July 2024

Contents

• President’s column and meeting notices - page 1The mid-winter luncheon, family-history activities and upcoming talks on Charlotte Atkinson and Italian prisoners of war.
• Jill Lees and Robertson rugby league - page 2Recognises Jill Lees’s 50 years of Society membership and announces a history of Robertson-Burrawang rugby league.
• Charlotte Atkinson and All Saints churchyard - page 3Belinda Murrell’s talk on Charlotte Atkinson and her Berrima statue, alongside Linda Emery’s history of Sutton Forest’s church and cemetery.
• A French connection in Bowral - page 4Linda Emery tells the story of educators and wartime fundraisers Augustine Soubeiran and Louisa Gurney, who retired to Esperance in Merrigang Street.
• Fitz Roy Iron Works heritage listing - page 5Extracts from the NSW State Heritage Register describe the Mittagong ironworks precinct, its surviving components and nineteenth-century beginnings.
• Remembering Friedrich Machotka - page 6The Society visits his Berrima grave; Philip Morton introduces the Bohemian horticulturalist’s family and wartime internment.
• The Machotka family in Berrima and Bowral - page 7Friedrich’s family life and gardens during internment, subsequent work at Hopewood, and return to Berrima before his death in 1921.
• Society information and office bearers - page 8Contact, opening and committee details as printed in July 2024; they may have changed.

Issue highlights

• A talk on Charlotte Atkinson and a book on the All Saints churchyard connect Oldbury and Sutton Forest history (p.3).
• Linda Emery profiles educators Augustine Soubeiran and Louisa Gurney, who retired to Bowral after wartime fundraising and relief work (p.4).
• The issue reproduces extracts from the Fitz Roy Iron Works heritage listing and follows horticulturalist Friedrich Machotka and his family through internment and later life (pp.5-7).

Original Society source