Author’s note
©Malcolm Sealy 2008
This reprint is a substantial revision of my earlier book The Journeys to Coolangatta published in 2000 with specific objectives. It was aimed at gaining recognition for Alexander Berry as one of the greatest benefactors to the University of St Andrews, to bring his achievements and adventures into the public domain and to recognise his legacies to Shoalhaven area, the town of Berry and his influence in creating the agricultural success of the region. The University now recognises Alexander Berry in its annual Kate Kennedy historical procession so that he is on a par with Andrew Carnegie and other notable Scots. In addition there was an exchange of gifts between the University and the Estate in 2002 to establish their historic relationship. The new world recognises the old world and vice versa.
The pioneering history of Colin J Bishop’s forbears has been recognised along with his family in restoring The Coolangatta Estate from the decline of the Berry/Hay family management in 1946 to a vibrant Hotel Complex and Vineyard.
I have changed the title to acknowledge the maritime exploits of Alexander Berry and his love and life-time recognition of his alma mater under whose name he felt protection during dangerous periods of his explorations.
PRELUDE
1 THE SEARCH FOR THE BEGINNINGS – 1997
2 BERRY’S YOUTH AND THE EAST INDIA COMPANY – 1781 – 1806
3 THE VOYAGES OF THE CITY OF EDINBURGH
4 BERRY’S ESTATE IN NEW SOUTH WALES 1822 – 1947
5 BISHOP FAMILY IN AUSTRALIA 1827 – 1947
6 ESTATE RESTORATION 1947 –
7 THE VINEYARDS 1988 –
8 PRESENT DAY COOLANGATTA ESTATE
9 BERRY’S AUSTRALIAN & SCOTTISH LEGACIES
10 ALEXANDER BERRY’S CHARACTER
11 TIME PAST, TIME PRESENT, TIME FUTURE
FINALE
THE MERCHANT VENTURER OF ST ANDREWS
ALEXANDER BERRY
HIS SHIP ‘THE CITY OF EDINBURGH’, HIS LEGACIES AND HIS SUCCESSORS IN NEW SOUTH WALES
MALCOLM SEALY
PRELUDE
The beaches and coastline north of Sydney epitomise the natural splendours of New South Wales, but journey a hundred miles south and one encounters the striking coastal and hinterland features of a different type. Seven Mile Beach is a dramatic crescent-shaped strand between the headland of Black Point at Gerroa and the gentle town of Greenwell Point.
Overlooking the beach and dominating the background is Mount Coolangatta, a tree-covered sugar loaf eminence – a sacred place in times past to indigenous tribes – whose foothills were the setting for Alexander Berry’s first homestead and settlement in January 1822.
The scene bears a resemblance to the area just south of Cupar in Scotland where Berry was born and grew up and it is not too fanciful to imagine that, on first setting foot here, when he looked up to Mount Coolangatta, he felt familiarly at home in a strange new land.
Viewing the present-day Coolangatta Estate with its Vineyards, Restaurants, Individual Hotel Accommodation and Amenities it is clear that it remains true to its original layout whilst being dressed in modern clothes to accommodate the needs of today. It maintains its boast of being part of ‘living history’.
Our little world stage and the tale from 1822 to the present day is of dramas within dramas played out on the site of Coolangatta Village and the wide-ranging neighbourhood.
Wherever one goes in the town of Berry (formerly Broughton Creek) and its environs, you cannot avoid ‘remembrance of things past’ and the links to Alexander Berry and his family in Australia. My original intention of writing the history of Alexander Berry and his achievements quickly revealed an unusual and intriguing story stretching in time over two centuries and through two different families – those of the Berry family and that of the Bishop family. For, when the mantle of the Berry family falls, it is taken up by Colin James Bishop a century after Alexander founded The Coolangatta Estate.
The many journeys in this story have their beginnings in the East Neuk of Scotland known formerly as the ancient Kingdom of Fife near St Andrews and reach out to the other side of the world on the Continent of Australia. It is a circuitous route from Scotland to India, China, Indonesia, Polynesia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Chile, Peru, Brazil, the Azores, Portugal, and England.
