Collection SummarySlab Hut
built c.1886DescriptionIn the nineteenth century western Sydney was rural, and slab huts were common dwellings. Timber could be readily cut from local Eucalyptus forests and hewn into slabs ready for building. This slab hut was built by Nathan Rule about 1886, at 53 Church Street, Cabramatta, using timber cut from the area.
The hut was originally a kitchen and dining room for the main house, which was a three bedroom weatherboard cottage built at the front of the block of land. It was separated from the hut by a brick courtyard to reduce the risk of a kitchen fire destroying the house. Family meals took place in the hut and water was collected from a tank and two brick wells outside.
Born in 1847 in Brent Pelham, Hertfordshire, England, Nathan Rule had emigrated to Australia in 1856, on the ship Herald, with his parents James and Mary (nee Hammond), and five brothers William (born 1845), John (born 1845), David (born 1846), George (born 1849) and James (born 1850). James and his sons William and John were farm labourers.
Nathan Rule married Eliza Bull in Liverpool in 1879, and they moved to Cabramatta about 1886, when they built the house and slab hut. They had five children: James (Jim) (1879-1964), John (born 1881) , Arthur (1884-1948), Esther (1886-1942) and Florence (born and died 1889). Eliza Bull was born in Liverpool in 1859 to James and Maria Bull.
Nathan Rule died in 1914, and in the 1920s the main house was demolished. The hut was then occupied at various times by elderly people, the first of whom was Jim (James) Rule, Nathan’s son. Jim worked at Hirst’s timber mill in Cabramatta for many years and later opened his own smaller mill in Church Street, Cabramatta, opposite the hut.
Jim’s younger brother, Arthur, married Florence Ivy Hoy in 1915 and together they had four children, Thelma (1916-1986), Dulcie (born 1917), William (Bill) (born 1919) and Raymond. Their eldest daughter, Thelma, who married Lionel Forsyth, inherited the hut in the 1930s, but none of her family ever lived there. In 1984 the Forsyth family donated it to Fairfield City Museum, when it was relocated to the Village.
The ‘slabs’ of timber for the walls were probably produced by the pit-sawn method. This required a pit to be dug in which one man (called the ‘top dog’) operated one end of a cross-cut saw whilst a second man (the ‘pit man’) worked the end in the pit. Other methods were wedge-splitting, which involved driving a wedge along the grain, and hewing planks using an adze.
The interior of the hut has been reconstructed to reflect the occupation of the hut by Jim Rule and subsequent occupation by other elderly people including Bill Austin and Stella Fryer. The kitchen has various original furnishings including the meat safe and biscuit tins. The bed and mirror were originally from the main Rule family residence.
This is the second oldest slab hut in the Fairfield district, outdated only by the slab cottage at 76 Chifley Street, Smithfield, built about 1880. Both huts are listed on the Fairfield City Council Heritage List.
