Ferry Binngarra

The Manly ferry Binngarra was designed by Captain Christie of Mort’s Dock.[1] She was launched by Mrs A Howie, wife of the chairman of directors of the Port Jackson Co-operative Steamship Company in 1905. The ferry’s average speed in trials was 14 knots. She made her first trip to Manly on 29 October 1905. Her hull was fitted with five watertight bulkheads; the upper deck was open and downstairs was enclosed. She was insured for £23,000. At the time of launch, the Binngarra was the largest steamer built in NSW.
It was calculated that Binngarra ran an estimated 78,279 trips to Manly and carried 30 million passengers over 639,124 miles.
On 1 November 1905, she crashed into the stone sea wall at Circular Quay, dislodging great blocks of masonry.[2] It took the combined efforts of tugs Leveret and Hero, towing for over an hour to dislodge her. In December 1906, the Binngarra collided with the 163-ton Wallaby.
She was sold out of service in May 1933 as a store-ship, and she was towed to Port Stephens with her engines removed. She was requisitioned by the US Navy in WW2 as a cargo-carrying hull in the New Guinea region, and remarkably at this point she came under the command of a Manly man, Mr I MacGillivray-Elder of Fairlight.
He described his emotions at coming across the Binngarra at Dreger Harbour. Her superstructure had been removed, and two tall masts and derricks had been installed. Both propellers had been removed. The vessel now had considerable cargo capacity, and when properly loaded assumed an even keep and rode surprisingly well.[3] She had no anchor windlass. Her armament consisted of four ancient Browning machine-guns. “It was amazing how fond one can become of such an extraordinary ship”, he commented.
The hull was sunk at sea 18 miles off the Heads on 11 December 1946.[4]

[1] Manly Daily 19 August 1971.
[2] Manly Daily 19 August 1971.
[3] Manly Daily 7 February 1974.
[4] Manly Daily 28 October 1981, p22.

Manly 16 Foot Skiff Club

Manly’s 16-foot Skiff Club has been active since the early 1920s, and its clubhouse is a familiar feature of Manly Cove. An excellent history of the Club, The Sailos, by David Hooley, came out in 1997, which tells that in season 1954-55, a works programme saw the Clubhouse fully refurbished, and a timber jetty constructed. This photograph, which Mr Don Douglas recently allowed me to copy, shows a group of members of the club enjoying the new sundeck in the summer of 1955. The Club President that season, Mr A A Marshall, was honoured with Life Membership at the AGM in August 1954.

What became of Mr Vivian

In April 2009 I posted on the blog some details about Manly Alderman Walter Hussey Vivian. At that point I did not know what had happened to him after about 1902, although the State Parliament website suggested that he might have gone to South Africa. Now, thanks to the digitised Sydney Morning Herald, I have found that he died in South Africa in 1928, aged 76; a death notice appeared on 5 December 1929. After spells at Johannesburg and Durban, he had settled at Pine Town, Natal, South Africa, where he became Chairman of the Pinetown Health Board, and there is a Vivian Road in Pinetown, which I assume is named after him. His wife Ishie died in 1931. You can view their cemetery headstone on a website (eGGSA) giving details of people buried in Pinetown Cemetery. We still lack a good photograph of him, though.

Buses in Manly

This photo from our collection was taken by the Manly Council engineer in May 1940. To me, it simply showed a bus in Lauderdale Avenue. However the experts at Australian Bus magazine, where the photo was reprinted in September 2006, were able to tell me that the bus was a Leyland TD-3 in the Syd Wood group, 1182-1185. It was on the 143 route to Manly District Park. The bus had just had an overhaul, and had been given red and cream livery. Its English-style headlights had been moved to the transverse bar; this was a unique feature of Sydney’s back platform double-deckers.

Enthusiasts see so much more in a photograph, don't they?
The other interesting feature of the photo is how much width of the road the bus took up – good job the traffic was light.

We would love to have more photos of Manly buses for our collection - drop us a line if you have any you would like to share.

Alderman Samuel Bennett Bailey, a 19th century hero

There are several Aldermen of Manly for whom we do not have photographs. One of these mystery men is Alderman Samuel Bennett Bailey (1845-1896), who was a member of Manly Council in the late 1880s.
He was born in Cornwall, UK, the son of a builder and architect named William Bailey, who came to Sydney in 1848. William built the Catherine Hayes Hospital at Randwick and St Mary’s Church, and became Mayor of Newtown.
Samuel married Emma Green of Tamworth in 1870, at the Newtown Wesleyan Church. In April of that year, he found himself at Ulladulla at the time the ship Walter Hood was wrecked near Berrara. The wreck of the Walter Hood was a dramatic affair. In bad weather, Bailey and another man swam out in repeated unsuccessful efforts to get a line to men stranded on the wreckage of the ship. Several passengers and crew drowned before conditions abated and the rest were brought to safety. For his bravery, Bailey was awarded the silver medal of the Royal Humane Society in January 1872.
For a few years, he kept the Commercial Stores at Merriwa, NSW, before moving to the North Shore in the early 1880s. He came to Manly circa 1887, where he lived at ‘Restormel’, 4 East Promenade, built by his father (Restormel is a place in Cornwall), and practised as a land agent. He was elected to Manly Council in February 1886, with 329 votes. Shortly after, Alderman Charles Hayes was ousted from office by a decision of the Supreme Court, and Bailey was one of four Aldermen who resigned in consequence. Fresh elections were held, and he topped the poll with 381 votes. He resigned again in June 1887, perhaps because he was about to be declared insolvent.
The following year he registered a patent for “an improved medium to be used for advertising purposes” – it is not clear what this was, but it had something to do with theatrical advertisements. By 1890 he had become a journalist. He died on 15 October 1896, and is buried at Rookwood cemetery (Old Wesleyan section).
Samuel and Emma had at least seven children. One of them, Mrs Bernice Druce, wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald in 1925 to retell the story of her father’s heroism in the wreck of the Walter Hood.