Alexander Burns was the first in a line of four generations of timber merchants in Sydney and the suburban St. George and Sutherland Shire areas.  He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in June 1826, parents unknown.  Date of his arrival in Sydney also unknown but before 1853.

On 2 May, 1853, Alexander Burns married Ellen Mary Carroll at St. Mary’s Cathedral.  They had eight children – Mary Ann (3 Feb. 1854-18 Sep. 1926), William Joseph (1856-6 Jan. 1923), John Joseph (26 Jul. 1858-4 Feb.1942), Alexander Dominic (4 Aug. 1860- 3 Sep.1862), Vincent Mary Aloysius (16 Jul.1862-26 Nov.1918), Stephen Andrew (31 Oct.1864-24 Dec.1937), Alexander (5 Mar,1867-11 Oct.1872), Ellen Mary (8 Dec.1868-1954).  During this time, the family were living in Woolloomooloo and Alexander was foreman of the Woolloomooloo Sawmills, the first large sawmill in Sydney.

In August, 1869, there was a trial in Sydney, before the NSW Supreme Court, ‘against an agent for failure to render proper account on account of sales of timber’.  The defendant was Alexander Burns ‘a timber merchant of Sydney’. The report was of proceedings on Monday, 9 August, with the trial to continue on the Tuesday.  Alexander must have been able to continue as a timber merchant but, in the Friday, 8 October, 1975, issue of the Government Gazette, there is a notice of the sale of the whole stock-in-trade of the Insolvent Estate of Alexander Burns.

Times must have been difficult for Alexander but, by 1882, he was back in business. In 1886, Sands Directory lists him as a timber merchant at Nicholson Street, Balmain, and Erskine and Druitt Streets in Pyrmont.  His residence was at Sir John Crescent, Woolloomooloo.  On Saturday, 13 August, 1887, the Balmain Observer and Western Suburbs Advertiser published a glowing report about his wholesale timber yard at Wentworth Wharf, extending over an area of about an acre and doing a very large trade.  Along with the modern machinery to run the saw mill, there were three steam launches and a floating fire engine.  The business employed about 50 men but the numbers reduced to about 40 when the ships went out.

During the next few years, Alexander continued to trade successfully and expand the business. In 1886, he sent 21 year old Vincent on a trip to London and Christiana, Norway, to act as his agent, a decision which would have major consequences in the 1890s.  By 1890, his sons William and Vincent had also become timber merchants in Sydney. William was at Pyrmont and Rocky Point Road at Rockdale.  Vincent was at the Baltic Wharf at Dowling Street.  

Alexander acquired several vessels, like the Collaroy, George Thomson and Altcar shipping timber from places like California, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and New Guinea. The ships also carried cargo, such as coal, to Shanghai.  

On 28 November, 1891, The Australian Star published a comprehensive article titled ‘The Timber Trade’ touring and describing the ‘very large timber business’ of Alexander Burns with the headquarters at Baltic Wharf, Pyrmont, the sawmill at Waterview Bay, Balmain, and the depot at 22 Erskine Street.   As well as the various classes of raw timber imported from overseas, manufactured timber like doors and windows, were imported on the five vessels engaged in ocean trade. The value of the cargoes carried on these vessels ran into double figure thousands of pounds.   

It was reported that Mr. Burns had been in the in the timber trade in Sydney for 37 years and, previously was foreman of the Woolloomooloo Sawmills, the first, large timber yard in Sydney.  There were three sons associated with him in the concern, Mr. J. J. Burns managing the sawmills in Waterview Bay and living on the premises, his house being on the cliff at the back of the mill.  The other sons, though not named in the article, would have been Vincent and Stephen.  A fourth son was described as being in business on his own account at Rockdale, Hurstville and Pyrmont. This was William Joseph. 

The mill at Waterview Bay had supplied all the timber required by the contractors building the Hawkesbury River Bridge. There were 70 men in constant employment, some having worked for the Burns’ for 30 years or more. The firm had never been troubled by strikes. As well as the machinery necessary to the timber trade, there was also a stone cutting machine. It is also mentioned that Alexander Burns had taken out a patent for cutting stone, such as marble, by means of wire passing over the surface to be operated upon.  

