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Cocky Bennett, Sea Breeze Hotel, Tom Uglys Poin...

Cocky Bennett, Sea Breeze Hotel, Tom Uglys Point 1911

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State Library of Victoria

[Acc No:H23120]

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Blakehurst The Cocky Bennett Story

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Sea Breeze Hotel

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Tom Uglys Point

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State Library of Victoria

The State Library of Victoria is contributing items from its multimedia collection

Blakehurst

Gameygal country until Europeans arrived, the area that became Blakehurst was part of huge grants given to the Townson brothers before 1810, and exploited for timber, charcoal, lime and soda, before farming began. As roads and transport improved in the mid-nineteenth century, settlement moved south. Chinese market gardeners farmed land in Blakehurst, and shipbuilding took place along the waterfront. The township grew fast in the early twentieth century, becoming a residential suburb.

The Cocky Bennett Story

Cocky Bennett was a remarkably long-lived cockatoo who spent his early years sailing the South Seas with his friend and keeper, Captain Ellis. At age 78, after Ellis's death, Cocky took up residence at the Sea Breeze Hotel at Tom Ugly's Point in Blakehurst where he entertained locals from his cage on the front verandah until 1915 when Ellis's niece died. He spent his final years with Ellis's grandnephew at the Woolpack Hotel, in Canterbury, delighting his new friends with his colourful and excessive chatter. He died in 1916 aged 119 years.

Animals

Hotels and Pubs

Sea Breeze Hotel

Hotel established at Tom Ugly's Point at Blakehurst to service the fishermen and ferry traffic. Offering picnic grounds and fresh oysters it was popular with pleasure seekers on the Georges River. When the original hotel was demolished in the 1930s an elegant modernist hotel was equally as popular until it was demolished to make way for apartments in the 1990s.

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Tom Uglys Point

Headland between Shipwrights Bay and Kogarah Bay, on the north shore of the Georges River.

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Cocky Bennett

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Sulphur-crested cockatoo who lived at various hotels around Sydney for decades after his first owner, Captain Ellis, died. It was reputed to be 119 years old when it died.