Blue Mountains Historical Society at 99 Blaxland Rd Wentworth Falls

Blue Mountains Historical Society at 99 Blaxland Rd Wentworth Falls Exploring and protecting our past. Researching people, places, objects, houses and other buildings.

17/06/2026

ON THIS DAY – 18th June

1827 – James Stirling established the Fort Wellington settlement at Raffles Bay, on the Cobourg Peninsula, Northern Territory.

1829 – Official proclamation of the Swan River Colony in Western Australia.

1881 – The Art Gallery of South Australia was officially opened in two rooms of the present Mortlock wing of the State Library of South Australia by Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence. In 1889 the gallery moved further east along North Terrace to the Jubilee Exhibition Building and then to its present site and a specially designed building (now the Elder Wing) in 1900.

1968 – The first stage of the Warringah Freeway opened in Sydney.

1981 – The 4 millionth Holden car left the GMH assembly line.

Pictured:
Willem de Vlamingh's ships, with black swans, at the entrance to the Swan River, Western Australia, coloured engraving, derived from an earlier drawing (now lost) from the de Vlamingh expeditions of 1696–97 (Wiki)
Laying the foundation stone of the Art Gallery, April 20th 1898 (SLSA)
A section of GMH assembly line in 1968 (Old Holden)

Today, Wednesday 17 June, we visited the Female Factory in Parramatta. Interesting and very moving. 📸R.Ridge.
17/06/2026

Today, Wednesday 17 June, we visited the Female Factory in Parramatta. Interesting and very moving. 📸R.Ridge.

17/06/2026

ON THIS DAY – 17th June

1867 – Henry Lawson, one of Australia's best-known writers, was born.

1891 – The Labor party first entered the New South Wales Legislative Assembly with 35 members elected.

1893 – Prospector Paddy Hannan filed a Reward Claim, announcing the discovery of gold at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

1932 – Sir John Quick (1852–1932), a lawyer, politician, and author, was a key figure in Australia's Federation movement and helped draft the Constitution. He served in the Victorian Legislative Assembly (1880–1889) and was elected to the first federal Parliament in 1901, later becoming Postmaster-General (1909–1910). After losing his seat in 1913, he served as deputy president of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration (1922–1930).

Pictured:
Henry Lawson (NAA)
Hannan's Western Australian miner's right, 1893 (Wiki)
John Quick at the 1898 Australasian Federal Convention (NLA)

Today we hosted lovely visitors from the Active Care Network in Penrith. It was a sunny winter’s day in Wentworth Falls ...
16/06/2026

Today we hosted lovely visitors from the Active Care Network in Penrith. It was a sunny winter’s day in Wentworth Falls and Tarella was looking beautiful. One of our visitors commented on the Old Kitchen where the fire 🔥 reminded him of his boyhood visits to his grandmother in the 1950s. Another admired the simple lines of the Cottage. Thanks to our wonderful volunteers who made the morning possible.

15/06/2026

ON THIS DAY – 16th June

1840 – New Zealand became a dependency of New South Wales.

1845 – Explorer Ludwig Leichhardt named the Mitchell River in north Queensland.

1869 – British officer and explorer, Charles Sturt died.

1906 – The town of Roma, Queensland became the first town in Australia to be lit and powered by natural gas, however the gas reserve only lasts ten days.

1916 – The Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia, the forerunner to the Returned and Services League was founded.

1950 – Butter rationing ended.

1976 – The Australia-Japan Treaty of Friendship was signed, confirming the important trade relations between the two nations.

1987 – Crazed German tourist Joseph Schwab, known as the "Kimberley killer", was shot dead in a shootout with Western Australia Police at Fitzroy Crossing. Schwab had already killed three people that day, and two others a week previously in the Northern Territory.

Pictured:
Ludwig Leichhardt (1813–1848), by Friedrich August Schmalfuß, as copied by Elisabeth Wolf (Wiki)
Captain Charles Sturt (South Australian History)
Apparatus for separating natural gas from artesian water at the Roma Gas Works, Queensland, ca. 1906 (Queensland Pictures)

A Queen competition was always popular as a fund-raiser in the Mountains. So competitions built swimming pools but this ...
15/06/2026

A Queen competition was always popular as a fund-raiser in the Mountains. So competitions built swimming pools but this one, in 1916, was to raise funds for the War Effort. Votes were threepence (around 2 cents) each but your supporters (a sporting club such as tennis , a work group, a church group) would hold various social events to help you raise your money. And the Queen was the one who raised the most money. All photos from BMHS Collection.

14/06/2026

ON THIS DAY – 15th June

1792 – Major Sir Thomas Livingston Mitchell, surveyor and explorer of south-eastern Australia, was born.

1862 – Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall and Johnny Gilbert bailed up the Lachlan Gold Es**rt in Eugowra Rocks near Forbes, NSW. This hold up is still considered to be the largest ever gold robbery in Australia's history.

1874 – Brisbane's first Victoria Bridge opened; it was lost in the 1893 Brisbane flood.

1909 – Representatives from England, Australia and South Africa meet at Lord's and formed the Imperial Cricket Conference.

1924 – Yallourn Power Station began operating in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria.

1947 – Major flooding in Tasmania.

1967 – ATV0 broadcasted the first colour television program in Australia when it televised the horse racing from Pakenham, Victoria.

