_{By MICK ROBERTS ©}

WHEN the first public railway in NSW was opened from Redfern to Parramatta in 1855, publican William Stone, to celebrate the occasion, advertised the sale of “buckets of rum for a penny”.

Stone had recently opened his pub, the Russell Arms, near the Parramatta terminus, just in time to take advantage of the new railway. His pub would eventually become the Vauxhall Inn, which continues to trade at the busy intersection of Parramatta and Woodville Roads at Granville.

The publican had the buckets specially turned to mark the opening of the railway on September 22, 1855. However, the rum buckets were not all that they seemed. They were about the size of a matchbox, and were solid with a slight depression at the top, which held about a teaspoonful of rum (see picture below).

Despite the deception, Stone’s customers embraced the clever marketing ploy and were said to have enjoyed the prank. Those who bought the ‘rum buckets’, the story goes, were also anxious to see others fooled. They praised the bargain, sparking one of colonial Sydney’s most successful pub promotions.

At least one of the tiny rum buckets survives from 1855. Noreen Taylor spotted our story on social media and says she has been handed down one of the rare souvenirs from her ancestors. Noreen kindly obliged when we suggested she post a picture of the ‘rum bucket’ on the Memories of Granville Facebook Group.

William Stone arrived in Parramatta from England with his wife, Ann in the first half of the 1850s. There at the age of 51, he gained the lease of the toll gate on Dog Trap Road, near Becket’s Bridge, in 1854. Today, Dog Trap Road is known as Woodville Road.

Stone, while toll-keeper, was fined a whopping £2 and 10 shillings by the courts in 1854 after “making use of the most obscene and truly disgusting language” to a gentleman who omitted to pay his toll. The Sydney Morning Herald reported on July 4 1854:

A TOLL-KEEPER FINED FOR OBSCENE LANGUAGE: Mr. D. Thorn, J.P. from Goulbourn, a few evenings since drove through the gate from the Dog-trap road, and supposing that Mr. Goodin, the former lessee, was there and would have known him, and that he must have come through Lansdowne, which gate cleared the one in question (which latter fact the present keeper must have known), drove on without stopping, but was first accosted by a boy, and afterwards by William Stone, the present keeper, who, after accusing Mr. Thorn of all sorts of naughty things, made use of the most obscene and truly disgusting language which could be conceived. Mr. Thorne, not having brought a ticket, paid the toll for his carriage and horses, and immediately lodged an information against Stone, who was brought before the Bench and fined £2 10s and costs. The defendant, even before the Court, betrayed such a want of respect, and gave way to his temper so as to induce Mr. Forbes to commit him for contempt; but through the intercession of Mr. Gould was not con-fined. It is but just to remark that, upon the whole, our gate-keepers are civil and attentive, and it is to be hoped that Mr. Stone will not be so hardened in future.

The following year, at the age of 52, Stone received a license for the Russell Arms.

The exact licensing date remains a mystery. However, William Stone’s grandson, George Stone (who later took over the pub) published an advertisement in 1883 revealing the inn’s establishment year as 1855. Another story published in the Granville newspaper, Weekly Advance, on January 20 1893 stated the inn was built “about six months before the train ran to Parramatta”.

William Stone’s pub was named after Captain William Russell (b. 1807 – d. 1866), a pastoralist and agriculturalist, who owned most of Granville at the time and later became a Member of the NSW Legislative Council.

When the Russell Arms was offered for sale in 1858 it was described as containing six bedrooms, a tap room (bar), a rear parlour, two sitting rooms, a dining room, kitchen and pantry, store room, two stables and an outdoor outhouse. Although no photographs exist of Stone’s pub, newspaper reports in the 1930s described it as a two-storey building, mostly constructed of canvas.

Stone had a long term lease of the building from property developer and large landholder, John Garsed. Adjoining the pub was also a general store.

Garsed also established a tourist resort on property opposite the Russell Arms, known as Vauxhall Gardens, named after a similar venture in London, England.

In January 1856, 46-year-old Garsed called for “tenders for the erection of the first portion of Hotel and Saloon for Vauxhall Gardens, Parramatta South” on property opposite Stone’s Russell Arms. He was granted a license for Vauxhall Gardens Hotel near the railway terminus on the “New Parramatta Campbell Town Road” in April 1856.

The Vauxhall Gardens Hotel was located between Crescent Street and the Great Western Highway on the western side of Woodville Road.

The Vauxhall Gardens Hotel was described as containing 16 rooms besides kitchens and servants’ rooms, with a splendid billiard room and “detached on the ground adjoining the road” a tap or bar. There was also a “first-rate coach houses and extensive stabling”.

