Collingwood is a heritage-listed former residence and golf clubhouse and now house museum at Birkdale Crescent, Liverpool, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The original architect is unknown; however renovations 1857 were undertaken by William Weaver. It was built from 1811 to 1857, with the earliest section built by convict labour. It has also been known as Bunker's Cottage, Bunker's Farm, Liverpool Golf Course Clubhouse, Collingwood Heritage Precinct and Discovery Park. The property is owned by Liverpool City Council. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 8 December 2006.
History
Aboriginal usage The land on which the Collingwood Estate (Bunkers Farm) is located is Cabrogal ngurra/countryDharug Nation.
The Gundungurra (also spelt Gundungurry, Gandangara) people's country extended from the Blue Mountains at Hartley and Lithgow through the Burragorang and Megalong Valleys, east at least as far as the Nepean River (and therefore west of the Illawarra); while in the south, their territory extended at least as far as Goulburn, and possibly to Tumut. They were also referred to as the Mountain People, Nattai, Burragorang or Wollondilly Tribes. The Tharawal lived in the area around Botany Bay and southwards, in particular between La Perouse and Wreck Bay (near Jervis Bay). Neighbours with the Eora, Darug, Gundungurra and Yuin.
The hill top and ridgeline at Collingwood is understood to have been a meeting place for the Tharawal, Dharug and Gundungurra peoples and a vantage point enabling Country to be observed and monitored. Aboriginal community members have advised that when meeting it was important for Aboriginal people to still be able to see their own country.
It is also understood that this high point was used by Aboriginal people as a look out across the Georges River to the east and the mountains to the west. The lookout provided views across the landscape, which allowed for observations of weather patterns, movements, threats from fire and changes in seasonal vegetation. The "vista" from the high ground provides a view corridor southeast to the Georges River. Gavin Andrews explains: "The area was important because it's a high point and it was a place where different nations would meet, but also where people would look over the country = you could see everything in all directions from there...[and] it's right near the Georges River, which was the major method of transportation in the area."
Aboriginal community members have advised that Aboriginal artefacts have been found in the vicinity of the house and scarred trees were a feature of the Collingwood Estate.
The Collingwood Precinct was listed as an Aboriginal Place, under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, on 6 March 2009. The Aboriginal Place is associated with early engagement, and at times conflict, between colonial settlers and Aboriginal people. The American whaler, Captain Eber Bunker, constructed a large house, Collingwood House, in this location in 1810.
Today, the Collingwood Precinct Aboriginal Place is important to Aboriginal people because the location and outlook provide a connection to Country and culture. The site also continues to be used as a meeting place for Aboriginal people.
Eber Bunker
In 1791, American captain Eber Bunker arrived in the colony as Master of the Third Fleet convict ship , a converted whaler.
Bunker was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1761, a direct descendant of two families, the Tilleys and pilgrim John Howland. Bunker is regarded as the father of the Australian whaling industry. He is credited with capturing the first whales in Australian waters in October 1791. He is also credited with being one of the first exporters and traders in the colony. Bunker exported whale oil back to England and soap to Tahiti. He was also an early trader with New Zealand. He traded with Britain, India and China and exported seal fur taken from islands off Australia and New Zealand. Bunker also chartered part of the NSW coast (Queensland), the Bunker Islands off Gladstone and also parts of the south of the South Island of New Zealand. Bunker was also a member of the Vice Admiralty Court and a landholder at Bulanaming, Bankstown and the Hunter Valley.
In 1801, Bunker was granted of land at Bulanaming near Petersham Hill in 1801. In 1803, sailing in with Lieutenant John Bowen, accompanied to establish a British settlement at Risdon Cove on the Derwent River in Van Diemen's Land.
Bunker received a grant at Liverpool from Governor King on 18 August 1804. This grant appears to have been made in payment for his assistance in escorting Bowen to Van Diemen's land. In 1806, Bunker brought his family to the colony aboard Elizabeth and lived at Bunker's Hill at The Rocks. In January 1808, Bunker was a signatory to a letter to Major George Johnston expressing support for his seizure of command of the Colony in the Rum Rebellion and recommending that he ensure that measures adopted for public security be confirmed by his successor.
Bunker's first wife and mother to his six children, Margaret Thompson, died delivering a stillborn baby. Bunker married his second wife Margaret McFarlane (1780–1821), the widow of an English Army Officer in Bengal in 1810. Bunker received a further grant of 500 acres from Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1810.
Development of Collingwood and Bunker ownership
In November 1810, Liverpool was established by Governor Macquarie. It quickly developed into a service area for the surrounding areas and travellers on the Liverpool Road. It remained the main town to the west of Sydney until Campbelltown, founded in 1820 further to the south, started to thrive. A track from Parramatta to Liverpool town site came into use .
The construction date of the earliest phase of Bunker's Farm / Collingwood is unclear.
