GEORGE COWIN I
I would like to start with my great grand parents on my father’s side. George William Cowin (Bill), my great grand father, was born at Ulican, Baldwin, County of Braddan in the Isle of Man on December 27, 1863. He was the third oldest child ofa family of ten who worked a 98-acre farm. As the family grew, the farm could not support the children as adults. He left the Isle of Man in 1881, aged 17, and sailed for Australia to start a new life. He immigrated to Brisbane, and was followed by a younger brother who settled in New South Wales. Other members of the family later emigrated to England and America. On arrival in Brisbane he applied for various jobs and obtained a job with the family that owned Newstead House at the time. He worked in the grounds as a general hand and livestock attendant, and prepared landscaping around the home like building stonewalls to terrace parts ofthe gardens. One of the chores he had to do was to teach a daughter ofthe owner to ride sidesaddle. To do this, he had to don a ladies skirt (that was long) and show her how to mount and set herself in the saddle with the long skirt.
He then decided to invest in a property near Grantham to establish a citrus orchard. After working the property for a couple of years, the area (and most ofQueensland) was hit by a very severe drought that wiped him out, so he abandoned the property. He then returned to Brisbane and bought himself a horse and dray and plied for work in Brisbane Town. To do this he lined up with his horse and dray along with many other carriers in Eagle Street at the Queen Street end. He and the others waited for business proprietors to walk down and hire their services, much like taxicabs today. He had lodgings in Kent Street, New Farm, and stabled his horse at the rear ofthe property.
ELIZA JANE WHITE: In contrast to George, my great-grand-mother Eliza Jane White was born in Northern Ireland in 1862. She moved to England at Lancaster where she studied and then took up a maid’s position with a family and cared for their children. She immigrated to Australia in 1883 to join her brother John and his family in Chermside Street, Teneriffe. She obtained work as a nurse-maid for Reverend and Mrs. Court, the Church of England Minister of St Mary’s Church at Kangaroo Point, however he was not a well man and died shortly after. She then became Governess to the Jackson family children. The Jackson family were merchants and retailers in the City. They later established warehouses and then a carrying company well known in the Fortitude Valley area, R. J. Jackson & Sons. Later there was friendly rivalry between Mrs Jackson and Eliza as to which family established their transport business first. While she worked for them, Mr Jackson advised her on how to save money to better herself in the world. After a couple of years she was able to purchase a house at 109 Browne Street, New Farm with the funds she had saved. During this time, she became acquainted with a gentleman lodging behind her brother’s house who had a horse and dray. This gentleman was George (Bill) Cowin and after a courtship they later married and moved into her house in Browne Street.
TRANSPORT BUSINESS: George (Bill) obtained a contract with a saw mill at Woolloongabba. He continued with this work until the saw mill burnt down and the work ceased. He always had ahankering to go back to Grantham out in the country; however Eliza was against the idea because of his past experience, the uncertainty of conditions that farming offered,particularly with the arrival of a family. Shortly after this he tendered on a contract with The Colonial Sugar Refining Co., who were building a new refined sugar factory in New Farm due for completion in January 1893. The Refinery was affected by the 1893 floods and did not open until July 1893. CSR had two
contracts on offer, one to cart raw sugar from the Fortitude Valley rail yard to the Refinery, and another to cart the refined sugar out to customers around Brisbane. He reasoned that the factory was a major investment in Brisbane and an important economic asset to Brisbane. This being the case, the Government would eventually service the factory with a rail line to carry sugar and coal for its operation from the rail head. Therefore, he only tendered for the cartage of sugar out to customers. As was the case, it was not long after that a rail line was put through to the refinery and only one contract survived for the long term.
The 1893 flood also affected the house that the Cowin family lived in at the time. Flooding came up Browne Street and isolated the house to below the floorboards so they could not live in it. They were forced to move out and were billeted by their neighbours at the rear. This was an Irish family by the name of Hackett, who had a small stone cottage on higher ground. This was a very generous act as the cottage was a very small lowset stone dwelling that barely enough to accommodate the Hackett family. The friendship with the Hackett family continued for many years,
with a son Paddy working for the family as a driver for over forty years.
VILLIERS STREET PROPERTY
George (Bill) then decided that he could not conduct a business from Browne Street if it was going to be subject to flooding. Also, operating from the Browne Street house was nigh on impossible with more horses being used, so he bought a property of 118 perches higher up in Villiers Street that had a small cottage on it and plenty of land to
rest the horses. When the property was bought, it had one of its boundaries in line with the middle of what is now Villiers Street. The property opposite joined with his and divided Villiers Street into two halves. George’s property had a gate on either side. Residents of the area asked could they use the gates as a short cut to their homes from Brunswick Street and George (Bill) agreed on the proviso that the gates were closed again so the horses did not get out. People being people, the gates were left open so George (Bill) locked them up and they were unable to be used. In 1905, he had plans drawn up to build a family residence and move his young family of four children into it. The small cottage was demolished leaving a shed that later was used as a workshop and remained on the property until it was sold in 1995. He later built stables and a feed house on the site to eventually accommodate 36 draught horses.
