Endnotes
1.Libby Robin,Libby, Defending the Little Desert: The Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia,Melbourne University Press,, 1998;Martin Mulligan andStuart Hill, Ecological Pioneers: A Social History of Australian Ecological Thought and Action,Cambridge University Press,, 2001.
2.R. White, ‘Place and nation: how “national” were the first national parks?’,paper delivered at the Australian Historical Association Conference,Melbourne,July 2008.
3.Karen R. Jones andJohn Wills, The Invention of the Park,Cambridge,, 2005;Kalamandeen, Michelle andLindsey Gillson, ‘Demything “wilderness”: implications for protected area designation and management’, Biodiversity Conservation, 2007, 16, pp.165-82;NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Georges River National Park Plan of Management,,NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, 1994.
4.Lois Gibbs, ‘Citizens’ Activism for Environmental Health: The Growth of a Powerful New Grassroots Health Movement’, inSylvia Hood Washington,Paul C. Rosier and Heather Goodall (eds), Echoes from the Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Injustice,Lexington,, 2006, pp.3-16;Stephen Darley, ‘But the Working Class Don’t Care about the Environment … Do They?’, Social Alternatives, vol.13, no.2, July1994, pp.37-41.
5.Meredith Burgmann andVerity Burgmann, Green bans, red union: environmental activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation,UNSW Press,, 1998.
6.This close focus is consistent withStephen Darley‘s argument(‘But the Working Class Don’t Care’, p.37) that working-class populations take environmental action because their everyday lives allow opportunities for close observation and ‘active monitoring’ of environmental change. This is just as true of natural environments as it is of levels of contamination and environmental health damage.
7.NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water website, accessed April 2010,http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/NationalParks/parkHeritage.aspx?id=N0080. The site describes the previous management briefly but disparagingly: ‘Prior to [1992], it was a state recreation area under the management of a trust. During this period, the trust licensed sand mining along the shores of the reserve and used the proceeds to develop the park. Grassed flats were created over former mangrove swamps, and facilities and seawalls were installed’.
8.Heather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience: Aboriginal people on Sydney’s Georges River,UNSW Press,, 2009.
9.See, for example,Joe Anderson, recorded onCinesound News Review, no. 100, 1933, discussed inGoodall andCadzow, Rivers, pp.135-65.
10.Ibid.
11.Glennys Barhnam, Riverside Reflections: memories of Lugarno,self published,, 2003;Sue Rosen, Bankstown: A Sense of Identity,Hale & Iremonger,, 1996;Andrew Molloy, The History of Padstow,Australian Media,, 2004;Andrew Molloy, The History of Panania, Picnic Point and East Hills,University Publishing Services,, 2006;Beverly Earnshaw, The Land Between Two Rivers,Kogarah Historical Society,, 2001, ch. 6;Lynne McLoughlin, The Middle Lane Cove River: A History and a Future,Centre for Environmental and Urban Studies Macquarie University,, 1985.
12.Jaqueline Davies,Dorothy Mulholland andNora Pipe, West of the River Road,Towrang Publications,, 1979;Robert J. Haworth, ‘Bush tracks and bush blocks: the aerial photographic record from south-west Sydney, 1930-1950,’ Australian and New Zealand Journal of Person-Environment Studies, no.49, 1995, 32-42, pp.37-38.
13.J.J. Cahill, Premier, NSW Parliamentary Papers, Votes & Proceedings, (hereafter NSW V&P)28August1957, vol.21, pp.166-67.
14.Winston, Denis, Sydney’s Great Experiment: The Progress of the Cumberland County Plan,Angus and Robertson,, 1957.
15.R.J. Kelly, NSW V&P, 31May1956, vol.16, p.230.
16.President’s Report, Padstow Park Progress Association, 1957, cited inM. Garside, Padstow Park Progress Association, 1913-2001, The Padstow Park Progress Association, Padstow, p.26.
17.Dan Huon Coward, Out of Sight: Sydney’s Environmental History 1851-1981,Department of Economic History, Australian National University,, 1988, pp.240-42.
18.N.G. Butlin, (ed.), Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, 1970-1975.Australian National University Press,, 1976, p.133.
19.Coward, Out of Sight, pp.245-52;Butlin(ed.)Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, pp.140-49and176-183demonstrates both the disproportionate historical pressure on the Georges River and that it had continued until this survey in the early 1970s.
