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1921
11 March 1921
MEMORIAL UNVEILED.
TRIBUTE TO PIONEERS.
(FROM OUR SPECIAL REPORTER.)
MUDGEE, Thursday.
Mudgee to-day was the rendezvous not only of thousands of show visitors, but of those who wished to see the street pageant at the unveiling of a monument in honour of the pioneers. Before the procession went by the main streets were nearly as congested as George-street, Sydney, on a week day.
The procession fell short in some details of the committee's anticipations. It was in-tended to be truly historical and allegorical, but it was without its goddesses "Where are the goddesses?" the spectators asked "Where are the bushrangers" exuberant youths inquired of their parents and "Where are the bullock teams, the Cobb's coaches, the centenary queens, and the kangaroos" were questions which were asked all along the streets. No one was able to account satisfactorily for their absence.
However, the procession was sufficiently long and diversified to please the majority. The aboriginals, about 20 of them in civilian clothes and carrying boomerangs and native weapons, walked behind the pioneers and early settlers who were comfortably seated in motor cars. At the head of the parade were four mounted troopers, whose aristocratic horses walked in perfect line and behaved admirably.
Among the pioneers were Mr. and Mrs. Large, Mrs. Thomas Farmer, Mrs. A. A. Thurgood, Mrs. Talbot, Mr. E. W. Phillips, Mr. E. Scifleet, Mrs. Bridget Gallagher, Mr. W. T. Rheinberger, Mrs. H. Field, Mrs. Andrew Baker, and Mr. Charles Wilson. Some of these have been identified with the Mudgee district for 60 years. Mr. Phillips and Mr. Scifleet formed a lodge of the Grand United Order of Oddfellows in 1865.
With banners and regalia the members of the various lodges and St. Patricks Guild substantially lengthened the procession, which included decorated motor cars, firemen, scouts, citizens, cadets, men in court costume, postilions, and bushmen. There were impersonators of Lieutenant Lawson, the Blackmans, and the squatters of bygone days. Two bands took part. The procession halted at the pioneers' obelisk for the unveiling ceremony.
This memorial, which has been erected in Mudgee in honour of Lieutenant William Lawson (explorer), James and John Blackman, and George and Henry Cox (pioneers of the district), was unveiled by Mr. K. R. Cramp, president of the Historical Society.
This function was the most important of the centenary celebrations. A platform had been erected a short distance from the obelisk and round this there gathered scores of white haired pioneers, some bent with age, some supporting themselves on sticks, or on the arms of friends, but all intent upon hearing as best they could the life story and achievements of a man whose fame and intrepidity were perhaps better known to them than to the multitude.
Mr. Cramp said that in erecting a memorial to one of our great explorers the citizens had performed a threefold service. They were paying an honour long overdue to the pioneers, fostering a spirit of hero worship - in itself an ennobling influence much underrated in Australia - and creating an interest in the past, thereby helping to develop and give direction to an Australian sentiment and tradition. The story of one's own country should have an attraction for every citizen.
"And now that Mudgee enthrones Lawson and Blackman, explorers, and George and Henry Cox, its pioneers, I trust that the memory of Captain Charles Stuart and Sir Thomas Mitchell will be similarly honoured by towns further west," said Mr. Cramp. "All honour to these pioneers, who rank in merit with the Pilgrim Fathers of America".
He sketched the career of Lieut. William Lawson, and recalled his close historical association with William Charles Wentworth, whom Mr. Cramp described as Australia's greatest patriot. These two, with Gregory Blaxland as leader, immortalised themselves, he said, when they crossed the barrier which for a quarter of a century had kept the little community cramped and confined on the narrow coastal fringe of the State. Alluding to a controversy as to whom should be given the credit of having first discovered Mudgee, he said he accepted the statement that Blackman discovered the Cudgegong River and the Mudgee district, but was barred from actually reaching the site of the township by a dense mass of reeds, and that therefore Lawson was in all probability the first actually to traverse the site. The controversy emphasised the need for the preservation of old records, journals, and letters, and the recollections of the pioneers.
A combined choir under the direction of Mr. R. J. Loneragan sang two verses of an anthem entitled "Hail, Pioneers," composed by Mr. C. D. Smith, organising secretary of the centenary celebrations. The town band played "Australia for Ever," and the ceremony, which was witnessed by 5000 people, concluded with cheering for Lawson and the pioneers. Among those on the platform wore Mr. V. D. Cox, president of the centenary celebrations, Senator Cox, Mr. Fleming, M. P., Mr. Ashford, M.L.A., Mr. Aubrey Halloran of the Royal Historical Society, Mr. R. D. Bawden, the mayors of Mudgee and Cudgegong, and Mr. D. B. Acton, of Sydney, who supplied and erected the obelisk.
ln Lawson Park last night a bullock was roasted in the open air, and a large crowd gathered round the fire and gazed interestedly at the operations.
To-morrow is the children's day, when all the schools in the district will take part in a pageant in honour of the centenary1
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