OFF TO THE SEASIDE EVERYBODY! DANCE FROLIC AND SPORTS

London’s underground and crossrail developments unearthed significant archeological finds dating back to prehistoric times. As they dug, layer after layer of London’s intriguing past was revealed. Have you ever looked at a landscape or a building and wondered what was there before? 

Did you know that where the Forrest Beach Surf Life Saving Club House now stands, was also the site of the Dance Hall or Dance Pavilion? The site is a gathering place as it must have been for thousands of years, for Forrest Beach is located in the traditional lands of the Nywaigi people. 

Barbara Horsely wrote in Sea, Sand and Swamp. A history of the township of Allingham and Forrest Beach, of the Dance Hall or Dance Pavilion. When she wrote the book she provided a sketch of the Hall, as, as far as she knew, there was no existing photograph. However, in the way things go, of course somebody must have had a photograph in their family photograph collections. And they did! 

People had been finding their way to the beach and enjoying the sea and sand since the early 1900s, but it was not until 1925 that the area was surveyed and gazette as a township: Allingham with the beach area still called Forrest Beach. It was originally written Forrest’s Beach for G.B. Forrest, manager of Victoria Mill, who cut a track through to the beach to encourage his mill workers to visit the beach for recreation. 

Vince Corbett, builder and entrepreneur, saw the potential of Forrest Beach and applied for the lease of an acre of Council Reserve in 1925. By April 1925 he had built and opened a refreshment room. By May 1926 he had constructed two dressing sheds, two toilets and a dance hall/pavilion. The first dance held there was a fundraiser for the Valley’s Football Club on 9 April 1926. Over 20 couples attended. The Hall/Pavilion became known as the Forrest Beach Dance Hall. It was extensively renovated in 1938. 

Dane Pavilion (Source: Leila Muller)

The photograph shows the Hall before or during its renovation. Barbara’s sketch shows the renovated building with its baton walls. You can see in the photograph that the dance floor was one metre above the ground and was reputedly a very good dance floor. Once renovated there was a two foot (61 centimetres) gap between the floor and the baton walls. That gap is clear in the photograph (the baton walls were yet to come). Because of this construction the hall stayed quite cool even in summer. The hall and its extensions became part of the Surf Life Savers complex. Electric light was provided by a 5.6 Ruston Hornsby engine dynamo that required refueling several times during the evening.

Barbara Horsley's sketch of renovated Dance Pavilion (Source Sea, Sand and Swamp, p.48)

 

The dances held there were very informal because those attending had usually been at the beach for the day. But not only dances, but engagement and birthday parties were held there and the hall was used by the Surf Life Savers Club for socials and as a dining hall when visiting clubs came for carnivals. Other clubs that used the hall included the Cardinal Basketball Club, Pony and Tennis Clubs, Ranges Soccer Club and Nurses Welfare Committee.

By the late 1960s the hall was becoming worse for wear, with the floor being very uneven. Parts of the floor even gave away once during a very vigorous and enthusiastic crowd danced ‘the stomp’, a dance that was popular at the time. In 1973 the hall was destroyed by fire. The remnants were bulldozed into a large hole. 

Barbara Horsley lists some of the musicians who played at the dances. I am sure some of these names will bring back great memories: Bands: The Varsity Boys Orchestra The Chook King Orchestra The New Breed The Thunderbirds The Psychedelics The Silhouettes The Melody Makers The Evans Orchestra 

The Evans Orchestra (Source: D. Harvey in Sea, Sand and Swamp, p.50)

Musicians: Eileen Bird (nee Corbett) – piano George Stagg-piano Lou Castorina Syd Stannard Romano Olivero ‘Snooky’ Angus-trumpet/saxophone Lurlie Wickens-piano, Arthur Wickens-drums Jim Smithwick-drums Gordon Peebles-saxophone Lance Andrews-trumpet/saxophone Thelma Woodman-violin Marion Evans-piano Robert Evans-drums Daphne Evans (Harvey) piano and violin Syd Stannard.

I have quoted from Sea, Sand and Swamp pages 12-15 and 48-51 for this blog and I recommend you read the book for a detailed history of Forrest Beach and the Dance Pavilion. It’s a great read.

What? No Caterina Cordelia? Folklore debunked

 

As I research and write history, I always feel that I should add a disclaimer: this is the story, until further research proves otherwise!