20.Peter Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties,Hale & Iremonger,, 1978, p.93, citing 1954 Census.
21.Carolyn Allport, ‘Castles of security: the New South Wales Housing Commission and home ownership 1941-1961’, inMax Kelly(ed.)Sydney: City of Suburbs,UNSW Press in association with the Sydney History Group,, NSW, 1987, p.103. Figures fromOfficial Year Book of NSW, no.58, p.56.
22.Coward, Out of Sight, p.249;Butlin(ed.)Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, p.139.
23.Coward, Out of Sight, pp.248-52.
24. Ibid, p.251. Figures drawn from NSW Statistical Register, cited inMetropolitan Water Sewage and Drainage Board, 1960.
25.Ibid.
26.Myles Dunphy bought a home at Oatley on the Georges River. His son Milo Dunphy, also a keen conservationist, grew up on and around the river. He recalled taking a Bren gun up the Georges River in a boat with friends shooting at trees on shore, also shooting in the Oatley Park bush and swimming. SeePeter Meredith, Myles and Milo,Allen and Unwin,, 1999, passim, and pp.149, 151;Mulligan andHill, Ecological Pioneers, pp.136-63.
27.Regarding the campaign for a national park in Blue Mountains, seePatrick Thompson(ed.), Myles Dunphy: Selected writings,,, 1986.
28.This sketch of George’s life is drawn from PPRA papers held by Alf Stills and from an interview recorded with three of George Jacobsen’s children (Col Joye, andKevin andCarol Jacobsen), 12June2006, conducted byHeather Goodall,Surry Hills.
29.Interviews with PPRA members, 22March2006, conducted byHeather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, Panania. Those present included Alf andEileen Stills,Esme Smith,Joy Cornwall,Eileen Birch andCarol Jacobsen.
31.Ibid.
32.Ibid.
33.Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties, p.95;D.E. Rose, A Study of Juvenile Delinquency in NSW,Department of Labour and Industry, Government Printer,, 1942.
34. Tribune, 19October1945, 23October1945, 12March1952.
37.Karen R. Jones andJohn Wills, The Invention of the Park,Polity Press,, 2005pp.64-91.
38.Davies, West of the River Road, p.38.
39.Local Progress Association papers, discussed inGoodall andCadzow, Rivers, pp.152-57; Progress Associations’ papers published in various local histories, including Andrew Molloy, The History of Padstow.
41. St George and Sutherland Leader(hereafterLeader), 8March1962;Propeller, 15March1962.R.J. Stephens himself was an employee of the Department of Lands.
42. Leader, 7August1968.
43.Georges River Parklands Trust Annual Report no.8, 1969.
44.There are many parallels between this situation in 1950s Sydney and the popular understanding of environments that was common in the USA in the same period. SeeDonald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, (2nd edn)Cambridge University Press,, 1997, 1985, 1994, Part Five:‘The Morals of a Science: Ethics, Economics and Ecology’, pp.255-315.
45.Kevin Howard, An Essay on Contemporary Change and Prospects of the Georges River, unpublished thesis,Diploma of Environmental Studies, Macquarie University,, 1973.
46. Leader, 3April1963.
47.Davies, West of the River Road, p.38.
48.Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties, p.95, pointing out that the new suburbs of the Georges River, including the Housing Commission Hostels, were widely publicised to be the origins of many young men who came before the courts as ‘juvenile delinquents’.
49.Meredith, Myles and Milo, pp.126-28, reflecting Myles’ frustration at wider public access to ‘primitive’ areas he wished to reserve for only a few ‘walkers’. See extensive discussion on the 1932 decisions by Myles Dunphy and the Sydney Bushwalkers Club to set severe limits on membership, based on walking ability and ‘sociability’, inMelissa Harper, ‘The battle for the bush: bushwalking vs hiking between the wars’, Journal of Australian Studies, June1995, no. 45, pp.41-52.
50.PPRA papers, including Report 1959; Alf Still interview with PPRA members, 26March2006.
51.Jacobsen family interview, 12June2006;Carol Jacobsen andAlf Still interviews with PPRA members, 26March2006.
