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WAGGA WAGGA’S TWO ‘ANNIS & GEORGE BILLS’ HORSE TROUGHS

There are two ‘Annis & George Bills’ horse troughs in Wagga Wagga:

1. Located in the grounds of the Museum of the Riverina, Botanic Gardens site. A dog trough survives, stored beneath the trough. The original location of the trough is unknown. 2. Located at Bomen near the entrance to the Wagga Wagga Livestock Marketing Centre (Webb Street). A dog trough is in place. Not known if this is the original site.

George Bills was born in the English seaside resort town of Brighton on 11 March 1859, the fourth son of naturalist and bird dealer Richard Bills and his wife Elizabeth . In the 1860s his father was contracted to supply and supervise the consignment of English birds to New Zealand on behalf of the Otago Acclimatisation Society and the family decided to emigrate to Dunedin. Subsequent contracts with the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society in Christchurch led to collecting trips to Australia and it was while Richard was trapping magpies there in 1873 that the family, with the exception of eldest son Charles, relocated to Melbourne. They eventually moved west along the Murray River and settled in the Echuca-Moama district, an area that straddles both sides of the Murray and offered access to the vast collecting region of the Riverina.

As Richard’s sons came of age business continued with New Zealand and new initiatives began to develop in Australia. In the early 1880s Henry Bills opened a bird shop in Sydney and George, now in his early twenties, established a branch in Brisbane. At the same time, two other brothers, Richard jnr. and Walter, began experimenting in Melbourne with a new venture – wire working. Starting with bird cages and wire door mats they moved into the more profitable manufacture of wire mattresses and Walter invented an innovative new machine designed for this purpose.

Walter’s machine revolutionized the Bills business and by 1886 Henry had opened a wove-wire mattress factory in Sydney and Geogre had opened a factory in Brisbane. The Brisbane branch of the business, birds and wire, closed in the mid 1880s but both the Melbourne and Sydney factories prospered and these early experiments in wire mattress production laid the foundations for the future growth of the company. Their interests in bird dealing decreased and following the death of Richard senior, who died while collecting birds in Narrandera in December 1890, it ceased altogether.

George married English woman Annis Elizabeth Swann at the Brisbane General Registry Office on 18th May 1885. Annis was born in Sheffield on 25 September 1859 to Mary and Thomas Swann and little else is known of her background. Soon after their marriage the couple relocated to Sydney where George joined his brother Henry whose business and soon became a partner.The business prospered and by 1901 occupied a spacious premises at 541-3 Kent Street, Sydney. It was at this time that quite substantial donations from Bills Bros. began to appear in the annual reports of the Animal Protection Society, NSW. Their regularity demonstrated a strong interest in animal welfare on the part of Henry and George that was to continue for the rest of their lives.

It has been argued that this concern derived from remorse “at the suffering that had been caused to birds in the early days of their business” and it is true that there was an increase in public concern for the protection of native birds and animals in the 1880s and 1890s. The influence of women on the animal protection movement also grew at this time, with a an emphasis on the welfare of ‘pets’, a category that included caged birds (MacCulloch, 1994). The primary issues surrounding animal welfare at this time remained concerned with ‘useful’ animals used in agriculture and industry. These trends, and the example set by their father, would have strenghthened the convictions held by the brothers.

Though little information exists regarding Richard senior he was clearly a man who had a broad knowledge of natural history, was concerned with humanitarian issues and would seem to have genuinely cared about the condition and fate of his charges. A fellow passenger during a voyage to New Zealand in 1870-71 wrote of him in the Otago Witness (11 March 1871) as “one thoroughly acquainted with the habits and peculiarities of British birds and an enthusiastic lover of the feathered tribe” and one who’s “attention to his charge[s]” was tireless – “early and late was he at his post”. At the time the Bills family settled in Australia community concern for the welfare of animals was almost non existent and cruelty was widespread. Compared to the example set by their father, the treatment of animals in Australia that the Bills children witnessed would have been totally inadequate.

