A family history, carefully kept

Stories from a life built across continents and generations.

The Alderson Archives brings together family memories, old photographs, recipes, personal projects and the cinema history of Tamworth, New South Wales.

Explore the collections Read The Life and Times

The Luddington family gathered for a formal portrait — The Luddington family: Sara, Fred and May Luddington, Willamina Harper, Edie, Fredrick, Bessie and Lizzie.

Five collections. One place for the things the family chose to remember.

Australia · China · England · Canada

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The collections

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Family history

Alderson & Luddington

Joe and May Alderson, life at The Willows, Daniel Alderson’s story and the photographs that connect the generations.

Open collection View photographs

Local history

Tamworth Cinema

Advertisements, theatre history and the working life behind Tamworth’s screens.

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Ideas & experiments

Allan’s Workshop

Experiments, contraptions, radio, lifters and a lifelong curiosity about how things work.

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Practice & wellbeing

Shirley’s Pages

Shirley’s original pages on Qigong, stretching, remedies and wellbeing.

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From the kitchen

Family Recipes

Crème brûlée, carrot cake, muffins and other recipes saved from the family kitchen.

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May Alderson sitting on horseback in the bush

Featured story

From station hand to station owner

In 1934, Joe and May Alderson began building a life at The Willows, a 4,200-acre property on the Barnard River. Their story is one of hard work, resourcefulness and a family growing up far from town.

“We made our own fun and we worked hard, but we had the best parents in the world.”

Read Louise Frazer’s account

The complete record

Nothing left behind.

The original iWeb pages have been preserved with their photographs and supporting files. Use the archive index to reach every recovered page while this new site is progressively restored.

Browse the complete index