Further information on the development of the Goulburn Telegraph Office - and Post Office.
Continued from the Goulburn Telegraph Office entry as part of the TOs on the Southern Line to Victoria:
Early operation and the site of the Office.
On 25 August 1858 in the Legislative Assembly there was an exchange about the Goulburn Telegraph Office. Mr. Paterson asked the Hon. Secretary for Lands and Works:
"whether the Government is aware that the inhabitants of the country districts are subjected to great inconvenience of being unable to send any telegraphic messages from Goulburn after 6 p.m. and, if so, whether any new regulation on this point is in contemplation?"
Mr. Robertson in reply, stated that it was in accordance with regulations to shut the Goulburn Telegraph Office after 6 o'clock and that no new regulation in that respect was contemplated. He might add that the average receipts from Goulburn did not exceed £5 per week and that would not pay for the services of a night officer".
In November 1858, the Government announced that "the intended site for the Electric Telegraph Office in Goulburn is between the Mechanic's Institute and the gaol and comprises half-an-acre of ground, with a frontage of sixty-six feet to Auburn Street".
The 1860 design of the Telegraph Office.
The Goulburn Herald of 24 March 1860 reported that:
"We have inspected the plan of the proposed new buildings for the electric telegraph offices at Goulburn and other places and for the erection of which tenders are now advertised. These structures will be exceedingly neat ones consisting of a centre compartment for the operating-room with wings on each side for private apartments for the use of the officers. On the front of the centre will be a covered way with handsome pillars. Altogether, we think the buildings will be exceedingly well adapted for the purposes intended and will combine the useful with the ornamental".
The Telegraph Office must have worn out quickly because the Goulburn Chronicle of 28 March 1860 noted "from the plans which we have inspected, the Telegraph Office about to be erected in Goulburn will apparently be a handsome and commodious structure. We think the authorities are, however, committing a great mistake in not including a Post Office within the building. The importance of this town entitles it now to a public Post Office; and there would be both economy and public convenience in placing it under the same roof as the Telegraph Office". Noted!! But tenders were called in the Gazette of 13 July 1860 for the erection of an Electric Telegraph Station at Goulburn with a closing date of 24 July. A tender was accepted on 31 July.
The SMH of 22 October 1860 revealed new information:
"Several new telegraph stations are in progress or about to be proceeded with, the courthouses having hitherto been used for that purpose in the towns through which the wires have been carried. New stations have been commenced at West Maitland, Newcastle, Windsor, Albury, Goulburn, Bathurst, and Yass and others will soon be put up at Gundagai, Hartley and Wollombi. The buildings are nearly all upon one plan consisting of five rooms including a residence for the station master".
In April 1861, the Goulburn Chronicle printed its review of the new Goulburn Telegraph Office:
"Of the architectural pretensions of the building, perhaps the less said the better. Backed by the huge mass of the dead brick walls of the gaol and flanked by the rather imposing new hall of the Mechanics' Institute, the erection - insignificant in its original design - is dwarfed into still meaner proportions by the accessories which surround it. Instead of looking like a Government office, it might be taken, at first glance, for the porter's lodge to the gloomy building beyond, fashioned after the model of those improved cottages for farmers' servants that illustrate the periodical publications of agricultural societies.
If not, however, very classic or tasteful, the new Telegraph Office will be found convenient enough for all its purposes. The central compartment forms what is strictly speaking the office, the two wings furnishing four rooms for the accommodation of the clerk. A partition of cedar isolates the operator from the public for whose convenience two desks, for the writing of messages, will be placed at the ends of the passage and which will be handed in at two convenient pigeon-holes. The building is well lighted, and, though it can hardly be called an ornament to the town, the central position of the offices, and the convenience of the arrangements, are advantages which the public will readily appreciate.