There were some inroads being made and early legislation, though generally weak and negative in application, had been passed in most colonies including NSW (1850) and Victoria (1854). Animal protection societies had also been established (1871, Victoria; 1873, NSW*), prompted in particular by the widespread neglect and mistreatment of working animals and of livestock in transit, at markets and in slaughterhouses. The treatment of working horses, in particular, occupied a considerable portion of the early protection societies’ attention for many years. Though the NSW Society was able to report in 1882 that “the general condition of omnibus and cart horses has improved, and neglect and cruelty … has greatly diminished”, between 1880 and 1900 ninety percent of the cruelty cases prosecuted in NSW involved the ill-treatment of horses. (MacCulloch, 1994) In 1904 cruelty to horses was a factor in 195 of the 199 successful prosecutions noted in the Society’s Annual Report.

An important part of this concern involved the provision of adequate watering facilities. Not only were there insufficient numbers of street water troughs but many existing troughs were poorly designed and their maintenance neglected. Effective provision at railway stations, wharves and slaughter yards, where animals were often kept enclosed for long periods without water or sustenance, was also a key concern. As late as 1919 the NSW Society noted in its Annual Report that, regarding the supply of water troughs, “much remains to be done”.

As well as lobbying city and municipal authorities, the protection societies also solicited subscriptions from their own supporters to fund the erection of water troughs and sought to encourage private benefactors “who may be willing to present drinking troughs” to the community. In George and Annis Bills they found responsive supporters. Having no children and a good income from an increasingly prosperous business, the couple used their money to fund the social and charitable causes in which they believed, including animal welfare.

When George retired from active participation in the Sydney wire business ca.1907, he and Annis moved to Melbourne and seem to have begun funding water troughs around the city almost immediately. In 1910, however, during a holiday in England, Annis died suddenly while they were visiting George’s birthplace at Brighton. She was only 50 years of age. George returned to Melbourne with his grief and remained there for the rest of his life.

Involvement with the Victoian Society for the Protection of Animals With his brother Henry, who also retired and moved south at this time, George now began a long and vigorous involvement with the Victorian Society for the Protection of Animals. (Pertzel, 2006) They funded additional inspectors and motorcycles to assist them in their duties and in 1920 provided £2,000 to underwrite specific inspections of work places such as saw mills and mines, an advertising campaign, the publication of a journal and for “stirring up” the railway commissioners and the police in relation to the welfare of livestock during transportation .

At the same time as they were funding these initiatives in Victoria money continued to flow to the Animal Protection Society in NSW. Both Henry and George became ‘Life Governors’ of the NSW SPCA and for many years made an annual donation to that society of £250. In 1924, anticipating the work that would carry on posthumously in his and Annis’s names, George donated “a handsome trachyte trough” valued at £175 to the Sydney municipality of Randwick.

George died on 14th December 1927, aged 68, and his will stipulated that, after bequests to family, friends and employees were satisfied, a trust fund be formed from the residue of his estate, (valued in total at between £70,000 and £80,000), to fund horse troughs, with the consent of the appropriate authorities, wherever they be deemed “necessary or desirable for the relief of horses or other dumb animals” and to assist the work of societies and organizations established for the purpose of protecting and alleviating cruelty to animals. All troughs funded from his estate were to be “suitably inscribed with the names of Annis & George Bills Australia”.

The terms of his will received wide publicity and requests for troughs, especially from local councils, began immediately. To begin with, troughs were designed and built individually but by the early 1930s a pre-cast concrete design with fashionable Art Deco touches was registered and soon became the standard. Rocla took over the contract from the Hawthorn firm of J. B. Phillips in the mid 1930s and by 1938 had moved production from Victoria to NSW, first to Junee and then to Sydney. The majority of troughs distributed in Australia were constructed during the 1930s, with demand and production shrinking rapidly in the years following World War II as motor vehicles quickly replaced the working horse, particularly in urban areas.

