George married Janet Christina McLean in Petersham in 1908 (NSW BDM 5705/1908). Their children, born in Petersham, included:
- Gladys J - born 1909
- Edna M - born 1911
- Arthur M - born 1916
George Lewis Farthing died in 1956 in Burwood (NSW BDM 1586/1956).
NEWS ITEMS
NEWS ITEMS
1930 - [BANDMASTER]
Mr. George Farthing (formerly a resident of Gulgong) whose wife passed away at Hornsby last week, was at one time bandmaster of the Gulgong Salvation Army Band, and since then of the Army band at Petersham. He was a blacksmith, having learnt his trade in Gulgong with Mr. H. J. Gudgeon, who retired from the trade a couple of years ago and who is still one of the towns leading citizens.
Source: Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative (NSW : 1890 - 1954) Thu 24 Jul 1930 Page 28
1936 - IMPROVED TOWN
SPEAKING at the Salvation Army Jubilee celebrations last week end, Bro. Geo. Farthing, of Sydney (a native of Gulgong) referred to the general improvement in the town, mentioning the electric lighting system, water supply and new buildings. Although he left here 35 years ago to reside in Sydney, Bro. Farthing has paid periodical visits to the town, but was most struck last week-end with the developments of recent years.
MEMOIRS_________________________
George Farthing's memoirs (extracted below) contain personal eyewitness accounts of Gulgong in the 1880s and 1890s. George worked as a blacksmith with the Gudgeons, in the shop that is now in the museum. He led the Gulgong Salvation Army Band and named Salvation Hill. His uncle, William Farthing, was a gardener for Richard Rouse at Biraganbil.
1890s - How we Discovered Salvation Hill
My elder brother William had decided to take unto himself a wife, so of course they must have a cottage to live in. He had secured his block of ground, some eight acres of it, about a mile out of town, but of course he and his bride to be had to have a roof over their heads, so what was Will to do? Wait for the government to build him one? Or live in a tent because he couldn’t get timber? No fear. There was plenty of timber out in the bush and so Bill and I went out to get it even though we had to use round timber instead of sawn for rafters. There were no sawmills about just then. Nor were there any brick kilns in the district and fibro asbestos sheeting had not been invented and weather boarding was too hard to obtain so Will used spilt slabs to wall his cottage in with. He used proper roofing iron for his roof and a very fine little cottage it was and as far as I know it still provides a home for some Gulgong family.
It was while we, Will and I (I was only a boy) were out getting timber for Will’s cottage that we discovered a gold bearing reef right on top of a mountain.
A party of goldminers, or gold diggers we called them were washing up i.e. treating their ash dirt to get the gold out of it. They were washing up down at the Reedy Creek. One of the party named Finley Fraser was a friend of ours and used to teach me in Sunday school. It was Finley my brother wanted to see, so after they had knocked off work, the three of us, Finley, Will and me started for home.
“Bill”, said Finley as we walked along, ”Let us take a walk over the big hill. I saw an outcrop of Quartz there one day that impressed me somewhat. It’s a good while ago and I’ve always intended having another look at it,” and so we climbed the big hill right up to the top and it was a real sugar loaf at the top. Strange to say as a boy I had never been up to the top of that hill before. It was about the only hill about the district I had not scaled.
When we got to the top there was just an ordinary outcrop of quartz stone. There were thousands of them all over the district, but evidently something about it had given Finley an idea. Will picked up a piece of the quartz and threw it onto another piece to break it, but there was no show of gold so he said he would take the piece home and crush it. It was a piece about the size of a quart billy can. In the morning Will got the mortar and pestle and crushed the quartz to powder. Then he got some water in a washing tub, put the quartz powder in the prospecting dish and panned it out. There remained just one tiny speck of gold. There was nothing unusual about that.
Says Will, “I’ll keep that speck, it might mean our fortune”, so he took out of his pocket his tin match box, wet the tip of his finger on which he picked up the speck of gold and put it in his match box.
After breakfast we started out again. This time we took a miner’s pick and a napping hammer with us. Away we went up to the top of the hill. We walked straight to the reef. Will dug in his pick and rooted out a large lump of quartz about half the size of a bucket. He said, “Break that George”, and so I gave the quartz boulder a clout with my napping hammer and it fell to pieces. I nearly jumped out of my skin (so to speak). There was gold everywhere that I had broken the stone. I said, “Oh Will, look at the gold”. I hit another piece of stone and it was literally stuck together with gold. Poor old Will, his eyes nearly popped out of his head. Will gathered up all the gold specimens we could find and put them in a big billy can. Nearby was a hollow tree that had been burnt off about ten feet up. Will climbed that and hung the treasure down the hollow of the tall stump. We made the place where we had dug out the stone look as natural as we possibly could in case some wanderer might twig the spot and away we went down the hill to our timber getting until the shades of evening began to fall when we made our way again to the Reedy Creek and again collected Finley Fraser.