Alexander Berry is the first person to make his entrance. Born at Hilltarvit Mains farmhouse, a few miles south of Cupar in Fife, during a blinding snow storm on the evening of St Andrew’s Day, the 30th November 1781, his lengthy travels on the way to establishing the settlement of Coolangatta Estate in 1822 are later joined to those of his successor Colin James Bishop. Another farmer’s son, born in November 1921, his ‘journey’ took him no more than a mile, from the farmhouse in which he was born and grew up, to the Estate Homestead.
1946 marks the year when Colin James Bishop took on the challenge of restoring the Estate. It had fallen into a ruinous state after a disastrous fire, the year before, which had ravaged the homestead and most of its outbuildings.
The combined vision of these two men, in different ways and in different times and circumstances has translated a journey from a remote farmhouse in Fife to, what was then, an even more obscure site in Australia, the present day where we now see a Hotel Complex with varied individual accommodation surrounded by eight vineyards and a ‘boutique’ Golf Course.
The name of the Sydney suburb “Crows Nest” intrigued me from the time of my first visit to Australia in 1987. Whilst it lodged in the back of my mind as a curiosity, it was not until ten years and many visits later that its significance struck me and drew me to Coolangatta Village bordering the Shoalhaven River estuary.
Crow’s Nest - a barrel or cylindrical box fitted to the crosiers of the maintop mast of a sailing ship for the lookout man - was the name given by Alexander Berry’s business partner Edward Wollstonecraft to his first modest cottage built in a commanding position on the present site of St Leonard’s Presbyterian church. It overlooked Sydney Harbour from the 500 acres of land granted to him by Governor Macquarie of New South Wales in 1806.
In 1997 an article about Alexander Berry by Professor Alexander of the University of St Andrews in the University Alumnus Chronicle caught my eye. Michael Alexander was the sixth incumbent of the Berry Chair of English Literature in the University. He referred to a visit he had made to the town of Berry in the Shoalhaven area and to the fact that 1997 would see the centenary of the founding of the Berry Chair of English Literature paid for, in part, out of the huge legacy of £100,000.00 sterling willed by Alexander Berry just before his death in 1873. The actual legacy came from the Will of his surviving brother David, fourteen years Alexander Berry’s junior, who had inherited the Estate.
It was only then that I realised why the Chair of English at St Andrews was called “The Berry Chair of English Literature”. Sixty years earlier, in October 1948, I had gone up to St Andrews on an ex-Serviceman’s grant, to read English and Spanish - English under the then second incumbent of the Chair, Professor Adam Blyth Webster, and Spanish under the late Professor L J ‘Ferdy’ Woodward. Never, during my four years at St Andrews do I recall any reference to the Australian connection, nor to its great benefactor, Alexander Berry. It is a mystery why a son of Fife and a Scot who was born and lived not more than twelve miles down the Cupar road from the University and who endowed his Alma Mater through his wishes so generously had not been properly recognised.
Whilst later benefactors such as Andrew Carnegie were often recalled in speech and re-enactment in the annual student Kate Kennedy Procession, Berry’s legacy is just recorded in the Senate archived Minutes but he, himself, had never been given his proper due, neither in Scotland nor in Australia for his pioneering and entrepreneurial drive.
Within the last two years, Alexander Berry’s benefaction has been properly recognised by the University and he takes his rightful place in the Kate Kennedy Procession.
Taking into account his Estate probate value, he was undoubtedly Australia’s first millionaire, a generous benefactor and founder of the dairy industry in New South Wales. The magnitude of his achievements in relation to his age and time have been allowed to slip away quietly into the collective historical memory.
A good illustration of the lack of recognition in New South Wales is the recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled “Rich and Richer” on 31st December 1999 in which a number of Australian pioneers are listed with details of their wealth creation and probate value. This list was headed by John Macarthur who left estate worth £40,000.00 and others include James Tyson, Sam Hordern, Sir Sidney Kidman and William Baillieu. In fact, through Alexander Berry’s will to his brother David the probate value of the Estate he created was £1,252,975.00 – an enormous sum by today’s standards – probably equivalent to £95,200,100.00 in today’s values or in Australian dollars $203,750,000.00. Out of this he bequeathed nearly twenty percent to the University of St Andrews and a similar amount to the town of Berry to found its hospital. The size of the individual bequests to St Andrews and the hospital are also surprising when viewed in today’s money - £100,000.00 equates to £ 7,600,000.00/AUD $ 16,330,000.00.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past
T S Eliot
This reprint is a substantial revision of my earlier book The Journeys to Coolangatta published in 2000 with specific objectives. It was aimed at gaining recognition for Alexander Berry as one of the greatest benefactors to the University of St Andrews, to bring his achievements and adventures into the public domain and to recognise his legacies to Shoalhaven area, the town of Berry and his influence in creating the agricultural success of the region. The University now recognises Alexander Berry in its annual Kate Kennedy historical procession so that he is on a par with Andrew Carnegie and other notable Scots. In addition there was an exchange of gifts between the University and the Estate in 2002 to establish their historic relationship. The new world recognises the old world and vice versa.
