Before the iPad and iPhone! Before CD and DVD players! Before gaming consoles and TV! Just how did people have fun in the early 20th century? You might think life would be so boring. It certainly wasn’t! People made their own entertainment, making do with whatever was on hand. The Great Depression was a very…
Why is the wreck of this ship being remembered in the Australian maritime history books all these years later? Because it remains one of the worst maritime disasters in Australian history resulting in the tragic loss of 89 lives, mostly due to cold and exposure. They were in sight of land but unable to reach…
Schooling: Schooling has changed a lot since our grandparents were kids. These days we have computers, detention, graphics calculators and learning software to teach us. Back in the early 20th century, teaching was done with a book, a slate, an inkwell and the cane. Schooling was simple, but effective. It concentrated on the ‘Three R’s….
Gas was first produced at Mortlake on 23rd May, 1886 – gas was supplied to the public on 28th May, 1886. The last electric train ran in Sydney on 25th February, 1961, ending 100 years of tram service. It ran from Hunter Street in the city to La Perouse. The original Palace Hotel in Mortlake…
Excerpts from an interview with Frances Coskerie (nee Ashton) who, at age 90, was living in a local nursing home. I was born in Sydney on 10 April, 1885. I don’t remember ever learning to swim, but I know it was at a very early age. My father, Samuel Ashton, owned the Public Baths at…
The original Palace Hotel was opened in 1886, the same year as the gasworks It was built on the river at the end of Tennyson Road, where the River Quays Marina now stands. The first licensee was John Stuart. The hotel, known as Mongomery’s Palace, was a distinctive building with verandas and a tower which…
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there were many tidal swimming pools along the Parramatta River providing welcome relief and recreation on hot days. Ashton’s Mortlake Baths, near Majors Bay on the Parramatta River, were established in 1886. They were the first non-tidal enclosed public baths built in metropolitan Sydney. Samuel Ashton, a…
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