Canberra Brickworks, by Ann Tündern-Smith

The Commonwealth Employment Service in the Bonegilla camp sent 5 men to the Department of Works and Housing in Canberra on 3 August 1948. All of them had been working at the Bonegilla camp until late July, 3 after first picking fruit.

We have met the Zilinskas brothers, Juozas and Jurgis, already. The others sent to Canberra were 2 Lithuanians, Vladas Akumbakas and Bronius Narkauskas, and a Latvian, Eriks Tumsevics.

Given that we know from other evidence that the Zilinskas brothers actually were employed initially by the Department as labourers at the Canberra Brickworks, this destination might have applied to the other 3 as well.

However, at least one of them, Vladas Akumbakas, was sent instead to the newly opened roofing tile factory of the Monier company in The Causeway,  now part of Canberra's Kingston suburb.

Bronius Narkauskas had married an Estonian, Helmi Savest, in the camp on 24 July 1948, only 25 days after her arrival in Australia on the Fifth Transport, the Svalbard. Either this was a whirlwind romance or they had known each other in Germany before Bronius left. Regardless, Helmi was the sixth member of the 3 August party.

This entry will concentrate on the Canberra Brickworks, to which at least two of the party of 6 were sent.  They had opened in 1916 to produce materials for the building of the new national capital. Their location was chosen because it is right beside a good deposit of shale, necessary for the type of brick produced.   There was plenty of the other major ingredient, clay, around everywhere:  Canberra gardening is still notorious for the clay soils.

The decision to establish the Brickworks was made around 1913, as part of the earliest plans for Australia's national capital.

The location of the Brickworks relative to other modern Canberra landmarks
Click once on the image to read the labels in a separate page and note that
the Brickworks were connected to the Parliamentary Triangle and the Canberra CBD
by railway lines in the 1920s when the original buildings were going up

Source: (Doma) Brickworks

The Brickworks closed almost immediately after opening because of WWI labour shortages. Reopened in 1921, they produced the red bricks for important early buildings like the Old Parliament House.

Canberra Red bricks can be seen clearly in the foundation of Old Parliament House

Source:  Canberra Tracks

The same architect, James Smith Murdoch, designed the former Hotel Canberra,
now a Hyatt Hotel, as well as the nearby Old Parliament House;
again, Canberra Red bricks serve ornamental as well as structural purposes

Source: Jpatokal, in Wikipedia

They closed again twice more, during the Depression and during the early years of WWII. They reopened in 1944. 

One month before the First Transport men arrived, the Director of Works was complaining that production was dropping off because the men operating the machines were inexperienced. The machines they were using were the only ones of their type in Australia, making spare parts difficult to obtain.

If he had known that he was about to receive a trained and experienced mechanic, one Jurgis Zilinskas, he would have been happier. Jurgis may well have been as happy fiddling around with brick-making machines as with cars or whatever else he was used to working on. There were no more public complaints about the machinery after Jurgis arrived.

The First Transport men might have found initial accommodation at a Brickworks Hostel in Westridge (the older name for what is now Yarralumla). Perhaps the newly marrieds had a room to themselves there too. This hostel is mentioned for the first time in the Canberra Times on 30 December 1947, in terms of additional accommodation being completed there during 1947. 

The company which carried out a heritage study of the site in 2021, GML Heritage, says that a hostel on the south side of the site was completed in 1945.  It may well have obtained this information from Commonwealth Government files yet to be digitised.

Given the Brickworks Hostel's location, building it from bricks rather than the fibro-cement sheets used for WWII military buildings (including those in the Bonegilla camp) ought to have been an option. This is unlikely, given that almost nothing of it survives, but the building or buildings are likely to have stood on brick piers.  At least it would have been more weatherproof accommodation than the tents offered to the very first employees.

Around one year after the Baltic men’s arrival, on 27 June 1949, Australian coal miners went on strike. Since coal was then the only source of electricity, much of industry was affected badly. A report in the Canberra Times of 2 July 1949 said that the brickworks had shut down already.

The Commonwealth Government of the day, which was formed by the Australian Labor Party and led by Ben Chifley, refused to extend unemployment benefits to those thrown out of work by the coal strike, because it classified the stoppage as an illegal industrial dispute. 

This would have hit all of the Baltic men in industrial employment hard, not just the 5 at the Canberra Brickworks. Note also that the period of the strike, from 27 June to 15 August, was in the middle of the Australian winter.

The strike had flow-on effects in Canberra, with builders having to stand down workers because of a shortage of cement, as well as bricks.

By 13 August, it must have been known that the strike was winding up, as an official was reported by the Canberra Times as saying that it probably would be another week before there was sufficient coal available to restart brick production.

On the day that it should have started up, the relevant union and Government officials agreed to the introduction of a bonus scheme, under which workers would be paid extra on the basis of the number of bricks produced.

Nearly 6 weeks later, 30 September 1949, was the date on which the first Displaced Persons’ contracts would end, as decided already by the Minister for Immigration.  By then, of course, for nearly all of them, it was in their own interests to keep working in Australia.

Jurgis Zilinskas, for one, stayed with the Canberra Brickworks but retrained as a bricklayer. His brother, Juozas, found a job which probably meant less physically taxing work and more mental stimulation, as a storeman with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

Eriks Tumsevics is buried in the original Canberra Cemetery, now called the Woden Cemetery, so he stayed in Canberra, perhaps at the Brickworks. The other 2 left Canberra as soon as they could. There will be more about them in this blog soon.

By the 1950s, extra kilns were needed to support the growing number of homes for Canberra workers. Presumably, extra labour was needed also but, at the least, Jurgis Zilinskas was in a secure job.

By the 1960s, a greater variety of materials was being used in the construction of homes, office buildings and factories. However, Canberra bricks still were used then to construct such national institutions as the National Library and the Mint.  

At some stage, Canberra Creams were produced also, to build such landmarks as the now Australian Federal Police College on Brisbane Avenue, and the former Canberra Milk building at the junction of Wentworth Avenue with Canberra Avenue.  These were the product of white shale from Attunga Point, now a headland on the south side of Lake Burley Griffin.