George’s estate funded hundreds of troughs around Australia, the majority of which were located in NSW and Victoria and were designed with dog bowls at the side. A number were also funded overseas in England and, it is said, in places as diverse as Ireland, USA, Canada, South Africa, Japan, Romania and Switzerland. While a number of Bills troughs have survived in England, there is no evidence of any remaining in these other countries.

As directed in the will, other animal welfare initiatives also benefited generously from the Bills estate. Annual payments were made to the RSPCA and to the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and in 1934 a £3,000 donation ensured the survival of Melbourne’s ‘Rest Home for Horses’ at a new and larger site that also accommodated the ‘George Bills (later ‘Tailwaggers’) Kennels’ . Money also went to the Lort Smith Animal Hospital in North Melbourne, funding a motorcycle ambulance in 1930 and new X-ray equipment in 1938 .

Indeed, when the demand for horse troughs lessened in the post-war years, the Bills Trust shifted its primary concentration to the wider problems of animal welfare. When the need for an after-hours service became critical in Melbourne, the Trust offered the Victorian Branch of the RSPCA funds to establish a new complex that would include residential quarters, telephone service, first aid surgery and appropriate amenities for accommodating sick animals. Work began in early 1964 and, by the time the ‘George Bills RSPCA Rescue Centre’ was opened in June, the Bills Estate had contributed around £5,000 . The Trust was eventually wound up ca.1980 and the remaining funds distributed to animal welfare organizations, the NSW RSPCA, for instance, receiving a legacy of $17,000. (Smith, 1991)

Scattered around our cities and rural towns there are still many Bills horse troughs surviving in various states of preservation, neglect and decay. On his web site (www.webdotwiz.com/billshorsetroughs/ ) George Gemmell, the foremost publicist of their legacy today, has documented and photographed over 300 extant in Australia and overseas. Though many have been relocated away from the main traffic thoroughfares and few are still fulfilling their original purpose, they nevertheless bear tangible witness both to the emergence in late 19th century Australia of a public conscience concerning the treatment of animals and to a time when the horse occupied a central role in our everyday life. As such, they contribute interest and richness to the fabric and character of our local landscapes.

• The NSW Society was called the NSW Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals when it was founded in 1873. In 1878 it became the Animal Protection Society NSW. In 1918 it again adopted its original title and in 1923 became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).

References

Genealogical information has been drawn from already published work on the Bills family (especially Gibson and Roche), www.ancestry.com.au and the various New Zealand and Australian state indexes to births, deaths and marriages.

Gibson, Tim (1996) ‘Donated by Annis & George Bills Australia: Their Concrete Horse Trough Legacy’, Gippsland Heritage Journal, No.20, September, pp.44-47

Jack, Felicity (2003) The Kindness of Strangers: A History of the Lort Smith Animal Hospital, Melbourne: Spinifex Press

Lamb, Robert C. (1964) Birds, Beasts and Fishes: The First Hundred Years of the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, Christchurch: NCAS

MacCulloch, Jennifer (1994) Creatures of Culture: the Animal Protection and Preservation Movements in Sydney, 1880-1930, University of Sydney (unpublished PhD Thesis)

Palmer, Geraldine & McWilliam, Margaret (1991) ‘History of the Bills Horse Troughs’, Journal of the Parramatta & District Historical Society, Vol.5, March, pp.44-46

Pertzel, Barbara (2006) For All Creatures: A History of RSPCA Victoria, Melbourne: RSPCA

Roche, Barbie (1995) ‘Horse Troughs (George Bills)’, Fiche-ing Around, Newsletter of the Lakes Entrance & District Genealogical Group, No.20, March, pp.3-4

RSPCA (NSW)* (1874 – 1925) Annual Reports

Smith, Jan (1991) ‘Annis and George Bills Bequest’, correspondence to City of Sydney Public Library, Local History Centre, in City of Sydney Archives