Early Pubs of the Central Coast

From Kincumber Parish Map - click to enlarge.

It seems that the first Public Houses in the Brisbane Water District were granted licenses about 1839 and 1840.

The first was possibly the Crooked Billet established by William Spears in 1839. When the license for the inn was first granted, William Spears and two sureties had to declare that if the inn failed to meet up to the conditions of the license, they would each pay the Crown £50. For the first license, the sureties were William Spears himself, his brother George and his good friend Robert Henderson (many years later, William Spears would be named Robert Henderon's executor and Robert's will refers to him as 'my good friend William Spears'). The following year, the third surety was changed to William Ward. This may have been because Robert had moved to live in Sydney.

William Spears was licensed 'to keep a common ale house, and to sell fermented and distilled liquors, in the house whither he now dwells being the sign of ‘Crooked Billet' situated at Brisbane Water ...'. This was the same house where three years earlier, Catherine Mitchell had arrived as an assigned convict, before marrying William Ward in 1837. William Spears' grant was at current-day Pretty Beach. On the Parish map above it is shown as portions 32 and 33 in the bottom left. William Ward's grant is portion 119 in the top right.

The conditions applying to the inn included:

• to not allow any person to become drunk;
• not to supply liquor to any person in a state of intoxication;
• not to permit an intoxicated person to remain in the house or premises or to commit any disorder therein;
• not to refuse to admit a Magistrate or Constable into any part of the house at any hour;
• not to admit any Convict or serve any liquor to a Convict;
• to maintain good order in the house;
• to provide food and accommodation for travellers and guests and their servants.

A second Public house was licensed to Peter Fagan in 1840 and was under the sign of the Red Cow. The sureties for this Inn were Peter Fagan, James Malone and William Ward. I understand that this Inn was in the building that today serves as Kendall Cottage and museum.

The documents that tell us so much about these two public houses are contained in a letter book for the Brisbane Water Police District. They have led many researchers to conclude that Robert Henderson and William Ward had a financial interest in these hotels, but reading the documents carefully, they would only have had to pay money if the licence conditions were not met. While the documents do not rule out a financial interest, I don't think Robert and William would actually have had to pay any money, and could well have trusted William Spears enough to do this out of community spirit.

This is as close as I have come to connecting William Ward and Robert Henderson. They both arrived in Brisbane Water within a year or two and their homes were only 5km apart as the crow flies. They were both involved in the coastal shipping trade and these documents prove that they had friends in common. They were of a similar age, with William being the younger by three or four years. I have no doubts that the two men knew each other well, but whether they were friends, we will probably never know!

Robert died in 1869 and Willian in 1876. I suspect neither one had a suspicion that their families would join. It was less than 18 months after William Ward died that his son Manasseh married Robert Henderson's granddaughter, Madeline Keele nee Henderson. They would go on to found a very large family and many of their descendants continue to live on the Central Coast to this day.