The surrounding gardens were said to have been tastefully laid out for pleasure grounds, and were intersected by a beautiful creek. This “beautiful creek” is today an overgrown, polluted waterway known as A’beckett’s Creek. The site of the Vauxhall Gardens and hotel is earmarked for an urban renewal project known as Crescent Parklands.

Garsed’s resort however was a failure and the hotel remained licensed for less than 12 months.

The property developer was brought before Parramatta Court on March 5 1857 for a breach of the 49th clause of the Licensed Victuallers’ Act – abandoning his licensed house.

Garsed, who was living at Glebe, said that “numerous other matters had interfered, and he had no desire to take up the time of the Court, but admitted the charge”.

As a consequence, the license of the Vauxhall Hotel was cancelled.

John Garsed was a controversial character. He arrived in Sydney on the ‘Louisa’ and first went into business as tobacconist on Brickfield Hill before establishing a brickworks at Newtown. He diversified into property development and building before falling into financial difficulties in 1857.

Garsed was declared insolvent in 1858 and his estate was sequestered. The Vauxhall Gardens, two hotels, including the Russell Arms and the former Vauxhall Hotel at Parramatta Junction, were advertised for sale in 1858.

The following year, he was charged and convicted of fraudulent insolvency and served two years in Darlinghurst Gaol.

In 1875, the same year his wife Emma died, Garsed successfully applied to be released from sequestration on payment to his creditors and returned to property development. He married for a second time in 1881 and died in 1891 at his Leichhardt residence at the age of 81.

The Russell Arms sat on land beside the Parramatta Railway Station, and was immediately east of the toll-bar, at the junction of Parramatta and Dog Trap Roads. The inn sat on land having about 16 metres (52 feet) to Parramatta Road, 37 metres (122 feet) to the railway land, and 42 metres (140 feet) in depth.

Stone held a long term lease of the property, at an annual rent of £286. When the property was eventually put on sale in 1859, Stone purchased the land, including the hotel.

When the rail line was extended from the original terminus at Parramatta Junction near Granville to Parramatta in 1860, Stone officially changed the name of his business from the Russell Arms to the Vauxhall Inn.

Also, in 1860, Stone’s son, Henry, also licensed a hotel near his father’s Vauxhall Inn, known as the Bat and Ball.

The Bat and Ball was located at Beckett’s Bridge, and was likely in the former ‘tap-house’ of the Vauxhall Hotel, opposite his father’s pub on Dog Trap Road. It was a short lived venture, and doesn’t seem to have been re-licensed the following year.

William Stone seems to have had an uneventful sojourn as innkeeper at the Vauxhall, with the exception of copping a couple of fines “for permitting music on his premises without the requisite permission” in 1861, and for “neglecting to keep a lamp lighted over the door of his licensed house from sunset to sunrise, contrary to the Act” in 1865. He retired as licensee in 1867, and his 34-year-old son Henry and his wife, Elizabeth took over as hosts.

The Vauxhall Inn’s founder, William Stone died “after a short illness” on February 11 1877 at the age of 74. Curiously his widow Ann died just three months later after a “lingering illness” at the age of 68, on May 17 1877.

The Stones’ son, Henry took over the license of the Vauxhall Inn from 1867, and continued as host, with his wife Elizabeth, for a decade from 1867 to 1877.

After Henry Stone retired from the bar of the Vauxhall, his son, 23-year-old George Stone became licensee in 1877. George was a long time member of the Cumberland Band, in which he was a drummer.

The third generation of the Stone family to host the landmark corner pub, George remained at the helm until 1884, when he left the Vauxhall to pursue other business interests. The family sub-leased the Vauxhall for five years before Henry returned as licensee in 1889 at the age of 56.

Henry Stone continued as host of the Vauxhall for almost a decade before he retired in October 1897, ending the family’s long association with the historic pub. The Cumberland Argus reported on October 23 1897:

The old Vauxhall Hotel, which forms one of the landmarks of Granville, changed hands at the Parramatta Licensing Court on Wednesday. The hotel has been kept by Mr Henry Stone for over 30 years and has been in Mr Stone’s family for 40 years. It was sought to transfer the licence to Mr Charles Purdue. The police gave the hotel a good name as doing a legitimate business and having no suspicion of Sunday trading. The transfer was granted and the Bench expressed the hope that the new licensee would keep up the good reputation of the house.

Henry Stone died 12 months later in October 1898 at the age of 65.

