Souvenir of the Titanic

     The centenary of the sinking of the Titanic is approaching and the postcard above from our collection deserves a wider viewing.  It was posted in June 1912, a couple of months after the disaster, from Hong Kong, to a young lady living at Bradley’s Head Road, Mosman, and it came to us in an album of postcards and other memorabilia dating from 1900-1915.  Oddly, the written message on the obverse makes no allusion to the disaster, simply saying “Best wishes to all and sundry – you can be the sundry.”  It’s strange to think that souvenirs of the liner could be purchased in Hong Kong within a few weeks of it sinking.

JMacR

Billy Herald, Olympic swimmer

     Billy Herald was born William Sharp Hannah Herald at Glebe Point in 1900 to Alfred and Lillian Herald.[1]  He may have been named after William Sharp Hannah, whose parents also lived at Glebe Point; Hannah died of thirst at Mount Arrowsmith Station in December 1899, not long before Billy was born.  In about 1908 the family moved from Glebe to Vaucluse.  Billy attended Sydney Grammar School.[2]  In 1918 he enlisted for WWI, but did not embark.[3]

     When he was 15 he won the 110 yards junior championships of NSW.  He became a keen competitor for Manly Life Saving Club at surf carnivals, and was a member of the Manly team which won the RLSS relay championships in 1919-20.[4]

     He was 19 when he was selected for the Antwerp Olympic Games of 1920 in the 100 metres swimming event, having won three of the four Olympic selection races, including the NSW test race in 59.2 seconds.  The Antwerp swimming races were held in an outdoor pool.  Herald came second in his heat in the 100 metres, and third in the semi-final, which qualified him for the final, with a time of 64.8 seconds.  In the final, he was baulked by two of the American swimmers and a protest was lodged.  The race was re-swum, and he finished fourth, just out of the medals, behind three Americans.  The race winner was Duke Kahanamoku.  In the 4x200 metres relay, the team won silver behind the Americans, with a team time of 10min 25.4.  The team consisted of Herald, Ivan Stedman, Harry Hay and Frank Beaurepaire.

     After the games, Beaurepaire stated to Bill Longworth that the Australian team had felt the effects of WWI more than other nations.  Had the Australian team consisted of Cecil Healy, Harold Hardwick, Longworth and Beaurepaire, he thought they would easily have won.[5]  Healy had been killed in WW1.

     Billy was a keen rugby player, and was in the Manly Life Saving Club Football team who were second grade premiers and won the Kentwell Cup in 1924 (photo above).

     He was Australian champion over 100 yards in 1922, in a time of 57.2 seconds.  On 30 January 1924 he swam an Australian 100 yards record of 55 seconds dead at the Domain Baths, in a dead heat with Arne Borg.

     From The Referee, 13 February 1924:

     “William S Herald was a competitor at the Antwerp Olympiad in which he gained fourth place in the 100 metres behind Duke Kahanamoku, Kealoha, and Harris.  It was just before the 1920 team was selected that he came to the fore, and after two disappointing seasons he is now showing the pace which is in him.  Herald’s selection [for the Paris Olympics]  came as a surprise to many, but the fact that he is the speediest sprinter ever produced here added to his undoubted quality as a furlong swimmer, weighed in the selection.  A trifle off-colour in the final of the NSW 100 yards championship, he failed to reproduce his heat swim of 55.8 seconds and was beaten into third place.  Since then he has tied with Borg in a scratch 100 yards race in 55 seconds; swam a hundred in the rough water at Clifton baths in 57.2 seconds and put up a night swim of 64.2 seconds for 100 metres at Pyrmont.  In spite of the wonderful pace of the Americans, it will not be surprising to see Herald right up with them in the 100 metres race.”

     However, by this time Herald was employed by a bank, and he was not allowed leave to compete in the Paris Games.

     In 1929 he married 22-year old Eileen Mooney at Randwick.[6]  The following year, they were listed at 400 Howick Street, Bathurst, where Herald had been posted by the bank.  In 1937, he was listed living at the Commercial Bank, Hillston, in the Riverina.[7]

     In 1940, Billy enlisted, knocking a couple of years off his age.[8]  He spent the war as Private NX36502, with the 2/1 Australian Headquarters Guard Battalion.  He was discharged from the Army on 10 October 1945.

