August 15th, 2024The Castle actor digs another link to Bullarto
Forever famed for his role as Dale Kerrigan in 1997 Aussie Move classic The Castle, actor Stephen Curry has quite a special connection to Bullarto it seems.
That connection has been highlighted in recent weeks by popular SBS program, Who Do You Think You Are?
The well-known actor who will always be remembered for his line “dug another hole” recently featured on episode 7, season 15 of the SBS lineage discovery show during which he unearths a paternal connection to British Bronze Age treasures and a “whistle blowing” gold rush banker in his mother’s family history.
Stephen learns that his own great-great-grandfather Thomas Hodgens, who emigrated from Ireland to the Castlemaine goldfields in 1852, went on to become a store owner, gold buyer, mayor of Chewton and branch manager of the Oriental Bank at Chewton up to 1862, during the heady days of the gold rush.
The actor’s intrepid forebear also had a pretty interesting life in the Daylesford area, particularly at Bullarto as members of the Daylesford and District Historical Society were able to help discover.
During the making of the episode, Stephen catches up with Smeaton-based Keir Reeves who is a professor of history at Federation University’s Future Regions Research Centre.
Through Professor Reeves, Stephen learns that some dubious activity involving a gold bar led to his great-great-grandfather Hodgens becoming a whistleblower and subsequently parting ways with the bank.
As Stephen and Professor Reeves catch up in the Red Hill Hotel in Chewton, Professor Reeves informs the actor that tragedy struck when his great-great grandfather, then lost his wife and, leaving Chewton, made his way, with his three young children in tow, to Daylesford.
“His story is an exemplar of many people on the goldfields,” Professor Reeves later told The Local. “I found it quite moving to follow the story and like so many families, there’s ghosts in the cupboard.”
During the making of the intriguing Who Do You Think You Are? episode, Stephen also meets with the Daylesford and District Historical Society’s Jan Smith on site at the Bullarto Hall where he learns about his own strong family connection to the site itself.
“It was a terrific time for many in Daylesford and Thomas obviously saw an opportunity to improve his life,” says Jan who, as part of the team of enthusiastic volunteer researchers with the historical society, played a vital role in providing background research for the episode.
Like Professor Reeves, Jan also appears in th episode, helping Stephen peel back the layers of his past and providing the research that shows his great-great-grandfather Hodgens had remarried, going on to have 10 more children with his new wife, Mary Jane, including Curry’s great-grandfather.
Jan is able to inform the actor that, while contending with a very large debt burden and 13 children, his great-great-grandfather Hodgens had in 1865 been granted 38 acres of land at the site where the historic Bullarto Hall itself now stands, building a house and also a hotel there.
After moving to the area he had also run a store, worked as a slaughterman, and also grew crops at Bullarto after he was granted the land.
“The thing that’s always amazing about delving into the past is that once you start learning their stories it becomes quite emotional,” Jan told The Local.
“I felt happy that we were able to provide a positive part of his great-great- grandfather’s story. Stephen was so happy that there was a good outcome for his great great-grandfather.”
Jan said that the Daylesford and District Historical Society’s volunteer research team frequently receives requests for assistance with interesting research projects, effectively drawing on 60 years of volunteer work and dedication in the process.
“The one thing he never lost sight of was the importance of optimism and I think that’s come down through the generations,” muses Stephen after Jan shares with him key details of his ancestral connection to the area.
Don’t worry if you missed the initial SBS free-to-air TV screening back on June 18, as the episode is easy to find online at SBS On Demand.
The episode also lifts the lid on some of Stephen’s darker family closet secrets going all the way back to Ireland in the 1800s.
These include the discovery that, while one of his early maternal ancestors was an extremely wealthy Irish merchant, another had been jailed for abducting a very rich young heiress in 1820, while another was jailed in 1884 for bigamy, having been married to at least five different women.
Words: Eve Lamb
