own sake gradually became a more regular leisure activity. The recognition of this growing interest led to the establishment of the Dungog and Barrington Tops Tourist League in the 1920s along with a number of guest houses from which visitors could take guided horse rides into the Barrington Ranges. Later, the Chichester Dam picnic area was also very popular, as well as bushwalking in general, eventually leading to the declaration of a number of National and State Parks and the construction of associated walking trails. In more recent years camping, caravan parks and touring have grown in popularity with various facilities provided both publicly, in the form of camping grounds, and privately in the form of Bed & Breakfast and other forms of temporary accommodation.

    The most famous of these guest houses was undoubtedly the Barrington Guest House built in 1930. Large for a guest house, it could accommodate more than 50 people and did so in a ‘guest house’ style (shared bathrooms, trivia nights, and communal meals), until well into the 1980s. People continued to visit the Barrington Guest House, often coming to the Dungog area solely for that purpose, right up until its destruction by fire in 2006. Even today, many visitors to the Dungog area request information about the Barrington Guest House and are disappointed to learn it no longer exists.{{30}}

    The practice of visiting the bush was not always a peaceful one and as the ability to drive up from Maitland or other centres became easier, so too for a time did the popularity of night time shooters. Such campers and their activities created much concern in the 1950s and 1960s.{{31}}

    Just as bushwalking only gradually became a leisure activity, so too did swimming. Swimming has not always been considered a natural way to spend a hot summer’s day, but the creation of a swimming pool incidental to providing a water level sufficient for the Dungog town water supply and pumping station led to this becoming a major leisure spot for many years. Thereafter, the building of community pools has largely replaced swimming at river pools. Until the Seaham Weir was put in place in 1967, water skiing on the Williams River was also popular.

    Billards

    Billiards was, for along period, a popular leisure activity, though not one always seen as quite moral. An application for a ‘bagatelle license’ [an early form of billiards] was refused in 1863 on the grounds that a similar license had already proven to be ‘a social pest’ and would not ‘improve the moral tone of our younger population’. A generation later, in 1901, the same Dungog hotel, ‘had a billiard table erected …, which promises to be well patronised’ and to which it seems moral objections were no longer raised.34

    For many years a billiard table was present in most barber shops, which were generally known as Sports Hairdressers. Later, the Dungog School of Arts became dominated by its billiard tables with little other activity apart from its aging library. Billiards, however, began to decline after the First World War and at least one retailer of billiard tables became desperate at this decline in billiard playing:

    because men have allowed Pictures, Night Tennis and Jazz with the companionship of the fair sex to attract them away from this classic among games that for the last 400 years have stood unrivalled in scientific interest.35

    The firm wrote to the Dungog School of Arts to encourage ‘the ladies’ to use billiard tables that were idle during the day. The same letter advertised Miss Ruby Roberts, ‘the greatest living lady exponent of the game of billiards’, who would play exhibition games and teach the game in return for her ‘1st class return fare, hotel expenses’ and £2 fee per class.36

    Children of course have always provided their own leisure activities, about which we have few glimpses. One we have refers to how ‘poor old Granny Redman used to keep the only toy and marble shop, just about where T Carlton’s shop is now. Granny used to put a couple or three pickle bottles full of marbles in the window, with a label on like this – Marbles 16 a Penny – and how the kids used to rush it, but even pennies were scarce in those days.’37

    Dances

    The establishment of bus transport from the 1920s on had a big impact on social outings and entertainment, especially for the smaller communities scattered around the district. It meant not only greater access to the towns such as Dungog, Clarence Town, Gresford and Paterson but also a mixing of peoples as they attended events held regularly in each locality. There were dances held each Saturday in rotation at Wallarobba, Bandon Grove, Tillegra, Stroud and Dungog with a bus taking participants to each in turn.38 Such dances were accompanied by a supper usually supplied by donations and prepared by a women’s group such as the Wattle Club or the CWA. Alcohol was not served at these dances but was commonly brought and consumed semi-surreptitiously outside between dances. From the 1930s through to the 1950s, these ‘adult’ dances were often paralleled with dances for children. These were usually held on a following night and were called juvenile balls or frolics. An alternative fundraising style was euchre nights, which were sometimes combined with dances.

