Gunning & District Historical Society

A Stock Pigeon (Columba livia), the preferred target of sporting shooters, so likely kept and bred by Gunning devotees  of this popular amusement. If so, probably the unwitting carriers and victims themselves of a deadly poison. Photo Wikipedia. Perils Facing the Late Colonial Gunning Gourmet  In March 1880 there was scarcely a single pigeon to be found around Gunning. We know this because a paucity of pigeons forced leading citizen and sporting event impresario, Mr W Grovenor, to initiate the district’s historic inaugural magpie shooting sweep stake tournament then. Two earlier posts "Gunning's First Ever Magpie Shooting Contest a Banging Success"  and "Grovenor Street Gunning - A New Front in the History Wars" tells you more than enough about this. Why were pigeons in such short supply? The following piece of contemporary investigative journalism sheds new light on this question. Goulburn Herald and Chronicle 7 April 1879: Signal and Pro...

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...

NSW Railways Staff c1900  ( K iama Library, Flickr cc-by-2.0) The following article appeared on page 2 of the Goulburn Herald and Chronicle on 5 January 1880. The original article is available on Trove . A Canard.- About one o'clock on last Friday afternoon a small boy came rushing through the street, telling everybody he met that Mr. Morphy, the well-known and universally-liked porter at the railway-station, had been thrown from a cart and instantly killed.   The boy had been told to go for the police, and Constable Clifford started with all possible speed for the scene of the reported dire disaster, which was something over a mile from town, The constable called on his way for Mr. Collins to accompany him in case there might be still some hopes of saving the life of the unfortunate man.  The intelligence, like all bad news; spread like wild-fire and in a few minutes nearly the whole male population of the town was pouring across the flat in the rear ...