Benjamin Hyrons

Ben Hyrons' Cottage, George Town, Tasmania

Colonial Times, Friday February 27, 1827:

“Benjamin Hyrons, Boot and Shoemaker, begs leave to acquaint his friends and the public, that he has opened an establishment in Liverpool Street, directly opposite to Mr Molloy’s, where he will still continue to carry on the above business in all its branches; where he has also on sale, a variety of leather, either wholesale or retail, at the lowest prices, consisting of sole leather, kip ditto, kangaroo skins, and basil. A quantity of clean washed wool for sale.”

Hamming it up at The Old Watch House, George Town

Few convicts sent to the notorious Van Diemen’s Land made as much of their new life as did Ben Hyrons, transported in 1818 for passing counterfeit coins. The cottage he built in George Town, Tasmania, is my little haven in my home town - the oldest weatherboard structure still remaining in the town, dating back to the 1860s. Its old, creaking floorboards, the convict-brick fireplace and the “ghost in the attic” always make a stay at Ben Hyrons’ Cottage memorable. On my recent visit it was also a thrill to see the old garden cleared out of the weeds and trees that had almost taken over completely, revealing expanses of grass, a few fabulous old trees and lots of spaces for the bulbs and new plants to grow. A re-visit in the Spring seems a must.

Meanwhile, I also found that the local press “The Launceston Examiner” had recently published a supplement entitled “The Convicts of Van Diemen’s Land”, and amongst much interesting information about the days when ‘Tasmania’ was known as ‘Van Diemen’s Land’ was a biographical sketch of Ben Hyrons himself.

At the age of 20 Ben was sentenced to death for counterfeiting coins. He was born in Old Swinford, Worcester, England in 1795 and originally trained as a shoemaker. He married Amelia Baker in 1817 but just three weeks later they were both arrested for passing counterfeit currency. Ben escaped the gallows on a plea for mercy, but was transported for life to Van Diemen’s Land. Amelia was sent to New South Wales, and they were refused permission to reunite. Both ended up marrying other people. there’s probably an opera in that story somewhere.

Ben Hyrons arrived in Hobart Town in 1818 and worked as a shoemaker. He was given his ticket-of-leave (a free pass, as it were, for convicts of good behaviour who had served seven years) in 1826, and - as the newspaper advertisement quoted above shows - opened his own little business the next year. He married Sophia Wood in 1829 and began acquiring property in New Norfolk and Hobart. As many newspaper advertisements of the period attest, he became quite a busy businessman, acquiring many enterprises and getting caught up in legal battles with defaulting tenants and business associates.

Ben was 35 years old when he was granted a conditional pardon. 

Cosy Cottage

He moved north to Launceston and became a publican. This, one assumes, was a profitable business in a far-flung colony full of soldiers and ticket-of-leave men. Sophia died soon after the move to Launceston, leaving Ben with two children; but he shortly married again to Mahala Hedditch, and innkeeper’s daughter. In 1833 he moved back to Hobart and became a food and wine merchant in Liverpool Street; and later built the Commercial Inn in Murray Street. He seems to have thereafter concentrated on pubs, and owned The Rising Sun Hotel and London Wine Vault in the south, and the London Tavern in the north. In 1845, Ben’s Angel Inn in Charles Street in Launceston became one of the first buildings in the town to have gas lighting. 

In a factoid of which I was previously unaware, I learnt that Ben Hyrons also established the Royal Olympic Theatre in Launceston to host touring performing groups. The theatre is described as Launceston’s first.

Hobart, 1887

And then came the coach runs: Ben established his first coach service between Launceston and Hobart in 1840 and later won the mail contract. However, this was a tough run - what takes two hours to drive today took many hours through bushranger-infested rough country in 1840. Ben Hyrons’ coach services at one point travelled to all the major towns in the colony, and his inns supported the service as posting houses where the horses could be stabled and changed. At one stage he had inns at Longford, Cressy, George Town and Launceston. During the 1850s he bought steam boats to operate between George Town and Launceston.

In 1859 Ben and his wife settled in Launceston where they ran their new inn, known as the Three Grand Masters (I’m intrigued to know why); and around 1860 that built the house in George Town which remains as the town’s oldest weatherboard structure. 

Having finally brought Ben the George Town and the Cottage which bears his name, I must sadly advise that Mahala dies in 1861. However, after living for  a time at the Longford Hotel (I can’t resist listing every pub he was associated with!) Ben married for the fourth time, to Maria Duncan who was 20 years his junior. The moved back to the Three Grand Masters in Launceston, which was renamed the Shakespeare Hotel. 

