Talk:Ariah Park, New South Wales

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flag
Portal
 Ariah Park, New South Wales is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
Start This article has been rated as start-class on the quality scale.
Low This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.
This article is supported by WikiProject Australian places.
This article is supported by WikiProject Riverina.
Assessment comments

[edit] To do

  • Threatened closure of service station December 2006 at [1] to be incorporated into article at some stage--Golden Wattle talk 05:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Someone needs to mention that "old" Ariah Park was about 12 miles away, they had to move it when the railway line came through (I'm too anal about references to put my own "common knowledge" in).Garrie 21:46, 1 February 2007 (UTC) (From Mattinbgn's talk page) --Golden Wattle talk 22:44, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Note the recently renamed Mary Gilmore way. I queried its naming with the shire council. I received the following email back :from the Chairman of the Ariah Park Community Projects Committee:
The naming of the "Mary Gilmore Way" (retyped from the original of the flyer about the naming of the Mary Gilmore Way)
Some years ago the Roads & Traffic Authority initiated a project to name its main roads.
Main Road 398 commences at an intersection with the Coolamon - Ardlethan Road 13 km northwest of Coolamon and proceeds through Ariah Park, Barmedman and Morangorell to Grenfell.
Given the opportunity, the Ariah Park Community Projects Committee proposed that the road be named for Dame Mary Gilmore.
Dame Mary was born Mary Jane Cameron near Goulburn NSW in 1865. Her father, Donald, a carpenter by trade, was at various times a mail contractor, saw miller, farmer, publican and bush carpenter who cultivated a keen appreciation of indigenous culture as he worked on squatting stations across the Riverina.
As a child, Mary moved with her family to Brucedale, near Wagga Wagga, where her mother's family had settled to farming. Finishing her schooling in Wagga, Mary became a "pupil teacher" in which capacity she worked for a period at Beaconsfield (now Quandary) Public School near Ariah Park.
The Cameron family was very friendly with the Stinsons of Berry Jerry Station near Coolamon and the Barnes family (Mrs. Barnes was Stinson) of Yarranjerry Station. Donald Cameron was also a cousin of Susannah, Mrs. Dougald McGregor, of Morangorell Station and a considerable amount of Mary's youthful experience was gained in this pastoral environment.
In 1879 Donald moved his family from the Wagga Wagga area to settle at the "Beehive Hotel" at Broken Dam, near Ariah Park, remaining there as publican until 1883.
Mary left teaching for journalism and to pursue a social reform agenda which took her to the forefront of the women's rights movement and the rising awareness of indigenous issues. Her simple writing style in both prose and poetry powerfully reflected her very "Australian" perspective.
The issues which Dame Mary championed are very much issues for the twenty first century so she retains a very real relevance in our modern community. Therefore from a tourism perspective, linking her name to that of town planner, Walter Burley Griffin (Canberra & Griffith) and poet Henry Lawson (Grenfell) by naming MR 398 in her honour provides Ariah Park with an opportunity to celebrate her work in a location she doubtless knew well.

The biography of Mary Gilmore: Courage a Grace, (W.H Wilde, Melbourne University Press, 1988) mentions a couple of episodes in the district:

According to Wilde, at the time Mary Gilmore was studying for the NSW pupil-teacher examinations with her uncle John Beattie in Yerong Creek her father Donald Campbell was running a small pub at Broken Dam, now Mirrool Creek (p.30). I suppose this was the Beehive Hotel.
In 1886 she was appointed to take charge of the Provisional School at Beaconsfield, her second teaching post. Wilde (p.49) identifies Beaconsfield as modern Beckom; but email seems to imply that the Beaconsfield school was at Quandary, on the other side of Ariah Park.
The 'Reader's Digest Illustrated Guide to Australian Places' (Surrey Hills, 1993) has (p.226) the hotel at Ariah Park as the home of the future Dame Mary Gilmore's family. Wilde's biography doesn't mention this. Could Reader's Digest have confused the Ariah Park hotel with the Beehive hotel at Broken Dam?

--Golden Wattle talk 23:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)