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 […]

Photo of the South Creek band 1920 courtesy of Bert Evans, Lifetime member of the Society. Originated as one of a number of fraternal organizations for temperance or total abstinence founded in the 19th century and with a structure modelled on Freemasonry, using similar ritual and regalia. Unlike many however it admitted men and women […]

By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. IN 1872 Samuel Marks was a farmer at Littleham on the Liverpool road in St Marys. The name was probably named after the nearby town near Exmouth in England where there is a Samual Marks buried in the Littleham church. By […]

IN December 1945 a single man named John Joseph Xavier Wright aged 31 returned to St Marys. John was born in May 1914 at Boolaroo, Lake Macquarie in NSW to parents Albert Ernest and Elsie Xavier Wright (King). His father was born in 1886 in Durham, England and they married in September 1910 in Tynemouth, […]

Photo of a £40 cheque from Farleigh Nettheim & Co – 1907 from the internet. IN December 1936 a bike ride to St Marys changed the lives of two friends and their families forever when Thomas Ernest Wright and Francis Edward Spittle both aged 16, decided on a bike ride to St Marys that was […]

Photo of Miss Franklin courtesy of RAHS History online. January 5th – “Manly” on the Nepean. If anybody had the idea that there are not any beauty spots in and around the Penrith District that idea would certainly have been dispelled if they had paid a visit to the western bank of the famous Nepean […]