Darlinghurst Blog: Street of the Week: Clarksons Mill Way

People are remembered in the strangest ways. This week's Street of the Week, which is really a pedestrian laneway, is named after Thomas Clarkson, who built the first windmill on Woolloomooloo Hill, now Darlinghurst.

Clarksons Mill Way, as the laneway is named, is possibly not the best way to be remembered, lined as it is with overflowing garbage bins and dotted with the detritus of life: cigarette butts, plastic bags and a man's pair of slippers.

The laneway, between Darley Street and Darlinghurst Road, is in dire need of some beautification. 

Nevertheless, I may never have paid Clarksons Mill Way much notice if it wasn't for the research of reader, Michael Armstrong, who was inspired to find out the story behind the lane. 

Clarkson, as I learned from Michael's story, was a bit of a shyster, who somehow managed to acquire five large properties and a number of windmils.

Through Michael's research I discovered more than I have ever known about the windmills of Darlinghurst - which arrived on the landscape about two decades before the first villas.

Along the way, Michael also led me to some marvellous historical photographs (make sure you enlarge the one of Craigend).

Here is Michael's account of the roguish life of Clarkson - and his windmills.

“In about 1819 a merchant, Thomas Clarkson, had erected a windmill near what is now the intersection of Liverpool and Darley streets (above). 

"This appears to be the first windmill in Darlinghurst: a stone mill with a mechanical turning head to catch the wind. 

Pencil sketch of Clarkson's Mill, by Henrietta Bloxsome, circa 1850.

"Close by, two post mills were built, their design allowing them to be turned to face the wind. 

"A fourth mill was built by Thomas Hyndes on his allotment close to Caldwell Street. 

"The windmills were prominent features of the landscape, often depicted in colonial paintings of the town. 

"The last of the mills to be demolished, reportedly around 1873 was Hyndes' mill, built close to Thomas Mitchell's Craigend villa. 

Craigend, with Hyndes' windmill to the right, circa late 1860s. "Taken with a Sutton water-filled lens panoramic camera, probably by Victor Prout or Freeman Brothers," according to the State Library of NSW.

"Hyndes' mill stood on the highest point of the ridge and was clearly visible from Sydney. Its position is reported to have been at the top of Beare's Stairs in Caldwell Street, east of Victoria Street. 

"The mill's building materials were possibly used to construct four terraces in Caldwell Street and maybe the stairs themselves (below)." - Mark Dunn, Dictionary of Sydney.

"Thomas Clarkson was born in Kingsbury, Warwickshire, in the UK, in 1763. 

"At 31 he married a local girl, Catherine Rayson, some 11 years his junior, and over the next few years they had four children. 

"However in March 1805, Clarkson was convicted of passing a counterfeit £1 note, and sentenced to 14 years transportation. 

"In January 1806 he was sent as a convict on the Alexander, Catherine and two children also travelling on the ship. 

"In August 1806 the four of them arrived in Sydney, Catherine purchasing a house some two months later for £38 on the corner of Hunter and Elizabeth Streets. Here she established a bakery."

Corner of Elizabeth and Hunter streets, 1933. City of Sydney Archives.

"Clarkson was convicted of “embezzling tobacco” on the Alexander and sentenced to two years hard labour. 

"On his release from Castle Hill gaol in 1808, he was assigned to Catherine as her convict servant. 

"In May 1809 he was fined £2/12/- for selling short weight loaves of bread, however in December the same year the remainder of his sentence was remitted for good conduct.

"In 1810 Clarkson was granted a licence to brew and sell liquor. 

"By the following year he already had four properties, and his properties and debts grew steadily. 

"The next year he became “bondsman” for rent on the Parramatta to Windsor Turnpike. 

"In 1814 he was contracting to build houses, seemingly supplying the upper end of the market. 

"He was also supplying fresh meat to government stores (eventually as much as 6000 lbs per annum) from his farm, and later also wheat. 

"In 1817 he took out £12,000 mortgage (now equates to $17,000,000 on average wage data) on an impressive list of properties. 

"They included a stone windmill built to support his baking and brewing business."

In the image above, from the State Library of NSW - which looks east across Hyde Park - Clarkson’s stone mill can be seen in the top right part of the picture. To the right of the mill, and rather further forward is the Australian Museum. In the distance, at the paper margin, is Darlinghurst Gaol.

"Around 1819-1820 significant cracks started to appear in Clarkson's business empire. 

"In 1819 he had built a paper mill, and the following year the beautiful Eschol Park House, at a cost of £1,500 (now a restaurant and function centre, about 5km north-east of present day Campbelltown). "However, in 1820, with the other Turnpike bondsmen — in turn having died and absconded — a suit was issued against Thomas for £1,000 in unpaid tolls. 

