29 October 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, 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 only a few hours before the sentence was carried out, supposed by Hitler himself, 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 a 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 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.

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.

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

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.

27 October 2025

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

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

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-article194338752accessed 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-article273330050accessed 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-article173249608accessed 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.

26 October 2025

The Backhouse, Roebuck Sawmill at Megan, NSW, by Ann Tündern-Smith

WARNING:  Some nasty accidents are summarised below.  At least they are not fatal, like those about to be reported for Ebor Sawmills, to which other First Transporters were sent.

Seven from First Transport to Megan

Albinas Kutka, who became a user of sawn timber rather than a maker of it, was sent to work for sawmillers Backhouse, Roebuck of Megan, New South Wales, on 21 January 1948. He was one of 7 First Transport men with this assignation.

This Bonzle map has a vibrant pink square focussed on Megan, NSW
inland from Coffs Harbour
Source:  Bonzle

There was one other Lithuanian in the group, Juozas Bazys. The four Latvians were Stanislavs Berzins (his third job after fruit-picking for SP Cornish followed by one week as a labourer in the Bonegilla camp), Evalds Karamuts, Nikolaus Kucina and Edvards Snore. A single Estonian, Helmut Karp, possibly could converse with the others in some German and limited English.

Megan Railway Station on the Dorrigo Branch Line in 1954:
since the passenger service on the line did not close until 1957, our Baltic 7 are likely to have 
travelled from Sydney to Megan by train

From Albinas’ story, we know that he and Juozas plus young Nikolaus Kucina were back at Bonegilla on 11 March 1948, little more than 6 weeks later. Either the physical nature of the work was too much for men who had been on reduced rations for much of the 1940s, up to boarding the Heintzelman, or they saw the machinery with which they were expected to work as too risky.

First Transport Lithuanians play basketball at Bonegilla --
note the ribs

Backhouse, Roebuck history

Their employer made its first appearance on the public record on 8 April 1941, when its registration was announced in the Sydney Sun newspaper, followed by the Daily Telegraph the next day.  The company was to trade as sawmillers and timber merchants. It had 4 directors, Wilfred Backhouse and three members of the Roebuck family.  It had a nominal capital of £2,500, the equivalent of $250,000 in 2024 according to the Reserve Bank of Australia.

Was the decision to name the company Backhouse, Roebuck an alphabetical one, or did Wilfred Backhouse put up the majority of the capital?

A Mill at Megan

Wilfred Backhouse made his next appearance in print in the Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate on 7 July 1944. This newspaper announced that “Messrs Backhouse and Roebuck Ltd, mill owners, of Sydney, have now bought the sawmill lately owned by Mr. Cockburn, and hope to restart this mill very soon. Mr. W Backhouse, general manager, of Sydney, recently spent a fortnight in the district and is expected to return any day.”

In May 1945, the newspaper announced that, “Mr. 'Bill' Backhouse, managing (sic) Backhouse, Roebuck Pty Ltd, will be taking a well-earned holiday commencing this Friday. Employees and friends (and they are many) wish 'Bill' a very pleasant holiday.”  This reads like Wilfred Backhouse had become a very accepted member of the local community in less than one year.

Wilfred William Backhouse, Managing Director

The New South Wales Government Gazette of 1 December 1950 carried a notice to the effect that Mr Wilfred William Backhouse of Dorrigo, NSW, had stated in a statutory declaration that he had lost his original certificate of title to 2000 £1 shares in the Backhouse, Roebuck Pty Ltd company.  So now we have Bill’s full name.

We also have evidence that he had contributed £2,000 when the company was set up. The notice states that Bill had shares numbered 1, 3 to 501 and 2901 to 4400, meaning that the company now had £4,400 in capital, some of which Bill might have put up after the company was set up. I’m wondering if W Backhouse put up close to the majority of the original capital and concluding that the evidence does not rule out the possibility.  He certainly could have had the largest shareholding.

Back to Wilfred William Backhouse.  The MyHeritage.com genealogy Website records that he was born in 1910 in Drummoyne, a Sydney suburb, to Joseph Wilfred Backhouse and Priscilla Way Ellis. A Commonwealth and State electoral roll for 1939 shows that he still lived in Drummoyne. By 12 March 1946, he was on the electoral roll for the State Division of Armidale and the Federal electorate of Cowper as a resident of Dorrigo.