    The Moving Pictures

    From just before the First World War the moving pictures began to play a major part in weekly entertainment and leisure. The Dungog cinema was established in 1912 and cinemas in East Gresford, Paterson and Clarence Town all ran until the 1950s or early 1960s. At East Gresford was the Garden Theatre, begun as an open air theatre, it was also used for dancing, boxing and skating.39 In Clarence Town, the School of Arts was used as a cinema from 1930 until the early 1960s.40 The cinemas usually played twice a week, perhaps every Tuesday and Saturday night, and not until the development of TV in the 1960s did the routine of regular cinema-going fade, leading to the permanent closure of all but the James Theatre in Dungog.

    Cafes & Hotels

    Dungog also had a number of cafés where people could simple go for coffee and a chat as they do today. The Globe Refreshment Café made its own chocolates.41 While the Busy Bee Café and the Sunshine Restaurant were run by Greek immigrants, the Barraboutis family.42

    While the sport of horseracing has always been popular, the leisure activity of gambling required more than the occasional Dungog district race. With off-course betting illegal for many years this meant a variety of SP bookmakers operated, such as one that ran from the back of the Busy Bee Cafe in Dungog.43 Other illegal gambling included the playing of a numbers machine in the back of a bakehouse.44 A legal TAB opened in Dungog in 1971 but closed in 1993 as unprofitable.45

    Licensing laws also restricted the opening hours of hotels and this led to the popularity of licensed clubs, such as the Bowling Club and the RSL Club (1956), which could serve members on a Sunday.46 Not that this stopped the occasional hotel, such as the Courthouse Hotel, from serving drinks on a Sunday – sometimes with a nod from the local police.47

    A form of leisure now associated with these clubs are poker machines. These machines have expanded in popularity as restrictions have eased and the Dungog RSL, after many years expanding so as to provide space for dance floors, in the 1980s built a dedicated space for its poker machines that cut into the now seldom used dance space.

    TV

    Dances, bazaars, concerts and fundraising events were very popular forms of entertainment throughout the 20th century until the 1960s. Thereafter a number of factors have both focused leisure activities on either the home or on activities outside the district. TV and an increasing range of home-based forms of entertainment have directly led to less community-based entertainment and recreation. In addition, greater access to cars and reduced travel times to larger centres such as Maitland, Raymond Terrace, and even Newcastle and Sydney, has meant travel to these places for leisure as well as shopping and employment have become commonplace, particularly among teenagers and younger people.

