Carols at Yaralla – 2019

Turning the First Sod The ceremony of turning the first sod of the tramway line, which is to connect the suburb of Enfield with Mortlake, was performed yesterday afternoon by the Minister for Works, Mr. O’Sullivan. Elaborate preparations had been made by the municipalities interested in honouring the event, as the day was regarded by…

In August 1916, Private Douglas Grant departed Australia on a troop carrier bound for the United Kingdom. Like thousands of other young Australian men, Grant had signed up for the AIF and wound up fighting in the trenches on the Western Front in France. The Germans captured Grant in June 1917 and he spent the…

The Longbottom Stockade was situated at the corner of Loftus Street (formerly Stockade Street) and Parramatta Road, in what was to become the Village of Longbottom (later Concord). “Longbottom” is a traditional English place name which derives from the old word “bottom”, once used in the north of England to describe low-lying, swampy alluvial ground….

Continuing our article in last month’s newsletter: And now we may turn to our first bushranger, and be edified to find that he bore one of the most famous names in all history — that of Caesar. John Caesar was a powerfully built West Indian Negro, who had come to the Colony in the First…

On Saturday, 26h October firefighters were called to a fire at the Arthur Walker Reserve, Concord West, home of the Concord West Cricket Club.  The clubhouse was totally enveloped when the five fire trucks and a cherry picker arrived shortly after 4:00 am.  It took firefighters more than three hours to extinguish the fire. The…

I resume my friend’s chronology:- “Died September 18 Mr. Edward Smith-Hall in the 75th year of his age. This gentleman I think was the first secretary of the Bank of New South Wales when that institution opened for business in Macquarie Place in 1817; he was also, I think, connected with the “Monitor” newspaper and had a ‘row’ over his pew…