Birchgrove Public School

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The Class of 69 (& friends) reunite!

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FROM Frances Peters-Little: On 22nd March 2008, the Class of 69 hosted a Birchgrove School Reunion at the Town Hall Hotel on the corner of Darling and Mullens Sts, Balmain. Over 20 people and their friends attended, including Neil Perkins, Michael Russell, Denise Hunt and Jimmy Little. Former pupils who attended were Mary Carter, Vicki Bailey, Shauna Willoughby, Debbie O’Shannassy, Leonie Middleton, Karen Arthur, Fiona Willoughby, Anisah Alkamrakhi, William Moss, Rosie Manoursaridis, Kim Fitzgerald, and Linda Stanford, Frances Little, Bernice Ross, Les Dinham, Ross Gilding, Kerry Palmer, Debbie McPharlan, Steven Delaney and Michael Halasz. Nevertheless a great night was had by all. Continue reading →

Sydney Journal

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On 12 March 2008, the first issue of Sydney Journal was published, online at UTS ePress. Sydney Journal is an academic history journal which forms a part of the Dictionary of Sydney project. It contains essays and entries written for the Dictionary, in a more academic format and with the quality guaranteed by the full process of peer review for longer articles.

Balmain from the air, ca 1955

Sydney Journal 1 contains four major essays, six cultural group essays and five suburb articles, to give a real feel for the richness of the work being done for the Dictionary. When this text goes online with the Dictionary though, it will be fully illustrated and incorporate sound, film, maps and links to other material. All Sydney Journal content is freely available to readers anywhere in the world.

Sydney Journal is hosted by UTS ePress and produced using the Open Journal System (OJS) which enables the Dictionary of Sydney editor, Emma Grahame, to manage all the peer reviewing, maintain complete email records, control versions, copy edit and lay out  herself. OJS is open source software developed by the Public Knowledge Project, run by a consortium of North American universities. Many new and existing journals are now being published using the software, which is making a significant contribution to public scholarship worldwide.To see the first issue, go to http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/ojs/index.php/sydney_journal

 

 

 

 

ScreenSound Australia

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We were recently contacted – through Leichhardt Council’s Recreation team- by ScreenSound Australia – the national film and sound archive. ScreenSound are keen to know any details about these photos, knowing no more than they are stills from a film shot at O’Connor Reserve, Rozelle. They think the film was shot in the early 1980s, and that it may have been called Step by Step. Can you help?  Contact us if you can.

O\'connor Reserve 1980s

 

 

Father Therry and the Balmain Catholic Cemetery

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 As Australia’s pioneer priest, Father John Joseph Therry stepped ashore in Sydney in May 1820, little would he have imaged that thirty seven years later, as parish priest of the parish of St. Augustine at Balmain in Sydney’s inner west, he would ‘do a deal’ with one of Sydney’s leading Protestants to acquire four acres in a remote part of his parish to establish a Catholic cemetery. The cemetery was known as the Balmain Catholic cemetery and for the next half century many Balmain pioneers were laid to rest there. The cemetery closed around 1905 and over the following 100 years, all traces of this cemetery disappeared and today’s visitor to the site would have no inkling that a cemetery ever existed there. The location has become one of Catholic Sydney’s least known historic sites.  The cemetery land now houses St. Columba’s church, presbytery and primary school plus a convent for the Sisters of St. Joseph.  

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A French picnic in Balmain 1886

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A recent research project for the team – Stephane, a Frenchman who has made Balmain home, came to see us with this original framed photo under his arm.

Stephane’s parents had come across the framed picture in a junk shop in the south of France. The inscription at the foot of the pic reads “Pic-nick d’adieu offert par la colonie de Balmain à M. Toiche, Commissaire du ‘Dupleix’ (Sydney le 21 Août 1886) Auguste Michel”, so Stephane’s parents, having visited him in Sydney, posted it to him. Could you help me find out about the picture? Stephane asked. Here’s what we found.

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