A Man For All Seasons

After his sudden death in 1992, Brett Whiteley’s daughter Arkie remembered her artist father as a ‘generous, sweet intuitive man’ who would go to eternity wearing his ‘funny little turned up black hat with the frangipani brooch.’ The hat, now in the collection of the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, was his ‘good luck hat. He […]

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Tackling Speed

This wooden sheave block – which houses a metal wheel (the sheave) and, together with its rope (called a strop) and hook attachment, functioned as a pulley – is a relic from the celebrated nineteenth century steamship called the SS Sophia Jane (1826-1845). English-built in 1826, the Sophia Jane sailed to Australia in May 1831. […]

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Sewn at Sea

What was thirteen-year-old Irish girl Ann Boyd thinking about as she stood on the deck of the emigrant ship Australia on 8 June 1853, as it sailed into Sydney Harbour and approached Dawes Point to lower its anchor? Accompanied by her parents Mary and Adam, and her eight siblings, Mary might have been impressed by […]

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