So in 1905 when seeking to build his residence, the then fledgling Brisbane Town Administration wanted to connect the two halves of Villiers Street with a roadway and offered to buy portion of the land. However, they only wanted to purchase two thirds of the width of the existing roadway because they did not have sufficient funds to buy the whole roadway. George (Bill) was disgusted by their short-sightedness and told them that he was building his house to the front of his remaining property and, that once it was built, the additional width could not be obtained without shifting the house. This is what occurred and remained so until 1995 when the property was sold, much to the consternation of local residents, particularly some who were inattentive and collided with the kerb at night damaging their vehicles.
The Cowin family with four children now established themselves in the new residence. They were the following members, and this is some of their life’s history:
Isobella Cowin
Born: 1894
Married: Harold Oscar Corlett Faragher (ex. West Derby Lancashire, born 1862 in Lonan, Isle of Man)
Died: 1958
Children:
Edith Isabella Faragher
George William Faragher
George William Cowin II
Born: June 28, 1896
Married: Dorothy Pearl Sewell
Died: August 25, 1972
Children:
Dorothy Cowin
Born: July 19, 1917
Married: Alan Stevenson
Died: August 20, 2007
George William Cowin III
Born: June 12, 1920
Married: Lucy Bernice Hoppe
Died: August 17, 1989
Elizabeth Cowin (Betty)
Born: April 8, 1925
Married: Bill Trout
Winifred Cowin
Born: October 22, 1927
Married: Des Buck
Robert Joseph Cowin
Born: 1898
Married: Eva Brown
Died: 1976
Children:
Joyce Cowin
Born: 1922
Married: Bruce Marjason
Audrey Cowin
Born: 1925
Married: John Cable
Elizabeth Jane Cowin (Bess)
Born: 1902
Married: John M McBride
Died: 1990
Children: Nil
Isobel married Oscar Faragher and lived in Bailey Street, New Farm where they brought up their family. It was later sold and converted into a boarding house. George II commenced work as a Bank Teller in approximately 1912 and enlisted in the Australian Expeditionary Forces and went to England in April 1915. He was posted to France in an artillery division and fought in northern France. He was injured in the foot by shrapnel at Millencourt in 1916 and sent back to England for treatment. He returned to the front and continued his service till January 1919. George II married Dorothy Sewell in England while convalescing from his injuries and began a family that lived in Villiers Street and then later in Charles Street, New Farm.
Robert commenced work as a telephone technician approximately 1914 and worked for the Post Master General until 1920. He married Eva Brown in 1920 and later bought a residence in Oxlade Drive on the river. The large home had a tennis court on the riverside. He later sold it and took up on a 99-year lease allotment from the Brisbane City Council on land adjacent to the New Farm Park ferry off Brunswick Street on the riverbank and built a house.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Elizabeth (Bess) commenced work as a School Teacher in approximately 1920 and
taught at New Farm State School for a period. She married the pharmacist John
McBride and they built a residence at Coorparoo and lived there for the rest of their
lives. John (Mac) had a pharmacy on the corner of Cavendish and Old Cleveland
Roads until he retired in the late 1980’s.
By 1920, the Cowin family were all adults and the business was well established.
George (Bill) and Eliza had made substantial contributions to community
activities over time. In 1900, George (Bill) was a member of a Committee chaired by
Thomas Welsby that raised funds towards the construction of the New Farm State
School. The State Government matched the funds raised by the
committee and the school was built in 1901.
George (Bill) was one the founding members of the Queensland Manx Society
established in 1914 and was Vice President twice and President three times up to
1923. Eliza was Vice President once. A number of picnics were arranged at
Seventeen Mile Rocks on the property where the Cowin draught horses were agisted
to spell them from the heavy work on main roads. Eliza was also an elder ofthe
Kingsholme Methodist Church and was involved in many of their
activities.
George (Bill) was a founding member in 1907 ofthe Brisbane Carriers Association
later to become the Queensland Road Transport Association and is now
the Queensland Trucking Association. During the First World War, he experimented
with motorised transport when he purchased a steam driven truck. However, it had to
be abandoned because the driver had to have a steam ticket to enable it to be used on
the road. Later, after the war he purchased solid tyre vehicles that had been used in
the First World War. They were reconditioned and sent to Australia for sale. Some
of these vehicles were O.M.’s, Fiat’s, Thorneycroft’s and Dennis’s. Later, he
purchased new solid tyre Thorneycroft’s and Dennis’s to make up a motorised fleet.
The horse drawn fleet was gradually disposed of except for one dray and three horses
that continued until 1950 when the driver (Bill Gray) retired. Most ofthe drivers up
until then were local people or people from surrounding suburbs that either walked to
work or rode bicycles. The furtherest employee lived in the Grange, but mostly lived
in New Farm, Teneriffe, Windsor, Hawthorne and Herston.