The house was built of brick with a shingled roof. There were two rooms with two windows in each, and a hall between them. The ceilings were 12 feet high and the house was symmetrical with a brick chimney. The building features are typical of the early colonial Georgian period – it has a simple rectangular shape, symmetrical facade, six panelled door, a chair rail around the wall, and entrance doorway with sidelights and semi circular fanlight. The fabric of the walls differs from the later sections of the house being built of sandstock brick (made by convicts from local clay) rather than from random rubble.
The farm outbuildings are understood to have included a detached kitchen and store, stables, coach house, slaughter house, stock yards and convict huts. Many of the earliest out buildings are thought to have been located west of the house as the house was originally oriented towards the east looking out to the George's River. Early transport to the Bunker's Farm was by the George's River until the Great South Road opened in 1814. It would appear that the later presentation of the house to the west relates to the new transport route of the Great South Road.
Records indicate that by 1814 Eber Bunker (when in the colony) and his second wife and two of his children were living at Collingwood. Margaret Bunker is understood to have run the farm (Bunker's Farm / Collingwood) while Bunker was at sea. The farm supplied fresh meat to the Government Stores. This would have been a lucrative contract.
Bunker's seafaring days seem to have come to an end in 1816, when he came to Sydney as a ship's passenger. Margaret Bunker died aged 41 in 1821. In 1823 Eber Bunker married his third wife Ann Minchin (1775–1837), the widow of Captain William Minchin (1774–1821), holder of a land grant, Minchinbury, at Rooty Hill.
The census return for 1828 indicates that Bunker and Ann were residing at the property with four convict servants (two women house servants and two male labourers). It is likely that the convicts would have shared two huts on the property. Assigned convicts worked and lived at Bunker's Farm / Collingwood for at least thirty years during the Bunker / Blackett ownership. They are likely to have provided the labour for construction of the house and outbuildings.
In 1832, Captain Bunker was recorded as living at Collingwood, on the left of the road southwards from LiverpoolPO Directory, 1832 Bunker died at Collingwood on 27 September 1836, aged 74.V1836807 20/1836 The published death notice referred to him as one of the oldest and most respected inhabitants of the colony. His standing was illustrated through intermarriage of his daughters with well known families such as the Laycocks and Fisks, his friendship with Thomas Moore and Charles Throsby and a visit by Governor Macquarie and his wife Elizabeth Macquarie.
Anne Bunker died aged 62 in 1837. The property passed to Bunker's daughter Charlotte Blackett (1804–1851) who was living with her husband George Blackett at Collingwood. Another daughter, Isabella was married to Thomas Lycock Junior of "Kelvin" at Bringelly.
Charlotte Blackett's husband George experienced serious financial difficulty during the 1840s depression, having invested heavily in improvement to the estate, including a flour mill (the Collingwood Flour Mill) near the Georges River. The mill reputedly cost 15,000 pounds. Consequently, the property was sold between 1842–1845 to repay George Blackett's debts
An insolvency inventory indicates that by 1842 Collingwood had at least six rooms. The details of the furniture suggest a lifestyle of genteel privilege. There was furniture for a drawing room, a dining room, and another room that was possibly a parlour, and three bedrooms.
Gordon and Atkinson ownership
Samuel Deane Gordon purchased Collingwood in 1845 for 17,000 pounds. Gordon was a wealthy merchant who owned large stores in Sydney and Liverpool. He was successful in his mercantile and pastoral activities despite the economic decline that followed the end of the convict system in NSW. Gordon was a founding Councillor of St Andrews College in the 1870s at the University of Sydney, and was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1856 and to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1861. Gordon did not live at Collingwood. He rented the house and grounds from 1845. Gordon sold his Liverpool store in 1848 and later sold Collingwood in 1853.
James Henry Atkinson purchased Collingwood Estate in 1853. Atkinson was a wool and produce agent with a stores at Circular Quay, an entrepreneur and politician. He was a significant figure in the formation of the Cumberland Agricultural Society, which was later to become the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales. The first meeting called with the object of forming this Society was held at the Terminus Hotel in Liverpool and chaired by Atkinson. Organisers included leading settlers and political figures of the County of Cumberland. The first agricultural show organised by this Society took place at Collingwood in 1858. It attracted a range of cattle, imported as well as colonial-bred, horses, pigs, sheep, poultry, wool and farm produce. In addition, farm implements of "sterling utility" were displayed. Many "were well adapted" to local circumstances and "demonstrated the care with which ingenuity had been applied to this important branch of science".(Fletcher, 1988, 45, 47)
Atkinson was a member of the NSW Legislative Assembly for Central Cumberland from 1858 until 1863. He bought Collingwood as an investment because of its close proximity to the proposed southern railway line from Parramatta to Liverpool. The coming of the railway to Liverpool in 1856 generated new industries and activities centred around Collingwood. Atkinson built a private siding to the Collingwood industrial area near Blackett's Collingwood Flour Mill.