Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

  It's New Year's Eve so let's reflect on who has been revealed in Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries in 2023. The year has been filled with many published blogs about people who chose a life of service helping others as well as those who chose not to; tragedies that were heartbreaking and secrets and scandals that shocked us. A view of the Old Catholic section - author's own collection  My most popular blog was the one devoted to Lucy Farrow, mother of John Villiers Farrow, Hollywood producer and film maker and grandmother of Mia Farrow. The next most popular was that of the murder of Leticia Frances Cavanagh and followed by the Banka ferry disaster and slaughter of innocents. You also liked the story of the "bad" mother of Macdonaldtown, Sarah Makin. Henry Shiell, the City Coroner, was a popular read as was one about the secrets and scandals found in Section One of the Old Anglican Section. It seems I will need to find more titillating material to engage ...

  Welcome to "TweenXmas", a name given by me to that time between Christmas and the New Year! For this blog I have some additional information about a rather remarkable man I dedicated a blog to on 28th March this year. Today’s blog will be referenced as WILLIAM BLAND with enhancements! Take a look at the original blog by clicking on his name in the labels area at the end of this blog. Dr William Bland - Parliament of NSW A few months ago, the State Library of NSW opened a new ground floor area devoted to its vast collection of photographs. Its inaugural exhibition "Shot" displays 400 photographs taken by 200 photographers over 3 centuries and is displayed as a series of galleries. It displays people going about their general business at the time, in sadness or at play and shows scenes from past pivotal events in our history. The images are displayed on various mediums from daguerreotypes and glass negatives through many changing technologies to what we...

 Welcome to Summer in Australia. A land of floods (currently), famine and FLIES!!! Today's blog pays homage to a Rookwood inhabitant whose company distributed a powder that helped Aussies cope with those pesky blighters. SAMUEL TAYLOR Samuel was born in April 1813 on the Bethnal Green Road, London, the eldest son of Samuel and Sarah Black (nee Green) and the first of five children. Samuel went into business with his father and his half-brother William Black in their brush manufacturing warehouse at 50 and 51 Church Street London. (William was the eldest son of Sarah and George Black her first husband who died in 1807.  She married Samuel Taylor (senior) in 1810 who took on her three young children). Brush manufacturing was an important industry at time and increasingly so into the Victorian age. Brushes were used in brooms, the laundry, by chimney sweeps and mundanely to clean the front step as an example. The business, however, was dissolved in 1839.  Samuel (Junior) mar...

  I recently heard that an exhibition of French Impressionist paintings from the Carnavalet Museum in Paris will be heading to Bendigo Victoria next year. That news sounded impressive, but it made me think about the many Australian painters, (not just of the Impressionist era), who magnificently captured the light that is so unique to this country. I then had time to muse on the number of painters who lie in Rookwood, many in unmarked graves, who are somewhat forgotten. Over the next few months, I will be "resurrecting" them, so to speak, and putting them in the spotlight. The subject of today's blog (who actually has a marked grave) was a watercolourist of some note. His works were many over a very small time. JESSE JEWHURST HILDER Jesse was born in Toowoomba, Queensland in July 1881, the fourth son of Henry Hilder, an engineer originally from Sussex England and his wife, Elizabeth. He attended Toowoomba North Station School until 1890 when his family moved to Br...

  Well, it’s that time of year when there are not enough hours in the day and we tend to race around in ever increasing circles. It got me thinking about women and racing. Here is one woman who took on the men and beat them at their own game! NINA EVA VIDA JONES (1882-1966) Nina was born on 30th January 1882 at Livingstone House, Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney, the youngest daughter of William Henry Harris and his wife Susan Mary, née Clarke. She was the niece of John and Sir Matthew Harris (who will be the subject of a separate blog in the future). On 2nd of April 1910 Nina Eva Vida Harris married John Alexander Stammers Jones, only son of the late William Watkin Jones, a Welsh mining surveyor, and his wife Eliza. After his mother re-married John became a resident of Lithgow and took over the running of the Zig Zag Brewery after his stepfather Henry (Harry) Phillip Corbett had stepped down sometime in the 1890's. He had the distinction of being the youngest fully qua...