In the context of a community, 'Worthies' refers to individuals who are highly respected due to their community contributions. In a modern community setting, 'worthies' might describe local leaders, philanthropists, or influential members recognised for their positive impact, wisdom, and selflessness. Someone who works tirelessly for their community without expecting reward.
~ Elijah Richardson
Jim Comerford
(1913-2006)
~ Living Histories UNE
Jim Comerford was a Union Leader, Activist, Historian and Writer. The following biography is from Living Histories UNE:
'Jim Comerford immigrated from Scotland to Kurri Kurri with his family at the age of 9, after his father was blacklisted at a Scottish mine.
Jim's career in mining started when he was just 13, and went to work as at pit boy at the Richmond Main Colliery. At 15, Jim Comerford witnessed the violence of the Rothbury Riot. This had a great impact on his life as he wrote a book about the event and became a lifelong union advocate. At the age of 29, he was the youngest person elected to the miner's central council.
Jim Comerford was President of the Miner's Federation from 1953 to 1973. He later became a Convocation Scholar and writer-in-residence at the University of Newcastle. In 1996 a memorial Wall commemorating victims of mining tragedies in the Hunter Valley was unveiled in Aberdare, as a tribute to him by the United Mineworkers Federation.'
See more Here
Andrew James 'Mick' Frame O.A.M.
(1911 - 2004)
Born: 5 Feb 1911 Weston, NSW, Australia
Son of Edward John Frame and Catherine Falvey
Died: 17 Jan 2004 Kurri Kurri, NSW, Australia
Andrew James 'Mick' Frame worked in the coal mines from the age of 13 years and remained in that industry for his entire working life. In tandem with being a devoted family man, Mick Frame dedicated a major portion of his life to working for his community.
For his outstanding service, Mick Frame was honoured with:
Life Membership of the Australian Labor Party
Premier's Award for Services to the Aged
O.A.M. - Medal of the Order of Australia for Distinguished Services to the Community
Kurri Kurri Apex Club's Citizen of the Year Award
Freeman of the City of Greater Cessnock
Named for him are:
Frame Drive, Abermain, NSW
A.J. 'Mick' Frame Entry Building at Richmond Main Mining Museum NSW
A.J. 'Mick' Frame Hostel at the Masonic Village, Kurri Kurri, NSW
Edward John 'Coogan' Frame OAM
(1917 - 2007)
Born: 13 Dec 1917 Weston, NSW, Australia
Son of Edward John Frame and Catherine Falvey
Died 30 Mar 2007 Kurri Kurri, NSW, Australia
Edward John 'Coogan' Frame O.A.M. served with the RAAF as a member of 460 Heavy Lancaster Bomber Squadron in England. In his later years, Coogan Frame dedicated himself to working for his community, especially the Kurri Kurri Hospital. For his community services, Edward John 'Coogan' Frame was recognised with the:
Premier's Medal
Citizen of the Year Medal
Senior Citizen of the Year Medal
Hospitals Medal
Post Master General Citation
Inaugural Freeman of the City of Cessnock
O.A.M. - Medal of the Order of Australia
Above: Councillor Jeff Maybury
~ The Cessnock Advertiser
Councillor Jeff Maybury's achievements were many, and for those he was duly recognised:
Jeff Maybury was affectionately known as the Mayor of Weston and was Cessnock’s longest-serving councillor, with 35 years of loyal service.
In June 2016 he was posthumously named a Freeman of the City, which is the highest acclamation Cessnock City can bestow on its citizens.
Councillor Maybury worked tirelessly for the establishment of the beautiful Peace Park at Weston. Peace Park was one of his proudest achievements in his time on the council. In November 2017, his family and friends proudly celebrated the re-naming of Peace Park to 'Maybury Peace Park' in his honour.
In addition to his commitment to council, Mr Maybury was also very active with the St Vincent de Paul Society, the Tidy Town movement and the Weston RSL Sub Branch.
From Clayton Barr MP, NSW State Member for Cessnock, 15 September 2015:
'Today I pay tribute to the life of Jeff Maybury, Cessnock’s longest serving councillor and one of our true rough diamonds. Jeff Maybury was first elected to council in 1981 and when he died two months ago he was still a councillor, some 34 years later. Jeff’s political career was defined by his unending focus on results over process. For Jeff, rules were there to be bent, if that is what it took to get a result for the people he represented. And he got many results. He won a lot more battles than he lost...See more
Stories abound of stunts, protests and events thought up by Jeff Maybury to get a point across or to get something done. My personal experience was during the huge brawl over the future of Kurri Kurri Hospital following the Garling report under the former Labor Government; John Della Bosca as health Minister was threatening to close Kurri Kurri Hospital. My predecessor, Kerry Hickey, and Jeff hatched a plan to turn the tide. Kerry convinced the health Minister to visit the hospital and Jeff organised a crowd to greet him. When the Minister arrived at Kurri Kurri Hospital, on a day when the temperature was 40-plus degrees, Jeff had managed to get 1,500 people there to gather in protest. Needless to say, the hospital still operates to this day.
