Bessie Robinson
Publican. Pioneer. Occasional doctor. And, quite literally, one of the women who built Canowindra.
If you’ve had a drink at Bessie’s Bar, you may have wondered who Bessie actually was.
And, quite literally, one of the women who built Canowindra.
If you've had a drink at Bessie's Bar, you may have wondered who Bessie actually was.
Elizabeth Jane "Bessie" Robinson was born in 1844 and arrived in Canowindra with her family when she was eight years old. By the time she died in 1922, she had become such an important figure in the town that she is still remembered as the "Mother of Canowindra."
The woman behind the hotel
Bessie inherited a considerable parcel of land from her father when she was just 16, including much of the land on which central Canowindra would later develop.
Her mother built the original weatherboard Victoria Hotel on Bessie's land in 1865. An 1867 description makes it sound rather grand for the frontier: ten rooms, a detached kitchen, six-stall stables, a large stockyard and 160 acres divided into paddocks.
Bessie returned to Canowindra with her first husband, John Flanagan, and their children in 1868. After John died in 1872, Bessie took up the hotel licence herself.
The Victoria became far more than somewhere to order a drink. It was one of the places where locals gathered, meetings were held and the affairs of the growing town were discussed.
The hotel eventually evolved into the Old Vic we know today, on the same historic site.
There were bushrangers, naturally.
Before returning to Canowindra, Bessie and John had run the wonderfully named Sheet-o'-Bark Hotel near Woodstock.
According to Bessie's 1922 obituary, she regularly encountered bushrangers while living there and apparently had plenty of stories about them.
Given that this was gold-rush-era Central West NSW, a hotelier crossing paths with bushrangers wasn't entirely unusual. But it gives you some idea of the world Bessie was operating in.
Pub upstairs. Doctor’s surgery downstairs. Sort of.
Running a hotel and raising a family apparently wasn't enough to keep Bessie occupied.
She kept her own medicine chest and was remembered locally as having acted as both "doctor and nurse" for the district for more than 20 years.
When people were sick, she was known to travel considerable distances to help them.
There was no medical degree involved, and we probably wouldn't recommend asking your publican to prescribe anything today.
But in a young country town without easy access to medical care, Bessie was evidently one of the people everyone called.
Then she decided Canowindra needed a school.
Education became one of Bessie's great causes.
Rather than simply complain that there wasn't a proper school, she did something about it.
She engaged private tutors, established a small school and opened it to children from around the district free of charge. She then began campaigning for government support for a proper public school.
The first application didn't succeed.
So she kept going.
In 1875 the government finally approved a provisional school for Canowindra. It grew quickly and became a public school in 1877. In 2025, Canowindra celebrated 150 years of public education, with Bessie recognised as the person who got the whole thing moving.
She also helped build the town itself.
Bessie wasn't merely running businesses in Canowindra. She was developing Canowindra.
The land she inherited was progressively subdivided for houses and businesses. She and her second husband, civil engineer Thomas Clyburn, developed another subdivision in 1878 and built shops opposite the hotel along what became Gaskill Street.
Further subdivisions followed, including development of the large orchard behind the hotel into residential land in 1904.
So when people call Bessie the Mother of Canowindra, it isn't much of an exaggeration.
She helped create its school, cared for its sick, ran one of its important hotels, developed its commercial centre and literally subdivided some of the land the town stands on.
Oh, and she married three times and raised a sizeable family along the way. Her obituary also records that after her sister-in-law died, Bessie took in her brother's four children and raised them alongside her own.
She appears to have been fairly busy.
Why Bessie's Bar?
Today, a blue plaque on The Old Vic commemorates Elizabeth Jane "Bessie" Robinson, 1844 –1922 community and education advocate and owner of this hotel.
It's one of the reasons we called our bar Bessie's.
Not because we wanted an old-fashioned name above the door, but because Bessie seems to represent exactly what a good country hotel should be about: hospitality, community, conversation and looking after the people around you.
More than 150 years after she was serving people here, we're rather pleased to have her name back behind the bar.
So raise a glass to Bessie publican, pioneer, town-builder, school-starter, amateur nurse and occasional associate of bushrangers.
Come raise one yourself. Bessie's Bar is open Thu–Fri 5–8pm and Sat 12–8pm at 56 Gaskill Street, Canowindra.