Category: Cultural icon

Adaptive Re-use · Adaptive Reuse · Art · Artists · Artworks · Attachment to place · Belonging · Cascades Female Factory · Collective Memory · Colonialism · Community identity · Convicts · Cultural and Heritage Tourism · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Grief · History · History of Emotion · Hobart · Hope and loss · Local History · Local Studies · Memorial · Memorialisation · Memorials · Memory · Monuments · Place making · Placemaking · Public art · Sense of place · Social History · Stories · Storytelling · Uncategorized · Women's history · Women's stories

Public art in Hobart tells the story of female convicts in Van Diemen’s Land

camdenhistorynotes

Hidden in the shadows

Public art has been used in Hobart to reveal stories of female convicts that have been hidden in the shadows for decades.

The silence of history has been broken, and the layers of history have been peeled back to reveal a story of resilience and agency in the face of misery and hardship.

The logo of the Cascades Female Factory Historic Site in South Hobart (CFFHS)

These stories have been commemorated in two sets of statues, one on the Hobart waterfront and one at the Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart, by Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie.

Footsteps Towards Freedom (2017)

In 2017, the Footsteps Towards Freedom statues were installed on the Hobart waterfront and unveiled by the President of Ireland, Michael Higgins, and the Governor of Tasmania, Kate Warner.

The proposal was first mooted in 2015 when Hobart Lord Mayor Sue Hickey, the Speaker of the House of Assembly Elise Archer and the Governor of Tasmania met to discuss the project.

Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie was commissioned to undertake the art installations. Dublin-based Gillespie is from a global community of bronze-casting sculptors and works from a foundry in County Clare in Ireland. He is one of the few who works on site-specific art installations and uses the lost wax casting process to portray human emotions where a metal sculpture is cast from an original.

Footsteps Towards Freedom art installation at Macquarie Wharf No 1 on the Hobart waterfront (I Willis 2024)

The four statues that make up Footsteps Towards Freedom are located on Macquarie Wharf No. 1, where the convict women were taken off the ships.

The women were then walked up Macquarie Street to the Female Factory to await assignment or to be kept there if they were considered unassignable.

The Monuments Australia website states that Footsteps Towards Freedom is:

 From 1803 to 1853, almost 13,000 convict women together with 2,000 children arrived in Van Diemen’s Land.

https://monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/landscape/settlement/display/112076-footsteps-towards-freedom

<pic 4 statues on Macquarie wharf Hobart>

The President of Ireland Michael Higgins said at the opening of the art installation:

These sculptures, let us remind ourselves, also make common cause with the suffering of migrants in our times. They should remind us that the trauma of displacement and forced exile are not experiences confined to our past, but are the lived experience of millions around the world today, including many who now call Australia home.

https://fromtheshadows.org.au

From the Shadows (2021)

Following on from the success of the Footsteps of Freedom project, the Governor of Tasmania, Kate Warner, launched the From the Shadows project at a reception at Government House in 2019.

In 2021, the Governor of Tasmania, Kate Warner, unveiled the first of two statues, one of a pregnant convict outside the Cascades Female Factory and the other in the factory yard.

The statues were designed and constructed by Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie.

From the Shadows art installation at the Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart. This statue of a pregnant female convict, completed by Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie, is located outside the grounds of the factory. (I Willis 2024)

The Governor of Tasmania Kate Warner said at the opening of the first statue in 2021

The narrative of the pregnant convict woman highlights that there is much more to a convict life than a crime, a trial and sentence. The statue of the pregnant convict woman is evocative and challenging, and is designed to make those viewing her ask: who is she? why is she here? what became of her baby?

https://www.govhouse.tas.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022-03/from_the_shadows_2021_.pdf
Statue of a female convict in the yard of the Cascades Female Factory that is part of the art installation From the Shadows by Irish sculptor Rowan Gillespie. (I Willis 2024)

Cascades Female Factory

The Cascades Female Factory was one of a number of sites of reform and retribution of the British penal system in Van Diemen’s Land, where women could be hidden from their English masters.

Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart (CFFHS)

Women of Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent and working-class English women from the northern counties.

If the factory walls could speak, they would tell harrowing tales of depravity, immorality and corruption. Decadence, sinfulness, perversion, degenerate, evil and wickedness for the upright church-going middle-class of colonial Hobart.

The female factory was opened at the Cascades from 1828 to 1856 at a time when women had few legal rights. The story of the female factory is one of women’s agency, resilience and perseverance in the face of incredible adversity and hardship. Hundreds of descendants in Tasmania point to these stories.

Now rebuilt with a new interpretative information centre, the female factory allows these stories to be told. Women’s stories and experiences at the female factory have been re-interpreted. Stories of trauma, queerness, loss and dispossession of children, and loss of identity.

One of the yards at the Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart (I Willis 2024)

The very fact of the isolation and desolation of the female factory did, in its own way, lead to enough remnants of the factory remaining on its original site to be able to resurrect the stories and experiences of the women experiences and stories.

Careful interpretation of the old and its remnants have produced a hauntingly real experience for visitors at a site of hardship and trauma for many women inmates.  

 The Cascades Female Factory website states that the

Cascades Female Factory Historic Site bears witness to the displacement, oppression and control of women in Tasmania. We honour their pain and loss, their courage and perseverance. 

 https://femalefactory.org.au/audioguide/
Cascades Female Factory in South Hobart in the late 19th century (CFFHS)

Architecture · Attachment to place · Built heritag · Camden · Camden Story · Community identity · Country town · Cultural and Heritage Tourism · Cultural icon · Heritage · Leisure · Local Studies · Lost Camden · Macarthur Country Tourist Association · Media · Memorial · Memorialisation · Memorials · Memory · Monuments · Placemaking · Sense of place · Storytelling · Tourism · Women's history · Women's stories

Memorial plaque to Jennifer Eggins, a founder of local tourism

camdenhistorynotes

A local identity

Outside John Oxley Cottage, Camden Visitor Information Centre at 46 Camden Valley Way Elderslie, is a memorial plaque with a story to tell of local identity, Jennifer Eggins, and her legacy that still echoes across the district.

Jennifer Eggins is one of the founders of the local tourist industry.

The plaque was originally located adjacent to the Macarthur Country Tourist Association Information Centre at 470 Hume Highway, Liverpool, on the corner of the Hume Highway and Congressional Drive.

Jennifer Eggins’s memorial plaque is located outside the Camden Visitor Information Centre at 46 Camden Valley Way, Elderslie. (IW, 2023)

The MCTA tourist information centre opened in 1987 and was demolished in 2005. The plaque is the only remnant of the official opening.  

Eggins and others founded the Macarthur Country Tourist Association in 1978.

Camden Tourist Association (1906)

This was not the first attempt to form a local tourist association. In 1906, 30 local businessmen formed the short-lived Camden Tourist Association under the leadership of Camden Mayor GM Macarthur Onslow. Their aim was to promote the ‘magnificent scenery around Camden’ in the Burragorang Valley. (Camden News, 10 May 1906)

Seven decades later, events cast a pessimistic view of the world across the Camden business community. The Hume Highway was shifted from Argyle Street in 1973 to the Camden Bypass, removing the passing trade and the main street was blocked when the 1975 flood destroyed the decking of the Cowpastures Bridge.

Macarthur regionalism had been turbocharged by the establishment of the Macarthur Growth Centre by the Whitlam Government in 1974 and the Macarthur Development Board (1975-1992) as the state authority to direct the urban growth in the Campbelltown area.

In May 1978, Eggins called a public meeting to form an organisation to promote tourism in the Macarthur region. Betty Hunt (Yewen) attended the meeting and was hooked.

