Thomas Stanley Williams - Articles

Article from ‘Faces in the Street’ – 2016

A follow-up to the sesquicentenary celebration of Grenfell in 2016.

The Family

Thomas Stanley (known as Stan) Williams was born in Cootamundra, NSW on 10 April 1888, the third of five children: William Ewart, John Stuart (known as Stuart), Stan, Ada May and Mabel Jane. His father, Thomas Williams, the local stock and station agent, was originally from Cheshire, England, and his mother, Elizabeth Ann Mutch, was from Forbes, NSW.

Stan undertook his Articles of Apprenticeship in Dentistry in Cootamundra with WB Burrows and completed his dental studies at the University of Sydney.

In Temora in 1914, Stan married Christian (Chrissie) Cameron Anderson, the second daughter of James Anderson, who had been the manager of the Union Bank in Grenfell from 1910 until 1911, and Christian Cameron Bell. Chrissie was born 29 May 1892 in Warracknabeal, Victoria and had one older sister, Sophia, and a younger sister Margaret who died as a child.

Stan and Chrissie raised their four children in their Forbes Street home in Grenfell: Beatrice (Betty) born 1915, John, born 1917, Kenneth, born 1920 and Margaret, born 1922.

Memories Of Main Street

Stan Williams, who moved to Grenfell after completing his studies in Sydney, is probably best remembered by many Grenfellians as the local dentist. During his 60 years of dental practice, from 1910 to 1970, he treated many generations of local families. Even now, more than 40 years after his death, Williams family members are greeted with ‘I remember your grandfather, he did my teeth!’

For most of those 60 years, Stan’s surgery was at Dodd’s Chambers in Main Street, Grenfell. The dental premises and Edwards’ pharmacy next door had been purpose-built for the two professionals.

The surgery consisted of four rooms: two front rooms and two back rooms divided by a passage down the middle, with a small backyard and an outside toilet. The front room to the left was the waiting room with long lace curtains at the window, a stereograph, and photos to entertain the patients. The front room to the right was the dental surgery, the main feature of which was the dental chair with foot pedal, the water and waste stand and the tray of dental equipment. In addition, the surgery held a large roll top desk and several cartoons and sayings in frames that Stan had around the premises. One was of a little boy in a straw hat, looking as though he had been in a fight, with the caption, ‘I don’t care, I kissed her anyway’.

Stan’s dental chair and his equipment are now part of the display in the Grenfell Historical Museum in the School of Arts building in Camp Street.

The room behind the surgery was Stan’s work room. It was common to see Stan seated in the cut-out section of his work bench under the window, Bunsen burner always alight, wax carving knife and his special little probing tool among other tools on the bench, bent over and working with small gold pieces to make fillings or creating sets of false teeth. When he was finished, Stan would put the false teeth out to dry on the windowsill—a memorable sight.

He would share pieces of wax from the false teeth moulds with his eldest grandson for building model aircraft carriers and give other grandchildren sample sets of teeth set in wax to play with.

As he was licensed to work with gold, he used this skill to make a wedding ring out of sovereigns for his then bride-to-be, Chrissie Anderson.

Stan’s work room at the surgery was also a meeting place for locals who would drop in for a chat. Stan was a very sociable person who enjoyed the camaraderie of catching up with people over morning tea and was often to be seen standing on the front step of the surgery, dressed in his white working jacket, seeing off patients, welcoming the next, or chatting cheerfully to friends and passers-by. He would also stop to say hello to everyone when he was walking down Main Street and if he had a grandchild with him, locals would always want to know to which of his children they belonged.

The remaining room in the premises was used as a storage room. It was here that Stan kept all manner of items relevant to his work, including the sterilizer. He also liked to make other useful things: he constructed the wooden bed on which he slept in this storage room in the years before he married. It was here also that he created a makeshift tap head so that he could have a shower in the small yard of the premises, with cold water only, which would have been an interesting experience in a Grenfell winter. It was from here also that, in later years, he would construct many things for his 14 grandchildren including wheelbarrows for grandsons as they were born and a doll’s pram for a granddaughter for Christmas.

Saturday morning at the surgery was when Stan did his tidying-up jobs, often with a grandchild in tow. One of his Saturday rituals was the weekly winding up of his two clocks, one in the surgery and the other in the work room. On the morning of his death, aged 81, he felt too tired to go down to the surgery and the clocks, unwound, stopped, just as the song My Grandfather’s Clock goes: ‘It stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died.’

