Circling the Wagons

Migration is the result of push and pull factors and the German settlers who eventually ended their journey in the district of Jindera in the 1860s experienced both. Schism in the Lutheran church and economic factors drove the German settlers from Prussia to the colony of South Australia and the attractiveness of the NSW Robertson […]

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Raising Wheat

Think of running your fingers through your hair and this is the simple idea behind the Headlie Taylor’s crop lifter. It has been claimed that this invention not only saved the bumper 1920 Australian wheat crop but secured the reputation of the Taylor Header Harvester in the process. Patented in 1917, early designs were made […]

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Well Kept

When 20-year-old Lincolnshire born woman Sarah Ingall (1829-1902) married at Morpeth in 1849, she probably accepted, as did most brides of her era, that motherhood would be her natural occupation. During her life Sarah gave birth to nine children, spending over twenty-five years pregnant, breast-feeding babies and raising children. This fancy day cap, with its […]

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Weighty Ideas

Along with the forge, the anvil was the most important tool in the blacksmith’s kit.  Using the anvil, hot metal was ‘worked’. It was repeatedly hammered and shaped around its angled and conical edges. Imagine the loud clanging blow of a hammer forming the metal, while the whoosh of bellows pumped air into the forge […]

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