The Erskine Street site is described as three floors full of anything connected with the building trade -- doors, windows, floorboards, mouldings, etc, kept in stock for customers. As a curiosity, there was a 9 foot wide, single plank of Californian redwood. (This article of 3633 words is very descriptive of the atmosphere and extent of this bustling enterprise and well worth reading in full .)

In the next few years, this thriving business would experience one disaster after another. Since Vincent’s trip to Christiana, in 1886, there had been an ongoing dispute over the authority of Vincent, as an agent, to enter into a contract with a Norwegian firm that Alexander Burns had been dealing with for a number of years.  In 1893, after dispute, trial and retrial, a decision of a non-suit was reached and each party had to pay their own costs.

About this same period, some of the Burns’ vessels were shipwrecked- Collaroy, Parnell- and the valuable cargo lost and others were badly damaged, needed costly repairs and were out of service.  These setbacks could not have come at a worse time as the depression of the 1890s took hold. In February, 1894, Alexander Burns was declared bankrupt and a Sequestration Order issued against him.  But, true to his nature, Alexander challenged the finding. He was suspended from trading for a period of two years and six months. But, in the Bankruptcy Court in October, 1895, the Registrar held that ‘the applicant had continued to trade knowing himself to be insolvent’ and that the suspension had a period of twelve months to run. His sons, William, John and Stephen would carry on the trade as timber merchants. Vincent, perhaps exhausted by the long running trial, dropped out of the trade.

 Alexander and Ellen Mary moved to Rockdale and lived in an imposing  property called ‘Glenburn’ in Rocky Point Road near where William had his timberyard.   Ellen Burns died at this property on 3 June, 1905.  She was buried in Section 10, Vaults, in Waverly Cemetery.  This is probably where their children, Alexander Dominic (1860-1861) and Alexander (1867-1872), were buried.   

Alexander Burns moved to Auburn after Ellen’s death and died there on 28 October, 1908. In accordance with his wishes, expressed in his will, he was buried in the Presbyterian Section 5C of  Rookwood Cemetery.  His headstone, now fallen, has the inscription ‘Timber Merchant of Sydney’.

Of the children of Alexander and Ellen Burns, the four sons - William, John, Vincent and Stephen were associated with the timber trade.  The youngest, Ellen Mary, married James Verdist Isadore Rudd in 1901 at St.Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney. She lived in Wagga Wagga where she died in 1954. 

The eldest child, Mary Ann, born in 1854, was enrolled as one of the first students at St. Mary’s Dominican Convent, West Maitland, when it opened as a boarding school in 1868. In 1875, she became a nun in the order of St. Dominic  and known as Mother Mary Thomas Burns.  At different times, Mother Thomas was director of studies, Mistress of Novices and Sub-Prioress mostly in the Maitland, Tamworth and Moss Vale convents. She was recognised as a brilliant teacher particularly in literature, economics and accountancy.  Perhaps she had helped in her father’s business.  She was held in the highest esteem and affection by all who knew her.  She died at the Dominican Convent, West Maitland, on 18 September, 1926, and, after a Requiem Mass in the Convent chapel attended by relatives and a large congregation, was buried in the Campbell’s Hill Cemetery.  

Colleen M Passfield

First published in Sutherland Shire, Some Early Residents, 2006, by Botany Bay Family History Society. Compiled by Maree McKinley and Sue Hewitt.    

Click on the name BURNS, Alexander (1826—1908) in the heading of this story. You will be taken to the database entry for Alexander Burns and his family.

 

 

References:

·         NSW BDM

·         Trove

·         Ancestry

·         Sydney, Australia, Cemetery Headstone Inscriptions, 1837-2003

·         NSW Will Books, 1800-1952

·         Nsw Government Gazette

·         The Daily Telegraph

·         The Sydney Morning Herald

·         The Australian Star

·         Balmain Observer and Western Suburbs Advertiser

·         The Catholic Press (23 September, 1926)

·         Sand’s Directory