52.R.J. Kelly, Member for East Hills, andJ. Renshaw, Deputy Treasurer, Minister for Lands, NSW V&P, 22February1961, vol.35, pp.2555-556.
53. Leader, 3April1963;8May1963.
54. Ibid, 29October1991.
55.Douglas Cross, Member for Georges River ALP, NSW PP, 26September1956, vol.18, p.2608;Douglas Cross, 15October1957, vol.21, p.1131.
56. Leader, 5April1962; decision made byKevin Howard withH.C. Hunt, the Council’s senior Municipal Health Surveyor, a role Howard later took up. Interview withKevin Howard byHeather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, 13February2006.
57.Leader, undated photocopy although internal dating indicates 1962, held in Hurstville Local Studies Collection, Hurstville City Library;Leader, 3April1963. See alsoHoward, An Essay on Contemporary Change and Prospects, p.8, citingDon Whitington, The Effluent Society,Thomas Nelson,, 1970. Howard’s reference is important, considering his long-serving role as a Trustee on the Georges River Parklands Trust from 1975.
58. Leader, 3April1963.
59.Georges River National Park Annual Report, no. 5, 1966, Sutherland Shire Local Studies Collection.
60.Kelloggs Employment Officer to Mr Thompson, NPWS and GR Trust, 19August1982, National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Archives, Georges River Trust SR, file 109/49.
61. Leader, 4January1967, 23August1967;Torch, 23August1967.
62. NPWS Table of Reserves, generated12October2005,NPWS Archives.
63. Leader, 4January1967.
64.Ibid.
65. Torch, 29April1992;Leader, 29October1991;Express12November1991.
66.R. Buchanan toChris Hartcher, NSW Minister for the Environment, 26August1992, NPWS Archives, A 1732 Correspondence, Enquiries, ministerial representations Georges River National Park; Canterbury resident W. Aitken to Pat Rogan, Member for East Hills, 10December1991, NPWS Archives, A 1732, Correspondence, Enquiries, ministerial representations Georges River National Park;Torch, 29April1992, 5August1992, 31March1993;Leader, 7August1968.
67. Torch, 29April1992and5August1992.
68. Express, 12November1991.
1.Libby Robin,Libby, Defending the Little Desert: The Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia,Melbourne University Press,, 1998;Martin Mulligan andStuart Hill, Ecological Pioneers: A Social History of Australian Ecological Thought and Action,Cambridge University Press,, 2001.
2.R. White, ‘Place and nation: how “national” were the first national parks?’,paper delivered at the Australian Historical Association Conference,Melbourne,July 2008.
3.Karen R. Jones andJohn Wills, The Invention of the Park,Cambridge,, 2005;Kalamandeen, Michelle andLindsey Gillson, ‘Demything “wilderness”: implications for protected area designation and management’, Biodiversity Conservation, 2007, 16, pp.165-82;NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, Georges River National Park Plan of Management,,NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, 1994.
4.Lois Gibbs, ‘Citizens’ Activism for Environmental Health: The Growth of a Powerful New Grassroots Health Movement’, inSylvia Hood Washington,Paul C. Rosier and Heather Goodall (eds), Echoes from the Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Injustice,Lexington,, 2006, pp.3-16;Stephen Darley, ‘But the Working Class Don’t Care about the Environment … Do They?’, Social Alternatives, vol.13, no.2, July1994, pp.37-41.
5.Meredith Burgmann andVerity Burgmann, Green bans, red union: environmental activism and the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation,UNSW Press,, 1998.
6.This close focus is consistent withStephen Darley‘s argument(‘But the Working Class Don’t Care’, p.37) that working-class populations take environmental action because their everyday lives allow opportunities for close observation and ‘active monitoring’ of environmental change. This is just as true of natural environments as it is of levels of contamination and environmental health damage.
7.NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water website, accessed April 2010,http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/NationalParks/parkHeritage.aspx?id=N0080. The site describes the previous management briefly but disparagingly: ‘Prior to [1992], it was a state recreation area under the management of a trust. During this period, the trust licensed sand mining along the shores of the reserve and used the proceeds to develop the park. Grassed flats were created over former mangrove swamps, and facilities and seawalls were installed’.
8.Heather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, Rivers and Resilience: Aboriginal people on Sydney’s Georges River,UNSW Press,, 2009.
