When Dancing Lady screened in Australian cinemas in 1934, promotional fans were distributed featuring a portrait of the lead actress, Joan Crawford. Serving a similar purpose to the imagery on popcorn buckets today, these fans were intended to generate excitement for new releases. This particular fan was produced and distributed by T. J. Dorgan’s North […]
When Hebe Prindable took this large oval-shaped basket down from the wall of his shed, to hand to the Iluka Museum, he knew it was worth more than the weight of the fish it once carried. Hebe himslelf used this very basket, along with other members of his family – the Prindables. The basket was […]
Mary Brown first laid eyes on Iluka in the early 1970s alongside her husband, Barry, and soon settled into the calm rhythm of the coastal village, on Yaegl Country in northern New South Wales. They moved into a weatherboard house at 9 Charles Street where they began a new chapter of their life together. Barry […]
Prickly pear (Opuntia stricta) was first planted in Australia in 1788 at the instruction of Governor Phillip as a food source for the insect used to produce red dye for the uniforms of British soldiers. However, by the mid-1920s, the invasive weed had spread far beyond its original industrial use to 24 million hectares – […]
Known as the ‘miner’s mate,’ windlasses started to spring up on the morrillas (limestone ridges) of the Yuwaalaraay lands known as Wallangulla in 1900. Fast forward nine years, and the skyline of what had become known as ‘Lunatic Hill’ was littered with them. Used to winch up dirt-encrusted opals in ox-hide buckets to be picked […]
Victorian goldminer Charles Waterhouse Nettleton (1862-1946) arrived on Mt Browne’s Albert gold fields west of Milparinka in New South Wales sometime before it closed down in 1893. He was a solitary man, a prospector, so wandered southeast to White Cliffs, the home of milky opal, and his new interest. But gold was in his blood […]
Owned and operated by ‘Bill’ Hickey (William 1886–1973) from the 1910s to 1955, the timber launch known as Beryl was used to transfer people, goods, and the mail, across the Clarence River from Yamba to Iluka. She ran this route in tandem with her sister motor-launch the Phfrane (pronounced Fray-nee), also owned by Bill. Europeam […]
In the early 1900s, the newly minted nation of Australia was besieged by a plague of rabbits. The fleet-footed creatures knew no borders and their spread had been unwittingly assisted by pastoralists waging war on dingoes, which had removed a predator from the food chain. Used in Spring Plains, near Narrabri, in the 1920s, this […]
The Clyde Engineering Co. began with ‘Hudson Brothers,’ a small woodworking shop in the Sydney suburb of Redfern in 1855, with William Henry Hudson at its helm. Initially, Hudson Brothers focused on woodworking; the company designed and manufactured windmills and ploughs, and landed iconic projects like the Great Hall at Sydney University and the Garden […]
Founded in 1909, Guiding is a global movement aimed at empowering girls to become leaders in their communities. The Brownies, aged seven to ten, were the youngest members of the Australian Guiding community until 1996, when the name was dispensed with, a new Guiding Program was introduced, and all members became known as Guides. It’s […]
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We pay respect to them as First Nations people with a continuing connection to land, place, waters and community
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