Author: TM Diep

Page 9

EGERIA

This building was bought at auction by the Benevolent Society in 2000. This was also part of the Bradbury estate. It was sold to Samuel Lovely, a yeoman in 1844 for 30 pounds. In 1853, the land was acquired by Patrick McMahon who sold the southern portion to John Cobb and James Bocking for 150 pounds. According to Liston:
“The Queen Street property has often been called the Coaching [or Coach] House and identified as a coaching stop for Cobb and Co.. There is no suggestion that Cobb and Co. ever ran coaches along this route. This confusion most probably arose because one of the owners was named Cobb.”
Carol Liston also suggests that some confusion about whether Campbelltown Mayor Thomas Gamble lived here. She indicates that he lived next door.
During the 1860s, Cobb and Bocking dissolved their partnership with Cobb by selling his share of the Queen Street residence to Bocking for 75 pounds in August 1864. The occupants of the site were G. Graham and W. Webb. Carol Liston notes that there was a printing office on the premises. The property passed to Mary Brown in 1912 and then to Charles Hannaford in 1920 when the building was probably rented.
The South-West Star newspaper which appeared in July, 1975, had its office in this building. An article by Roma Curtis dated October 3, 1985 outlines some of the building’s history. She relates how prostitutes resided here during World War II. There were thousands of armed service personnel stationed around Campbelltown during the war. The Curtis article states that two women had to employ another five hostesses when business became good. The charge was ten shillings a client.
From Helen Roope who bought it in 1953, it went to Joseph Dimarco in 1957. His wife sold the property to Cumberland County Council in 1962 for $7,725.
In 1964, vandals caused extensive damage to the house. They smashed all the windows, ripped up floorboards, knocked plaster from walls and pulled down an internal staircase. The building was restored in the same year by architect Morton Herman. At the time, it was used as professional offices with a dwelling above.
This site was the premises of WILMA Women’s Health Centre and is now part of the Benevolent Society’s Centre for Women’s Health and is known as Naala.
Naala was born sometime in the late 1820s or 1830. Her father was Ngaalour one of the child survivors of the 1816 massacre here in Appin.
She was taken from her parents and relocated in the Surrey Hills area, where she was given the name Ellen, and was married to a Scotsman by the name of Charles Andrews.
Charles Andrews took her to the Hunter Valley where she bore him five children. The Song of This Land was too great for her, and one night when Charles Andrews came home from his work, he found her gone.

298 Queen St: Naala

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