The resumption began in 1901 and ceased in the early 1950s when only three parcels of freehold land remained (two owned by Ellis McNamara and one owned by Bruce Rees - these were eventually sold to the Sydney Catchment Authority in 2007). Most of the exodus occurred between 1943 and 1946, after a fruit fly epidemic had laid waste to most of the industry that had not already been depleted by the suffering of the Great Depression and Second World War.
