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

The dear old Queen....

The three funnels of the 'Queen Mary'

No, not that one. The ‘Queen Mary’, steamship extraordinaire, currently resting in stately splendour at a dock in Long Beach, California. Today she’s a hotel and a tourist attraction, but her amazing past is a great story.

A magnificent lady

Launched 27^th May 1936 – about a third as big again as the ‘Titanic’ and carrying around 2,500 well-heeled passengers back and forth across the Atlantic – within a few years she was dragooned into the War Effort as a troop ship. All her fabulous fittings, furniture, chandeliers and drapes were stripped out and put into storage at the Hudson River docks in New York, her Cunard Line colours were painted out with a dull grey, and she became ‘The Grey Ghost’, plying the five day Atlantic trip back and forth for the next seven years. 

Packed to the gunwales with troops

Her decks and staterooms and promenades were massed with squashed-in troops, 5,000, 8,000 – up to a maximum of over 16,000 on one voyage, which is still a maritime record. She was tailed by submarines and air force fighters, Hitler offered a reward for sinking her, but she was never hit, she could actually out-run the submarines, her life boats were never used, and the only damage she ever suffered was to her hull when one of her own escorts got too close (it was cut in two and The Queen powered on...it is a VERY bit vessel). With the war over and troop movements no longer needed, she continued to sail back and forth, bringing home war wounded and war brides.

The Promenade Deck

The only way to travel.

Then it was back into the role for which she was intended: a floating palace for the great and good to travel back and forth between New York and Europe. In the old days, the First Class fare was the equivalent of $75,000 today; Hollywood elite, industrialists and philanthropists, statesmen (Churchill was on her three times) and minor royalty (think Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson) considered the ‘Queen Mary’ the only way to travel. Her saloons and ballrooms are lined with wood from all the colonies of England (there are fewer colonies now, and some of the woods are extinct); her fixtures are brass and etched glass, Art Deco splendour. Bing could be at the piano as we speak (he gets around – you may recall that we met him back at Hearst Castle a few days ago). Her last crossing as a passenger liner was in 1967.

'Greg'

On my visit to the ‘Queen Mary’ I joined a tour led by a great raconteur (possibly a ‘resting’ actor) named Greg, who wore a maritime uniform, stood on the staircases, and declaimed various speeches in the persona of the Captain or Winston Churchill. I love LA. The ‘Queen Mary’ had a sister ship, the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ which is with us no longer – Cunard ran a two-ship weekly service across the Atlantic; and we can only be grateful to the City of Long Beach for purchasing the old Queen and keeping her in repair and accessible. But I must confess to a tiny disappointment that she needs to have so many of her salons turned into souvenir outlets and fast-food restaurants; and that he elegant promenade deck needs quite so many ATMs and smoothie bars. Then there is the tacky ‘ghost tour’...which I took anyway, because excitingly you get to go down into the First Class swimming pool area (inside the bowels of the ship), and into the boiler rooms (the boilers – she was a steam ship, remember) have been removed), and right into the bow where she hit that unfortunate escort ship, all of which is very exciting. You just have to ignore the silly commentary, loud noises and unnecessary darkness.

I couldn’t help but feel that it would be a delight to see the old Queen restored to the splendid days, with all her spaces having their original functions. That ‘wedding chapel’ could be turned back into the First Class smoking room; that place selling t-shirts could be the Ballroom lounge again.

The Verandah Grill on the sundeck.

All you need is the G&T

I wasn’t able to check out the experience of staying on the ship in her hotel accommodations – perhaps that’s an adventure for another day. And there’s the restaurant on the sundeck, the Verandah Grill, which was so popular in its heyday that even the First Class passengers had to book a table two months before they sailed and pay an extra $3.60 (presumably a lot in 1935)...I hope the cuisine there today lives up to the glory days. According to Wikipedia it has been a struggle to keep the ship open at Long Beach, with bankruptcy looming at times. I can only recommend that you go see her while she’s still with us, because she is a wonderful and amazing ship.

The ‘Queen Mary’ s stats:

Type:	Ocean liner
Displacement:	81,961 tonnes
Length:	1,019.4 ft (310.7 m) oa 965 ft (294.1 m) B.P.
Beam:	118 ft (36.0 m)
Height:	181 ft (55.2 m)
Draft:	39 ft (11.9 m)
Propulsion:	24 Yarrow boilers , 4 sets of Parsons single-reduction geared steam turbines on 4 shafts, 160.000 shp
Speed:	approximately 28.5 kn (52.8 km/h; 32.8 mph) service speed.
Capacity:	2139 passengers: 776 first (cabin) class, 784 tourist class, 579 third class
Crew:	1101 crew

She’s impressive. A modern day cruise liner was moored nearby when I visited. Our guide Greg looked over at it and remarked. “and they call that a ship...”

