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It is #AskACuratorDay tomorrow (Wednesday 15 September 2021) and to celebrate we are hosting a week-long curatorial takeover! Did you know that our CEO started her museum career as a Curator? Perhaps this is why she has endorsed this weeklong promotion of our curatorial team, but it might also be because Curators are the backbone of a museum. What is a curator? A curator is defined as a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection. It is Curators who oversee the conser

The 1820s in Sydney Before we begin an exploration of Sydney’s fire protection in the 1820s, let’s set the scene. The year was 1821, 200 years ago, when the first steps were made to ensure Sydney’s protection against fire. Two appliances were purchased by the authorities and by the end of 1821, they had arrived in the colony. The year, like most before it, brought great change to the colony. Amongst other things, the Australian Magazine made its debut, Australia’s greatest ex

By Guest Writer Ian Grimwood This blog is a modified extract from Ian’s recent History Week presentation. To view the recording please visit https://www.museumoffire.net/copy-of-history-week-2021 In this piece, I will highlight the close association that the Australian Military Forces and the Fire Brigade in NSW have had since the nineteenth century, up to contemporary times. If we start with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) back in 1884 a portion of the senior leadership

Greetings to the avid readers of our weekly blog, I hope you are all faring well during this lockdown period (if you’re based in NSW, that is). As promised in last week’s post, retrievable via this link: https://www.museumoffire.net/single-post/working-from-home-lockdown-2021, I am here today to talk to you about the process enlisted to deinstall a set of three gauge-ous gauges during lockdown. As they have now been retired to storage, I will end this blog by showcasing the s

An Update from our CEO Belinda When our team scheduled a CEO update for this week, we were anticipating a mammoth blog filled with information about all the fun activities coming up at the Museum this month. Sadly, that isn’t the case and I find myself trying to work out exactly what to talk about. This sounds really negative however it has given me cause to reflect on everything that is still taking place at the Museum and provides me with a great opportunity to answer the q

-Story by Bill Rowlings OAM Deputy President, c. 1984 It was all the doing of the first female to take on a senior role in fire brigade management in NSW. In 1982, the NSW Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Peter Anderson, appointed Kristine Klugman BA (History) MA (Community Studies) as the first female to serve on the then 98-year-old Board of Fire Commissioners, and made her Deputy President. At the time, she was also the President of the Australian Museum Trust,

Today, 18 May 2021, is International Museum Day; an event celebrated annually by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). This special day also coincides with Library and Information Week 2021, which is held from 17 to 23 May in Australia. Last year, as the day rolled around, it was hard to find something to celebrate as we remained in lockdown with no known re-opening date in sight. One cause for positivity though was that on 18 May 2020, our Curator, Laura, was to comme

Did you know? The Women’s Fire Auxiliary (WFA), established in the 1940s, was primarily formed to aid the NSW Fire Brigade on the home front during World War II? Albeit an interesting little tidbit of history for you here, you may be thinking: pray, what is the connection between the WFA and a 1942 “mobile canteen”? The Mobile Canteen in question, is a rare example of motorized canteen services used by the Metropolitan Fire Service from 1942 to 1974 and was supported, enthus

The Museum of Fire recently opened our newest exhibition, an art gallery space featuring 30 artworks by primary school-aged children from across Australia. The competition was set to the theme of bushfires, paying tribute to the firefighters who bravely faced the flames to keep us safe during the devastating Summer of 2019/2020. Each child interpreted this theme differently, reflecting on their own experience of the horrific bushfire season. The artworks submitted were phenom

Prior to the advent of the modern motorised appliances used by Fire and Rescue NSW today (FRNSW), brigades responded to fire calls with hand (or horse) drawn devices. These manual appliances typically required at least two personnel to operate and were essential for transporting firefighting equipment to the scene of an incident. This blog will give a brief overview of the manual hose reels utilised in New South Wales firefighting efforts from the 1870s up until the 1940s. As