One of Jeff’s finest achievements and greatest sources of pride was Peace Park at Weston. It remains one of the most popular weekend family spots in the whole of my electorate. Sprawling across both sides of the road at Chinamans Hollow, many people said it would never work. But it does. It is a place for picnics and parties and it has a warm environment in which families can relax and play. It exists in large part because of the efforts of people like Councillor Jeff Maybury and, before him, Mr Jack King. Whilst council was Jeff’s main outlet for contributing to the community, it was far from his only one. Jeff worked with the St Vincent de Paul Society, visiting struggling people at home, delivering their meals or helping them with simple little things they could not do for themselves. His daughter gave the example of Jeff buying a fridge for a woman who did not have one; he used money out of his own pocket to fulfil the vision of St Vincent de Paul.
Basic decency and kindness and looking after local people—that is what Jeff Maybury did and what he was about. He also served in the Citizen Military Forces, known as the CMF or the Reserve Forces, and he made a huge contribution over decades to the Weston RSL Sub-Branch. The secretary of the sub-branch described Jeff as “a real mover and shaker”; he was the bloke to see if you wanted to get something done. The Weston Tidy Towns Committee was another of his causes. He would be hassling politicians for grants funding one day and charging around on a ride-on lawnmower the next. At Jeff’s funeral, a donation box for the committee overflowed, giving Tidy Towns one last reason to thank him. I must declare that Jeff once came to see me about a fine he had received for not having a cover on his Tidy Towns trailer, which was full of rubbish and clippings. Unfortunately, I was unable to have that resolved with the Minister and he had to pay the fine.
Jeff was a life member of the Labor Party, achieving 40 years’ service in 2011. I was honoured to be on hand at our State conference to receive Jeff’s life membership on his behalf and to take it back to his local branch of Weston and present it to him at a luncheon. Forty years of service, regardless of whether it is in politics or community service, is something to be proud of, and Jeff covered both bases. Jeff and his wife, Pat, celebrated 50 years of marriage in March this year, just a few months before Jeff’s death. Theirs was a great partnership based on a loving bond. Pat has my sympathies and those of many others across our community, as was demonstrated at Jeff’s funeral which attracted well over 1,000 people.
As Jeff’s illness took hold, fellow councillors marvelled at his resilience and dedication. In the weeks before he passed away he kept turning up to council meetings; he still attended every council meeting, every briefing and every site inspection. On the last Wednesday of his life he attended a council meeting trying to get a street in his ward fully sealed for the benefit of the residents. A couple of things that happened in the week after he died told me everything I needed to know about the Weston community’s regard for Jeff Maybury. The first was when I wrote a short tribute to Jeff on Facebook. My phone did not stop buzzing for two days as friends mourned and people shared comments and memories on the social media platform. The second demonstration of the community’s high regard for Jeff was at his funeral when people arrived more than an hour early but could not get a seat. Jeff loved Weston and Weston loved him back. Vale Jeff Maybury, a man who simply did the right thing and did a great deal of good.'
Above: Brian Andrews receiving his Order of Australia Medal (OAM) from Governor of NSW, Marie Bashir, in 2009.
~ The Cessnock Advertiser
Although he was not from Weston, this website would not have been possible without the immense work done by the late Brian Andrews and his fellow members of the Coalfields Heritage Group. Brian's efforts to preserve the history of the Coalfields, which of course includes Weston, has been invaluable and we will be eternally grateful to him.
Extracted from an article by Krystal Sellars in the Cessnock Advertiser edition dated 15 Sept 2019:
Kurri Kurri historian Brian Andrews OAM has passed away, aged 76
Krystal Sellars
'Brian Andrews devoted his life to preserving the history of the Hunter Valley.
A founding member of the Coalfields Heritage Group and a long-serving curator of the Edgeworth David Museum at Kurri Kurri, Mr Andrews passed away on Tuesday, September 10, aged 76.
A descendant of the Andrews family of Mulbring, Mr Andrews was born in Moree in 1943, and moved to Newcastle at the age of six when his father Eric, a State Rail employee, took on managing Broadmeadow's railway marshalling yard.
He was received high grades in his Intermediate Certificate at Hamilton's Marist Brothers High School, but his parents could not afford to send him on to further education, so at age 16, he moved to Sydney to live with aunts, and later in a boarding house, while he trained to be a technician with the Postmasters General Department, which would later become Telecom.
