Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to pay tribute to a great historian and lifelong educator who passed away in September. Tom Richmond was born on 4 July 1941 at Hornsby. He was the son of Bob and May Richmond and was raised in the family home at Asquith. He and his family had deep connections on the Hawkesbury River. From 1861 his great-grandfather Vincent William Seymour began farming in the Brooklyn area. Seymour's dairy farm was located at the site of the shire's most recently constructed sports field. The field is known as Old Dairy and was officially opened by Tom himself in January 2016 when he bowled the first ball at the inaugural cricket match played there.

Tom attended Barker College, where he excelled despite being one of the youngest in his year. In year 12, he was selected for Barker's first-11 cricket team. He began his teaching career in 1960 in the small town of Woodenbong close to the Queensland border. In 1962 he transferred to another Northern New South Wales town and taught at Bonalbo Central School. In 1964 he was appointed to Normanhurst Boys High, in my electorate, where he taught English and history for four years. While teaching at Normanhurst, he completed his arts degree through the University of New England. While in this role, he involved himself in students' academic, sporting and welfare activities and was a lieutenant in the school's cadet corp. In 1968 he transferred and was promoted to head English teacher at Riverstone High at the age of 27. This made him one of the youngest teachers to hold that position.

When Galston High opened, in 1974, Tom became head teacher in both English and history. While teaching at Galston he became known as a leader in the field of local history education and took part in curriculum development related to teaching local history. He also took on the challenging project of restoring a rundown sandstone building known as Waddell Cottage on the school grounds. Over the next few decades, Tom had several similar roles at Windsor High, Ku-ring-gai High and Evans High. Tom retired in 1995 due to poor health, concluding 36 years of world-class high-school teaching. Tom also coached cricket for 50 years—from school teams to club and representative level.

Tom was a member of the Hornsby Shire Historical Society for half a century. In his retirement, he published five books: The Brooklyn Federation Village; Love Among the Prawns; Brooklyn Underground; Bar Island and Lower Hawkesbury; and 1906: The Birth of Hornsby Shire. In recent times, Nathan Tilbury has become his key historical collaborator and protege. In addition to Tom's published work, he wrote various other local histories on the Brooklyn Public School, the history of policing in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Cemetery, and local and Aboriginal history, for which he had a huge interest. From 2006, for nearly 14 years, he wrote a weekly historical column for the Hornsby Advocate. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, it was the first column I read when I opened the paper, and I always learned something. In recent times, Tom created his own regular hardcopy newsletter, which he named The Brooklyn Bugle. It presented a history of the Brooklyn area and was distributed locally for free. He gave hundreds of copies of this local history to various to community groups. Tom was awarded several prestigious awards, including the Order of Australian Medal for service to youth through sport education and the Australian Sports Medal for services to cricket, and he was the winner of the Hornsby Shire Heritage Award. Tom's moto when it came to history, particularly his own work, was that history is owned by all and needs to be shared.

Tom lived his final 40 years at Brooklyn on the property where his mother was born, and the land was acquired by his grandparents in 1906. I met Tom early in my time as an MP. Nathan Tilbury told me that Tom was disappointed I hadn't been to see him and pick his brain about issues and understand what Brooklyn was really all about. I remember that first meeting very well. Tom was so full of stories and information, and he was such a great source of what was really happening on the river. We became great friends. I was honoured when Tom offered to send a letter to his fellow Brooklyn residents supporting my re-election in 2019.

All of our community owes a great debt to Tom for giving us a greater appreciation of who we are as a community. Tom recently said: 'If I were to divide my life into major sectional interests, I'd place education at the top. Further down the ladder, I'd certainly include local history research. In essence, however, my work in this area has been educational, because my main aim has been to heighten the awareness of the community with regard to our magnificent historical heritage.'

Tom Richmond was a much-loved member of our community. In his declining years he had greater difficulty walking and perhaps greater difficulty in looking after himself as well. Whenever you saw him, he would drive up to you in his car and take quite some time to get out of the car, and he always looked a little dishevelled. But that was also part of his raffish river charm. Tom was a much-loved member of our community and he'll be missed by many. May his memory be an inspiration to his family, his friends and to all those who knew him.