Talk:Earlwood, New South Wales
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[edit] Bits directly copied from the canterbury council website
I've removed the following text, it was a direct copy of the content on the canterbury council website (http://www.canterbury.nsw.gov.au/www/html/864-history-of-earlwood.asp).
Since white settlement the district of Earlwood has been known by four names. The earliest name was "Parkes Camp" derived from the Parkes family's name and an inference to the profession of John and his sons - at this time "camp" denoted the headquarters of a group of sawyers. John Parkes was a convict transported on the Bardwell in 1797 for seven years for stealing "a great coat, called a beaver coat, worth sixteen shillings". In 1803 he married Margaret Southern and during 1816 was granted 50 acres in the Botany Bay District. On receipt of this grant, he crossed Cooks River, looked around, and selected his 50 acres at the top of a ridge, surrounded by ironbanks, red mahogony trees and gullies full of ferns, flannel flowers and gymea lillies. John Parkes' property was situated in the centre of Earlwood. The western boundary was the top end of Woolcott Street and the southern boundary was along William Street from Woolcott Street to Homer Street. Prior to the 1830s there was a feud in the district regarding right of way across properties to reach the bridge and punt over Cooks River. Once this crossing was established, the Parkes family could earn a good living as sawyers, cutting down the ironbarks and other eucalypts to supply Sydney with building timber and firewood. John then moved his family to the land granted in 1816. By this time the elder of John and Margaret's eleven surviving children were married and the population of the district increased substantially once they moved. The grant became commonly known as Parkes' camp, although the family used the more picturesque names of "Parks Folly" and Mount Clear". By about the 1870s the name of the district had changed from Parkes Camp to Parkestown, as the timber was cut out and the local people changed their occupations to suit the resources. Some people from this vicinity gave their address as Forest Hill, a name not associated with any particular family, but described the landscape as it had once been. The first known use of the name Earlwood or at least a close version of it, was when Mrs Jane Earl subdivided her land before she sold it in 1884. "The Earlewood Estate" was used as the name of the property when it was surveyed to bring it under Torrens Title later that year. Most of this land was re-subdivided in 1905. This appars to explain the origin of the name, but over the years, there have been a number of suggestions as to how Earlwood got its name. One was that it was named after Earl (alleged incorrectly to have been a one time Mayor of Bexley living on the Bexley side of Wolli Creek) and the Wood Brothers (who had a pig and poultry farm in the locality). The Hocking family say that, when a new name for the suburb was being sought, Walter Henry Hocking thought that, as the brothers had been members of the Earlswood Cricket and Recreation Club at Waterloo, this would be as good a name as any, but the Secretary of the Progress Association wrote down Earlwood. A descendant of Mrs Earl claimed she opened a tavern in the Earlwood area in the late 1880s and called it Earl's Wood, which had been the name of her family's property in England, from which she had migrated. In any case, the Progress Association continued to use the name Forest Hill for many years. A person who came to Forest Hill in 1905 said many years later: "This hill was then a veritable beauty spot, abounding in giant trees, green valleys and wild flowers. In the bushland, Christmas Bush, Flannel Flowers, Rock Lilies and Native Fuchsias grew in profusion, while fields of maize waved in the breeze and the songs of the birds added to its charm;...". Around about 1910 most of the area was covered with scrub and forest. Homer Street was a mere track and a little group of people lived at Undercliffe. There was a dairy on Wolli Creek and one on Wardell Road. Early shopkeepers were McDonald, who had a butcher's shop on the corner of Homer Street near Undercliffe; and James Steele had a barber's business about 1917. The first picture show was blown down and then in about 1920, Mr. Hocking built another show and also some shops in Homer Street. The Hocking family lived in a big home on the site of the present Roman Catholic Church at Earlwood. Transport in the early days was provided by Brady's horse-drawn bus which ran from Marrickville to William Street about every hour. Passengers had to walk up the hill from Undercliffe. Early residents included F. and A. Martin who were granted land in the eastern part and Joshua Thorpe whose 80 acre estate was in the west, stretching from Cooks River to Wolli Creek. Abraham B. Pollack acquired eight grants in the 1830s, totalling 790 acres and covered most of Earlwood and Undercliffe. Subdivision began in the 1880s. After World War I, a war services subdivision was created west of Wardell Road for retired soldiers and their families. The streets of that subdivision commemorate the names of famous men and battles connected with the war, such as Kitchener, Hamilton, Vimy, Hamel, Fricourt and Guedecourt.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blu3d (talk • contribs) 12:16, 24 January 2007 (UTC).
I'd like to know the source for the early history, especially the name 'Forest Hill.' I have birth and death certificates for people living right in the middle of present day Earlwood with residences listed as Parkes Camp (early) and Parkestown (later.) The source of Canterbury Council disagrees with Wikipedia.
