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Primary industry

Barracluff's Ostrich Farm

In 1889 the enterprising Joseph Barracluff and his wife Jane established an ostrich farm at South Head. Over the years Barracluff's farm became a well-known tourist destination where patrons could select feathers to be cut directly from the flock. The business thrived until the outbreak of World War I, when the demand for ostrich feathers declined.

Transcript: Miss Elizabeth Killinger talks about her father's tannery on the Georges River

Miss Elizabeth Killinger was born in 1899 and was interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' Miss Killinger's family was of German extraction and she talks here about her father's tannery on Ritchie's Creek [now Brickmakers Creek] on Georges River, which he established in the very early twentieth century.

Transcript: Mr William Kennedy remembers timber carting around Liverpool in the early twentieth century

Mr William Kennedy was born in 1910 and was interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' He recalls the difference between drays and jinkers, both horse-drawn vehicles, which were used to cart timber in the Liverpool area in the early twentieth century.

Saccostrea glomerata (Sydney rock oyster )

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Sydney's famous native rock oyster that are endemic to the east coast of Australia. They inhabit sheltered estuaries and bays, and have a smooth, thick shell.

Department of Primary Industry

State government department responsible for food and fibre industries, natural resources including fisheries and forests, and energy and mineral resources.

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Kanematsu Australia

Australian office of Japanese merchant and trading business, Katematsu Corporation, that opened in Sydney in 1890 in an office at 99 Clarence Street before moving to 8 O'Connell Street in 1891. The company had been established by Fusajiro Kanematsu in Japan in 1889 in order to establish trade with Australia. It is one of the largest dealers in wool to Japan.

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New South Wales Department of Primary Industries

Government department responsible for developing profitable and sustainable agriculture and fisheries, and regulating the food sector.

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North Shore Gas Company

Company formed by Charles Watt and James Walter Fell in the 1870s to supply gas to St Leonards and the North Shore. With works established at Neutral Bay, gas for lighting the streets of St Leonards East and Victoria began in March 1877. In 1980 the company was taken over by AGL.

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Adams, Robert Dudley

Businessman and poet who took out mining rights across Sydney in 1874, leading to the establishment of the Balmain colliery. He lived with his family at the cottage they built, Fernlee, at Snails Bay, Balmain.

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Anderson, Mary

Dairy owner and farmer.

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Anderson, Thomas

Dairy owner at Greenwich and Longueville.

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Barracluff, Jane

Joint owner of the family ostrich farm who supervised the production of ostrich products.

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Barracluff, Joseph Thomas

Shopkeeper who established the first ostrich farm in New South Wales.

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Kanematsu, Fusajiro

Japanese entrepreneur who first visited Sydney in 1887. On his return to Japan he opened a trading house, Kanematsu, coming back to Sydney in 1890 with Toranosuke Kitamura to open an Australian office, and shipping the first direct consignment of wool from Australia to Japan. He visited Sydney several times, but lived in Japan.

In 1933 the company donated funds for the establishment of the Kanematsu Memorial Institute of Pathology at Sydney Hospital in memory of him and his wife Sen Katematsu, in recognition of the medical care and support given to early Japanese migrants by the Australian community. The Institute closed in the early 1980s, but the Kanematsu Fund continues to donate an annual research scholarship to the Australian Royal Pathology Association.

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Balmain Colliery

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Coal mine established at Birchgrove in 1897 in an attempt to access the rich vein of coal which ran under Sydney from Newcastle to the Illawarra. It was the deepest ever worked in Australia and later produced methane gas, but was not a commercial success.

Barracluff's Ostrich Farm

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Farm in Dover Heights where ostriches were reared to provide feathers for the fashion industry.

Millers Point gasworks

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The city's first gasworks, established by the Australian Gas Light Company in 1841, on the Darling Harbour edge of Millers Point, where Barangaroo is now. Production was gradually transferred to the company's Haymarket site and the Mortlake. The works were sold to the state government in 1912 and the buildings demolished by 1922. Some traces of the site still remain.

