Draft:Thomas Saywell

Thomas Saywell (1837-1928) was an English-born property developer, mine owner and business person in New South Wales, Australia. He is particularly associated with the Sydney suburb of Brighton-le-Sands and the coal mines of Lithgow and the Southern Coalfields.

Early life

Family background and early life

The Saywell family name was originally Seyuille, at the time when their Hugenot ancestors fled to England in 1604. The family had been lacemakers in France and Flanders. Eventually settling in Nottingham, they pursued lace making there.

Thomas Richard Saywell was born on 20 February 1837, in Radford, Nottingham. His mother died while he was an infant and his father remarried.

Thomas Saywell's father, George, was an expert in setting up steam-driven mechanical lace making machines. After the lace trade in Nottingham fell into decline, George, his brother and their families moved to France, in 1841. By 1842, they had settled in the village of Saint-Pierre-lès-Calais, now referred to as the Quartier Saint-Pierre of Calais. Thomas was sent to school there, and as a result was fluently bilingual in French and English.

Emigration to New South Wales

Economic conditions in France and the revolution of 1848, left the Saywell family and other English workers in France in a precarious position. With scant prospects at home in England, the workers petitioned the English government to assist them to migrate to a British colony. The Saywell family arrived in Sydney aboard Agincourt on 6 October 1848.

First years in New South Wales

Initially unable to take their savings out of France, the Saywell family faced poverty. George Saywell became a carrier, with two bullock teams and some horses and carted coal, but within a year or so had a small piece of land and a share in a coal mine. For a time, George ran a hotel at Maitland. Thomas was working there as a tobacco twister in 1852. He spent some time on the goldfields, not as a miner but assisting his uncle to run a paid lending library.

Thomas Saywell married Annie Ellen Fawcett, daughter of a Balmain stonemason, in 1862. He opened a tobacconist's shop in Park Street, Sydney, in 1863.

Entrepreneur

Tobacco manufacturing

Thomas Saywell tobacconist’s operation was in 1870, when he bought plant and machinery of the Eagle Tobacco Factory and installed it in his shop at 4 Park Street. Thereafter he used the brand name 'Eagle'. In 1874, he bought another tobacconists business from Edwin Penfold, whose son, William Clark Penfold, later became a well-known Sydney printer and stationer. In February 1873, Saywell bought land on Clarence Street, Sydney, and over the next two years built a tobacco factory there.

Saywell has the dubious distinction of being the manufacturer of the first Australian-made cigarettes.

Tramway

Thomas Saywell's tramway ran from Rockdale railway station to Lady Robinson's Beach at Brighton-le-Sands. It opened as a steam-hauled tramway in 1885.

Electric trams and electricity supply

The first electricity supply in the St George area, was that for Saywell's tramway. It was converted from steam to electric power, in 1900. An Act of the NSW Parliament, would have permitted Saywell to provide electric street lighting, for which he would have been paid, but it was never passed.

Saywell constructed a coal-fuelled powerhouse, in what had been stables at the rear of the New Brighton Hotel. It used a three-wire (-240V — 0V / Ground — +240V) direct current system, giving 480V d.c. for the trams—Saywell's trams had two trolley poles, one for positive and the other for negative—and 240V d.c. for other uses. The powerhouse included a large bank of batteries. As well as powering the trams and lighting his hotel, Saywell's powerhouse did supply some other customers with 'electric current'. These consumers included, by around 1911, some street lighting in the Municipality of Rockdale and some shop premises in Rockdale.

At the expiry of Saywell's 30-year tramway operating concession in 1914, the Government Railways took over the tramway, retiring Saywell's aging electric trams. The government trams worked on a different current collection arrangement (one trolley pole and rail return). The tramway supply and overhead was reconfigured, and, initially, Saywell's power station continued to provide power for the government tram. In December 1917, a new tramway substation entered service, at Rockdale, supplied by a high-voltage a.c. power line from Newtown, and ultimately powered from White Bay Power Station. The tramway continued to operate under government ownership, until September 1949, when it was replaced by a bus service.

Saywell's powerhouse continued to generate electrical power until October 1923, continuing to supply power to Rockdale's electric street lighting and to other consumers. The tramway still was used to move coal wagons from the railway, at Rockdale, to the power station. However, Saywell's d.c. system was far too small, too unreliable, and too antiquated to serve the growing St George area. Once alternating current electricity became available from the newly established St George County Council, Saywell's power station closed.

Late life and death

Thomas Saywell continued to live at Brighton-le-Sands until xxxx. He moved to Mosman, for the last few years of his life, where he died on 23 November 1928.