At the grand old age of 72, Ben Hyrons moved back to his cottage in George Town, where he died on January 21, 1873. Perhaps it was his ghost I heard walking upstairs int he wee small hours, both night that I slept there....


Family Tree and Historical information on Benjamin Hyrons
Coach services in early Tasmania

African Drumming

Saul demonstrates...

Unpacking the drums

Of all the experiences I might have expected to encounter in Sydney, African Drumming was not high on the list. In fact, it wasn’t even ON the list. However, one rainy night in inner city Balmain I learnt to enjoy the unexpected. There, in the back room of a church hall (far away from the neighbours) a drumming circle (aka class) meets once a week to, well, drum. About 16 assorted aficionados, most with their very own African drums, carried on their backs or slung over their shoulders in special carrying cases, met to celebrate the rhythms of Africa. 

Balmain Drumming Circle convenes

The drumming comes mostly from West Africa; Zimbabwe and Botswana were also mentioned. The drumming circle was encouraged into the mood by candles, African masks, a little incense, and a very passionate teach named Saul, who teaches circles all over Sydney. Every few months all Saul’s class groups come together to drum in unison, and I’m reliably informed that the sight and sound of hundreds of drummers drumming is an unforgettable experience. I believe it, because even the 15 or 16 in the church hall in Balmain was pretty spectacular.

Saul says (in his brochure) that African Drumming is great for ‘team building’, ‘entertainment and events’, ‘schools and youth’ and - more surprisingly - ‘weddings’:

“Everyone can benefit from the power of drumming and music. Soul Drummer has a unique passion for exploring the many healing benefits of drumming and is committed to sharing that with the wider community, Drumming is a great activity for celebration, releasing stress, having fun and connecting your body, mind and spirit.”

Wikipedia has this interesting background:

“In many parts of Africa the use of music is not limited to entertainment: it serves a purpose to the local community and helps in the conduct of daily routines. Traditional African music supplies appropriate music and dance for work and for religious ceremonies of birth, naming, rites of passage, marriage and funerals. The beats and sounds of the drum are used in communication, as well as cultural expression. To share rhythm is to form a group consciousness, to entrain with one another, to be part of the collective rhythm of life to which all are invited to contribute.

Many sub-Saharan languages do not have a word for rhythm, or even music. Rhythms represent the very fabric of life and embody the people's interdependence in human relationships. Cross-beats can symbolize challenging moments or emotional stress: playing them while fully grounded in the main beats prepares one for maintaining life-purpose while dealing with life’s challenges. The sounding of three beats against two is experienced in everyday life and helps develop "a two-dimensional attitude to rhythm". Throughout western and central Africa child's play includes games that develop a feeling for multiple rhythms.”

Sounds exotic, doesn’t it? But you too can be part of this, if you make your way to Balmain. Perhaps you should give Saul a call....happy drumming!

Images from Sauls' website

Into every life a little rain must fall....

This morning

Sydney retailer supplying our needs.

 ...but too much is falling in mine... I have been known to boast in a blasé kind of way that since I am a Londoner, I always carry an umbrella. This came in handy in San Francisco, and has proved itself essential in Sydney today. But Sydney rain is the big beefy cousin of that wimpy mist-like stuff that falls (sometimes so depressingly constantly) in London. I suspect that more rain has fallen on Sydney today than has fallen on London in the whole time I have lived there. It has all come down in one of Sydney’s massive sub-tropical deluges, leaking through ceilings, flooding roadways and pouring down storm drains. Ah, home...!

Uh-oh....

This interesting situation – you must remember that I completely missed the terrible floods earlier in the year, and haven’t seen rain like this for a very long time – prompted me to look at the Bureau of Meterology website. There I found that June (which begins very shortly) is the wettest month of the year for Sydney, with a mean rainfall of 130.7 mm. The average temperatures in June range between 9.3 and 16.9 degrees Celsius – which really not too bad, people, for mid-winter. According to Wikipedia on London's climate the average rainfall in London in June is 44.9 mm, and the average June temperatures range from 11.7 to 21.1 degrees Celcius.

But today in Sydney is not about averages. What we have here is rainfall of 15 mm since 9 am, winds at 22 kph, and temperature of 11 to 13.9 degrees. For a little local colour, I give you the Weather Warnings current for NSW:

Weather Situation
A trough lies along NSW coast with a low off the Central Coast while another
low is developing near the Far North Coast.
Strong wind warning for New South Wales waters between Smoky Cape and Port
Hacking.
Winds: South to southwesterly then tending easterly 30 knots Tuesday. Combined
sea and swell: Increasing up to 4 metres.
Strong wind warning for New South Wales waters between Port Kembla and Merimbula
Winds: Southerly up to 30 knots. Combined sea and swell: Up to 3 metres.

