The Fellowship of the First Fleeters will hold a meeting in the Local Studies Room at the Orange City Library on Saturday 20th February 2010 when they will focus on the records held by the Library which can assist in this area of research. Everyone is welcome to attend.

The meeting will commence at 1.45pm and go through until 3.45pm ... and yes, a cup of tea will be provided.

For further information contact Amada or Phil Foster on 63602117 or 0400383173.

If you wish to learn more about the history of the Cherry Blossom Festival and the Apple Country Fair that followed, then come along to the Orange and District Historical Society's next meeting to be held at the Gladstone Hotel, Orange, Wednesday 27 January at 7pm for 7.30pm. For some time the Society has been researching this fascinating festival history and is busy compiling a list of Cherry Blossom Queens. The evening includes supper and cost is $5 for non-members and $3 for members. Please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 0402 412 188 to attend. Pictured is 1959 Cherry Blossom Queen Miss Marlene Sands.

On February 18, 1860, a group of residents gathered for the first meeting of the Orange Municipal Council. The meeting was held in the then Court House and was presided over by the Chairman, John Peisley with Councillors John Woodward, George McKay, William Dale, Dennis Hanrahan and William Tucker Evans in attendance. Crown Solicitor, George Colquhoun was appointed Council Clerk and James Dalton and Patrick Kenna were appointed auditors. The names read like a street directory of today's city. A 2010 calendar marking 150 years of local government in Orange will be distributed to residents and is also available at the Library, Civic Centre, Visitor Information Centre and Neighbourhood Centre in Kite Street. Orange City Councillor Chris Gryllis said the calendar featured historic photos charting the development of the city, historic dates over the last 150 years, key dates for 2010 and council contact numbers. Council is also developing a Wiki to commemorate the 150 years of local government. The Wiki will mirror the calendar design. If anyone can identify people or has information about the photos in the calendar, they can contact Chris Stanger on 6393 8120 with the details. Each month the Central Western Daily newspaper will highlight a theme from the calendar and Thursday's (21 January) article on page 11 described our Tourism history and was prepared by members of the Orange and District Historical Society. Pictured above is Chairman of the original Orange Municipal Council John Peisley.

The millionth page on the Australian Newspaper Digitisation Program

was made publicly available on 14 December 2009, marking a project milestone. The millionth page contained the 10 millionth article. This was a 1901 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald. The National Library of Australia has advised that there will be a staggering 40 million articles available by 2011.

Digitisation started in 2007 and 4.4 million pages were targeted for digitisation over 4 years to be complete and publicly accessible as full text articles by June 2010. 3 million of the identified 4.4 million pages have been scanned from microfilm into digital images so far. Of the 3 million scanned pages 1 million have been converted into full text articles by the OCR process and are publicly available. The remaining pages will be made available from now through til June 2010.

The 1 million pages publicly available amounts to 10 million articles with coverage dates of 1803 -1954.

Public users have enhanced the data significantly since August 2008 by correcting 8.13 million lines of text in 368,390 articles. This really improves the searching. Also 5061 comments and 230,384 tags have been added to articles, which will be used for search and retrieval in the 2010 version of Trove.

The first 70 years of the Sydney Morning Herald are now publicly available. 1831-1901. it is important to note that some issues of this title are missing. These are being sourced in hard copy from locations in Australia and will be added to the public service in 2010. So don't worry if you spot a missing issue, the National Library knows about it and it will appear in the service soon.

Spraying and spray carts will be the subject of Orange and District Historical Society's next meeting in its popular fruit growing history series at the Gladstone Hotel on Tuesday, September 22 at 7pm for a 7.30pm start. Pests have been a problem in orchards from the earliest days and spraying has been a major task for Orange district orchardists for more than 100 years. Spraying was initially carried out by hand-pumps and later motor-driven pumps were introduced using hand wands. Spray pumps were for many years horse-drawn, then merged into tractor-drawn in the 1950s. Booms and air-blast sprayers became the norm in the 1960s and 1970s until the present day. There have been a number of weird and wonderful variations of all of these machines and there is no-one better to tell us the story than Eddie Wilson, of Forest Reefs, who has experimented with many types of sprayers. Eddie won a Land Inventor of the Year award at the Australian National Field Days with a self-propelled, fully enclosed front mounted sprayer, which was developed for commercial production by his brother Don, the latest model of which was rolled out only last year. A number of other "old hands" will be in the audience to add their stories. The meeting takes place at the Gladstone Hotel function room at 7 for 7.30pm. There is a small charge of $3 for members of Orange and District Historical Society and $5 for non-members, to cover costs. Light refreshments will be served. If you have any inquiries or would like to attend the meeting, please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 6362-3257, mobile 0402 412 188 or email ibiswines@bigpond.com