The Canberra milk factory, built from Canberra Cream bricks and opened in 1937
is at the centre of this overview

Source:  Colliers via Region Canberra

The year after Jurgis’ death in 1973, it was decided that brick-making operations ought to be relocated away from the residential suburb of Yarralumla, which had developed next to them (and to their windward). It seems that new kilns were not built, as planned, in the northern industrial suburb of Mitchell, with that site now used as a parking lot for the recent light rail service. The original brickworks fired their last bricks in 1976.

The Yarralumla site with all its buildings and a landmark tall chimney still exists, protected by heritage registration. The ACT Heritage Council says of the site that, “Yarralumla Brickworks is of historical value as the first industrial manufacturing facility within the ACT, and for its integral role in providing the base material used in the construction of the early buildings in the National Capital.

“(It) is a relatively intact representative example of large urban brickworks from the early 20th Century, a type that is becoming increasingly rare nationally and internationally. (It comprises) a cultural landscape where the remaining buildings, structures, equipment and landscape features have the ability to demonstrate the evolution of a range of industrial processes associated with brick and clay production-over a 60 year period.

“(It) is of considerable technical value from the presence in the one location of a number of different kiln types: Staffordshire (1915), Hardy-Patent (1927) and Downdraft (1953) kilns, which demonstrate an unusually wide range of firing processes. The Staffordshire kiln is especially significant as the only surviving example of this kiln type in Australia.”

Canberra brick kilns under construction;
given the 1921-35 period when the photographer, William James Mildenhall, was active in Canberra, these would be the 1927 Hardy-Patent kilns

Source:  Discovering Mildenhall's Canberra

The local Residents Association states that no maintenance of the brick manufacturing infrastructure has been undertaken since the Brickworks ceased operation and, since then, the structures have effectively been left derelict for nearly 50 years. It also mentions, though, that in the late 1970s a developer spent over $1 million to repair 2 kilns and ancillary buildings before his company went into provisional liquidation.

This industrial landscape has become the focus of a new housing development, expected to contain 380 homes, so housing more than 1,000 additional residents of Yarralumla. The company which won this contract, Doma, has approval for its Conservation Management Plan and has just started work on preservation and restoration of the Brickworks as I write.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:  I thank members of the Canberra and Region Heritage Researchers (CRHR) who answered my call for advice on the Brickworks with lots of useful leads.  There is more about CRHR on its blog, at https://crhr-cbr.blogspot.com/2025/03/canberra-region-aims.html.  In particular, I thank Mark Butz for pinning down the block in Mitchell originally allocated to a replacement brickworks.

CITE THIS AS:  Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) 'Canberra Brickworks' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/08/canberra-brickworks.html

SOURCES

ACT Heritage Council, ‘Entry to the ACT Heritage Register, Heritage Act 2004, 20068. Yarralumla Brickworks’ https://www.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/148517/yarralumla-brickworks-entry-to-the-heritage-register.pdf, accessed 18 August 2025.

Archives ACT, ‘Find of the Month, September 2023’, https://www.archives.act.gov.au/find_of_the_month/2023/september/previous-find-of-the-month, accessed 18 August 2025.

Canberra Times (1947) 'Largest A.C.T. Housing Ou (sic) Since 1941', Canberra, 30 December, p 2 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2733907, accessed 19 August 2025.

Canberra Times (1948) 'Absenteeism Adds To Cost Of Brick Production' Canberra, 2 July, p 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2753672, accessed 19 Aug 2025.

Canberra Times (1949) 'Only 115 Absentees in Building Trades after Holidays', Canberra, 11 January, p 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2784775, accessed 19 Aug 2025.

Canberra Times (1949) 'Heavy Losses on Government Hostels in A.C.T.' Canberra, 11 March, p 5 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2793995, accessed 30 August 2025.  

Canberra Times (1949) 'Close-Down Likely in Canberra', Canberra, 2 July, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2811723, accessed 19 August 2025.

Canberra Times (1949) 'No Government Employees Yet Stood Down', Canberra, 13 July, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2813324, accessed 26 August 2025.

Doma, ‘Yarralumla Brickworks’ https://domagroup.com.au/residential/yarralumla-brickworks, accessed 17 August 2025.

Doma Group, ‘Brickworks’, https://brickworksyarralumla.com.au/, accessed 18 August 2025.

Find A Grave, 'Eric Tumsevics' https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/230144442/eric-tumsevics, accessed 28 August 2025.

GML Heritage (2021) Canberra Brickworks Precinct, Conservation Management Plan, Vol 1, pp 26, 76 https://www.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1945872/canberra-brickworks-precinct-conservation-management-plan-2021-volume-1.pdf, accessed 15 September 2025.

GML Heritage (2021) Canberra Brickworks Precinct, Conservation Management Plan, Vol 2 https://www.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/1945880/canberra-brickworks-precinct-conservation-management-plan-2021-volume-2.pdf,  accessed 15 September 2025.

Libraries ACT, ‘Yarralumla Brickworks’ https://www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/frequentlyaskedquestions/Place_Stories/brickworks, accessed 18 August 2025.

Wikipedia, '1949 Australian coal strike' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Australian_coal_strike,  accessed 29 August 2025.

Wikipedia, 'Hotel Canberra', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Canberra, accessed 2 November 2025.

Yarralumla Residents Association Inc, ‘Canberra Brickworks, History, Heritage and Proposed Developments’ https://yarralumlaresidents.org.au/planning-and-development/current/canberra-brickworks, accessed 17 August 2025.

Bronislava Jutkutė Umbražiūnas-Amber (1912-2003): Orchid grower who returned to her free homeland, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Bronė Jutkutė lived a long life, during which she became an orchid grower with the husband she married in Australia. There was turmoil in the middle of it, though, after the Soviet Union invaded her homeland in mid-June 1940, probably until she found her feet in Sydney.

Bronė was already 28 years old when the first of 3 invasions of her homeland occurred in 1940, having been born on 7 February 1912. She was born in Mažeikiai, Žemaitija or Samagotia, a city in northwestern Lithuania, on the Venta River, to Jonas and Ona Jutkus. Ona’s maiden name was Žotkevičiūtė.

