Roll, Crush, Whack

Close up of pale wooden rolling pin with long thin handles

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. […]

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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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A Humble Remnant

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 […]

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Patience and Skill

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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