At the time, Jennifer was employed at a doctor’s surgery in Camden, and Betty was working for a Camden dentist.

The dynamic duo

Eggins and Hunt had a wider vision of tourism in the 1970s.

The dynamic duo, Jennifer Eggins and Betty Hunt, on the cover of Betty’s book My Story. The pair were on a media tour at Bundanoon, and the photo appeared in The Crier newspaper. (The Crier 26 September 1984)

The former Member for Macarthur Michael Baume recalls, ‘while some lamented that Camden would wither on the vine, two women took the view that a great opportunity only required imagination and energy to exploit’. Jenny Eggins and Betty Hunt (Yewen) became ‘the female double-act to show Camden was alive and well’. (Yewen, My Story)

Macarthur Country Tourist Association (1978)

The May meeting led to the formation of the Macarthur Country Tourist Association. The aims were to (1) promote local tourist attractions, (2) encourage further development of tourist facilities, (3) and foster new attractions. (Camden News 14 June 1978)

The new association intended to do this by setting up a tourist information centre and pursuing the association’s aims through advertising, literature, and community involvement. (Camden News 14 June 1978)

Macarthur Country Tourist Association logo (B Yewen, 2018)

Eggins and Hunt were an unstoppable duo. They attracted a motivated team of supporters around them and set out to achieve the aims of the new association.

Association membership gathered pace over the following months under the direction of Betty Hunt (Yewen). By December 1978, there were 200 paid-up members.

Over the following decade, there were many events and activities. Lunchtime bus tours, festivals, promotional events, creation of the position of tourist officer, Camelot open house, visitor guides, filmmaking, and a host of other activities.

The MCTA Tourist Information Centre (1985)

The association successfully lobbied the Wran Labor Government to create a tourist information centre at Liverpool on the Hume Highway.

The Macarthur Country Tourist Association at 470 Hume Highway, Liverpool, on the corner of the Hume Highway and Congressional Drive, Liverpool. (LCL, 1985)

The land for the tourist information centre was allocated to the association by the state government in 1985, which also provided $350,000 towards the construction of the centre. Liverpool City Council, Campbelltown City Council, Camden Municipal Council, and Wollondilly Shire Council jointly met running expenses.

Demolition (2005)

In the early 1990s, Liverpool City Council and Campbelltown City Council withdrew their support for the information centre. The centre closed in 1998, sat empty and was demolished after vandalism in 2005.

The demolition of the MCTA Tourist Information Centre in Betty Yewen’s My Story (Betty Yewen 2018)

 The site of the former tourist information centre is now vacant and has been converted into a park.

Legacy

The dynamic duo of Eggins and Hunt (Yewen) left a considerable legacy that has left an indelible mark on today’s tourist industry.

The duo were responsible for many firsts. These include the first bus lunch tours, the first dedicated visitor’s guide, the first tourism promotion booklet, the first tourism promotional business in the region, the first tourist officer, the first tourist information centre and others.

Sometime around 2005, the Jenny Eggins memorial plaque was relocated from the Liverpool site to a location outside the John Oxley Tourist Information Centre on Camden Valley Way at Elderslie.

Read more about the Macarthur Country Tourist Association in Betty Yewen’s My Story.

Seek it out at your local library.

Read a story written by Betty Yewen in Camden History about the creation of her book, My Story.

1930s · Aesthetics · Cabaret · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Entertainment · Film · History · Music history · Storytelling · Symbolism · The Arts · Theatre · Uncategorized

Billie Holiday on stage at the Belvoir Street Theatre

camdenhistorynotes

Review: Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill by Lanie Robertson. Musical Arrangements by Danny Holgate. Belvoir St Theatre, 14 September – 15 October 2023.

Theatre performance with heart

I recently attended a theatre performance with a strong humanitarian message at the Belvoir Street Theatre in Surry Hills. The show was a combination of cabaret and drama, highlighting many historic social issues and challenges of the early 20th century that still resonate today.

The show portrayed the life and times of African-American jazz singer Billie Holiday in a performance called ‘Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill’. Originally performed in New York Off-Broadway Vineyard Theatre in 1986 at a venue renowned for staging provocative, cutting-edge new plays and musicals. This version of Lady Day is a co-production between the Melbourne Theatre Company and the State Theatre Company of South Australia.

Cover of the programme for Lady Day at the Emerson Bar & Grill at the Belvoir Street Theatre (BST 2023)

The premise of the production

The premise of the production is that it is set in a south Philadelphia bar at about midnight in March 1959 and is the last performance before Holiday died. This adaptation of Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day is directed by Mitchell Butel, starring Jamaican-born Zahra Newman as Holiday, supported by a marvellous three-piece jazz band consisting of piano, bass and drums.

The staging moves away from a typical biopic and encapsulates many aspects of Holiday’s life in one evening, Butel told ABC Artworks and is not a normal cabaret show. The show does not stray away from the challenges that Holiday faced in her lifetime. These social issues and changes have contemporary resonance, including sexual assault, drug addiction, alcoholism, and racism.

Zahra Newman told ABC ArtsWorks that she wanted to honour the life of Holiday. To achieve this, she and her voice coach, Geraldine Cook, sought out the few primary sources of Billie Holiday. In one of those sources, Holiday states that the name Lady Day was given to her by her sax player, Lester Young.  

Billie Holiday, a musical genius

In the show, Newman pays tribute to the influences on Holiday’s life and amongst them were Holiday’s love of Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. Holiday was a skilled performer and one of the few African-American singers who toured with an all-white band across the American South. According to Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday was a musical genius who influenced every major singer of her generation, particularly himself.  

Zahra Newman sings the blues

Singing a range of Billie Holiday’s classics, Newman’s voice filled the room, and the blues have never sounded sweeter. Newman’s powerful rendition of Holiday’s 1930s tune ‘Strange Fruit’ came straight from the heart. Holiday originally recorded the song in 1939, with the lyrics drawn from a poem published in 1937 by teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol called ‘Bitter Fruit’. The protest song deplores lynchings, mainly African Americans, which reached a peak in the Southern American States at the turn of the 20th century. The lyrics compare the lynchings to fruit hanging on a tree. The 1939 recording by Commodore sold over a million copies and was adopted by the civil rights movement as its anthem in the mid-20th century.

Billie Holiday sings the blues protest song ‘Strange Fruit’ originally recorded in 1939 (The Kennedy Centre 2023)

The show ended with the audience in raptures. Newman and the band received an enthusiastic standing ovation for a magical performance – a great evening’s entertainment for all, closing with a strong humanitarian message.

20th century · Aesthetics · Architecture · Attachment to place · Belonging · Biography · Built heritag · Camden Cottage · Camden Story · Campbelltown Art Centre · Collective Memory · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Domestic Architecture · Family history · History · History of a house · Hope and loss · House history · Housing · Lifestyle · Living History · Local History · Local Studies · Macarthur · Macarthur region · Memory · Mid-century modernism · Modernism · Peri-urban region · Placemaking · rural-urban fringe · Social History · Stereotypes · Storytelling · Symbolism

‘Fibro Majestic’, a new exhibition at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, a review

camdenhistorynotes

A simple, cheap housing style

Post-war housing domestic architecture in Camden is typified by a simple, cheap utilitarian building called the Camden fibro cottage.

This style of domestic architecture, the fibro cottage, can be found all over Australia and has provided a basic form of housing for thousands of families.

Modern fibro cottages in Burrawong Crescent Elderslie were built around the 1960s. (I Willis, 2005)

Yet it has been derided, rubbished, and scoffed at for decades after initially being heralded as the height of modernism in the early 20th century.

