Thu 1 Oct 2009
Appendix E: Oscar Schulze – Additional Biography
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Appendix E: Oscar Schulze – Additional Biography
This is a more complete biography of Oscar Schulze, detailing his work and travels, his major projects, and more personal pursuits.
SOME MORE PHOTOGRAPHS AND INFORMATION IN REGARD TO OSCAR SCHULTZ, HIS JUNCTION REEFS DAM AND THE FIRST HAWKESBURY RIVER RAIL BRIDGE
Junction Reefs Dam
Our interest in Oscar Schultz has not ceased with the publication of the book and we have continued to find out more about him and his works.
After a visit to his dam at Junction Reefs, when I took the photographs that are in Appendix E, we stayed overnight on a nearby farm. As it turned out the farmer had had involvement in the modern open pit mining at Junctions Reefs that was completed in the late 1990s. In addition, he had a book of photographs which dated from about 1880, by a Mr Lumme. Mr Lumme had been a very well known photographer in Sydney and had then moved to Mandurama where he had photographed many of the locals and the local scenes. His photographic plates had all been lost.
However, when an old building in Mandurama was being demolished, they found under the front veranda over 1000 glass plates with all Lumme’s photographs. These glass plates were sent to the National Library in Canberra where anybody can now search them over the internet. The problem is that none of the glass plates were labelled and so it has been difficult to piece together the subjects of his photographs. It was the photographs from some of these plates that comprised the book that the farmer had in his loungeroom.
After further discussion it transpired that Mr Lumme’s great granddaughter was still alive and living on a farm at a place called Burnt Yards, which is close to Junction Reefs. We decided to visit Miss Lumme. It took us some time to find her in the dry valley of Burnt Yards, but it was a valuable find. She is an amazing lady, more than 80 years old, living on her own and still doing her sheep farming with little or no help. Her life story is amazing and warrants a separate book, but what is relevant here, is that it turned out that she had several of her great grandfather’s photographic albums and these, to my joy, included original photographs of Oscar Schultz’s dam on the Belubula Dam. On a subsequent visit I scanned these photographs and four of them a reproduced below. The young boy standing on the dam wall is not Oscar Schultz. Maybe it is Mr. Lumme’s, son?
Belubula Dam after completion 2
Belubla Dam Overtopping 2
Hawkesbury River Railway Bridge
In Appendix E we describe how Oscar Schultz came to be the engineer for the Union Bridge Company for the construction of the first Hawkesbury River Railway Bridge. In following up on Oscar, we discovered that the lady he married, Helen Ester Forsythe, was the daughter of the owner of a major rope manufacturing business in Sydney. We also discovered that construction of the Hawkesbury River Bridge involved use of some of the largest ropes ever manufactured in Australia. We have not been able to confirm it, but it is a reasonable guess that these ropes were provided by Forsythe and that this is how Oscar came to meet his future bride. In a subsequent blog we will give more information about Helen, her wealthy but rather strange father, and the Schultz children. For the present we just include a beautiful photograph we found that shows both the first and second Hawkesbury River Railway Bridges before the first was demolished and the steel used for building railway workshops at Chullora.
Hawkesbury River Rail Bridges
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January 5th, 2010 at 6:15 PM
Hello there. I am presently engrossed in your book. I am reminded of the excellent work that went into “Furnace, Fire and Forge”, the history of the Lithgow Iron Industry.
It is amazing how these bits of the jigsaw all fit together, having been lost for so long. I have been deeply interested in Industrial Archeology for over 50 years, and as a young boy, born at Cowra in 1945, I saw the tail end of a lot of these industries. The post war scrap metal boom saw the destruction of so many relics, and although i did my best to see some of it preserved, I was a lone voice.
Having succeeded in obliterating most of it, society has finally begun to appreciate it!
My excitement was great indeed, to see the Junction Reefs Dam, in your book, as I spent some time exploring this area in the 1960s…when a lot of the original infrastructure was intact.
I have been provoked into searching through the Lumme pictures on Pictureaustralia, and have recognised a few pictures of the Junction Reefs mines, also the Carcoar Iron Mine. It is interesting that I too, noticed many unlabelled, and felt that I should see what I could recognise. I shall continue to do so, and if anything significant comes up, I shall let you, or the Nat. Library know.
I visited the Mining Museum, in Sydney (at the base of the landmark ‘chimney’ next to the Harbour Bridge), about the mid 1960s, and was surprised to find on prominent display, a model of Junction Reefs Goldfield, and Herr Schulze’s Dam. I wonder if it is still there?
I have quite a lot of info and anecdotes of the mining days around the Central West, Junction Reefs, Burraga, Rorest Reefs, Mt. Macdonald, Bumbaldry, Lucknow etc., and knew people who had worked at Newnes.
Would be good to collate it all. Even insignificant bits can bring the whole story together…
Best Regards, Bob
September 28th, 2010 at 12:38 AM
Hello, my name is Colleen Sheahan-Quirk. My father’s family owned Junction Reefs and it is where I grew up. My father’s grandfather was an Irish surveyor/engineer who was commissioned by the government to survey the land west of Bathurst, I don’t know what area. The story goes that he took as part of his payment, the land granted at Junction Reefs because he felt it showed good geological signs of producing gold. As children we heard this and many stories of the mining days at the Junction from our Dad, . (who was a young lad when the mine closed at that time.) & great uncles and old timers who lived and worked at the mine. We spent our childhood rambling all over the entire property, all around the river, the waterfall , the canyon (our name for the Opencut) and in all the “caves”. Creeping along the dirt walls in the pitch black and knowing if you put a foot wrong you’d go down a mine shaft. We played on all the old abandoned mining gear and set up house in the ruins of huts. It was a dangerous but magical place to play. The old dam was a particular favourite. Although, from our side of the river it was a very tiring and rugged trek to climb the steep banks to get up there. We were friends with the farmer who owned the other side,(where the dam is) a lovely man named Jack Harris. So in the summer holidays the whole family , Mum, Dad, my brother and three sisters would all pack up tents and camping gear and holiday near the dam, on the other side of the river because it was much less rough and the river wasn’t as wild and dangerous as on our side. I’m really pleased that people are trying to preserve the history and am proud of my family’s part in the mining industry. The pictures are fantastic. My Dad has passed now, but has twin sisters in their 80s, who have all the old photos and papers which my grandmother liked to keep. I think it’s time I went for another visit and see if I can get a look in some of those old boxes of photos again. Cheers Colleen