"In 1821 Clarkson's wife, Catherine, was convicted of receiving stolen goods and sentenced to five years transportation, although it’s not clear whether she served any of the sentence. 

"Three years later, Thomas died in Hunter Street Sydney.

"The first writ to recover debts from his estate was issued two weeks later. 

"Catherine commenced a legal fight to preserve the property she purchased in 1806 from the estate's debts. However, ownership of this property, free of Clarkson's debts was not finally established until 1836, Catherine dying some three years later." 

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POSTSCRIPT: 

“If Only”, an online life of Thomas Clarkson, by Christine Woodhead, Marlene Willcocks and Margaret Aitken can be found here.

The first two authors are stated to be direct descendants of Clarkson. 

*

SOURCES: 

National Library of Australia

Trove

City of Sydney Archives

Dictionary of Sydney

State Library of NSW

Bones in the Belfry

Darlinghurst Blog: Villas of Darlinghurst: Craigend

Detail from elevation and plan of a house proposed to be built on Craigend, 1829, Number 12 of the Wolloomooloo Hill allotments. Artist unknown.

Craigend: allotment of over 9 acres granted to Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell in 1831.

Craigend was the first home to be built at the highest point of the Darlinghurst Ridge as part of the original development of the area in the 1820s and 1830s. The home was built for Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, who arrived in Australia from Scotland in 1827 after being appointed the colony's Assistant Surveyor-General. 

Mitchell was born in a house called Craigend in the town of Grangemouth, central Scotland, in 1792 and although poor was well educated. He could read in several languages and was proficient in science. 

In his early 20s he was made a lieutenant of the 95th regiment and during the Peninsular war, between France and the allied powers of Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom, he served in the Spanish towns of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz and Salamanca. 

His main role was to obtain topographical intelligence and these skills were noticed by the Quartermaster General, Sir George Murray, who employed him to produce plans of the major Iberian Peninsular battlefields. 

After his marriage in June 1818, Sir Murray helped him land the role of Assistant Surveyor General in Sydney and in 1827, Mitchell and wife, Mary, arrived in Australia.

Mitchell actively petitioned for land on Woolloomooloo Hill (Darlinghurst) and in 1831 he was authorised to select an allotment. He chose a grant of just over nine acres positioned on the highest point of the ridge, where Royston Street is today.

Mitchell designed the villa, Craigend, and its Parthenon-style portico and elevated position on the hill led it to be known as the Acropolis of Sydney. But Mitchell's wild spending on such a grand mansion led him into financial trouble and in 1837 he was forced to subdivide his nine acres and sell the Craigend estate.

Until then, Mitchell was quite the adventurer. 

The Survey Department was a schmozzle when he arrived. Surveying instruments were few and many of the staff were incompetent, so that title deeds were delayed and doubts and disputes arose about boundary lines. Tent poles were used to measure base lines, and hillsides with lone trees were used as trigonometrical points. 

Mitchell inherited the position of Surveyor General in 1828 and the following year became responsible for the survey of roads and bridges. His work included making changes in the roads from Sydney to Parramatta and Liverpool, as well as plotting new courses to Berrima and Goulburn and a trail from the Blue Mountains to Bathurst. Many of the roads he plotted are much the same as the ones used today.

During his career in the 1830s, Mitchell also made expeditions to central, far-west and north-west NSW, to towns such as Orange, Menindee, Namoi, Tamworth and Narrabri. 

On one expedition in February 1832, two of his party were killed by indigenous Australians near Moree. In March 1835, botanist Richard Cunningham was also killed by Aborigines at Bogan and on the same expedition the party encountered members of the Darling tribe who they described as ''implacably hostile and shamelessly dishonest''. During an affray with the group, shots were fired and several Aborigines were killed and wounded. Mitchell returned home.

Mitchell made a third expedition to plot out parts of the Darling and Murray rivers, but again his party got into strife with the locals and seven Aborigines were killed near Mount Dispersion.

An inquiry conducted into the deaths by the Executive Council in 1836 found that Mitchell had not made sufficient efforts to be conciliatory to the Aborigines but the council could not blame his ''want of coolness and presence of mind, which it is the lot of few men to possess''.

In 1837, Mitchell returned to the United Kingdom, wrote a book about his expeditions, begged for a knighthood and returned to Australia four years later as a Sir.

He briefly held an elected position on the Legislative Council and made a fourth expedition into the eastern interior of Australia.

During the 1840s he again returned to the United Kingdom but came back to Sydney to write another book, The Australian Geography, which placed Australia in the centre of the world map and became a school text in NSW in the 1850s.

