Jeanette Elphick aka Victoria Shaw: Model turned Actress
In 1985, Hollywood actress Victoria Shaw returned to Australia in failing health to live with her sister Margaret McDonell at 37 River Street, Taree…
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…
How did Spence Street, Taree get its name?
Samuel Spence was born in Bradford, England in 1857. He joined the army as a young man but became interested in travel so joined the sea service where he gained navigational and marine engineer qualifications…
Whitbread’s Corner
The corner of Victoria and Manning Streets, Taree where the Exchange Hotel now stands (2020) was once known as ‘Whitbread’s Corner’. Samuel and Mary Whitbread arrived from England as assisted immigrants on the ship ‘Equestrian’ in 1848…
Ian David Redman – a little boy’s handprint
The story of a little boy’s handprint in the cement of a shed at 101 Bungay Road, Wingham has touched people’s hearts. Thanks to community input the sad ending to this tale has been uncovered…
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…
The accidental death of John Nicholson, shipbuilder
The day Nicholson died he was travelling from Raymond Terrace to Port Stephens in a horse and cart (having moved to Karuah). The morning was wet as…
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…
The establishment of Purfleet Mission
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’…
Breckenridge Scandal
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…