Quarterly Journal Winter & Spring 1993 – Page 26-30
by
Gerard Imer
Mr. Walter Lamb’s establishment of the Woodstock Fruit Company Ltd at Plumpton in 1887 engaged many workers in the canning of fruit and the production of jams. The influx of settlers was helped along by the subdivision of Lamb ‘s large estate, were fanners set up orchards.
The only place to provide for the social needs of the early community was Sam Goulter’s Hall, which stood beside Rooty Hill Road North, close to the railway station. Sam had a small cannon which during New Year celebrations was fired on the stroke of twelve. “The report was heard a considerable distance off.”
In 1890 the situation was improved with the completion of the Imperial Hotel, which still stands at the corner of Rooty Hill Road North and North Parade, opposite the station. For a decade the Imperial was the focal point of the district’s activities, despite some objections raised by temperates. It was in the hotel that the Rooty Hill Progress Committee was established in August 1890, with Mr. Thackery its first chairman. A cricket club was formed soon after – the Rooty Hill United Cricket Club – with Mr. Frank Weston as president and Messrs G. T. Evans and W. Creswick as vice-presidents.
By the start of the twentieth century the Progress committee began ambitious fund-raising activities for the purpose of erecting a school of Arts. Its honorary secretary was Capt. A. Pringle, who owned a large property fronting Jersey Road at Plumpton, where he grew wheat. The property was later sold to the Capuchin Franciscan friars, a religious order which had its origins in the thirteenth century. Other members of the organizing committee were Messrs James Angus, W. Cable, A. Hyatt, John Shaw, W. Smith, J. Walker and F, Watts.
The residents wholeheartedly supported the move, and the tournaments and performances of the several individual committees were crowned with such success that by 1902 sufficient funds (316 pounds) had been raised which, with a pound-for-pound State Government subsidy, were enough to undertake and complete the project.
Plans were drawn up by Mr. W, Sykes while Mr. James Angus donated a 50ft by 100ft (15m by 30m) parcel of land at the corner of Rooty Hill Road South and Barker Street. Bricks were manufactured behind the hall site near Angus Creek. (The resultant depression was filled with municipal garbage in the late 1950s, and in the early 1970s the whole area was levelled and grassed and is now Rooty Hill Central Park.) Early in construction, a commemorative stone was incorporated in the classically detailed facade. Located at the northernmost corner of the building, the stone ‘s inscription reads:
THIS STONE
WAS LAID BY
MISS ANGUS
1. NOV 1902
On Wednesday night, 4 March 1903, the new building, lit by twenty-two carbide gas lamps, was officially opened by Mr. B. B. O’Connor, Member for Sherbrooke (a former electorate that roughly included the western third of the later Blacktown shire, plus St Marys and vicinity) in the presence of more than 400 people. After its opening the School of Arts building was handed over to a General Committee of Management under a deed of trust.
Schools of Arts and Mechanics’ Institutes were regarded by the State and community as the institutions wherein young men equipped themselves with technical, scientific and social education. The Rooty Hill School of Arts became a great success with membership at sixty, gathering on Mondays and Fridays to spend social evenings playing table tennis, draughts, chess and cards. The library boasted a fine selection of literature, with many books being issued each night, while local ladies conducted classes in dancing and deportment for young women.
The first meeting of the temporary Council of the Shire of Blacktown was held in the Rooty Hill School of Arts on 13 June 1906, at l0a.m. Those present were Councilors Angus, Pearce, Sherlock and Smith. An apology for absence was received from Councilor Major Walters. (Council’s second meeting was held on 27 June in the School Room, Blacktown.)
In the 1930s a Mr. N. Johnstone operated a cinema within the School of Arts building, called prosaically ‘Rooty Hill Pictures’. On 13 May 1940 management changed to Messrs D. Lindsay and P. Hawkins, and the name was changed to the more imposing ‘The Regal’. The new operators set about improving the “cinema”: the 10ft by 6ft (3m by 2m) screen was replaced by a Miracle Mirror marvel. The 350 basic wooden seats were augmented by second-hand seats from the Kings Theatre at Marrickville, for use in the back stalls. Maroon velvet stage drapes fringed in gold were controlled by ropes from the projection box. Electricity was initially supplied by a petrol generator set, housed in a shed behind the billiard room, which was a corrugated iron annex on the south side of the hall. From 1947, the Sydney County Council supplied mains electricity.
The mid-fifties saw the arrival of Cinemascope and the departure of the partner who had meantime replaced Hawkins – a Mr. Moore. Lindsay continued alone, with screenings on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings plus a Saturday matinee; a vast improvement on 1940’s two-only shows each Saturday.
The year 1956 brought television to Australia and the slow decline of cinemas generally. The writing was on the wall for ‘The Regal’, and the last show was on a Saturday afternoon in 1960: ‘Smiley Gets a Gun’.
In the hall’s time as a cinema, no seating had been fixed to the floor in recognition of the building ‘s primary role as a community center and dance hall. Blacktown Councilor George Nicolaidis writes of a conversation in the early sixties with a former caretaker, Mrs. Clare Fink, who was a resident of Rooty Hill Road South: “In the early days on Saturday nights, we used to hold dances using gramophone records. Those were the days you could have trusted your wife to dance with any man without fear of her receiving an invitation to dinner.”
The ravages of time and indifferent maintenance caused by a lack of funds saw the School of Art s building assume an ever more dilapidated appearance by the early seventies. The trustees handed over the building to the (then) Blacktown Municipal Council during a special Council meeting, held in the hall on Wednesday, 21 June 1978. This event marked the 72nd anniversary of the inaugural meeting of Blacktown Shire Council. About eighty residents who were living in the Rooty Hill district before 1930 were invited to the ceremony.
Blacktown Council, as the new owner, decided to restore and extend the old building. Renovations, which included the removal of most of the cement render from the facade, the cleaning of the corrugated asbestos roofing (not original), painting, plus a brick extension on the site of the billiard room, cost $210 000, a not inconsiderable sum. The Rooty Hill School of Arts was officially reopened at 2 p.m. on Saturday, 21 March 1981 by the City’s Mayor, John Aquilina.
The denizens of Rooty Hill owe a debt to the hardy fundraisers of the turn of the century, whose legacy in brick still serves the community for which it was built.
REFERENCES:
‘This article was enlarged from the Historical Feature “Rooty Hill School of Arts” by Alderman George Nicolaidis, published in the BLACKTOWN CITY GUARDIAN of Thursday, 19 July 1990.
THE FLICKS – A HISTORY OF THE CINEMAS FRCM PARRAMATTA TO THE NEPEAN, N.S.W. by Kevin J. Cork, 1982.
EXPLORING SYDNEY’S WEST by Helen Proudfoot, 1987.
BLACKTOWN RAILWAY CENTENARY by Olga E. Wailes (honorary editor), 1960.
SWITCHED ON IN THE WEST – A HISTORY OF ELECI’RICITY SUPPLY TO PARRAMATTA AND THE WESTERN REGION OF SYDNEY, 1890 TO 1990 by R. A. Low, 1992.
More information – Contact Blacktown & District Historical Society – Website