But she came through unscathed.....

The Getty Legacy

 John Paul Getty was a wealthy – very wealthy – American industrialist. He was also a great collector of art and antiquities, with a deep interest in ancient times. He had a ranch in Malibu, perched up in a canyon looking down on what is now the Pacific Coast Highway. His collection grew so large that in 1954 he turned his ranch into a kind of house museum. The bright and beautiful of Los Angeles would put on their furs and trilbies and come to view the treasures, three afternoons a week, before cocktails.

The Outer Peristyle gardens at the Getty Villa

Then Mr Getty found that his collecting was getting out of hand, so he decided to build a special museum for his stuff. Like a true dilettante, he aimed to re-create the Villa de Papiri. Now, if you have been reading this blog closely – and of course you have! – you may recall mention of the Villa de Papiri (House of Papyrus) in this entry on the Naples Museum. This Villa, near Herculaneum, has only partly been excavated from under the lava spewed upon it by Vesuvius. But just in case you were wondering what it (or any typical Roman 1st century AD country villa) might have looked like, you need wonder no longer. You can go see it at the Getty Villa in Malibu!

Modern Roman?

I’m a bit ambivalent about this project. At first I thought it would be very exciting to see the re-creation. After stomping around a lot of ruins (as I have recently) I thought it would be particularly intriguing to see such a villa adorned with paintings and frescos, its columns unchipped and its roof intact. But having visited Getty Villa, I’m afraid it is not quite the success that its owner would have wanted (Mr Getty didn’t live to see the Villa completed – it was finished in 1974 and he died in 1973). I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think it is the use of so many modern materials, the over-use of trompe d’oeil, the roofing-in of the atrium that would have been open in a Roman villa...Still, whether the re-creation (renovated in 2006) works or not, it is a very apt building for displaying the very good collection of antiquities. Of course, the collection is not anything like the scale and depth of the treasure houses of those crumbling edifices, the archaeological museums of Athens and Naples, but for a private collection amassed outside of Europe in the 20^th century, it is pretty amazing.

The kouros - late archaic Greek?

The highlights are said to be the Hercules and the Kouros. Now, the Hercules is good – but I’ve recently been to the Vatican and the Palacio Farnese and Naples, and, well....The Kouros is a lot more interesting, because no one knows if it is a fake or not. This is discussed quite candidly on the audio guide, and it is most interesting to closely examine the statue (of a young man) with a view to deciding for yourself if it was carved by hand 2000 years ago, or whipped up in an Italian garage with power tools ten years ago. And they paid $7 million for it in 1985.

Is it real or fake....?

What do you think...?

But wait...there’s more, much more. The Getty Villa houses ‘only’ the antiquities from Mr Getty’s collection (of 44,000 – 1,200 on display). He was a very avid bower bird and the Getty Foundation has had to build an entire new building – actually a massive campus of buildings – to house the still-growing collection. Ten miles away, up on a hill above Pacific Palisades, sits the new Getty Center, worth visiting for the spectacular architecture as much as for the collection. 

The Getty Center

Approaching the Center

The architect is Richard Meier; the construction took nearly as long and was almost as over-budget at the Sydney Opera House – it finally opened in 1997 at a cost of $1.3 billion. The campus includes buildings housing the operations of the Getty Trust, as well as several galleries displaying European paintings, sculpture, furniture, photographs and temporary exhibitions. The gardens are a work of art in themselves (literally: the Central Garden is by artist Robert Irwin and is considered part of the Museum’s collection!) The whole thing sits beautifully on top of a ridge overlooking Los Angeles, and visitors approach on a little tram, after parking their cars at the bottom of the hill. I spent quite some time walking and sitting about absorbing the architecture and the views; but then...onwards– into the galleries.

The Robert Irwin Garden

The views of LA

Ah, yes! There's art as well...

With limited time and no desire to endure ‘museum overwhelm’, I chose my targets: Van Gogh’s “Irises”, Monet’s “Haystacks in Snow” and one of his 30 “Rouen Cathedral”s; a lovely display of Canaletto and his nephew Belotto and others who painted scenes of Venetian canals for English tourists to take home as souvenirs. Some nice Goya and Gainsborough and John Singer Sargent portraits. Very nice indeed. Of course I missed a lot – but it is always good to have a reason to return.

Meanwhile, the Getty Trust continues to expand the collection, run a conservation masters program, provide extensive educational facilities, and grants for art preservation projects all over the world. As far as I can make out, all of this is done on the proceeds of Mr Getty’s personal estate. No one charged me anything to see these collections and buildings (if you don’t count the parking fee – but hey!), and Wikipedia has some gossip about financial woes at the Trust in recent years; but it is undeniable that this legacy of one individual art-lover, J Paul Getty, is an extraordinary thing.