In the Forbes Street home, designed and built for Stan and Chrissie by Stan’s brother, Stuart Williams from Cootamundra, Stan always kept his medical bag handy for emergency weekend callouts. He also used to operate at the hospital from time to time. He had hoped to be an orthodontic surgeon but an injury to his hand in a motor bike accident made that impossible because his hand was no longer steady enough for that specialised work.

Stan was an inveterate creator and inventor who was always trying to improve the way things worked. After the introduction of electricity to Grenfell in 1927, he devised a water and waste system, linking both gas and electric functions, for the stand next to the dental chair in the surgery. His original design for this equipment, also in the Museum, shows meticulous planning of the system as well as the best positioning in the surgery.

For his Forbes Street home, Stan made his own electric mower utilising a push mower and an unused electric motor. This was used for the crescent shaped lawn on the Young Street side of the block, one of the features of the property which early on was one of the show gardens of Grenfell.

Stan also had ideas for improving the features of early motor cars. He sent the NSW Police Commissioner detailed drawings for a switch on the dashboard to enable taillights to be turned on and off from inside the car, but he was repeatedly denied approval to adopt the system.

Stan loved motor transport. As a young man, he often rode his motorbike from Grenfell to Temora when he was courting Chrissie, his bride-to-be. After an accident on his motorbike, he bought his first motor car in 1911: a French-made, single-seated, 7/8 horsepower Clement-Bayard. He is reputed to be, with another Grenfell personality, PV Carter of Clare Park on the Cowra Road, the first to drive from Sydney to Grenfell in one day. The trip took more than 16 hours with wet weather being experienced for the greater part of the trip. Stan owned the Clement-Bayard until 1927 and followed it in later years with Dodges and his last car, a Hillman Minx.

He also always drove his current car from home to work each day, despite it being less than a ten-minute walk. He was still driving up to the time of his death.

Stan was also still smoking cigars, and at times a pipe, up to the time of his death. For his grandchildren, the cigars are a lasting memory. Not only did everything smell of cigar, but he used to save the wooden cigar boxes, store treasures in them and give the grandchildren the paper cigar rings to wear.

Stan was very attached to his family and his grandchildren have strong memories of many ditties, treats, letters and visits. An abiding memory is of him standing at the gate, tears running down his cheeks when family were leaving to return home after holidays in Grenfell.

Community Involvement

Stan was active in many local and regional organisations. As President of the Grenfell P&C Association for many years, he is credited with the upgrade of the school to Grenfell Intermediate High School in 1930. He is on public record, through letters to the Editor of The Grenfell Record, for his ongoing refusal to accept official advice that upgrades could not be undertaken and for berating parents for not supporting the education of their children. He was still an active supporter of education into the 1960s and was granted Life Membership of The Henry Lawson High School in 1964.

Stan was also keenly involved in the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Grenfell where he was Warden and was also Parish secretary for more than 20 years. He was the church’s Synod representative and the Bishop’s special representative at Synod. In continuing his involvement with building works, he was instrumental in the planning and erection of the parish hall as a memorial hall after World War One. However, Chrissie remained a member of the Presbyterian Church and the children attended services at both denominations.

For most of his working life Stan was a freemason and was installed as First Principal in the Grenfell Royal Arch Chapter.

Stan was a member of many local clubs: he was a foundation member of the Grenfell Bowling Club, an early member of the Golf Club, a member of the Agricultural Show Association and an active member of the Literary Institute. He also supported many charities, including Red Cross, selling badges at the surgery and organising fundraising events.

Chrissie was also involved with local community activities specifically with the Presbyterian Church and Red Cross, for which she was awarded the Long Service Medal.

Where Are They Now?

Stan Williams died in Grenfell on 8 February 1970 and was, at that time, the oldest practising dentist in Australia.

Chrissie passed away in Parkes in 1975. Betty, John, Kenneth, and Margaret are also now deceased. More than 50 descendants of Stan and Chrissie live across Australia and overseas.

Written by Lois Diamond, with contributions from her cousins, for the publication ‘Faces in the Street’- a follow-up to the sesquicentenary celebration of Grenfell in 2016.