Category: Belmont, North Richmond

Archibald Bell, Belmont, North Richmond, Biography, Colo Shire Family History Group, Colonial history, Flying Scotsman, Genealogy, Guy Lambton Menzies, Hawkesbury, Hawkesbury Family History Group, History and heritage, National Library of Australia, National Trust Hawkesbury, Norman 'Wizard' Smith, Philip Charley, RAAF, Richmond NSW, Royal Australian Air Force, Southern Cross Junior, St Matthew's Anglican Church Windsor, Stephen Lambton, William Sims Bell, Writers to the Signet1 Comment

Guy Lambton Menzies: courageous aviator with family links to pioneers of the Hawkesbury

Carol

  Guy Lambton Menzies, 20 August 1909 – 1 November 1940, photograph c1939, courtesy Canada Bay Library. In early 1931, Guy Lambton Menzies took off from Mascot in an Avro-Avian aircraft (the Southern Cross Junior), flew solo across the Tasman Sea and landed upside down in a swamp near Hokitika on the South Island of New Zealand in the record time of eleven hours and forty-five minutes. Just 21 years of age, the intrepid aviator was an experienced pilot with more than 800 hours in his logbook. When I first started my research on Guy Lambton Menzies I had no … Continue reading Guy Lambton Menzies: courageous aviator with family links to pioneers of the Hawkesbury

Anzac, Australian folk lore, Belmont, North Richmond, Biography, Colo Shire Family History Group, Colonial history, Genealogy, Hawkesbury, Hawkesbury Family History Group, History and heritage, National Trust Hawkesbury, Philip Charley, Roseworthy Agricultural College, South Australia, The Great War, William Thomas CharleyLeave a comment

William Thomas Charley and the Wallaby Sniping Cage

Carol

Few people in the Hawkesbury would know that William Thomas Charley invented the concept of the Wallaby Sniping Cage at Gallipoli in 1915. The cage was used mainly for night firing and held a rifle in a fixed position after aiming, enabling it to be fired again without re-aiming. William Charley was born in 1868 in Ballarat, Victoria. His mother, Catherine, died when he was two years of age and his father neglected the children to the extent that from 1871, he and some of his siblings were made Wards of the State and placed in various institutions. His brother … Continue reading William Thomas Charley and the Wallaby Sniping Cage