01/02/2021
We have had a query about the origins of the name Curlewis. The following is an extract from the Curlewis School Centenary book. Others may know more, or families may have unearthed more information since 1985....
The origin of the name of Curlewis has prompted lively discussion and correspondence over many decades. “Curlewis” is not of aboriginal derivation, nor can be found any famous dignitary, explorer or surveyor after whom it could be named in official records.
Local historian W.O. Manning corresponded with a professor of Proper Names at the Liverpool University; England who had become interested in the unusual name. Two possibilities were considered:
1. That the village was named after the Curlew bird, which inhabited the area in the 1800s
2. That the village was named after the family of Judges Herbert and Adrian Curlewis, prominent Sydney barristers.
W.O. Manning’s conclusions support the first possibility the “pre 1860 a teamster’s camp near a swamp on the wet weather road from Breeza to Gunnedah became known as the Curlew’s place because of the great number of Curlew birds inhabiting the area”.
This theory was supported by long-time Curlewsites who related stories of swagmen and bullock teamsters camping by the swamp, being kept awake at night be the Curlew’s bird loud mournful, high pitched, wailing cries of “cur-loo”. Because of its distinctive cry, the Curlew bird was said to be associated with aboriginal legend and when white man came to the area Pullaming seemed to be a type of boundary, as the aboriginals were continually travelling from Pullaming to Borah Crossing.
Research for the 1985 School Centenary (ISBN 0958971404) that included correspondence with the Curlewis family historians supports the second possibility.
George Campbell Curlewis selected land in southern NSW (future northern Victoria) by 1841. Some of the area is still known as Curlewis, Victoria. George Campbell Curlewis has a partner, Robert Campbell who selected land in the Hunter Valley. As the partners took up their land, family historians believe that they named their land after each other. An early pastoral holding near Singleton, named Curlewis was acquired by John Browne. By 1847 John Browne’s pastoral holding on the Liverpool Plans was named “Curlewis” being part of his larger holding of “Pullaming”.
One of George Campbell Curlewis’ sons was an explorer about the same time as Burke and Wills and was killed near the Paroo River, Queensland in 1861.
Another son owned a brickyard in Sydney and was the father of Judge Herbert Curlewis (admitted to the Bar in the 1890s). Judge Herbert Curlewis married Ethel Turner, author of many books and newspaper articles including the novel Seven Little Australians. Herbert and Ethel were the parents of Judge Adrian Curlewis. At the time of writing Seven Little Australians (1894) in which there is reference to “Curlewis…the nearest railway station to Yarrahappini” Ethel Turner was secretly engaged to Herbert Curlewis.
Phillipa Poole, granddaughter of Herbert and Ethel and publisher of The Diaries of Ethel Turner believed that Ethel could have considered it a complement to her future husband and his family to use the name on her book. There is no known connection between the family of Ethel Turner and the Turner family of Digby.
In 1871 a surveyor named Dewhurst suggested the name for Curlewis parish when he surveyed 4800 acres for the site of the village reserve. Curlewis township is located at the western end of this reserve. Dewhurst also recorded the name of the Curlewis swamp.
When a rail siding was erected in 1880 William Charles Browne M.L.A. for Patricks Plains and son of John Brown suggested the name of Curlewis for the siding.
The name perpetuated when, in 1885, Edwin Woodward Turner, surveyor of Digby surveyed the site of the village of Curlewis. The village and suburban boundaries were notified July 3 1886 and Curlewis was proclaimed a village on October 4 1890.
