BUREAUCRATIC promises had been made and broken too many times – retaliation the town’s most powerful group, the Rosewood Chamber of Commerce, called an Indignation meeting.
It was called for Wednesday night, February 3, 1926 in the Rosewood Farmer’s Hall.
The cause of the ‘Indignation’?
Since the end of the war, the Post and Telegraph office of the government had been promising the townspeople an up-to-date Post Office to replace the one built around the turn of the century.
Money had been set aside for the new building and then quietly assigned to a like institution in another town. A vacant block of land beside the old Post Office had been purchased and yet seven years after that first promise was made, it languished as nothing more than a grassy plot.
Enough was enough, was the opinion of the Chamber of Commerce President, Walter Thomas, owner of the local cordial factory.
While post offices remain important institutions in country towns today, back then they were vital to all communications for public bodies and private citizens. A dedicated post office gave a town status and standing compared to smaller ‘less important’ towns where postal services were assigned to a counter in one of the local stores.
In early 1926, Rosewood had a dedicated post office but it was housed in a rather dilapidated building. To that point, the only outcome of the many promises made by the Postmaster General had been the ousting of the Rosewood postmaster from his private rooms in the building to a nearby house.
That move had been made in 1922, to gain more office space.
Two years later, the local MP, Jos Francis, had convinced the government and the Postmaster General to set aside £200 in the 1925 budget to send building surveyors to the vacant allotment to size up the property in readiness for the new structure to be funded in the following budget.
The surveying was done, but nothing more.
Yet, in nearby Marburg, those same building surveyors had been sent to the town in 1925 to survey a site for a new post office and a detached dwelling for the postmaster. Tenders were called the same year for the construction of the buildings and £2,500 was waiting in the Postmaster General’s budget to meet the cost.
While, Mr Thomas made the comment on behalf of the Rosewood’s Chamber of Commerce that they did not begrudge the Marburg townsfolk their good fortune, he was vehement in saying that … enough was enough.
So that moonlit night in the late summer of 1926, the indignation emanating from the crowded Farmer’s Hall in central Rosewood was almost palpable.
“The department has promised that something would be done very shortly,” Mr Thomas told the meeting, noting that ‘shortly’ had been an oft repeated promise for the last seven years.
“However, time was going on and with the shelving of the promises we must push from something to happen,” and he referred to the up-to-date post offices in “towns of lesser importance”.
“Telephone subscribers in Rosewood now number 80 and I consider it very unfair for the officials and the public to have a post office such as the one which exists in Rosewood.”
William Ruhno, owner of the town’s large department store, said he considered the people had been … “too passive of late in the matter of securing a new post office”.
“The Rosewood district has advanced out of bounds of late and will still advance.
“If the people of Rosewood do not wake up to their requirements now, in ten years time they will be in the same position.”
Herbert Dutney, the Chairman of the Rosewood Shire Council, agreed.
“Our experience has been that if you want something [from government] you have to keep plugging away until you get what you want.”
And so those attending the Indignation meeting agreed to make a political push to get what they wanted … and to keep pushing until it happened.
It took 15 years for all that indignation and political pushing for something to happen … and it was only due to the misfortune of another town.
Fast forward to the early years of World War II.
Marburg’s once bustling economy, led by the industry of the local farmers and the timber and sugar mills of the enterprising Smith family of Woodlands, had lost its bustle.
The death of TL Smith in 1931 combined with the Depression throughout the 1930s had led to Marburg’s economy slowing almost to a halt.
The townspeople’s bid for an upgrade to the post office built in 1926 had not only failed, it had resulted in an unexpected decision by the Postmaster General to close it.
On Tuesday, December 31, 1940, it was reported that “owing to the small amount of business transacted at the Marburg Post Office over the last few years, the department has closed it and tenders have been called for its removal to Rosewood”.
“The Marburg building is one of the town’s most modern structures,” the report continued. “When local residents first heard rumours of the proposed transfer they did all in their power to retain the post office, but were told that the amount of business did not warrant its retention … the removal will mean a great loss to the town.”
Two months later, came a report that the Marburg Post Office had been dismantled and brought to Rosewood.
“Today, [Thursday, February 6, 1914] workmen are engaged in preparing the [existing] building at Rosewood for removal, bodily, to the adjoining allotment, where it will be utilised until the ‘new’ post office building is erected on the site of the present building.”
And finally, on Monday, June 9, 1941, the extensive renovations were complete and the new Rosewood Post Office was officially opened.
