Regency sideboard in the dining room of Leslie Walford's apartment (detail). Photo © Brenton McGeachie for Sydney Living Museums
If you were looking at sideboards for your 1830s colonial house the biggest issues you faced, apart from style and cost, was the sheer size of the thing! Perhaps a chiffonier was the answer. Continue reading
Jellies, creams and sweet dishes in Mrs Isabella Beeton, Mrs Beeton's book of household management, Ward, Lock & Co, London, circa 1880. Sydney Living Museums R89/80
How ‘traditional’ does something have to be before it becomes tradition? High tea, as an entity, has been around for over 150 years, but the ‘traditional high tea’ that we enjoy today, with delicate sweet and savoury morsels, bears little resemblance to high teas 100 or even 50 years ago: it was a meal, usually taken in the evening. Continue reading
The 'Belgenny sideboard' as seen in the Eat You History: A Shared Table exhibtion. Photo © Jamie North for Sydney Living Museums
Back in December we started looking at dining room furniture, and the ‘esky’ of the 19th century, the wine sarcophagus. Today we’re looking just a foot or two higher, to a piece of furniture many houses have done away with altogether – the sideboard. Continue reading
Thorburn family tea service and manuscript recipe book in the Eat your history: a shared table exhibition, 2014. Photo © Jamie North for Sydney Living Museums
On the first Monday of each month the Thorburn sisters, Belle (Annabella), Kate (Jessie Catherine), Georgina and Tot (Kennina) entertained ‘At home’ at Meroogal. ‘At homes’ were something of an institution from the 1880s and survived well into the 1920s. Continue reading
Table set for tea on the side verandah at Meroogal, facing Worrigee Street. Photo © Nicholas Watt for Sydney Living Museums
My research into domestic life in regional Australia has led me to some personal memoirs of late, including Barcoo Rot and other recollections, a transcript of oral histories taken from Jean Thomas (nee Bertram), about her early life in remote Queensland and later, northern Tasmania in the early 1900s.
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