From biographies we have published of fellow Samogitians, those of Bronius Šaparas and three men with the Smilgevičius family name, we know that these lowlanders are seen as different in personality and culture by other Lithuanians.

The Arolsen Archives have not digitised any records yet for anyone with the Jutkutė or Jutkus surname. The record of Bronė’s interview with the Australian selection team in Germany, in a file held by the National Archives of Australia, says that she had received the usual 4 years of primary school education. She had attended an agricultural school for an additional 2 years. She was not married, a prerequisite for selection on the First Transport.

There is no information at all on her previous employment although, now aged 35, she probably had been in the Lithuanian and German workforces for 20 or more years.

Bronė Jutkute, from her Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Brone’s Bonegilla card notes that she was sent to the Hotel Ainslie in Canberra on 22 December 1947. She was expected to work there as a cleaner and a maker of beds, known at the time as a “housemaid”. Her agricultural training and possible work experience in that sector counted for nothing in Australia’s then strongly sex-stratified workforce.

The building once called the Hotel Ainslie still exists at the bottom of a major natural landmark, Mount Ainslie, near the Australian War Memorial. Wikipedia contributors record that “the building now occupied by the (Mercure) hotel was built between 1926-27 (meaning it will be 100 years old next year or the year after) as one of eight hostels designed to provide accommodation for public servants in preparation (for) relocating the Parliament from Melbourne to the new national capital. Following the adverse impact of the Great Depression in 1932, a liquor license was granted to building lessee, Ernest Spendlove. The building was renovated and shortly thereafter re-opened as a public hotel.“

Wikipedia further records that Spendlove sold the hotel in 1950, so he was still the employer when Bronė arrived, together with another Lithuanian woman, Elena Augutis. There were 3 women from the First Transport already working at the Hotel. They were Latvian Birute Pabrants and Maria (Mika) Pimbers, and Estonian Hilda Ramjalg. All were 29 or more years old, except for Mika, who was only 19.

Bronė and Elena had left Bonegilla Reception and Training Centre for the Hotel Ainslie on 22 December 1947. Since Canberra still does not have easy access by train, they may not have arrived until 24 December. The Hotel would have been mostly shut down for Christmas Day, although we presume that some guests stayed and would have expected to be fed, in a festive fashion. Let us hope that the 5 Baltic women were given the time and support to have a celebration on the day also.

With one exception, they probably stayed at the Hotel Ainslie for another Christmas but, like most of the other First Transport refugees, were free to find their own employment after 30 September 1949. (The one exception was Elena Augutis, whose Bonegilla card outlines her special circumstances. We will have more about her later.)

In July 1954, Bronė, using the full form of her first name, Bronislava, placed the advertisements of her intention to apply for Australian citizenship in the two newspapers then required under the Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1948-1953. The National Library’s Trove digitisation service has made available one of them, from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. It records her as then residing at 35 Francis Street, East Sydney. This is only 100 metres from the Central Business District’s Hyde Park, in an area now designated Darlinghurst. Still at that address, she became an Australian citizen on 20 April 1956.

35 Francis Street, East Sydney, now 41 Yurong Street, Darlinghurst
and very renovated

Source:  Google Street View

In June 1957, her name appeared in a list published in the New South Wales Government's Gazette, of people who were owed money by Dunlop Rubber Australia Limited. Bronė must have been working in one of Dunlop's factories and left without collecting the £3/18/7 she was due for her work. The Reserve Bank of Australia says that this amount had the buying power of $152 in 2024, one-sixth of the wage that would be paid now to a similar worker.  (The minimum wage in mid-2024 for a 38-hour week was $915.90)

Nikita Khrushchev had delivered his speech criticising Stalin two months earlier, in a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Communist Party control of people’s lives in the Soviet Union started to loosen up after that. So we find that Elena Staigvilienė from Telšiai is looking for Bronė Jutkutė, daughter of Jonas, born in March 1912, left Lithuania in 1944, in the 17 October 1957 edition of Europos Lietuvis (European Lithuanian). Any attempt like that to contact someone who had left would have led earlier to experiencing life in the colder parts of Siberia.

In May 1962, there was another search, this time from someone who was looking for both Bronė and her sister, Elena Staigvilienė. Now we know why Elena was looking for Bronė 4 years earlier. The second searcher knew that Bronė had lived in Hanau while in Germany and thought that it was likely that she now was Mrs. Šopienė (having married a Mr Sopis). This advertisement was in the Australian-Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven).

Bronė had not married Mr Sopis, while our National Archives records suggest that the only man of that name to enter Australia came much later than what was called officially the IRO Mass Scheme (1947-54). Instead, a November 1961 issue of Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland) tells us that she had become the life partner of one Juozapas Renaška. We know about this because Tėviškės Aidai reports that Juozapas (Joseph in English) had collapsed and died of a heart attack on 30 October, after a hard day’s work. He was only 36 years old at the time. Bronė was just a few months away from her 50th birthday.

Her partner was known to have a congenital heart valve disorder, but doctors still said that he should live easily to be 60. He had not complained of illness or any ailments. He was buried on All Souls' Day, 2 November, at the Rookwood Lithuanian Cemetery. He was not a public man, but a circle of friends and compatriots attended a mournful service and accompanied him and Bronė to the cemetery.

By 1963, Bronė had joined her life to that of Teofilis Umbražiūnas, whose last name is probably a misspelling of Ambražiūnas. Since both were too complicated for most Australians, the couple started to use Amber as well.

This time it seems to have been a marriage, since Teofilis’ sports club, Kovas, with whom he played volleyball, recorded the union in the 14 April 1963 issue of Mūsų Pastogė. Rasa's translation of its notice is, “Longtime club member Teofilis Umbražiūnas and Bronė Jutkutė, who have created a Lithuanian family, are wished much success in their future lives by Sydney Lithuanian Sports Club Kovas". By this time, Bronė was 51 years old.

