1950s

Davis writes that a Nulla Nulla found at Salt Pan Creek in the Hurstville Museum is the only Aboriginal artefact to have been found in the Hurstville region.

William Albert Shepherd dies.

Many Aboriginal men are employed to cut and burn timber so as not to poison the water of the future dam. La Perouse is a recruiting centre for the timber cutting camps. Many develop relationships with Aboriginal men from other parts of the state, whom they meet on the dam site. VIDEO by Chicka Madden

As the dam fills, much of the traditional country traversed by the ancestral being Gurangatch becomes Sydney’s water supply in the Burragorang Valley. Today, the majority of Gurangatch’s waterholes lie beneath Lake Burragorang. Of the 21 known locations of Gurangatch holes, 9 are permanently submerged, 3 emerge during droughts and 9 are relatively unchanged.

Judy Chester and Janny Ely (Smith) leave Wellington because their mother has a serious illness. They settle in Redfern and then later move to Green Valley in the southwest. They work with Gandangara people from the south-western areas of Sydney including Auntie Robyn Williams whose grandmother is able to pass on directly the stories for the land around what is now Liverpool and Camden. A number of Aboriginal women’s support networks for childcare are established at this time such as the St John’s Park Aboriginal Women’s group. VIDEOS by Judy Chester and Janny Ely