Welcome Database Indexes Copyright/Disclaimer Login  

Richard William PALMER (1837-1931)

Cobb & Co’s Oldest Driver 1837-1931

While trawling through Trove, I came across a story which intrigued me. Over four issues of The Propellor in June 1930, journalist Will Carter reported on an interview with Richard Palmer, described as ‘Cobb & Co.’s oldest driver. At the time he was living in Allison Road Cronulla with his daughter, Mrs Stanley Latta (Beatrice). My grandparents lived in Allison Road and were friends of the Latta family so I was ‘hooked’ and continued to read.

It was like a story from a Boys’ Own Annual but about the early days of the colony when bushrangers terrified the settlers, before the days of rail travel, when the arrival of a Cobb & Co. coach in a country town was a big event. Was it all true?

In the opening narrative, Richard Palmer states that his un-named father was whaling at Poverty Bay in New Zealand, bought land from the Maoris but did not make a legal claim to it when he was in New South Wales. Several family trees on Ancestry do not support these claims and identify his father as Richard Palmer (1799-1875), a convict transported on the Prince of Orange in 1821 who served his term of seven years in New South Wales. Perhaps like many descendants at that time, Palmer was reluctant to expose a family connection to a convict past.

Using the New South Wales BDM register confirms that Richard Palmer, our subject, was born in 1837 to parents Richard and Frances also that his parents Richard Palmer and Frances Gold were married at St Phillip’s Church in Sydney in 1833. Frances is AKA as Gutsell or Gutsall. She was born on 11 January 1817 and christened as Frances Gutsall at St Phillip’s Church in Sydney on 4 April 1817.

Shortly after their marriage, Richard and Frances moved to St. Albans on the Macdonald River, a tributary of the Hawkesbury River, where he had a farm and later a hotel. During their marriage, Richard and Frances Palmer had eleven children: Richard William (1837-1931); Frances (1840-1908); Thomas George (1841-1875); Rebecca (1844-1881); Eliza (1846-1871); Elizabeth (1848-1892); Louisa (1851-1932); Amelia (1853-1937); James Henry (1856-1889); Joseph John (1859-1900);George (1862-1917).

After 1851, the family moved to Sydney and the births of their last four children were registered in Paddington. They lived on Old South Head Road, opposite the Sacred Heart Church, and Richard (Snr.) began a carrying service which developed into a horse-drawn bus company. In 1855 he was granted a Publican’s Licence for the Prince Albert Inn on South Head Road. Richard Palmer died in January,1875 and was buried in Balmain Cemetery. His wife Frances died in 1901 and was buried in Waverley Cemetery.

Son Richard began working in the business when he was thirteen, thus beginning his long association with horse-drawn vehicles. When the vessel ‘Dunbar’, from London, under Captain Green, was shipwrecked near the Gap at South Head, on the night of 20 August 1857, there was a rush of sightseers to the cliff-tops and buses were in much demand. In his 1931 interview Richard Palmer claimed to have made £7 per day in bus fares and that he helped to pull up crewman James Johnson, the sole survivor, from the rock ledge where he had been thrown after the vessel struck the rocks.

After working in Sydney for an undertaker, driving a horse-drawn hearse, Richard Palmer decided to try his luck in the country. He was driving a coach-van from Sydney to Mudgee conveying passengers and luggage before the arrival of Cobb & Co in NSW. He was particularly proud of having driven, in a coach-and-four, Robert Pemberton Richardson (1858 founder of the real estate firm of Richardson & Wrench) across the Blue Mountains to Bathurst for the first land sale held in there. The land in Bathurst had very much appreciated in value due to the recent gold discoveries nearby.

The firm of Cobb & Co. was established in Victoria in the 1850s at the time of the gold rush by Freeman Cobb and three friends who had all been associated with the main American coach businesses. The business thrived and developed a gold escort, as well as passenger and mail services based on reliable and efficient schedules. After Cobb returned to America in 1856, the firm went through several changes of ownership and in 1862 a new consortium under the leadership of James Rutherford (1827-1911) transferred the company’s headquarters to Bathurst in New South Wales and also expanded operations into Queensland.

