The Campbells

Of Dawes Pt.

And Canberra

A very different type of Aus tralian history to the one supplied by Frank Clime (also reviewed this issue) is The Spirit of Wharf House , a story written originally by C. E. T. Newman, for the descendants of Robert Camp bell, Australia’s first merchant.

Through the assistance of the Commonwealth Literary Fund it has now been published for

general reading.

THE influence of the first Robert Campbell who arrived in Sydney in 1798, and the sons and grandsons who followed after, is woven into the fabric of New South Wales. The author is himself a Campbell con nection, having married a daughter of Frederick Campbell, grandson of the original Robert, and owner of Yarralumla, Canberra, until 1913 when the Federal Government, hav ing chosen their new capital, “re sumed” the Campbell property for their Government House.

The Campbells were, in fact, great originators—although the most famous of their properties are now in Government hands. The first Robert, on his arrival from Calcutta to see if he could work up trade with the new penal settlement on Sydney

Cove, bought a parcel of land at Dawes' Point on the western arm of the cove. Here he eventually Greeted a wharf—the first permanent wharf in Australia—warehouses and in later years a fine residence.

Of all this now only some of his warehouses remain; where his home —Wharf House—and his garden stood, Sydney now rejoices in its new Overseas Shipping Terminal, nestling close up under the approaches to the Harbour Bridge.

Yarralumla, as we have already seen, built by Robert Senior’s grand son in 1891, became the Australian Governor-General’s residence in 1913

though it was not used per ently as such for many years, the same year (1913) Duntroon, :h had been named after troon Castle in Argyllshire, ent seat of the Campbells, had been taken over by the Common th Government as a military :ge. untroon. within a few miles of -alumla, had been acquired by original Robert before 1830 and ;d at that time Limestone Plains, flocks of sheep there were in the ge of a Scot called Ainslie. who given his name to a hill in the lity (Mt. Ainslie) and one of berra’s larger suburbs, i 1830 Robert visited Limestone ns, decided to build a large house e and to call it Duntroon. This se—with additions—ultimately be e the officers’ mess at the Military ege but for three-quarters of a ury it was the pivot around which ;h of the Campbell clan revolved, he benevolent lairdship which the ipbells of Duntroon and ralumla, and their relatives and ily connections in stations in the e area, exercised over the

iberra-Queanbeyan-Yass district

become part of early Canberra :nd. lut these were later days for the npbells. For the first trading ?ert, things were far from rosy, soon fell foul of the Macarthur ion and the New South Wales ps who exercised a monopoly local trading. When the conflict ween Macarthur and the Corps, the one hand, and Governor Bligh the other, reached its climax in Rum Rebellion in 1807, Camp -1 was drawn into the toils and was mately ordered off to England to e evidence at the trials n the protracted voyages there I back and the long, drawn-out >ceedings against the rebels, he was >ent from Sydney for four years 1 during this time his business fell o ruin, Fhe next decade was a slow struggle :k, but one in which there was nty of time for public affairs. He s one of the original shareholders the Bank of New South Wales, mded in 1817; he began a Savings nk of his own (for “poor persons’ ” vings) which was superseded by s Government Savings Bank in 30; became a member of the gislative Council in 1825; and one the founders of The King’s School, Liramatta, in 1830. He continued acquire land interests and to velop his shipping and trading terprises until the mid 1830’s when

active control began to pass into the hands of his sons. He died in retire ment, at Duntroon, in 1846, at the age of 77.

His business enterprises were for profit, but the public work his Scots conscience prevailed upon him to undertake, made him a man of con siderable stature amongst the men of his day. Campbell enterprise and vigour are now a matter of history, best remembered perhaps in the place-names he and his clan have scattered over the face of Sydney and the State of NSW.

(The Spirit Of Wharf House.

Angus and Robertson Ltd. 42/-.)

The Suspect

Profession

Newspapermen, hovering in the no-man’s-land that separates the lower echelons of the intelligentsia from those of rank commercialism, traditionally hate their “owners”.

Vian Smith, who according to the book flap has been a journalist all his life, channels Press Gang along this usual path but says what he has to say about newspapers and the men who misused them, through two clash ing personalities.

There was Parnell, to whom a

newspaper meant power and who! it by marrying the owner’s daughx and Willie, a graduate from the doo land slums, who regarded journalil as a vocation.

The climax of the story andl Parnell’s campaign to break Willi spirit comes when Greedy, the nr who got Willie his first junior repc ing job, finds himself at the wro end of a smear campaign. Pant wants a witch-hunt, with Greedy ’ the victim and Willie doing the huj ing.

The rest of the story is in reft spect, beginning with the tough d:i of unemployment, despair and es nomic confusion after World Wan and ending where we came in—w?

Willie making his gesture to pc fessional integrity.

Although it has all the ingrediei for bathos and corn, it is, in factf first-class story, written with insij: and authenticity. It may even app< to newspaper proprietors. (PRESS GANG. Peter Davies II 20/-.)

Man With Past, Meets

Girl With No Future

T OVE, intrigue, suspense, a dash who-dunnit and an internatioi background are blended together Peter Ordway in his third novel, Co spiracy of Vipers. The author, , though he now lives in England, an American and has spent a rec© 10 years in the South of Pram That accounts for the internation background to the story.

He has also been a script writer fl MGM—which probably accounts fi the ingredients of the story, whii would make a good film.

Hope Daniels, a suppressed, mothe dominated heiress is being taken Europe to marry a man she detest She decides to jump overboard in tIJ Atlantic but is saved by a Fren»j Count who is being deported froc America after five years in a menti hospital. He had been sent then found guilty of murdering his wifi but insane.

He suggests to Hope that she marr him instead. They leave the shi secretly at Algeciras and they prr ceed to the Comte’s family chates in the Dordogne area of France.

The Comte’s family is charmim degenerate, impoverished and full o Machiavellian notions. The introdm tion of Hope, who is rich and hae way to being neurotic anyway, paw the way to a plot that thickens rigK; to the bitter end.

(Conspiracy Of Vipers. Pet»J

Davies. 20/-.)