Click here for more on the Cox Family Sources:www.winbourne.cfc.edu.au
www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au
www.winbourne.cfc.edu.au/winbourne%20indigenous%20(2).doc
George Cox of Mulgoa and Mudgee: Letters to his sons
1846 – 49. | Wiradjuri Nation: The Cox family, the Wiradjuri Nation and Winbourne and Burrundulla, cont. P.33It is known that some of the Mulgoa tribe worked at Winbourne as labourers, and the women worked as domestic servants. Cox records his praise for their work and also the fact they were paid in food and a moderate quantity of weak rum punch. The workers slept at their own ‘camps’.
It is also known the workers travelled to and fro from Winbourne at Mulgoa to the Cox farm at Burrundulla, Mudgee, moving sheep backwards and forwards to be grazed, cleaned, sheared etc. So there was regular contact between the Mulgoa clan and the Wiradjuri people.
George Henry Cox took over Winbourne when George senior died and built the stone stables in 1882 that are still standing today. There is not much evidence of the local Aboriginal people at that stage.
However, during World War II, some Aboriginal people were flown from an institution in Alice Springs to the Anglican presbytery at St Thomas’ Church, which became their home. The children attended Mulgoa Public School, and became part of the town. The mother of one of them took a job at Winbourne as a ’maid’ and her daughter, Joyce, joined her there. They lived for a while in a tiny bedroom (virtually a broom closet) off the front (eastern) verandah. Previous | Content | Next | |