     After the war he resumed his banking duties.  In 1949 he was listed at Kitchener Road, Temora.[9]  In 1951 he was a guest at the 40-year reunion dinner of Manly LSC.

     He retired to Sydney, and was listed in 1958 and 1963 living at 248 Rainbow Street, South Coogee.[10] 

     Billy Herald died on 13 February 1976, aged 76.[11]  Eileen Herald died on 13 February 1994, aged 87.[12]

JMacR

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[1] NSW BDM 12449/1900.

[2] Lester, Gary, Australians at the Olympics, p63.

[3] Harris, R, Heroes of the Surf, p73.

[4] Harris, R, Heroes of the Surf, p 13.

[5] Gordon, Harry, Australia and the Olympic Games, p100.

[6] NSW BDM 6413/1929.

[7] Electoral Roll 1930, 1937.

[8] Australian War Memorial records have his date of birth as 28 April 1902, Glebe Point, next of kin Eileen Herald.

[9] Electoral Roll 1949.

[10] Electoral Roll 1958, 1963.

[11] NSW BDM 4075/1976; Ryerson Index SMH 17 February 1976.

[12] Ryerson Index, SMH 14 February 1994.

Champion meets his match

     A hundred years ago, the sporting pin-ups were oarsmen.  The champion professional rowers could make substantial sums both in prize money and in side-betting.  One of the best-known scullers of the day was Richard Arnst (1883-1953), a New Zealander who became single sculls champion of the world.  Dick Arnst was also a cycling champion, and sport took him all over the world.  He came to Manly in December 1912 for a holiday over the Christmas period.

     He was roused from his sleep on Christmas Eve by a gang of larrikins kicking up a noise outside his boarding-house on North Steyne (pictured above, on a quieter occasion).  He went out to remonstrate with them, and a brawl developed.  He was holding his own, when one of the louts hit him from behind with a fence-post, knocking him to the ground.  Arnst was discovered by passers-by, bleeding from the head and barely conscious.  He was taken to the nearby St Aubin’s Private Hospital on North Steyne for treatment.

     Over the next two weeks he recuperated.  One particular nurse at the hospital, Miss Amy Williams, caught his eye, and a romance quickly developed.  On 24^th January 1912, they were married at Manly.

     Later that year, Dick Arnst travelled to England to defend his world sculling title, but was defeated by an old rival, Ernest Barry.  However the following year, he took out the Australian title.  In all, he was a six-time champion of the world.  He was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in the 1990s.

JMacR

Manly's Great Escape Hero

    

      The Sydney Morning Herald carried a feature about Squadron Leader John ‘Willy’ Williams last weekend (17-18 March 2012 p9) by his niece, Louise Williams.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/true-story-of-the-great-escape-20120316-1vac0.html

     Her article described how Willy became one of the youngest squadron leaders in the RAF, was shot down, and ended up in Stalag Luft III prisoner of war camp.  From there, he took part in the famous Great Escape, when 76 POWs tunnelled out of the camp and made a bid for freedom.  He was recaptured, and shot.

     Willy was a popular figure on Manly Beach before the war, patrolling and competing in surf lifesaving contests with Manly LSC.  Louise was able to confirm that one of the photographs in our collection shows him with team-mates in the Manly Amateur Swimming Club junior team who were NSW State Premiers in season 1934-35.

     The line-up in the photo: back row: Gilbert Swinburn, John Williams, Glen Radford.  Front row: Keith Kennington, Jamie Jenkins, Bill Howard, Mort Cansdell and Fred Wentworth.  Some real speedsters in that team of fine young men.

JMacR

Crimean War veterans

 

     It is a remarkable fact that two veterans of the Crimean War of the mid 1850s were buried in Manly Cemetery.  Charles Dalton, who was a survivor of the “Gallant Six Hundred” at Balaclava commemorated in Tennyson’s poem, was a Senior Sergeant in the 8^th King’s Royal Irish Hussars.  He served in the Crimea and Turkey, at Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sebastopol; and in India at the siege of Kotah, and the capture of Gwalior, Powrie, Sindwah and Koonayr.  This fine photograph of him is in the collection of the Australian War Memorial.

