Photo of the St Marys Duration Cottages on Kalang Avenue courtesy of Penrith City Library. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. IN August 1945 an opportunity for servicemen presented itself when the Federal Government’s decision to speed-up demobilisation and increase the home building rate that made the […]

Photo of the Woodland grave courtesy of Ancestry.  By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. IN January 1887 in the Nepean Times “Japonica” was reminiscing about the old once great homesteads going to “rack & ruin”.  He wrote that the old homestead called “Dunheved” once the birthplace of […]

Photo of the grave at St Mary Magdalene cemetery from Ancestry online. EDGAR was born in June 1825 at Waltham Abbey, Epping Forest District, Essex, England and baptised at Dr Williams Library in London, England of Baptist faith. His father’s name was Thomas Fuller who married Elizabeth Marie Edwards. Edgar married Mary Anne Faithfull in […]

 Drawing and information of “Toby” Ryan courtesy of  Parliament of NSW website. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. The floods in the district in the early 1860’s was catastrophic back then. The papers reported that in Penrith in February 1860 the flood washed away three of the […]

By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. Percy Claude Fulton passed away at the Nepean Cottage Hospital after a short illness of about three weeks in November 1912. He was the fifth son of William Charles (snr) & Annie Butler Chisholm. Percy was born in Penrith in February […]

Photo of the workers at Brell’s Tannery courtesy of the late Margaret Player. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. IN December 1899, two young men named William Chapman and Robert Smeaton who were employed at Martin Brell’s tannery in St Marys went for a trip to the […]

 Photo of timber logging from the internet.  By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. 1904 To the Editor, Sir—I have perused with pleasure and interest two or three articles from old Penrith identities in the dear old Nepean Times, a copy of which I receive every week. The […]

Photo of Harry from the Society’s WW1 files. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. THERE once was a lad named Harry Adams, born in St Marys in 1891. His parents Charles William and Elizabeth (Rope) lived in Gidley Street. His mother died in 1895 and father in […]

Photo of graves courtesy of Ancestry website. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. George Hope was born at Ainsworth, Lancashire in England on 12th January 1815. He married Alice Hunt on 15th September, 1839 and they came to Australia in the “Clyde” on the 21st April 1840 […]

3RAR soldiers South Vietnam during a January 1968 operation. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. I have no idea why anyone would desecrate memorials within Australia. They are there to commemorate the significance of a person, people and the history of our great country. Maybe they didn’t […]