Table of contents for Edition 23, 2023 in Traces

Then For tens of thousands of years before colonisation, the Gadigal land on which Central Station is built was a traditional meeting place for Aboriginal people. In 1855, the first terminal station in Sydney was built here, comprising a modest 30.5-metre-long wooden platform and a corrugated iron shed. The terminal became known as ‘Redfern’ due to its location close to this suburb, and the site it was built on was known as the ‘Cleveland Paddock’. Over the coming years, more buildings and yards were established to accommodate the developing railway network. The wood and iron terminal was replaced in 1874 with a new structure made from brick and ornate stonework. It was designed by the Chief Engineer at New South Wales Railways, John Whitton, and was considered one of the…

Great leaps forward in design at Melbourne Zoo over the years were followed by tentative steps backwards, or even baffling moves in a whole new direction. These breakthroughs and missteps of the 19th and early 20th century can tell us a lot about the changing values of our society at that time. Should a monkey live in a concrete cage, a forest setting or a modern house? What seems obvious to us now wasn’t always! Giraffes in the open air At Melbourne Zoo (Australia’s oldest zoo), public entertainment initially took a back seat to the acclimatisation of livestock, game and songbirds; however, when Albert Le Souef became Melbourne Zoo Director in 1870, he began acquiring the monkeys, bears, lions and tigers that would draw in the crowds. The animals were…

Compared with other nations, Welsh migration in the 19th century was relatively insignificant. The iron and coal industries, particularly in south Wales, expanded quickly, which drew Welsh residents from more rural areas in mid and west Wales for work, keeping much of the Welsh labour force within its borders. Unlike Ireland, where widespread famine led to large-scale migration, Welsh migration was on a smaller scale, and was driven by more individual motives. There was no significant Welsh migration to Australia until the gold rush of the 1850s. Early census records suggest that there were about 1800 Welsh-born residents living in the Australian colonies in 1851, which represents only about 0.4 per cent of the Australian population.1 Although some would have been free settlers, many would have come against their will…

MyHeritage Australia • New South Wales, Colonial Secretary’s Papers, 1788–1825: 133,735 records • South Australia, Death and Funeral Notices, 1971–present: 489, 247 records • Western Australia, Births, 1841–1905: 304,343 records. Austria • Vienna Church Marriages, 1850–1920: 4,304,879 records. Canada • British Columbia, Births and Baptisms, 1773–present: 188,575 records • British Columbia, Deaths, 1872–present: 1,243,400 records • British Columbia, Marriages, 1800–1946: 468,049 records • Prince Edward Island, Births and Baptisms, 1702–present: 711,220 records • Prince Edward Island, Deaths and Burials, 1779–present: 99,873 records • Prince Edward Island, Marriages, 1827–1920: 103,291 records. England • Middlesex and Westminster, Sessions of the Peace, 1836–1889: 82,679 records France • Census, 1911: 10,758,317 records • Census, 1921: 11,462,654 records • Census, 1931: 12,013,986 records • Paris Census, 1926: 2,803,652 records • Paris Census, 1936: 2,666,848 records.…

Budget boost for crumbling Sydney heritage sites The federal government has allocated more than $45 million to preserve and protect sites around the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Sydney Harbour Federation Trust manages sites including Wareamah (Cockatoo Island), which has been allocated about half of the total funding. For 60,000 years, the Wallumedegal, Wangal, Cammeraygal and Gadigal peoples used the island as a meeting place. In 1839, convicts were brought to the island to develop a prison, quarrying sandstone to build the barracks. It is the only surviving convict-built dry dock in Australia. After the transfer of the remaining convicts to Darling Gaol in 1869, prison buildings were swiftly converted and reopened in 1871 as the Biloela Industrial School for Girls and the Biloela Reformatory for Females. The north-east corner of…

In a residency run by Craft ACT, ACT Parks and Conservation Service, and the National Library of Australia (NLA), textile artist Julie Ryder drew inspiration from original, hand-embroidered world maps. The maps were made by women in the 18th and 19th centuries as a way to learn both geography and sewing skills. Traces spoke to Ryder about her research into these fascinating historical objects, and how they informed her art. Traces: Julie, tell us a little about yourself and your art practice. Julie Ryder (JR): I am a textile designer who uses screen-printing, stitching, natural dyes and organic materials to make work for exhibition. Originally trained in science, I retrained as a textile designer in 1990, so my arts practice combines science with art, and draws inspiration from research undertaken…

There it was: a message in a bottle. It had washed ashore on the beach on 27 June 1951 between Aram Cove and Boatswain Point, a sparsely populated section of the South Australian coast, just north of Robe. Walter Fletcher was no stranger to unexpected finds by the seashore. A decade earlier, he had alerted the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) to a highly explosive German sea mine in the same area. Now, the 54-year-old trapper opened the weathered bottle and removed a single sheet of lined paper, wondering what it might reveal. While the pencilled message was brief, it made no sense to Fletcher, since he could neither read nor write. His friend, John Dening, however, was literate. ‘This Bottle was thrown overboard from Motor Vessel (MV) Mulcra off St…

Imagine this: you are happy with your life. You have followed a career that has fulfilled you for decades. You have never researched or written anything. Then, a story from the past comes along that demands to be told. The story? Australia’s first attempted political assassination, in 1868, in Sydney. The target? Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria’s favourite son. The would-be assassin was Irish Republican Henry James O’Farrell, my ancestor. This is how it all happened. It was 1968. I was not quite 12 years old – one of the significant ages of life. I was a child who delighted in the stories of my family, told to me by my mother and great aunts. I listened and remembered. My mother opened a large, Bible-sized book, bound in…

This delicate green shell isn’t part of a mermaid’s wardrobe, but a clever piece of advertising history from the lingerie company Prestige. The nifty ‘stocking hanger’ was offered for free in Australian newspapers to the first 5000 readers who were willing to send in their measurements for use in market research. George Gotardo Foletta, born in 1892 in Northcote, Melbourne, founded Prestige Ltd in 1922 with the acquisition of Atlas Knitting and Spinning Mills Pty Ltd, founded in 1920. Prestige later became the Prestige‑Holeproof group after taking over its major competitor in the 1960s. It was itself taken over by Dunlop Australia before the brand name was discontinued in 1980. In 1924, Prestige made the first Australia-manufactured fully formed silk stockings. Prestige spun its own silk by 1933 and added…

WARNING: This article discusses infanticide, which may be difficult for some readers In 1882, a 38-year-old Frenchwoman, who had been in the New South Wales colony for about four months, was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of her two-year-old child. A woman had not swung from the gallows here for almost 25 years. The emotional grip of the death penalty for the French national saw colonialists sway between moral justice, prejudice, heartlessness and compassion. The murder Constable Duncan Stuart found the body of a ‘fine little boy’ of about two years of age at 6 am on Thursday 2 March 1882, face down on the south side of Flagstaff Hill. The hill (today called Observatory Hill) is at the highest point of the finger of…

Throughout the late 1800s, people of Melbourne thronged the northern side of Collins Street and promenaded along the footpath in their best clothes. Most days, in the afternoon, they strolled towards Elizabeth or Swanston streets, greeting friends they passed. The practice was so popular that it was considered to be a ‘notable institution in Melbourne’. As it rose in popularity, so did the criticism. Despite it being a pastime of all people, most of the disapproval was aimed at women who were considered to be spending too much money on clothing relative to their supposed family income. Such opinions were based primarily on assumption and were rooted in judgement. In the opinion of A Voice from the Wilds in 1868, it was a moral and social issue. If women spent…