Charlie Shuttlewood.

On the Monday before the Warrah centenary, Charlie Shuttlewood's daughter Florence Paterson, from Manilla rang up Elizabeth Gallagher, and introduced herself. She later sent some info and more photos which arrived the day before the centenary. As things were so hectic at the time no-one was able to devote much time to them.

Florence is 73, and she lives with her husband at Manilla. They only heard about the centenary from the Prime News coverage on the TV just a week or two from the day of the event. They would have loved to have attended the centenary, but as they are both elderly, they decided not to. Florence also was once in possession of the fabulous photo of the "Warrah Station" steam traction engine that is in the Quirindi's historical cottage museum, and she kindly donated it to the museum to keep forever, plus a few other photos.

I remember my great uncle, Ron Barwick telling me about a time when the Warrah steam engine was driven up the Warrah road to the highlands to do some job up there. He said with all the smoke and steam, plus all the noise of the engine and the wheels on the gravel, that it spooked all the cattle and horses along the road as it went up.

Charlie Shuttlewood.

Charlie Shuttlewood, behind the wheel of the Warrah traction steam engine.

Charlie Shuttlewood  was born in the small village of Little Easton in the county of Essex, England, in September 1883. Christened Henry Walter Shuttlewood he was the oldest of ten children and at the age of 16 years he was working as a horse groom close to his place of birth. By the age of 26 years it is  believed that he was working for a company called Dalgety dealing with steam engines and transporting goods via steam wagons. Around late 1911 he left for Australia, and it's believed that Dalgety sent him there with engines. He actually changed his name when he reached Australia to Charles and obviously stayed and was then employed at Warrah Station as the steam engine driver and engineer.

Warrah Station bought the Clayton and Shuttleworth engine in 1911, plus wagons from Dalgety and Co. who were agents at the time.

Henry Charles Shuttlewood was employed as the engineer and driver between 1912 and 1922. Charles married Robina Ward, on the 26^th June, 1918, at St Stephens Church, Warrah creek. Robina Ward was the daughter of Sam Ward.  The Wards at the time owned the butchery at “Old Warrah” and also ran the store at one point . The marriage was witnessed by H Sevil and Nellie Ward.

Charlie and Robina Shuttlewood on their wedding day in 1918.

Charles and Robina had a son, John, born 6^th March, 1921. Sadly, Robina passed away less than 4 years later, in December, 1924, at just 28 years of age. She had suffered for a few years before her death from an internal complaint and was operated upon by Dr Clubbe, spent many months in hospital, before finally passing away from diabetes. Their son John owned an engineering shed with his wife Nola in Tamworth for 30 years. John passed away in 1992. It was called “Shuttlewood Engineering” and was in Belmore Street, Taminda, Tamworth.

Charles later married Florence George, who’s parents owned a hotel in Quirindi for some time. They had 3 daughters born in Tamworth. Florence Patterson, who sent us this info, was the youngest of the three.

After working at “Warrah” till 1922, Charles moved to Quirindi where he operated an engineering business, as well as selling and working on cars and other machinery.