On a personal note, Bill had married Minnie (or Mina) Davis Watson in Sydney in 1938. One family tree on Ancestry.com which includes Wilfred William born in 1910 says that he and Minnie had two children who were still living when the family historian was last on that page.  There also was a tragically early death, of a baby named Eric (like one of his Backhouse uncles) who died on 9 January 1946.  He was buried in Dorrigo Cemetery.  He was not given a headstone, which makes him impossible to find outside Ancestry (if you search for a child of Wilfred and Minnie Backhouse).

Megan Mill History, and Accidents

The older the sawmill, the more risky its design and machinery to its workers. The mill which Backhouse, Roebuck purchased from Mr JS Cockburn was bought by this gentleman from a Mr H Milne. The Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate first mentioned Milne as the owner of a sawmill at Megan in January 1933.

The Megan sawmill appears not to have been recorded photographically, then digitised, so here is a nearby stand-in, Allan Taylor's Mill, captioned as being at coastal Coffs Harbour,
taken in 1950 -- but press advertising shows that this sawmill actually was at Woolgoolga,
25 Km north of Coffs
(Note the absence of walls, typical of Australian sawmills, and,
is that a fire in the middle of the photo?)

After purchase, Cockburn was said by the local press in May 1939 to have “thoroughly” renovated it and brought it up to date. “New boilers and planers (were) installed”.  If this was not just what we now call “spin”, the sawmill was less than 9 years away from its modernisation when the Heintzelman 7 arrived.

Given that the press would be very interested in reporting accidents, it is good to know that none were reported after their arrival until one occurred on 3 April 1951.  But it was nasty: an employee lost the first two joints of his right index finger on his right hand.   At this time, we do not know if any of the original 7 were still with Backhouse, Roebuck.

On 1 May 1952, a mill employee became jammed between two logs but escaped serious injuries, receiving “severe bruising to both thighs, chest and shock”. A doctor and ambulance were called. The injured man was taken to the Dorrigo hospital for observation.

There had been at least three accidents earlier.  The local paper reported in May 1946 that a worker received a fractured left leg and suffered slight shock when his leg became jammed between two flitches of a log at Backhouse, Roebuck's Megan mill.  An ambulance took him to the Dorrigo Hospital where he was admitted.  Only three weeks previously, he had suffered a crushed right foot when it was caught between two rollers of the log carriage on the frame saw at the same workplace.  Was he back at work already because there was no such thing as paid sick leave?

A flitch of a log, by the way, is a longitudinal section cut from a log, especially an unedged slab with bark still on its edges.

A few months later, a worker had a piece of steel lodge in his right eye at the same workplace.  The local paper reported in September 1946 that he was recovering under specialist treatment in a Sydney hospital.  “It is expected the sight of the eye will be saved” does not tell us about the quality of that sight afterwards.

Six months later, the company was in the local courthouse, appearing before the Police Magistrate on a charge of not keeping all dangerous parts of machinery securely fenced.   The equipment in question was a circular saw.  Although a lawyer was engaged to defend the company, it was fined £20.  It also had to pay court costs 10/- and £2/2- witnesses' expenses.   The Reserve Bank says that the total of £22/12/-, with inflation, was the equivalent of $1,880 in 2024.

In July 1947, another employer suffered a fractured pelvis when logs rolled on him while working at the Megan mill.  On the day of the accident he had driven into the timber yard with a load of logs on a truck.  On knocking out the chock to unload, the logs rolled and one caught him on the leg and another on the back before he had time to get clear.  He managed to get out of the way of a third log and saved himself from further injury.  He too was admitted to the Dorrigo Hospital after first aid and an ambulance ride.

On 25 March 1949, when presumably 4 Heintzelman passengers continued to work for Backhouse, Roebuck, the company hosted a banquet to celebrate the opening of a new mill in Dorrigo.  Employees were among the 30 or so attending, but no women, not even wives, were mentioned in the newspaper report.