Wet city.

This afternoon.

The Sydney forecast suggests that it will be raining almost every day until I leave. Back in London, I see from the BBC site  that it is “raining lightly” (ha!) today, Monday, but “sunny intervals” (“sunny intervals”??) are forecast for the rest of the week with temperatures around 9 – 21.

So it seems that apart from the ferocity of the rain, there is not a great deal of difference between a Sydney winter and a London summer. The Amalfi Coast is looking better every day (26 degrees and sunny today).

But let’s not get too hung up on the rain – I soothed my dampness today with a classic Aussie lunch: a meat pie and tomato sauce.  An excellent cure for sogginess.

Comfort food.

Arncliffe

Yesterday I was in Beirut. You may have thought, like me, that once I shook the beach sand of SoCal from between my toes and boarded a plane for Sydney that I would end up in the land of the Ocker. But having a (very good) reason to visit the Sydney suburb of Arncliffe, I discovered my error.

Lebanese Sweets - the motherlode

Arncliffe, a suburb of Sydney ostensibly about 11 kilometres from the CBD, is home to a large community of Lebanese migrants, and a walk around its streets is in fact a million miles from the Sydney CBD. Kebab shops, halal butchers, Lebanese sweets, ladies in hijab, large families heading to church, posters encouraging you to attend a rally to support the Third Palestinian Intifada...yep, Little Beirut.

Arncliffe Park

 Arncliffe is a very early settlement for Sydney, with the first European inhabitants of the area settling in 1825. A property developer in the 1840s established the community and named it after a small village in Yorkshire, nostalgic for his home. As a result, Arncliffe boasts some lovely old houses from the Federation period and earlier and the railway station building, opened in 1884, has been preserved. Arncliffe Park – soon to be the venue for a Very Important Four Year Old’s birthday party - was once the market garden of one Kim Too, and became a public park in 1889.

Al-Zahra Mosque, Arncliffe

The original settlers in Arncliffe were English, Irish, Chinese and German; from the 1960s there have been waves of other settlers, from Greek and Macedonia, and – as is abundantly clear from my walk – Lebanon and the Middle East. The variety of immigrants is evident in the places of worship: the spires of St David's Anglican Church and St Francis Xavier's Catholic Church are visible over the rooftops; St Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church is located opposite Arncliffe Park; and then there is Al-Zahra Mosque, the Arncliffe Uniting Church and the Masjid Darul Imaan Mosque. I didn’t actually see the mosques, but from pictures they look pretty cool. Why travel all the way to the Levant when you can visit Arncliffe?

Kebab in the making...

Happy kebab eaters 

The kebab shop I did visit – “you wanna drinks wid dat, boss?” – and a popular spot it was too on a Saturday afternoon. And why was I visiting Arncliffe (apart from the kebabs)? Because it is now the address of a special young lady who seemed to rather like the dress I brought her from Paris.

Pandora and the Flower Girl Interpretative Dance Routine;

So Cal

Beachside breakfast in LA before hitting the road....

Southern California. Pausing only for a So Cal breakfast of yoghurt and organic fruit, and a manicure, I hit the road. The last leg of my road trip down Highway One took me from the delightful 'Shutters on the Beach' at Santa Monica down to Rancho Santa Fe, just north of San Diego. To tell the truth, I did abandon dear old Highway One for an excellent freeway that sent me breezing cheerfully into my friends’ house to stay a few days, with no more driving on the wrong side of the road for a while. I managed the LA freeways, but was glad to leave them behind.

Cafe culture

The beach at Del Mar

These few days featured some very tough things: fish meals on the beach, long walks on the sand, strawberries picked fresh from the fields, relentless sunshine...old friends and new. So hard to take. Not.

Impromptu dinner parties, champagne at a La Jolla art gallery, visiting some fabulous houses...getting used to the lifestyle of gated communities, five acre blocks of land, horseback riding and automatically hopping in the car to buzz down to the wine shop or the cafe or the bakery or the beach. Yoga in the mornings. Dinner table discussions of where to get the best organic produce and the benefits of wheatgrass shots. Hey, dude. This is SoCal.

Galleries in the afternoon...

Rancho Santa Fe is part of several estates of five-acre lots in the area. It is known for its many eucalyptus trees, planted by the Santa Fe railroad to provide railways ties - except that it was discovered that the wood was unsuitable, so various ‘ranches’ were established instead. Hollywood stars liked the place as a getaway – Douglas Fairbanks had a big ranch here.

The area is only about half an hour from San Diego proper, where there is lots to see. But I preferred to spend a lazy few days beachside, in my new ‘California office’! (Thanks, Brigitta and Michael).

Torrey Pines