    Heritage Survivals

    former halls

    former cinemas & James Theatre Dungog

    3 Maitland Mercury, 1/3/1848, p.2 & The Australian, 3/3/1848, p.3.

    4 Williams, The Flying Pieman, pp.1-2 & p.14.

    5 Sydney Morning Herald, 23/12/1845, p.1 & Maitland Mercury, 17/1/1861, p.3.

    6 Hunter, Wades Corn Flour Mill, p.25 & Ah, Dungog, p.17.

    7 Maitland Mercury, 12/10/1889, p.7.

    8 Maitland Mercury, 12/10/1889, p.7.

    9 Australian Town and Country Journal, 7/2/1885, p.16.

    10 Hunter, Dungog School of Arts Centenary 1898-1998, pp.5-6.

    11 Maitland Mercury, 14/2/1885, p.17.

    12 Maitland Mercury, 11/12/1858, p.3, 17/3/1859, p.1, 24/8/1858, p.2, & 27/6/1878, p.2.

    13 Maitland Mercury, 30/9/1869, p.2.

    14 Maitland Mercury, 20/5/1879, p.4 & Maitland Mercury, 11/6/1874, p.1.

    15 Archer, Social and environmental change as determinants of ecosystem health, p.154.

    16 McCormack, Show and tell, p.29.

    17 Sydney Morning Herald, 2/3/1871, p.3.

    18 Maitland Mercury, 12/4/1887, p.1.

    19 Dungog Chronicle, 1/4/1903.

    20 Hazell, A Centenary of Memories, pp.5-7. [1888, 1889, 1890]

    21 Maitland Mercury, 13/8/1881, p.4, 13/5/1893, p.4 & Sydney Morning Herald, 3/7/1886, p.2.

    22 Don and Thelma Redman, interviewed 3/1/2012.

    23 Williams, Ah, Dungog, p.20.

    24 Maitland Mercury, 13/8/1881, p.4.

    25 Maitland Mercury, 1/9/1888, p.7S.

    26 Loban, A Substantial Handsome Church, p.22. Dungog Chronicle, 10/7/1888.

    27 Maitland Mercury, 30/10/1886, p.4.

    28 McCormack, Show and tell, p.17.

    29 Maitland Mercury, 21/1/1865, p.5.

    30 Collison & Handcock, Gresford 170 years, p.103.

    31 Sydney Morning Herald, 1/12/1924, p.10.

    32 For the Barrington Guest House see, 4.2 Accommodation.

    33 Archer, An Environmental & Social History of the Upper Webbers Creek Catchment, p.15.

    34 Williams, Ah, Dungog, p.47.

    35 Home Recreations to Secretary, School of Arts, Dungog, 6/5/1926.

    36 Home Recreations to Secretary, School of Arts, Dungog, 6/5/1926.

    37 Dungog Chronicle, 9/3/1926.

    38 McCormack, Show and tell, p.57.

    39 Collison & Handcock, Gresford 170 years, p.61.

    40 The Sunday Herald, 3/6/1951, p.13.

    41 McCormack, Show and tell, p.4.

    42 McCormack, Show and tell, p.48.

    43 McCormack, Show and tell, p.49.

    44 McCormack, Show and tell, p.50-51.

    45 Dungog Chronicle, 4/8/1993, p.1.

    46 McCormack, Show and tell, p.68 & Dungog Chronicle, 12/7/1995, p.1.

    47 McCormack, Show and tell, p.69.

  4. AU” align=”JUSTIFY”>Little is known of the specific customs or favoured places of the Gringai people but Charles Boydell, who settled on the Allyn River, reports seeing paddy melon hunts in which Gringai boys drove the animals out of the bush and any game speared was cooked and eaten immediately ‘with great delight’.[1]

    European settlers within the Williams River Valley have indulged in a diverse range of leisure activities that began with horse racing but soon included hunting, cricket, and polo. Fashions in leisure and sport that developed somewhat later include women’s cricket, tennis, swimming, golf and water skiing, as well as excursion boats down to Newcastle. Many of these more organised forms of leisure can be classified as sport.[2] Leisure activities, apart from those classed as organised sport, ranged from drinking to pigeon shooting, ploughing matches, billiards, euchre, gambling (legal and illegal), debating, reading, attending balls and dances, annual picnics, skating, attending bazaars and flower shows, listening to bands, boat trips, swimming, water skiing, fishing, motor touring, camping and attending concerts, theatricals and the moving pictures.

    An early leisure activity reported in Dungog was viewing the ‘Flying Pieman’ who came to Dungog in 1848.3 William Francis King was an eccentric character, made so reputedly as the result of a romantic tragedy, who specialised in various pedestrian associated feats (such as walking continuously for several days), as well as making rambling speeches and selling pies. Based mainly in Sydney, he visited the Hunter Valley and in 1848 made an extended stay in Dungog.4 Similar entertainments that involved people gathering in the streets as spectators were the 1845 Boxing Day amusements put on by Stephenson, the publican of the Dungog Inn, or those organised by the owner of Finch’s Royal Hotel, which featured the sending up of some sort of balloon.5

    Drinking & Temperance

    That drinking as a form of leisure appeared with the first Europeans (particularly Europeans of British origin), is not to be doubted. This is a circumstance reinforced by the establishment in the 1870s of an Abstinence Society and, in the beginning of the 20th century, of a Temperance Hotel, as well as the holding of numerous temperance meetings in between.6 The temperance movement was part of an Australia wide anti-drinking movement popular in the late 19th and early 20 century, and the presence of such meetings does not imply that this leisure activity was excessive in the Dungog district or, from the following extract, on the Upper Allyn either:

    In the course of the last few years, the temperance movement has made great progress in the upper parts of the Allyn, Williams, and Chichester rivers, owing to the exertions of the Rev. R Williams, who some five and a-half years ago took up his residence on the Allyn river, at Eccleston and commenced a work of evangelical and temperance reform.7

    While drinking was a leisure activity, so might be attendance at a temperance meeting for those with few other forms of entertainment, as the report of this same meeting asserts:

    Meetings are held from time to time on the different parts of the abovementioned rivers, at which addresses, dialogues, and recitations on temperance are given, which are well attended by young and old, and are of a highly entertaining and instructive character.8

    In Dungog too, the ‘good templars’ or the I.O.G.T. (Independent Order of Good Templars) would participate in their temperance with a picnic followed by concert. In 1885, the Dungog lodge was reported to have had about 100 members.9

