Table of contents for Edition 24, 2023 in Traces

The idea of writing a book on the history of Sydney Harbour came to me three or four years into my role as historian for North Sydney Council. The local government area that I research, write and talk about in my book is only 10 square kilometres, but it features some 35 kilometres of foreshore – along both the harbour’s main stream and Middle Harbour, to the north. Development and gentrification The significance of the harbour to the development of North Sydney was immediately apparent. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was particularly important in unfolding ‘brand recognition’, becoming the first Australian landmark. Before the bridge’s completion in 1932, there was no one image that could convey a sense of place for Sydney. The harbour was celebrated as early as the 1870s,…

When I set out to make my family tree, I never did so with the sole intention of finding famous people nestled in its branches. Sure, it’s great when you find someone famous, but fame is not the treasure – the information that comes with it is. The wealth of verifiable data attached to famous individuals may lead you to discover so much more than just one person. I’ve found up to 300 people at a time, multiple times, through family trees found through famous relatives. Some of my best finds have lain undiscovered for years until one relative’s quiet work, halfway across the world, reveals a wealth of new information in the form of a book finally tracked down or, in one case, a documentary film finally completed. How…

Digging shafts in the hot Australian interior may not have been everyone’s cup of tea in 1926, especially if the only other people around were a collection of scruffy, rough and weather-beaten men. But from the moment she drove into Coober Pedy with her 16-year-old brother, Victor, Alice Minnie Florence Davies-Berrington (who went by Minnie Berrington) was spellbound. She would later write: ‘It was pure magic. A golden light suffused everything. The air was so clear it seemed to sparkle … The sand was a lovely shade of rose. The enchantment of that golden serenity was so complete that I knew I would never willingly live in a city again.’ But how did this girl, who had attended a boarding school in England, end up in the Australian outback, working…

MyHeritage Belgium • Aalst, Births, 1795–1924: 1,013,271 records • Aalst, Deaths, 1796–1970: 578,036 records. England • Manchester, Burials, 1800–onwards: 855,785 records. Finland • Karelia, Communion Books, 1729 and 1971: 6,976,389 records • Karelia, Deaths and Burials, 1686–1961: 1,583,818 records. France • Census, 1911: 15,544,473 records. • Census, 1921: 16,611,232 records • Census, 1931: 16,134,197 records • Deaths, 1970–onwards: 27,095,232 records • Census, 1931: 2,745,694 records. New Zealand • Army Expeditionary Force Nominal Rolls, 1939–1948: 238,068 records. Spain • Republican Army Casualties, 1936–1939: 58,695 records. United States • Nebraska, Marriages, 1956–present: 1,618,510 records • New Jersey, Marriage Licenses, 1915–2017: 11,471,069 records • New York State, Deaths, 1957–1972: 1,617,746 records • Missouri, Births, 1920–onwards: 8,107,916 reocrds • Oklahoma Tusla County Death Notices, 1961–onwards: 120,789 records • Delaware County Marriages, 1886–1951: 271,397 records…

Bell rung for former hat factory A fire destroyed the heritage-listed RC Henderson hat factory in Surry Hills, New South Wales, on 25 May. Built in 1912 and designed by architect Thomas Pollard Sampson, the milliner produced hats for women and children until 1954. The factory has since changed hands and tenants multiple times, with plans lodged in 2019 to redevelop the building into the ‘Hat Hotel’, expanding the existing building with a modern addition and restoring some of the original features. The building had been untenanted since the COVID-19 pandemic, and construction on the $40-million project had not commenced. Police believe an accelerant was used to intentionally set the fire, and four teenage boys were questioned, but no charges have been laid. The blaze took 120 firefighters more than…

Reuben Isaac Doodeward was born in 1877 in New Zealand, the eldest child of Abraham and Betsy. For as long as Reuben could remember, the family had coveted a sealed glass jar filled with spirits and a fetus. In the late 1860s, in a deplorable act that was acceptable at the time, a ‘Doctor Donahoe’ took possession of a patient’s stillborn double-headed female fetus and preserved it. When the doctor died, his estate sold it at auction and Abraham snapped it up for about £40. Abraham had been displaying such curiosities in his tobacconist and barber shop in Dunedin, as they helped to attract customers. A live infant sea leopard, captured by the crew of the Essex, was tolerated as it flapped its flippers and performed tricks in front of…

According to research released this year, two-thirds of family historians experience sorrow or anger in the course of their research. In her paper ‘Family History Research and Distressing Emotions’, Swinburne University Emeritus Professor of Psychology Susan M. Moore explored some of the most common negative emotions that can arise from such research, and investigated the reasons people embark on family history research. Through surveys of 775 respondents, Moore ascertained three main psychosocial motives for undertaking research into family history: self‑understanding; altruism, or the desire to offer something of value from their research; and cognitive challenge, or the desire to problem‑solve. Knowing these motives sheds light on the different ways in which people might experience negative emotions while exploring their family history. Demographic factors also influence this. The study outlines characteristics…