Pictured:
Portrait of Major Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell c. 1830s (Wiki)
The robbery at Eugowra Rocks, 1862 (SLV)
Horse drawn tram at the northern end of the first permanent Victoria Bridge in Brisbane c. 1890 (John Oxley Library, SLQ)

14/06/2026

ON THIS DAY – 14th June

1789 – Captain William Bligh, after being cast adrift following the mutiny on the 'Bounty', arrived at Timor.

1823 – Three ticket-of-leave convicts, Parsons, Pamphlett and Finnegan became the first Europeans to sight the Brisbane River. Oxley was later credited with the discovery.

1825 – Van Diemen's Land was separated administratively from NSW. It became fully independent in December 1825.

1851 – Gold was discovered at the Turon River, NSW. The diggings became the richest in the state.

1883 – A rail service between Sydney and Melbourne commenced when the NSW and Victorian rail systems were joined at Albury.

1893 – Gold was discovered at Kalgoorlie, WA, by Paddy Hannan and two others.

1940 – The Volunteer Defence Force, composed mainly of World War I veterans and based on the British Home Guard, was formed for home defence by the Returned Services League.

1943 – Forty American service personnel were killed in Australia's deadliest aviation disaster at Bakers Creek, Queensland.

1952 – For the first and only time, the VFL held premiership matches in country centres, with three others played interstate—the first since 1904. Heavy flooding impacted attendances and forced one game to be postponed and played under lights.

1952 – Disastrous floods in the southeast corner left 600 homeless and rendered a major rail line near Moss Vale, NSW, unusable throughout the winter.

1968 – Pacifist Simon Townsend, future host of Simon Townsend's Wonder World, was granted exemption from military service after lodging a fifth appeal against his imprisonment and court martial for conscientious objection.

1983 – The Royal Australian Navy patrol boat HMAS ‘Bendigo’ rescued British solo navigator Peter Bird after his boat was wrecked just 33 km from Wreck Bay, Queensland. Bird had rowed 9,000 km across the Pacific Ocean over 294 days in a 10.6-metre boat.

Pictured:
Fletcher Christian and the mutineers set Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 others adrift, depicted in a 1790 aquatint by Robert Dodd (NMM)
Panorama of Hobart ca. 1828 - watercolour drawings by Augustus Earle (SLNSW)
Members of the VDC in 1942 before they were issued with uniforms (AWM)

13/06/2026

ON THIS DAY – 8th June

1805 – John Macarthur returned to New South Wales as a civilian settler; the British Government accepted his resignation from the New South Wales Corps and approved his return.

1856 – Pitcairn Islanders arrived on Norfolk Island; the last convict had left, and the island was no longer a penal colony. Queen Victoria granted the island to the Pitcairners as a home. Bounty Day is celebrated each year in Norfolk Island to commemorate the event.

1877 – Lutherans founded the Hermannsburg Mission at Finke River in the Northern Territory.

1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew arrived in Brisbane, Queensland, after completing the first flight across the Pacific Ocean in the "Southern Cross” having left the United States on 31 May.

1942 – WWII – Between 31 May and 8 June – Japanese midget submarines shelled Sydney and Newcastle.

1945 – Perth received 476.1 millimetres (18.74 in) of rain in twenty-three days, its heaviest monthly rainfall on record.

1950 – Sir Thomas Blamey became the only Field Marshal in Australian history.

1951 – The first lessons of the School of the Air were broadcast from the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Adelaide.

1979 – Philip Silleny attempted to hijack a TAA aircraft near Brisbane but is disarmed by hostess Esme Qazim and other crew.

1985 – A year after moving from the morning to the evening 9.00 pm timeslot, ‘Hey Hey It's Saturday’ moved to 6:30 pm Saturdays.

2007 – Newcastle, NSW, was hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.

Pictured:
Norfolk Island, 1866, engraving by Walter Hart (SLV)
A Japanese Ko-hyoteki class midget submarine, believed to be midget No. 14, is raised from Sydney Harbour the day after the attack (Wiki)
General Sir Thomas Blamey, KCB, CMG, DSO circa 1942 (Wiki)
Australia's Outback-Where Schools Go to Children (UoC Press)

13/06/2026

ON THIS DAY – 13th June

1816 – Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens was founded. The Royal warrant for the Botanical Gardens was granted in 1959.

1927 – Slim Dusty (born David Gordon Kirkpatrick, 1927–2003) was an iconic Australian country music singer-songwriter whose career spanned nearly 70 years. Known for his "bush ballads" inspired by rural life and poets like Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, he popularized songs about Australian culture, including trucking anthems. He became the first Australian with a No. 1 international hit for "A Pub with No Beer" and received 45 Golden Guitars, an ARIA Award, and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame and Roll of Renown. At his death, he was working on his 106th album. He sold over seven million records and performed "Waltzing Matilda" at the 2000 Sydney Olympics closing ceremony.
1933 – The Australian Antarctic Territory was established.

Pictured:
Government House, Botanical Gardens, Sydney, c.1845, artist unknown (Mitchell Library, SLNSW)
Slim Dusty at the Golden Guitar awards in Tamworth 1988 (Wiki)

Address

99 Blaxland Road
Wentworth Falls, NSW
2782

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 2pm
Friday 10am - 2pm

Telephone

+247573824

Website

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