    Reading & improvement 

    Reading was another form of leisure much indulged by some. In May 1860, a Reading Room was established with members’ subscriptions purchasing periodicals such as the Illustrated London News, the Mechanics Journaland Punch. This group evolved into a Mutual Improvement Society and by 1872 was calling itself a School of Arts. It had a permanent library and reading rooms.10 A library associated with the School of Arts continued in Dungog until at least the 1950s with fees varying for those living in town and out of town. Paterson also early had a School of Arts and in 1885 reported that it had a library of 835 volumes, an increase of 77 on the previous year.11

    In addition to reading, the giving of lectures on various topics for a charge was also a popular form of both entertainment and fundraising. In the late 1850s, for example, a series called the ‘Dungog Lectures’ took place with such topics as ‘The Rise and Progress of Music’ and the ‘Post-Biblical History of the Jews; from the close of the Canon of the Old Testament, and the return from Babylon, to the Dissolution of the polity under Titus’. The Presbyterian Church also put on similar lectures, such as one for the opening of the Free Church in 1858 on the ‘new’ subject of geology (admission one shilling), and another to support both the Presbyterian Cemetery at Dungog and St Ann’s Church at Paterson in 1878 called ‘The Etruscans and their tombs; or Italy 2500 years ago’.12

    A variation on both reading and lectures that took place in Paterson in the 1860s was the ‘Penny Reading’. This was designed to provide cheap, amusing entertainment by reading from literature; possibly with musical interludes.

    The monthly penny readings entertainment by the members of the School of Arts, was held at the Odd Fellows’ Hall, on last Friday evening, and was a very successful affair. Upwards of two hundred persons were present. The entertainment gave every satisfaction.13

    The Shows

    A form of entertainment that today would probably be considered work were the many mowing and ploughing matches that were for long a popular part of the various agricultural shows of the district. These events were well organised and one held at Dunmore on the Paterson River in 1879 involved a number of classes of competitors: Class A for those who had previously won a prize, Class B for those who had not, and Class C for those under 18 years of age. A typical ploughing match might be for the fastest to plough a quarter acre; the depth of the ploughing needed to be 5 inches, but only 4½ for Class C.14

    Ploughing matches were associated with agricultural shows, and Dungog held annual agricultural shows from the 1880s, and Gresford from 1927; both of which still run. Eccleston in 1903 was the first to hold such a show, though only for a short time, and Paterson held its first show in 1949, running until 1969.15 With prizes and displays, these shows always had a strong entertainment side, particularly for those isolated in the smaller settlement whose families were prepared to make the rare trip into town for the Annual Show; an event for which new clothes might be bought for the kids.16

    The Drama & music

    Throughout most of the history of the Williams Valley, community leisure activities associated with attending dramatic events and concerts have involved the community putting on such events themselves more than watching outside professionals. As well, such events usually served the double purposes of entertainment and fundraising. In 1871, for example, W H Smith lent his store at Bandon Grove for entertainment to raise a harmonium for the Union Church. The laughter for the 130 who attended was in part provided by the school master dressing up in ‘Negro character’.17 Another such event at the Dungog School of Arts was ‘A Grand Vocal and Instrumental Concert’ at which the program was of some 10 songs and piano pieces by various ‘Lady’ and Gentleman’ amateurs. This was followed by a ball with music supplied by the Dungog Brass Band.18

    In the days before radio or records, and long before TV and CDs, music needed to be provided locally. Town bands were common and provided the music for a range of activities. At one point Dungog even attempted to support two such bands:

    The Town Band having disbanded, the Dungog Brass Band has taken over the instruments and is now a strong combination. This is much better than the original state of affairs when the two bands fought against each other.19

    By at least 1890, Dungog town had its own dramatic club, one of many over the years.20 Nevertheless outside entertainment was also common with regular returns by such as Mr Ashton’s ‘British and American circus’ or the Lynch Family Bellringers who would do a circuit that included at least Paterson, Gresford and Dungog town.21

    Community Halls

    While Bandon Grove in 1871, like many settlements, made use of private barns or stores, in later times, the mark of a community was the erection of its own hall. Bandon Grove erected such a hall in 1905 (replaced by the present one in 1930), as did Wallarobba, Fosterton, Martins Creek and many of the smaller settlements at various times. The hall at Tillegra was always a privately owned one and, when it was no longer required, was dismantled and the material used to build a new home for the daughter of the family.22 Sometimes these halls were described as Schools of Arts – as was that at Bandon Grove – and were used for a variety of functions including meetings, but as dancing became more popular, this form of entertainment was a predominant usage.