Acquired in 1880 from the Kew Observatory in England, this contraption is a Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder and was used by Melbourne Observatory. Providing up-to-date weather information through data collection and analysis was a central feature of the Melbourne Observatory’s work from 1863 until it was decommissioned from government work in 1945. The sunshine recorder is a solid glass sphere, mounted on a metal bowl with a grooved inner surface that holds strips of card. A slate base supports the contraption. The instrument works by focusing the sun’s rays through the glass ball, burning through strips of card to record the duration of sunshine (as seen in the bottom image). Designed by John Francis Campbell in 1853, the first sunshine recorders used a glass sphere filled with water and a mahogany…

Lord Howe Island lies in the Tasman Sea, some 600 kilometres from mainland Australia. This World Heritage–listed holiday destination with approximately 380 permanent residents astounds its many visitors with dramatic landscapes, groves of Kentia palms and colonies of seabirds. Here on this isolated volcanic outcrop, the island’s plants and birds have evolved in isolation from predators over millennia. But a shipwreck in June 1918 brought stowaway black rats to its shores. The pests soon spread, alarming the island’s residents and decimating their valuable Kentia palm seed crop. The Lord Howe Island Control Board desperately sought advice from the Australian Museum and, in February 1921, zoologists Allan Riverstone McCulloch and Ellis Le Geyt Troughton took the opportunity to revisit their favourite island, and escape office politics. Upon returning to Sydney four…

Worker’s cottages have become synonymous with many of Australia’s inner-city suburbs, and the appeal they add to streetscapes today is often carefully preserved in heritage overlays. But the humble worker’s cottage hasn’t always been a cherished part of our cities. Here, we take a look at the history of the Australian worker’s cottage, and how to identify one. The emergence of the worker’s cottage Most worker’s cottages that exist today were built in the Victorian era. Victorian architecture is categorised into three different periods: early (circa 1837 to 1860), mid (circa 1861 to 1875) and late (circa 1876 to 1901), with some disagreement about the exact dates. Early Victorian homes were simple and modest, whether freestanding or terraced. Their modest design was often due to the availability of cheap and…

Then The Hero of Waterloo Hotel is located on the south-west corner of Lower Fort and Windmill streets in Millers Point, Sydney – a small and historical suburb situated above the western shores of Sydney Cove, and home to many relics of Sydney’s founding years (The Hero of Waterloo among them). The hotel stands on what was once a major sandstone quarry site. The land was purchased in 1842 by George Paton, a Scottish stonemason and builder, who was also responsible for the construction of the nearby Garrison (Holy Trinity) Church – the colony’s first military church. The Hero of Waterloo Hotel was built in 1843 by convicts from the Argyle Cut. Chisel marks and carved initials can still be found in the sandstone walls. The hotel demonstrates the architectural…

At a time when many Australians could not swim, the bravery required to save a drowning person was perhaps more impressive than it is today. These acts were often publicly celebrated. The Royal Shipwreck Relief and Humane Society of New South Wales (RSRHS NSW), originally established as the National Shipwreck Relief Society of New South Wales, was inaugurated on 25 July 1877. Sadly, the impetus for the creation of the society was a harrowing tragedy. The fate of the Yarra Yarra On the morning of 15 July 1877, the iron paddle-steamer Yarra Yarra was attempting to re-enter Newcastle Harbour, having delayed its passage to Sydney due to a violent storm. Without the technological and mechanical advances of modern-day vessels, those at sea were often at the mercy of the weather.…

I’ve known since I was a little kid that I have Chinese ancestry; it was never a secret. But I have no memory of being sat down at Grandma’s kitchen table with a glass of Milo and a Chips Ahoy! choc-chip bickie (one of my childhood favourites), and being told the nitty-gritty of it. I had to wait until I was a grown-up before discovering that my great-grandfather arrived from China in the early 1870s and spent his life cabinet-making, shopkeeping, and market-gardening his way around New South Wales until he died in 1942. I mention Grandma because she – a white Australian woman from an Anglo background – was the one who married my three-quarters-Chinese grandfather, and it was around her kitchen table that my mum, my brother and…

Many years ago, my uncle, Gerry Bostock, rang me late one night and told me about how he had met a non‑Indigenous woman called Thelma, who had the same family name as ours. She was an avid genealogist who had traced the Bostock family back to the late 1600s in England. I imagined Uncle Gerry’s eyes twinkling with delight as he said: ‘Guess who our white ancestors were?’ I was shocked when he said, ‘They were slave traders!’ He then erupted into a loud belly laugh and added, ‘Imagine that! A couple of generations of slave traders! Those white ancestors of ours must be rolling in their graves knowing we turned out to be a mob of blackfellas!’ That moment was life-changing for me. It immediately ignited a burning curiosity…

At the start of 1894, a special correspondent for the Leader newspaper noted that there was an exodus of Victorian miners, artisans and labourers moving west to take advantage of the gold discovery. They were not alone – ships arriving in Albany were crammed with people from New Zealand, Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales. The residents of the small coastal town looked on in wonder at the thousands of people who poured off the ships and stretched their legs. Most of the travellers continued to Fremantle. They were soon dubbed by the Western Australians as ‘t’othersiders’. Once they disembarked at Fremantle, the passengers’ focus was to get to the train station. Stopping them in their tracks were officials from Customs House, who insisted that every bag or swag…