Mr Andrews went on to manage some of Sydney's largest exchanges including Ryde, Pymble, Wahroonga, Pennant Hills and Hornsby.
In 1993, he took a redundancy that was too good to refuse and retired to Kurri Kurri, aged 49.
His father had passed away in 1991, so he invited his mother Allie to move in with him. His mother passed away in 1997.
He became the curator of the Edgeworth David Museum in Deakin Street in 1996; founded the Coalfields Heritage Group a year later, and wrote more than 180 books on Hunter history, covering everything from war to coal mining to the Catholic Church.
"Brian loved writing about the history of our area; he used to say this area is rich in history and so many people don't know what the coalfields has to offer," Coalfields Heritage Group secretary Lexie Matthews said.
Mr Andrews had also been a mural tour guide in Kurri Kurri; conducted excursions and history walks on the Old North Road, and worked closely with the University of Newcastle's Cultural Collections on many projects, including the People and Place, Coal and Community exhibition and the Voices of the Hunter oral history project.
"Brian will be missed so much by many people, he loved to talk history, he didn't always agree with what people were saying and he wasn't afraid to say so," Ms Matthews said.
"He loved it when the school children or the Joey Scouts came to visit, they had so many questions. Brian loved to talk with them and tell them about the sort of things they would find inside the museum; things that they may not have seen before.
"One night the Joey Scouts had Brian take part in the flag ceremony before they came inside. He said 'that was good, I haven't done that before, it is good that I can still learn something new'."
Mr Andrews was named on the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2009, receiving the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for his years of dedication to recording local heritage and service to the community.
He was also Kurri Kurri's Citizen of the Year in 2002 and received a Stage Heritage Volunteer Award in 2003.
Mr Andrews was diagnosed with cancer in March this year, and spent the last few months of his life in care at Kurri Kurri Masonic Village.
On Monday (the day before his passing), Coalfields Heritage Group bestowed another honour on Mr Andrews - its first-ever life membership.
Ms Matthews said it was a privilege to present Mr Andrews with the award, saying he could have earned two life memberships, given his 22 years of service to the group.
"I think we made him a little brighter knowing that we at the museum wanted him to to have this service award. It wasn't like going to Sydney to get his major awards, this was from his team they were awarding him. I think that made it a very special day," she said.
Ms Matthews said when one of the group's members went to visit Mr Andrews on Monday night, he was asleep holding his trophy.
He passed away the following afternoon, with his nieces Jenny and Cecelia by his side. '
See also: Brian John Andrews OAM at Living Histories, University of Newcastle.
Above: PASSION FOR HISTORY: Brian Andrews, pictured at the Edgeworth David Museum in June 2018 when he was assisting with the Lost Diggers project. ~ Krystal Sellars
Above: WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE:
Brian Andrews, pictured at his Kurri Kurri home in 2009, after he was named on the Queen's Birthday honours list.
~ Krystal Sellars
Above: Ean Smith (L) and Brian John Andrews OAM (R) outside of the Sir Edgeworth David Memorial Museum, November 2015
From Hunter Living Histories
See VALE BRIAN JOHN ANDREWS OAM
Above: Delma Whyte of Weston NSW
2025 Freeman Of The City
Honoured at a civic reception at Performance Arts Culture Cessnock’s auditorium on 7 May 2025.
~ Miranda Chalmers
Congratulations to Delma Whyte on receiving this well-deserved honour. Delma is an icon of Weston and as stated below: 'a true local treasure'. Delma Whyte was also the 2024 Cessnock Senior Citizen of the Year.
Cessnock City Council:
Delma Whyte has been officially named Freeman of the City of Cessnock.
The 16th person to have earned the title since Cessnock City Council first presented the award in 1994, Mrs Whyte is considered a true local treasure.
She was honoured at a civic reception at Performance Arts Culture Cessnock’s auditorium on 7 May 2025.
The 2024 Cessnock Senior Citizen of the Year is well-known locally for her outstanding dedication to the community – including her commitment to Cessnock Senior Choir, teaching young children, and an array of community projects.
She has also hosted hundreds of fashion parades to raise money for charity.
Cessnock City Mayor Dan Watton said Mrs Whyte embodied what it meant to be a Freeman of the City.
“This honour is not one Council gives lightly or freely,” said Clr Watton.
“Delma Whyte has long been a shining influence in our community, and she has touched many lives.
“There is no-one more deserving to join Cessnock’s 15 incumbent Freemen of the City, than Mrs Whyte.”
The title Freeman of the City – which has its roots in a medieval English custom - recognises individuals for their outstanding achievement and service.
It is the highest honour a city can bestow on a citizen, and nominees must fulfill strict criteria.