THE FOLKLORE

I have oft repeated the story of the enigmatic Caterina Cordelia as given us by history buff and newspaper editor Robert Shepherd who may have got it from Alec S Kemp, The Kemp Report. According to local lore an Italian woman, Caterina Cordelia, arrived on the Herbert as the housekeeper for licenced surveyor Maurice Geoffrey O’Connell who along with his brother John Geoffrey O’Connell and William McDowall (McDowell) are attributed with the first planting of sugar cane in the Herbert River Valley.

 It has always been thought that a number of landscape features eg: creek and hill, were named for her. What happened to the O’Connells and McDowall can be tracked through newspaper reports and documents, but the fate of Caterina Cordelia has remained a mystery.

Until now…………….

FOLKLORE DEBUNKED

Bill Kitson, Retired Senior Curator, Museum of Lands Mapping and Surveying and coauthor of works such as Surveying Queensland 1839-1945, A Pictorial History and With Great Zeal. Charting of the Queensland Coast by the Royal Navy 1861-1913 appears to have solved the mystery and in so doing debunked the folklore.

This is what Bill writes and I quote:

In 1866 Maurice, who was at that time the Commissioner of Crown Lands for the North Kennedy Pastoral District, carried out a feature survey between Saltwater Creek just to the north of Townsville, up to and along the south bank of the Herbert River from Long Pocket to Halifax. On his plan of survey he names several features including a Mt Catherina where Mt Cordelia is today. At the base of it there was a small creek flowing into the Herbert River, which he leaves unnamed. Surveyor George Phillips would in May 1872 call this Katharina Creek. In September that year he also gives O’Connell’s Mt Catherina the name Mt Katharina.

It appears that Maurice was unaware that in 1866 George Strong Nares RN had given the feature the name of Cordelia hill. Nares had carried out a hydrographic survey between Gould   and Rattlesnake Islands (Ref D9482/1 G S Nares, Salamander1866), during which he named several features in the Palm Island group after Royal Naval vessels, that had served on the Australia Station, eg, Pioneer Bay, Pelorus Island, Orpheus Island, Hazard Bay, Harrier Point and on the mainland opposite the islands, Cordelia hill.

 SO!

(1)          Mt Cordelia was named after a vessel of the Royal Navy, not a person.

(2)          Yes, a feature was called Mt Catherina by O’Connell on his 1866 survey.

(3)          The creek at the base was not named Katharina creek by O’Connell on his 1866 survey.  

NOW!

In relation to a mysterious “Italian Lady” named K/Catherina, I offer the following information.

After Maurice’s death in December 1868, his younger brother John Geoffrey O’Connell, who had been his assistant since 1865, got married in April 1869 at Cardwell. On the Marriage certificate it showed that John was a farmer at Katherina Plains Herbert River (O’Connell Bros sugar selection). John would not become an Authorised surveyor until June 1869. His bride was listed as Maria Katherina Louise Cesar (Caesar) age 20 years. She was in fact christened at St Andrew’s Church Sydney in October 1848 as Catharine Lewis (Louis?) Caesar.  Her father was Alfred Louis Cesar (Caesar) and mother Marion Lockhart. Alfred was a linguist working with the New south Wales Police Department. It appears that he may have been born in Mauritius, as his father was Julius Cesar (Caesar), assistant port master at Port Louis for thirty five years. Her mother Marion (Mary) died in 1850, her father remarried in 1853 but died a few years later in 1857.

It is possible that a young woman losing both parents at such an early age might be capable of heading to the wilds of north Queensland while still a teenager?

If the O’Connell brothers named their sugar selection [first taken up in 1868] after her when she was 19 years of age, then there is a chance that she may have been with them in 1866 at age 17 years, when O’Connell carried out his original survey??????.

So, there you have it.  There was no Caterina Cordelia but there may have been a Maria Katherina Louise Cesar (Caesar).  What is so gratifying about the solving of this mystery is that Bill has made an invisible woman visible, and corrected some inaccuracies in the historical record of our district.

Source:

Kemp, Alec S. The Kemp Report, unpublished text, n.d.

Kitson, Bill. The Mysterious “Catherina Cordelia”.

Vidonja Balanzategui, The mysterious Caterina Cordelia. Interpreting Ingham History Blog, 24 July 2022.

StateLibQld 2 239314 Herbert River with Mount Cordelia in the background

                            StateLibQld 1 235334 Lagoon with lilies at Mount Cordelia, near Ingham, ca. 1881

StateLibQld 1 235358 Looking through the garden towards Mount Cordelia, near Ingham, ca. 1881.