The pioneering history of Colin J Bishop’s forbears has been recognised along with his family in restoring The Coolangatta Estate from the decline of the Berry/Hay family management in 1946 to a vibrant Hotel Complex and Vineyard.
I have changed the title to acknowledge the maritime exploits of Alexander Berry and his love and life-time recognition of his alma mater under whose name he felt protection during dangerous periods of his explorations.
PRELUDE
1 THE SEARCH FOR THE BEGINNINGS – 1997
2 BERRY’S YOUTH AND THE EAST INDIA COMPANY – 1781 – 1806
3 THE VOYAGES OF THE CITY OF EDINBURGH
4 BERRY’S ESTATE IN NEW SOUTH WALES 1822 – 1947
5 BISHOP FAMILY IN AUSTRALIA 1827 – 1947
6 ESTATE RESTORATION 1947 –
7 THE VINEYARDS 1988 –
8 PRESENT DAY COOLANGATTA ESTATE
9 BERRY’S AUSTRALIAN & SCOTTISH LEGACIES
10 ALEXANDER BERRY’S CHARACTER
11 TIME PAST, TIME PRESENT, TIME FUTURE
FINALE
THE MERCHANT VENTURER OF ST ANDREWS
ALEXANDER BERRY
HIS SHIP ‘THE CITY OF EDINBURGH’, HIS LEGACIES AND HIS SUCCESSORS IN NEW SOUTH WALES
MALCOLM SEALY
PRELUDE
The beaches and coastline north of Sydney epitomise the natural splendours of New South Wales, but journey a hundred miles south and one encounters the striking coastal and hinterland features of a different type. Seven Mile Beach is a dramatic crescent-shaped strand between the headland of Black Point at Gerroa and the gentle town of Greenwell Point.
Overlooking the beach and dominating the background is Mount Coolangatta, a tree-covered sugar loaf eminence – a sacred place in times past to indigenous tribes – whose foothills were the setting for Alexander Berry’s first homestead and settlement in January 1822.
The scene bears a resemblance to the area just south of Cupar in Scotland where Berry was born and grew up and it is not too fanciful to imagine that, on first setting foot here, when he looked up to Mount Coolangatta, he felt familiarly at home in a strange new land.
Viewing the present-day Coolangatta Estate with its Vineyards, Restaurants, Individual Hotel Accommodation and Amenities it is clear that it remains true to its original layout whilst being dressed in modern clothes to accommodate the needs of today. It maintains its boast of being part of ‘living history’.
Our little world stage and the tale from 1822 to the present day is of dramas within dramas played out on the site of Coolangatta Village and the wide-ranging neighbourhood.
Wherever one goes in the town of Berry (formerly Broughton Creek) and its environs, you cannot avoid ‘remembrance of things past’ and the links to Alexander Berry and his family in Australia. My original intention of writing the history of Alexander Berry and his achievements quickly revealed an unusual and intriguing story stretching in time over two centuries and through two different families – those of the Berry family and that of the Bishop family. For, when the mantle of the Berry family falls, it is taken up by Colin James Bishop a century after Alexander founded The Coolangatta Estate.
The many journeys in this story have their beginnings in the East Neuk of Scotland known formerly as the ancient Kingdom of Fife near St Andrews and reach out to the other side of the world on the Continent of Australia. It is a circuitous route from Scotland to India, China, Indonesia, Polynesia, New Zealand, Tasmania, Chile, Peru, Brazil, the Azores, Portugal, and England.