Mitchell, who was a bit of a rogue in the colony and was regularly accused of insubordination, was also involved in one of the last duals in Australia with a chap called Stuart Donaldson who had publicly made some inaccurate, presumably defamatory, remarks about him. On September 27, 1851, each fired three shots and it was reported that one bullet went through Donaldson's hat while another went within an inch of Mitchell's throat.

In 1855, while surveying a line of road between Nelligen and Braidwood, south of Sydney, Mitchell developed pneumonia and died at his home in Sydney on October 5. Mary survived Mitchell but five of their 12 children did not. 

Craigend, which Mitchell had sold years earlier, had a succession of owners and was later converted into a hospital, then a boarding house in the early 1900s. The Acropolis of Sydney was demolished in 1822 to make way for a large block of flats (below). 

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SOURCES: The Australian Dictionary of Biography

Villas of Darlinghurst

Darlinghurst Blog: History: Barcom Conservation Area

This history is taken entirely, with only small edits for style, from 

the NSW Government's Heritage Branch Website *

I have included it as a reference for myself and for readers of 

My Darling Darlinghurst who may be die-hard history buffs.

*If you believe I have infringed copyright, please contact me and I will happily remove this page.

Eora was the name given to the coastal Aborigines around Sydney. Central Sydney is therefore often referred to as Eora Country. Within the City of Sydney local government area, the traditional owners are the Cadigal and Wangal bands of the Eora. 

With the invasion of the Sydney region, the Cadigal and Wangal people were decimated but there are descendants still living in Sydney today. 

The Barcom Conservation Area incorporates much of a 71 acre parcel of land granted to Thomas West in two parts in 1812 and 1844. 

The area is defined by Craigend Street to the north, Barcom Avenue and Boundary Street to the east and south, and to the west, St Vincents Hospital and Victoria Street.

West, an Essex millwright, was transported to NSW in 1801 as a convict. Governor Macquarie granted West some 40 acres to the west of the creek that fed into Rushcutters Bay. The estate was known as Barcom Glen.

West erected Sydney’s first water-powered mill on his land in 1812. The mill was located off Boundary Street in Lindsay Lane (where the A is on the map above), downstream from a dam he built near Liverpool Street. He built a house and established an orchard by the mill just north of Liverpool Street.

Three generations lived at Barcom Homestead until the house was acquired by St Vincents Hospital in 1863. West also ran cattle on his property and operated a dairy - Macquarie donated a cow from the Government herds in appreciation of West’s milling operations, which continued into the 1890s.

In the 1820s, Governor Darling made 15 small grants at Darlinghurst and Potts Point to powerful civil servants to build homes. One of the earliest residences in the precinct, Craigend, was one of these homes.

Craigend was a fine house built by NSW Surveyor-General Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1828-31, and stood on about 4 hectares in the area bound by Victoria Street, Surrey Street and Kings Cross Road.

Land around Rushcutters Bay Creek was swampy and consequently West’s Estate was one of the last estates to be subdivided in close proximity to the city. The good water supply coupled with the undesirability of much of the area for residential development saw development of industry. Produce such as fruit, meat and butter were refrigerated in Barcom Street near the back of St Vincents Hospital on the premises of T.S. Mort, where ice was made, hence Ice Street.

The conservation area also incorporates part of the Riley Estate, the eastern boundary of which runs long the alignment of Little West Street. The Riley Estate was subdivided from the 1840s. The earliest residential subdivisions and development occurred in the vicinity of Craigend, along Surrey Street by the 1850s.

Improvements in William Street in the 1850s, coupled with the gold rushes, encouraged development in the area. St Vincents Hospital moved from Potts Point to Darlinghurst in 1870. Barcom Avenue was surveyed in the 1880s.

Early plans show the Barcom Glen divided into large allotments either side of Barcom Street. The Barcom Glen Estate was subdivided for auction sales from 1880-81.

The south-western section of the area was subdivided for sale in 1883, including allotments fronting Leichhardt Street (formerly Campbell Street). At this time a weatherboard building is indicated at Barcom Street.

Rushcutters Creek ran along the south-eastern edge of the area, later resumed for road purposes, and Boundary Street was formed.

The Darling Heights Estate, bounded by Victoria, Surrey and Caldwell Streets, was subdivided in the late 19th Century.

The area surrounding Lindsay Lane was subdivided with allotments south of Boundary Street in 1913 as the Barcom Homestead Estate.

Royston Street was a later overlay, subdivided from the Craigend Estate after the demolition of Craigend in 1921, and sold in 1923 and originally called Mitchell Court.