With the support of the Narrandera Shire Council, the Narrandera Parkside Museum Committee will be applying for Community Heritage funding towards the cost of restoring the Macarthur cloak and a special airtight cabinet to store it in at the town’s Parkside Museum.

The estimated cost is $10,000.

The Macarthur cloak is a special part of Narrandera’s history.

It is a famous early 19th-century scarlet-coloured opera cloak, fashioned in England around 1817 from fine Australian-grown Merino wool.

It represents the successful establishment of the Australian wool industry by John and Elizabeth Macarthur as a garment that is a notable item of Australian heritage.

The wool was produced from the Merino sheep flock developed by John Macarthur at 'Elizabeth Farm' in Parramatta and shipped to England, where the garment was created around 1817–1820.

It was made to showcase the high quality of Australian-grown wool to the British market.

This celebrated item is on display at the Narrandera Parkside Cottage Museum.

The fleece is believed to be from the 1816 shearing and the only surviving specimen from early Macarthur sheep.

It could have rotted in the rain and mud underneath a Narrandera grandstand, but when found there, its authenticity was challenged.

The cape had been under the grandstand for some 25 years until in 1970 it was found and rescued for the collection housed in the Parkside Cottage Museum.

Though the cloak bears marks of its neglect, it remains basically intact.

lt was taken to the district by Dr Harold Lethbridge who settled in Narrandera after World War I and lived there until he died in the early 1940s.

The doctor had a splendid collection of museum items. How the cape became part of the collection is not known, but the doctor's ancestors were related by marriage to the Macarthurs Captain Philip King, son of the colony’s Governor Philip Gidley King, had two daughters, Mary and Maria.

Mary married a Robert Lethbridge and Maria married John Macarthur’s nephew, Hannibal.

lt appears Dr Lethbridge could have obtained the cloak through his connection with Robert Lethbridge.

In 1974, the late John Garran, son of the Australian constitutional authority Sir Robert Garran, researched the cloak’s history to make sure of its authenticity.

He unearthed several references to the cloak – and others made at the same time.

Research findings vindicated local tourist officer, Dan Clarke, and other members of the Narrandera and Sturt Historical Society, whose efforts to have the cloak recognised were greeted initially as “hooey”.

Dan, a former journalist at the Narrandera Argus, became so interested in the history of the surrounding Murrumbidgee area, that with local Rotarians he got the district historical society going in 1968.

The society’s first president was at the sportsground in 1970 and saw a muddied piece of cloak sticking out of what could have been rubbish.

He immediately suspected what it was and called Dan.

Hot on the heels of the find came controversy. Dr Lethbridge had housed his collection in Narrandera Public School. lt was moved and ended up under the grandstand, exposed to the weather and vandals.

A Sydney professor rescued some pieces, now in the Institute of Anatomy, Canberra.

The Narrandera Historical Society saved what else there was to save. Members held raffles to raise the money to buy the 100-year-old Parkside Cottage to house the collection.

The quote for repairing the cloak is $2475, for which the Committee has applied for a grant to Community Heritage Funding for the cost of restoring it and also a special airtight cabinet to store it in.

Split system air conditioners for the Museum have been placed on a wishlist as there are limited cooling options there at the moment.

Opening of the Time Capsule located at the front of the Museum has also been discussed by the committee as it is the 50 year anniversary and is due to be opened any time after 24 April 2026.

The Committee has instigated a meeting with relevant staff to discuss Council organising the opening ceremony with assistance from members.