Budgee Budgee Butcher’s Shop

The Budgee Budgee butcher’s shop, c1860, was once owned by Roland Underwood. He had in his employ Jacky Underwood, who slaughtered cattle for him. This was before Jacky Underwood joined Jimmy Governor and his gang. The gangs’ three and a half months rampage resulted in eleven brutal murders in 1900. For his part in what was known as the Breelong Massacre Jacky Underwood was hanged at Dubbo jail.

Jacky Underwood lived at Budgee Budgee after arriving from North Queensland on a cattle droving trip undertaken by the five Underwood brothers.

In those days fresh meat was carted from the Budgee Budgee shop to outlying areas such as Eurunderee, Pipeclay, and the local gold fields and to Wollar.

The butcher’s shop was a good business as Budgee Budgee had been settled between 1830 and 1860 by early pioneer settlers and later gold seekers. Small acre farms were also dotted along Pipeclay Creek.

At one time two butcher shops operated. The Huxley butcher’s shop just north on the Ulan road was predated by the Budgee Budgee butcher’s shop which supplied the Budgee Budgee Inn opposite.

Records at Australia Post show upwards of 19 wagons often pulled by 20 bullocks and Cobb and Co coaches were seen assembled outside the Inn. Teams of 12 horses were also seen. This meant good business for the butcher’s shop.

The butcher’s shop is constructed of local stone and clay and is thought to have been built about 1860 with a stringy bark roof and saplings. It was last used as a butcher’s shop in the 1920s.

In more recent years it housed beautiful pottery made on the site but this activity has finished. The shop remains intact and is visible from Ulan Road.

Gold

Gold was first discovered in payable quantities in Australia in 1851 at Orphir near Orange. Perhaps the most notable local discovery of gold was in Golden Gully, adjacent to Budgee Budgee, in 1857 by the Wurth brothers.

Discoveries were next made at Sapling Gully and Log Paddock. Budgee Budgee, 7 miles north of Mudgee, was the scene of a further discovery followed a little later by the Pipeclay diggings.

Local folklore records at one time there was supposed to be about 3000 people on the Budgee Budgee field and a lot of gold was found there. One man was reputed to have found a nugget worth £3000 close to the Budgee Budgee Inn.

Even after the gold was supposed to have run out there were still people going down shafts and finding the odd speck of the precious metal. Mullock heaps could still be seen as late as the 1980s on some properties as well there was evidence of places where miners had washed for gold. Some say there is still gold to be found east of the Ulan (Cassilis) Road.

Panning and washing for gold

In her book Telling Tales Out of School Mary McPherson relates a story of a teacher from nearby Pipeclay (later Buckaroo) School who died down a shaft at Pipeclay Creek. It read: ‘Frederick White, a married man who was a teacher at Pipeclay Creek Public School near Mudgee, closed the school as usual on Friday evening June 5, 1874. On Tuesday June 9 the chairman of the local school board wrote to the Council of Education “I beg to inform you no traces (were found) of Mr White at the school at 12 o’clock on Monday 8th June. The local board closed the school and (is) waiting for advice for what to do respecting the school. Search has been made but (there is) no account of Mr White whatever’.

‘The Sydney Morning Herald of Friday June 19, 1874 carried the following report: Mudgee, Thursday. Yesterday an inquest was held at Pipeclay Creek on the body of Frederick White, the master of the Public School. He had been missing for a fortnight and was found in a shaft fifty feet deep, with his neck and leg broken. Verdict accidental death.’

It is not hard to imagine the rumours generated by that event. In 1963 John Lawrence Tierney (aka author Brian James) noted that local oral sources (in this instance gossip?) told him ‘that Fred White had fallen down that mine shaft in Sapling Gully very late at night after a convivial evening at “Fredericksberg” (the first local winery) and the Buchholtz family home.

This was ninety years after the event indicating local stories never die.

Perhaps the gold in Budgee Budgee is now to be found above the ground and not below.

Pipeclay Pianist

Marguerite de Pachmann, the pianist from Pipeclay who gave piano recitals across Europe and became an international celebrity.

The localities of Budgee Budgee, Buckaroo, Botobolar, Black Springs and Eurunderee were once clustered together and simply known as Pipeclay with Eurunderee being known as New Pipeclay. This caused confusion in the delivery of mail and after a complaint by the postmaster at Pipeclay, Daniel Tierney, the postmaster at New Pipeclay suggested that his locality should be changed to Eurunderee and this was done.

Australia has produced many artists of international standing. Here is the story of a remarkable life journey that begins on the Pipeclay goldfields in the 1860s and ends up on the concert platforms of Europe and America.

In 1863 John and George Wurth found gold in Golden Gully in New Pipeclay (later renamed Eurunderee). Miners and gold seekers flocked to the area and spread across to Pipeclay, a small area approximately between what are now Henry Lawson Drive and Cassilis Road and including Pipeclay Creek.

With the arrival of the gold seekers stores and shanties sprung up to provide for their needs.

