Broken Hill’s Kind-hearted Grocer

Born in Northern Italy in 1883, Emanuel Pedergnana was just 18 when he migrated to Australia in 1901. Although almost illiterate, the plucky young man went on to lead a successful strike action, work on the mines and own two retail businesses after settling in Broken Hill. Emanuel first found work at St Herberts, a […]

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Broken Hill’s First Lady Miner

Tess Alfonsi is recorded as Broken Hill’s first woman miner – a designation that is all the weightier given the historic domination of mining by men. She worked the Triple Chance Mine with a hammer-tap drill, hid a pistol in her skirt when she paid the wages and protected her mine from claim jumpers with […]

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