Past Ties

This carefully worked child’s apron was made by the small adept hands of Ada Maud Mellshimer (1888-1970). Ada, who preferred to be called Maud, was the youngest of two girls born to Mary (née Crisp) and George Mellishmer from Ulladulla, on the NSW South Coast. Maude worked the apron when a student at Ulladulla Public […]

Read More…

Made to Order

If you had visited Morisset Psychiatric Hospital in the 1930s you may have met Jean Pursehouse wearing this standard-issue nurse’s uniform—a long-sleeved, blue-denim dress, with white buttons and collar. On the long shift from sunrise to sunset, nurses like Jean rolled up the stiff sleeves of these, heavily starched, hardwearing uniforms to get on with […]

Read More…

Moulder’s Mason Apron

This decorated apron is typical of the regalia worn world-wide by the Freemasons, and from the early eighteenth century. This era saw Freemasonry evolve from a craft-based fraternity exclusive to freemasons, to a moral-based organisation exclusive to men. Freemasonry, resembling this historic change, was transported to Australia by British-origin migrants in the late-eighteenth century. Throughout […]

Read More…