by Jenny Golding
Updated: 20 March 2024
HOME, FARM, POST OFFICE, STAGING POST
Built in Dardanup in the early 1860s along the road to Ferguson, The Poplars, home to the Irish Maguire family, became the town’s first Post Office and a staging post for teamsters and bullocks carting timber from Wellington Mills to build the Bunbury Wharf.
John and Catherine (nee McGuiness), Maguire arrived into the Leschenault Estuary, Bunbury, in 1842 aboard the Trusty. With them were John’s parents, James and Ann, and John’s 12-year-old brother, James.
John and James Jnr. were to make their mark on the success of Dardanup; John, affectionately known as a “Lord John,” James, white beard flowing, popularly known as “Big Jim.”
Prior to buying their farm and building their Dardanup home, the family lived at Australind and the Blackwood and managed Prinsep Park, Dardanup, where John and Catherine’s four children were born between 1852 and 1858 and where James Maguire Snr. died in 1858.
John Maguire became the area’s first Postmaster in October 1867, supported undoubtedly by his busy family. The Post Office was in a room and enclosed veranda of their two-storeyed house. Mail came and went with men on horseback, letters and parcels moving between Bunbury and Donnybrook/Bridgetown.
Catherine died on 12 September 1875 when she fell down the house stairs and her lantern burst into flames, causing dreadful upper body burns.
John ceased as the Postmaster in 1877 and, on 31 January 1882, offered the property for sale.
FARM TO LET OR FOR SALE
“It comprises 172 acres of first-class land, seventy acres cleared for cultivation and divided into eight fields; one hundred acres in two paddocks, all fenced in. Also, a good supply of farming implements. The property is situated in a most eligible position for the business of a Wayside Inn, Store and Butchering for the Saw Mills., being on the side of the main road 10 miles from Bunbury and 9 miles from the saw mills. There is a population of between 30 and 40 farmers within a radius of five miles around the property. Also, a large DWELLING HOUSE which, with very little expense can be fitted up to 13 rooms, 9 on the ground floor and four upper rooms, and two splendid wells of water and a hay shed (36ft. by 18ft. by 16 feet high) full of good wheaten hay. Stock yards and stabling for eight horses. A Blacksmith’s and Carpenter’s shop, with a good supply of tools. A good team of horses and wagons, complete for timber hauling. Also, one strong carriage, can seat six persons, and double set of harness. Also, several good Carriage and Saddle horses. There is a five-acre Vineyard and half-acre Orchard on the property.”
The property was bought by Frank de la Motte Johnston (son of Harley R. Johnston and Mary Louisa Clifton) and his wife, Elizabeth (Victor). Frank and Elizabeth Johnston had six children: Victor Robert, born in Perth 1877; Amy Elizabeth, born in Perth 1879; Elinor Caroline, born at Moorlands 1881; Mary Louisa, Albert Frank, Claude Barclay, all born in Dardanup in 1883, 1885 and 1888 respectively.
The Poplars featured in the book, “Twentieth Century Impressions of Western Australia,” printed in 1901 by P. W. H. Thiel and Co. The article states:
The Poplars, as Mr. Johnston’s property is named, affords splendid evidence of the adaptability of the soil of the Dardanup District for fruit-growing, especially for apples and apricots. Mr. Johnston’s property consists of two holdings – the one being 200 acres in extent and in this stands the homestead. The other holding comprises 620 acres. In all, some 260 acres have been cleared and cultivated. Mr. Johnston is a believer in adopting all machinery improvements and, as a result, his property is stocked with all the latest labour-saving devices known to the agriculturist.
Daughter, Amy Johnston, married Jasper Hyde Brett in 1908 in Dardanup and the marriage and reception were held in the garden and house. Frank died in 1920.
Frank Richards, who married Eileen McCarthy, in St Mary’s Church, Dardanup, in October 1926, described the home as it was when his parents bought The Poplars in June 1920.
“The house was far from first class but was double-storeyed, had thirteen rooms, three fireplaces, one of the three with a double chimney. One chimney was in the kitchen, one in the dining room, one in the front room – the parlour. Some rooms were large, some small.