“Mr Backhouse said his firm was tackling the problem of accommodation for its employees.”  The official who opened the new sawmill, the State’s Deputy Director of Building Materials (then important enough to have its own Minister) referred to cottages which the company was building for its employees.  Six self-contained cottages had been erected already and the firm was planning more.

We have to hope that the company was including its Baltic employees in its accommodation provisions.   Four months later, the local paper noted that the company had sought Council permission to build single men’s quarters and a workshop.  That was only 42 days before the end of the contracts to work as assigned by the Commonwealth Employment Service.

From information provided in his 1983 death notice, we can deduce that Bill Backhouse stayed in northern NSW and, probably, Dorrigo until retirement.  The retirement is likely to have occurred in the 1970s and his death also was in the period during which Australian copyright laws do not permit digitising of printed material without explicit permission.

Fortunately, a dedicated volunteer of the Ryerson team has recorded that the death notice said that “William Wilfred” Backhouse, who died in Coffs Harbour, was “late of Scotts Head” and previously of Dorrigo.  His death occurred when Bill Backhouse was 73 years old, with the notice appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 September 1983.   Scotts Head is a coastal village 50 Km south of where the road to the coast from Dorrigo meets the coastal highway, perfect for a quiet retirement.

Both he and his wife, Minnie or Mina, opted for cremation rather than burial, and maybe the scattering of their ashes, as the cremation is recorded by Lismore Memorial Gardens, run by the local council, but there are no plaques or gravestones.

We noted in relation to Albinas Kutka’s story that Megan “sounded more like a girl’s name than a place name to a modern Australian”.  The word can, in fact, be a family name, said to be of Irish origin and a variant of McGahan or McGann.  But using feminine first names for place names has a history in Australia which starts with South Australia’s State capital, Adelaide, named in honour of the wife of King William IV of the United Kingdom.

Other place names shared by women and often named in their honour include the State of Victoria, Alexandra in Victoria, Lucinda in Queensland, Katherine in the Northern Territory, Clare in South Australia (also a family name), Augusta in Western Australia, Lowanna (near Megan).  And a list of places which incorporate women’s names, such at Port Augusta in South Australia or Alice Springs in the Northern Territory is too long to continue.  You get the idea.  Megan, whether inspired by someone’s first or last name, is not unusual.

Sources

Ancestry.com ‘Wilfred William Backhouse’ https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/118913545/person/170181311907/facts, accessed 18 October 2025.

Ancestry.com ‘Megan Family History’ https://www.ancestry.com.au/last-name-meaning/megan, accessed 18 October 2025.

Daily Telegraph (1941) ‘Company Registration’ Sydney, 9 April, p 19 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/247564451, accessed 16 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1933) 'Personal’, Dorrigo, NSW, 27 January, p 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/172010179, accessed 19 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1933) 'Renovations to Megan Sawmill’, Dorrigo, NSW, 19 May, p 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/171865243, accessed 19 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1944) 'Megan’, Dorrigo, NSW, 7 July, p 2 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173128829, accessed 18 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1945) ‘Megan’, 18 May, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173131848, accessed 18 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1946) ‘Mill Accident at Megan’, Dorrigo, NSW, 3 May, p 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/173133028, accessed 18 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1946) 'Personal', Dorrigo, NSW, 6 September, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173133146, accessed 18 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1947) 'Police Court', Dorrigo, NSW, 14 March, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173134886, viewed 25 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1947), ‘Hospital Patients’, Dorrigo, NSW, 11 July, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/173135622, accessed 18 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1949), ‘New Mill Opened', Dorrigo, NSW, 1 April, p 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/173140593, accessed 19 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1949), ‘New Mill Banquet', Dorrigo, NSW, 1 April, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/173140580, accessed 19 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1951) 'Personal Pars', Dorrigo, NSW, 6 April, p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article173019601, accessed 18 October 2025.

Don Dorrigo Gazette and Guy Fawkes Advocate (1952) 'Accident at Local Mill', Dorrigo, NSW, 2 May, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/178027651, accessed 19 October 2025.

Government Gazette of New South Wales (1950) 'Backhouse, Roebuck Pty Limited' Sydney, 1 December, p 3556 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220070773, accessed 19 October 2025.