Fibro Majestic exhibition

The simple fibro house is celebrated in a new exciting exhibition at the Campbelltown Arts Centre called Fibro Majestic by renowned Australian artist and sculptor Catherine O’Donnell.

The exhibition by artist Catharine O’Donnell runs from 8 July to 13 August 2023 with free entry.

Promotional flyer for Fibro Majestic at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown (CAC 2023)

Initially conceived for the artist’s survey exhibition ‘Beyond the Shadow’ at the Orange Regional Gallery in partnership with Grafton Regional Gallery, curated by art historian Lucy Stanger in 2022.

At the centre of the exhibition is the imposing spectacle of a 75%-scale replica of a fibro house.

The exhibition promotion states:

‘Catherine O’Donnell: Fibro Majestic’ presents a body of work by O’Donnell that considers the historical and social context of fibro and social housing in Western Sydney and across Australia. O’Donnell grew up in a fibro home in Green Valley, Western Sydney, which at the time was the largest public housing estate in Sydney. The shape and form of the fibro house has long since informed her practice as she explores architecture, social history and the notions of home and memory.    

Cover for the Fibro Majestic Exhibition Catalogue at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown (CAC, 2023)

Exhibition notes state that O’Donnell has taken the floor plans from the New South Wales Housing Commission around the mid-century. They are a type of modernism that has fallen out of favour with the government, the public and the building industry.

A small-scale model of a fibro cottage.
Catherine O’Donnell, ‘Gold leafed house 1’, 2022. Stereolithographic model and gold leaf 13x26x30cm. Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown. (I Willis, 2023)

Complementing the main sculptural installation is a range of small housing models and intimate drawings that evoke memories of living in a fibro house.

Catherine O’Donnell, ‘Beyond the curtain beats a loving heart’, 2020. Charcoal on paper diptych, 107×50 framed.
Campbelltown Arts Centre Fibro Majestic Exhibition 2023. (I Willis, 2023)

The fibro houses were more than just buildings. They sheltered people’s lives, provided a safe haven, and were a site of family celebrations, birthdays, marriages, anniversaries, and rituals. The curtains also hid many dark secrets, from domestic violence to poverty and unemployment. While there were many dysfunctional families and disrupted lives, there were many happy families with children who grew up and led successful lives.

One of the happy stories with many fond memories is the story of Fiona, who grew up in the Airds Housing Commission Estate in South Campbelltown. with its many fibro homes.

Fiona recalls:

Living in Airds during the late 70s and early 80s, friendships were built, and people stuck together. It was the freedom of riding bikes with friends until the street lights came on, building makeshift cubbies and performing concerts for the neighbours.

I still remember the excitement of walking to the local shops with my sisters to buy a few groceries for Mum. The constant search for ‘bargains’ in the hope there would be twenty cents left over to buy some mixed lollies.

Ugly Australia

According to O’Donnell, fibro cottages ‘were compact, mass-produced, box-like structures’ built across Sydney’s western suburbs.

The simple fibro cottage has characterised Western Sydney and its lifestyle.  The simplicity of the fibro cottage was its attraction and part of its downfall.

Typical of the urban fringe, the simple fibro cottage has been derided and ridiculed by those who are snobbish about Sydney’s outer suburbs.

The fibro cottage is typical of suburbia on the edge. The edge can be marginalised people, the urban fringe, or the perception that it is a type of housing that is unacceptable to some.

The fibro cottage represents a type of Otherness, an ugly Australia. These images have been reinforced by the Sydney press, which labelled Campbelltown an ‘ugly houso wasteland’ in 1975.

According to historian Ian Willis

The humble fibro cottage in Camden in the 1950s and 1960s has been integral to the town’s 20th-century history. The fibro house represents the baby-boomer era, when drive-ins, Holdens, Chiko rolls, black & white TV, rock & roll, and vinyl LPs were the norm. Fibro is evocative of long summer holidays by the beach, with adolescent love, boogie boards, zinc cream and paddle pops.  

This is the essence of Fibro Majestic, a metaphor for mid-century Australia.

Optimism and hope in a compact box

The fibro cottage came to the rescue in the post-war years, when Sydney experienced a housing shortage due to the ‘baby boom’ and increased immigration.

The postwar years were a period of optimism and hope for a better lifestyle. These cottages were cheap and utilitarian and could be erected quickly.

Fibro, as a building materialz, was invented at the beginning of the 20th century and imported into Australia before the First World War. Wartime restrictions resulted in the product being manufactured in Australia by the war’s end.

This is an image of a Camden fibro cottage built in 1920. Chesham Cottage is at 49 Broughton Street, Camden, built by the Camden Voluntary Workers Association following the First World War. (Camden Images)

Leaked heat like a sieve

The fibro cottages of the 1950s leaked heat like a sieve and failed by today’s energy-efficient efficiency standards for housing. According to Lloyd Nicols from the Illawarra Flame retrofit project, these cottages can be made energy efficient to make them sustainable, affordable, and attractive. The project, a joint venture between the University of Wollongong and Wollongong TAFE College, aims for kits to be able to retrofit existing fibro cottages to increase their thermal performance.

Nostalgia and memory

Nostalgia and memory are a big part of the exhibition. Artist Catherine O’Donnell states that the fibro cottage is the architecture of my childhood and an ‘everywhere-everyman example of mid-century developments across Australia’.

The simple fibro shacks littered along the Australian coastline are part of this nostalgia. Wendy Shaw and Lindsay Menday argue

The old beach shacks that dominated seaside fishing villages or isolated holiday surfing spots provided low-cost accommodation for holidaymakers in often remote and low-populated settings with few services. Some of these holiday houses were owner-occupied but remained vacant outside holiday times. Most were available for short-term holiday rental. All were relatively basic.

These fibro cottages straddled the class divide and were easily accessible by the motor car by mid-century. These were egalitarian holiday experiences for Australians.

The Fibro Majestic sculptural installation attracts an audience at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown (I Willis 2023)

Shaw and Menday maintain that

In northern New South Wales, tropes of nature, community, and heritage [around fibro cottages] have been incorporated into a new beachside ‘town’ identity.

These fantasies of bygone days play out in the Fibro Majestic exhibition, which conjures up memories of beach holidays with long lazy days lounging in the sun in a mystical past. All viewed through rose-coloured glasses misty with nostalgia.

O’Donnell maintains that these memories are ‘synonymous with Australian identity’.

Flawed Plans, a commission

In addition to the main exhibition, The Campbelltown Arts Centre has commissioned a site-specific art installation on the stairs and front wall of the gallery amphitheatre called ‘Flawed Plans’.

The Flawed Plans art installation in the forecourt of Campbelltown Arts Centre.
‘Flawed Plans’, 2023. (Campbelltown Arts Centre Amphitheatre). Vinyl, dimensions variable. Commissioned by the CAC. (I Willis, 2023)

The artwork highlights the many layers to the story of the fibro cottage and how perceptions shift and twist.

Where once the fibro house was seen as a saviour as a cheap and effective form of housing, it has become a to be seen as an urban disaster by many.

The artist maintains that as the viewer climbs around the installation, their perception shifts and skews ‘as the viewer climbs, descends or orbits the work’.

Fibro Majestic, a reflection

Fibro Majestic reminds us all how perceptions and memories change over time. Fibro houses were once the height of modernism, yet in later decades, they were derided and rubbished.

The sculptural installation at the Fibro Majestic exhibition at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Campbelltown.
‘Fibro Majestic’, 2022. Mixed media, common household construction materials, 587x587x220cm. (I Willis, 2023)

The exhibition evokes the fibro heritage of affordable accommodation for the working man and his family in the postwar years when there was a housing shortage for ordinary people.