There appears to be no mention of Teofilis in the Lithuanian-language press before the marriage, especially not that he was an orchid grower, so the two are likely to have taken this up together afterwards. For example, Tėviškės Aidai reported in July 1976 that, at a concert by the Daina choir, the conductor, the accompanist and the singers of duets were presented with bouquets of orchids by the owners of an orchid garden, Bronė and Teofilis Ambražiūnai-Amber.

In 1981, a team of Lithuanian sportspeople was preparing to travel to Chicago for competition. The organisers had many ideas for raising funds for uniforms, fares and overseas expenses. One of them was to establish a group of supporters who had donated at least 100 dollars to the cause. Before the team left, the “centurion” supporters would be awarded a special departure badge, their names would be published and they would be presented at a farewell ball. The first centurion was a former good volleyball player for Kovas, a native of Vilnius, Teofilis Ambražiūnas, who owned an orchid business with his wife.

There are too many other public records of generous donations from Bronė and Teofilis to mention them all here, so the orchid business seems to have been a very profitable one.

Indeed, it may have been so profitable that they decided in 1994 not only to retire, but to retire back to their Lithuanian homeland together. They settled into the city of Klaipėda.

Teofilis died of a heart attack on 24 September 1997. As he was born on 12 November 1922, he was nearly 75 years old, a good age at that time (a little higher than the NSW median of 74.3 years) for a man who had spent more than 40 years of his life in NSW -- but some of it in the privations of World War II.

Teofilis was, however, 10 years younger than his wife, who was now 85 years old. Bronė lasted another 5 to 6 years, dying sometime in 2003 according to the headstone on their grave. They are buried in the Lėbartai cemetery in Klaipėda, together with another person, Konstancija, who is probably Teofilis’ mother.

Surprisingly, while Konstancija bears the married woman’s version of the Umbražiūnas family name, both Bronė and Teofilis have been buried under the Australianised name, Amber.

Bronė rests in peace now in her country of birth, after a life that saw happiness and beauty, as well as upheaval and sadness.

Brone's gravestone

Source:  Cemety

CITE THIS AS:  Ščevinskienė, Rasa and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) 'Bronislava Jutkutė Umbražiūnas-Amber (1912-2003):  Orchid grower who returned to her free homeland', https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/11/bronislava-jutkute-umbraziunas-amber-refugee-orchid-grower-who-returned-to-free-homeland.html

SOURCES

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Bronislava Jutkute’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203732287, accessed 30 October 2025.

Cemety,‘Bronė Amber (1912-2003)’ (Lėbartai cemetery in Klaipėda) https://cemety.lt/public/deceaseds/1596597?type=deceased, accessed 1 November 2025.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1956) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, 20 September, p 2862 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232988815/25126342, accessed 30 October 2025.

Daily Telegraph (1954) ‘ Public notices’ Sydney, NSW, 5 July, p 25 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248935087, accessed 29 October 2025.

Elektroninio archyvo informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archive Information System, in Lithuanian with some English) ‘Viekšnių dekanato gimimo metrikų knyga’ (‘Birth register book of churches in the Viekšniai deanery’, in Lithuanian ) (1912, Mažeikiai church, page 40, baptism record number 15, Bronislava Jutkute https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267310872/300725240/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=40, accessed 1 November 2025.

Europos lietuvis (European Lithuanian) (1957) ‘Paieškojimai’ (‘Searches’, in Lithuanian), London, England, 17 October, p 4 https://spauda2.org/britanijos_europos_lietuvis/archive/1957/1957-10-17-EUROPOS-LIETUVIS.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales (1957) ‘Unclaimed Moneys’ Sydney, NSW, 14 June, p 1841 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220354404/14355216, accessed 30 October 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1962) ‘Paieškojimai’ (‘Searches’, in Lithuanian), Sydney, NSW, 30 May, page 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1962/1962-05-30-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 30 October 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1963) ‘Pranesimai’ (‘Notices, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 14 April, p 4 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1963/1963-04-17-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1981) ‘Pasirengimai išvykaiį Čikagą, Rėmėjai Šimtininkai’ (‘Preparations for a Trip to Chicago, Centennial Sponsors’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 26 October, p 7 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1981/1981-10-26-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1982) ‘Syd. Lietuvių Klubo reikalais‘ (‘Syd. Lithuanian Club Affairs’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 11 October, p 5 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1982/1982-10-11-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1997) ‘Mūsų mirusieji, A.a. Teofilius Amber-Umbražiūnas‘ (‘Our Dead, In Memoriam Teofilius Amber-Umbraziūnas, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 15 December, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1997/1997-12-15-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogės Spaudos Baliaus Rengimo Komitetas (Mūsų Pastoge’s Press Ball Organizing Committee) (1983) ‘Mūsų Pastoges spaudos balius, spaudos baliaus atgarsiai‘ (Mūsų Pastogė Press Ball, Press Ball Reviews‘, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, 10 October, p 7, https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1983/1983-10-10-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772: Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947 (sic), 1947-1947; 743: JUTKUTE Bronislawa born 20 February 1912; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL STUART HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 30 October 1947 (sic), 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005907, accessed 1 November 2025.

Reserve Bank of Australia, ‘Inflation Calculator’ https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualDecimal.html, accessed 1 November 2025.

Reserve Bank of Australia, ‘Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator’ https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html, accessed 2 November 2025.

Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1961) ‘Sydnėjus, vėl mirė širdimi‘ (Sydney, died of another heart attack’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, 7 November, p 4 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1961/1961-nr44-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf

Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1976) ‘Sydnėjus, Dainos Choro Vakaras‘ (Sydney, Daina Choir Evening‘, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, 24 July, p 3 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1976/1976-nr29-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Wikipedia, 'Mercure Hotel Canberra' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercure_Hotel_Canberra, accessed 1 November 2025.

Our Lady of the Snows, Island Bend, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

First church for Snowy Mountains

The first church for workers in the Snowy Mountains Scheme, including some for the First Transport, was a Catholic one at Island Bend opened on Sunday, 13 January 1952. The church was named, fittingly, Our Lady of the Snows, as it was at an altitude of more than 1,200 metres in the Australian Alps.

