Or they may not. It's not very big.
I must admit that I can't remember taking note of it when I first went to La Perouse to visit Bear Island in the 1970's. Little did I know then what a close connection it has with my family.
The Randwick and District Historical Society has an excellent encapsulation of the Tower's history here. In a nutshell, it says that the Tower (also called the Barrack Tower) was probably built in the early 1820's although there is no known documentary evidence of its origin. Over the years it has been a military outpost, a Customs Station, a school and a residence for caretakers and tenants. The original sandstone tower was enhanced with skillions and outbuildings in the early days but these were destroyed by fire in 1957. The original tower was restored in 1961 and under the National Parks and Wildlife underwent major refurbishment in 2010.
So where does my family figure in all of this?
Back in the wild Colonial days with smugglers, escaped convicts and other shifty characters looking for surreptitious ways into or out of old Sydney Town the entrance to Botany Bay was a critical outpost. Enter David Goodsir, my great great grandfather, appointed Landing Waiter at La Perouse in 1832 and later promoted to Coast Waiter. David had worked as a Tidewaiter for the Colonial Customs Department since its establishment in 1827. This entity has since morphed into the Australian Border Force.
David and his wife Hannah (nee Coatman) married in 1833 and lived in the old Tower until David was appointed Tide Surveyor at Williamtown (Vic) in 1841. They had five children in that time - David James Cook (don't you just love that name?), Thomas, twins William and Alice Coatman and James Tod. Little William died aged just 11 months. My great grandmother, Hannah, was born in Williamtown in late 1841.
I love visiting the Tower. I touch its weathered walls. I sit on the flat sandstone outcrops nearby and imagine the Goodsir children playing there. I gaze eastward and see the Pacific Ocean as David and Hannah would have known it. I turn westward to take in busy Port Botany, Bare Island, Kurnell Oil refinery and Sydney Airport and compare it to the fledgling settlement of fishermen's cottages bordered by the scrubby bushland and marshes that the Goodsirs knew. I see cars, buses, trucks, yatchs, cargo ships and jumbo jets and wonder what they would have made of our 20th Century civilization. And I remember the stories about this family and their time at Macquarie Tower.
Anne Lorimer Sheppard is my third cousin also descended from this Goodsir family. We co-authored The Tidewaiter's Legacy (2012, Sydney, Pergola Press) to remember this family and several generations of their descendants. In Chapter 1 Anne describes the Goodsirs' time at La Perouse, bringing them to life and fitting them into their part of history.
My favourite story about David and Hannah was found in Baron Carl von Hugel's New Holland Journal in a report he wrote after his visit to the Tower in 1834.
[I was] hospitably received by Goodsir who appeared as the picture of domestic bliss and utter content as I have seldom seen and I was deeply moved. Living here in a dilapidated building with the rain breaking in from all sides, cut off from the world, together with his young wife, he finds his happiness in her and his son - still but a few weeks old. He invited me to dine but I refused.(1)
Thank you Baron von Hugel - I too was deeply moved.
Few are privileged to have a close association with such
a unique building. Discovering my family's connection to the old Macquarie Tower has been one of the special moments on my path to the past.
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| Macquarie Tower 2016 (Lyn Hancock) |
(1) Hügel, Carl, Freiherr von & Clark, Dymphna, 1916-2000 & Hnatiuk, R. J & State Library of New South Wales 1994,New Holland journal : November 1833-October 1834, Melbourne Melbourne University Press at the Miegunyah Press in association with the State Library of New South Wales
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