In 1878, when her mother Margaret passed away, Phoebe Day (1855-1930) was just 23 years old. Unlike her nine older siblings, Phoebe was probably still living with her mother and caring for her since the death of her father, Edward, two years earlier. As the eldest sibling at home, Phoebe may have taken responsibility for […]
In 1863, the people of Morpeth enthusiastically found good uses for their newly finished courthouse. Not only were legal cases heard there, but they also held concerts, public meetings, vaccinations, a fundraising bazaar, voting, and a death inquest – all before the furniture had even been installed. But it was quickly recognised that there was […]
After returning home each evening, weary from work, Morpeth furniture craftsman Joseph George White (1822-1912) probably followed the fashion of his fellow Victorian era gentlemen. Retreating to a quiet room in his home after dinner, he probably put on a smoking jacket and this smoking cap. But did he then light up a pipe and […]
Setting out early one day in December 1840, a tall, dark-eyed Irishman named Edward Denny Day (1801-1876), the local Police Magistrate, led a police posse through the bush around Scone, not far from Maitland. They were tracking the escaped convict turned bushranger Teddy ‘Jewboy’ Davis and his gang, who for two years had been ‘terrorising’ […]
Joshua (1838-1918) and Gertrude Bray (1846-1938) were among the earliest European settlers to live permanently in the Tweed River district, near Murwillumbah, on Bundjalung Country. They arrived to an environment covered in dense sub-tropical rainforest. On the Tweed Joshua and Gertrude prospered. They served in important community roles and gained prominent standing locally. Their life-story […]
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