Albert Lees: Butcher, Entrepreneur, Grazier and Returned Serviceman

Butcher Shop on the Corner of Warrataw & Saxby Streets

By Kim Lees

The centre for the business end of Gunning is now Yass Street, but this was not always the case. Up until the 1960s there were numerous shops and businesses at the railway end of Warrataw (previously Waratah) Street.

With the introduction of the railway line in the 1870s the top end of Warrataw Street became an important part of town. Frankfield House (known to us as 'the boarding house') which had been there for many years was originally a staging post for Cobb & Co. coaches and a hotel until the 1920s when it was closed. It later became a guest house and operated that way for many years. It has had a number of owners over the years, including T D Roche, Mrs Hookway, the Edwards family, Herb Pollard (who ran the Dalton mail run whilst his wife ran the guest house), Jack & Stella Range, ‘Alley’ Morgan (who also ran a taxi service in Gunning) and my family from 1963 until 1972 when it was principally a private residence. There is a lot more to the history of this building than the brief account I have recorded here.

Opposite Frankfield House, where the park is and has been since the early 1950s, was a row of shops which provided a major shopping precinct until the area was destroyed by fire around the 1920s. These shops can be seen in the header photo for the Gunning & District Historical Society website. 

After the shops were burnt out, the Bush brothers built a Butcher Shop on the corner of Warrataw and Saxby Streets to replace the one that they owned in the burnt out area. After the Bush brothers this shop was owned by Mrs F Dowling (nee Bush) and then Jack Turner who sold it to the Stevenson family. My father (Albert Lees) and his older brother Clem (who moved to Queanbeyan and owned a Butcher’s Shop there) were both butchers and worked for the Stevensons. This is probably where they did their apprenticeships in the 1930s. My father purchased this business in 1946 when he returned to Gunning after WW2 (he worked in a Butcher Shop in Warwick in Qld where he lived when demobbed at the end of the War) and operated it until 1961 when he sold to Frank Ryan, the other town butcher who ran a business in Yass Street. Dad also operated a Butcher Shop in Dalton for some of that time. The business employed a number of staff, including Owen Selby as the slaughterman. I remember orders being delivered around town by one of the employees riding a push bike with a large basket on the front. Prior to Christmas I would accompany this person on another push bike delivering the next year’s calendar. Albert purchased all the livestock he needed to supply the meat for his butcher shop from local farmers. It was not unusual for him to rise in the early hours of the morning, ride his horse to a farm somewhere in the district and bring a mob of sheep or cattle back to the slaughter yards and be home in time to open the shop.

Butcher Shop Staff, circa 1950s (Albert Lees 2nd left)

The slaughter yard used to kill and dress the meat for the butchering business was located off the Dalton Road. It had a “killing dock”, a meat house, a shed (with large coppers to boil down offal and skin drying racks) as well as a large piggery. All the tallow and bones were onsold for use in other products and the remainder fed the pigs.

“Killing” Dock, Slaughter Yards, circa 1950s

Next to the butcher shop was the town bakery. Mrs Birch always seemed to be in the shop. She seemed to be a very dour old lady who gave us nothing but a hard time when we went there, although she did give us a lolly or two when we came back from the dairy with her can of milk. I have always said we had the Butcher, the Baker and (not quite) the Candlestick Maker (but the Grocery store) all around us!

Opposite the butcher shop was a grocery store (on the site of what is now the scout hall). I remember an old painted sign on the side of this building advertising British Paints (keep on keeping on). It was originally owned by A. E. Crundwell – this shop can be seen in the header photo referred to above. About 1930 Noel Birch took it over, after which it closed for a while and was re-opened by A G Wells. Eric Butt was next to own it and employed Harold (Dooey) Dwyer. The shop was closed in the early 1960s and the business taken to Yass Street in the premises previously owned by Jack Hodkinson. In the late 1950s Harold Dwyer opened a grocery shop on the corner of Warrataw & Biala Streets which operated for a number of years. The old grocery store in Warrataw St became a table tennis centre and later the Scout Hall.

Another building of note at the top end of Warrataw Street was the Ex-Service’s Memorial Club. My dad being an ex-serviceman from WWII (he served in the Middle East and New Guinea with the 2/2 Machine Gun Battalion & in a desk job at Warwick in QLD after he was repatriated out of New Guinea). He was also in the Light Horse prior to the war and was very involved in the establishment and running of the Ex-service's club. He held the original liquor licence for many years. The building was originally the Oddfellows Hall which was built before WW1. It was used by the Red Cross & the Masons for their Lodge meetings, also for silent pictures and as a dance hall. Later it was used for roller skating & by Arnott’s Biscuits as a depot. [An interesting side story is that my mother’s great grandfather was a close friend and financial backer of Mr Arnott the baker who started Arnott biscuits in Newcastle in 1865.] The building was purchased by the Servicemen for £700 in the late 1940s and became the Ex Service’s Memorial Club. It is now being redeveloped as a private residence.

