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Artefacts

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  • Ghost sign: Lifebuoy soap, Wingham
    In the alleyway beside the building at 89 Isabella Street, Wingham you will see a ghost sign. A ghost sign is a hand-painted advertisement on a brick wall from years gone-by. This particular advertisement is for Lifebuoy soap which was popular in Australia between the two world wars. Lifebuoy soap was introduced in 1894 as…
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  • Commonwealth Bank Mural – 176 Victoria Street, Taree
    In 1956 the Commonwealth Bank commissioned Byram Mansell to design a mural for its new premises to be erected in Victoria Street, Taree. Born in Sydney in 1893, William Arthur “Byram” Mansell was trained as an engineer, but attended evening classes at Julian Ashton’s Art School. Seeking to further his experience, he travelled overseas and, whilst…
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  • Pixie O’Harris paintings
    In 1957, renowned Australian illustrator and author, Pixie O’Harris, painted a series of 25 murals for the Children’s Ward of the Manning River District Hospital in Taree. The paintings depict scenes from children’s stories including Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty and Robin Hood...
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  • Coded postcard message
    This postcard was bought by a stamp collector in 2009. Can you imagine his surprise when he turned the postcard over and discovered the coded message written on the back? He thought it was a message between teenagers but this is not so...
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  • The well in the Art Gallery Carpark
    On Friday 25 May 2018, as excavators were constructing a carpark for the Manning Regional Art Gallery in Macquarie Street, Taree, an old brick well was uncovered. Seeing the handmade bricks...
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  • Message in a bottle
    On Monday afternoon, 18 November 1946, while the old residence of the Manning Ambulance Superintendent was being demolished to make way for a more modern building, a letter in a bottle was found...
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  • Paddle Steamer 'Manning'
    Click clunk clunk splash, click clunk clunk splash, imagine 140 years ago walking around town, to school, to work and you hear this noise? Well this noise was the beat of the wheels of the Paddle Steamer ‘Manning’ as it made its way up the Manning River...
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  • Rare wooden grave marker
    This rare example of a legible wooden grave marker was found behind a shed at the Great Lakes Museum in 2014. It once marked the grave of 14 year old Joseph Edwin Hadley...
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  • A Chevrolet truck, a fence and a way to the Wingham Show
    In the early 1900s the owners of one of the first trucks in Strathcedar, was Royden and Florence Newell. This truck was used for the mail run…
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  • One of the first trucks and mail run in Strathcedar
    One of the first trucks in Strathcedar was a 1926 Chevrolet with a wooden cab. It was purchased by Royden Robert Newell and wife Florence, and was used to take their cream cans to the Wingham Factory…
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  • Taree’s Big Oyster, 100 Manning River Drive
    On Friday 30 March 1990, the NSW Premier, Nick Greiner, opened Taree’s newest tourist attraction – the Big Oyster…
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  • The Blue Cross - Taree landmark
    The Blue Cross atop the tower of St John’s Anglican Church in Victoria Street has long been prominent on the Taree skyline...
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  • Tahlee House
    Nestled in the grounds of Tahlee Ministries near Carrington is the beautiful, heritage-listed ‘Tahlee House’. It was built in 1826 by the Australian Agricultural Company...
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  • The Flag Dress
    Amelia Ellis was a gifted needlewoman with her own business in Tinonee at the time of World War 1...
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  • Gathang Guuyang (Gathang Canoe)
    On 20 May 2012 at Bungwahl, for the first time in over 150 years the guuyang builders, led by Steve Brereton, a Warrimay (Worimi) man, with strong connections to country and culture took a canoe from Gathang country…
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  • The Brown Family at the Bight Cemetery
    Towards the back of the Bight Cemetery is a headstone that recognises the deaths of four members of the Brown family. What is the story that lies behind this stone?
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  • Hills of Hate - a "lost film"
    “Hills of Hate” published by Angus and Robertson in 1925 was the debut novel of Australian author E V Timms. It tells the story of two feuding bush families...
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  • The Cloud Wallaby
    The Cloud Wallaby is a fable written and illustrated by Pixie O’Harris. It was published in The School Magazine in August 1949. It goes something like this...
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  • Our Manning River: Industrial Heritage of Brown's Creek (Crooked Creek), Taree
    The creek has a long industrial history with ties to quarrying, railways and shipbuilding to name a few...
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  • Olaf Harris – a quiet achiever
    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…
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  • 101 Bungay Road, Wingham
    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…
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  • This too shall pass...tepees and Covid19
    In March 2020, Australians joined the rest of the world in practising social distancing techniques to slow the spread of the global pandemic Covid19. It was during this time that a series of driftwood shelters appeared along Old Bar Beach...
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  • Emmeline Ann Everingham - a right to vote
    In the Port Macquarie Museum is an ‘Elector’s Right Residential Qualification’ for Emmeline Ann Everingham. In 1902 the Australian Parliament passed the Commonwealth Franchise Act giving women over the age of 21 the right to vote...
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  • Mudlarking in the Wallamba River
    For decades Graham Boyd dived along the riverbanks of the Wallamba River searching for artefacts…
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  • Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills
    These little amber bottles, discovered in the mudbanks of the Wallamba River, were once found in most Australian households particularly from the late 1890s to 1940s…
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  • A forgotten pewter plate
    An intriguing lost family story is that of my seven times great grandparents Sarah Batt and James Gaite who married 6 September 1767 in Flax-Bourton, Somerset, England…
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  • Gold Freemason’s pin
    A tiny article of jewellery passed down through my family is a gold pin. On one side is a Freemason’s sign and on the other the Lord’s prayer - so tiny you can hardly make out the words…
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  • A few of my favourite things
    As a little girl growing up at Shalimar my grandmother gave me a cane chair…
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  • Postcards from the muddy trenches of France
    On 10 January 1916, three brothers from the Gorton family - Tom, Fred and Herbert - enlisted in WWI…
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  • William 'George' Sawyer and his 1934 Dodge Tourer
    After the Dodge was sold a letter arrived at Connie’s home together with a photograph of the restored vehicle...
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  • Joseph Graham’s Dinghy
    Joseph Daniel Graham was born on Cabbage Tree Island in 1882 and 1965 aged 83 years. He lived on the island all of his life following in the family tradition of working as a boatbuilder, oyster farmer, fisherman and farmer…
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Recent Posts
  • Joseph Graham’s Dinghy
  • Cape Hawke Memorial Hospital
  • Warren ‘George’ Perkins, OAM
  • William ‘George’ Sawyer and his 1934 Dodge Tourer
  • Postcards from the muddy trenches of France

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We acknowledge the traditional owners, the Biripi and Worimi people, on whose lands these stories are told. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised this website contains images and voices of deceased people. The stories of the MidCoast could not be told without recognising their stories. Do you wish to proceed?