Lorraine Stacker speaks on the history of Penrith and the Penrith City Council - 150 Years Speaker Series

Lorraine Stacker, former Council employee and local historian speaks about the history of Penrith and Penrith City Council. Lorraine Stacker, former Council employee and local historian speaks about the history of Penrith and Penrith City Council. She speaks about: The development of Penrith. Shows photo of second bridge (that also got flooded/destroyed) which was taken by a German photographer and made its way back to Powerhouse museum who donated it to Penrith library And the position of the second bridge was where the Yandhui bridge was built in 2018. In 1863 the railway bridge was built across the river. A

Seal of the 1871 was creation of the Penrith Municipality signed by first Mayor which is held in Penrith City Library. Rate book began by John Price who was the auditor and stonemason. The library holds this handwritten rate book . Owners didn’t pay rates, the leasee did until 1900! Penrith in those days was basically all of Woodriffe’s land divided up into properties. Penrith library holds since 1871 all these books called Assessment Books and Rates Books that go with them. Council started acquiring money from rates and so build a Council Chambers in 1881, named after Mayor. The local newspaper Nepean Times began in 1880’s by Albert Colless which we have in library . Penrith City Library also has the specifications for the plan to build the Council! Penrith was 3rd in state to have electricity, its substation is in Thomas St Penrith. The trowel used to lay the first soil for the building of the first substation by Mayoress Smith was kept by Smith family and later donated to the library in 1890, which is in the Penrith Local History Collection. At same time the main street in Penrith was dug up for pipes as well as out to streets off High Street for those who could afford it. But Council now in debt to finance these big projects. Got some help from Colonial government (ie State Government) but it was the efforts of the Town Clerk Ernie Orth who spent 20 years working on getting Penrith out of the debt by 1930. During WW2 Federal and State governments put money into Munitions factories in St Marys which provided a lot of jobs to locals. Penrith City Council crest was made in the fifties (big badge) and it included the aborigines, white settlement and the industries created in Penrith. Town clerk had a wig made which we have in the Research Room.