Lismore Memorial Gardens, ‘Register Name Search, Lismore Lawn Cemetery and Memorial Gardens Register’ https://lccforms.lismore.nsw.gov.au/apps/crem/search.asp, accessed 18 October 2025.

MyHeritage.com ('Wilfred William Backhouse') https://www.myheritage.com/research?s=OYYV6B34FUAGCQUMOUB3XYMY7SQ2LUY&formId=master&formMode=1&useTranslation=1&exactSearch=&p=1&action=query&view_mode=card&qname=Name+fn.Wilfred%2F3William+fnmo.1+ln.Backhouse+lnmsrs.false&qevents-event1=Event+et.birth+ey.1910&qevents-any/1event_1=Event+et.any+ep.drummoyne%2C%2F3nsw+epmo.similar&qevents=List, accessed 19 October 2025.

Reserve Bank of Australia ‘Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator’ https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html, accessed 18 October 2025.

Ryerson Index https://ryersonindex.org/search.php, accessed 18 October 2025.

Sun (1941) ‘Company Registration’ Sydney, 8 April, p 19 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/231207122, accessed 16 October 2025.

Wikipedia, Dorrigo railway line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorrigo_railway_line accessed 25 October 2025.

16 October 2025

First Transporters Sent to Rural Jobs, by Ann Tündern-Smith

In Hugo Jakobsen’s story around this time last year, we found that the Department of Immigration was publishing two newsletters. The Department credited Hugo with coming up with the idea of the New Australian. Eventually it was merged with another newsletter, the Good Neighbour. A third publication, Tomorrow’s Australians, first appeared on 12 April 1948.

The extract from issue 1 below, headed Balts Engaged on Rural Work, suggests at least part of the target audience. For us now, more than 75 years later, it also gives the Government’s estimates of where it had sent the men, and a very small number of women, from the First Transport.

Source:  Tomorrow's Australians

They are not accurate figures, because we just found that it was 26 men sent to the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme. Also, they probably are for a date earlier than 12 or 1 April.

They add up to 491 people, but there were 727 men on the first Transport. Where were the other 236 sent? It looks as if these figures do not include the 187 picking fruit from the end of January, who started to return to the Bonegilla camp only two weeks later.  Probably they were not included because they were known to be engaged on season work which would finish up before May.

This still leaves 49 men without explanation, but some of them, like Gunars Berzzarins, would have been employed at the Bonegilla camp at the time of the headcount on which the published figures are based.

Five men and one woman sent to the Zwar Brothers tannery in Beechworth, northern Victoria, are not included. There will be others. I’ll see if we can pick them up as we work through the life stories of those involved.

NOTE  Tomorrow's Australians last for 14 monthly issues only, according to its National Library of Australia record.

SOURCE

Tomorrow's Australians (1948) 'Balts Engaged on Rural Work' Canberra, 12 April, p 4 https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2821961769 accessed 16 October 2025.

14 October 2025

Kiewa Hydro-Electric Scheme, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Bonegilla "peninsula" and Hume Reservoir

If you look at an old map of north-eastern Victoria, one drawn before construction of the Hume Weir (now the Hume Dam) on the Murray River started in 1919, you can see that the Bonegilla area resembles a peninsula. It has rivers on 3 sides rather than seas. The Mitta Mitta River was its eastern boundary, the Murray River flowed across the north, and the Kiewa River bounded its western side.

The shaded area is the Bonegilla run in 1869, 
between the Kiewa, Murray and Mitta Mitta Rivers
Source: 
Bonegilla's Beginnings, redrawn from Owen's Atlas

One arm of the former Hume Reservoir, renamed Lake Hume, has flooded what was the course of the Mitta Mitta some 15 kilometres past its former confluence with the Murray. It forms the part of the Lake where Bonegilla camp residents used to walk and swim, when they did not travel further to the Murray below the Weir.

