Kitchenalia

• 2nd - 13th November 2009 - Kitchenalia at Erina Branch Library

We have created a small display of early 'Kitchenalia' to support the library's exhibit of historical cooking books.



As the name implies, kitchenalia is the collecting of items used in or related to the kitchen. As this room is often the heart of the home, most kitchenalia collectors are often wanting to recapture a nostalgic slice of the way it 'used to be' and bring back memories of being in grandma's kitchen -- or simply wanting to satisfy a yearning for things of yesteryear. Recently, however, interior decorators have become attracted to kitchenalia items, given their bold colours and interesting shapes, which can often make quite a statement in a modern room.

The options available for the kitchenalia collector are vast. If this is an area you are interested in then you can tailor your collection to suit whatever area takes your fancy. From early electronic appliances to storage containers and those items related to a particular ingredients (for example, milk or cheese). You could even just collect particular objects like can openers, corkscrews or even rolling pins.

As mentioned above, kitchenalia provides a broad range of options for the home decorator. Although items like old storage jars or blue and white jugs have been popular decorating items for ages other objects like old tools, aprons, jelly moulds and even tablecloths could be turned into something decorative to brighten up your home.

From:
http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/b/better-homes-gardens/12201/better-blogs-kitchenalia/

September in Australia

Grey Winter hath gone, like a wearisome guest,
  And, behold, for repayment,
September comes in with the wind of the West
  And the Spring in her raiment!
The ways of the frost have been filled of the flowers,
  While the forest discovers
Wild wings, with the halo of hyaline hours,
  And the music of lovers.


September, the maid with the swift, silver feet!
  She glides, and she graces
The valleys of coolness, the slopes of the heat,
  With her blossomy traces;
Sweet month, with a mouth that is made of a rose,
  She lightens and lingers
In spots where the harp of the evening glows,
  Attuned by her fingers.


The stream from its home in the hollow hill slips
  In a darling old fashion;
And the day goeth down with a song on its lips,
  Whose key-note is passion.
Far out in the fierce, bitter front of the sea
  I stand, and remember
Dead things that were brothers and sisters of thee,
  Resplendent September!


The West, when it blows at the fall of the noon
  And beats on the beaches,
Is filled with a tender and tremulous tune
  That touches and teaches;
The stories of Youth, of the burden of Time,
  And the death of Devotion,
Come back with the wind, and are themes of the rhyme
  In the waves of the ocean.


We, having a secret to others unknown,
  In the cool mountain-mosses,
May whisper together, September, alone
  Of our loves and our losses!
One word for her beauty, and one for the grace
  She gave to the hours;
And then we may kiss her, and suffer her face
  To sleep with the flowers.


High places that knew of the gold and the white
  On the forehead of Morning
Now darken and quake, and the steps of the Night
  Are heavy with warning.
Her voice in the distance is lofty and loud
  Through the echoing gorges;
She hath hidden her eyes in a mantle of cloud,
  And her feet in the surges.


On the tops of the hills, on the turreted cones --
  Chief temples of thunder --
The gale, like a ghost, in the middle watch moans,
  Gliding over and under.
The sea, flying white through the rack and the rain,
  Leapeth wild at the forelands;
And the plover, whose cry is like passion with pain,
  Complains in the moorlands.


Oh, season of changes -- of shadow and shine --
  September the splendid!
My song hath no music to mingle with thine,
  And its burden is ended;
But thou, being born of the winds and the sun,
  By mountain, by river,
Mayst lighten and listen, and loiter and run,
  With thy voices for ever!

Henry Kendall

Bloodstained Brisbane Water: Colonial Crimes and Tragedies of Gosford's Early Days - LECTURE/SEMINAR

Presented by: Brisbane Water Historical Society

• 11 September 2009, 6.30pm for 7.00pm

Bloodstained Brisbane Water: Colonial Crimes and Tragedies of Gosford's Early Days

Interested in the colonial history of Gosford and Brisbane Water? Hear Geoff Potter, historian from Gosford Library, bring to life some of the fascinating tales and stories surrounding our early settlement, in the colonial environment of Cooranbean (Henry Kendall) Cottage, one of the oldest buildings on the Central Coast.

