Tag: Australia

Dans Thursday Doors

We are still in Kiama for this weeks Thursday Doors. This week it’s the Post Office

Kiama Post Office is associated with the first post office established in the town in 1841, and as such is linked with the early development of the town in the mid-nineteenth century. Kiama Post Office has been the centre of communications for Kiama for over a century, and reflects the growing population and demands for improved mail and telegraph services in the area.

It was in January 1841 when Kiama’s first post office was opened, located in premises on Michael Hindmarsh’s allotment in Shoalhaven Street

Several decades later, in January 1878, a tender from W.R. Vaughan for £3,300 was accepted for the construction of a post and telegraph office on its current site. The building was completed in December 1878; however, in April 1879, Postal Inspector Davies reported that arrangements for posting letters in the new building were unsafe.
By December 1879, alterations were completed to improve the new building that had thus far remained unoccupied. And so it was that on 19 January 1880, the new purpose-built post office building was finally opened for business. Mr Tyter was the postmaster.

Kiama Post Office also provides evidence of the changing nature of postal and telecommunications practices in NSW and features the earliest surviving use of the corner clock tower as a design element in NSW. Kiama Post Office is aesthetically significant because it is a substantial, intact and picturesque example of the Victorian Italianate style, and makes an important aesthetic contribution to the civic precinct in Kiama. Kiama Post Office is also associated with the Colonial Architect’s Office under James Barnet, a key practitioner of the Victorian Italianate style of architecture.

The Post Office clock was installed by Angelo Tornaghi (born in Milan, Italy), who arrived in Sydney at the age of 24. He became a maker of scientific instruments and was appointed the position of being in charge of all NSW Government turret clocks, including the clock at the Sydney GPO.

Please Mr Postman

REF: https://library.kiama.nsw.gov.au/History/Photographs-stories-oral-histories-and-more/Local-history-stories/Kiama-Post-Office
REF: https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5051275