April 2023 General Meeting - Saturday 15 April

       

Guest Speaker:
Denis Smith, OAM

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1
at 2 pm on Saturday 15 April 2023
when Denis Smith presents...

The Mighty Sunderland Flying Boats – in War and Peace

Denis' interest in Sunderland flying boats was through his uncle Percy Smith, who was in the RAAF from 1938. In 1939 just prior to WWII, his uncle was part of the RAAF 10 Squadron who went to England to fly nine brand new Sunderlands back to Australia, where they were to be stored at Rathmines near Newcastle.

War broke out just as they arrived in England, so Australia loaned all nine Sunderlands and their crews to RAF Coastal Command, where they would seek and destroy U-boats, mainly in the North Atlantic. Denis will show actual film footage of the crew arriving in England, flying Sunderlands and sinking U-boats.

In peace time, flying boats operated from Rose Bay. A trans-Tasman service began in April 1940 which, at its peak, saw a fleet of four Sandringhams making the seven hour crossing to Auckland. Services to Lord Howe Island, Fiji and Tahiti were introduced using Sandringhams, Hythes, Solents, Sunderlands and Catalinas.

The final commercial flight from Rose Bay – an Ansett service to Lord Howe Island – left on 10th September 1974, closing a brief but important chapter in Australia’s aviation history. The site of the Rose Bay flying boat terminal is today used by a company offering joy rides in a float plane.

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.

Saturday 18 March 2023 - Members Forum

       

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1, at 2 pm on Saturday 18 March 2023, for our Annual Members Forum - this year's topic... The ‘OMG’ Factor!

Remember finding out something during your history research… or reading and thinking OMG: Oh My Gosh, how amazing! Or hearing about others’ unexpected discoveries which surprised you as well? Our Members Forum is your chance to tell others about one of these ‘oh my gosh’ moments – as well as to share in others’ OMG moments!

Members will have 5 minutes to tell us about something you discovered that made it an OMG moment. If you wish, bring along a few illustrations on a USB stick or an item you want to talk about. The aim is for a short, relaxed chat about things of historical interest among friends. If it’s relevant to local Ku-ring-gai history, all the better!

To take part, email Judith at secretary@khs.org.au giving the title of your presentation. You can volunteer to talk on the day, but times will be allocated on a first in first served basis.

We look forward to hearing your ‘OMG’!

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.

February 2023 General Meeting - Saturday 18 February

      

Guest Speaker:
John Ramsland

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1, at 2 pm on Saturday 18 February 2023, when John Ramsland presents...

Peter Finch – Australia’s Player King

Our guest speaker will be Em. Prof. John Ramsland, OAM, FACE, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Newcastle.

John’s latest research examines the actor’s troubled formative years at Mosman and Greenwich Point, followed by his rapid rise to fame in radio drama, on stage and in feature films, and his later career as an international star.

About John Ramsland

John was born in Manly in 1942 and educated at Manly Boys High School, Bathurst Teachers College, and the Universities of New England, Sydney and Newcastle. He is the author of many historical books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers and press features. In 2003, he became Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Newcastle after serving there as Dean of the Faculty of Education, and later, Dean of the Faculty of Arts.

John’s latest book is Rendezvous With Death – Anzac Stories of the Great War.

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.

January 2023 General Meeting - Saturday 21 January

     

Guest Speaker:
Jeff FitzGerald

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1, at 2 pm on Saturday 21st January 2023, when Jeff FitzGerald presents...

Postcards - Moments in Time and Windows into History

Our guest speaker will be Jeff FitzGerald, Vice-President of the New South Wales Postcard Collectors Society.

Jeff has been collecting historic postcards since 1982, when quite by chance he stumbled across a bundle in an antique shop in Tokyo. His extensive collection reveals our social history, consisting of ‘postcard moments in time’ depicting a wide range of aspects such as socialising, working, recreation, rural life and industry; as well as depictions of Aboriginal people and what this tells us about mainstream Australia of the time. They also contain the work of noted artists who illustrated postcards in the early 1900s, including May Gibbs, Norman Lindsay, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and more.

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.

November 2022 General Meeting - Saturday 19th November

    

Guest Speaker:
David Hunt

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1, at 2 pm on Saturday 19th November 2022, when David Hunt presents...
Girt Nation - The Unauthorised History of Australia, Volume 3

Another rollicking ride with author David Hunt, as he speaks about Girt Nation, the third volume in his prize-winning 'Unauthorised History of Australia' series. The series examines the federation of the Australian colonies into the revered nation we are today; and the key political, social and economic reforms of late nineteenth century Australia.

David unashamedly tramples tall poppies of the past in charting Australia’s transformation from aspiration to nation – an epic tale of charlatans and costermongers, of bush bards (and even bushier beards!), of workers, and of women who just weren’t going to take it anymore!

Thrill as Jandamarra leads the Bunuba against Western Australia... gasp as Essendon trainer Carl von Ledebur injects his charges with crushed dog and goat testicles... weep as Scott Morrison’s communist great-great-aunt Mary Gilmore holds a hose in New Australia... and marvel at how Labor, a party that spent a quarter of a century infighting over how to spell its own name, ever rose to power!