Lake Hume is surrounded by red dots in this clip from Google Maps,
with Bonegilla about halfway down its western side
Source:  Google Maps

Mitta Mitta River

Major engineering works have affected further the two Murray River tributaries which form the Bonegilla “peninsula”. Near the source of the Mitta Mitta at Mount Bogong, 200 kilometres upstream from the Hume Dam, the Dartmouth Dam with Australia’s tallest dam wall at 180 metres impounds the Mitta Mitta, the Dart, and other rivers and creeks. Like Lake Hume, its main purposes are irrigation and hydro-electric power. The rockfill embankment was built between 1973 and 1979.

Kiewa River

We are mostly interest in a third engineering project, the hydro-electric scheme on the Kiewa River. That’s because 26 of the First Transport men were sent there for their first employment in Australia, on 14 January 1948.   

Their cards say, "SEC, Kiewa, Vic".  Given that the town of Bogong had been established as the base for construction of the Kiewa Scheme, it’s very likely that the men were sent there, to the Kiewa Scheme rather than the town of Kiewa. 

The Kiewa town is only 18 kilometres south of the Bonegilla camp by road. Bogong is another 80 kilometres south.  It might have been an unsealed road in 1948-49, but the men still would have been two hours at most away from their initial home in Australia.

They all should have been notified before 30 September 1948 that they were not contracted from after that date to work in Australia.  Romas Ragauskas' citizenship file shows that he stayed in the Bogong town until a date in October 1949.   He then moved to Eildon, closer to Melbourne, for what he probably thought was an even better job.

The Kiewa Hydro-electric Scheme as envisaged in 1948 by the State Electricity Commission


First Transport to Kiewa Scheme

The 26 men sent to the Kiewa Hydro-Electric Scheme on 14 January 1948 were

Lithuanians Latvians
Antanaitis, JonasAuzans, Mikelis
Gulbinas, ValentinasDraska, Stanislav
Jovarauskas, JonasJansons, Ansis Alfreds
Lesniauskas, VaclovasKajons, Peteris
Malzinkas, VincasKarklins, Alfreds
Ragauskas, Romas-KarolisKoks, Hugo
Raudonikas, PetrasKolesnikovs, Janis
Vaicius, PranasKrumins, Arvids
Valasinavicius, PetrasMuske, Janis Andrejs
Vaskelis, StasysOzolins, Eduards
Venckus, PetrasSkuja, Janis
Warapnizkas, Anton*
Zabiela, BenediktasEstonians
Kull, Heino
Saad, Ilmar
Centered Table

In the previous blog entry on Romas Ragauskas, we noted that the Victorian Government’s instrumentality, the State Electricity Commission, had recommended in 1937 that a scheme first proposed in 1911 should proceed. World War II then took away much of the workforce, but building parts of the Scheme continued. The arrival of more labour in January 1948 would have been welcomed.

Economic conditions in the 1950s meant that the Scheme never was completed as envisaged. The politics of the 1990s meant that the Scheme now is in private hands. It probably is an awareness of climate change and the role hydro-electricity can play in its mitigation that means the Scheme had been expanding in recent years.

If I come across a description of working conditions on the Kiewa Scheme in the late 1940s, I'll share it here. And any of the First Transport workmen who, like Romas Ragauskas, get a biography of their own will also have a hyperlink in the table above.

Footnotes: *It looks like this Lithuanian has Germanised his name but not yet changed back. A Lithuanian is more likely to recognise Antanas Varapnickas.

** Another Blogspot user has an interesting summary of the history of the Hume Dam at https://echuca-murraymouthkayakjourney.blogspot.com/2014/01/hume-dam-to-echuca-about-hume.html. Eleven years ago, Peter Phillips was doing a PhD on River Murray flooding, so he's a good source! I trust that the PhD has been completed successfully now.

Sources

Owen, W (1869) Atlas of Australia including pastoral runs of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria Melbourne, H Bolton.

Tündern-Smith, Ann (2014) Bonegilla's Beginnings, Wagga Wagga, NSW; Triple D Books (p 14).

Wikipedia, 'Mitta Mitta River' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitta_Mitta_River, accessed 14 October 2025.

Wikipedia, 'Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiewa_Hydroelectric_Scheme, accessed 14 October 2025.

Wikipedia, 'Kiewa River', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiewa_River#:~:text=The%20Kiewa%20River%20is%20also,wher%2Dra%2C%20meaning%20water, accessed 14 October 2025