By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. Phillip was a naval officer, hydrographer and company manager born in December 1791 at Norfolk Island. The son of Philip Gidley and Anna Josepha King (née Coombe). Phillip sailed for England in the “Britannia” with his parents in October 1796. When […]

 Group of migrants on MV Toscana at Trieste, 1954 courtesy of the Australian National Maritime Museum. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. After World War Two, many Europeans chose to migrate to more appealing, safe and accessible locations and one location was Australia. Migrants fleeing from persecution […]

Photo of William’s grave courtesy of Find a Grave website. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. William Minchin was born in Tipperary Ireland in 1774.  He was the son of George Minchin. He was commissioned an Ensign and Adjutant of the NSW Corps in March 1797.  He […]

The Nepean Times photo of the opening in 1933. By Lyn Forde – President/Research Officer of St Marys & District Historical Society Inc. SINCE the incorporation of the municipality in 1893, the St Marys council had been a tenant and never possessed a home of its own until December 1933 when it officially entered into […]

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 […]