9.See, for example,Joe Anderson, recorded onCinesound News Review, no. 100, 1933, discussed inGoodall andCadzow, Rivers, pp.135-65.
10.Ibid.
11.Glennys Barhnam, Riverside Reflections: memories of Lugarno,self published,, 2003;Sue Rosen, Bankstown: A Sense of Identity,Hale & Iremonger,, 1996;Andrew Molloy, The History of Padstow,Australian Media,, 2004;Andrew Molloy, The History of Panania, Picnic Point and East Hills,University Publishing Services,, 2006;Beverly Earnshaw, The Land Between Two Rivers,Kogarah Historical Society,, 2001, ch. 6;Lynne McLoughlin, The Middle Lane Cove River: A History and a Future,Centre for Environmental and Urban Studies Macquarie University,, 1985.
12.Jaqueline Davies,Dorothy Mulholland andNora Pipe, West of the River Road,Towrang Publications,, 1979;Robert J. Haworth, ‘Bush tracks and bush blocks: the aerial photographic record from south-west Sydney, 1930-1950,’ Australian and New Zealand Journal of Person-Environment Studies, no.49, 1995, 32-42, pp.37-38.
13.J.J. Cahill, Premier, NSW Parliamentary Papers, Votes & Proceedings, (hereafter NSW V&P)28August1957, vol.21, pp.166-67.
14.Winston, Denis, Sydney’s Great Experiment: The Progress of the Cumberland County Plan,Angus and Robertson,, 1957.
15.R.J. Kelly, NSW V&P, 31May1956, vol.16, p.230.
16.President’s Report, Padstow Park Progress Association, 1957, cited inM. Garside, Padstow Park Progress Association, 1913-2001, The Padstow Park Progress Association, Padstow, p.26.
17.Dan Huon Coward, Out of Sight: Sydney’s Environmental History 1851-1981,Department of Economic History, Australian National University,, 1988, pp.240-42.
18.N.G. Butlin, (ed.), Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, 1970-1975.Australian National University Press,, 1976, p.133.
19.Coward, Out of Sight, pp.245-52;Butlin(ed.)Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, pp.140-49and176-183demonstrates both the disproportionate historical pressure on the Georges River and that it had continued until this survey in the early 1970s.
20.Peter Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties,Hale & Iremonger,, 1978, p.93, citing 1954 Census.
21.Carolyn Allport, ‘Castles of security: the New South Wales Housing Commission and home ownership 1941-1961’, inMax Kelly(ed.)Sydney: City of Suburbs,UNSW Press in association with the Sydney History Group,, NSW, 1987, p.103. Figures fromOfficial Year Book of NSW, no.58, p.56.
22.Coward, Out of Sight, p.249;Butlin(ed.)Sydney’s Environmental Amenity, p.139.
23.Coward, Out of Sight, pp.248-52.
24. Ibid, p.251. Figures drawn from NSW Statistical Register, cited inMetropolitan Water Sewage and Drainage Board, 1960.
25.Ibid.
26.Myles Dunphy bought a home at Oatley on the Georges River. His son Milo Dunphy, also a keen conservationist, grew up on and around the river. He recalled taking a Bren gun up the Georges River in a boat with friends shooting at trees on shore, also shooting in the Oatley Park bush and swimming. SeePeter Meredith, Myles and Milo,Allen and Unwin,, 1999, passim, and pp.149, 151;Mulligan andHill, Ecological Pioneers, pp.136-63.
27.Regarding the campaign for a national park in Blue Mountains, seePatrick Thompson(ed.), Myles Dunphy: Selected writings,,, 1986.
28.This sketch of George’s life is drawn from PPRA papers held by Alf Stills and from an interview recorded with three of George Jacobsen’s children (Col Joye, andKevin andCarol Jacobsen), 12June2006, conducted byHeather Goodall,Surry Hills.
29.Interviews with PPRA members, 22March2006, conducted byHeather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, Panania. Those present included Alf andEileen Stills,Esme Smith,Joy Cornwall,Eileen Birch andCarol Jacobsen.
31.Ibid.
32.Ibid.
33.Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties, p.95;D.E. Rose, A Study of Juvenile Delinquency in NSW,Department of Labour and Industry, Government Printer,, 1942.
34. Tribune, 19October1945, 23October1945, 12March1952.
37.Karen R. Jones andJohn Wills, The Invention of the Park,Polity Press,, 2005pp.64-91.
