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of the Bonnett family until May 1949 and is now the sole operating
business and the only permanently occupied structure in Milparinka.
5.2.3 The Royal Standard Hotel
The Royal Standard was located opposite the Albert, and is listed in Sands
Directory for 1884. As with the Royal Hotel and the Albert, the Royal
Standard Hotel was built of locally quarried sandstone. It is shown in
Photograph 5.
The nucleus of the hotel was on Section 8 lot 8, originally granted to
Frederick Connors on September 22, 1884, and was probably one of the
four hotels reported to have been established at Milparinka by mid-1882.
Connors' entered into an arrangement with Edmund Resch who at the time
was a brewer in Wilcannia. Resch was given a mortgage over the
premises in June 1885, and in 1888 foreclosed, transferring the land and
premises to Cornelius Clune on June 4, 1888.
An adjoining block, Section 8 lot 9 was acquired by Clune five years later
in a purchase organised by T.W. Chambers. From the small paragraph
reporting the sale (Sturt Recorder, June 23, 1893:3) it is apparent buildings
were then erected on that block. Section 8 lot 9 had been the property of
Edith Frances Aldworth, probably the widow of Alfred Aldworth who
purchased it in JUly 1884 (NSWRG1). Edith Aldworth became the wife of
P. W.l. Barr, licensed victualler, in July 1893, shortly before the reported
sale of the property by Barr.(NSWRG1). This transaction, similar to a
number of other property transactions traced during my research, is not
completely clear. Barr, who had been associated with Milparinka since
1881, probably operated a store at Mount Browne. The purchased property
was a stone cottage already rented by the New South Wales Post Office
from Cornelius Clune, and used from 1891 as post office premises
(NSWP02).
Cornelius Clune was a regular advertiser in the Sturt Recorder, Tibooburra
and Mount Browne Advertiser, and the Clune family received several
mentions in the newspaper. Unfortunately they do not put the family in a
particularly good light.
For example, The Sturt Recorder from January 29, 1897 reported a
meeting of the trustees of the Milparinka Common on January 26th.
Included was the following:
'The meeting was unanimously of the opinion that those who were
striving to avoid the payment of fees and who were known to have
put their stock off the Common into the Evelyn Paddock when
mustering started, and systematically left the Mount Arrowsmith
Gate open, were responsible for what happened in the impounding
of the Commoners stock who had paid fees. There were about