Fibro was a practical building material that, despite its dangers, could provide a model for the current housing crisis. The fibro cottage was a simple effective housing solution that could be reborn again.

The exhibition Fibro Majestic has captured the essence of nostalgia around this housing style. Baby boomer memories are full of fibro houses and other mid-century Australian lifestyle icons.

The art installation encapsulates the essential elements of the architectural style and is evocative of the lives of those who lived in this utilitarian style of domestic architecture.

More reading

Shaw, W. S., & Menday, L. (2013). Fibro Dreaming: Greenwashed Beach-house Development on Australia’s Coasts. Urban Studies, 50(14), 2940–2958. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013482507

Jenna Reed Burns 2015, ‘Shacking Up’, Green Magazine, Issue 43, May. https://greenmagazine.com.au/article/shacking-up/

Artefacts · Belonging · Camden · Camden District · Camden Historical Society · Camden Story · Collective Memory · Community identity · Cultural Heritage · Cultural icon · Historical consciousness · Historical thinking · History · Local History · Local Studies · Memorialisation · Memorials · Monuments · Place making · Storytelling · Uncategorized

Camden Historical Society, 60 years of local history, 1957-2017

camdenhistorynotes

Address by Dr Ian Willis at the 60th Anniversary Meeting, 24 July 2017, Camden

Welcome all.

First, I would like to thank the 60th Anniversary Organising Committee for their work in organising this event. Rene, Cathey, Dawn and Lee.

Dr Ian Willis, society president, gave the 60th-anniversary address standing next to Dawn Williams, the event MC. The anniversary was held in the Camden Library Museum atrium and the Camden Museum. The anniversary birthday cake is on the table in front of the image. (CHS)

When I was told I was presenting the keynote address at this anniversary meeting, I was told there would be no other speakers. So what to say?

The society has had 60 wonderful years since its foundation in 1957.

 I want to drill into those 60 years and ask the question: What is the business of the society? What is our mission statement?

The 60th-anniversary birthday cake of the Camden Historical Society was cut and distributed to the many who attended the event. (CHS)

I maintain that role of the Camden History Society is to tell the Camden story.

Stories are an integral part of place-making and the creation of community identity. They are full of meaning by allowing the past to inform the present. They help those in the present to understand why things are like they are. Stories are about context and help explain where we fit in the big picture.

And telling the Camden story explains why our community is how it is today.

Telling the Camden story has led to several firsts for the society.

Camden History Journal

The first history of the society was written by Peter Mylrea in the first journal published by the society, Camden History, in 2001. The upcoming issue of the journal will be part of volume 4.

The cover of the first edition of the Camden History Journal under the editorship of Peter Mylrea. (I Willis, 2023)

The first public lecture was presented at the first ordinary meeting of the society meeting in August 1957 by the society’s first vice-president Harold Lowe. The talk was called the ‘History of Camden Park’.  Harold was an interesting local identity, a farmer from Elderslie and a good cyclist who competed in the Goulburn-Sydney cycle races. He was an alderman on Camden Municipal Council for many years. In 1925, Toby Taplin rescued undertaker Percy Peters and his driver George Thurn when their hearse was washed off the Cowpastures Bridge in the flood.

Lobbying

The first lobbying of the Camden Council by the society occurred in 1957.  The society was concerned about the location of John Oxley’s anchor that the Council had been given in 1929. The British Admiralty had given Australia three commemorative anchors to serve as a memorial of the death of John Oxley.

The other two are in Wellington and Harrington, NSW. The Camden anchor was from the Destroyer Tomahawk. Oxley was a naval officer and the first colonial Surveyor General in NSW and had been assigned the grants of Kirkham and Elderslie.  The anchor languished in the council yard for over 25 years, all but forgotten. The society lobbied the council for six years, and in 1963 the anchor was unveiled in Kirkham Lane. The society has recently lobbied the council again, and in 2015 the anchor was moved to Curry Reserve, along with a sculpture of Oxley’s profile. 

Camden Museum display of hand tools. Each object has a story to tell those who care to listen to it. (2021 KHolmquist)

Community Partnership

The first community partnership was with Camden High School on the foundation of the society in 1957. The first meeting was held at the school and chaired by the Camden High School P&C Society president. The first president Bill McCulloch was the deputy principal of Camden High School, whom John Brownie, the school principal, followed. Society meetings were held at the school for 42 years.

There have been a host of other community partnerships, and two of the largest have been with Camden Rotary in the foundation of the museum in 1970, and currently with Camden Council Library and Camden Area Family History Society. Other organisations collaborating with the historical society have included   Camden Lions, Camden Quota, Camden Show Society, Camden Red Cross, Camden Council, and our affiliation with the Royal Australian Historical Society.  

Many firsts

Some other firsts for the society include:

  • The first society excursion was a day trip to Yerranderie in March 1958 before the Burragorang Valley was flooded, with the first overnight trip to Canberra in 1964.
  • The first time the society acted as a tour guide was on a visit to the Catholic Historical Society in September 1958.
  • The community speakers were provided at the Festival of the Golden Fleece in August 1960,
  • The first newsletter was put together in 1970, with a short rebirth in 1985-86 as the Camden Historian, and most recently, from November 2005.
  • The first radio broadcast was Dick Nixon’s ‘Know Your Camden’ for community radio 2CR in 1978,
  •  The first society publication was John Wrigley’s, ‘A History of Camden’ in 1979.
  • The state government’s first grant to fund society activities was $150 in 1979.
  • The first website for the society appeared in 1997, sponsored by Christine and Steve Robinson, and in 2006 the society launched its website, <camdenhistory.org.au>
  • And in 2015, the society launched into the social media space with its Facebook page. 

Camden Museum

The most important first for the society was the establishment of the museum.  

In 1967, a children’s book, EL Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler was published in the USA.  The book tells the story of two kids, 12-year-old Claudia and her 9-year-old brother Jamie, who ran away from home to live in New York’s Metropolitan Art Museum.

Claudia and Jamie have an exciting adventure living in a museum coming face-to-face with the thrilling mysteries of art history. They immerse themselves in the adventures of learning about everything. The book won numerous awards and is used extensively in schools in the US.

Now, the Camden Museum is not the New York Met.

I hope visitors to our museum want to learn about everything about Camden. 

Hopefully, a visit to the Camden Museum will allow folk to immerse themselves in the mysteries of the past.  And be a learning adventure on the way.

A yearning for the past is not new.  For some people, the past provides security and safety.  The Camden Museum provides a safe zone where visitors can immerse themselves in their memories. Nostalgia.

Camden Historical Society 25th Anniversary past presidents. L-R: RE Nixon, Colin Clark, Owen Blattman, John Wrigley in1995 standing outside the original entry of Camden Museum adjacent to laneway (Camden Images)

Nostalgia is a yearning for a sentimental rose-coloured view of the past. Recent research has shown that nostalgia can be a positive thing. But it was not always so. In the past, nostalgia was a medical disease and a psychiatric disorder. Hopefully, a visit to our museum does not affect visitors this way.

Local museums tell local truths and are trusted sources of local stories and histories. They are honest and straightforward. What you see is what you get.  They are not fake news.

The Camden Museum is a mirror to the community where visitors can reflect on their past in the present. The museum displays, collection and archives represent the Camden community to itself.  The museum is the custodian of these stories.