    The four towns had a variety of halls with both East Gresford and Dungog having a Victoria Hall, and at one time Dungog town had at least three community halls in addition to those of the Churches; so many in fact that the Centennial Hall at Dungog was eventually converted into a skating rink.23 These halls were all used in similar ways to those in the settlements for a variety of social and entertainment activities.

    Bazaars & Fetes

    In addition to amateur dramatics and concerts, and often closely associated, were the Church bazaars and fetes. These were perhaps more obviously fundraising activities but certainly provided a form of leisure for those attending, whether they spent much money or not. In 1881, a bazaar was held in Clarence Town to raise money for an enlargement of St John’s Church.24 In 1888, the Public School at Caergwrle held a concert followed by a dance to raise money to buy ‘prizes for the scholars’ – they raised £7 5s 6d.25 The Catholic Church in Dungog for many years held an annual Catholic Bazaar in the Dungog Picture Palace [James Theatre], which went all day and ended with a dance at night. The other Churches held variations on these; though neither the Presbyterian nor the Baptists condoned dances.

    While the Protestant Churches always interpreted the concept of Sunday as a day of rest to mean no organised activities, one Sunday leisure past-time that seems to have arisen early on was Sunday shooting. This was an activity that caused some controversy at a time when Sunday rest was interpreted strictly by many.26

    The shooting of Wonga pigeons at Jerusalem Creek is reported, and while generally carried on casually, it could also be organised:

    Pigeon Shooting. We would remind knights of the trigger that the meeting of the Dungog Gun Club takes place on Monday, when no doubt the blue rocks will have a very unhealthy time of it. Shooting will commence at eleven o’clock.27

    Picnics & Swimming

    Apart from Sunday hunting there were the occasional picnics, such as a Boxing Day picnic on the river at Fosterton.28 A vivid account of a much earlier picnic at a then popular spot near Dungog shows that some effort might be spent on these leisure activities:

      I shall only mention in this letter one remarkable place, called Mount Pilcher, which lies south-west of Dungog, and is distant therefrom about three miles. This mount, which rises very abruptly on the north-eastern side to a height of 300 feet above the surrounding country, is much resorted to by holiday-making folks and picnic parties. It requires considerable exertion to clamber to the top, which is nearly level for half a mile, and covered with grass and various trees and shrubs. The south-western side is almost a perpendicular precipice, and at the bottom, underneath rocks, is a great cavern on which the sun never shines, called the Devil’s Hole, where pure cold water may be obtained on the hottest summer’s day.

      The scenery from the top is delightful as far as the eye can reach, and a view of Nobby’s Island at Newcastle can be obtained with the use of a telescope on a clear day, a distance of fifty miles. Pleasure-seekers, with a band of music, may frequently be seen, with their baskets of refreshments, clambering up its sides, to enjoy its pure air and feast their eyes on the country round.29

    Visiting the bush for its own sake gradually became a more regular leisure activity. The recognition of this growing interest led to the establishment of the Dungog and Barrington Tops Tourist League in the 1920s along with a number of guest houses from which visitors could take guided horse rides into the Barrington Ranges. Later, the Chichester Dam picnic area was also very popular, as well as bushwalking in general, eventually leading to the declaration of a number of National and State Parks and the construction of associated walking trails. In more recent years camping, caravan parks and touring have grown in popularity with various facilities provided both publicly, in the form of camping grounds, and privately in the form of Bed & Breakfast and other forms of temporary accommodation.

    The most famous of these guest houses was undoubtedly the Barrington Guest House built in 1930. Large for a guest house, it could accommodate more than 50 people and did so in a ‘guest house’ style (shared bathrooms, trivia nights, and communal meals), until well into the 1980s. People continued to visit the Barrington Guest House, often coming to the Dungog area solely for that purpose, right up until its destruction by fire in 2006. Even today, many visitors to the Dungog area request information about the Barrington Guest House and are disappointed to learn it no longer exists.[30]

    The practice of visiting the bush was not always a peaceful one and as the ability to drive up from Maitland or other centres became easier, so too for a time did the popularity of night time shooters. Such campers and their activities created much concern in the 1950s and 1960s.{{31}}

    Just as bushwalking only gradually became a leisure activity, so too did swimming. Swimming has not always been considered a natural way to spend a hot summer’s day, but the creation of a swimming pool incidental to providing a water level sufficient for the Dungog town water supply and pumping station led to this becoming a major leisure spot for many years. Thereafter, the building of community pools has largely replaced swimming at river pools. Until the Seaham Weir was put in place in 1967, water skiing on the Williams River was also popular.

