An idyllic weekender at Bilgola Beach had a host of interesting owners over its history
Many readers will know something of Dalley’s Castle at Manly. They may not know that William Bede Dalley also built an idyllic weatherboard weekender, ‘Tallamalla,’ in 1886 at the far more remote Bilgola Beach.
In early 1888 he sold both his Manly and Bilgola properties and the Bilgola one eventually came into the ownership of Oswald Watt in 1912. He was a businessman, pastoralist and enthusiastic aviator. In 1913 he went to France, and flew with the French during WWI, his aerial exploits earning him the Legion d’Honneur and the Croix de Guerre, although he had no official rank.
In 1916 he transferred to the newly-formed Australian Flying Corps, served with distinction in Egypt and on the Western Front, and by war’s end had risen to lieutenant-colonel, in command of four squadrons of the Australian Training Wing at Tetbury.
Watt returned to Australia in 1919 and, in between his business and flying activities, spent as much time as he could at Bilgola in what is now known as Bilgola House. Early on Saturday 21 May, 1921 he rose to gather some firewood and go for a swim. He apparently slipped on the rocks, struck his head and drowned in shallow water. A tragic end to an amazingly adventurous life.
The next owner subdivided the property into 28 lots but half of them, including the one with the house, were bought in 1922 by Hannah Maclurcan and Robert Lee. Hannah Maclurcan (1860-1936) had started her formal working life at 15 years old, managing one of her father’s hotels, the Club Hotel in Sandgate, a coastal suburb north of Brisbane.
She wrote a famous cookery book, but by 1922 Hannah owned the lease of the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney, transforming it from a boarding house to a modern international hotel with a 1,000 seat dining/ballroom. She was a friend of John Bradfield who spent time at Bilgola (he was born in Sandgate), as seen together in the photo above.
Richard Michell is the vice-president of the Manly, Warringah and Pittwater Historical Society and the secretary of Friends of Dee Why Lagoon. Visit mwphs.org.au and fodyl.au