Camden Museum frontage in the Camden Library Museum complex 2022 (CHS)

The Camden Museum can also provide challenges for visitors who take their time to look for the nuances in our stories. If you drill into the stories of museum objects, they touch on deeper social and cultural characteristics of the country town of the past.  Some of these elements include class, rural conservatism, gender, intimacy, race, religion, parochialism, localism, rural ideology, city/country divide, and many other things.

I would argue that the Camden Museum has a critical role in the construction of resilient communities of the present. The museum acts as a site for place-making. The continued growth and expansion of the Camden Local Government Area demands sites that contribute to creating social connections and facilitate community networks.

The museum provides a space for creating social capital through volunteering and philanthropy. Museum volunteers provide a successful model as a centre of active citizenship and volunteering which contributes to the social glue of the community.

The museum helps create a healthy society characterised by trust, reciprocity, support networks and social norms. The museum provides an opportunity for volunteers to actively participate in the social, political, and economic life of the Camden LGA. The museum is a local tourism centre and can play a role in job creation.

So, while the Camden Museum may not be the New York Metropolitan Art Museum, it does provide a meaningful window into our past.

Like the story of Claudia and Jamie, the Camden Museum can provide a learning adventure into the thrilling mysteries of our past. Something that we can draw on in the present.

Camden identities and volunteers Frances and Harry Warner standing outside the Camden on the 2018 Australia Day Open Day (I Willis, 2018)

Legacy

The legacy that we are currently leaving will ensure that the Camden Historical Society and the Camden Museum continue to tell the Camden story for another 60 years and beyond.

Volunteers Julie, Peter, Chris and John busy doing research work in the Camden Museum research room in 2014 (I Willis)
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Menangle School of Arts hall, the heart of a village, under redevelopment

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In 2022 the Wollondilly Shire Local Planning Panel approved the demolition and reconstruction of the Menangle Community Hall.

The Menangle Community Association originally lodged the Development Application with Wollondilly Shire Council in July 2021.

The Menangle Community Association originally is managing the Menangle School of Arts project.

In 2023 there is a vacant lot in central Menangle with a security fence. The reconstructed hall is proposed to open in 2024.

The vacant lot at 4 Station Street Menangle. The former Menangle School of Arts site was demolished after the Menangle Community Association received permission to demolish the building in 2022. (I Willis, 2023)

On the security fence is an information sign with the hall’s history, what is happening, funding and building timeline.

The information signage about the redevelopment of the former Menangle School of Arts building at 4 Station Street Menangle (I Willis, 2023)

What is happening

The information signage on the site security fence states:

The existing hall is unusable due to significant structural damage and will be deconstructed and materials reused where possible within the new building.

The hall will comfortably accommodate 132-150 guests, incorporating 242m2 of fully enclosed area including  a stage and storage area, spacious hall, kitchenette, box office and entry foyer.

As well as 63m2 of unenclosed covered areas: verandas, covered entry way, courtyard and ramp.

The hall will be fully accessible with suitable access ramps and accessible toilets.

The hall will also be fit out to ensure it is acoustically sound inside and out.

The hall will respect to the existing hall while ensuring it will be fit for purpose into the future.

The Menangle Community Hall project will construct a new state-of-the-art modern building.

Source: Signage, 4 Station Street, Menangle. 2023

The Australian, New South Wales government, South32, and South32 Community Partnership Program fund the hall.

The key milestones in the construction are listed as

  1. January 2023 -Deconstruction and preservation of materials and elements
  2. Feb 2023 – Foundations and construction
  3. Mid 2024 – Opening

The history of the hall

The information signage on the site security fence states:

The Menangle School of Arts hall was constructed c1890 by the Macarthur Onslow family for the use by the local village.

The building was used for funding raising for the Menangle Roman Catholic Church and the Australian Land Army used the hall during World War 11.

The hall was also used for functions, dances, plays and musicals.

It had many modifications over the years including in 1908, 1960 and a major refurbishment in 1984 that saw the flooring, roof, kitchens and bathrooms replaced.

In 1984 the hall was transferred to Wollondilly Council control who commissioned a number of reports in the late 2000s into its structural integrity.

The hall was later closed due to safety concerns.

In 2010, after petitioning the Council, the hall was transferred to the Menangle Community Association to rebuild the hall.

More history on the Menangle School of Arts can be found at Menangle.com.au

Source: Signage, 4 Station Street, Menangle. 2023

Wartime Red Cross fundraisers

Red Cross wartime fundraisers were held in the School of Arts hall during the First World War.

One notable 1917 Red Cross fundraiser was the ‘The Gilbulla Gad-Abouts’ concert. Described in the Camden press as ‘highly successful’ to ‘large audience’ present, which used ‘every inch of seating space’.  (Camden News, 7 June 1917)

In 1917 18-year-old Helen Macarthur Onslow, daughter of Enid Macarthur Onslow, held a Red Cross fundraising concert to smooth over local controversies following the 1916 conscription campaign.

According to historian Ian Willis:

The show attracted a huge crowd of over 400 who ‘travelled long distances’ from all over the district. While the night raised a modest £30, it was a much-needed boost for Red Cross morale. The show included several distinguished performers, including Lady Doris Blackwood, aged 22 years and the niece of Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, the founder of the Australian Red Cross. Doris Blackwood was Lady Helen’s companion when she came out to Australia in 1914 with her husband, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, who took up the post of Governor-General. Helen Macarthur Onslow and Doris Blackwood had formed a friendship on one of Helen’s regular trips to the Camden area. Other members of the concert party included Enid’s other daughter Elizabeth, aged 14 years, and Ethelwyn Downes, aged 25 years, the only daughter of FWA Downes MLA, politician and Camden conservative, from Brownlow Hill at Cobbitty, who had campaigned for the ‘Yes’ vote in the 1916 conscription referendum. The concert was topped off when a necklace, donated by Helen Macarthur Onslow, was won by Mrs McDonald, the wife of Sergeant McDonald, from the Menangle Light Horse Camp.

Source: Ian Willis, Ministering Angels, The Camden District Red Cross 1914-1945 CHS, Camden, 2014, pp.45-46.
One of the members of the 1917 concert party was Lady Doris Blackwood [2nd from left], who is shown in this group photograph with her patron, the wife of the Australian Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson [3rd from left], Lady Helen Munro Ferguson [4th from left]. Lady Helen was president and founder of the Australian branch of the British Red Cross in 1914.
(Personal Papers of Prime Minister Cook, NAA M3614, 3)

Another concert was held in August 1917 for the Red Triangle and Frances Day patriotic appeals, which raised £50. Press reports stated it was standing room only at the ‘highly successful’ show. There were instrumental and vocal solos, recitations, a children’s choir, and tableaux. During intermission, donated vegetables, cakes and ‘fancy work’ were auctioned off by Campbelltown Mayor Moore. At the end of the proceedings, a number of raffles and guessing competitions were drawn. (Camden News, 16 August 1917)

Renovations in 2013

The front view of the Menangle School of Arts at 4 Station Street Menangle in 2012. (I Willis)

The interior of the Menangle School of Arts, 4 Station Street, Menangle, during renovations in 2013 (I Willis)

A commemorative plaque to Menangle identity FV Veness was located on the decorative gates at the entry to the Menangle School of Arts, 4 Station Street, Menangle (I Willis, 2013)

A front view of the Menangle School of Arts, 4 Station Street, Menangle (I Willis, 2013)

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Cultural and heritage tourism adds $6.4 million a year to the local economy  

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Camden Museum and Alan Baker Art Gallery add over $1.7 million annually

New research shows that cultural and heritage tourism is worth around $6.4 million per year to the Camden LGA.