Gold coin donation. Bookings recommended - limited seating

Place Names of the Central Coast: Koolewong

Koolewong

An aboriginal word meaning: "Koala's there!"
Before the Railway Station opened on 29th November 1920, the area was known as Glenrock. This was the property of Fred Couche and his home and boarding house occupied a prominent position where the present Couche Crescent is situated.
Some of his property was resumed to build the railway line and when the station was to be named Fred Couche wanted to call it "Glenrock".
However, the Department of Railways thought that there would be confusion with other fairly similar names and they named it Koolewong. Records at the Public Transport Commission Archives do not state who suggested the name.

From: Place Names of the Central Coast: origins & meanings (Historical Monographs No. 5) Eileen Pratt - West Gosford : BWHS : 1978

From the Curator: What is interpretation and meaning-making?

Interpretation within the museum setting comes from a complex chain of connections created between the museum, the collection and the audience. This chain of connection, if correctly assembled, should facilitate the understanding of the audience and support the formative actions of meaning-making.

This interpretive system is not based upon the passive transmission view of communication, but states that learning is maintained through active engagement with the object, stimulated by the informative text provided by the museum curator and guided by the level of existing knowledge held by the audience.

An example of interpretation and meaning-making:

When viewing a piece of Roman pottery, for example, the information supplied by the museum curator may include the date of manufacture, what the pottery was used for or where it came from. In addition to this, the existing knowledge of the audience might include details from Roman history, Roman mythology, archaeology, pottery in general or even current popular media such as 'Time Team' or or the movie 'Gladiator'. Therefore the museum audience employs a circular 'question-and-answer' system of meaning-making that is sited within the knowledge and culture of the viewer, aided by the informative text provided by the museum curator.

Place names of the Central Coast - Gosford

In the early 1830s the Government decided that there should be a Government town at Brisbane Water as allotments in the private township of Samuel Peek (now East Gosford) were being sold.
The land selected for the township on the headwater of Brisbane Water was occupied by Thomas Allison Scott. The Government resumed this land and gave him the grant at Tascott by way of compensation.
In 1838 Alfred Holden applied to purchase six acres of the Township Reserve as he already had a house on the land - now Grahame Park. The application was refused.
Surveyor Dalgety then was instructed by the Colonial Secretary to prepare a plan of the ground for a township at Point Frederick.
On 27th February 1839, Dalgety forwarded "The Survey for the Township at Point Frederick" to the Governor. It was returned in April with the words "To be called Gosford" written across the survey plan.

From: Place Names of the Central Coast: origins & meanings (Historical Monographs No. 5) Eileen Pratt - West Gosford : BWHS : 1978

Town & County Journal

Henry Kendall sometimes wrote prose pieces for the Sydney newspaper, the Town & Country Journal. While he was staying with the Fagans, he had an article piece published titled "Arcadia at our Gates. In his own distinct lyrical and romantic style...he has given us a picture of the Brisbane Water of 1874, as seen through his eyes

"Here will be a refuge for aching heads and weary hearts. The kind wind of lakes, the gracious song of brooks, and the generous shelter of trees, will all play a restorative part. Limbs will receive new life, hearts new joy, minds new vigour."


From: The Fagans, the Cottage and Kendall (Historical Monograph No. 8) Joan Fenton : West Gosford : BWHS : 1996

The Poisonings at "Cooranbean"

"I find that the deceased Mrs Margaret Fagan aged 50, Bridget Gilligan aged 38 and Margaret Fagan aged 24 - died from the effects of Strychnine accidentally administered to them instead of Quinine by Peter Fagan of Cooranbean

Signed Boyd Horsbrugh J.P.

Sydney Morning Herald 11 December 1865

THE LATE FATAL ACCIDENT FROM POISONING AT BRISBANE WATER

The remains of Mrs Fagan, Miss Bridget Gilligan, and Miss Margaret Fagan were brought up to Sydney by one of the Illawarra Company's steamers, which arrived from Gosford, Brisbane Water, early on Saturday morning. An investigation respecting the cause of death was held at Brisbane Water on Thursday, the conclusion arrived at being that the poisoning was accidental. The bodies were taken to St. Joseph's Church, adjoining St. Mary's Cathedral on Saturday, and the interment took place yesterday afternoon. The other persons who also had the misfortune to take some of the strychnine in a fair way of recovery.