38.Davies, West of the River Road, p.38.
39.Local Progress Association papers, discussed inGoodall andCadzow, Rivers, pp.152-57; Progress Associations’ papers published in various local histories, including Andrew Molloy, The History of Padstow.
41. St George and Sutherland Leader(hereafterLeader), 8March1962;Propeller, 15March1962.R.J. Stephens himself was an employee of the Department of Lands.
42. Leader, 7August1968.
43.Georges River Parklands Trust Annual Report no.8, 1969.
44.There are many parallels between this situation in 1950s Sydney and the popular understanding of environments that was common in the USA in the same period. SeeDonald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, (2nd edn)Cambridge University Press,, 1997, 1985, 1994, Part Five:‘The Morals of a Science: Ethics, Economics and Ecology’, pp.255-315.
45.Kevin Howard, An Essay on Contemporary Change and Prospects of the Georges River, unpublished thesis,Diploma of Environmental Studies, Macquarie University,, 1973.
46. Leader, 3April1963.
47.Davies, West of the River Road, p.38.
48.Spearitt, Sydney Since the Twenties, p.95, pointing out that the new suburbs of the Georges River, including the Housing Commission Hostels, were widely publicised to be the origins of many young men who came before the courts as ‘juvenile delinquents’.
49.Meredith, Myles and Milo, pp.126-28, reflecting Myles’ frustration at wider public access to ‘primitive’ areas he wished to reserve for only a few ‘walkers’. See extensive discussion on the 1932 decisions by Myles Dunphy and the Sydney Bushwalkers Club to set severe limits on membership, based on walking ability and ‘sociability’, inMelissa Harper, ‘The battle for the bush: bushwalking vs hiking between the wars’, Journal of Australian Studies, June1995, no. 45, pp.41-52.
50.PPRA papers, including Report 1959; Alf Still interview with PPRA members, 26March2006.
51.Jacobsen family interview, 12June2006;Carol Jacobsen andAlf Still interviews with PPRA members, 26March2006.
52.R.J. Kelly, Member for East Hills, andJ. Renshaw, Deputy Treasurer, Minister for Lands, NSW V&P, 22February1961, vol.35, pp.2555-556.
53. Leader, 3April1963;8May1963.
54. Ibid, 29October1991.
55.Douglas Cross, Member for Georges River ALP, NSW PP, 26September1956, vol.18, p.2608;Douglas Cross, 15October1957, vol.21, p.1131.
56. Leader, 5April1962; decision made byKevin Howard withH.C. Hunt, the Council’s senior Municipal Health Surveyor, a role Howard later took up. Interview withKevin Howard byHeather Goodall andAllison Cadzow, 13February2006.
57.Leader, undated photocopy although internal dating indicates 1962, held in Hurstville Local Studies Collection, Hurstville City Library;Leader, 3April1963. See alsoHoward, An Essay on Contemporary Change and Prospects, p.8, citingDon Whitington, The Effluent Society,Thomas Nelson,, 1970. Howard’s reference is important, considering his long-serving role as a Trustee on the Georges River Parklands Trust from 1975.
58. Leader, 3April1963.
59.Georges River National Park Annual Report, no. 5, 1966, Sutherland Shire Local Studies Collection.
60.Kelloggs Employment Officer to Mr Thompson, NPWS and GR Trust, 19August1982, National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) Archives, Georges River Trust SR, file 109/49.
61. Leader, 4January1967, 23August1967;Torch, 23August1967.
62. NPWS Table of Reserves, generated12October2005,NPWS Archives.
63. Leader, 4January1967.
64.Ibid.
65. Torch, 29April1992;Leader, 29October1991;Express12November1991.
66.R. Buchanan toChris Hartcher, NSW Minister for the Environment, 26August1992, NPWS Archives, A 1732 Correspondence, Enquiries, ministerial representations Georges River National Park; Canterbury resident W. Aitken to Pat Rogan, Member for East Hills, 10December1991, NPWS Archives, A 1732, Correspondence, Enquiries, ministerial representations Georges River National Park;Torch, 29April1992, 5August1992, 31March1993;Leader, 7August1968.
67. Torch, 29April1992and5August1992.
68. Express, 12November1991.