On 26 June 1862, the residents of Bathurst were delighted by the arrival of a cavalcade of horses, coaches, wagons and drivers. Bathurst was chosen for the firm’s head headquarters because it was a centre for business and trade west of the Blue Mountains and also was close to the new goldfields of Hill End, Sofala and Lambing Flat (Young). James Rutherford settled in Bathurst, acquiring the ‘Hereford’ estate close to the urban area of the town and, finding opportunities to diversify his and the company’s interests he made a significant contribution to the Bathurst community.

Having already established his reputation as a skilled coach driver, Richard Palmer soon joined Cobb & Co. He was first employed for one month to run coaches from Mount Victoria to Bathurst. He was paid £10 per month, with free meals at the pubs en route. The roads were rough and his ability to arrive safely and on time, with no breakdowns, impressed Rutherford so he was offered a permanent job which lasted fourteen years. Other routes included Orange to Wellington, Bathurst to Trunkey, and Wallerawang to Cunningham Creek. It could be a cold and dreary job with night driving over terrible roads and the dread of being bogged in rainy weather or being held up by bushrangers.

It was on the last named service on 21 February 1871, that Palmer was held up by the bushrangers Stapleton, Rose and McGrath at Cherry Tree Hill. The passengers included Captain Riley, station owner at Rylston, Mr Bennet, Cobb & Co’s manager at Wallerawang and twelve women who were threatened by a gun. The bushrangers had apparently believed there was a shipment of gold on board but they were a day late. Only the day before, Palmer had handled the gold escort from Mudgee. After rifling through the mailbags and taking a small amount of money from the passengers, they rode off. Palmer collected the mail that had been left scattered about, reassured the passengers, resumed the trip and on arrival at Wallerawang, informed police of the robbery. All three bushrangers were subsequently captured, tried and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.

In the same year (1871) Richard Palmer was granted a Publican’s Licence for Cobb’s Coach & Horses Hotel at Wallerawang. The life of a Cobb & Co driver was tough so Palmer gave it up and turned to the hotel business. His father died on 17 January 1875. Richard Palmer returned to Sydney and was granted a Publican’s Licence for the Rose of Denmark Hotel in Waterloo. Sadly, it was at this address that his wife Julia died on 12 July 1875. She was buried at Balmain Cemetery and the funeral notice mentioned Richard as ‘late mail driver to Cobb and Co on the Mudgee Road’ and invited members of No.9 Branch Prince of Wales Lodge and Licensed Victuallers Association to attend the funeral.

In Sydney in 1857, Richard William Palmer had married Julia Goodsell. Julia was born in Sussex in 1835 to Robert Lavender and his wife, Ann nee Goodsell. Arriving in Sydney in 1838, Julia adopted her mother’s surname after the collapse of her parents’ marriage. Richard and Julia had three children: Thomas (1857-1857), Richard J (1859-1864) and Julia Ann (1862-1938).

On 31 August 1875, only weeks after the death of Julia, Richard Palmer married Elizabeth Veall Inch Thomas (1848-1916), a widow with two young children - Frederick (1873-1919) born in Queensland and Ada (1874-1964) born in Sydney. Her husband, William Thomas was only recently deceased.

Richard and Elizabeth had five more children – Alfred Ernest (1878-1944), Eliza (1881-1929), Gertrude .(1883-1958), Beatrice Madeline (1886-1965), Rose (1888-1889).

Sometime after his marriage to Elizabeth, Richard Palmer relocated to the Northern Tablelands and renewed his connection with James Rutherford, General Manager of Cobb & Co. When Rutherford asked him to take the Tamworth to Bendemeer run he ‘jibbed on the all-night driving’ (11pm to 7am) so Rutherford gave him the Bendemeer to Armidale run which halved the run and arrived at 2pm. It was while on this run, in August, 1877, that he witnessed the shooting, by Constable Bowen, of the bushranger Crowley who had held up Avery’s Hotel. This hotel had the agency for Cobb & Co and handled a lot of cash for them. Palmer was later told that Crowley had intended to attack him on the run.

