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by Graham McDonald  This flowing white writing on a red background is recognisable around the world. Its success is due to Asa G. Candler (1851–1929), whose main motivation in all he attempted was to be faithful to God through using his wealth for good purposes.  Asa Candler was a very rich man who was successful […]

by Karen Schneider  After fourteen years of hard work growing their business in Leamington, England, John and Sarah Fairfax stood in the building that housed John’s printing business and Sarah’s bookshop. They were bankrupt; unable to continue.  This was not through any fault of their own, such as bad management, or from lack of business. […]

Adapted from material written by Mike Spencer  The Queensland Kanaka Mission had received a request for help from a place where cannibalism was very much alive. Who would be willing to go and maybe risk their life to help tell cannibals about the love of God?  In 1904, a tall, slender, well-dressed woman stepped ashore […]

by Annie Hamilton  ‘Are you a millionaire, Daddy?’ Judith asked her father. It was not long after decimal currency had been introduced into Australia.  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘But it will make it a lot easier for me to get there now that the pound is worth two dollars.’  Few people have made their mark on […]

by Annie Hamilton  Perched on a stool, bent over trays of lead type (the letters that were arranged into words in an old-fashioned printing press), Robert Howe was just eight years old when the King’s Representative inspected the printing office of Australia’s first newspaper. The Representative smiled at Robert’s convict father George (the government printer), […]

Richard Bourke and his wife Elizabeth lived in County Limerick, Ireland, early in the nineteenth century. At that time and in that area, there was a lot of conflict between Catholics and Protestants. But Richard and Elizabeth were different. They stood up to people from their own privileged Protestant social class who disliked Catholics, and […]

by Alan Currie  Two men were walking down a street in the Melbourne CBD late one afternoon in 1878, deep in conversation. The older man, distinguished-looking founder of The Age newspaper David Syme, was serious and quite determined. The younger man, up-and-coming The Age journalist Alfred Deakin, was quite brilliant and was putting up a […]

by Graham McDonald  NEWS FLASH …  David Jones converting a large section of their Sydney city store into a club for servicemen and women!  What? David Jones, the oldest department store in Australia and the oldest department store in the world still trading under its original name, opening a club for servicemen and women in […]

by Graham McDonald  One of Australia’s early educators came to teaching in a surprising way …  Thomas Shadrach James was born into a Tamil-speaking Indian family on the island of Mauritius in 1859.  He emigrated to Australia as a young man, after his mother died and his father remarried. His dream was to be a […]

by Elizabeth Rogers Kotlowski  Death seemed imminent. Charles Sturt (1795–1869) and his men were stranded on a sandbar at the Murray–Darling River junction. Confronting them on the riverbank were nearly 600 Indigenous people, painted, armed and making menacing gestures as they sang a war song. This was Sturt’s second exploratory journey into the outback. Would it […]