Rythdale - the origin of the name

Rythdale is a locality towards the western end of the Koo Wee Rup Swamp. It is a small pocket of land bordered on three sides by Pakenham South; on the south by Koo Wee Rup North and also partially on the west by Cardinia. It was a Soldier Settlement area - Soldier's Road in Rythdale is a reminder of this fact. The properties which were sub-divided by the Closer Settlement Board to create this Soldier Settlement area were known as McGregor's and Hagelthorn's. McGregor's of 2,208 acres was divided into 37 blocks with an average size of 60 acres and Hagelthorn's of 1,560 acres, had 14 blocks with the average size of 111 acres (1).

The new settlers needed a school and on November 10, 1924 McGregor's Estate School, No. 4231 opened in a room of a house. It later moved to a house until the new hall opened in  February 1927 and the school relocated there. The school closed in September 1951 and the pupils moved to Pakenham Consolidated School.  In December 1970, the Council Building Inspector ordered the Rythdale Hall to be demolished. (2). 

The name of the area changed in 1926 to Rythdale and on September 30, 1926, the name of the school was also changed (3).  There seems to be some mystery as to where the name came from, Les Blake in his Place Names of Victoria (4) book says it is apparently a coined word and this is repeated in Look to the Rising Sun: a history of Cardinia and District (5).

However, I came across this article (reproduced below) about James Cuming's estate, Rythdale in the South Bourke & Mornington Journal of January 27, 1909, and this is clearly the source of the name of the town.

 The Rythdale Estate: Koo Wee Rup Swamp

A visit was paid a few weeks ago to the above estate, and, as affording an example of what can be done with apparently irreclaimable wastes, may be of some interest to readers. This estate, comprising some 1,600 acres, was bought five years ago by Mr Jas. Cuming, jun. of the firm of Messers Cuming, Smith & Co. It was then overgrown with ti-tree and "tussocks," and in winter the most part under water, and, only about 50 acres cleared. Mr Cuming was, however, fortunate in securing the services of a very able and capable manager in Mr. Ed. Wright, formerly of the Goulburn district, a gentleman of wide experience and dogged pluck, and under his supervision this property has been transformed from a wilderness into one of the most cultivated and up-to date farming and grazing estates in this State. 

It is divided into 23 paddocks, containing six dams with three windmills on different portions of it. At the time of visiting, the reapers and binders were in full swing, and some 16 hands busily employed. Besides the large produce enterprise Mr Cuming makes a speciality of pedigree Ayrshire stock and Clydesdale draught horses. The dairy herd is composed of 15 pedigree Ayrshire cows, 10 pedigree calves and two pedigree Ayrshire bulls. All these cows are prize winners at different shows in the State; several at the Royal Agricultural Show; and only lately one young bull was sold for 32 guineas and resold immediately for 50 guineas, winning at the last Royal Agricultural Show in a class of 40 yearling bulls. 

 Cora, a typical example of the Ayrshire females in the herd of Mr. J. Cuming, jun., 

of Rythdale Stud Farm, Pakenham. 

Leader December 18, 1909 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/197074981#

The Clydesdale draught stock are a splendid collection, some prize winners and one champion, including a beautiful Clydesdale stallion. There is also a small select stud flock of 1000 Leicester sheep; grazing for fattening purposes. Close to the homestead a new tank has been sunk, 19ft. x 17ft., capable of holding 40,000gal.; a silo, carrying 60 tons of ensilage; milking sheds, 15 stalls with three loose boxes and feed-room; separating-room; men's-room; boxes for stallions and bulls; stables for 20 horses; and two large sheds each being capable of receiving 200 tons of hay. 

All work such as chaff, wood cutting, &c. is done on the estate. There has of course been a large outlay in reclaiming this land, but it clearly shows what enterprise can do, and too much praise cannot be given to Mr Cuming for the example he has set, and Mr. Wright for the work he has done. The monthly wages alone average from £50 to £80. The cream from the dairy herd is sent weekly to Melbourne; the cow test is carefully kept every week and milk weighed, each cow making from 10 to 13lbs of butter per week. 

The article finishes off with Mr Cuming's other interests - a farm at Shady Creek, also large manure manufactory at Yarraville, an acid and tar manufactory and, saw mills at Warburton, where alone he has £40,000 in the last two years (8).

It was, of course, the manure and acid and tar manufactories at Yarraville which enabled Mr Cuming to finance his agricultural pursuits. James Cuming (1861-1920) was the son of James and Elizabeth (also known as Betsy, nee Smith) Cuming. James senior and his brother-in-law, George Smith and a Melbourne merchant, Charles Campbell, purchased Robert Smith's acid works in Yarraville in 1872. James was born in 1835 in Aberdeen, Scotland (as were Smith and Campbell) and undertook a farrier's apprenticeship. In the 1850s the Cuming family migrated to New Brunswick in Canada (9).