Meanwhile George Stone, at the age of 36, married Elizabeth Vivian in 1890. The grandson of the founder of the Vauxhall Inn, returned to the hospitality trade from April 1901 when he was granted the license of the Emu Hotel at the Queen’s Wharf, Parramatta. George Stone died in 1907 at the age of 53, leaving a widow and two young children.

By the late 1890s the old Vauxhall Inn, consisting of 13 rooms, bar room, kitchen, and stables, was showing her age. Brewery giant, Tooth and Company bought the hotel in 1902 for £15,561. When licensee, Basil Lanser applied for the renewal of his license in 1906 the court was told the building was dilapidated. However, Tooth and Company were planning big changes at the corner site.

Tooth and Company replaced the old single storey inn with a two-storey brick hotel facing Parramatta Road in 1906.

One of the most prominent hosts of the newly completed Vauxhall was husband and wife team, Edward and Annie Milverton. The couple became hosts of the second Vauxhall in 1907. After Edward Milverton’s death at the age of 64 in 1909, his widow, Annie would go on to host the pub until her death at the age of 63 in 1921.

While the Milvertons were one of the longest serving hosts of the ‘new’ Vauxhall; one of the more notorious was Edward James Jeffs.

Jeffs, a single man, became host of the Vauxhall in 1921 at the age of 26. While host he was charged and convicted of “conspiracy to procure a miscarriage” on 17-year-old Eva Buckley in 1924.

Eva was a maid at the hotel, and Jeffs organised the services of 50-year-old Elizabeth Starkey, a nurse in Waverley, to perform an abortion on the young woman after he reportedly “left her with child”.

Jeffs was given a 12 months suspended gaol sentence on March 23 1925.

The scandal forced Jeffs to leave the Vauxhall, and take refuge in the country where he gained the license of the Victoria Hotel at Canowindra. Nurse Starkey was later acquitted on a charge of having conspired with others to perform an illegal act on a girl of 17 years.

Less than 25 years after the ‘new’ Vauxhall was built, Tooth and Company tried unsuccessfully to transfer its license to Earlwood. The Cumberland Argus reported on November 21 1929:

During the week an effort was being made to remove the Vauxhall hotel from near the corner of the Parramatta and Woodville roads to a down-the-line suburb. It is argued that in these days of fast motor traffic there is comparatively little need for an hotel on the site occupied by the Vauxhall, and maybe, like many hostelries of this district, this prominent landmark will disappear. It was not so very long ago that the Vauxhall was remodelled, but so rapid has been the march of progress that it is now probably the most old-fashioned of the many hotels on the Parramatta-road. 

The Vauxhall continued trading from the corner of Woodville and Parramatta Roads until Tooth and Company decided to replace the building in 1938. Properties were purchased for £2,709 beside the existing Vauxhall, and Tooth and Company began building a new hotel closer to the intersection of Woodville Road. The Cumberland Argus reported on September 7 1938:

NEW VAUXHALL INN: Between £16,000 and £18,000 will be spent by Tooth & Co. on the erection of the new Vauxhall Inn on the corner of Parramatta and Woodville Roads, Granville it was foreshadowed this week. The new hotel will conform to the most up-to-date standards and will have drives from both roads. The license will be held by Mr T. J. Wallington, licensee of the present premises in Parramatta Road. The inn dates from 1853 and the existing premises are the third which have borne the name, it is stated. Passengers from what was then the nearby rail terminus were glad to call there in early days after the trip from Sydney.

The new hotel was completed on October 16 1939 at a cost £18,301. On completion the old hotel was de-licensed and sold to D.C. Brown for £1,350. The old pub stood facing Parramatta Road for many years after the new Vauxhall opened for business. From Tooth and company archive photographs it can be established the 1906 Vauxhall was demolished sometime between 1960 and 1970.

Thomas J. Wallington, who had gained the license of the old Vauxhall in October 1937, was granted a lease of the new hotel and became the new hotel’s first host. He remained licensee until 1942. Wallington had previously hosted the Oxford Hotel, Petersham before the Vauxhall.

The heritage listed Vauxhall was designed by architect Cyril Christian Ruwald (1895-1959). He was one of several architects who designed hotels for Tooth and Co during the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Redfern, Ruwald attended Sydney Technical College and was indentured to the architects Waterhouse and Lake. Ruwald was instrumental in adapting the streamlined horizontal look of European modernism to hotel design. His Cross Keys Hotel, Newcastle set the pattern for many others including the Canterbury, Vauxhall, and Woollahra hotels. The Beach Hotel, Merewether is perhaps the most intact of Ruwald’s numerous ‘modern’ hotels. Ruwald also designed the Greengate (Killara) and Bull and Bush (Baulkham Hills) hotels, notable exercises in historic pastiche.

