Month: March 2021

Cordial was one of the treats inspiring early businesses to develop in Coffs Harbour. Cordials manufacturing was usually developed to disguise the poor taste and quality of water. [1]  To quench the thirst of the local community, the Glynn Brothers – John and William – had established a cordial factory near the Coffs Harbour jetty by 1912.

The business was formally registered on 17 July 1917. John assumed full responsibility for it in 1921. As it grew, the factory had to deal with some location issues:

John Glynn decided to rebuild in a new location; so a new construction plan was devised and the business moved to Collingwood Street.

The site prior to construction is shown in this land sale poster:

The business continued into the late 1940s. Its artefacts live on in the collection of the Coffs Harbour Regional Museum.

Reference

Black kettle and full moon, Blainey, G., 2003

Acknowledgements

Coffs Harbour Regional Museum thanks Jim Munro for sharing his research into the history of the Glynn Brothers’ cordial factory.

Really, just ask a librarian! Or an archivist!

Research is an essential part of writing a good memoir or non-fiction book. My second book will explore my O’Neill family history and the indigenous population they unsettled when they “pioneered and settled” the Karangi and Orara area in the 1880s. But where to get accurate information? We’d had a family reunion twenty-odd years ago and there was a booklet put together about the O’Neills but what about the Gumbaynggirr people? I wasn’t getting very far with my desktop research so I contacted the librarians at the Coffs Harbour Regional Museum and Libraries.

What a good choice that was! After clarifying what I was interested in, Debbie Campbell connected me with Coffs Collections, a digitised treasure chest of photos and documents from the Museum’s collection, sent me other documents on file and links to relevant information, and also put me in touch with Richard Widders, the Aboriginal Planner and Liaison Officer, who gave me the contact details of a number of Aboriginal elders and people with local knowledge.

I live in Sydney and was very excited to be travelling up the Pacific Highway to pursue these leads. I met with Debbie Campbell at the Museum and she laid out books and articles that contained information about the O’Neills and also took me to the Museum archives where Nerida Little, Digital Cultural Collections Specialist, presented a fascinating little black book on Karangi, with notes on the area written by William Maston in 1929. One of those notes was about my grandfather, “First store built early in 1927 for Alf O’Neill (opp. Orara Rd. turnoff). Later bought by George Kelly.”

I really appreciated the professional knowledge and skills of those I met and their enthusiasm, helpfulness and expertise in uncovering useful information. So, wherever you might be up to with your research, really, just ask a librarian!

A comment from Coffs Collections’ staff

Since we launched the new Coffs Collections service six months ago, we’ve added more than 3,000 items to our repository of 15,000 resources relating to the history of the region. These are the raw materials which we have made available for everyone to explore, to be inspired by, to uncover their heritage in.

When an artist, or a student with an assignment, or an author comes along, and is able to publish their story or develop a new idea after tapping into these resources, we know we have achieved success. We’ve helped to create something bigger from the collections assembled over many many years.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Betty O’Neill for writing this post.