Charles Catley

Charles Catley was born in Drury Lane, Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, England and arrived in the colony of New South Wales in 1848, making him about 23 years old. Catley’s arrival was only 10 years after the gazettal of the ‘Village of Coogee’ in 1838, at the instigation of acting surveyor general Samuel Perry.

Only days after his arrival in the colony, Catley headed for the village of Coogee, where he established himself as a landholder and market gardener on lots bounded by Brook, Dolphin and Mount Streets in this sloping, swampy sandy terrain close to the rear of what is now Coogee Oval. The commanding views across Coogee Bay were those that the local First Nations peoples had long admired before colonisation. Coogee Beach is still acknowledged today as a ceremonial meeting ground.  Currently, ‘Koojay’ Corroboree acknowledges this significant place of coming together.

At first, Catley lived in a bark hut on the property with his brood of children, whilst he literally ‘cultivated’ his fortune growing cauliflowers. By 1866 he was able to build a sandstone Georgian style two story house on Brook Street Coogee, that he named for the brassicas that made his family wealthy – Cauliflower Hall. Although according to Randwick Council’s rate records and Sand’s Sydney Directory, Catley’s house is also called ‘Drury’ in the rates records, honouring his place of birth. 

Maybe ‘Cauliflower Hall’ was a slight by the upper classes of the district who resented the wealth of the new colonists from lower class origins, who were prepared to work hard with their families. There is no known record of any other produce types that Catley may have grown especially in the summer months. The Randwick archival rate records reflect what was most likely the preferred or official name for the property, ‘Drury’

By the time of his death in 1914, Catley’s estate was divided amongst his children, his wife having pre-deceased him. He bequeathed multiple parcels of land in Brook Street, and Arden Streets to his daughters and around 10 acres of cultivated land in Botany Street (near some of the Pearce family market gardens) to his two sons George and Charles G Catley. His total estate in was valued at £20 721 at probate. Quite a fortune at the time, for a man of humble origins.

It is quite remarkable that one of the sandstone retaining or boundary walls, most likely quarried at the same time as the stone for Cauliflower Hall, survives to this day. It has been listed as a NSW State Significant item, surviving on private land. Nominated by Randwick Council in 2013, it predates the grand sandstone wall retaining Coogee Beach promenade of 1882 and is one of the oldest surviving-built remnants of the early European village of Coogee.

Pictorial representation of Cauliflower Hall and Charles Catley himself were published in the first ever European history of the Randwick municipal district published in 1909. This enduring recognition remains as testament to Catley’s legacy and importance in the district, in the early days of the suburb that is now Coogee. In this same publication, Charles Catley is celebrated as ‘the father of Coogee’, living to the grand age of 89, by 1914 when he died. The ‘father of Coogee’ assertion would never be made today, ignoring First Nations occupation of the Lands for many thousands of years before European settlement. It also ignores the fact that Catley never served on Randwick Council, despite being such a well-known and long-standing figure in Coogee.

We are left to ponder why such a long-standing businessman of the district did not seek election to Council, being a respected European elder of the district. There are several possibilities that explain this. Simeon Pearce may have monopolised the ‘agrarian’ representation on Council, he is acknowledged as a dominate force in the district. The Randwick-Coogee village rivalry that was the genesis of the ‘St Jude’s case’ is also a possible explanation. There was thirdly possibly some social snobbery. When reviewing the Coogee men who served on the Council at the time of Catley, we think of Charles Moore especially. Often, they were men of wider social standing and respectability in greater Sydney society. Charles Moore lived at Ballymac built c1863 in Arcadia Street overlooking the northern headland of Coogee Beach. He was one time Mayor of the City of Sydney and responsible for the preservation of ‘Sydney Common’ now aptly named Moore Park.

There is also the possibility that Catley’s market gardening interests, and large family kept him wholly occupied and content. He certainly was a fine example of the European colonists’ capacity to make a life and fortune for themselves and the next generation of their family. The only remaining question is ‘Did he successfully cultivate anything apart from Cauliflowers?’