top of page
STORIES


Shipwrecked at 14 years old
Did you know that Tom Aubrey was shipwrecked as on his first voyage at age 14. It was on the Glasgow Barque Fifeshire only 19 days out...


Photo comes to light
There’ s no end to the surprises people find when they rummage through their collection of old photographs. Jane Hutton (nee Gillespie)...


FAMILY GRAVE RESTORATION APPEAL
We've launched an appeal to raise money to stabilise the grave where Jeanetta and George Menzies and several of their children are buried...


Stand Off Bar Dangerous
Did you know that bringing ships into and out of the Port of Newcastle was extremely hazardous in the days of sail? As shipping masters...


Private Charles Smith (1816-1858)
Charles Smith was the husband of Jane Smith (nee Sadler) and father of Jeanetta Sadler Smith (who married George Menzies in Sydney in...


JOHN BURGESS MENZIES
If ever anyone deserved to be looked after by a grateful nation it was John Burgess Menzies. He had paid a great price in the cause of...


"...A Wild and Barren Country..."
DID YOU KNOW ? …that Jeanetta Sadler Smith made three journeys between Sydney and Bathurst before she was married? The first was as an...


BOAT BITS
DID YOU KNOW THAT Seamen call ships ‘she’? Some say it’s because ships wear a coat of paint and swing around a buoy. Others say that...


THE BUSINESS OF A SEAMAN
DID YOU KNOW THAT the 4 Menzies sisters, Annie, Jessie, ‘Netta and Maggie each married men remarkably like ‘the man who married dear old...


HIS FIRST COMMAND
On the morning of 6 April 1905, the port of Newcastle, NSW was a very busy place. The BHP steelworks had not yet been built but the...
bottom of page