The outside walls of the house were almost all built of slabs, face-cuts, some of the timber four to five inches thick, mud and plaster between the boards. There was a wooden veranda on the north side and on the west side a seven-foot-high veranda, five or six foot wide.
Inside the house, the walls of the main room were of single brick, papered over with dark, flowered paper. Some walls were just plastered and white-washed. A big dining/sitting room was on the left of the passage as you entered from the front. A passage-way went from East to West, front door on the West, and the staircase was of polished jarrah. The stairs went up directly to a landing and two large bedrooms with very small windows, made with old-fashioned small square panes of glass, reminiscent of Cliftons’ home, Upton House at Australind.
The main bedroom was on the right of the passage and was attached to a small room, a dressing room.
Opposite the staircase was a door leading to a dark room right in the centre of the house, lined with jarrah slabs, cut out in the bush and 10 to 12 feet long. It was used for storage for jams and other foods as there was not a cellar. The dark room led to two bedrooms, walked through one by the other, plastered and white-washed. One had a window to a veranda and one opened onto a veranda.
Continuing down the passage, on the right was the kitchen and on the left, a breakfast/dining room, both fairly large. The breakfast-room had the double chimney. There were windows to look onto the driveway and a door to the Post Office, an added part with enclosed veranda. There was a door onto the veranda.
In the kitchen was a Metters stove. There were benches, made on the property and there for bread-making and general use. There were no shelves. The old brick oven was separate, about 10 to 12 feet away from the house and the bricks were probably made on the property. A little lean-to covered the brick oven-cum-bakehouse. It was the type where the fire was raked out before the bread was set to cook with the heat of the bricks.
A ‘separating’ room, eighteen by twenty feet went off the kitchen through an opening that was not a proper door. It was a semi-open room to the veranda. It could have been originally part of the kitchen. There was a pantry to keep milk, cream etc. and a drainage board on the floor.”
With two wells, there was always plenty of water, one, a jarrah-lined well, right in front of the house and close to the Ferguson Road.
The water in the house came from a brick well and later a four-inch bore was put down into this well and a windmill used. This water was used for the house and for stock. Water was taken into the house in buckets. Lighting was kerosene lamps, later Aladdin lamps.
There was also a little house nearby, one room, eight-foot square, one door, one window with little panes, no veranda and an earthen floor.
A very old cowshed on the property used grass tree fronds as flooring. There was also a huge shed, very old, about sixty by forty feet, shingled and with walls made of big round jarrah posts and slabs.
Fruit trees on the farm included pears, cherry plums, peaches, apricots, quinces, oranges and grapes.”
Frank Richards said that the house was pulled down in 1937 because costs of repair were simply too much.
Eileen, an English immigrant, described her first impression of Dardanup. It had been on a January day. “I was delighted to see a cathedral avenue of trees almost from Dardanup to Prinsep Park – blue gums, absolutely beautiful over a dirt road.”
References:
- George Fee’s diaries
- Frank Richards interview 1982 Jenny Golding
- Eileen Richards interview, Jenny Golding
- James Maguire Snr. d. aged 65, Prinsep Park, 1854 Reg. 36
- Ann Maguire d. Dardanup, 1880, aged 85 Reg.10577
- Henry Maguire b. Prinsep Park 1852, Reg. 1911
- Elizabeth Maguire b. Prinsep Park 1854 Reg. 2554
- Ann Maguire b. Prinsep Park 1856 Reg. 3262
- Mary Maguire b. Prinsep Park 1858 Reg. 4156
- John Maguire d. aged 70, Geraldton 1881 Reg. 605
- F. de la Motte Johnston d. aged 68, Bunbury 1920 Reg. 6600052
- Francis John Richards d. aged 71, Bunbury 1984 Reg. 6600250.
Images:
- The Poplars c. 1900, Twentieth Century Impressions of WA (1901), P W H Thiel & Co, Perth, p. 555
Dardanup Heritage Collective 