The Strange Jenolan Paradox of 1917

This month, on 27 December, one-hundred and three years ago, the stunning Orient Cave opened to the public, to great fanfare.  Yet 1917 was also the most terrible year in Australia’s history!  Paradoxically, it was one of the best years in Jenolan’s history.

The Costliest Year of All Time

In 1917, the First World War brought upheaval and heartbreaking loss for Australia. Last ANZAC Day, The Australian wrote, “The year 1917 was the worst of the war for Australia—it saw the greatest casualties of any year, escalating domestic rancour, the longest strike, a bedrock war-weariness and the defeat of the second conscription referendum. It is the most damaging and destructive single year in Australia’s national history. The scale of death, tragedy and family bereavement is almost beyond comprehension.”[i]

News.com.auquoted historian Peter Stanley, “Australia lost as many men in 1917 as in the previous years of fighting combined — almost 22,000. It was the year of the heaviest death toll and the most social division. That’s not just the costliest year of World War One, but of all time. Twenty per cent of all of Australia’s deaths in war happened in 1917. Behind the military losses, which we pause to remember today, were social and political disruptions of a scale never seen before or since. The bitter conscription debate, setting communities against each other in rifts that would not heal for decades; the Great Strike that sowed bitter enmity between “disloyal” unionists and “scabs”; a plague of mice that devastated crops; food riots; and a constant undercurrent of tension and suspicion that had innocent men hounded, impounded and banished for the crime of having a name that sounded a bit foreign.[ii]

We know that any Aussie who did not enlist was busy keeping industry going at home, and volunteering for organisations who who provided comforts for the troops. Commonwealth and state governments sold war bonds to raise money for the war effort.

Improvement to Caves

While all this was going on, what was happening at Jenolan Caves? Well, 1916 to 1918 were years of massive growth at Jenolan Caves.  In 1916, electric lighting was installed in Caves House, Jenolan’s hotel, and work also began on a massive accommodation extension. In 1917, our ground-breaking hydro-electric power station was expanded, to power the lights in the caves and to prepare to light the new Caves House extension. Then on December 27, the glorious Orient Cave finally opened to the public, with great fanfare.  

Many dignitaries attending the grand opening, including the Colonial Secretary, George Fuller. His daughter, Miss Gwen Fuller, in her speech, expressed the wish, “that the un-veiling of the Orient Cave’s unparalleled wealth of splendour will be the means of inducing many thousands of lovers of Nature's handiwork to visit this romantically situated tourist resort.[iii]

When the Orient Cave was first discovered several years before, the cave explorers, James Wiburd, Jack Edwards and Robert Bailey could scarcely believe its beauty. Following the discovery, Wiburd, said “it seems almost sacrilege to intrude upon this domain of purity”.

NSW Superintendent of Caves, Oliver Tricket, wrote that the chambers: "are so surpassingly beautiful, they are decorated from end to end. There are 'shawls' 8 feet in diameter, massive fluted columns 30 feet high, clear pools with crystal floors 15 feet in diameter, and 'shawls' with translucent white bands alternating with very dark bands. The variety of tints exhibited by the formations is not equalled in any other cave at Jenolan. For beauty, variety, and grandeur it is difficult to imagine anything to surpass the caverns.”

Huge Hotel Expansion

As for the massive new 4 story extension to Caves House, which was just about finished in time for the Orient Grand Opening, it was a huge success as well.  The Sydney Morning Herald provided some fascinating details.[iv] The grand staircase was built and a lift installed. For gentlemen, a smoking room was added, and the billiard room was doubled in size. There were 2 floors of guestrooms (a few even had toilets) bringing the total number of guestrooms to 100. The dining room was moved upstairs to a considerably larger space, where it could be “second to none outside Sydney”, and its kitchen featured the latest “ice plant and cold storage”[v].  (We take refrigeration for granted, but the first self-contained fridges were not sold in Australia until 1918, and only the very wealthy could afford them.)

All this expansion was wonderful and was deemed necessary because travel by horse and carriage was a thing of the past, and visitors were coming to Jenolan in motorcars, by the thousands, in spite of the war.

Help Solve a Mystery

It does make one wonder. Any historians out there reading this?  There is probably a good reason why the NSW Government of 1917 was able to carry out so many improvements at Jenolan Caves at a time when so much money was needed for the war effort. We are keen to know the answer to this paradox.