Small rowing vessels were trumps in the early Hawkesbury district, being easily nudged ashore, and needing no wharf. So, initially, the wharf ordered to be built by Acting Governor Paterson in the centre of the district was used only by government vessels. It had been built in 1795 off the unnamed civic square, later to become Thompson Square.
Many settlers constructed their own jetties - John Fenlow in the 18th century and William Hayden, whose wharf (later called Beasley’s) was near the bottom of Fitzgerald Street Windsor.
During the 1816 floods, Beasley’s wharf was heavily used by small rescue vessels and salvaged stock including terrified pigs, because the government’s wharf was covered by the floodwaters. It had been built in 1795, washed away, replaced in 1799 and again in 1814.
In 1814, Governor Macquarie had set about ‘filling up Thompson’s Square and erecting a Wharf’ using local contractors John Howe and James McGrath.
The earthworks included laying a sewer and drains and the wharf was almost two metres high and 20 metres long, running along beside the bank. It projected into the river 8.5 metres. It was in use by March 1815, when Lawrence May advertised to transport his customer’s grain from there to his horse-operated flour mill in George Street, Windsor.
Almost immediately in 1815, an upgrade to continue the wharf along ‘the whole extent of the square’ began, projecting the jetty just over nine metres into the river, one metre above that of 1814, more than four times as long (around 85 metres). It needed 560 piles.
Despite part payments being made in 1815, complaints about the ‘inferior and bad Description of Timber’ and workmanship were lodged with the Governor.
Magistrate Mileham and Richard Fitzgerald investigated early in 1816, finding that the workmen had been inadequately supervised, and the materials were below those specified in the Contract; Howe commenced removing the offending planks the very next day.
Then, disaster struck. The May and June 1817 floods carried away the works, leaving only a mess of tangled posts, shown graphically in the etching by William Preston, of a painting by Captain James Wallis.
Francis Greenway was called in to design a stronger fifth government wharf at Hawkesbury, although Howe continued to be the contractor.
The wharf was not completed until the beginning of 1820, when Howe received the difference between the construction costs for the ‘former’ wharf, and the new one ‘now Erected as per Agreement’ along with sundries, receiving £316.10.0.
The wharf could accommodate vessels of up to 100 tonnes.
The Greenway Quay finally completed the early Windsor wharf saga. The river had made Macquarie’s wharves there unbelievably costly, in total more than £1000, over half the cost of Greenway’s elegant Court House still standing in Windsor.
