Woodchop 125th Anniversary Heritage Highlight
Celebrating 125 years of Woodchop at the RES
In 2024 the RAS is celebrating 125 years since the first wood chop competition took place during the Royal Easter Show. Woodchopping had become a competitive sport in all the Australian colonies by the 1880s and throughout the 1890s wood chopping carnivals had begun to attract big crowds. During an RAS Council meeting on 11 November 1898, the decision was taken to have a wood chopping contest during the 1899 Sydney Show and so the stage was set for the inaugural RES event.
With an impressive £50 worth of prizes up for grabs in the opening heats – competition was bound to be fierce. The event was taking place on the final day of the 1899 Show in the cattle judging ring and around 8,000 excited spectators had reportedly gathered inside the grounds. Many more, wanting to dodge the modest six pence admission charge, had congregated on the rocks at the Paddington side of the ground, eager for any view of the contest they could get.
The logs of spotted gum, a native hardwood, were about 16 inches in diameter, arranged in rows and securely braced in an upright position. The competitors each had an attendant to change their razor-sharp axes for them if necessary and so the stage was set for a showdown.
Of the 22 competitors who finally took to the ring – all but two were from NSW and the undoubted favourites were the four local Heckenberg brothers from Green Valley, near Liverpool. From a family of eight boys the burly Heckenbergs had a cheer squad of their own but in the final event they were to come second, third and fourth – beaten out of first place by one J.M MacKinolty from Gippsland, a Victorian entrant who’d already won championships in three colonies.
The following year, after another hotly contested RES event, J W Heckenberg would emerge victorious and the Heckenberg family would go on to produce 11 Australian champions. Mysteriously, despite its popularity, woodchopping did not feature in the Royal Easter Show between 1901 and 1905 but in 1906 made a triumphant return and with the odd exception, has been a permanent and beloved drawcard ever since.
To celebrate the 125th RES woodchop anniversary in 2024, the inaugural Women's World Championship events in underhand and single handed sawing will be staged during the Show.