The small church, 42 feet by 22 feet or 12.8 x 6.7 metres, was built in six weeks by two Sydney contractors, Ralph Mitchell and Ken Palmer. They were assisted by men working on the Snowy Scheme, including refugees from the Transports. The men later presented the church free of debt to the Archbishop of Canberra, Goulburn and donated all the brassware needed for the altar.

Source:  Catholic Weekly, 21 February 1952 via Trove

Artwork in the church

The artwork within the church was executed by Dr Anton Bruckner, a nephew of the famous composer.  Dr Bruckner, former Professor of Philosophy at Prague University, was working at Island Bend. During the war years he was cruelly tortured by the Nazis and sentenced to death.  He was reprieved, supposed by Hitler himself, only a few hours before the sentence was carried out, because of his relationship to the composer. 

Anton painted Da Vinci’s Last Supper to hang above the altar. He also gave the delicate lace veiling the tabernacle and edging the altar in memory of his wife and son gassed in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Catholic workers at Island Bend met the cost of the furnishings and other equipment. The total population of the camp was between 500 and 600.

Celebrating Mass

Afternoon Mass was celebrated there once a fortnight by the Rev. Father F. Bouchier, who had been appointed to Jindabyne.

The silver ciborium was the gift of Italian workmen, in memory of Vincenco Pinazza, an Italian man killed while working in Guthega.  The statue of Mary came from a hotel owner in Jindabyne, the altar vases were another gift, and the convent in Cooma donated the Stations of the Cross.

A ciborium
Source:  Merriam Webster Dictionary

Building and Painting the Church

A Lithuanian from the First Transport, Aleksas Saulius, worked as a camp manager and helped build the church. He and another Lithuanian refugee, Vladas Rackauskas, from the Mozaffari voyage which reached Melbourne on 24 March 1949, the Twentieth Transport, painted the church green.

Closing the Church

The title of the church at the highest altitude in Australia was taken in the 1960s by another church, in Perisher, which is more than 1700 metres above sea level. As the Island Bend camp closed in 1965, the year after construction of the Perisher church started, the latter now carries the Our Lady of the Snows name.

After the closure of the camp, the church was included in the demolition.

CITE THIS DOCUMENT AS:  Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) 'Our Lady of the Snows, Island Bend' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/10/our-lady-of-snows-island-bend.html.

SOURCES

Catholic Weekly (1952) ‘Snowy River Men Build Own Church’ Sydney, NSW, 10 January 1952. P 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146747887, accessed 28 October 2025.

Advocate (1954) ‘Chapel in the Mountains’ Melbourne, Vic, 16 December, p 24 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article172542268, accessed 28 October 2025.

Construction (1952) 'Australia's Highest Church' Sydney, NSW, 12 March, p.8 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article223547581, accessed 28 October 2025.

Sydney Morning Herald (1951) 'Professor Is A Shoe Polisher', NSW, 8 June, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18226656, accessed 28 October 2025.

Aleksas Saulius (1923-2023): A centenarian, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Aleksas Saulius died in Adelaide on 10 November 2023. This in itself is remarkable because he had been born more than 100 years before, on 6 January 1923, in Lithuania.

The First Transporters went through medical examinations in Germany in order to be included in this cohort, then had a further check on the General Stuart Heintzelman before being allowed to land in Fremantle. Indeed, three did not get to land because the medical officer deemed that they would become a charge on Australian health services.

In light of this, it is not so remarkable that the 839 who landed have produced several centenarians, perhaps more than normal for any group aged 16 to 42 in 1947.

Aleksas’ place of birth was Biržai, Lithuania. The Arolsen Archives have not digitised any records yet of his time in Germany as a refugee from the Soviet invasion of his nation. All that we know about this period is that he was living in a Displaced Persons Camp in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt, when he applied to come to Australia.

From the summary of his interview by the Australian team in the Butzbach Camp, we know that he had had only 6 years of primary school education. He probably had an agricultural background, since his Occupation Suitability was described as ‘Medium farmer’.

Aleksas Saulius, 1947, from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

After a month and a half in the Bonegilla camp, Aleksas was sent to a place called Billipapoola in New South Wales for the Forestry Commission. Neither Google Maps nor the older National Mapping 1:250,000 maps have indexed this place. Even Apple Maps, helpful with former settlements near Ebor in northern NSW, has failed this test.

The hint to the answer comes from the back of his Aliens Registration record, held by the National Archives in Adelaide. It shows his first address after Bonegilla as c/- Forestry Office, Batlow, which is in New South Wales, west of Canberra. Billipapoola Reserve is 27 Km east-north-east of Tumut or 48 Km north-east of Batlow.

Whether Aleksas’ work involved sawing down trees, moving the logs or processing them, it would have been hard and dangerous labour. He was released from his initial obligation to work as directed on 5 October 1949. That was 5 days after the date directed by the Minister for Immigration: perhaps the message was slow to travel to Batlow.

An Aliens Registration record card shows that Aleksas saw a lot of Australia before he settled down. The next address after Batlow was Uni Hostel, Parramatta Road, Glebe, a residence for students of the University of Sydney. Then comes Dalween Private Hotel in Sydney from 10 June 1950 and, about 4 weeks later, c/- HS Atherton, Bli Bli, a rural town in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast region. (HS normally would stand for High School, but the Atherton Tableland is at least 1500 Km north of the Sunshine Coast: maybe HS Atherton was the the initials and surname of another employer.)

Never mind because, only 9 days later, Aleksas had moved to a Brisbane address. Five days after that, he started working with the South Coast Hospital Board in Brisbane. We are now at 17 July 1950. The next cryptic entry probably indicates that a file of papers on Aleksas had been forwarded to the Chief Migration Officer (CMO) for the State of Queensland, also located in Brisbane, at the end of November 1950.

Nine months later, that file had to return to the CMO New South Wales, because Aleksas had started work with the Snowy Mountain Hydro Electric Authority at Island Bend via Cooma. We know that then he became the manager of one of around 120 camps built for other employees, the one at Spencers Creek.

