History Snoop

What happened to the beautiful solid gold trowel presented to his Excellency Sir George F. Bowen, K.C.M.G., Governor of Victoria, when he laid the foundation stone for the Melbourne Exhibition Building on 19 February 1879? Now worth over…

We are missing a photograph of Christina ANDERSON ROME (1866-1909). Between 1891 and 1900 David Paterson McCrae ROME took wife Christina from her family environment and birthplace in Williamstown, Victoria, Australia with their baby son to…

This story is about ‘modern-day’ pioneering women in Australia. They are the women who helped build the ‘Snowy Scheme’ not on construction teams but in construction camps.  Moving with their husbands to the remote high country they built…

Premature Baby Care History 1880s-1940s is a family history research project that travelled globally from Footscray in Melbourne's industrial west to Coney Island's Luna Park in New York and beyond. The Tweddle Baby Hospital in Footscray…

People have been eaten alive by ants.  Stories on this topic in old Australian newspapers make for gruesome reading. They make you feel grateful for the advances in communications, medicine, repellents and first aid. However, these…

The hanging of Louisa Collins was a disaster. She suffered a botched trial and then a botched hanging. It took four trials by jury to convict Louisa of murdering her second husband, Michael, by arsenic poisoning in 1888. Thirty-six men…

My GG Grandmother, Elizabeth CHANDLER was a pioneer of the Healesville district and a well known and respected member of the community. She was one of 43 women in Healesville who signed the Women's Suffrage Petition in 1891. Her kindly…

There was no rest for this beautiful Polish-born Jewish woman in Nazi-occupied territory from the early 1930s to the end of the Second World War.

The story of Garrett COTTER (1801-1886) - County Cork to New South Wales, Australia. In 1822, nineteen-year-old COTTER was given a life sentence of transportation to NSW. His crime was participating in 'Whiteboy' action to bring about…

The Women's Suffrage Petition signed by 30,000 women from Victoria in 1891 inspired the fight for equal voting rights throughout Australia. This is a short story of the campaign with a focus on the women of Healesville who signed the…