Alexander Berry is the first person to make his entrance. Born at Hilltarvit Mains farmhouse, a few miles south of Cupar in Fife, during a blinding snow storm on the evening of St Andrew’s Day, the 30th November 1781, his lengthy travels on the way to establishing the settlement of Coolangatta Estate in 1822 are later joined to those of his successor Colin James Bishop. Another farmer’s son, born in November 1921, his ‘journey’ took him no more than a mile, from the farmhouse in which he was born and grew up, to the Estate Homestead.
1946 marks the year when Colin James Bishop took on the challenge of restoring the Estate. It had fallen into a ruinous state after a disastrous fire, the year before, which had ravaged the homestead and most of its outbuildings.
The combined vision of these two men, in different ways and in different times and circumstances has translated a journey from a remote farmhouse in Fife to, what was then, an even more obscure site in Australia, the present day where we now see a Hotel Complex with varied individual accommodation surrounded by eight vineyards and a ‘boutique’ Golf Course.
The name of the Sydney suburb “Crows Nest” intrigued me from the time of my first visit to Australia in 1987. Whilst it lodged in the back of my mind as a curiosity, it was not until ten years and many visits later that its significance struck me and drew me to Coolangatta Village bordering the Shoalhaven River estuary.
Crow’s Nest - a barrel or cylindrical box fitted to the crosiers of the maintop mast of a sailing ship for the lookout man - was the name given by Alexander Berry’s business partner Edward Wollstonecraft to his first modest cottage built in a commanding position on the present site of St Leonard’s Presbyterian church. It overlooked Sydney Harbour from the 500 acres of land granted to him by Governor Macquarie of New South Wales in 1806.
In 1997 an article about Alexander Berry by Professor Alexander of the University of St Andrews in the University Alumnus Chronicle caught my eye. Michael Alexander was the sixth incumbent of the Berry Chair of English Literature in the University. He referred to a visit he had made to the town of Berry in the Shoalhaven area and to the fact that 1997 would see the centenary of the founding of the Berry Chair of English Literature paid for, in part, out of the huge legacy of £100,000.00 sterling willed by Alexander Berry just before his death in 1873. The actual legacy came from the Will of his surviving brother David, fourteen years Alexander Berry’s junior, who had inherited the Estate.
It was only then that I realised why the Chair of English at St Andrews was called “The Berry Chair of English Literature”. Sixty years earlier, in October 1948, I had gone up to St Andrews on an ex-Serviceman’s grant, to read English and Spanish - English under the then second incumbent of the Chair, Professor Adam Blyth Webster, and Spanish under the late Professor L J ‘Ferdy’ Woodward. Never, during my four years at St Andrews do I recall any reference to the Australian connection, nor to its great benefactor, Alexander Berry. It is a mystery why a son of Fife and a Scot who was born and lived not more than twelve miles down the Cupar road from the University and who endowed his Alma Mater through his wishes so generously had not been properly recognised.
Whilst later benefactors such as Andrew Carnegie were often recalled in speech and re-enactment in the annual student Kate Kennedy Procession, Berry’s legacy is just recorded in the Senate archived Minutes but he, himself, had never been given his proper due, neither in Scotland nor in Australia for his pioneering and entrepreneurial drive.
Within the last two years, Alexander Berry’s benefaction has been properly recognised by the University and he takes his rightful place in the Kate Kennedy Procession.
Taking into account his Estate probate value, he was undoubtedly Australia’s first millionaire, a generous benefactor and founder of the dairy industry in New South Wales. The magnitude of his achievements in relation to his age and time have been allowed to slip away quietly into the collective historical memory.
A good illustration of the lack of recognition in New South Wales is the recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled “Rich and Richer” on 31st December 1999 in which a number of Australian pioneers are listed with details of their wealth creation and probate value. This list was headed by John Macarthur who left estate worth £40,000.00 and others include James Tyson, Sam Hordern, Sir Sidney Kidman and William Baillieu. In fact, through Alexander Berry’s will to his brother David the probate value of the Estate he created was £1,252,975.00 – an enormous sum by today’s standards – probably equivalent to £95,200,100.00 in today’s values or in Australian dollars $203,750,000.00. Out of this he bequeathed nearly twenty percent to the University of St Andrews and a similar amount to the town of Berry to found its hospital. The size of the individual bequests to St Andrews and the hospital are also surprising when viewed in today’s money - £100,000.00 equates to £ 7,600,000.00/AUD $ 16,330,000.00.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past
T S Eliot
