"Beautiful Tuross Head" - A short DVD produced from the 16mm movie made Hector McWilliam in 1927
Hector McWilliam
The Mylott family, having held the 875 acre block since about 1870, sold it to Hector McWilliam in 1925. It was 1960 before he had it cut up into 1600 blocks
When Patrick
Mylott died in Sydney in 1898 his widow terminated George Smarts lease
on the Tuross Head
farm (the Mylotts had moved to Sydney to assist in developing their
daughters career and had leased the farm)
and henceforth worked it herself with the aid of the children.
She decided
to retire in 1917 and in June 1920 sold the property to G.T Stockman.
He tried to raise fodder
for a son who owned a produce business but soon found that the climate
harmed his delicate wife and
sought a change.
"Hector
R, McWilliam had been selling real estate in Wagga and fell in love with
the Bodalla district while
visiting on holiday. He sought an outlet for some of his grandiose dreams
of fame and fortune and,
hearing of Stockmand dillemma, offered to exchange land that he owned
on the Monaro for Stockman
and interest in Tuross......." read on..
extracts {text and photo} from "Eurobodalla; History of Moruya District" H.J Gibbney
HOWEVER........
The proof
is in the pudding and the deeds of ownership of the Tuross Head property
show that Stockman never purchased the property (in 1920) from Mary
Mylott (as described above) and there was a direct sale of the land
to Hector McWilliam.
In order to see the evidence of this the deeds of title and sale are
scanned and now available.
The land was originally
owned by Colonial Mutual and Mary Mylott secured its ownership in
1904. She then sold the land to Hector McWilliam in 1925 (this
transfer and this
transfer as examples).
At no point is Stockman mentioned as an owner in the transfer of ownership....most
likely he was only a leasee.
Hector was very generous to the community and bequeathed them a wealth of Public Reserves
A wonderful album of photos has been made available by Hector's granddaughter Elisabeth.
Also be
sure to look at the following pages of the wonderful flyer that Hector
published in September 1955
as a promotion for Tuross Head. It is in parts so please imagine it
all joined....
For the complete set of the sixteen panel flyer see these photos
"Beautiful
Tuross Head" - A short DVD produced from the 16mm movie made Hector
McWilliam in 1927
(The film you will see here is an edited 10 minute version made suitable
for YouTube - apologies for the compression quality).
Please contact
the Moruya Historical Society if you would like to view the longer (and
clearer) version.
Copies of the DVD can be purchased from the Moruya Historical Society.
Hector's son in law, Harry Overgaard played a major role in the development of Tuross assisting Hector in construction, planting and generally setting up the village
There are several photos of Harry in the Hector McWilliam collection
One shows him beside a slab of Granite which later was to become the Martin Place Cenotaph
Historians might enjoy these two links in regards to the slab and the Cenotaph