From: The Fagans, the Cottage and Kendall (Historical Monographs No. 8) Joan Fenton - West Gosford : BWHS : 1996

The Fagans, the Cottage and Kendall

Visitors to the Henry Kendall Cottage & Historical Museum at West Gosford are often intrigued by the relationship of the poet Henry Kendall to the small stone cottage built by a pioneer of Brisbane Water - Peter Fagan.
Many words have been written and published about Kendall: his life and his art have been well documented and commented upon ... Fewer words have been published about the life of Peter Fagan and his family of "Cooranbean", West Gosford.
The story of what is now Henry Kendall Cottage is really the story of individuals in three families: the Fagans, the Kendalls and the Adcocks
- Peter Fagan built the cottage
- Henry Kendall stayed in the cottage
- Garnet Adcock owned the cottage, lived in it for a while, developed the land around it, pioneered a significant business enterprise near it, and contributed to its preservation by selling it to the Brisbane Water Historical Society.

From: The Fagans, the Cottage and Kendall (Historical Monographs No. 8) Joan Fenton (Ed) - West Gosford : BWHS : 1996

Place names of the Central Coast

Erina

Erina is said to be a variation of "Yerin" of "Gerrin", an Aboriginal name meaning literally "an object of fear"... This name occurs as early as 1825 when James Stewart applied to the Surveyor General for a grant of 500 acres at Erina Creek.
In the first census of the native population taken at the end of 1828 by Willoughby Bean, the local magistrate, he reported five family groups of natives. The groups mentioned are the Mial or Broken Bay tribe, the Narara, the Erina, the Tuggerah Beach and Wyong tribes.

From: Place Names of the Central Coast: origins & meanings (Historical Monographs No. 5) Eileen Pratt - West Gosford : BWHS : 1978

Baby Doll

Does anyone have a Baby Doll that they would like to donate to our museum?
Sadly our doll in her pram has a "wonky eye" and many unkind remarks have been passed about her.

:-(

Snippets

When one of our new members, Norman Allan, was on Museum Duty recently, he gave an impromptu poetry reading of some of Henry Kendall's poems to a widening circle of interested and entertained visitors. Norman has only been in Australia for six months, coming from County Kildare in Ireland, and anyone who has the pleasure of meeting him will take delight in his Irish accent. Particularly enjoyed was "Song of the Shingle Splitters".

We are now thinking of appointing Norman as our resident poetry reader and look forward to more performances of this nature!

More on Aboriginal exhibitions from the Curator...

As mentioned in the previous post, we are hoping to reinterpret our collection of Indigenous artefacts. The following is a further excerpt from the research I am conducting:

"In addition to the academic discourse surrounding the debate, there has been a political re-imagining of Australian society as multicultural and inclusive of its Aboriginal past. Prior to the emergence of a widespread social conscience inspired by the civil rights movement in 1960s America, Aboriginal culture had been almost entirely subjugated by the near two hundred years of European nation building within Australia. Aboriginal peoples had been ejected from their lands, forced to 'assimilate' within white culture or become subject to segregationist policies. All of which conspired to dilute the traditional belief systems and quash individual tribal heritages."

From the Curator...

We are hoping to reinterpret our collection of Aboriginal artefacts in the near future. As a consequence, I have been looking into the role and responsibilities of the museum in the presentation of Indigenous objects. The following comes from my initial research:

"The inclusion of Aboriginal art and artefacts in the modern museum setting is the product of major changes within Western conceptions of art and culture, and the political climate of Australia. For the greater part of the twentieth century Aboriginal art and material culture was confined to the ethnographic museum, thus defining it as belonging to the 'other' and being part of a 'primative' art movement. More recently, the modernist expressionism of this 'primative' art has been recognised by critics and Aboriginal art and associated artefacts have been accepted as equal to the Western cultural 'standard' and is being exhibited in every key museum in Australia."

New website

Work has been completed on our new website and it has officially gone online.
It has a nice, clean look and hopefully will be easy for people to navigate.
If you'd like to check it out at www.henrykendallcottage.org.au and let us know what you think, we'd be happy to read your comments.

Heritage Week 2009

Our astronomical event, planned during Heritage Week, 4th-19th April as part of the National Trust Heritage Festival Our Place in Space - Under the Southern Skies, has shaped up nicely.

Our exhibit features James Dunlop, former Superintendent of Parramatta Observatory and Astronomer Royal of the Colony of New South Wales during the 1830s. In 1843 he retired to Kincumber where he died in 1848 and is buried in St. Paul's Church of England graveyard at Kincumber.

Updates Coming Soon