McRobbie/Wardle Archive
The Wardle twin sisters, Kit (Catherine Winifred) and Nel (Ellen Rose), originally from the bush “100 miles from a town,” moved to Ayr in the Burdekin around 1912 to attend school. As thirteen-year-old schoolgirls they corresponded with “Dot’s Children’s Page” of the Otago Witness, a newspaper published in the South Island of New Zealand. Their pen names were “Fairy and Darkie, Little Readers from Across the Sea.”
In 1929 Catherine Winifred Wardle married William Andrew McRobbie. McRobbie Bros operated as a building company in Silkwood, North Queensland.
Archive Location: 83R
Detailed Listing
MW/1 Station Certificate of discharge for Henry Wardle, hand-shearer at Gewdaer, 15 November 1904
Reports on Henry Wardle's capacity as a hand-shearer on other stations
Rockvale Station 6 August 1906 - 26 October 1907.
Retro Station 15 August 1909 - 21 September 1909
Huntly Station 29 March 1910 - 4 April 1910MW/2 Receipt to Miss C.W. Wardle, Post Mistress of Silkwood, for annual subscription to the Non-Official Postal Employees' Union of Australia, 1 November 1929
MW/3 Souvenir of flight in Butler-Smith aeroplane at Mundo, 15 September 1929
MW/4 Receipt for local Silkwood flight
MW/5 Letters written to Otago Witness by Catherine Winifred Wardle and Ellen Rose Wardle 1912-1919
MW/6 Photocopy of clipping from Otago Witness
MW/7 Diary of Nancy Wardle (manuscript)
MW/8 Wages book of McRobbie Bros, Silkwood: 21 January 1939 - 31 April 1943
MW/9 Wages book of McRobbie Bros, Silkwood: 5 June 1943 - 27 July 1946
