Kinlyside clan comes to town
8 October 2012
George Kendall Kinlyside was a prominent citizen of Hall in the early 1900's. Yesterday a group of his descendants came out to the School Museum, bringing with them invaluable family records - photographic, written, and family stories.
George will be associated by many community members with 'Kinylside Hall', which he built as part of his coach-building business, and the suburb of Kinlyside (still on the maps, but unlikely ever to be built as the suburb originally envisaged) which is named after him. There is also a 'Kinleyside' (sic) Crescent in Weetangera. George also built the house 'Kenmyra' immediately behind his business (now the Hall Service Station) presently the home of Bob Richardson and Helen White.
George was born at Nanima in 1877. In 1900 he bought the land in Hall for his future business and residence from Joseph Bolton, then licensee of the Cricketers Arms Hotel. It is reported that in 1906 he was a founding Secretary of the Hall Progress Association. In 1909 he married the 'girl next door', Ada Hollingsworth.
By all accounts George was an excellent tradesman. As adjuncts to his coach and buggy building and repair business, he was a blacksmith, a carpenter, an undertaker, taxi driver, and ran a paint shop and drying room (Kinlyside Hall was built for this purpose). In 1903 he patented his invention of a 'poison cart' designed to help deal with the rabbit plagues. In 1938 he sold the business - by then a motor garage - to Jim Rochford, and moved to Braddon.
Lesley Kimber, whose husband Peter has written 'The Kinlyside Family in Canberra', presented a copy of this excellent family history to the 'Friends of the Hall School Museum'.
We are exploring with family members how they might contribute to the 2013 Heritage Festival exhibition on 'Hall in 1913', which is envisaged as a contribution to the Centenary of Canberra.
Our photo shows (L to R) Christine Miller, Lesley Kimber, Pat Kinlyside, Joan Christie and Eileen Wignall.