    Billards

    Billiards was, for along period, a popular leisure activity, though not one always seen as quite moral. An application for a ‘bagatelle license’ [an early form of billiards] was refused in 1863 on the grounds that a similar license had already proven to be ‘a social pest’ and would not ‘improve the moral tone of our younger population’. A generation later, in 1901, the same Dungog hotel, ‘had a billiard table erected …, which promises to be well patronised’ and to which it seems moral objections were no longer raised.34

    For many years a billiard table was present in most barber shops, which were generally known as Sports Hairdressers. Later, the Dungog School of Arts became dominated by its billiard tables with little other activity apart from its aging library. Billiards, however, began to decline after the First World War and at least one retailer of billiard tables became desperate at this decline in billiard playing:

    because men have allowed Pictures, Night Tennis and Jazz with the companionship of the fair sex to attract them away from this classic among games that for the last 400 years have stood unrivalled in scientific interest.35

    The firm wrote to the Dungog School of Arts to encourage ‘the ladies’ to use billiard tables that were idle during the day. The same letter advertised Miss Ruby Roberts, ‘the greatest living lady exponent of the game of billiards’, who would play exhibition games and teach the game in return for her ‘1st class return fare, hotel expenses’ and £2 fee per class.36

    Children of course have always provided their own leisure activities, about which we have few glimpses. One we have refers to how ‘poor old Granny Redman used to keep the only toy and marble shop, just about where T Carlton’s shop is now. Granny used to put a couple or three pickle bottles full of marbles in the window, with a label on like this – Marbles 16 a Penny – and how the kids used to rush it, but even pennies were scarce in those days.’37

    Dances

    The establishment of bus transport from the 1920s on had a big impact on social outings and entertainment, especially for the smaller communities scattered around the district. It meant not only greater access to the towns such as Dungog, Clarence Town, Gresford and Paterson but also a mixing of peoples as they attended events held regularly in each locality. There were dances held each Saturday in rotation at Wallarobba, Bandon Grove, Tillegra, Stroud and Dungog with a bus taking participants to each in turn.38 Such dances were accompanied by a supper usually supplied by donations and prepared by a women’s group such as the Wattle Club or the CWA. Alcohol was not served at these dances but was commonly brought and consumed semi-surreptitiously outside between dances. From the 1930s through to the 1950s, these ‘adult’ dances were often paralleled with dances for children. These were usually held on a following night and were called juvenile balls or frolics. An alternative fundraising style was euchre nights, which were sometimes combined with dances.

    The Moving Pictures

    From just before the First World War the moving pictures began to play a major part in weekly entertainment and leisure. The Dungog cinema was established in 1912 and cinemas in East Gresford, Paterson and Clarence Town all ran until the 1950s or early 1960s. At East Gresford was the Garden Theatre, begun as an open air theatre, it was also used for dancing, boxing and skating.39 In Clarence Town, the School of Arts was used as a cinema from 1930 until the early 1960s.40 The cinemas usually played twice a week, perhaps every Tuesday and Saturday night, and not until the development of TV in the 1960s did the routine of regular cinema-going fade, leading to the permanent closure of all but the James Theatre in Dungog.

    Cafes & Hotels

    Dungog also had a number of cafés where people could simple go for coffee and a chat as they do today. The Globe Refreshment Café made its own chocolates.41 While the Busy Bee Café and the Sunshine Restaurant were run by Greek immigrants, the Barraboutis family.42

    While the sport of horseracing has always been popular, the leisure activity of gambling required more than the occasional Dungog district race. With off-course betting illegal for many years this meant a variety of SP bookmakers operated, such as one that ran from the back of the Busy Bee Cafe in Dungog.43 Other illegal gambling included the playing of a numbers machine in the back of a bakehouse.44 A legal TAB opened in Dungog in 1971 but closed in 1993 as unprofitable.45

    Licensing laws also restricted the opening hours of hotels and this led to the popularity of licensed clubs, such as the Bowling Club and the RSL Club (1956), which could serve members on a Sunday.46 Not that this stopped the occasional hotel, such as the Courthouse Hotel, from serving drinks on a Sunday – sometimes with a nod from the local police.47

    A form of leisure now associated with these clubs are poker machines. These machines have expanded in popularity as restrictions have eased and the Dungog RSL, after many years expanding so as to provide space for dance floors, in the 1980s built a dedicated space for its poker machines that cut into the now seldom used dance space.