The story of the Camden-Campbelltown train, the locomotive affectionately known as Pansy, generates a considerable amount of nostalgia amongst day-trippers and other visitors to the Camden LGA. The railway engineering heritage still visible across the former train route includes this bridge, railway cuttings and other engineering works. This image shows the train approaching crossing the Nepean River railway bridge in 1910. (SLNSW)

This figure is drawn from data sourced from Destination NSW (2018), which states that the average daily spend of a day tripper was $140 per day. The proportion of day-trippers that constitute cultural and heritage visitors is 9% of all day-tripper visitors.

According to .idCommunity (2023) demographic resources, in 2020-2021, there were 509,000 day-trippers to the Camden LGA per year. Cultural and heritage visitors comprise around 45,000 day-trippers of the total number of day-tripper visitors annually. These day-trippers are worth $6.4 million to the Camden economy.

Within these figures, the volunteer-run Camden Museum is one of the most prominent destinations with around 6000 day-tripper visitors per year, worth around $840,000 to the local economy each year. The Alan Baker Art Gallery has about 6500 day-tripper visitors annually, worth around $910,000 to the local economy annually.

The Alan Baker Art Gallery is located in the former gentleman’s townhouse of Macaria, which is a valuable part of the built heritage of the Camden Heritage Conservation Area. This gallery and the building form part of the John Street heritage precinct, which includes the former police barracks, courthouse and Sarah Tiffan’s cottage and the former CBC Bank. (ABAG, 2023)

What is cultural and heritage tourism?

 Destination NSW (2019) defines cultural and heritage tourism as:

Ted Silberberg explains cultural and heritage tourism as ‘a tool of economic development that achieves economic growth through attracting visitors from outside a host community, who are motivated wholly or in part by interest in the historical, artistic, scientific or lifestyle/heritage offerings of a community, region, group or institution’

Source: Cultural Tourism and Business Opportunities for Museums and Heritage sites, Tourism Management, Ted Silberberg, 1995.
St John’s Church and Cemetery is one of the most important cultural and heritage sites in the Camden LGA. Dating from the 1840s and funded by the Macarthur family of Camden Park, the church dominates the town and the Nepean River floodplain from its ridge-top location. The church is visible from many points around the area. The vistas from Camden Park House and Garden are an integral part of the Cowpastures story and the gentry estates that dominated the area until the town was settled in the 1840s. The church is critical in the area’s sense of place and community identity. (I Willis, 2021)

How important is cultural and heritage tourism?

Destination NSW (2019) quotes research from Tourism Australia that

 ‘rich history and heritage’ was the 4th most important factor for the Domestic market when choosing a holiday destination, and 6th most important for the International market.  

Source: Consumer Demand Project, Tourism Australia, 2018

According to the National Trust of Australia (2018):

Globally, heritage tourism has become one of the largest and fastest growing tourism sectors, with the United Nations World Tourism Organisation estimating that more than 50%[1] of tourists worldwide are now motivated by a desire to experience a country’s culture and heritage[2]

Of all international visitors to Australia in 2017, 43% participated in a cultural activity and 33.9% in a heritage activity. Cultural and heritage segments have grown at 7.5% and 11.2% respectively over the past four years.

Source: 1. Tourism Research Australia, IVS YE September 2017. 2. United Nations World Trade Organisation, 2016 Annual Report

Cultural and Heritage Tourism in Camden

The Camden township is a site rich in heritage and history and a visitor destination with huge potential.

The Camden LGA is an active participant in cultural and heritage tourism with a host of visitor attractions in the and is outlined in the Macarthur Visitors Guide (MVG 2020). The guide is complemented by the Camden Heritage Walking Tour guide (CHWT 2023), the Camden Scenic Drive (CSD 2020) and the Visit Camden Official Visitor Guide (CVIC 2022).

Camden Council is responsible for the most critical cultural and heritage tourism planning instrument. The Camden Heritage Conservation Area, Argyle Street, and John Street precincts are within it. (DCP 2019) The DCP (2019) outlines the conservation area’s character elements, objectives and controls.

Camden Council (2023) provides valuable information on its Heritage Planning webpage and lists all the local heritage items on the local and state heritage inventory (CC 2020).

Storytelling

Within cultural and heritage tourism, storytelling is an essential feature of the visitor experience.

Oliver Serrat (2008) defines storytelling as

The vivid description of ideas, beliefs, personal experiences, and life-lessons through stories or narratives that evoke powerful emotions and insights.

https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/27637/storytelling.pdf

The National Trust of Australia (2018) maintains that storytelling is a new global trend and

found that what encourages a visitor to a certain destination is its ability to engage in unforgettable and truly inspiring experiences that touch visitors in an emotional way and connects them with special places, people and cultures.

Source:  Tropical Tablelands Tourism, Hero Experiences Guidebook (2015)

Camden storyteller Ian Willis (2023a) has written extensively about the local history of the Camden area, with an outstanding example being the Camden History Notes blog. He has published many other articles and stories in newspapers, newsletters, journals and books (2023b).

The outstanding storytelling organisation in the Camden LGA is the Camden Historical Society (CHS 2023a). The society’s activities include the biannual journal Camden History (CHS 2023b), monthly public lectures, and numerous book publications. (CHS 2023c). The Camden Museum archives provide much raw material for local storytelling. (CHS 2023d)

The Camden Museum Library building is one of the many cultural and heritage tourism sites in the Camden LGA. The archives of the Camden Museum provide much of the raw material for Camden storytelling. The museum holds many artefacts that add to local stories and provide a rich experience for museum visitors. The Camden Library occupies the building in John Street Camden and has a rich collection of local interviews and stories on its website. The building is home to the Camden Area Family History Society and its archives. The Camden Museum Library building is part of the rich built heritage of the John Street precinct and is an example of adaptive reuse. (I Willis, 2008)

The Camden Area Family History Society (CAFHS 2023) is a crucial storytelling organisation which draws on raw material from extensive archives and keen volunteer members.

The Back Then feature of The District Reporter provides the most popular storytelling platforms. Here local storytellers include Ian Willis (2023c), John Wrigley, Julie Wrigley and others who tell interesting and exciting local stories about the past in each issue.

The Back Then section of The District Reporter 18 November 2022.

References

CAFHS 2023, Camden Area Family History Society. CAFHS. https://www.cafhs.org.au/

CC 2019, Camden Development Control Plan 2019. Camden Council. https://dcp.camden.nsw.gov.au/

CC 2020, Local and State Heritage Items listed under: State Environment Planning Policy (Sydney Regions Growth Centres)2006, & Camden Local Environment Plan 2010. Camden Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/pdfs/Planning/Heritage-Conservation/Heritage-Items-List-September-2020-v1.pdf

CC 2023, Heritage Planning. Camden Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/strategic-planning/heritage-planning/

CHS 2023a, Camden History. Camden Historical Society. http://www.camdenhistory.org.au/index.html

CHS 2023b, Camden History, the journal of the Camden Historical Society. Camden Historical Society. http://www.camdenhistory.org.au/chsjournal.html

CHS 2023c, Publications For Sale At The Camden Museum. Camden Historical Society. http://www.camdenhistory.org.au/Publications%20for%20Sale%20%2022.5.2018.pdf

CHS 2023d, Camden Museum Archive Catalogue by Category. Camden Historical Society. http://www.camdenhistory.org.au/LibraryJune2008.pdf

CHWT 2023, Camden Heritage Walking Tour. Pamphlet. Camden Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/Uploads/Camden-Heritage-Walking-Tour-2023.pdf

CSD 2020, Camden Scenic Drive. Pamphlet. Camden Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/Tourism/Camden-Scenic-Drive.pdf