Girt Nation also introduces Alfred Deakin - the Liberal necromancer whose dead advisors made Australia a better place to live in; Sir Henry Parkes - Australia's greatest lothario; Banjo Paterson - the jihadist who called on God and the Prophet to drive the Australian infidels from the Sudan; the Crutchy Push - Australia's most infamous all-amputee street gang against the conventionally limbed; Catherine Helen Spence - the feminist polymath who envisaged a utopian future of free contraceptives, easy divorce and immigration restrictions ‘to prevent the Chinese coming to destroy all we have struggled for’... plus a cast of Australian women who made Australia a better place for everyone!

Yes, you'll meet a colourful cast of characters from the formative period of Australia’s nationhood, and guess what - books will be available to purchase! $20 for Girt and True Girt; $25 for Girt Nation; and $15 for Hunt's kids' picture books.

Find out more, if you dare, at David Hunt’s website...

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.

AGM - Saturday 15th October 2022

    

AGM, with Guest Speaker:
Patrick Dodd

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1, at 2 pm on Saturday 15th October 2022. This meeting will start with our AGM at 2 pm, after which Patrick Dodd presents...
“The Holtermann Collection”

In 1951, Keast Burke, editor of Australasian Photo Review, enquired with the Mitchell Library about Bernhardt Holtermann, a name associated with several nineteenth century panoramas he’d seen in the Library. It transpired that Holtermann’s daughter-in-law, Mary Holtermann, lived in Chatswood. Recovered from her garden shed later that year were 3500 glass plate negatives in cedar boxes and smaller ones in lacquered tins, all wonderfully undisturbed for nearly 80 years.

The negatives were donated to the Mitchell Library in 1952 by Bernhardt Holtermann's grandson, Bernhard, and became known as the Holtermann Collection. The find proved to be the most important photographic documentation of goldfields life in Australia, and was included on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World register in May 2013.

Join us for what is sure to be a very informed talk from Ku-ring-gai Historical Society member Patrick Dodd. Patrick is the Founder and President of the Macquarie Society in Australia; and a Volunteer Guide at the Australian National Maritime Museum on HM Bark Endeavour. He is also a Volunteer Guide and Public Speaker at the State Library of NSW on History and Heritage tours.

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.

September 2022 General Meeting - Saturday 17th September

   

Guest Speaker:
Ian Burnet

Join us in Gordon Library Meeting Room 1, at 2 pm on Saturday 17th September 2022, when Ian Burnet presents...
“The Tasman Map”

Our September guest speaker is author, historian and voyager Ian Burnet, who will present The Tasman Map - the Dutch East India Company and the first Dutch discoveries of Australia.

Every visitor who passes through the vestibule of the Mitchell Library stops to admire the magnificent marble mosaic of the Tasman Map, which fills the entire vestibule floor.

This story of the first Dutch voyages to discover Australia is set against the background of the struggle of the newly formed Dutch Republic to gain its independence from the Kingdom of Spain, and the struggle of the Dutch East India Company for trade supremacy in the East Indies against its Portuguese, Spanish and English rivals.

From 1606 to 1644, based on sixteen separate discoveries, the first map of Australia took shape. The Tasman Map shows a recognizable outline of the north, west and south coasts of Australia, that was not to change for another 125 years until James Cook charted the east coast in 1770.

In 1925 and 1933 the Mitchell Library acquired the Tasman Huydecoper Journal and the Tasman Bonaparte Map. The fascinating story of how the library managed to acquire these treasures of Dutch exploration and cartography brings new recognition to these icons of both Dutch and Australian history!

About Ian Burnet

Ian grew up in South Gippsland and graduated with a degree in Geology and Geophysics from the University of Melbourne. He first went to work in Indonesia in 1968 as a young geologist and became fascinated by the diverse cultures and rich history of the archipelago. Ian has organised many sailing voyages around the Spice Islands for those interested in exploring the eastern archipelago, sailing in a traditional Indonesian wooden schooner.

He has spent thirty years living, working and travelling in Indonesia and is fascinated by the diverse history and culture of the archipelago. This is reflected in his books Spice Islands; East Indies; Archipelago - A Journey Across Indonesia; Where Australia Collides with Asia; The Tasman Map - The Biography of a Map; and his latest, Joseph Conrad’s Eastern Voyages.

A review of The Tasman Map states “Ian Burnet in this stunning volume brings alive the many voyages of discovery that linked the exploration and Dutch conquest of Indonesia to a growing awareness on the part of the Dutch of the great, but as yet unknown, land to the south”.

Ian's website is www.ianburnetbooks.com

Join us in person for what is sure to be a fascinating presentation on Saturday 17th September!

As always, please keep an eye on our website in case of any last-minute changes.

The venue is Gordon Library Meeting Room No. 1, in the Old Gordon Public School, which adjoins the Gordon Library, 799 Pacific Highway, Gordon (corner Pacific Highway and Park Avenue).

It’s just a 5-minute walk from Gordon Station.

For a map and parking information, see our Contact page.