The meteorological instruments now at the Hospital are to be placed in the care of Mr. Makel in accordance with a system which will secure the observations being taken at the same instant at the various places in telegraph communication with Sydney where provision has been made for meteorological registers. With the time-ball and flag-staff, the establishment will be complete".
On 5 November 1864, the Goulburn Herald reported that "We have been requested to state that, in consequence of repairs being effected at the telegraph station, the time ball will not be hoisted until Tuesday next".
The 20 year push for a new Telegraph Office.
In the Goulburn Herald of 18 September 1869, it was reported that:
"The Postmaster at Goulburn has received notice that, after the end of the year, the duties of his office are to be performed by the Telegraph Station Master with an assistant at £150 a year. The latter situation will be open for the Postmaster to accept should he think fit to do so. The salary of the postmaster of Goulburn is at present £300 a year.
The government are carrying out the same scheme in all practicable cases throughout the colony; and it is expected that a saving of £8,000 or £10,000 a year will be effected. With regard to the Goulburn Post Office we may mention that Mr. Scowcroft has held the office for the last seven or eight years and, notwithstanding that the work is extremely arduous, has performed the duties most efficiently and with fewer complaints than are made in the case of many smaller offices. Without at all blaming the government, whose duty it is to effect saving wherever it can be done, we may be permitted to hope that come adequate situation may speedily be found for Mr. Scowcroft".
The Goulburn Herald of 25 December 1869 published an interesting review of government buildings in Goulburn and elsewhere. In part, the article noted:
"our present want is a building adequate for the proper performance therein of the duties of the Post Office. But the people of Goulburn are so little accustomed to agitate for the outlay in their midst of public money that they would scarcely have taken any steps in this matter if the government had not determined to give them a new Post Office — but one quite inadequate for the amount of work that has to be performed. The proposal was to tack on to the present Telegraph Office a new room 21 ft. x 18 ft.; and this was to serve as a telegraph operating room as well as a Post Office! The rooms, two in number, now rented for the Post Office, are found to be inconveniently small; yet they are larger than the whole of the proposed building. The present operating-room in the Telegraph Office is very nearly as large; but there is no space to spare. Yet the two departments are to be crammed and jammed and rammed into 21 ft. x 18!
The proposed addition has been described as a carbuncle; and as the building to which it is to be added has been described as an abortion, it follows that the new Post Office for the city of Goulburn, the city of the south and the present terminus of the Great Southern Railway, would be — well, something to name which would not be very complimentary to the good taste, the architectural abilities or the sound judgment of those by whom it has been designed. The fact is that Goulburn requires a new court-house, a new Telegraph Office, a new Post Office, a new watch-house, a new jail. The latter is required chiefly in order that the present unsightly building may be removed. It has always been a great eye-sore, and is now becoming dangerous to the health of the townspeople. The rest of the buildings however are required because the existing structures are insufficient, and are inconveniently situated ...
The land in Auburn Street between the mechanics' institute and the Cricketers' Arms Hotel still belongs to the government, and undeniably affords the best site in the town for court house, Post Office and Telegraph Office. All three buildings might have the same front elevation, and thus be made extremely ornamental".
The Goulburn Herald of 5 May 1875 reported on a public meeting for the purpose of considering the question of amalgamating the Post Office and Telegraph department in Goulburn.
"The Mayor, having been voted to the chair, remarked that during the last few years the Post Office had been in three different parts of the city, and it was quite time that the citizens made a move for the amalgamation of the two buildings mentioned in the advertisement. Some years ago a sum of £2,000 was voted for the erection of a Post Office alone, but the sum had not been expended and the matter had lain dormant because it affected the interests of two old residents. The present Telegraph Office was too small, and had been added to three times already, and an addition was now asked for. He quite agreed with the present movement. In Wagga Wagga and Newcastle they already had what Goulburn was now asking for; and if £2,000 was voted some years ago, with interest accruing, they were fairly entitled to something like £5,000".
Full details of the discussion can be found elsewhere.
