The World Wars unfolded as both harrowing battlefields and captivating cultural stages, with one of its greatest conflicts becoming the evolving role and recognition of women as they contributed to Australia’s military effort. During WWI, women’s direct involvement in the military beyond Australian soil was limited to a few thousand nursing roles. While some women […]
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 a kitchen on the NSW South Coast, probably in the early twentieth century, a woman used this rolling pin almost daily for making her family’s meals. Before pastry, scones, and biscuits could be bought ready-made in supermarkets, the kneading and flattening of dough with a rolling pin was an everyday ritual in most kitchens. […]
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 […]
This humble table played a simple role in a not-so-simple house, for two not-so humble families. It was used for ironing at Duckenfield Park House, a grand colonial home in Morpeth. Built in 1853-4 by John Eales (1799-1871), said to be the wealthiest man in the colony, the 45 roomed mansion was later occupied from […]
In the 1870s, when Berry schoolgirl Helena Kinneally stitched the buttonholes, fancy borders and darning to create this needlework sampler, she probably didn’t know how useful those skills would later be, when she became the mother of ten children. Helena Kinneally (c. 1868-1904) was born in Victoria about 1868. She was the daughter of William […]
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