G. W. COWIN & SONS – CARRIERS
When the motorised vehicles were purchased, the drivers converted from drays to
trucks by obtaining a licence. These licences were issued by police officers that in
most cases did not know how to drive a vehicle themselves, but if the driver could
negotiate the vehicle down the road, he got his licence (no written tests). Bill Gray
could not get a licence; so short haul work was arranged for him on the dray until he
retired. Such was the way the employees were treated and most ofthe early drivers
worked for the family for over 40 years until retirement.
George (Bill) had suffered from some medical problems, mainly bought on from
nicotine poisoning when sucking on a pipe all day long when on the dray. So in 1920
he bought George II and Robert into the business and called it G. W. Cowin & Sons.
The sharing of workload was also necessary due to the expansion ofthe business,
phasing out of horse drawn vehicles and the introduction on motorised vehicles.
However, George (Bill) died in 1930 as a result of his medical condition. Eliza
survived him by 20 years. She continued to purchase property in New Farm and had
purchased five workers cottages in Villiers, Gertrude and Browne Streets. She did not
dispose ofthe original Browne Street residence until the late 1940’s, as it meant so
much to her. The family home in Villiers Street continued to be partly used as an
office until Eliza died in 1950. The house and property was then used as an office and
base until the business was sold in June 1993.
GRANDPARENTS
Now we come to my grand parents. George II was educated firstly at the Fortitude
Valley State School and then moved to the New Farm State School when it was built
in 1901. George II married Dorothy Sewell and had four children, Dorothy, George
III, Elizabeth (Betty) and Winifred (Winnie). After living in a cottage in Villiers
Street, George II bought two properties in 1938 between Charles and Bailey Streets.
He constructed a family residence on one and demolished the residence on the other
block to make a single property on which he lived until his death in 1972. He
purchased a property and built a new residence on the property opposite his residence
and rented it out to the Lesley Richmond (and family). Lesley was the resident pianist
at the Regent Theatre for many years. George II also built residences at the top end of
Beeston Street, Teneriffe and Hawthorne Street. The four houses (his own and the
three others) were of similar appearance and by the same builder.
George II was a keen sportsman throughout his life, and was a member of clubs such
as: Valley Football Club, Valley Cricket Club, CSR Refinery Cricket Club, New
Farm Bowls Club, and Booroodabin Bowls Club. He was a member of many represented
sides in most sports from time to time. He was also a keen billiards and snooker
player and hosted Friday night competitions on his own table at Charles Street with
noted local identities. He was also a keen breeder of Budgerigars and had about 10
aviaries on the Charles Street property. Dedicated to breeding pure breed colours for
competition, he won many ribbons from his brood of birds. He was a keen gardener
and he had a large vegetable patch and grew his own vegetables, as well as many fruit
trees.
The Hawthorne Street residence was a wedding present to George III and Lucy when
they got married in 1939. They rented in Chester Street, Teneriffe until the house was
completed in March 1940. Dorothy married Allan Stevenson and moved to Camp
Hill to raise a family. Betty and Winnie married later. George III and Lucy lived in
Hawthorne Street until 1974 and it is from here that I got my early experience ofNew
Farm. George III & Lucy bought George II’s residence in Charles Street from his
estate and sold Hawthorne Street. They built in underneath and renovated the existing
residence. They lived there until both had passed away.
George III was educated at the New Farm State School and then The Brisbane
Grammar School. He joined the transport business in 1936 as a drivers offsider and
yardman, and later qualified as a motor mechanic to carry out repairs on the
expanding motor fleet. In 1950 George III left the transport business and established
a motor repair business. Later he took over a Golden Fleece Service Station at Aspley
to continue his repair business and serve the community with fuel and accessories.
Later he established a Car Sales business and built a Showroom on the property next
door.
In 1964, George II decided to retire. He offered his share in the partnership with his
brother, Robert, to George III. George had to decide if he wanted to continue in the
business he had established or return to the family business. A decline in his health
prompted him to return to the transport business where the hours were more regular
and the business had more certainty. He continued in the business until his death in
1989, even though he suffered from kidney failure and was forced to go to dialysis
treatment three times a week in his later years.
The business G.W. Cowin & Sons started with the Colonial Sugar Refinery at the end
of July 1893. This business continued carrying out the same style of business (i.e.
delivery of refined sugar to customers) until it was sold at the end of June 1993, one
month short of 100 years. Many changes occurred during that period, from horse and
dray to motor vehicles. The dray carried up to one -two tonnes and motor vehicles
commencing at 4 tonnes. The goods originally consisted of bags, sacks, drums and
cartons. Then wooden pallets arrived and goods were consolidated into 1 tonne of
packaged products and carried on larger vehicles. Other advances in delivery
consisted ofdelivery ofbulk sugar in granular and liquid fonn in tankers. A few
years after the business was sold the Refinery was closed down and sugar was
delivered from further manufacturing operations.
GEORGE COWIN IV
July 2009