Albert Lees (centre), Middle East WW2

In addition to the Butcher Shop, my father leased two parcels of land, “Keswick” behind the Showground (the freeway now runs through this paddock) and “Glencoe’ on the Collector Road where he grazed mobs of sheep and did cropping (harvested for hay). He did a lot of trading in livestock between what he grazed on these paddocks, the pigs he raised and the livestock he purchased that was in excess of what he required for his butcher shop. I spent a lot of time with my father loading livestock on to trains, tending sheep, marking lambs, shearing (at Les Lang’s on the Collector Rd or Glen Bush’s on the Gundaroo Rd) and moving mobs of sheep between the two paddocks. He also went to the stock sales in Goulburn regularly and many times I went with him where not only did he sell his own livestock, but would purchase more and send them to Sydney to be sold. Reportedly he made a significant income from this business.

Albert & Kim Lees “Keswick” circa 1950s

After selling the Butchery business, my father leased “Oakhurst” at Lade Vale from Florence Lees, nee Lanham and widow of Aubrey Lees. He ran this as a successful enterprise until it was sold by the owner. In 1963 mum and dad moved back into Gunning and purchased Frankfield House (or ‘the boarding house’) from ‘Alley’ Morgan. At this time dad still held leases to the “Keswick" and “Glencoe” paddocks and kept himself busy as a “Rural Worker” through contract work shearing, fencing, land clearing and associated pasture development. For a short time he also managed Jack Shaw’s property on the Crookwell Road. Finally dad went back to his original trade as a butcher working firstly in Canberra and then as the manager of the Butchery Section of the Coles Store in Goulburn from where he retired. After his retirement dad kept his hand in as a butcher by assisting farmers around the district to kill and dress their meat. I also remember dad talking about having worked in shearing sheds in far western NSW when he was younger. After leaving the Boarding House my parents lived in a new house they purchased (pre-fabricated) and sited on the first of 4 'allotments' (purchased from Glen Bush) at the eastern end of Grosvenor Street. They lived there until 1985 when they moved to Batehaven (although dad continued to visit Gunning regularly until his death in 1991). Mum moved to Port Macquarie in 2000 to where my younger sister Christine lived. She passed away in 2005.

Albert was a very keen fisherman and it was not unusual for him to head off on Saturday afternoon for a fishing trip with a couple of mates (and me when I was old enough) to Burrinjuck Dam or some other place returning on Sunday evening. Together we fished most rivers and creeks around the district on a regular basis. He would also take trips to Far Western NSW to fish the Darling and other rivers. He often came home with wheat bags full of fish which he kept in the cool room at the butcher shop (or later in the freezer at home) until they were collected by his mates. As a fisherman dad had his own boat. I remember several occasions when the local police sought his help to rescue the family who lived at the bottom end of Warrataw Street when floodwaters in Meadow Creek isolated them.

Albert Lees (right) & George Hickinbotham (brother-in-law), 1950s

Albert Lees 1980s

Clay Target shooting was a particular sport that held a lot of interest. Albert was an avid shooter and one of the backbones of the Gunning Clay Target Club. There were clubs at Fish River (Gunning), Dalton and Oolong (Jim Medway’s) – I am sure there may have been others. The shooters also travelled to tournaments at Queanbeyan, Goulburn, Young, Harden and probably many other places. There was a handicap system, whereby the newer or less accurate shooters were off the “front mark” whilst the better shooters were off the “back mark” some 20 yards or so behind. I can only ever remember dad being off the back mark. He was a champion shooter all around the district and participated in many NSW championships and even Australian events. He participated in a “shoot off” for the final place in the 1956 Australian Olympics team, being beaten 500/499. A few names I remember are Bun Hallam & Jim Medway (Gunning), Jack Storier & Sid Lamb (Goulburn) & Merv Edlington (Queanbeyan). From memory he gave the sport away in the 1960s. He took it up again briefly later on to help the Dalton Gun Club re-establish.

Albert Lees (right) 1950s Gunning Gun Club

This article has been written with the assistance of a number of sources, including some reflections on Gunning written by my father (Albert Lees), information obtained from other family members and my own memories. I acknowledge that there may be some minor inaccuracies and deviations from actual events.