Gunning & District Historical Society

The mystery is solved! Five sewing machines were taken out of store in 2020 and displayed in Pye Cottage Museum, Gunning. The blog “A Touch of Old World Charm,” featured two “hand-operated” sewing machines. The small, iron machine seemed to be a “mystery.” The second blog covered two of our treadle machines, an Australian Beale and a Singer model, the Sphinx . (1, 2) In this blog I can correct an earlier error and show off the fifth sewing machine in our collection, a Nirvana “drophead treadle machine.”  It seemed that the mystery was, which “hand-operated” machine had been “Donated by Mrs Offley of Jerrawa?” That label, hand printed by someone from Gunning & District Historical Society, was in one drawer of a very well-kept drophead, treadle machine, the Nirvana. In other drawers, there were two sets of attachments and a detailed manual. The illustrations in the manual clearly match our Nirvana.  This handwritten note was in another drawer of the treadle machine: Donation...

Two treadle sewing machines with a Touch of Old World Charm This post covers two nineteenth-century sewing machines displayed in “A Touch of Old World Charm” exhibition in the folk museum in Pye Cottage, Gunning, New South Wales.  They are the Singer Sphinx and the Beale. Two hand-operated machines donated to Gunning and District Historical Society were described in an earlier blog, and a treadle machine made in 1910 will feature in a later post. A foreign country? “ The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. ” is the opening sentence of L P Hartley's The Go-Between  (1953). But those words were first spoken by the writer’s friend in a 1949 lecture. (1.) Obtaining clothes was undoubtedly different in rural New South Wales in the late nineteenth to today’s easy shopping. Of course, then there was a local store or two and mail-order from the big city, for a price, for ready-made clothes. When the train line was extended from Goulburn to Gunning in 1875, ...

Eastern Spinebill at work.  Image: I Am birdsaspoetry.com https://www.flickr.com/photos/birdsaspoetry/41576558371/ December Bird of the Month:  The Eastern Spinebill This is the final story in a 12 part series in which we look at a bird recorded in Gladstone Weatherstone's notebook between 1962 and 1981, see if anything is different today and, if so, try to explain why. Gladstone was an expert amateur naturalist who lived on Lyndfield Park near Gunning from 1941 until 1996.   Image of Gladstone Weatherstone courtesy Wayne Weatherstone Just Because I Like Them On 20 December 1975, Gladstone wrote “Eastern Spinebill Honey-eater noted near sheds today for a short period "  He saw them again later - twice in 1979, twice in 1980 and once 1981.  In 1979 he observed "These are rare visitors here ”. Sometimes Gladstone exclaims about the beauty of birds he sees or birdsongs in which he delighted, but the Eastern Spinebill's undoubted attractions go unremarked.  I a...

 November Bird of the Month Latham's Snipe:  Image courtesy Mark Lethlean    Image courtesy Wayne Weatherstone This is number eleven in a 12 part series in which we take a bird recorded in Gladstone Weatherstone's notebook between 1962 and 1981, see if anything is different today and, if so, try to explain why.   Gladstone was an expert amateur naturalist who lived on Lyndfield Park near Gunning from 1941 until 1996.             The Visitor from Japan On 11 November 1971 Gladstone wrote, “Japanese Snipe flushed today from reeds in creek.  First recording here” .  His words show no emotion, but he must have been excited.  This small wetland bird, weighing only around 200 grams, had just fetched up on his farm after flying some 8000 or more kilometres from Japan and south-east Siberia!     Snipe have been making their annual journey to Australia for perhaps thousands of years.  Their...