Monday, November 1, 2021

WILLIAM SELFF'S SPORTSMANS ARMS HOTEL

 
Sportsman's Arms Hotel 1872
Source: SLNSW

William Selff, licensee, had the Sportsman's Arms at Two Mile Flat, and when gold was discovered at Gulgong in 1870 he moved his hotel to the new rush. It was one of the first hotels in Gulgong and the site has remained as a hotel ever since. Currently the Commercial Hotel.
Source: Baldwin & Davis, Research Gulgong (July 2006)

Mayne Street, Gulgong showing group outside Selff's Sportsman's Arms Hotel (also Barnes' Mudgee Drug Store & Plunkett, auctioneers
Source: SLNSW

The group outside Selff's Sportsmans Arms Hotel (downstairs)

The group outside Selff's Sportsmans Arms Hotel (upstairs)

Members and wives of Masonic Lodge Abbotsford on the balcony of Selff's Hotel. When Bill Selff remodelled the hotel in 1872 the top floor was added as rooms for the Masonic Lodge. In 1876 the Lodge purchased the hotel and Bill Selff remained as licensee for many years after.
Source: Baldwin & Davis, Research Gulgong (July 2006)

Mayne Street looking west from the corner of Herbert Street (showing Sportsman's Arms Hotel), Gulgong
Source: SLNSW

On the northern side, Barnes Chemist, Sportsman's Arms Hotel, J.F. Plunkett Auctioneer, Oriental Bank, Star Hotel, Booth & Co, James Leggatt Smithfield Butchery. At the far end of the street Kelly's Family Hotel can be seen at the Medley Street intersection.
Source: Baldwin & Davis, Research Gulgong (July 2006)

NEWS ITEMS

1874 - SELFF & CO - RED BOOT FACTORY
Messrs. Selff and Co. have just fitted up a large shop opposite the Post-office, Queen street, in which the boot and shoe trade is to be carried on in an extensive manner, lt is to be called the Red Boot Factory, and every article in the trade is to be manufactured, and no doubt as the raw material is to be procured in any quantity on the spot, the prospectors will be able to compete with the metropolis, and the speculation turn out a most lucrative one. The undertaking will give employment to a number of persons, and in all probability the parents of some of our youthful shepherds, will see the necessity of giving their boys a trade, instead of allowing them to be educated in the schools of vice and bringing them up as "larrikins."
Source: Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1919) Sat 22 Aug 1874 Page 34

1875 - GULGONG.
[Herald.]—As William Selff and Surgeon Wilson Ramsay were proceeding on the road to Mudgee, their horse bolted, and broke the forepart of the carriage. Both parties were tbrown out, and Mr. Ramsay was much shaken. The reins got round Selffs legs and he was dragged one hundred yards down the hill. He was brought home badly injured.

1877 - [HOTEL SALE]
W.H. SIMPKINS has received instructions from the proprietors to dispose of tho following country  hotels:
THE SPORTSMAN'S ARMS, Gulgong, freehold, or on a 7 years' lease.
For particulars concerning the above houses, apply to W. H.SIMPKINS, 160, Pitt-street.
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) Mon 24 Dec 1877 Page 8

1901 - AUCTION SALES
Tomorrow Mr C E Hilton will auction the whole of the splendid household furniture and effects of Mrs E Selff, proprietress of Tattersall’s Hotel, Gulgong.

1901 - NEWTOWN
Mrs Selff an old Gulgongite is keeping an up-to-date boarding establishment at Newtown.
Source: The Gulgong Advertiser, July 5 1901

1904 - [PERSONAL - BY GCJ]
I see you notice the recent announcement in a daily paper of the golden wedding of William Selff, of Windsor, and Patience Elizabeth Ann Kettle, of Liverpool-road, Sydney, and now both of Mudgee. Mrs Selff, as you say, is keeping the Oriental Hotel, and "old Bill," as we called him in Sydney, is (or was) running a soap factory. Bill Selff was one of Gulgong's identities - either the first or second — the first I believe — to open a pub on the big field. At any rate, Selff's hotel was, for many a long day, the hotel of Gulgong ; originally a low, squat building of bark and saplings, then weather boards, and finally enlarged by adding a fine two-storeyed building, from the balcony of which "Grand Old Man" Parkes, the late G. J. Long lnnes (the Judge), and all the local orators, including Fred De Courcey Browne, "old Pat" Sweeney (J. P. Sweeney), A. A. O'Connor, J. F. Plunkett, and "Davie" Buchanan used to address huge gatherings of miners. But though I knew "Bill" well, I never knew until I saw the announcement in the "Evening News'' "Old Times" column that he was a Windsor man.