40 acres at Dee Why, two convicts and residential development
These days almost all of the land between Pittwater Rd and Dee Why Beach is occupied by unit blocks but in the early 1800s it was a different story and it was not until the early 1900s that the area was developed.
Manly
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These days almost all of the land between Pittwater Rd and Dee Why Beach is occupied by multistorey walk-up unit blocks.
In the early 1800s, however, it was a very different story, and it was not until the early 1900s that the area was developed.
The sale of lots in The Oaks Estate in 1913, for instance, was of land that was formerly owned by the Salvation Army and comprised lots facing Oaks Ave, Howard Ave, Dee Why Pde, Avon Rd and The Strand.
Two years earlier, the Dee Why Beach Estate comprised lots fronting Boronia St, Banksia St, Pacific Pde, Griffin Rd, Cassia St, Daisy St and Monash Pde.
The land comprising the Dee Why Beach Estate has an interesting story that includes two convicts who escaped execution in England when they were transported to the other side of the world, one of whom became wealthy.
On January 10, 1831, John Harper was promised 40 acres (16.2ha) at Dee Why and the grant was formalised on March 31, 1835.
Harper’s 40 acres were immediately south of William Cossar’s 200 acres (90ha), which included all of Dee Why Lagoon and its surrounds, which had been granted to Cossar in 1821.
Prior to that, in 1815 Cossar had been granted 500 acres (202ha) comprising all of Long Reef headland and a substantial part of Collaroy.
Both of Cossar’s grants ended up being owned by the Salvation Army.
John Harper’s 40-acre grant, immediately south of Cossar’s land, was roughly rectangular in shape, with the longest boundaries running east-west and the eastern boundary being the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
For an unknown reason, Harper’s 40-acre block was to be called Mittagong Farm, according to the deed document issued in 1835.
In 1831, the year Harper was promised the land at Dee Why, the Surveyor-General of NSW introduced Clause 14 to the NSW Land Regulations.
Clause 14 stated: “No land within 100 feet (31m) of the high water mark on the sea coast, harbours, bays, or inlets is to be considered open to purchase unless for the purpose of commerce or navigation.”
It meant that any land sold by the Colonial Government that had any waterfrontage automatically had a 100-foot wide foreshore reservation, excluding that foreshore from private ownership.
Sadly, an Act of the British Parliament in June 1842 overturned the 1831 Land Regulation, so buyers of waterfront land after that date could claim ownership of land right down to the high water mark, effectively alienating it from the general public.
As the grant of 40 acres John Harper occurred during that magic 1831-1842 window, while his land was shown on maps as going to the edge of the cliff, in reality it only went to within 100 feet of the cliff.
That 100-foot foreshore reservation is now part of the popular walk around the top of the Dee Why headland called the Dee Why Head Bicentennial Walking Track.
The John Harper who was granted the land at Dee Why may have been the convict of that name who was transported to NSW in 1813.
That John Harper was born about 1782, lived in Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire county in England and was a butcher.
Harper was charged with uttering three promissory notes of 5/- each, knowing them to be forged notes.
He was convicted at the York Assizes on March 9, 1811, and was sentenced to death but his sentence was later commuted to transportation to NSW.
Harper was one of 200 male convicts on board the ‘Earl Spencer’ when it left Britain for Australia in May 1813 and arrived in Sydney on October 9, 1813.
Harper married Charlotte Bradley in 1817 and in the 1822 census he was listed as being a 40-year-old butcher who had received a conditional pardon and who now had three young sons.
Another convict on the ‘Earl Spencer’ when it arrived in Sydney on October 9, 1813, was Charles Nightingale, who had been convicted in the Oxford Assizes on July 8, 1812, of uttering a forged note of the Windsor and Berkshire Bank for £5. He was sentenced to death but his sentence was later commuted to transportation to NSW.
Harper sold his 40 acres at Dee Why in January 1837 to Charles Nightingale, indicating that the John Harper who was granted the land in 1835 may have been the John Harper who was transported to NSW on the same ship as Charles Nightingale.
Like many convicts, Charles Nightingale did well in the Colony, such that by the time he died in 1860, he owned numerous properties in and around Sydney.
In 1826, Charles Nightingale married Rebecca Wright and the couple had four sons and a daughter.
