Well fellow Rotarians it has been a slightly unusual time for the club over the past month or so with so many members away. Let’s hope we can all keep the momentum going for the future when everyone is back on deck. The board had a special meeting last night and made a decision on the project funding which will be revealed when all parties have been informed.
I helped out at the Bathurst clubs Great Duck Race on Sunday and it was a terrific event. A good afternoon for Rotary indeed.
This month we have the RARE repurposing project at St Cats on Wednesday 9th and BBBQ on the 12th. Please everyone keep your schedules free to attend if you can to help make these events happen more easily, many hands make light work so they say.
Don’t forget to wear your hat for mental health day this Wednesday and bring $5 for ARH mental health awareness project funding too.
In 1850 the Bathurst Town Reserve was established. Area in which CSU now occupies. It was known as the Park. Its main use in those days was as a racecourse.
In 1895 the Bathurst Experimental Farm was established and the first students enrolled in 1897. Provided a two course. Only 14 students and no permanent academic staff. Logan Brae which was built in 1876, became the first headquarters for the farm – 1896 – 1908.
By 1913 it had become well established and some of the lovely old buildings on the campus erected – Hefron House, the cottage, Cunningham house, Pontyn theatre.
Accommodation for 34 students and there were also some day students.
Operations suspended in 1941 – war – used as an ordnance dept until 1946, then farm continued to operate until 1949.
In 1951, the site became the Bathurst Teacher’s College. It offered a two year course training primary school teachers. The course length was extended to three years in 1968.
In 1969, Colleges of Advanced Education were introduced in Australia and Mitchell College of Advanced Education was established on the site. The Bathurst Teachers College became the School of Teacher Education at MCAE.
The primary role of MCAE was vocational undergraduate training – education, social welfare, nursing etc using a number of modes – full-time, part-time, external and continuing education.
In the 1980s, the Federal Govt decided to get rid of the binary tertiary education system and CAEs were converted into universities. Lots of unhappiness. In July 1989, CSU was proclaimed and it merged to rival CAE’s – MCAE and Riverina-Murray Institute of Higher Education (Wagga Wagga and Albury). It was set up as a federated network university with semi-independent member campuses with a central administration.
In 1998 the relevant act was amended and it became an integrated multi-campus organisation where faculties and schools became the focus rather than the campus.
While the headquarters of CSU is situated on the Bathurst campus, there has been a decline in the Mitchell campus.
Arthur Geoge Wilkinson was born in Millthorpe, New South Wales on 27 August 1911. At the age of four, Bluey's family moved to Bathurst. The home was at 14 Violet Street. He really considered Bathurst to be his home town. He was working as a butcher boy when speedway first started at the Bathurst Sports Ground in 1928. It was love at first sight for Wilkinson and he promptly gave up a rugby league career and invested his savings in a battered old belt driven Rudge.
On the Rudge, Bluey Wilkinson wasn't a world-beater, but when Sydney and international star rider Lionel Van Praag came to Bathurst, he loaned Wilkinson one of his spare bikes. In a battle of future World Champions, Wilkinson defeated Van Praag in a match race.
In 1929, at age 17, he headed for England in an effort to be noticed by rich Speedway clubs. He rode in the lower divisions for three seasons before he was offered a contract by the West Ham Hammers and stayed with the London based club until 1939.
Wilkinson's 1938 championship win was considered a gutsy effort after he had actually broken his left collarbone in a meeting for West Ham the night before the World Final. Determined not to miss the final, Bluey had the Tottenham Hotspur club doctor put his arm and shoulder in plaster. He ignored the pain he was in to win his first four rides before finishing a safe second in his fifth and last to clinch the World Championship before a crowd of 95,000.
Bluey Wilkinson retired from riding in 1939 to become the promoter at the Sheffield Speedway.
After being involved in dozens of spectacular crashes during his speedway career and walking away from them all, Bluey was killed in a road accident in the Sydney suburb of Bondi on 27 July 1940. Riding a motorcycle with his wife Muriel as pillion he was struck by a lorry which had swerved to avoid a car. He was killed almost instantly with a fractured skull. Muriel survived the accident physically with only little more than a few cuts and bruises.
Bluey was buried in Bathurst.
In 2017 Inducted into the Australian Motor Sport Hall of Fame
Service above Self
