OCTOBER 2025

Saturday 11th October at 2:00pm

My Father Bryce

Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

Speaker - Adam Courtenay

Bryce Courtenay was one of Australia's most beloved authors, captivating readers with engrossing, deeply moving works like The Power of One and April Fool’s Day. But his son Adam grew up with the private man behind the public persona: a mercurial storyteller who was impossible to know completely and an occasional fabulist whose tales never quite rang true.

In My Father Bryce, Adam recounts the gripping story of his complicated relationship with his father: from his childhood in the 1960s and 70s spent in the shadow of a rising literary star, to the private tragedies and sorrows behind the public success, and his own journey as a writer and journalist. This is a memoir of discovery and reckoning – an intimate portrait that only a son could paint.

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SEPTEMBER 2025

Saturday 20th September at 2:00pm (third Saturday of the month)

Dangerous Passage - A History of the Torres Strait and its People

Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

 

Speaker - Ian Burnet

The reef-strewn passage between the Australian mainland and Papua New Guinea remains the most hazardous of all the major Straits in the world. It is 270 kilometres long and only 150 kilometres wide, but it contains over 274 islands, islets, coral reefs, and coral cays. Its waters are full of potential hazards separated by narrow and often dangerous channels. The Torres Strait Islanders knew these waters well because voyaging and trade were part of their lives and livelihoods, but early European explorers like Luis Vas de Torres and James Cook were forced to find their route through the Strait without any previous maps. Early navigators such as Torres, Cook, Bligh, and Flinders contributed to the charting of this dangerous passage

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AUGUST 2025

Saturday 8th August at 2:00pm

The Sealers

Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

Picture: By Hullwarren - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7137164

Speaker - Tom Ware

Subantarctic Macquarie Island is as remote as it is awe-inspiring, roughly located halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica​.

Macquarie Island is far enough south that access by humans is limited, and far enough north to allow sub-Antarctic species to thrive. Described as a wonder spot of the world, by Sir Douglas Mawson, the island is an important site for a proliferation of wildlife, including extensive seal colonies and an array of penguin species.

During the 1800’s, sealers on Macquarie Island killed approximately 200,000 fur seals for their skins, wiping out the entire breeding population.  They were not recorded breeding here again until 1955 and have slowly been increasing in number since.

Story teller Tom Ware will tell us about the discovery of Macquarie Island and the efforts to keep its location secret.

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JULY 2025

Saturday 12th July at 2:00pm

Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

Speaker - Celeste Radcliffe

Celeste Radcliffe will tell the story of a beautiful garden near Paris with interesting connections to Australia.

Speaker - Ruth Saunders

Ruth Saunders and the (almost) incredible story of Villiers Pearce and his travels and travails around the world.

Speaker - John Brooks

John Brooks asks how did a Portuguese boundary rider stumble upon a piece of rock that would produce a renowned mining company, a rich ore deposit of silver, lead and zinc and the Silver City of Broken Hill? He will explain why and where they are today.

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JUNE 2025

Saturday 14th June at 2:00pm

The Arrival of the First Fleet

Speaker - Denis Smith, VP First Fleeters, retired engineer & First Fleet descendant of Marine John Barrisford and his wife Hannah

Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

 

The First Fleet was a group of 11 British ships that sailed from England in 1787, arriving in Australia in 1788, to establish a convict settlement. Led by Captain Arthur Phillip, it transported approximately 1,500 people, including convicts, officers, crew, and their families.

This talk will be about the preparations for the voyage and why Arthur Phillip was selected with help from Lord Sydney. There are many interesting stories that we just don’t know about the early settlement!

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MAY 2025

Saturday 10th May at 2:00pm

Sydney Art Deco- Hiding in Plain Sight

Speaker - Dr Peter Sheridan AM BDS MDS FICD FADI

Venue: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics of Arts, 280 Pitt Street
Admission: Members $5 Visitors $10
No bookings required

 

Peter Sheridan’s award-winning book Sydney Art Deco explores the impact of the Art Deco style on the landscape and life of Sydney during the 1930s and 1940s with glimpses of Australian artwork, fashion, furniture, appliances and accessories from the period. Sydney has a rich trove of Art Deco architecture in the city and inner suburbs including fine commercial buildings, cinemas and pubs.

Art Deco was a style that ushered in a new sense of freedom for people from the Victorian era’s restrictions of class and attachment to tradition. Art Deco incorporated new technology, mass production and the machine age bringing a promise of a new future.

Sydney’s housing changed with the advent of apartment blocks in the Art Deco style in the late 1920s. The Potts Point /Elizabeth Bay area has the best examples of Art Deco apartment buildings in the country, many of which are under threat from inappropriate development which is not only reducing housing stock but destroying the historic character and diversity of the neighbourhood

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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 .