John Gale
Six months after the March 2001 unveiling of the large bronze sculpture of John Gale, a controversy erupted in Queanbeyan (Sister City of Canberra) when a Queanbeyan City Council, councillor declared, that John Gale (1831-1929) was not the Father of Canberra, and insisted that the title belonged to Sir Austin Chapman.
But Sir Austin Chapman MP declared:
“... if any man were entitled to be known as the Father of Canberra, it was veteran Queanbeyan journalist John Gale.“ 1
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November 20th, 2008 | Category: CONNEE | Comments Off
Francis Adams (1862-1893)1
“Something of convictism and the convict still shows itself in Sydney”, said Francis Adams after he had first seen the “sprawling seaport” of Sydney in 1884 with its “288,000 people and 3,167 pubs”.2
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February 9th, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
Harp of Erin Inn
Indian Jugglers were performing at ‘The Harp of Erin Inn’ located in Macquoid Street, Queanbeyan, when one of their juggling team went missing in November 1861. 1
The missing Indian Juggler was about 40 years old and it was believed that he had been “murdered … shortly after giving a juggling performance”. 2
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February 8th, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
Dark side of life 1860
“Mrs Soares has lately given birth to a boy but his palate is split into three and he has no roof to his mouth”. 1 “She has no milk and the child is a most pitiable object”, continued Emily Wilson Hutchison in her letter of March 7, 1860, from her home in Queanbeyan, to her family in England. 2
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February 7th, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
Christ Church 18601
Perhaps the old Christ Church Parish Hall2 on the corner of Rutledge and Crawford Streets, was sold to the Home in Queanbeyan project to provided the dollars to replace, with new shinning armour, the roof and steeple of historic Christ Church, which is estimated to have cost around $150,000.3
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February 6th, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
Pre-empting nine-eleven
Dennis Mortimer 1 was using a drawing of portion of a telescopic head, from the New York Twin Towers Buildings, as a symbol of sadness in his paintings before the 2000 disaster when terrorists stole two planes and crashed them into the New York Twin Towers causing them to collapse on day, nine-eleven. 2
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February 5th, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
Billy Roohan (1802-1874) 1
PICTURE: Rutledge Street looking towards Christ Church. In this photo taken in 1870, John Gale’s home and business is on the right and Billy Roohan’s timber slab home is opposite. Photographer: Henry Beaufoy Merlin, 1870.2
The Aboriginal people liked Queanbeyan postman Billy Roohan, and when he asked them to mark the trees to Twofold Bay, so he could be the first man to deliver the mail there, they obliged because he was their friend.3
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February 4th, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
George Zacharewicz (1951-2004) 1
The buttocks of George’s women are beautiful. He really had a love of the human form especially women. The arms, the breasts, every muscle showed his technique and modeling skills as the clay was moved under his caressing hands.
February 3rd, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
Canberra 1913
PICTURE:4 The digital photo was taken in December 2001 (146 years after John Gale’s vision) from the lawns of Parliament House, Canberra, during the “Centenary of Federation – Peoplescape Exhibition,” which celebrated 100 years of Federation (1901-2001).
In 1901 the Australian Colonies had federated (joined together) and became the Commonwealth of Australia – this was the reason for a search for a federal capital-site, a place to build a federal capital-city, for the new Federal Government to meet, in a new Federal Parliament House.
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February 2nd, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
Happy Home Lodge
William Greg O’Neill founded the Queanbeyan Oddfellows Lodge, or to give it its full title: the Happy Home Lodge of the Manchester Unity Independent Order of Oddfellows, in 1856 and within six months, the head count of Odd Fellows in the Queanbeyan District was at least 60.1
To put it mildly there are still a few odd fellows living in Queanbeyan at the moment, so it is safer to write about the distant past than the present, when referring to the odd men that are part of our town.2
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February 1st, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Leave a comment
A fair dinkum Aussie story
During the great depression of the 1930s four Aussie blokes met on the road and as they walked they kicked rocks and ate the dust that rose from under their feet.
As time passed and the long paddock stretched on and on with no opportunity of bludging a bite to eat, the blokes dropped their swags under an old gum tree and each bloke remembered better times.
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January 31st, 2010 | Category: CONNEE | Comments Off