In England he had been a chair carver but at some point after arriving in the Colony, he became a house and land agent.
According to convictrecords.com.au, he also became “a collector of rents to which he added the role of collector of money for charity”.
“In 1837, he was appointed a collector for the Auxiliary of the Bible Society, the Benevolent Society, the Mechanics Institute, the Religious Tract and Book Society and the Sydney Dispensary.
“He was the dominant collector during this period and added to his list of clients Sydney College, the Sydney Female Refuge Society and the Bethel Union, but charity collection was probably not his main source of income.
“His work as a land and house agent continued and his income must have been considerable as he managed to accumulate, by the time of his death in 1860, a substantial holding of property in and around Sydney.
“It is notable that, although Charles collected for many charities throughout his life, he left no bequests to any charitable body.”
In his will, Charles Nightingale bequeathed Harper’s land at Dee Why to his son Alfred John Wesley Nightingale, who became the owner of the Dee Why land on the death of his father in June 1860.
Like every owner before him, Alfred Nightingale made no use of Harper’s 40 acres at Dee Why and in February 1860, four months before his father died, he moved to Brisbane and joined the Queensland public service as a junior in the Post and Telegraph Department.
According to the Telegraph newspaper in Brisbane: “Five years later he was appointed accountant in the money order branch of that service, with a salary of £400”.
“When in that position, a remarkable episode happened. Mr Nightingale was sent to audit the accounts of a branch where a deficiency had been discovered. “The officer implicated asked permission to leave the room for a few minutes and ended his life with a revolver.
“The Postmaster-General of the day took the extreme step of dismissing Mr. Nightingale. An indignant deputation waited on the Minister at his residence and demanded Mr. Nightingale’s reappointment to his office.
“The Postmaster-General, was obdurate.
“On January 1, 1872, however, Mr. Nightingale was appointed to the Government Savings Bank at a salary of £250 a year, and in April 1873, he was promoted to branch officer at the George Street branch, with a salary of £450 a year.”
In September 1882, Alfred Nightingale applied to bring Harper’s land at Dee Why under the provisions of the Real Property Act and a Certificate of Title was issued on December 22, 1882.
In December 1883, Alfred Nightingale sold Harper’s land to Francis Punch, of Sydney, for £1000 and in December 1886, Punch sold Harper’s land to Charles Ellis, of Tamworth, for £2000.
Ellis took out a £1000 mortgage on the land with John Griffin on the same date in December 1886 that he obtained title to the land but in January 1890, Griffin, exercising power of sale, sold Harper’s land to Ernest Erbsloh, merchant of Sydney, for £1250.
Erbsloh mortgaged the land several times to different people in 1889, 1890 and twice in 1892, at which point the most recent mortgagors, Louisa Wilson of London and Alfred Lee of Sydney, foreclosed on the mortgage and the land was then vested in the hands of Lee and Wilson.
In September 1898, Harper’s land was sold to Marmaduke Pettinger, a laundry engineer of Paddington for £720 and in May 1910, Pettinger sold Harper’s land to William Anderson, a schoolteacher of Parramatta, for £1537.
In 1911, Anderson subdivided Harper’s land into 233 lots in Deposited Plan 6167, which he called the Dee Why Beach Estate and which included all of Boronia St and Banksia St, and parts of Pacific Pde, Griffin Rd, Cassia St, Daisy St and Monash Pde.
The Dee Why Beach Estate was advertised as being for sale by auction on the ground on January 26, 1911, and again on April 15, 1911.
An advertisement in The Daily Telegraph on January 28 stated that 86 of the lots had been sold on January 26 and by early February 1911, the auction had already raised £6000 – a good return on land that had cost Anderson £1537.
By the time of the second auction on April 15, 155 lots had been sold.
From 1911 to the 1960s, only single dwellings occupied lots within the Dee Why Beach Estate, as was the case for the rest of the area between Pittwater Rd and the beach, but the 1960s saw the start of the medium-density development that now dominates the area.
While most of the lots in Monash Pde, Daisy St and the southern side of Banksia St are still occupied by single dwellings, most of the lots in Pacific Pde, Cassia St, Griffin Rd, Boronia St and Banksia St are now occupied by multistorey walk-up unit blocks.
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