Gunning & District Historical Society

Ericsson GA628 from 1999. Public Domain via Wikimedia. By Mike Coley When I migrated to Gunning from Canberra in 1995 I had a three year old analogue mobile phone, large and lumpy but useful.  I had bought it in the strange days when middle ranking officials in federal departments were allocated senior officers’ work-related expenses, and a mobile phone seemed a good thing to buy. After living in Gunning for a while it dawned on me that going out onto the verandah to get a weak and dubious analogue service in Gunning – it didn’t work at all inside - was uneconomic.  So I cancelled the service and sold the phone for an amazing $50 to a friend who lived where the analogue service was better. Over the next couple of years I investigated the digital mobile phone services in Gunning from all three suppliers.  Friends and family who came to visit from Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth were invited to sit in my front living room and try out their mobiles, whi...

Land, adjacent to Walsh’s Road, Dalton, once owned by Ambrose Alchin (Photo by Author) In the 1850s my Alchin family procured land out along Oolong Creek, to the north of what is now the town of Dalton. In the years 1852 to 1863 Ambrose Alchin and his sons transacted several purchases of land. Location of land in photo above (Source: Upper Lachlan Shire Council Road Map; Department of Lands, 2010) By cross-referencing old land maps with today’s Google Maps, I closely located portions of Alchin land in 1864 and plotted them onto a modern-day map; frustrating fun but the exercise enabled me to recently drive through Dalton onto Walsh’s Road and photograph the “Alchin panorama” adjacent to the very dusty road. Near Oolong Creek, along Walsh's Road (Photo by Author) When Ambrose Alchin died at Oolong Creek on 13 November 1877, his last will and testament (dated 26 October 1872) left his Oolong Creek land to his second wife Emma Alchin and five children. Emma wa...

Nine Magpies   Etching by Joseph Austin reproduced by permission of the artist. The Gunning sportsmen put paid to more than nine such birds in 1880 In March 1880 the Goulburn Herald and Chronicle 's Gunning correspondent reported on a novel sporting event: " Magpie Shooting - Nearly all the male population of Gunning and a sprinkling of the fair sex, assembled on and about the flat on Monday afternoon to take part in and witness the sweep-shooting.  Magpies were used in place of pigeons, both as being cheaper and more easily procurable. Mr W Grovenor procured the birds;  in fact that gentleman is to be thanked for his enterprise in getting up the sport. Everything passed all very pleasantly and satisfactorily, there being an unexpectedly large number of competitors. Match Report Summary There were two events, an open competition with a 5 shilling prize and a handicap sweep for 3 shillings - both with 3 birds per competitor.  Between them 10 competito...

Arthur Montague Alchin. From a postcard sent to his mother from France, dated April 1917 (Photo from Garry Smith's collection) The battle of Passchendaele Ridge took place in terrible weather, with torrential rain that filled shell holes to neck deep and created mud so thick it often stopped men in their tracks and clogged their weapons. Arthur Montague Alchin prior to enlistment (Photo from Garry Smith's collection) Private Arthur Montague Alchin, No. 2027, A.I.F. 35th Battalion, was among the shower of earth, mud and barbed wire that accompanied the German bombardment on 12 October 1917. Machine gun fire from pill boxes cut down soldiers as they emerged from trenches and shell holes. Many men were already suffering the effects of mustard gas. Letter from Arthur Montague Alchin to his mother Louisa Susanna Alchin. His father Albert Noah Alchin died in 1913. From Goulburn Evening Penny Post, Thursday 26 October 1916, p. 2. Arthur would have reali...

The official party at the Samuel Clayton Book Launch. Good afternoon everyone. My husband Victor and I are so disappointed that we can’t be with you today. We had been looking forward to it so much and would love to meet you all and to go on the tour of the Baltinglass site. Little did I know a few years ago when I started researching Victor’s family tree that it would lead to such an interesting story. However, it wasn’t just a ‘story’, it was an insight into our history and yours on a very human level. Despite his crime Samuel Clayton was a man that I came to admire greatly. Both he and his son Benjamin were the type of individuals who built Australia into the wonderful country that it is today. I think Samuel’s descendants in Australia, some of whom are with you today, can be very proud of their heritage. I would like to thank the Mayor Mr Brian McCormack for launching my book. I would also like to thank Rosemary Spiller and the Gunning and District Historical Society ...

Garry Smith at the Irish Famine Memorial at Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney (Photo by Malia Smith - provided) By Garry Smith: The 18th Annual Commemoration of The Great Irish Famine was held on Sunday 27 August 2017 at the Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney. Beginning in 1845 and lasting for six years, the potato famine killed over a million men, women and children in Ireland and caused another million to flee the country. During the early 1830s, approximately 3000 women accepted the British government’s offer of an assisted passage to Australia. Many of these women were educated, articulate and keen to escape the stultifying effects of their family and demonstrate their enterprise. By contrast, the young orphan girls from the workhouses across Ireland during the potato famine were very young, very poor and refugees of a calamitous famine that ravaged Ireland. In the Ennis, County Clare workhouse, built in the period 1839-41, there was an overwhelming crush of famine victims wanting ...

Latham’s Snipe, Japanese Snipe, Australian Snipe. Picture via Trove . For perhaps hundreds of years Latham’s Snipe, a small wetland bird weighing only around 200 grams, has made the 8000 or more kilometre journey from their breeding grounds in Japan to Australia. It takes them only two days to reach our eastern seaboard with some then transiting further west including to the Gunning district.  It is such a pleasure to see these little birds which have appeared for three seasons in succession now on the margins of our wetland dam at Ladevale. We are always on the lookout for them as the weather warms and the days lengthen. So too were people over 100 years ago, albeit for different reasons. Latham’s Snipe at Collector: Then and Now Gary Poile, responding to a Facebook post about the arrival of snipe in Ladevale this year, reported that they: Visit Collector too. In past years I have often seen one in the reeds alongside the ditch just where the Collector/Gunning roa...