     He had nine children, all but one of whom were born at Government House, Sydney, where Charles was in charge of the Governor’s escort.  After the attempted shooting of the Duke of Edinburgh at Clontarf in 1868, Charles Dalton slept in the same room as the two Princes who were then visiting Government House, Sydney, to guard them from harm.  The second Dalton child, born in 1868, was baptised Ernestina by permission of the Duke of Edinburgh who stood as the child's godfather.

     Charles Dalton died at Balgowlah in 1891, and his head-stone at plot B.129 in Manly Cemetery is well preserved.  His widow, Jessie, and the children lived at their cottage, called Gwalior after one of his old battles in India, located at the corner of Condamine Street and Sydney Road.  This corner property was subdivided and sold in 1921.

     Also interred at Manly Cemetery was another veteran of the Crimean War, Jesse Button, a gravedigger and labourer, formerly sexton at St Luke’s Church, Liverpool, who died at Manly Vale on 9 August 1891.  Like Dalton, he too fought at the battles of Alma and Inkerman.  It was said that on one occasion he had had a narrow escape when the buckle of his stock was shot off by a bullet which killed the man standing next to him.

     He was buried in plot B.488 of Manly Cemetery, and as he had been sexton at the cemetery, there was no fee charged for the plot.  His wife Elizabeth died in December 1900 and was buried in the same (unmarked) plot on 1 January 1901.

     At one time several streets in Manly were named after Crimean War locations: Sebastopol Street (which became part of Sydney Road), Inkerman Road (a proposed street in the vicinity of what became Quinton Road), and Raglan Street, which is still so-named – constant reminders to the two soldiers of their fighting past.

Duelling at Manly Beach

     The sudden death of a Dutchman, Sir Gerrit J Meynink, at Petersham in 1865, brought to light a desperate tale of swordfights and pistol duels.  On Meynink’s body was found an unsent letter to his wife, Sarah, which read in part as follows: “You remember, my dear, that I wrote to you in my last letter that I was going to meet my cousin. [“Meet” has the particular sense here of “meet to fight a duel with”.]  We had to postpone our meeting and met again two days later at Manly Beach.  We fought with swords.  In the first two or three passages my cousin made, I saw directly that I had nothing to fear, my cousin being too nervous and too wild through eagerness to take my life.  I therefore only guarded myself, and when I saw his strength failing, I struck him in my turn, and soon ran him through his sword arm.  Of course, the fight was over, and I had to decamp.” 

     The letter went on to relate how the pair met again a few days later and duelled with pistols on the South Head Road, one of Sir Gerrit’s shots hitting his cousin’s arm.  However the pair had then apparently reconciled.  Meynink’s last movements were in the direction of his cousin’s home at Petersham to procure some pigeons from him.  His body was found in the Parramatta Road at Petersham, with a bruise on the head which may have been the result of a fall.

     The coroner found that deceased had died as the result of an apoplectic fit; he had been of intemperate habits.  The cousin’s name was not disclosed.

     Manly in the 1860s would have been a suitable location for a duel at dawn, relatively isolated and scarcely policed.  The photo shows the Corso in 1865 looking towards the Pier Hotel on the right.

     The full text of the letter was reported in the Maitland Mercury, 30 September 1865, p2.

Rotary Club of Manly - 75 years

The Rotary Club of Manly recently celebrated 75 years since its Foundation meeting, and they have produced a booklet commemorating their 75 years of service to the community. The booklet gives year-by-year description of the annual highlights of the club.

The inaugural President, A H Smedley, (pictured above) was managing director of the North Shore Gas Company. He presided at the charter presentation meeting on 24 April 1937, when Charter No 4125 was issued to the club.

Succeeding him was Joseph V Strong, of the real estate agent firm Robey Hanson and Strong, remembered as a committed fund-raiser for Manly Hospital, and a one-time Captain of Manly Golf Club.

Among the activities recounted in the booklet are the building of the Manly Senior Citizens’ Centre in 1958-59, inspired by A H ‘Muff’ Smith, and the gift to Manly of the Rotary Fountain in Gilbert Park, marking 25 years of the club’s community service.

Most recently, the club's admirable Bien Unido project in the Philippines has resulted in the regular donation of spectacles, computers, medication, school books and other items to a community on the island of Bohol.