In the absence of a digitised photo specifically of the Spencers Creek camp,
here's a generic one of Snowy Mountains Scheme workers heading out of camp to work: 
Let's hope that, in winter, they had accommodation which would be more resistant to blizzards 

Source:  Kidsnews

Renoldas or Reno Česna, generally known in Australia as Ron, was another Snowy Mountains Hydro employee who made a project in retirement of collecting all that he could on fellow Lithuanians also employed on the Snowy. His collection includes a December 1952 letter of commendation from a Bega High School teacher who had led a party of students on a visit which involving a stay at the Spencers Creek camp.

Mr KG Loft wrote that, ‘Personally, although I have had plenty of experience with children’s camps, I must say that I have never had so enjoyable a camp with young people … We would appreciate if you could convey our thanks to these officers in particular … Mr Alex Saulius, the camp attendant who made camp such a pleasant place.’

We know that Aleksas was generous also with his money, as there are many records in both the Australian-Lithuanian newspapers, Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), and Teviškes aidai (Echoes of Homeland) of his donations to causes such as the construction of new churches and scouting.

He was particularly generous in donating funds for the construction of what was then the only church in the Snowy Mountains, Our Lady of the Snows in the Island Bend camp. At an altitude of more than 1200 metres above sea level, it qualified as the highest church in Australia. Before its opening on Sunday, 13 January 1952, the whole of the church had been painted white by Aleksas and a fellow Lithuanian refugee, Vladas Rackauskas.

The title of the church at the highest in altitude in Australia was to be taken in the 1960s by another church, in Perisher, which is more than 1700 metres above sea level. As the Island Bend camp closed in 1965, the year after construction of the Perisher church started, the latter now carries the Our Lady of the Snows name.

Aleksas next reported changes of address and workplace to the Department of Immigration, under its Aliens Registration requirements, on 28 July 1955. His new address was in an inner Adelaide suburb, Lockleys. His workplace was even closer to the inner city, in Mile End. He advised that he was a labourer with the Perry Engineering Company.

Aleksas next reported changes of address and workplace to the Department of Immigration, under its Aliens Registration requirements, on 28 July 1955. His new address was in an inner Adelaide suburb, Lockleys. His workplace was even closer to the inner city, in Mile End. He advised that he was a labourer with the Perry Engineering Company.

We know that Perry Engineering manufactured mechanical presses for the Chrysler, Ford and Holden car factories in Australia in the 1950s. Before WWII, it had focussed on building locomotives, including for South Australian Railways. Through this job, Aleksas was with the employer of many of the men from the First Transport. It may have been a fellow Lithuanian who found the job for him.

Another month later, he started work with the South Australian Electricity Trust, also as a rigger.

Aleksas became an Australian citizen on 11 February 1957 in West Torrens, Adelaide. He no longer was required by law to report every change of employment. As a citizen, however, the law required him to vote in Federal and State elections. He still needed to advise the Electoral Commission of changes of address, particularly if an election was in the offing.

On 1 July 1964, he married Giuseppina Ritarossi at Hectorville, also in Adelaide. He was 41 years old, while she was 35. She had arrived on the Galileo Galilei two weeks before in Melbourne, sponsored by Aleksas as his fiancée.

Giuseppina as a fiancée

Source:  National Archives of Australia

As far as we know, Aleksas never got to be a farm labourer – unless he helped the nearby Batlow orchardists with some apple picking when at his first, Billipapoola job.

From this point on, until his death, there is no more mention of Aleksas in the digitised public record. We can assume that this was because he focussed on being a husband and father. Aleksas and Giuseppina had a daughter and a son.

At the time of Aleksas’ passing on 10 November 2023, there were 5 grandchildren and one great grandchild. Giuseppina had died 20 years earlier, on 10 April 2003, aged 73.

Aleksas in older age

Source:  MyTributes

CITE THIS DOCUMENT AS:  Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) 'Aleksas Saulius (1923-2023):  A centenarian' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/10/aleksas-saulius-1923-2023-centenarian.html.

SOURCES

Catholic Weekly (1952) ‘Snowy River Men Build Own Church’, Sydney 10 January p 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146747887 accessed 5 April 2024.

Česna, Renoldas, collected papers in the Australian Lithuanian Archive, Adelaide.

Find a Grave ‘Giuseppina Saulius’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/194737055/giuseppina-saulius, accessed 4 April 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772: Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 662: SAULIUS Aleksas DOB 6 January 1923, 1947-1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3121118, accessed 4 April 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878: Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1923-71; SAULIUS A: SAULIUS Aleskas [Aleksas, Alesksas] born - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 Also known as Aleskas, 1947-1957; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=12050411, accessed 4 April 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878: Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1923-71; ITALIAN - SAULIUS G: SAULIUS Giusepina born 1929 - Nationality: Italian - Arrived Melbourne per Galileo Galilei 15 June 1964 Also known as RITAROSSI, 1964-1964; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=30829366, accessed 28 October 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881: Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; SAULIUS, ALESKAS: SAULIUS Aleskas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1976; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9199823, accessed 28 October 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881: Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; SAULIUS, GIUSEPPINA: SAULIUS Giuseppina - Nationality: Italian - Arrived Melbourne per Galileo Galilei 15 June 1964 Also known as NEE RITAROSSI, 1964-1976; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7275267, accessed 4 April 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571: Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947-1956; SAULIUS, Aleksas : Year of Birth - 1924 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1036, 1947-1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203703963, accessed 4 April 2024.

Wikipedia ‘Perry Engineering’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Engineering, accessed 4 April 2024.

Ebor Sawmill, Styx River, by Ann Tündern-Smith

WARNING: Some dreadful, fatal accidents are summarised below – to let you know the dangers to which the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) sent anyone who, they insisted, had to work in a sawmill.

In Rapolas Braškus’ life story, we noted that he had been sent from Bonegilla in early 1948 to the Styx River Sawmill operated by Ebor Sawmills Pty Ltd. Even the name of the River should have been a warning.

What was the Styx?

For readers who have not brushed up their knowledge of Greek mythology lately, the Styx was the river across which Charon used to row the dead to the underworld. Its waters were believed to be poisonous.

Why would a river in New South Wales get this name? The suggestion is that it was surrounded by difficult topography and perhaps forests which looked forbidding to the early European invaders of the area. Rivers in Queensland and Tasmania got this name also.

