APRIL 2025
Saturday 12th April at 2:00pm
Building the Arch
Speaker - Bill Phippen
Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

Most people in Sydney would know that the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened in 1932, but less
could tell you the years when the arch itself was built. A month of 1928, all of 1929 and most of 1930
were the time when the people of Sydney saw the half arches creeping out and wondered if they were
going to meet.
This presentation looks at the process and reveals the sophisticated details and safety
measures built into the erection techniques and equipment to ensure that the work was completed
quickly, safely and on budget.
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MARCH 2025
Saturday 8th March at 2:00pm
Mothers, matrons and Lady Superintendents, women working in NSW prisons 1788 -1969
Speaker - Noeline Kyle AM
Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

Picture: City of Parramatta Council
By the end of the 19th century female staff were thought to be more appropriate to manage institutions housing women and children. However, the status, everyday experience and career prospects for women in these senior appointments was often difficult and within the NSW prison service remained discomforting for male colleagues and problematic for the authorities.
Noeline says she wanted to find the details, the stories and the complexity which surely must have been part of their lives, their character, and their careers but first she had to find them. This talk is the result of searching over the last few years for the lost and largely forgotten stories of senior women working in NSW prisons.
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February 2025
Saturday 8th February at 2:00pm
Lucy Osburn, Controversial Nursing Founder
Speaker - DrJudith Godden
Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

Lucy Osburn was employed by the NSW Government to establish a new type of nursing, known as Nightingale nursing after Florence Nightingale. From 1868-84, she transformed healthcare and carved out a new career for women. Why was she so controversial? Why is she celebrated as the founder of Nightingale nursing in Australia even though Florence Nightingale effectively disowned her?
Osburn's triumphs and trials in New South Wales typify the struggles the colony faced in its relations with the Mother Country, and with new roles in the workplace for women
.