Finley was one of those cool, calm, phlegmatic customers that never seemed to get excited and when we uncovered the spot and took the specimens out of the hollow tree and he saw the gold, Finley seemed calmer than ever. He just smiled and said, “Hmm”.
“Well now Billy”, said Finley to Will. “We will have to be careful. It might be a very rich reef or it might only be a blow out, only time and work will tell”.
Finley was a seasoned old gold digger and a very wise one too. Says he, “We will have to be careful in choosing our company and apply for our company lease right away”. Of course I was only a boy and had no say in things, but I was very interested.
At that time Father was away working in the Leadville silver mines some thirty miles north of Gulgong and did not get home very often, and so there was great planning between Will and Finley. The latter was on a bit of gold and did not care to leave it right away. Word had to be got to Father who would of course be one of the company, but Father did not care to leave a good job right away. I will never forget dear old Wills planning and scheming as one morning we trudged our way out to the bush to go on with our timber getting. Says Will, “George, you are too young to join our company. When we get that reef going you will be packed off to school again”. That did not please me I never liked school (something I have lived to regret). I had not long left school. In fact at the time I was not sure whether I had left or not, but I think had things turned out as we fully anticipated, I would have been back at school. But I didn’t go back. Much to our sorrow.
Will went on planning and building lovely castles in the air. He was shortly to be married and what a home they were going to have and what a home we were going to build for mother etc.
Well in due time the company was formed and work started, great preparations were made. Out came more quartz boulder, but where was all the gold?
Strange to say what we found was only a pocket or as Finley said, a blow, and so they worked on and on, following the reef down into the hill. Now and again they would strike another pocket but there was not enough to pay for their labour. But it enticed them on and on until they could stand it no longer. Funds ran low, credit was stopped but they held the lease. They decided they would leave it for a while until they raised more funds. That sent their specimens to Sydney. A townsman took the matter in hand, took charge of the specimens, went to Sydney to try to form a syndicate and to raise money to continue the work. In the meantime Father took on another road contract and the other members of the party took jobs elsewhere to try and build up a little capital for further endeavours at their reef.
In the mean while another party jumped the claim and started work. Of course there was a great to do about it. Lawyers were interviewed, or consulted, threats made and court proceedings threatened. All the time the other party was plugging away week after week lured on by striking little pockets of glittering gold until they too were starved out. Other companies fared the same. The Sydney Syndicate was never formed and what became of the specimens I never found out but they must have been worth a few pounds.
The hill was christened Salvation Hill because we were all Salvationists who discovered the gold there. Later on after we came to Sydney a big company took it in hand, erected machinery and put a shaft right down through the hill from top to bottom. That also turned out a failure and was abandoned. But experts still say there must be a very rich reef there somewhere and will be discovered someday. So that’s how we found Salvation Hill.
Source: Paul Farthing from the Memoirs of George Farthing.There is a range of mountains away to the west of our old home. We used to call them the Baragambil range, because Baragambil Station (owned by Mr Richard Rouse) lay just at the foot of the mountains. They were about seven miles from our home. Baragambil was and I suppose it still is a big sheep station. It was quite a little township of itself. They had a lovely big homestead with beautiful gardens. My Uncle William was the head gardener there, hence we young folk and indeed when we were children often made our ways across Rouse’s paddocks to Baragambil (I think Barragambil is the correct way to spell it). We just loved to spend a couple of days at Uncle William’s or “Jim” as we used to call him. There were four or five cousins there, Silas and Henry, and Emily were about our own age and we used to have great fun roaming the hills and swimming and fishing in the river that flowed nearby.
The station shearing shed was just up a few hundred yards from the homestead and it used to be my delight when a school boy to go to Barragambil during the sheep shearing season and watch the men shearing the sheep. It was a big shed. There must have been fifteen stands on each side or somewhere about. My cousins Silas and Harry used to work in the sheds as “tar boys”. These were the days of the old sheep shears. The machine shears had not yet come into use. The tar boys used to walk up and down the boards (that was what they called the floors where the men were shearing the sheep). The boys carried a pot of tar and a brush in their hands and if the shearer had the misfortune to cut into the sheep’s flesh with the shears he would call out “Tar” and the boy would run and put a dab of tar on the wound inflicted. That was supposed to stop the bleeding and also have a healing effect, as well as to keep the flies at bay.
