The first butter factory in Australia was established at Kiama, on the NSW South Coast, in the early 1880s. Until then the trade of dairy products occurred directly between the farmer and buyer. Butter was made in small quantities using centuries-old techniques to separate the cream from cow’s milk and churn it into butter. It […]
The budding gardener in this photograph, Gustav (Gus) Friedrich Wagner (1881-1950) was the third of the six children of Peter Christian Wagner and his wife, Johanna Hermina ‘Mina’ (nee Rosler). Gus would become a mainstay of Jindera society, operating Wagner’s store for 36 years until his death and was reputedly the subject of Russell Drysdale’s […]
One glimpse at the map illustrated on this pamphlet would suggest that if a hydrogen bomb were to be dropped on Newcastle, the effects would extend beyond Maitland, Cessnock and Lake Macquarie, making the chances of survival slim. Luckily for the citizens of the Greater Newcastle area, the Cold War era local civil defence organisations […]
Silver spoons were very nearly Alexander Dick’s (c.1791-1843) undoing. A free settler who arrived in 1824, he was a working silversmith with a prospering business in Sydney in 1826 when he made a deal that cost him dearly. Anxious to produce an order of silverware for a client, he knowingly bought a set of ‘old’ […]
Jewellery is a very personal item and as such is usually held within a family and passed down through the generations. This beautiful silver locket was owned by Johanna Hermine (Mina) Wagner (née Rosler) (1858–1921) and has been handed down through the Rosler family. It is unknown when Hermine received the locket but as a […]
The Revolving Pantry or Rotary Canister Cabinet, Patent No. 6865, was something very different from Metters Limited, a company known more for its stoves especially the Bega fuel stove and the Early Kooka. The pantry contains 28 hinged drawers of increasing size each with a label holder and in total could hold 3cwt (152 kilograms) […]
This photograph shows Herbert Norman Palmer (1857–1931) in his Mounted Police uniform, minus hat, and is thought to have been taken upon his retirement in 1917. Palmer joined the NSW Mounted Police in 1891 and was posted across a number of stations in the Greater Hume region including Albury, Gundagai, Wagga, Tumut and Coolamon. In […]
The marriage of Gustav (Gus) Wagner and Ottilie (Tilly) Schmidt in October 1907 was definitely an important and notable event in the social circles of Jindera and represented the coming together of four of the original German settler families: the Wagners, Roslers, Schmidts, Kalms and if Ottilie’s mother’s family is included, the Schultzs. The young […]
This trunk, in its simplicity, symbolises one family’s search for and achievement of a new life. It was owned by Johann George Krautz (1833-1921) a 32 year old shoemaker who, with his wife Anna (1825-1879) and four children immigrated from Preilack in Prussia in 1865 aboard the Iserbrook bound for Port Adelaide. After the death […]
Suzanne Archer (1945-) has been painting the Australian landscape since she arrived here from England in 1965. She won the Wynne Prize in 1994 for her work Waratahs – Wedderburn. Her large, abstract works interpret country through collaged and layered elements that retain some aspects of figuration, such as the trees and horizon lines in […]
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