Feather Curlers & Cleaners

Sydney Gazette, 11 August 1825 Not an occupation I can find out much about. Feather curlers were used by milliners to produce suitable feathers for their hats. However, if you read down through these advertisements you’ll see they’re offering a different, if related, service. Bearing in mind here, hats were necessary fashion accessory, and if…

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100 Years of Disappointed, Disgruntled, Discredited Husbands

Sydney Gazette, 16 October 1803 Sydney Gazette, 19 June 1808 Sydney Gazette, 12 February 1810 Hobart Town Gazette, 19 October 1816 Hobart Town Gazette, 12 August 1820 Sydney Gazette, 16 October 1823 Sydney Gazette, 23 October 1823 Sydney Gazette, 9 January 1826 The Australian, 10 September 1828 Sydney Monitor, 20 September 1828 Sydney Gazette, 21…

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Victorian Classified Advertisements

Some potential employers have low requirements 🙂 A trawl through the advertisements in the Argus, 14 November 1860 TUTORS, GOVERNESSES, CLERKS etc SERVANTS DOMESTIC SERVANTS. (To the Editor of the Star.) SIR,-Your leader on the above subject demands the serious attention of heads of families. There can be no doubt that all the evils and inconveniences…

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Whereas My Husband… Or, What’s Good For Gander

Sydney Gazette, 28 July 1821 This is sequel to 100 Years of Disappointed, Disgruntled, Discredited Husbands. I have transcribed the longer advertisements/letters where the text might be too small to read and included the image, except where it’s an ongoing debate wherein I have just included the text. TO THE PUBLIC.— WHEREAS Mr. Thomas Arkell…

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Mrs Gould

Bendigo Advertiser, 1 September 1855 I can’t find anything that tells me who Mrs Gould. She might be Angelina, wife of Thomas Gould, who died 1865 at her residence in Bull Street, which was near the shop (see next advertisement), but she could just as likely have been a daughter-im-law of the couple. (Hopes someone might come…

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Eliza

The Argus, 14 November 1853 Eliza Perrin/Robson, an “ordinary” woman of the Ballarat diggings. Eliza Hobson was born in Cheshire, England in 1829. In 1851, she married John Perrin in West Yorkshire, just months before he sailed to the goldfields to seek his fortune. A year later, and with her young baby daughter at her…

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Eliza

In the main street of Campbell Town, Tasmania is this statue, dedicated to Eliza Forlong who, on deciding in her 40s to emigrate to New South Wales to breed sheep, first walked across Saxony to find the best breeding stock, and therefore became one of the founders of the Australian wool industry. Australian Dictionary of…

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Anastasia

Eureka Flag, from Wikipedia Commons Anastasia Hayes is one of the better known women connected with the Eureka Rebellion, in Ballarat, Victoria in 1854. She gets a page in Sovereign Hill’s Characters of the Goldfields (pdf) education resouces. That says, in part: Anastasia took on a job teaching at a nearby Catholic school to make…

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Ladies of the bush: interlude

A slight detour on the way to NSW. I found this account in the back of a book, of the capture of Captain Melville. So, Victoria 1852… Having had a good dinner at the Corio Street pub, Melville and hie mate, leaving their horses in the stable, strolled along past the police. station, down a…

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Maggie

She married William Skilling/Skillion in 1873. They had two children. Then a few years her later, her husband is arrested and sent off to gaol for six years, and at the same time, her mother is also gaoled. So at 21, Maggie is left looking after her own children, her mother’s young kids, and running…

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