Recollection

Private John Bray and his wife Mary reached Sydney in June 1790 on board the Neptune with the first detachment of the New South Wales Corps. Within three years John Bray had been promoted to the rank of sergeant and on 11th November 1794 he was granted thirty acres of land at the “Entrance of…

My father, Samuel Ashton, owned the Public Baths at Mortlake. As a matter of fact, he built the baths himself, all cut out from solid rock. 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…

A recollection of old Concord by the late Mr. H. Stanton (Mayor of Concord 1951-52) as published in the “Concord Recorder” on 16th March, 1961.

“Now I Confess”, says Frances, 90. It took a tomboy to talk the young ladies of Enfield, Mortlake and Concord into taking swimming lessons back in 1901. The schoolmarms of the day were scandalised when young Frances Ashton, then 16, walked in bold as brass and offered to teach their pupils how to swim. Some…