Liverpool Range, 1955
Post Office, 89 Mayne St, Murrurundi
1.
An overview of early mail transport
Source: Wikipedia
Topic: Mail coach
Heading: History in Australia
Australia's first mail coach was established in 1828…
(From the late 1850s, as each state’s rail network advanced inland from the capital cities, the railway) became the distributor of mail to larger regional centres where the mail coach met the trains and carried the mail to more remote towns and villages…
In 1863 contracts were awarded to the coaching company Cobb & Co to transport Royal Mail services within New South Wales and Victoria…
Royal Mail coach services reached their peak in the later decades of the 19th century, operating over thousands of miles of eastern Australia. In 1870s Cobb & Co's Royal Mail coaches were operating some 6000 horses per day, and travelling 28,000 miles weekly carrying mail, gold, and general parcels.
Preserved Cobb & Co outside Royal Hotel, Murrurundi
For those interested in detail of Cobb & Co’s operation in the Hunter and Northern Tablelands of NSW, have a look at the following.
Source: TROVE
Publication: The Maitland Mercury, copied from The Upper Hunter Courier
Date: Thursday 17th August 1871 (15th August in the Courier)
Heading: Cobb & Co on the Northern Road
2.
The post office at 155 Mayne St, Murrurundi, 1870-1913
Source: https://www.aussietowns.com.au/town/murrurundi-nsw
Located on Mayne Street is the old telegraph office which was built in 1861 and became the local post office in 1870. It closed in 1913 when the new post office opened.
Prior to 1870, the postal service in Murrurundi was operated by contractors, usually from their residences in town. The move into the telegraph office marks, I think, the first employment by the NSW government of a postmaster at Murrurundi.
155 Mayne St lies on the main road through town, approaching the town exit towards the North. Until 1877, when the terminus of the Great Northern Railway moved North of Murrurundi to Quirindi, the Cobb & Co coaches carrying mail from/to the current railway terminus to/from Brisbane would have passed by 155 Mayne St. I conjecture that the coaches would have paused at the post office to exchange mail bags, thereby avoiding the need for the postmaster to transport the bags between the post office and the Cobb & Co horse-relay station at Murrurundi.
After 1877 post office staff had to meet trains at Murrurundi railway station, 1 mile from the office, in order to collect and dispatch mail and parcels.
3.
The post office at 89 Mayne St, Murrurundi. 1913-2016
In 1913 a new post office building was opened at 89 Mayne St, around half a mile from the railway station and closer to the commercial hub of the town than the prior PO.
Below is an overview screenshot from the North. The PO is the building at the centre of the image with a yellow truck parked in its driveway. The commercial centre of town commences to the left of the bridge over the Pages River. The railway station is hidden behind trees in the top left corner of the image. The oval in the right foreground is Wilson Memorial Oval.
Another overview, this time from the South. The post office is again at the centre of the screenshot. The fenced area in the top right corner of the image is today known as the Rosedale Equine Complex. While its existence can be confirmed in the late 1970s, the complex may not have existed in the “Liverpool Range” route’s model year of 1955.
The post office building is a good example of a Federation arts and crafts style Post Office. Features include a wide arch entrance to a porch, a large semi-circular window in back wall of the porch that echoes the arch, and white stucco over the upper half of the front wall. I have seen similar features in other Federation post offices (e.g. Taree, Brooklyn).
The Postmaster-General's Department (PMG) was a department of the Australian federal government, established at Federation in 1901. As with railway station masters, the PMG provided accommodation for its postmasters. Sometimes this was within the post office building. At Murrurundi a separate postmaster’s house was built to the rear of the post office.