The hotel consisted of a public and saloon bar, and 11 bedrooms – six single, three doubles and the remainder for staff.

A long list of publicans hosted the historic Vauxhall over the proceeding years. One of the more interesting was cigar puffing former boxer and businessman, Max Gornik. With his wife Ruby, the Gorniks hosted the Vauxhall from 1953 to 1961. The Cumberland Argus reported on October 19 1960:

The sight of a decent pub brawl is a thing of the past at Parramatta’s historic Vauxhall Inn. They went out eight years ago: when grey haired, plump Max Gornik bought out the place. And it’s no wonder with the reputation and record in the fighting world of this German-born thrashing machine. Now Now 62, Max Gornik leads a quiet, almost secluded life devoted to looking after his wife, daughter and adopted son. Born in a small German town in 1898, Max Gornik went to school for only six years. He migrated to Australia at the age of 12 with his mother, father and seven sisters and brothers. Despite his limited education, Mr. Gornik speaks six languages fluently. Living in Queensland, as a 12-year-old lad from a grief-stricken country, he found odd-jobs with a pick and shovel, on farms and carrying heavy drums of water for fettlers laying the State’s railway lines. When he moved to Brisbane he secured a job in a rope works but got the sack because he was involved in too many fights. To get away from it all, he joined a ship shortly before his 14th birthday and went to Italy and back. In his spare time he did some amateur boxing and wrestling which culminated when in one and the same night he won the State heavy and the middleweight titles in both sports. One night, while passing Brisbane Stadium, he heard a barker gleefully offering 10 shillings a round to anyone game enough to face Walter Coffee, an American who had come to Australia to fight Les Darcy. Gornik’s only regret about the fight is that he didn’t win £2 — Coffee ‘chickened out’ in the third round. His ‘win’ gained him an offer of £5 to fight professional preliminaries He accepted and began a career which took in 214 fights of which he lost only 17. All of his losses were points decisions — he was never knocked off his feet. During a trip to South Africa for some fights, Gornik decided to become a diamond miner. His mine yielded £5000 worth of diamonds— enough to take him on a tour of Europe for more fights. Back in Australia he went into business, owning shops ranging from a lottery agency to hotels. After several years he owned six hotels in country areas of NSW and Queensland. The sale of these provided him with enough money to take a trip to Japan and leave a deposit with a broker for a business somewhere in the metropolitan area. On his return he found he was the owner of the Vauxhall.

Tooth and Company, who bought the Vauxhall in 1902 for £15,561, sold its freehold to H. H. Watson Pty Ltd in 1981 for $635,000. In 2016, the Vauxhall was one of the top 50 gaming hotels in NSW and, according to industry sources, sold for more than $40 million.

Vauxhall Inn/Hotel Licensees 1855 – 1981

_{1855 – 1866: William Stone}

_{1867 – 1877: Henry Stone}

_{1877 – 1884: George Stone}

_{1884 – 1886: Samuel Hill}

_{1886 – 1889: Robert E. Lacy}

_{1889 – 1897: Henry Stone}

_{1897 – 1903: Charles John Perdue}

_{1903 – 1905: Mary Perdue}

_{1905 – 1906: Basil Lancer}

_{1906: New Hotel Opened}

_{1906 – 1907: Basil Lancer}

_{1907 – 1909: Edward Milverton}

_{1909 – 1921: Annie Milverton}

_{1921 – 1924: Edward James Jeffs}

_{1924 – 1925: W.T. Hunter}

_{1925 – 1939: R. R. Warleigh}

_{1939: Old hotel de-licensed and new hotel opened}

_{1939 – 1942: Thomas J. Wallington}

_{1942 – 1944: Donald Munro}

_{1944 – 1953: L. J. Keane}

_{1953 – 1961: Mrs Ruby Ethel Gornick}

_{1961 – 1962: Daniel Edward O’Halloran}

_{1962 – 1966: Reginald Woodrow Walsh}

_{1966 – 1967: Reginald Keegan}

_{1967 – 1971: Clarence Alan Burns}

_{1971 – 1972: Eric Ingham}

_{1972 – 1974: John Graham Lonie}

_{1974 – 1981: Edward John Ryan}

_{1981 –  H. Watson}

_{© Copyright Mick Roberts 2023}

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Categories: NSW hotels, Parramatta Hotels, Sydney hotels

Tags: Vauxhall Inn Granville