Fashionable in its day, this travelling trunk certainly saw a lot of the world during its lifetime. Its journey began when it was purchased in Bombay, India, by Beatrix ‘Trixie’ Straw (1906-1985) and her husband, Arthur ‘Jack’ Straw (1893-1983), for their honeymoon in Paris and Venice. Trixie and Jack were married at the British Embassy […]
Following the frenzied days of the gold rushes, which swept across various parts of New South Wales and Victoria between the 1850’s and the 1870’s, there was an influx of Chinese miners from these areas to Holbrook, then known as Germanton. A vast number of these men sought to find their fortune in the abandoned […]
This handwritten letter was discovered among the contents of Beatrix Edith Straw’s travelling trunk, an object donated to the Woolpack Inn Museum in Holbrook. Beatrix, better known as Trixie, was born in Parel (a suburb of Bombay, India) on 2 July 1906. She grew up as the eldest of eight children in Parel and later […]
Margaret Prendergast was born on the 2nd of May 1854 in Clonpet, Tipperary in Ireland. Only eighteen years later and half a world away in southern New South Wales, Margaret became the school teacher at St. Patrick’s Catholic School in Holbrook, a town which at that time was known as Germanton. These silver cufflinks were […]
In 1902, the real estate agency Holmes, Wickham, and Co. received instruction to sell by auction a subdivision belonging to J. E. Spurr in Germanton (now known as Holbrook). On the 14th of March, the day prior to the sale, The Albury Banner and Wodonga Express reported that Germanton was quickly developing, and that this […]
While Elizabeth Broadhead (1822–1894) was stitching this sampler, little could she imagine that she and her sampler would soon emigrate to New South Wales. Elizabeth was born in Barnside, Yorkshire to David (1799–1872) and Ann (nee March) (1802–1875) and the family emigrated in 1842 aboard the William Sharples. The family settled at ’Inverary Parke’ near […]
All together, it took nine hours. Nine hours spent in the shuddering, claustrophobic hull of a WWI-era submarine. Cautiously travelling beneath an underwater minefield to then torpedo a battleship, only able to return to the safety of the open ocean via the same treacherous stretch of water. What type of person is capable of such […]
Holbrook’s unlikely association with submariners began in 1915 when the town was named after British submarine commander, Lieutenant Norman Holbrook (1888-1976). In 1992, after repeated visits from their namesake, the town officially awarded ‘Freedom of Entry to the Shire’ to personnel of the Royal Australian Navy Submarine Squadron. A few years later, in recognition of […]
One imagines the clacking of the typewriter may have been particularly urgent on the 20th of September, 1915. Just a month earlier it had been reported that Lt. Norman Holbrook (1888-1976), the first naval recipient of the Victoria Cross in WWI, had been wounded. The details were vague but Shire Clerk John Taylor must have […]
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