James senior moved from Canada across the border to Portland in Maine (where James junior was born), before migrating with Betsy and the children to Victoria in 1862. He established a forge and with the money he saved was able to buy the acid works in partnership. The business was called Cuming Smith & Co. James was self taught in Chemistry, studying it at night at the Melbourne Public Library and thus had scientific knowledge and more importantly drive and energy (10).  The Company expanded, took over a bone mill (bones were used to make fertilizer) and then moved into the superphosphate business.

In 1897, Cuming Smith & Co. combined with Felton, Grimwade & Co.'s acid and chemical works at Port Melbourne and James junior became the General Manager of the Company (11). Around the time James Cuming purchased Rythdale, Cuming, Smith & Co. was the largest and oldest manufacturers of manures and acids in Australasia (12) and their plant occupied 14 acres at Yarraville (13) and in the busy season employed over 600 men (14).

James junior did not have to study Chemistry in the Public Library after work like his father. He and his three brothers were educated at Melbourne Grammar School and James undertook further study in industrial chemistry (15). Such was his interest in Chemistry that in 1923, three years after his death, the James Cuming Memorial Chemistry building was presented to the University of Melbourne by Cuming, Smith & Co., in his memory (16). 

A delightful informal photograph of James Cuming, junior, and his wife Alice (nee Fehon) and their children - Alice, Henry, baby 'Mac', Will and Jack. 

Image: John Lack's A History of Footscray (Hargreen Publishing 1991) p. 173.

The first record of James Cuming junior owning land on the Koo Wee Rup Swamp was in the 1903 Shire of Berwick Rate books where he is listed as owning  557 acres, being Lots 4a and 4b, Parish of Pakenham and 282 acres, being part Lots 65a and 66a, Parish of Nar Nar Goon (17). Lots 4a and 4b were bounded by Cardinia Road on the west, Watson Road on the north, Toomuc Creek on the east and Wenn Road on the south. The Lots in the Nar Nar Goon Parish were on the east side of Toomuc Creek, south of Watson Road (in fact they were originally owned by G. Watson) and west of Koo Wee Rup-Pakenham Road. The locality of Rythdale is located right in the middle of his holdings that were situated on the east of Toomuc Creek. 

Part of James Cuming's Dispersal sale advertisement, October 1912. 

The entire advertisement is reproduced in Footnote 18.

The Age October 22, 1912 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/203318494

The first reference to Rythdale as the name of Cuming's property is in December 1905 (19). He was not in the area for long as he had a clearing sale in October 1912 where he disposed of his livestock, plant and equipment as well as 640 acres. The sale advertisement said that he had already sold the homestead block (20).  There are references in the newspaper of Frederick Hagelthorn owning Rythdale from around 1916 until 1920 (21). In 1918 the Berwick Shire Rate Books list Hagelthorn's holdings as 993 acres - Lots 64a, 64b, 65a, 66a and 93, Parish of Pakenham; 251 acres Lot 95, Parish of Nar Nar Goon and 232 acres Lots 90 and 97, Parish of Nar Nar Goon - a total of 1,476 acres. 

Hagelthorn was a Stock and Station agent as well as a member of the Legislative Council from 1907 until 1919. In his Parliamentary career, he championed farming interests and steered bills dealing with closer settlement, railways, water distribution and education through the ponderous deliberations of the Legislative Council whose members objected to his barn-storming tactics (22). One hundred years down the track this interest in Closer Settlement and selling some of his land to the Closer Settlement Board would seem like a conflict of interest.

I firmly believe that the small town of Rythdale took its name from Cuming's property, later owned by Frederick Hagelthorn. James Cuming had died in 1920, but it is more than possible that it was Hagelthorn who suggested the name of Rythdale for the new town.

What is the origin of the name Rythdale? It does not appear in the Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Placenames (23).  However, there was a house in Moseley, a suburb of Birmingham, in England called Rythdale. I found the following references in the Birmingham Daily Post on Newpapers.com, an Ancestry.com add-on. The database includes English, Scottish, Irish, American and Canadian papers but the Birmingham Daily Post provided the only results on the name apart from twenthieth century references to the local town. The earliest report came from 1873. 

The first mention I could find of Rythdale was this advertisement for a servant in 1873. 