DCP 2019, 2.16.4 Camden Heritage Conservation Area. Camden Council. https://dcp.camden.nsw.gov.au/general-land-use-controls/environmental-heritage/camden-heritage-conservation-area/

Destination NSW 2019, Cultural and Heritage Tourism in NSW, Year Ended December 2018. NSW Government, Sydney. https://www.destinationnsw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cultural-and-heritage-tourism-to-nsw-snapshot-ye-de-2018.pdf

Ian Willis 2023a, Camden History Notes, Some Stories of Place. Camden History Notes. https://camdenhistorynotes.com/

Ian Willis 2023b, Ian Willis Historian. Author. https://ianwillis.wordpress.com/

Ian Willis 2023c, Newspaper Articles. Academia.com.  https://independent.academia.edu/IanWillis/Newspaper-Articles

idCommunity 2023, Camden Council area, Tourism visitor summary. Camden Council. https://economy.id.com.au/camden/tourism-visitor-summary

MVG 2020, Macarthur Visitors Guide, Camden & Campbelltown. Camden Council & Campbelltown City Council. https://www.camden.nsw.gov.au/assets/Tourism/Macarthur-Visitors-Guide-2020.pdf

NTA 2018, Next Steps: Australian Heritage Tourism Directions Paper. National Trust, June. https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Australian-Heritage-Tourism-Directions-paper-.pdf

Olivier Serrat 2008, Storytelling. Knowledge Solutions. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/27637/storytelling.pdf

The District Reporter. https://www.tdr.com.au/

Tourism Research Australia 2020, Regional NSW Visitor Profile, Year Ending June 2019. Destination NSW. https://www.destinationnsw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/travel-to-regional-nsw-snapshot-jun-2019.pdf

CVIC 2022, Visit Camden Official Visitor Guide. Camden Visitor Information Centre, Elderslie.

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Red Flanders poppies, a field of memories

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A flower honours the dead

The red Flanders poppy appeared in Camden in recent years when local identity Frances Warner was inspired to crochet them for Anzac Day in 2013. Frances was inspired by the efforts of two Melbourne women, Lyn Berry and Margaret Knight, who had organised the 5000 Poppies Project. They initiated the project to pay tribute to their fathers’ military service in World War Two, triggering a massive community outpouring of emotions, memories, and commemorations. Frances’ efforts were part of this response.

Wreaths with artificial poppies for the 2023 Anzac Day Ceremony in Camden from Camden Florist (CF 2023)

What is the significance of the red Flanders poppy?

The red Flanders poppies were among the first plants to spring up in the battlefields of northern France and Belgium after the war. Soldiers’ folklore said that the vivid red came from the blood of their fallen comrades.

The poppy symbolises many cultural mythologies, from remembrance to sacrifice, dreams, regeneration, and imagination. In Christianity, the red of the poppy symbolises the blood of Christ and his sacrifice on the cross. The Roman poet Virgil used poppies as a metaphor to describe fallen warriors in his epic tale, the Aeneid, written around 25 BC. (https://www.uniguide.com/poppy-flower-meaning-symbolism)

The Anzac Portal website states that Canadian medic John McCrae recalled the red poppies on soldiers’ graves who died on the Western Front and wrote the poem ‘In Flanders Field’. He wrote the poem whilst serving in Ypres in 1915, and it was published in Punch magazine after being rejected by The Spectator. (https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-we-wear-poppies-on-remembrance-day)

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae (1915)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47380/in-flanders-fields

Red poppies growing in the fields at Flanders remind the community of the soldiers’ lives lost in battle during World War One on the Western Front. (2023, Narellan Town Centre)

In response to In Flanders Fields, American humanitarian and teacher Moina Michael was so moved by the poem that she pledged to ‘keep the faith’ and scribbled down on an envelope ‘We Shall Keep The Faith’ in 1918.

We Shall Keep the Faith

by Moina Michael, November 1918

Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet – to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.

Moina Micheal used the poppy symbol to raise funds for US ex-servicemen returning from World War One and was known as ‘The Poppy Lady’.  (http://www.greatwar.co.uk/people/moina-belle-michael.htm)

Australia

In Australia, the Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League of Australia (RSS&ILA) first sold poppies for Armistice Day in 1921. The League imported one million silk poppies made in French orphanages. The RSL continues to sell poppies on Remembrance Day to assist its welfare work. (https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/customs-and-ceremony/poppies)

People place a red poppy next to a soldier’s name on the AWM Roll of Honour ‘as a personal tribute’. This practice began in 1993 at the internment of the Unknown Australian Soldier. (https://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/customs-and-ceremony/poppies)

This image shows poppies on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. (K Alchin, 2021)

United Kingdom

Poppies are used in remembrance all over the world. In the United Kingdom, the white poppy represents an international symbol of remembrance for all casualties of war, civilians and armed forces personnel, and peace.

Artificial poppies were first sold in the UK in 1921 to raise funds for ex-servicemen and their families for the Earl Haig Fund supplied by Anna Guérin in France, who had manufactured them to raise funds for war orphans. It proved so popular that the British Legion started a factory in 1922 staffed by disabled ex-servicemen to produce their own.

The Imperial War Museum website states:

Other charities sell poppies in different colours, each with their own meaning but all to commemorate the losses of war. White poppies, for example, symbolise peace without violence and purple poppies are worn to honour animals killed in conflict.

(https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/why-we-wear-poppies-on-remembrance-day)

 Melbourne’s 5000 Poppies Project

The 5000 Poppies Project started when Lyn Berry and Margaret Knight set out to crochet around 120 poppies to ‘plant’ at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance in 2013 to honour their fathers’ memory. Wal Beasley (14/32nd Battalion – Australian Imperial Forces) and Stan Knight (Queen’s Own West Kent Regiment – British Army). (https://5000poppies.wordpress.com/about/)

 The 5000 Poppy Project has had art installations on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance (2017, 2019) and in Canberra at the Australian War Memorial and Parliament House (2017). The 5000 Poppies Project has gone international with an installation at London’s Chelsea Flower Show in 2016. (ttps://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/rhs-chelsea-flower-show/2016/articles/a-field-of-poppies-at-chelsea)

Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance with the art installation of 5000 Poppies in 2017 (5000 Poppies)

The 5000 Poppies project has become an international tribute of respect and remembrance to those who have served in all wars, conflicts, peacekeeping operations, their families, and communities. (https://5000poppies.wordpress.com/about/ )

Frances Warner’s Red Poppy Project

Frances Warner has crocheted hundreds of red poppies, sold them for fundraising, and co-ordinated art installations with knitted poppies. All commemorating the memory of local men and women who have served our country in times of conflict and peace.

 Frances said that one red poppy takes around 45 minutes to crochet, and she estimates that she has knitted over 650. She has voluntarily contributed approximately 480 hours of her time, and she is not finished yet by a long way.

Frances says she is very ordinary yet has done an extraordinary job. Frances joins a long list of local women who have volunteered thousands of hours to honour the service of local men and women who have served in conflict and peacekeeping.

Knitted poppies made by Frances Warner (F Warner 2023)
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Life Blood, public art at the Australia Botanic Gardens

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Artwork at the Herbarium

On the forecourt of the Herbarium at the Australian Botanic Garden is an artwork celebrating the heritage of Indigenous culture.

Artists Susan Grant, Natalie Valiente and Codie Leed Evans developed artwork installed in 2023 after the conceptualisation and design work. The images were sandblasted into the concrete on the Herbarium forecourt. The work was supported by the New South Wales Government.