After the passage of another two years - the Goulburn Herald of 17 November 1877 reported that "A plan has been approved of for the new Post Office and Telegraph Office with officers' quarters for the town of Goulburn, and specifications are now being prepared. The plan is part of a comprehensive one to include a new court-house and other public buildings. The immediate erection of a new watch house will be rendered necessary as the site of the present structure will be required for the new offices".
At a meeting about the erection of public buildings on 31 July 1878, a deputation was informed that plans had been prepared for a court-house, Post Office, Telegraph Office and a lock-up:
The Post Office and Telegraph Office were to be built where the watch-house was located once it had been built in a new location ... Were the jail and the present court house pulled down, a new street might be formed between the Cricketers' Arms and the present watch-house; and the court house might most properly be placed at the corner. The present Telegraph Office and court house could be sold, as also the materials of the present jail; and the rest of the land would realize a large sum as building sites. The proposed new street might be named in honour of the premier by whom these great improvements should be sanctioned; and there can be no doubt that, whoever this minister might be, he would earn for himself a deep debt of gratitude from the people of Goulburn.
However, at the present moment the principal subject of discussion is the proposed new Post Office. It was stated at the meeting on Monday that there is probably no other town in the colony, the metropolis alone excepted, where there is so much postal work as in Goulburn ... Hence a room nearly twice the size of that proposed and to be fitted up in the most approved manner would not be at all too large for the Post Office alone. Accommodation for the postmaster and his family should be provided, for there are good reasons why this officer should sleep on the premises; and this need not involve any extra cost to the government as a reduction equal to the value of the rent might be made in the amount of the salary.
There is a strange perversity about the acts of the government officials in all matters relating to public works.
- But for the timely interference of the railway progress committee, we should have had the passenger-station a mile out of town;
- but for the timely interference of the inhabitants we should have seen the monstrous and preposterous error of having the railway workshops, engine-house, carriage-sheds, water-supply and turn-table three and a half miles away from the terminus.
The same perversity has fixed the passenger station too far south, when by having it about its own length farther north it would have formed a pleasing object in the view down Verner Street. The same perversity caused a waste of probably not less than £500 on a Wingello stone foundation for this building. The same perversity placed the floor of this otherwise convenient station some three feet below the level of the adjoining land necessitating the scraping away of the ground leading to it and after all leaving it exposed to partial inundation in times of storm. The same perversity has placed the entire pile of buildings connected with the railway in most irregular and straggling order. The same perversity has, even after the water-supply had been fixed to be near the terminus, prevented the best and cheapest means of procuring water from being resorted to—means too which would have enabled the town to be supplied with water in a convenient and inexpensive manner.
And the same perversity on a smaller scale has been notably exhibited in the case of the Telegraph Office. The building is of ridiculously mean exterior. Originally there were four very small rooms for the station-master's residence. About two or three years ago, we had a Station- Master who was married and had a family. He made the not very unreasonable request that a kitchen might be added but he was sternly and obstinately refused. When he left, a single man was appointed and, forthwith, and we believe without any application on his part, a kitchen was built. Afterwards, on this gentleman leaving, again a single man was appointed and now it is proposed to give up the present operating room to his private use.
Well, we do not object to single men being made comfortable, particularly in the case of the present station-master, who is a most intelligent and obliging officer. But it certainly does seem perverse in the extreme for the government to be adding unasked to the comforts of single men what they have resolutely refused to the importunities of married ones. At the present rate of progress we have only to get a few more changes in the telegraph department, each new officer to be a bachelor, and we shall in the course of the next generation have a Telegraph Office that will be the wonder of all beholders. It is not likely to be handsome certainly — the tastes and abilities of the colonial architect's department forbid any hope of that. But in size it will be stupendous. Just fancy what the present Telegraph Office will look like when some twenty carbuncles — each new one uglier, if possible, than its predecessor — have grown out on the one side and some thirty or forty barnacles are adhering on the other!