After this, Palmer finally gave up coach driving and concentrated on the hotel business. In 1879 he applied for and was granted a Publicans Licence for the Farmer’s Rest Hotel, renamed in 1880 as The Advance Australia Hotel, in Armidale. In 1881 he was publican of the Great Northern Hotel also in Armidale. By 1883, when Gertrude was born, he was back in Sydney.

The decision to construct the railway line from Hornsby to Brooklyn required a large number of ‘navvies’ who camped along the line. Many brought their families with them and later settled permanently in the area. Temporary hotels and inns sprang up including Palmer’s Hotel which was pictured in the Town and Country Journal of 1884.

In 1886 Richard Palmer was granted a conditional licence for the Royal Hotel at Chatswood and by 1889 was publican at the Dungate Inn on the corner of Liverpool and Castlereagh Streets in Sydney. In 1891 he leased the Royal Hotel at Thornleigh for a few years after which he returned to Brooklyn and became the publican of the Sanatorium Hotel. In 1898, he applied for a new licence for the hotel which was renamed the Tourist’s Hotel.

In 1899, Palmer submitted plans to build a larger hotel closer to the village and railway station and after an initial delay, in 1900 he was able to open The Hawkesbury River Railway Hotel. Palmer had established himself as a great host and was supported in the business by his wife Elizabeth, son Alfred and daughters Eliza, Gertrude and Beatrice. Elizabeth organised dances, balls and other social gatherings which were held in Palmer’s Hall. The hotel built by Palmer still operates as The Anglers’ Rest.

In 1909, the licence for the Hawkesbury River Railway Hotel was transferred to William Leslie Butters, a 22 year old who planned to operate the hotel with his parents. Now in his seventies, Richard Palmer retired to live with his wife in the Hornsby area in Sydney. By this time all his children were married. In 1916, Elizabeth Palmer died at Hornsby and was buried in Waverly Cemetery.

In May 1826, an article about Richard Palmer was published in Sydney in The World’s News. It was written by Will Carter a school teacher and prolific writer interested in the development of the Australian identity. He lived in Hurstville and his articles appeared in local and regional newspapers including The Bulletin. He was particularly interested in stories about Cobb and Co drivers. As a young boy Will Carter’s father was the hotel keeper in Adelong and he fondly remembered the excitement when the mail coach arrived from Gundagai. He became involved in the Driver’s Re-union Association and wrote about some of these early drivers such as Frank Smiley, Joe Pittman and Richard Palmer.

In 1930, Will Carter returned to Cronulla to interview Richard Palmer in greater depth. In June 1930, in four editions of The Propellor, a remarkable story emerged. Early days of Sydney, the Hawkesbury River area and residents who lived there are recalled in great detail. Palmer’s life as a Cobb and Co driver reads like a film plot followed by his success as a hotelier. Palmer loved to tell about his exciting experiences on the ‘box’ of a Cobb & Co coach. Easy to imagine him as ‘mine host’ retelling his tales of battling the elements, managing teams of spirited horses and facing down bushrangers.

Richard Palmer died in 1931 at the home of his daughter Beatrice Latta in Cronulla and was buried in Waverly Cemetery. He was survived by his son Alfred Ernest, daughters Julia, Gertrude and Beatrice and two sisters Louisa Mansfield (d.1937) and Amelia Steed (d.1932) who were living in Caringbah. The main benefactor of his will was his son Alfred who inherited a block of land, two graves at Waverley Cemetery, cash for his father’s burial and other items. Estate was sworn at £32/15/6.Net.

Colleen Passfield 2022

Records of people mentioned in this story are available in our database.

References: