Architecture of the 1920's
2022-09-25 14:00 - 16:00 (Australia/Sydney) | Mervyn Fletcher Hall, 81 Dalhousie Street Haberfield, Entry from Dickson Street
The Mungo Scott Mill at Summer Hill was built in the 1920’s.

Scott MacArthur.

Presenter Scott MacArthur is President of the Marrickville Heritage Society. Scott has over 25 years’ professional experience in heritage conservation and adaptive reuse of historic places. He is a previous winner of a NSW Government Heritage Volunteer Award and an RAHS Special Achievement Certificate in recognition of his work with the Society to champion the built heritage of the former Marrickville LGA.

Art Deco Talk by Dr Peter Sheridan
2022-10-23 14:00 - 16:00 | Pratten Park Community, Sports and Bowling Club, 42 Arthur Street, Ashfield, NSW
Sydney Art Deco explores the impact of the Art Deco style on the landscape and life of Sydney during the 1930s and 1940s.

Dr Peter Sheridan

Dr Peter Sheridan | AM BDS MDS FICDClinical Senior Lecturer, Sydney University

Dr Peter Sheridan is an internationally recognised photographer, author, collector, historian and speaker on Art Deco design.

His photographic images and articles appear in specialist fine art journals, books, travel publications, museum catalogues and print media. Peter’s 432 page book Sydney Art Deco (2019) was longlisted for the 2020 Indie Book Awards. It is already in its 2nd edition and lays the foundation for a series of walking booklets, the first being Sydney Art Deco & Modernist Walks – Potts Point & Elizabeth Bay, which was released in August 2021.

His collection of radios of the 1930s and 40s is considered one of the best in the world. He is also an accredited professional photographer and his highly acclaimed reference books Radio Days – Australian Bakelite Radios (2008) and Deco Radio – The most beautiful radios ever made (2014) have confirmed radio as early examples of streamlining and modern industrial design.

South Flows the Pearl: Australian Chinese Voices
2022-11-20 14:00 - 16:00 | Pratten Park Community, Sports and Bowling Club, 42 Arthur Street, Ashfield, NSW
明珠南流：澳大利亚华人之声

In the late 1980s Mavis Gock Yen began interviewing elderly Chinese Australians from all around Australia, recording hours of conversations.These fascinating and absorbing stories of the struggles and successes of Chinese in Australia, told in their own words, have been edited by Siaoman Yen and Richard Horsburgh. They form the basis of South Flows the Pearl: Chinese Australian Voices, published by Sydney University Press in February 2022.The unique book with stories from across the country from Perth, Broome, Darwin, Sydney and outback Queensland and New South Wales provides a new perspective on what it means to be an Australian with Chinese heritage. A rich exploration of the Chinese Australian contribution to the development of Australia from the goldrush of the 1850s to the current day.Perth-born Mavis Gock Yen (1916-2008), moved with her family to Shanghai in 1925 and spent time in China and Australia over the next twenty years. In 1946 she settled in China where she worked as a journalist and English teacher until after the Cultural Revolution, eventually returning to Australia in 1981 with her daughter Siaoman Yen.Mavis then began recording and writing this landmark pioneering oral history book which will change how you think about Australian history.Learn more about South Flows the Pearl from the book’s editor Richard Horsburgh.

Richard Horsburgh

Chang Family Tamworth c. 1912

Land Titles Talk
2023-08-20 14:00 - 16:00 | Room 4 Ashfield Civic Centre, 260 Liverpool Road, Ashfield, NSW
Talk by Carol Liston

Carol Liston will educate us on the value of Land Title records, what can be learned from them, and how to effectively search them. Venue has been secured in the Ashfield Civic CentreActivity Room #4.

Once you see how you can search these records you will be inspired! We will show you how to search and access documents from Land Titles and uncover information about title holders, sometimes back to the original land grants.

$5 for Members. $10 for Non-members.

State Archives/ Museums of History
2023-10-15 14:00 - 16:00 | Summer Hill Community Centre, 131 Smith Street, Summer Hill, NSW
Christine Yeats, from the NSW State Archives at Kingswood, will walk us through some of the invaluable sources of information held by the State Archives. You can see a lot of information on-line but you can access the full and original documents through the State Archives. Knowing what is there and how to locate it makes th trip to Kingswood worthwhile.

Christine Yeats invites members to nominate areas of interest in advance. Members are asked to email their suggestions to: events@ashfieldhistory.org.au.

This event will be held at the Summer Hill Community Centre.

Annual General Meeting of A&DHS
2024-02-25 14:00 - 16:00 | Summer Hill Community Centre, 131 Smith Street, Summer Hill, NSW
The Annual General Meeting of the Society

Please join us for presentation of the reports,the election of the Committee for 2024 and afabulous afternoon tea.

Guest Speaker: Niall Macken

‘Hibernian heritage – Some conservation projects in Ireland’.

Niall Mackeb

Niall Macken, Team Leader – Heritage & UrbanDesign, Inner West Council

Niall Macken is an architect and heritage specialist with a Masters Degree in Conservation Studies from the University of York, UK. He has worked on significant historic sites, buildings and precincts in Australia, England and Ireland, within both the public and private sectors. He has a strong interest in best-practice conservation management, including the provision of creative and sympathetic interventions to historic places.

Niall is a registered architect with the NSW Board of Architects, and a member of the Australian Institute of Architects (AIA), and the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI). He is the Heritage and Urban Design team leader within Inner West Council, a member of the NSW Heritage Council’s Heritage Advisory Committee and a member of the Australian Institute of Architects heritage committee.

Event Organisers:

Who Do You Think You Might Be: The Nuts and Bolts of Genealogical Method
2024-03-24 14:00 - 16:00 | Ashfield Town Hall, 258 Liverpool Road, Ashfield, NSW
Ashfield Civic Centre, 258 Liverpool Road Ashfield

A presentation by Kerry Barlow.

Kerry Barlow has an extensive background in education, having taught economics, economic history and education for many years, at high school, TAFE and university levels. She has strong skills in research, having conducted numerous funded projects and published many reports, articles and learning guides on a wide range of social and economic issues.

Kerry’s passion also lies in family history and local history research, and she brings her teaching and research expertise to the genealogy field, where she has been teaching family history courses for the WEA for the past 7 years.

This presentation will cover:

Primary Sources

Birth Death Marriage records

civil registrationuse of Indexespurchases for verification of correct peopleeach jurisdiction collected different informationdependent on honesty and knowledge of informant

Baptism & Marriage records

record dates vary for all jurisdictionsoften provide more information than Birth, Marriage civil records (eg sponsors, witnesses, religion)

State Archives

some primary records – eg convicts, land grants, immigration

Secondary Sources

Newspapers

useful for birth, marriage, death sources (eg death notices, obituaries)useful for land purchases, court proceedings

”

Activity Rooms 3 & 4 in Ashfield Library in Ashfield Civic Centre

Conformity and Individuality in the Californian Bungalow
2024-06-23 14:00 - 16:30 | Summer Hill Community Centre, 131 Smith Street, Summer Hill, NSW
This presentation will look at the ubiquitous ‘Californian Bungalow’ prevalent in the Inner West with a particular focus on Ashfield and Ashbury. Colin Webb will look at some of the features of Californian Bungalows that make them unique and how they conform.

Were the Calfornian bungalows ‘unimpressive and uniformly dull?‘

Colin has taken numerous photographs of Californian bungalows in our local area to illustrate the points he will make in his presentation.

A Walk Through London Streets in Search of the Origin of our Victorian Italianate Legacy; a presentation by Mark Sabolch
2024-08-18 14:00 - 16:00 | Summer Hill Community Centre, 131 Smith Street, Summer Hill, NSW
Registration for this event is closed.

In this pictorial presentation Mark will explore the varied examples of the Italianate architectural style as seen in London.

The Italianate style was very popular and versatile. Taking in the housing forms seen around Regents Park, Belgravia, Pimlico and Bloomsbury just after the turn of the nineteenth century and evolving as new estates extended into the Victorian growth areas in London’s south-east and north-west suburbs.

To what extent are the Victorian Italianate house styles we see in the Inner West derived from London housing? Mark will explore how the Victorian Italianate style evolved and consider possible translations from London to Sydney. This is a combined event of Ashfield and District Historical Society and Marrickville Heritage Society.