Birmingham Daily Post October 22, 1873

Death notice of Eleanor Howes of Rythdale, Moseley

Birmingham Daily Post  19 November 19, 1886, 

Advertising Rythdale for lease

Birmingham Daily Post  February 16, 1888.

Sale of Rythdale, Park Street, Moseley

Birmingham Daily Post February 16, 1895 

There were two other references I found to Rythdale which are closer to home. There was a property at Byaduk, south of Hamilton in Victoria called Rythdale. It was owned by Thomas Harper. His daughter Selina married Albert Brand in October 1899 (see notice, below) and his sixth daughter, Annie married Archibald Forsyth in September 1902 (24).

Marriage of Selina Harper, of Rythdale, Byaduk.

Hamilton Spectator, November 11, 1899 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/226135418

The other reference to a Rythdale I found was that of the Reverend Rythdale Richards. He was an Evangelist who, in April 1890, held services in Hastings and Dromana with Miss Gilbert, the talented lady Evangelist (25).  I have no other information about him, but it is a curious and unusual given name.

The Reverend Rythdale Richard preaches at Dromana.

Mornington Standard, April 26 1890 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/6393233

I cannot connect James Cuming junior or his wife Alice Fehon, whom he married in 1885 (26), to Rythdale in Moseley, Rythdale in Byaduk or the Reverend Rythdale Richards, so as yet I do not know why Cuming called his property Rythdale.   However, it was a name that had been used before Rythdale the town on the Koo Wee Rup Swamp came into existence and Cuming's use of the name for his property is clearly the source of the name of the town.

Trove list

I have created a list of articles on Trove on James Cuming and Rythdale, access it here.

Footnotes

(1) Gunson, Niel  The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire (Cheshire, 1968). p. 273.

(2) Williams, Eileen & Beard, Jewel  Look to the Rising Sun: a history of Cardinia and District including Rythdale and Pakenham South (Back to Cardinia Committee, 1984) 

Vision and Realisation: a centenary history of State Education in Victoria, edited by L.J. Blake. (Education Department of Victoria, 1973)

Look to the Rising Sun has two photos of Rythdale School pupils - one from 1929 the other from 1935 and also a full list of students. 

Demolition of the Rythdale Hall

Koo Wee Rup Sun December 2, 1970 p. 10

(3) Williams & Beard, op. cit., p. 64.

(4) Blake, Les  Place Names of Victoria (Rigby, 1977), p. 232.

(5) Written by Eileen Williams and Jewel Beard, see footnote 2.

(6) James Cuming (1861-1920). Read his entry, written by John Lack, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, here.

(7) South Bourke & Mornington Journal January 27, 1909, see here.

(8) South Bourke & Mornington Journal January 27, 1909, see here.

(9) Information about James Cuming senior comes from 

Lack, John  A History of Footscray (Hargreen Publishing 1991)

Cuming, James  James Cuming: an autobiography. Edited by John Lack and M. A. Cuming (City of Footscray Historical Society, 1987)

Footscray's first 100 years: the story of a great Australian City (City of Footscray, 1959)

(10) Information in this paragraph as per Footnote 9. The quote about James Cuming's drive and energy is from John Lack's History of Footscray, p. 93.

(11) James Cuming's entry, wrtten by John Lack, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, here.

(12) Ovens  & Murray Advertiser, September 2, 1905, see here.

(13) The Leader, September 16 1905, see here.

(14) Healesville & Yarra Glen Guardian September 23, 1905, see here.

(15) As per Footnote 11.

(16) See my Trove list, here, for reports of the opening.

(17) Shire of Berwick Rate Books, available at Casey Cardinia Libraries.

(18) James Cuming's Dispersal sale advertisement from The Age, October 22, 1912, see also here.

(19) Weekly Times December 23, 1905, see here.

(20) The Age October 22, 1912, see here. Sale advertisement reproduced in Footnote 18.

(21) See my Trove list, here, for reports.

(22) Frederick Hagelthorn (1864-1943), read his entry, written by J. W. Graham, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, here.

(23) Ekwall, Eilert The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names (Oxford University Press, 1951)

(24) Annie Harper's wedding report was in the Hamilton Spectator of September 23, 1902, see here.

(25)  Mornington Standard, April 19, 1890 see here and Mornington Standard, April 26, 1890, see here.

(26) James Cuming married Alice Fehon on February 3, 1885 at St John's Church in Footscray. She was the daughter of William Meeke Fehon (1834-1911), read his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, here. James and Alice had six children - William (b. 1885), James (1887-1888), Henry (1888), James (1890), Alice (1894) and Marianus (1902). 

Marriage of James Cuming and Alice Fehon, 1885

Footscray Independent, February 7, 1885 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article73246780