To our dedicated and hard-working volunteers -Bob, Benson, Pam, Andrew, Lois, John, Kay, Sharon, Lorna, Janice, Alan, Patricio and Jeanette (and Roz and Margo who couldn’t join us for our Christmas luncheon) – we sincerely thank you for helping out at our museum, working behind the scenes, during this difficult year. The work that has…
This special Memorial in Concord West has taken a powerful step forward in its ultimate goal of attaining recognition as a Military Memorial of National Significance. Federal, State and Local governments are currently collaborating to deliver a business case securing the site’s future and acknowledging its unique place among military commemoration sites. The Kokoda Track…
“Jingle Bells” was written for Thanksgiving, not Christmas. The song was written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont and published under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh”. It was supposed to be played in the composer’s Sunday school class during Thanksgiving as a way to commemorate the famed Medford sleigh races. “Jingle Bells” was also the first song to…
Bundy Clock from the Australian Gas Light Company In November 1888 Willard le Grande Bundy, a jeweller in Auburn, New York patented a timepiece to track the hours worked by employees and to calculate pay. The device was powered by mechanical and later electrical means. A year later his brother Harlow founded the Bundy Manufacturing…
Came across this poem on Facebook. It was written by Kathleen O’Mara in 1869, reprinted during 1919 Pandemic. It is Timeless…. And people stayed at homeAnd read booksAnd listenedAnd they restedAnd did exercisesAnd made art and playedAnd learned new ways of beingAnd stopped and listened more deeplySomeone meditated, someone prayedSomeone met their shadowAnd people began…
The Barrier Miner (Broken Hill) published the following article on Wednesday, 7th January, 1953. Sydney-Early on Christmas morning an intruder entered the kitchen of the Dame Eadith Walker Hospital, Concord. The intruder put into a hospital patients’ Christmas sack: a dressed turkey, a dressed fowl, two dressed rabbits, a leg of mutton, thirty-two mutton chops,…
In 2018 the Australian Maritime Museum received a donation of papers belonging to First Lieutenant William Bradley, who sailed aboard HMS Sirius in the First Fleet. This extraordinarily generous gift to the nation had been passed down through five generations of Bradley’s English descendants, which included two vice-admirals. Bradley was a cartographer and diarist. His…
Perhaps you’ve packed, compiled or received a Christmas hamper full of goodies in the last few days. About this time 99 years ago, the Anzacs who had evacuated from Gallipoli were eagerly awaiting their Christmas hampers. Our lead photograph shows women distributing Christmas billies to men in Cairo, Egypt, December 1915. Driver Jack (John) O….
In these times, when people are trying to erase or re-write history, we should look back on what others have had to say about the past. History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. – Napoleon Bonaparte. People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them. –…
The Australian Gas Light Company (AGL) was formed in Sydney in 1837 to produce town gas for street lighting. The original works at Darling Harbour with its outstations at Woolloomooloo and Haymarket were supplemented with smaller works at Balmain and Five Dock. As Sydney expanded, the use of gas for domestic and industrial purposes became…
Can anyone explain to me why we are so obsessed in knowing a person’s age? The media, in particular (and I assume they are influenced by their audience’s fascination with the matter) rarely fail to state the ages of the people they feature. Inevitably you will read or hear about:- “A 23 year old man…
An interesting social and community book, An Enduring Flame, covers the history of St Patrick’s Parish, Mortlake from 1885 to 2020. The book has been produced as part of the 125th anniversary of St Patrick’s Church, which was expressly built to serve the workers and families of the (now former) Gas Works. This scholarly 164-page-book carefully examines the…
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