History Notes - more about William Crowley

History Notes

Another successful market held on what turned out to be a lovely Saturday morning. There were a nice number of visitors as well as some former residents returning for the weekend. Cakes and biscuits were easily the most popular purchase followed by plants, honey and books.

There are a few improvements going on at the Museum including a waste pipe to take the overflow from the tank out into the street and a new fence to replace the wooden fence which was falling down. Hopefully our renovations out the back will be ready for visitors before too long.

To continue with Uncle Archibald Crowley from Cobbadah station. He turned his thoughts to the Ministry as he approached his 30th Birthday. He matriculated at the University of Sydney and won a B.A. He then went on to the Theological Hall in 1907. He was Licensed by the Presbytery of Sydney in 1911.

He was ordained and inducted to Taralga on 30th April, 1912, but after three years there, the state of his health compelled him to resign. He was able to accept a call to Borowa in 1927, and demitted that charge in 1929. He was inducted to Urana in 1937, to close a long vacancy in the parish, and his pastorate of eleven years there was useful and quietly successful. It ended with his demission in 1948, when the Assembly gave him status as Minister Emeritus.

He continued to supply work, mainly in the country, towards which his interest naturally turned, and where he was able to increase his already considerable knowledge of Australian flora and fauna. He also devoted much time to the scout movement.

When he felt unable to continue parish work, he returned to the city. Eventually he secured a bachelor flat at Dee Why, but he had barely settled into it when he died peacefully while asleep, on August 31st, 1961, in his 85th year.

Archibald's letter to his sister in 1933 included the following:- In 1864, the year of the great floods, father {William} and party, I think while he was still in partnership with his brother, John, undertook a station forming partnership to a place in the Warrego, a tributary of the Barwon. They took 800 head of cattle and carried supplies of flour etc on the dray, which we knew so well at Cobbadah Station. The dray had to be floated with barrels fastened under it. An aboriginal, unable to swim, was pushed across lying on a bark canoe. On arrival at the place at Warrego they found they were too late. Father's party offered to sell flour, but the former would not buy, choosing to exist on beef only. Father and party returned with their 800 head of cattle.