POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Section of pump shaft excavated from Wynyard Square in 1827

Object No. 87/283

This piece of timber relates to the early supply of drinking water in Sydney during the late 1820s. It is part of the shaft for a spear pump built into a well to supply water for the early colonial military barracks originally located on the site of today's Wynyard Park. The type of pump may have been similar to those used in England to pump water out of mines at the time. While the mining engineer, John Busby, was constructing the tunnel (later known as Busby's Bore) to supply Sydney with a permanent supply of water in the late 1820s a number of setbacks occurred. Shortage of convict labour and increased immigration combined with drought conditions saw the colony run short of water. As a stopgap measure, Governor Darling ordered Busby to supervise the construction of six wells to be dug around the settlement. Two of them were in the Military Barracks for the use of the garrison stationed there which had been erected between 1782 and 1818. Come forward a century and in February 1927, while workers were excavating for the city's underground railway station at Wynyard Park located on the area once occupied by the garrison, an old well was discovered by the city railway engineers dug into the stone. The well consisted of a circular hole about 2 metres in diameter fitted with wooden pipes (a shaft) which contained the remains of a wooden pump known as a spear pump. This well was one of two within the walls of the garrison which had been sunk under Busby's direction by two miners employed on Busby's Bore. The wells had been dug to a depth of each 30 feet (10 metres) deep. The shaft pieces were of hardwood timber from 9 to 11 inches (23 cm to 30 cm) square. They were neatly dressed with chamfered arises and were bored longitudinally with holes about 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter. When discovered, these pipes were found to be neatly dovetailed together with practically watertight joints capable of resisting tension. This section of pipe is one of those discovered. This section of timber pump shaft is significant because it relates to the early and precarious nature of Sydney's water supply which continued throughout the 1800s. It is a rare survivor of traditional construction methods used by early engineers and miners at the very beginning of the colony's history. It is important in relation to Sydney's early colonial and military history, its water supply, transport history and the construction of Sydney's underground railway and Wynyard station. JOHN BUSBY. (1927, July 26).'The Sydney Morning Herald' p. 10. Retrieved from Trove, February 8, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16392330 https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/srnsw-public-photos/12685_a007_a00704_8735000168r.JPG Margaret Simpson, Curator February 2017