Ebor and Styx

Ebor has a less frightful origin, being the abbreviation of the Roman name for British city which became York. Presumably a dominant early settler had Yorkshire connections. (It is, though, once again a name given to an existing feature by an invader.)

The Styx River actually is quite close to Dorrigo and Megan, where the Backhouse, Roebuck company operated the sawmills that we have just looked at. It’s 55 Km SSW of Dorrigo, to be more precise, or 65 Km from Megan, as the local birds fly.

It is only 24 Km SW of Ebor, but 60 Km by a winding road on which, even now, a trip between the two would take one hour.

The yellow line between the Bellingen and Nambucca Heads names in the vibrant pink square marks the course of the Styx River; Ebor is the yellow dot above the second L in Bellingen

Source:  Bonzle

4 Men from the First Transport

Our interest in both Ebor and the Styx River stems from a company called Ebor Saw Mills Pty Ltd supposedly operating at the Styx River. Four men from the Heintzelman were sent there by the Commonwealth Employment Service from the Bonegilla camp on 19 January 1948.

In addition to Rapolas, they were a sole Latvian, Janis Boza, and two other Lithuanians, Zigitas Brokevičius and Algirdas Kiaupa. As we keep having to say in this blog, at least the Latvian probably could communicate with the others in basic German, plus whatever English the four had been able to learn in the previous 2-3 months.

We now know that Zigitas or Sigitas Brokevičius was the half-brother or step-brother of Vincentas Jakimavičius, who travelled with him on the Heintzelman and was killed in a motorcycle accident in South Australia on 24 July 1949.

Ebor Sawmills' history

Ebor Sawmills Pty Ltd came into existence in May 1945, having previously been HE Cooper Pty Ltd. HE Cooper was very likely to have been Harold Edward Cooper of Glenferneigh, as recorded on the 1939 joint electoral roll for the Commonwealth electorate of Cowper and the state one of Raleigh. His occupation was sawmiller. (The electoral roll can be found behind the Ancestry.com paywall.)

The Sydney Sun newspaper published the registration of HE Cooper Pty Ltd on 1 October 1942. It had a capital of £5,000, with 4 directors, of whom HE Cooper was the first to be named.

Ebor Sawmills' History of Accidents

HE Cooper owned a sawmill at Glenferneigh in 1934, when one of the employees had his stomach pierced by an iron rod he had used in an attempt to take a belt off a moving flywheel. The employee died at the Dorrigo Private Hospital one week after the accident and a coronial inquiry was held.

The Coroner concluded that “No blame in connection with the accident was attachable to anyone in respect of their actions or in respect of the safe and proper working of the mill premises.”

Glenferneigh or Glen Fernaigh is about two-thirds of the way along the minor road between Hernani and Tyringham; Ebor and Dorrigo are more prominent in the lower portion of this map with the B78 highway running between Ebor near the left edge and Dorrigo near the right

Source:  Apple Maps

A place called Glenferneigh does not appear on most modern maps, although they still note a Glen Fernaigh River which rises 13 Km NE of Ebor. Phillip Simpson’s Historical Guide to New South Wales says that Glen Fernaigh was 25 Km northwest of Dorrigo, it had its own school between 1940 and 1967, the telephone service was connected in 1922, and the populations were 59 in 1933 and 53 in 1954.

A 25-year-old man died after having his leg cut off and his right arm partially cut off at the Point Lookout sawmill owned by Ebor Sawmills on 22 August 1945. If he had been able to release his grip on a control lever, he would not have been caught between the end of a log and the saw.  (See map below for Point Lookout.)

The manager of that particular sawmill undertook, at a Coroner’s inquest the following month, to move the control lever further from the saw so that the risk of further accidents was reduced.

From this photograph of the interior of the Nondaville Mill at Boambee, taken around 1915,
we can see how close a control lever might be to a circular saw — or several

Source: Coffs Collections, Courtesy of the City of Coffs Harbour  

In October 1947, Sydney’s Daily Mirror included Ebor Sawmills Pty Ltd in a list of companies whose capitalisation had been increased. In its case, the investment in the company had grown from £5,000 to £20,000 through the issue of an additional 15,000 £1 shares. Someone must have thought that it was worth investing in this business, despite the risks to its employees.

A foreman working for Ebor Sawmills but at a Guy Fawkes sawmill had his right arm torn off in April 1953. It had been caught between a belt and a pulley. While there is a Guy Fawkes River and a Guy Fawkes River National Park near Ebor, it seems that a village or settlement called Guy Fawkes is another which no longer exists.

The name had been incorporated into that of the local newspaper, the Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate, which closed down in 2023, so the place may have been large enough once to support the Guy Fawkes Advocate on its own.

Apple Maps positions Guy Fawkes at the intersection of a faint road (Guyra Road) heading NW
from the main road through the area (Grafton Road, or Waterfall Way on Google Maps);
Google Maps has a Snowy Range Rest Area at that intersection now; note Ebor to the NNW of Guy Fawkes and the location of another sawmill, Point Lookout, to its SE; Rigney Creek is the faintly visible water course flowing just north of Guy Fawkes

Source:  Apple Maps

Phillip Simpson says the Guy Fawkes was 38 Km west of Dorrigo, established around 1884 but largely abandoned by 1909. Nonetheless, its population of 297 in 1901 was still 130 in 1911 and 61 in 1933. It had its own post office between 1895 and 1911, a public school built in 1895 but closed in 1944 and then removed, and as we now know from the nasty accident above, a sawmill.  

There are not many photographs of work inside a sawmill —
perhaps places where photographers did not wish to go —
but we can see the danger in this one showing two circular saws rotating in a Lorne, Victoria, mill

Source:  Lorne Historical Society

Did Ebor Sawmills have a Styx River Mill?

We’ve seen from newspaper reports of fatal accidents in the Ebor company’s sawmills that it owned them at places called Glenferneigh or Glen Fernaigh, Point Lookout and Guy Fawkes, but did it have one at a place called Styx River?