Forest Reefs is barely more than a crossroads today, with the hotel the one remaining commercial building. Who would have thought that this was once a thriving mining area of more than 500 people, dozens of mines and shafts, wine shanties, hotels, three churches, a school and many shops and other businesses.

Orange and District Historical Society's next mining meeting, to be held at the Gladstone Hotel on Tuesday, August 25, will focus on the mines and the people in this once thriving area. The larger and more famous mines include the Great Extended, the Ballarat of NSW (developed by Henry Newman of Lucknow fame), the Little Emma, the Ironclad, the Austral and the Lumpy Lead. Like the other mining areas east and south of Orange, Forest Reefs went through many ups and downs depending on economic conditions.

Gold was first discovered in the district in the1860s and mining steadily progressed until 1870 when the Lumpy Swamp (Beneree) Goldfield was proclaimed. During the 1870s larger companies were formed and employed expensive machinery to mine and pump on a large scale. The peak of activity was in the late 1800s before declining in the early 1900s. Mining never ceased, however, and as late as the 1950s some gold was still being extracted. Exploration licences over the area have never lapsed and are currently held by the Cadia operator, Newcrest Mining

There will be two speakers at the meeting eminently suited to tell the Forest Reefs story. On the geological side there will be consulting geologist Max Rangott, who was previously involved with exploration in the area. To tell the social history will be historian and teacher Trevor Pascoe, whose family have lived in the area for more than 130 years, some having worked in the Forest Reefs mines.

Everyone is welcome to attend the meeting, which starts at 7 for 7.30pm. Entry is $3 for society members and $5 for non-members to assist in the important work of the society in preserving the district's history. A light supper will be served after the meeting.

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 6362-3257, mobile 0402 412 188 or email ibiswines@bigpond.com

Transport has always been a big feature of the fruit growing industry. From the sack over the shoulder to the horse and cart, primitive trucks and the huge spotless B Doubles of today, transporting fruit to stores or rail or direct to market has always involved many colourful characters.

Orange and District Historical Society's next orchard history meeting, to take place on Tuesday July 28 will explore the many facets of fruit transport.

Guest speaker will be George White, who began trucking in the 1940s, when there were many horses and carts involved in short haul transport from orchards to town for rail or cool stores delivery.

The trucks George and contemporaries used were either army surplus or, if they were lucky, post-war release vehicles which were small, slow, uncomfortable and thirsty.

Nonetheless they persisted and took large loads regularly to Sydney, putting up with bad roads, resistance from the rail unions, unbelievable paperwork and regulations, and laborious manhandling of millions of cases of fruit.

Over the years bulk handling came in, roads and trucks improved vastly and many of the pioneers developed their own substantial companies devoted to long-haul fruit transport.

With a vivid memory and some classic photographs, George will give the audience the benefit of his experience with transport in the fruit industry and the people involved in it. Several of his contemporaries will be in the audience to keep him honest and contribute to the discussion.

The meeting will take place at the Gladstone Hotel Function Room at 7 for 7.30pm on Tuesday 28th July. There is a small charge of $3 for ODHS members and $5 for non members. Light refreshments will be served.

If you have any enquiries or would like to attend the meeting please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 63623257, 0402412188 or email ibiswines@bigpond.com.