There was another boy working on each floor, a bigger boy than the tar boy. He was called the “pickerup”. When a shearer had finished shearing his sheep, he would push it through a little trap door into a pen. Each man had a pen for his sheep. They would be counted at least twice a day. Thus they would know how many sheep they would shear per day. Those days the shearers were paid £1.0.0 per hundred. Today they are paid over £7.0.0 per hundred. 100 per day was considered a good day’s work with the old hand shears. As soon as the shearer had finished his sheep he would call out and the pickerup boy would run for his life, gather up the fleece in his arms, then run and with a clever movement of his arms would spread it out on a big table ready for the wool classer and the “rollerup” who would roll it up into a ball and then throw it into a heap ready for the wool pressers.
But alas our visits to Mr Rouse’s shearing sheds came one day to an abrupt end, at least for that season. I think Mr Rouse must have been in a bad humour on that particular day. Shearing after breakfast had only just started, when a great voice thundered out, “You boys there get off the boards at once, go on, out of the shed.” Needless to say Dick and I lost no time in getting out and getting back home to Gulgong.
The Chinese Bushranger
There is a fine range of mountains away to the north of Gulgong called the “Barnies Reef” ranges. As a very small boy at school I used to look with wonder at those distant mountains and wonder what strange monsters lived there. We used to hear stories of Hairy Men and Bushrangers. They used to tell us of a Chinese bushranger who roamed those mountains only a few years before [Sam Poo].
Many years afterwards, when a grown man, my old Uncle William Shaw, my Mother’s eldest brother paid us a number of visits, himself an old man then. He used to tell us of his pioneering experiences, of his young days, those early days of N.S.W. He told us of his encounters with the Chinese bushranger. He told us of a man who one day was riding along a bridle track through the mountains when he saw a dejected looking individual sitting on a log by the roadside. The rider reined up his horse and said, “Hello mate, what are you doing here?” The object straightened up and looked him in the face and to his amazement, it was the Chinaman. The bushranger reached behind him and brought to light a sawn off shotgun and said, “You go way, me shootum you quick.” Needless to say the horseman got away as fast as the horse could carry him. But I don’t think he was one of the very vicious type, but he lived off the country. He would shoot a sheep when necessary or go to a lonely settlers home when the men folk were away, present his old sawn off gun and demand food off the women folk, who of course were terrified of him. And of course he was wanted by the police for an old offence. That’s why he had taken to the bush. But alas “John” began to give trouble. He was visiting lonely homes and demanding food under threat too often, and so a desperate hunt was instituted. The male folk from all round joined in the manhunt. He had to leave the mountains and took to the thick forests and scrub. They wanted to take him alive but John didn’t hesitate to shoot when too hard pressed so the order went forth, take him dead or alive. Alas poor John, after a long hunt was shot dead by one of the police. People were sorry for poor old John but he would not surrender. It fell to my uncle’s lot to take the body some forty miles into Mudgee in a spring cart for the inquest etc.
Source: Paul Farthing from the Memoirs of George Farthing.Salvation Army
On one memorable journey to Mudgee we had quite an experience. The matter of transport was always a problem. There were no motor cars and very few of us had our own means of travel. The corps (Gulgong Salvation Army) owned a horse (Charlie) and a sulky but that would only accommodate three at the most. This time however we were fortunate. We had in our yard undergoing repairs a big carrier van. Its tyres had been cut and shut and it was in good going order, so Harry Gudgeon got permission from his father who owned the coach works (that was where we worked) to use the van for our trip to Mudgee. That would solve our problem providing we could get the horses. The van was built for two or more horses and it would carry the whole company of us providing we could muster the steeds. Well! Harry had a pony and the corps owned one and I think we borrowed old piebald from Harry’s father. I forget where the other came from, but we got him. None of them had worked together before. Indeed I doubt if any of them had ever been in double harness before. But what did that matter to us. We had to get to Mudgee somehow and here was a bit of adventure.
The fact is, we were accustomed to handling horses all our short lives up to that time. That is Harry and me. Indeed we were handling them and shoeing them every day. However when the time arrived we raked up the harness from here and there, yoked up our steeds, packed in our human freight. I don’t remember how many of us there were exactly, about twelve bandsmen and two ladies. They were my sister Susie and Maudie Bowie. Of course Maudie Bowie played in the band and Susie was our organist.
