Still Standing

In 1965 the machines on the factory floor of Mercury Print at Maitland habitually clanged and whirred, as they printed the pages of this booklet, Historical Buildings of Maitland and District. It was just another print job for the busy local printer, who had been tasked with producing it for Maitland City Council, but the […]

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Trophy Textile

As hundreds of industrial looms clanged and hummed at the National Textiles manufacturing plant at Rutherford, NSW, this small, printed remnant of ‘toile’ furnishing fabric hung silently on the wall in the administration office. It was a ‘trophy’ of a high-quality furnishing textile the staff had woven in 1988 in celebration of the Australian Bicentenary, […]

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The Scarlet Cloak

back of damaged red cloak

The Macarthur Cloak, this striking scarlet-coloured opera coat, was made in England in 1817 from Australian-grown merino wool. It was commissioned by the Macarthur family of Elizabeth Farm, near Parramatta, Sydney. John Macarthur (1767-1834) is widely recognised as a pioneer of the Australian wool industry, though he first worked in the colony as a soldier […]

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