The Orange and District Historical Society's series of talks continues this Tuesday, 23 June with a talk on "Lewis Ponds - the mines and the people". The main speaker will be Doug Spicer , author of "In -Laws and Out-laws", and there will be a presentation by David Hobby ,district geologist with Tri Origin Minerals to be read by Peter Schmich. End of financial year commitments prevented David from appearing in person. Lewis ponds creek begins just south of the Mitchell highway at east Guyong and winds its way north to the famous junction with Summer hill Creek at Ophir. There were mines all along this valley and surrounding hills. We have dealt in previous meetings with those at Ophir and Guyong - Byng . At this meeting we will deal with those between the two ,namely ,at upper and lower Lewis ponds ,and at Icely.There were thriving communities along the creek and family names like Spicer ,Bennett, Wright, Bartimote, Christopherson, Kerr, Blowes, Fardell, Howarth, and others are still common. Less well known are the mines such as the Gurophian,the New,the North, and the South Lewis Ponds , The Spicer's, Lady Belmore,Toms, Summers,Little Bell Mount,Britannia, and Mount Regan. Near Icely were the Icely, the Mount Nicholas ,the William's and the Brown's.There were smelters associated with many of the mines. There were rushes ,boom times and busts and there is still very active exploration in the area today. The meeting will be held at the Gladstone Hotel Function room 7 for 7.30 PM Charges $5 Members $ 3 members Supper is provided and you are most welcome to stay behind and join the chat.

Mining at Guyong, Byng and the Carangara copper mine will be the focus of Orange and District Historical Society's next mining meeting at the Gladstone Hotel function room on Tuesday, April 28 at 7 for 7.30pm.

The Vale of Byng is a picturesque valley tucked away along the Lewis Ponds Creek south-east of Orange. Though in the 1880s it was surveyed as a town, in 2009 it is merely a locality on the creek which runs north from Guyong to Byng, then Lewis Ponds and Ophir.

Today Byng has neither public buildings nor stores, just a delightful lovingly restored sandstone church, opened in 1873, and the historic homesteads of Springfield, Bookanon and Pendarves. Copper was discovered in 1848 and mining commenced, expanding rapidly and by 1850 the population was more than 200. Many of the miners were Cornishmen who had travelled from the Copper Hill mine at Molong or Burra in South Australia, bringing with them a distinctive cultural identity, and the area became known as the Cornish Settlement.

However, the discovery of gold at Ophir, and other places nearby in 1851 drew miners away and delayed further development until companies such as the Carangara Copper Mining Company took up the challenge in 1854. Mining for copper, gold and silver continued to at least 1907. The Carangara shaft of John Glasson and Richard Lane was just one of many, with names such as Brittania, Old Ophir, Icely, Big Bell, Belmore, Moonta, Nelson and Whitney Green.

The two speakers at the meeting will be Tony Gordon, a Glasson family descendant and owner of 'Godolphin' at Guyong, and Jeff Vassallo, who is senior exploration geologist with Clancy Exploration, which is currently carrying out mineral exploration in the area.

Everyone is welcome to attend the meeting. Entry is $3 for society members and $5 for non-members to assist in the important work of the society in preserving the district's history.A light supper will be served after the meeting.

If you would like to attend, please RSVP to Phil Stevenson on 6362-3257, mobile 0402 412 188 or email ibiswines@bigpond.com

Yesterday a local medico alerted us to a great new on-line Medical Museum on the University of Sydney's website.

The Faculty of Medicine formally came into being on 13 June 1856, initially for the purpose of conducting examinations for award of the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Medicine. Twenty-five years later the Medical School was opened and began the task of training doctors for the growing colony of NSW. In 1883, when the Faculty took first enrolments there were only four students taught by the Dean, Professor Thomas Anderson Stuart Kt, in a tiny cottage located near the Footbridge entrance from Parramatta Road.

Since these modest beginnings, over 24,000 students have graduated and have gone on to achieve a diversity of accomplishments that have impacted upon the lives of many in extraordinary ways, both in Australia and elsewhere in the world.

In this Online Museum and Archive you will find an array of historical information, biographies, graduate lists, photographs, virtual tours, interviews and an archive of publications and documents that represent the legacy and traditions of this Faculty.

A great resource for medical ancestors

http://www.medfac.usyd.edu.au/museum/mwmuseum/index.php/Faculty_of_Medicine_Online_Museum_and_Archive