Birchgrove Postcard 9: the headframe and engine winding house of Balmain Colliery c1907

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Contributed By

Leichhardt Council

[BRN: 184518]

Auction sale of Barracluff's Ostrich Farm Estate, Rose Bay Heights, December 1917

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From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[Z/SP/W6/161]

(Mitchell Library)

Australian Gas Light Company works at Darling Harbour 1855

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Contributed By

City of Sydney Archives

[City of Sydney – Detail Plans, 1855: Sheet 2, CRS502/2 (detail)]

Barracluff's Ostrich Farm business card c1916

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Contributed By

Private collection

Coal Reached Under Sydney at 2880ft: Views of the Colliery, November 1901

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From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

[TN83]

(Australian Town and Country Journal , 30 November 1901, p 24)

Mr Ledger's alpacas and llamas at Sophienburg, the seat of Mr. Atkinson, New South Wales c1859

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Contributed By

National Library of Australia

[nla.obj-136096736]

(Published Illustrated London News, 14 December 1861)

Ostriches on a farm near Sydney c1905

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By

Underwood & Underwood Publisher

Contributed By

Private collection

Death at the Gasworks, from These Walls Have Ears: My Place 2013

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This is a tale of three deaths at The Rocks and a silent killer. The backdrop is the city's first gasworks. A neighbour to houses and schools, the gasworks gave its power (and industrial pollution) back to its community, and keeps on giving today, long after its smokestacks stood tall. Produced by Jessica Minshall.

Contributed By

FBi Radio's All the Best

[#1313 Posted April 27th 2013 (detail)]

(This piece was created for FBi Radio's All the Best, and made possible thanks to the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority through the Rocks Windmill Project 2013.)

Mr William Kennedy remembers timber carting around Liverpool in the early twentieth century, interviewed in 1986

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Mr William Kennedy was born in 1910 and was interviewed in 1986 for the 'Looking Back at Liverpool: An Oral History of the Liverpool Region 1900 to 1960.' He recalls the difference between drays and jinkers, both horse-drawn vehicles, which were used to cart timber in the Liverpool area in the early twentieth century.
Transcript

WILLIAM: A dray is a two-wheeled vehicle pulled by one horse. It doesn't have springs on it like a cart or a car, no springs, [it] just sat on the axle. Dreadful things to ride on, no give in them. They carted wood, that was mainly firewood. Jinkers were four-wheeled vehicles and there was a big long pole, it could be extended, telescopic pole, connecting the two front wheels with the two back wheels, and that'd be extended depending on the length of the timber they were carrying, and pulled by a team of six horses and sometimes eight, depending on the size of the load. And that would move into the bush with the big tall trees that they cut out for the paling logs or timber to be sawn up into building material. It was quite interesting to see them loading it compared with today where there are cranes to lift things on and lift things off. Those days it was done by, the big log would be lying on the ground and then they'd put chains around it and they'd have two horses on the other side of the jinker and they'd put two planks down and the horses would be led up and they'd pull the logs up these rails onto the jinker. It's quite interesting, it's hard to explain but you would have to see it to believe it. Sometimes they'd have about seven logs. Well the Department of Labour and Industry with all their rules and regulations and safety precautions now, that wouldn't be on then. Yet there was very little accidents in the bush those days. They were skilled men, much more skilled than men today. It was remarkable what they could do. They were experienced bushmen, real bushmen in the strict sense of the word.

Contributed By

Liverpool City Library

[BRN: 57053]

(Excerpt from interview with Mr William Kennedy, from the 'Looking back at Liverpool : an oral history of the Liverpool region 1900-1960' conducted in 1986 by Liverpool City Council, editor and project co-ordinator Catherine Johnson ; researchers Angela Imbrosciano, Verica Miiosavijevic, Kathleen Smith)