There certainly are Styx Rivers (both Little and Big) near Ebor.  A Trove search of digitised newspapers from the area and Sydney for both Ebor Sawmills in the same item as Styx River produces only two reports, both from February 1954.  Then, heavy rainfall washed fingerling trout out of a hatchery and into a river which fed into the Big Styx (as did the Little Styx). In those reports, a sawmill at Ebor gets mention. We reasonably could expect it to belong to the Ebor Sawmills company as well.

There was a Styx River sawmill as well as a Styx River Sawmill Company separate from the Ebor Sawmills company. The Styx River sawmill appeared in the Armidale (NSW) Chronicle initially many times during 1927 because it was advertising timber. Specifically, the advertisements said that a partnership called TF Mills & Son, of Armidale, had taken over this sawmill.  

In 1940, the 21-year-old son of the mill's manager had both bones of his lower right arm broken and the arm so badly torn that it was amputated that day.  He had switched off a motor he was driving and was climbing down from the seat when he slipped, and had put out both arms as we do if losing our balance.  One arm had been caught between a belt and still revolving pulley.

In August 1948, the reader met Mrs E Mulcahy of North Queensland who was visiting her daughter at Jeogla. One reason for the visit is that Mrs Mulcahy’s son-in-law was still in the Armidale Hospital after an accident at the Styx River Sawmill 3 weeks previously.

In 1939, a tree feller working on his own in the Styx River State Forest found his leg pinned by a tree knocked over by another falling tree. He wriggled the broken leg free, improvised splints from an old pair of gumboots, tied the splints to the leg with his belt and boot laces, then used crutches cut from two saplings to work his way across gullies and vines towards the Styx River sawmill. His cries were heard 3 hours after he set out.

An anonymous contributor to the Armidale Express and New England General Advertiser in December 1944 wrote a piece which described the excellent work of staff of the Styx River Timber Company working in the Styx River Sawmill at Jeogla, some 40 miles (64 Km) from Armidale. Under a Strikes Unknown headline, he named and described at least 13 staff from the Manager to the “leviation (sic) contractor and his gang of Bashers and Bills”. The “gang of Bashers and Bills” presumably included additional, unnamed workers.

Jeogla is highlighted in the lower left of this map, with Ebor just left of centre and Dorrigo to the right, a little north of Ebor's latitude; since Point Lookout is a local tourist feature, it gets a highlight  too, also left of centre and south of Ebor; the Styx River rises on the western side of Point Lookout and flows southeast, to the east of Jeogla

Source:  Apple Maps

This praise now serves the purpose of advising the reader that the Styx River Sawmill, Jeogla, now was owned by the Styx River Timber Company, Armidale, not Ebor Sawmills.

I conclude that CES staff were more accurate in recording that the 4 men from the Heintzelman were sent to Ebor Sawmills, the company, than to the Styx River. After all, in a recent entry to this blog, we noted that they had men going to Kiewa when they actually were going to Bogong to work on the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme.

What happened later

It’s not a surprise that one of 4 men returned to the Bonegilla camp around one year later, looking for a change of employment. Algirdas Kiaupa returned on 4 February 1949. On 28 March, so more than 7 weeks later, the CES sent him to work for the New South Wales Railways at Bogan Gate, a village in central NSW, 337 aerial Km WNW of Sydney. Let us hope that at least one other man, preferably a friend, and likely to be from a later Transport, was sent with him for company.

Given the fatal accidents before and after the men started with Ebor Sawmills, the surprise is that the other 3 men seem to have stayed.

In 1975, the NSW Government Gazette included Ebor Sawmills in a list of companies no longer registered and now dissolved. The company possibly had sawn all the good trees it could find, apart from those now protected in nature reserves or state and national parks.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:  I thank David McDonald, Tony Maple and Mark Butz, all of Canberra and Region Heritage Researchers, for excellent help in locating places which appear to no longer exist, except in the research of Phillip Simpson and on Apple Maps!

SOURCES

Armidale Chronicle (1927) 'Advertising', Armidale, NSW, 3 August, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article188074016, accessed 24 October 2025.

Armidale Express and New England General Advertiser (1940) 'Amputation Necessary', 16 February, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193902735, accessed 27 October 2025.

Armidale Express and New England General Advertiser (1945) 'Heard Man Scream', Armidale, NSW, 12 September, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194312479, accessed 21 October 2025.

Armidale Express and New England General Advertiser (1954) 'Flood Washes 30,000 Fingerling Trout from Hatchery in Big Styx' Armidale,NSW, 24 February, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194338752, accessed 27 October 2025.

Daily Examiner (1934) 'Sawmill Fatality', Grafton, NSW, 19 December, p 7 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article193153079, accessed 20 October 2025.

Daily Mirror (1945) 'New Companies', Sydney, 24 May, p 19 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article272469613, accessed 19 October 2025.

Daily Mirror (1947) 'Increase of Cap.' Sydney, NSW, 2 October, p 23,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article273330050, accessed 27 October 2025.

Daily Telegraph (1939) 'Crutches of Gum Saplings', Sydney, NSW, 28 July, p 2 , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article247772956, accessed 24 October 2025.

Daily Telegraph (1945) 'Company Registrations', Sydney, 26 May, p 21 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248007015, accessed 21 October 2025.

Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales (1975) 'Companies Act, 1961 (Section 308 (4))', Sydney, 28 November, p 4983, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article220171963, accessed 21 October 2025.

Guyra Argus (1954) 'Flood Washes 30,000 Fingerling Trout from Hatchery in Big Styx', Guyra, NSW, 25 February, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173249608, accessed 27 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate(1945) ‘Ebor Fatality’ Dorrigo, NSW, August 31, p 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173131221, accessed 21 October 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; KIAUPA ALGIRDAS, KIAUPA, Algirdas : Year of Birth - 1926 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 532, 1947-1949 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203635089, accessed 24 October 2025.

Sun (1942) 'Company Registration', Sydney, 1 October, p 9 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230594103, accessed 20 October 2025.

Simpson, Phillip (2019) Historical Guide to New South Wales, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne.

Sydney Morning Herald (1945) 'Change Of Name', NSW, 12 June, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27937026, accessed 19 October 2025.