March 2020

Contents

• President’s column and Society projects - page 1Notes proposed registry website changes, museum renovations, a Meryla talk and cataloguing of Kevin Herring’s donated research material.
• Society notices and Burragorang photographs - page 2Includes Bruce Moore’s reflections on retirement, historical Society notices and photographs of Burragorang Valley in the 1930s.
• Burragorang Valley and the image library - page 3Introduces donated pre-dam photographs and describes the Society’s image collection and its 2020 migration to a new online library.
• Bowral-born architect Verton Bruce Smith - page 4Dennis McManus discusses the architect’s plans for New Morton in Burradoo and the remodelling of Bowral’s School of Arts as a memorial hall.
• The cat burglar of Berrima - page 5Jill Denney’s family recollection, recorded by Ros Dale, describes a 1954 mystery of missing clothes and the cat that collected them.
• The Kangaloon steam sawmill opening - page 6Philip Morton reproduces a contemporary account of the 1889 picnic and demonstration at Seery and Hayter’s East Kangaloon sawmill.
• Sawmills and Thomas Seery of Avoca - page 7Follows the partners’ move to Mount Murray and the mill’s loss in a 1905 bushfire, then profiles Seery and his brother Michael.
• Society information and office bearers - page 8Lists Society contacts, opening times, membership fees and office bearers as printed in March 2020; these details are historical and may have changed.

Issue highlights

• Archivist Linda Emery updates readers on the Society’s online image library (p.3).
• Dennis McManus traces Bowral-born architect Verton Bruce Smith and his work (p.4).
• A family recollection of Berrima’s so-called cat burglar precedes a history of the East Kangaloon sawmill and Thomas Seery of Avoca (pp.5-7).

Original Society source