    TV

    Dances, bazaars, concerts and fundraising events were very popular forms of entertainment throughout the 20th century until the 1960s. Thereafter a number of factors have both focused leisure activities on either the home or on activities outside the district. TV and an increasing range of home-based forms of entertainment have directly led to less community-based entertainment and recreation. In addition, greater access to cars and reduced travel times to larger centres such as Maitland, Raymond Terrace, and even Newcastle and Sydney, has meant travel to these places for leisure as well as shopping and employment have become commonplace, particularly among teenagers and younger people.

    Heritage Survivals

    former halls

    former cinemas & James Theatre Dungog

    3 Maitland Mercury, 1/3/1848, p.2 & The Australian, 3/3/1848, p.3.

    4 Williams, The Flying Pieman, pp.1-2 & p.14.

    5 Sydney Morning Herald, 23/12/1845, p.1 & Maitland Mercury, 17/1/1861, p.3.

    6 Hunter, Wades Corn Flour Mill, p.25 & Ah, Dungog, p.17.

    7 Maitland Mercury, 12/10/1889, p.7.

    8 Maitland Mercury, 12/10/1889, p.7.

    9 Australian Town and Country Journal, 7/2/1885, p.16.

    10 Hunter, Dungog School of Arts Centenary 1898-1998, pp.5-6.

    11 Maitland Mercury, 14/2/1885, p.17.

    12 Maitland Mercury, 11/12/1858, p.3, 17/3/1859, p.1, 24/8/1858, p.2, & 27/6/1878, p.2.

    13 Maitland Mercury, 30/9/1869, p.2.

    14 Maitland Mercury, 20/5/1879, p.4 & Maitland Mercury, 11/6/1874, p.1.

    15 Archer, Social and environmental change as determinants of ecosystem health, p.154.

    16 McCormack, Show and tell, p.29.

    17 Sydney Morning Herald, 2/3/1871, p.3.

    18 Maitland Mercury, 12/4/1887, p.1.

    19 Dungog Chronicle, 1/4/1903.

    20 Hazell, A Centenary of Memories, pp.5-7. [1888, 1889, 1890]

    21 Maitland Mercury, 13/8/1881, p.4, 13/5/1893, p.4 & Sydney Morning Herald, 3/7/1886, p.2.

    22 Don and Thelma Redman, interviewed 3/1/2012.

    23 Williams, Ah, Dungog, p.20.

    24 Maitland Mercury, 13/8/1881, p.4.

    25 Maitland Mercury, 1/9/1888, p.7S.

    26 Loban, A Substantial Handsome Church, p.22. Dungog Chronicle, 10/7/1888.

    27 Maitland Mercury, 30/10/1886, p.4.

    28 McCormack, Show and tell, p.17.

    29 Maitland Mercury, 21/1/1865, p.5.

    30 Collison & Handcock, Gresford 170 years, p.103.

    31 Sydney Morning Herald, 1/12/1924, p.10.

    32 For the Barrington Guest House see, 4.2 Accommodation.

    33 Archer, An Environmental & Social History of the Upper Webbers Creek Catchment, p.15.

    34 Williams, Ah, Dungog, p.47.

    35 Home Recreations to Secretary, School of Arts, Dungog, 6/5/1926.

    36 Home Recreations to Secretary, School of Arts, Dungog, 6/5/1926.

    37 Dungog Chronicle, 9/3/1926.

    38 McCormack, Show and tell, p.57.

    39 Collison & Handcock, Gresford 170 years, p.61.

    40 The Sunday Herald, 3/6/1951, p.13.

    41 McCormack, Show and tell, p.4.

    42 McCormack, Show and tell, p.48.

    43 McCormack, Show and tell, p.49.

    44 McCormack, Show and tell, p.50-51.

    45 Dungog Chronicle, 4/8/1993, p.1.

    46 McCormack, Show and tell, p.68 & Dungog Chronicle, 12/7/1995, p.1.

    47 McCormack, Show and tell, p.69.