April 2023

Contents

• President’s column and Society activities - page 1Avoca school celebrations, a members’ show and tell, museum exhibitions and articles on early governance and dairying.
• Investigating a historic bolt - page 2A show-and-tell object once attributed to the Batavia is reconsidered after research and advice from a maritime archaeologist.
• Family history and Moss Vale doctors - page 3Introduces Jeff Kildea’s talk on writing family history and describes a display honouring local doctors and Dr Wise’s grandfather clock.
• Bowral’s early local governance - page 4Philip Morton draws on A. V. Parry and Joe Ford to trace the Bowral Vigilance Committee and the movement for municipal incorporation.
• Bowral’s first municipal council - page 5The petition, first election and mayor, and the 1890 opening of Bowral Town Hall, with further Society newsletter references.
• The dairy industry and Fresh Food and Ice - page 6The beginning of a dairy history series, including contemporary accounts of the Mittagong depot and creamery.
• Inside the Mittagong creamery - page 7An 1886 newspaper account describes equipment and production; the later cooperative history continues in subsequent issues, including a correction in issue 560.
• Society information and office bearers - page 8Contact, opening and committee details as printed in April 2023; they may have changed.

Issue highlights

• Dr Jeff Kildea's talk, ‘Leaving Home: Stories of My Emigrant Ancestors’, is profiled (p.3).
• New archive and museum display panels are arranged around the grandfather clock gifted by Moss Vale citizens to Dr Wise (p.3).
• The issue connects the display to family and migration research in the Society collection (p.3).
• Bowral’s Vigilance Committee and the development of the municipality are traced using A. V. Parry’s historical articles (pp.4-5).
• The first instalment of a dairy history discusses Thomas Mort’s Fresh Food & Ice Company, refrigeration and the Mittagong creamery (pp.6-7).

Original Society source