Enter William Okey and his wife Anna Maria. They were married at Burburgate (on the Namoi River) on January 4, 1864. William was a bachelor aged 27 whose occupation was shown as ‘comedian’ and Anna Maria a widow aged 17 (former name Blade).

On December 14, 1864, at Pipeclay, William and Anna’s first child was born. She was named Anna Louisa Margaret. The witnesses at her birth (registered by her father at Mudgee on January 16, 1865) were W. Ramsay MD and a Mrs Hogan (probably a midwife) indicating the birth was at home.

Home, in this instance would be either a tent or slab and bark hut similar to Henry Albury’s slab inn bought in 1864 at New Pipeclay. This same year Peter Lawson arrived on the New Pipeclay diggings, builds a slab hut, meets Henry’s daughter, Louisa, and marries her in 1866.

Anna Okey’s birth certificate records some other interesting details. William Okey is now shown as an ‘innkeeper’, aged 28, born in London. Anna Maria’s details show her maiden surname as ‘King’, aged 18, born in Warwick, Queensland. There is no mention of her previous married name ‘Blade’. The ‘innkeeper’ could mean just that or alternatively, like so many others, Okey was selling ‘grog’ to support his gold seeking activities.

Apparently when the gold ran out it is thought the Okeys, like the Lawsons, moved to the Weddin Mountain goldfield, Grenfell. The birth of their second daughter, Dorothy C. M. was registered at Forbes, as was Henry Lawson’s. This seems to confirm the Okeys, like the Lawsons, had followed the gold seekers.

Nothing more is known about the Okeys in Australia or when they actually migrated to London. In an article in Musical Celebrities, by F. Forster Buffen, 1893, he wrote they returned about 1869 and that Anna 5 (now known as Maggie) had started to learn the notes on the piano at the age of 2 and had her first music lessons from an organist thought to be in the town of St Leonards, England.

In 1820 St Leonards was built as a neighbouring town to Hastings (famous for the battle of 1066). It grew so quickly in the 19th century it became united with Hastings. There were, and still are, a number of organs listed in churches in St Leonards.
At the age of seven Maggie Okey played with great success at the Queen’s Concert Rooms, Hanover Square. She entered the London Academy of Music, and stayed there for several years, studying piano under Dr Henry Wylde, and harmony and composition with Ferdinand Praeger.

In 1882 Maggie was present at St James Hall when Vladimir de Pachmann, born 1883 in Russia, gave his first recital in London. He was the most celebrated interpreter of Chopin of his generation. He continually both amused and scandalised the public by his eccentricities.

Late in his career when playing Chopin he wore an old coat of Chopin’s and would address odd remarks to his audience and to his hands. Towards the end of his life his mind was unbalanced, but his performance of Chopin remained perfect.

In October 1882, aged 18, Maggie Okey went to Germany and became de Pachmann’s pupil at her request after he had heard her play. For the next eighteen months she submitted to a vigilant course of instruction by de Pachmann.

Eventually they were married. She had three sons. Victor who died in infancy in St Petersburg; Adriano (Adrian), born in London in 1886 studied law in Paris; Leonide (Lionel) born in London 1887, eventually became a successful pianist, composer and critic.

Meanwhile, husband and wife performed together with critical acclaim on the concert stages of Europe. Maggie, now known professionally as Marguerite de Pachmann, also gave solo concerts of compositions by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schubert, Beethoven and of course Chopin.

The marriage lasted only seven years. They were divorced when she was 27 and he was almost 40 years old. Her career was determined by her family obligations and her ambitions to be a composer and concert pianist.

After divorce Marguerite moved to Paris and began teaching the piano at the de Pachmann Piano School that she established. On his death in Rome in 1933 Vladimir de Pachmann bequeathed his teaching methods to his ex-wife.

Marguerite continued to compose. She frequently played her own compositions Theme and Variations and Reverie du Lac and a Sonata in recitals.

She married for a second time Maitre Fernand Labori, a lawyer who made his reputation as the defence counsel in the famous trials of Zola and Dreyfus. There were three girls from this marriage. One daughter became Princesse de Philippe de Bourbon. Fernand died aged 56 in 1917.

The girl from Pipeclay continued her work. There is much more to her life and times than is possible on this site. She played, composed and conquered until her death in Paris on July 3. 1952.

On the fringe of Budgee Budgee

Norman McVicker writes:

The locality of Budgee Budgee is surrounded by other fringe localities. They are not villages. They are Botobolar, Cooyal, Linburn, Buckaroo and Eurunderee. These localities date back to the early days when Mudgee was first settled.

There are many untold stories telling of cattle duffing, gold fossicking, bushrangers, and descendants of pioneer families who can trace their roots to early settlers. Then there is Henry Lawson and his years in Eurunderee and his days at Eurunderee School.

This was patently obvious to me on the Monday after my book ‘Tales from along the Wallaby Track was launched the previous Friday, March 27, 2009 at FairviewArtSpace. I was at the Mudgee Guardian office for a further book signing. It was a morning when seniors came and I was regaled with stories of past events they remembered. Their vivid memories will be recorded on this page as soon as I can write them down—it all takes time.

Henry Lawson country