Harry held the ribbons and did the driving. It was really his show. So off we started. The horses were in their element. You would think they had been working together all their lives, so we had a lovely trip into Mudgee and we had a lovely time. There was a large and appreciative audience.
Source: Paul Farthing from the Memoirs of George Farthing.
We Became Salvationists
Then we all became Salvationists. This is how it came about. Mother was ever of an evangelical turn of mind. One day she heard of, or read of (I don’t know which) a peculiar people called the Salvation Army. Then Mother heard of them as they used to say "opening fire" in Sydney. She read of their work, their evangelism, of the way they were persecuted. Mother was thrilled. Our poor weak-willed minister used to talk to Mother about them and more than once I remember him praying in the pulpit for the new movement. Then one day word came to Mudgee that the Salvation Army was coming to Mudgee. The Mudgee corps was opened by Capt. and Mrs Owen. Six months was the usual term for officers those days.
Then Capt. and Mrs Veitch came along. Mother was just longing to get into Mudgee to see the Army, so one day, in she went. How she got in I don’t remember. There were no railway trains to Mudgee those days, no motor cars either, a mail coach ran once daily. But we usually used to do the 18-mile trip by spring cart. Sometimes if we had an extra load we would do the journey by horse and dray. That would take 6 or 7 hours, or more. I have since (in modern times) done the journey by motor car in half an hour.
Well Mother lost no time hunting up the S.A. The first meeting Mother attended she felt she was just in the seventh heaven. Up on to the platform she went, and sat beside Mrs Veitch. Then she told Mrs Veitch that she was a Christian and would like to have a word. Mother’s request of was of course granted and there and then my dear Mother gave her first testimony in a Salvation Army service.
Arrangements were made on that visit for a copy of the War Cry to come to us every week, of course it was passed on to others. Soon a small War Cry round was established. War Crys were sent out from Mudgee to our place and yours truly, then just a small boy, was often sent out with a bundle of War Crys to deliver. Thus I became one of the first War Cry boomers in Gulgong. I remember one day having to call on a Mrs Katie Devit. How Mrs Devit became a War Cry customer I don’t know. However one day I went to deliver to Mrs D. her War Cry. I knocked, a voice said "come in". In I went and to my surprise and horror, there was poor old Katie sitting before the fire smoking an old short stemmed clay pipe. I remember disposing of the War Cry and making my exit as soon as possible. It was the first time I ever saw a woman smoking.
Another of my customers was up in the town to my old Congregational Sunday School Superintendent, Mr Barnett, at his blacksmith’s shop and coach works. It used to fascinate me to see them shoeing the horses and seeing the sparks flying from the anvil, seeing them working the bellows etc. I little thought that in a few years’ time I would be an apprentice serving my time in the same shop. But it was not under Mr Barnett, it was under Mr Jim Gudgeon.
Well it was naturally not very long before we had representatives of the Mudgee corps out at Gulgong spying out the land. Of course it was Mother who got them out. I remember among the first company who came out was a Miss Annie Rowel, elder sister to Mrs General Carpenter. She, Mrs Carpenter, was Miss Minnie Rowel those days. Of course our place was their rendezvous. We young children were sent off about our business while Mum and Dad entertained the distinguished visitors. Anne Rowel became Mrs Colonel Harris. There and then Gulgong became an outpost of the Mudgee corps. Arrangements were made that the meetings be held in our disused Congregational Church building.
At the appointed day Capt. Veitch with his company came out to Gulgong for the first Salvation Army service to be held in our town. The Capt. was a tall, well-built Scotsman with a sandy beard. He used to play a cornet. That’s what I liked about him. We younger children were not allowed to attend that first service, but of course we heard Mother and Father and our elder bros and sisters talking about it. There was of course the usual trouble with the roughs, but not a great deal. The fact is the Army was received in our town with open arms and went ahead with leaps and bounds, and in a very short time Gulgong possessed an independent corps.
The corps was opened by Capt. Veitch and a large company of Mudgee people came out for the great occasion. Our first officers were two lassies, Captain Emmie Cummins and Lieutenant Briant. They did a great work and were loved by everybody. My Mother and Father became members and my bro. Will and the elder sisters of the family got converted and joined up and we youngsters were sent to the junior Sunday school and eventually got saved and became S.A. soldiers so that the Farthing families both in Gulgong and Mudgee became well known as Salvation Army families. I don’t think there are any Farthings left in Gulgong now but the Mudgee family have greatly increased and there are still quite a number of them doing good work in the local corps and I am happy to say in and around Sydney and other cities of Australia. And in other country towns members of our families are serving God in the ranks of the dear old Army.
