Before today’s supermarkets offered home delivery services, and corner stores supplied busy household’s needs, urban dwellers had access to fresh bread, fruit and vegetables, fish and meat from the many vendors who plied their wares. Some of these tradespeople delivered orders to your front door, milk, bread and meat being staples. Other street-traders swung their [...]
In 1837, forty-nine years after the arrival of the white man in Australia the suggestion was made that Australia was a country sorely in need of camels. Considering the extent of Western and Central Australia it turned out to be an excellent idea. The first record of imported camels is in 1840, when the lone [...]
It was pretty tough being a settler in Australia in the 1830s and tougher still for the First Australians. Imagine you're a white settler and have just arrived in the colony of New South Wales after five months on-board a sailing ship en route from the Mother Country - England. On arrival you discover that [...]
Working dogs, stock whips and horses - the tools of trade for the traditional stockman in Australia. It is difficult to adequately define the characteristics required of a good stockman or woman however they are keen observers of livestock with the natural ability to handle them with patient knowledge. The role of the stockman came [...]
We all know that dogs are man’s best friend. That’s a given. In the main, the majority of them are fiercely loyal, supremely friendly, therapeutic and for some of us, invaluable members of the work team on many a rural holding. If you come across a canine that isn’t at least one of the above, [...]
Life around the suburb of Burwood in Sydney's Inner West has definitely changed in the last one hundred and fifty years or so. Burwood is only 10 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, however in 1858-59, when this picture was thought to have been taken it was a farming area. It would have [...]
Hugh Schulz's art has appeared in many Australian and international books on Naive Art, this is a wonderfully expressive term for a man who was an exponent of what is commonly considered a more childlike approach to art. There is something quite enchanting about his work, as if he has turned a magnifying glass on [...]
In a normal season many farmers would be close to finishing their winter crop plantings. Not this year. While there are some who received the benefit of good rain or were prepared to take a punt on limited moisture profiles, there are many who would be staring at yet another year of dry, unplanted cultivations. [...]
Well before the arrival of designer boutiques sporting stylish outback fashion, the basic needs of the bush man and woman were met through trail and error. Necessity has always been a hallmark of invention and no more so in Australia where distance and the rugged outdoor life of our intrepid pioneers fed the need for [...]
Mustering money. It’s a term that can only be applied in Australia. A place where once mighty sheep stations were forged in the outback by men with the ability to raise funds for their far-flung ventures. The majority of company properties (the AACo was established as a land development company in 1824) came into being [...]