The artwork Life Blood has been sandblasted into the concrete forecourt of the Herbarium at the Australian Botanic Gardens, Mount Annan, NSW (I Willis, 2023)

The artwork celebrates the Cumberland Plains Woodland that once covered the Cowpastures. The work directly connects science, the natural world, and the heritage of the local Indigenous peoples, the Dharawal, Darug, and Gundungurra.

The central concept and motif in the artwork is the eucalyptus tree, which becomes the Life Blood of the Indigenous peoples.

The artists were inspired by looking at a eucalyptus tree under a microscope and viewing the veins in the leaves.

In the work’s development stages, the artists held workshops and information sessions seeking input.

The site of the Australian Botanic Garden was a meeting place for the Indigenous peoples and was considered an appropriate location for the artwork.

Susan Grant writes:

We have a spiritual connection whenever we are in the botanical gardens, which  influences our design and artwork, connecting us back to the land.

Reference

Susan Grant and Natalie Valiente 2023, ‘Artwork ‘Life Blood’ at The Australian Botanic Gardens’. Camden History, the Journal of the Camden Historical Society, Vol. 5 no. 5, March, pp. 225-233.

Youtube: Life Blood

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Blue Plaque recognises Camden Red Cross sewing circle in wartime

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Camden Red Cross sewing circles during the First and Second World Wars

The wartime efforts of Camden women have been officially recognised for the first time by the successful nomination for a New South Wales Blue Plaque with Heritage NSW. Camden Red Cross women volunteers thousands of hours of their time and skill to provide requisites for military hospitals for wounded Australian soldiers.

The announcement appeared in the Sydney press with 17 other successful nominations for a Blue Plaque across the state. They include notable people and events in their local area.

The Blue Plaque on the front of the former Camden Town Hall. The plaque celebrates and remembers the service of the Camden Red Cross sewing circles women who donated thousands of hours of their effort and skills to supply hospital requisites for the soldiers and military hospitals in the First and Second World Wars. (I Willis, 2023)

What is being recognised?

The Blue Plaque officially recognised for the first time the Camden Red Cross patriotic wartime sewing circles at the Camden School of Arts (later the Camden Town Hall, now the Camden Library) – 1914-1918, 1940-1946. This is the only recognition of this type of Red Cross wartime activity anywhere in Australia.

The Sidman women volunteer their time and effort during the First World War for the Camden Red Cross. Patriotic fundraising supporting the war at home was significant, raising thousands of pounds. This type of effort was quite in all communities across Australia and the rest of the British Empire. (Camden Images and Camden Museum)

The story of the Camden Red Cross sewing circles

The Camden Red Cross sewing circles were one of Camden women’s most important voluntary patriotic activities during World War One and World War Two. The sewing circles started at the Camden School of Arts in 1914 and, due to lack of space, moved to the Foresters’ Hall on Argyle Street in 1918. At the outbreak of the Second World War, sewing circles reconvened in 1940 at the Camden Town Hall on John Street (the old School of Arts building – the same site as the First World War)

These sewing circles were workshops where Camden women volunteered and manufactured supplies for Australian military hospitals, field hospitals and casualty clearing stations. They were held weekly on Tuesdays, sale days in the Camden district.

Sewing circles were ‘quasi-industrial production lines’ where Camden women implemented their domestic skills to aid the war at home. Camden women cut out, assembled, and sewed together hospital supplies, including flannel shirts, bed shirts, pyjamas, slippers, underpants, feather pillows, bed linen, handkerchiefs, and kit bags. The workshops were lent several sewing machines in both wars.

The sewing circles also coordinated knitting and spinning for bed socks, stump socks, mufflers, balaclava caps, mittens, and cholera belts (body binders). The women also made ‘hussifs’ or sewing kits for the soldiers.  The sewing circles attracted 80-100 women weekly during the First World War. The list of items was strikingly consistent for hospital supplies for both wars, with the only significant addition during the Second World War being the knitted pullovers and cardigans.

The production output of the Camden women was prodigious. Between 1914 and 1918, Camden Red Cross sewing circle women made over 20,300 articles tallied to over 40,000 volunteer hours.  Between 1940 and 1946, during World War Two, women made over 25,000 articles, totalling over 45,000 voluntary hours.

The operation of the sewing circles was fully funded through the fundraising of Camden Red Cross and community donations.  In 1917 alone, over 95% of branch fundraising was dedicated to these activities.

In World War One, other Red Cross sewing circles in the Camden district were at The Oaks, Camden Park, Theresa Park, and Middle Burragorang. During World War Two, other centres across the local area included Bringelly-Rossmore, Menangle, Narellan, and The Oaks. Each group independently funded its activities.

These patriotic voluntary activities by Camden women were part of the war at home and have received little recognition at a local, state or national level. Wartime sewing and knitting have been kept in the shadows for too long. There needs to be a public acknowledgement of the patriotic effort of these women.

The placement of the plaque

The Blue Plaque was installed on the front of the Camden Library building in 2022 at 40 John Street Camden. This building was formerly the Camden Town Hall and the Camden School of Arts. The women of the Camden Red Cross used the town hall as the centre of their sewing effort in the First and Second World Wars to supply hospital requisites for soldiers and military hospitals. (I Willis, 2023)

The Blue Plaque was placed on the front of the former Camden School of Arts – later called the Camden Town Hall (1939-1945),then converted to offices in 1964 and now the Camden Library.

Camden School of Arts from 1866 to 1963 (PReeves/Camden Images)

Camden Museum Library building in John Street Camden, where the Blue Plaque will be located, recognising the efforts of the Camden Red Cross sewing circles in both World War One and World War Two. (I Willis, 2008)

Official recognition is long overdue

The official recognition of the wartime effort and skills of Camden women using their domestic arts and crafts in the patriotic service of Australia has taken over 75 years. This small acknowledgement of the wartime service of the Camden Red tells the story of ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances and has been long overdue.

Acknowledgement by the Member for Camden Peter Sidgreaves MP

This is an article from the newsletter from Peter Sidgreaves MP Member for Camden, where he has given official acknowledgement of the wartime patriotic service of Camden Red Cross women (Newsletter November 2022, Issue 14)

What is a Blue Plaque?

The Heritage NSW website states:

The Blue Plaques program aims to capture public interest and fascination in people, events and places that are important to the stories of NSW.

The Blue Plaques program celebrates NSW heritage by recognising noteworthy people and events from our state’s history.

The aim of the program is to encourage people to explore their neighbourhood and other parts of NSW and connect with people of the past, historical moments and rich stories that matter to communities and have shaped our state.

The program is inspired by the famous London Blue Plaques program run by English Heritage which originally started in 1866, and similar programs around the world.

“Behind every plaque, there is a story.”

The essence of the Blue Plaques program is the storytelling. A digital story will be linked to each plaque.

The Blue Plaques should tell stories that are interesting, fun, quirky along with more sombre stories that should be not be forgotten as part of our history.

English Heritage and Blue Plaques in the United Kingdom

The New South Wales Blue Plaques were based on the English model, and the English Heritage website states:

London’s blue plaques scheme, run by English Heritage, celebrates the links between notable figures of the past and the buildings in which they lived and worked. Founded in 1866, it has inspired many similar schemes in the UK and around the world.

Camden Red Cross Blue Plaque installation

Dr Ian Willis organised the paperwork through the office of the local Member for Camden Peter Sidgreaves MP, for the installation of the Blue Plaque. The competitive process meant only around 17 sites were chosen for plaques from around 70 applications across New South Wales for this round. The installation occurred on 14 October 2022. (I Willis, 2022)

Reference

Ian Willis, Ministering Angels, The Camden District Red Cross 1914-1945. Camden Historical Society, Camden, 2014.

Updated 24 April 2023. Originally posted 18 April 2022.