In the back shed of 101 Bungay Road Wingham is a child’s handprint pressed into the concrete slab with the date 17-7-54. After watching episodes of Restoration Home during Covid19 social distancing measures, the hunt was on to work out whose print…
By 1900 the NSW Aborigines Protection Board had decided that it was better for Aboriginal people to live separately from Europeans. It was to ‘protect them from the worst excesses and corrupting influences of European society’…
This painful scandal played out across NSW newspapers in 1899. Thomas Breckenridge was a storekeeper at Forster who worked with his sister Mary. When Thomas’ fiancée Jane Ann Benson became pregnant…
Although Young Ping was born in Yokohama, Japan in 1860, his family were likely of Chinese origin. Ping came to Australia in 1879 aboard an American mail boat…
“I could kiss you to death.” “I am going to fill this letter with kisses…” The letters from James Campbell Summerville to his fiancée Margaret Charlotte Challinor were filled with these endearing statements…
Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest were sleepy little villages when Joyce Davey first ventured there in the 1930s. Hawks Nest was the main area but not much more than a few bush tracks…
For over a century, tourists have frequented the seaside village of Old Bar. The building on the corner of David and Clerke Streets was, and still is, central to the ‘vibe’ of the town…
Daphne Trotter was born at Pampoolah to Clarence and Victoria Trotter, a descendant of Manning River pioneers Thomas and Mary Trotter…
In 1906 the NSW Government passed legislation to enable the construction of a railway connection from Maitland to South Grafton. Many owners of large land holdings along the route saw this as an incentive to subdivide their property…
Olaf Harris was a younger brother of the well-known children’s illustrator and author, Pixie O’Harris. He executed seven of the twenty-five paintings…