tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30056684313842292682024-03-14T13:20:12.222+11:00New England's HistoryDiscussions on the history and historiography of Australia's New EnglandJim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger778125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-43675625448470415802023-11-07T16:22:00.003+11:002023-11-07T16:22:56.019+11:00Introducing the Museum of Stone Tools - an invaluable resource<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9XeNBTWLRpxXjAp1pa-uaVUdVfCIeQ85pXKSjvkcAMIZrQtNO21rMyIW-_Rz4W7ygFIGtjhlc5gIHpQaepNKiV1mWBeF7xfPq7JuiLW6F7Snt6dgxOX-bGg4Z-1L8RzBLlhvJK3h_6DKFgDJ3-7KU5oIsgbDwXH1-2KfGZ7DU_zMAk3UAYZMVr99ZYQ/s1800/Seeland%20uniface%20pebble%20chopper%20tools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1166" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL9XeNBTWLRpxXjAp1pa-uaVUdVfCIeQ85pXKSjvkcAMIZrQtNO21rMyIW-_Rz4W7ygFIGtjhlc5gIHpQaepNKiV1mWBeF7xfPq7JuiLW6F7Snt6dgxOX-bGg4Z-1L8RzBLlhvJK3h_6DKFgDJ3-7KU5oIsgbDwXH1-2KfGZ7DU_zMAk3UAYZMVr99ZYQ/w259-h400/Seeland%20uniface%20pebble%20chopper%20tools.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><p></p><p>One of the challenges in teaching the history of Australia's New England over such a long period lies in the sheer range of topics and disciplines that need to be included. One example is the stone artifacts that formed key elements in Aboriginal toolkits. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Uniface pebble chopper tools from the Seeland's dig, Clarence Valley</i></p><p>From these surviving physical manifestations we can deduce something about the changing patterns of life over time, about the relationship between the Aborigines and their environments, about trade and the relationships between Aboriginal groups.</p><p>I started with some base knowledge in this area. Back in the 1960s I was a student member of Isabel McBryde’s pioneering UNE prehistory group. My second paying job during University vacations was as a research assistant for Isabel sorting, classifying and recording stone tools. However, in 2020 when I came integrate Aboriginal tools into my story of Aboriginal New England to 1788, part of my broader course on New England’s history to 1788, the gaps in my knowledge quickly became clear. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5w6YeiB320WDijJPyjWNb0Z3qRsVUdmxry-TpFsYBa8vbPx9iYeWfY_8nDWpdI0NT6ZY4qF07TeC-khzkZJANoPlEmvqROALCL4NSqS73SLZs3zuDPenZ5CMT0DGKEp00grrXSkhAJnr2nTgQn_FIoa9u6k_bx7Gx_ThmbIpftb5q855v9sFPCJ5DkQ/s500/Professor-Mark-Moore-copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="500" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5w6YeiB320WDijJPyjWNb0Z3qRsVUdmxry-TpFsYBa8vbPx9iYeWfY_8nDWpdI0NT6ZY4qF07TeC-khzkZJANoPlEmvqROALCL4NSqS73SLZs3zuDPenZ5CMT0DGKEp00grrXSkhAJnr2nTgQn_FIoa9u6k_bx7Gx_ThmbIpftb5q855v9sFPCJ5DkQ/s320/Professor-Mark-Moore-copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The 2020 course was badly affected by the covid epidemic. However, one plus of the epidemic and its shutdowns is that it led UNE’s Professor Mark Moore to begin the development of the on-line <a href="https://stonetoolsmuseum.com/" target="_blank">Museum of Stone Tools</a>. Mark is one of Australia’s leading archaeologists and an expert in stone flaking techniques. <p></p><p><i>Professor Mark Moore</i></p><p>The resulting museum provides examples of various stone tools from across the world supported by explanatory material. Central to it are 3D models that allow you to play with various implements rotating them as required. The overall analysis is simple and accessible designed for people of all ages. You do not need specialist knowledge to understand. </p><p>I hope to run my course again in the second half of next year. I think that the museum will prove a real blessing. In the meantime, do have <a href="https://stonetoolsmuseum.com/" target="_blank">a browse.</a></p><div><br /></div>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-27953353429966352872022-10-10T05:54:00.002+11:002022-10-10T05:55:06.106+11:00The impact of periodic drought on Aboriginal life and history - a note<p>Interesting piece in The Conversation (6 October) by Kathryn Allen, Alison O'Donnell, Benjamin I. Cook, Jonathan Palmer and Pauline Grierson, <a href="https://theconversation.com/megadroughts-helped-topple-ancient-empires-weve-found-their-traces-in-australias-past-and-expect-more-to-come-191770" target="_blank">"Megadroughts helped topple ancient empires. We’ve found their traces in Australia’s past, and expect more to come"</a>. The article includes a link to a 2016 paper that I had not seen that attempts to construct a 1013 year rainfall chart for the Williams River in the Hunter Valley - Carly R. Tozer, Tessa R. Vance, Jason L. Roberts, Anthony S. Kiem, Mark A. J. Curran and Andrew D. Moy, <a href="https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/20/1703/2016/hess-20-1703-2016.pdf" target="_blank">"An ice core derived 1013-year catchment-scale annual rainfall reconstruction in subtropical eastern Australia"</a>, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 20, 1703–1717, 2016, www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/20/1703/2016/ doi:10.5194/hess-20-1703-2016.</p><p>Attempts to reconstruct Aboriginal history over the long period of human occupation of Sahul then the later Australian continent including my own for the broader New England tend to focus on broader trends such as the impact of the Last Glacial Maximum and the subsequent emergence of the Holocene. While this is inevitable, it is easy to ignore the significant impact on Aboriginal life of major changes within periods including long mega droughts and subsequent wet periods. </p><p>If we take the Murray River as an example, I'm working from memory here, Mulvaney notes the evidence of periodic malnutrition in skeletal remains. Here we have relatively small territories with substantial populations dependent upon drought exposed riverine resources. On New England's western slopes and plains the pattern of life seems clearly affected by periodic droughts. </p><p>I haven't worked all this through. For the moment, this is just a note for further thought. </p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-60600798724050322162022-10-04T15:28:00.007+11:002022-10-04T15:30:21.385+11:00Taree's first eisteddfod, 1913 <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoeJIc3d8wZtcgZOW9kE9Ee7Pfgjoy0FCqYDuwNzqnNC6UPMw7z-JNDZpIoZZc3mpMISgS1eSXvp0RkrBoKgAMYrks2uoybG7ALoXBe9f-KVwZ3htwqSq54onWJsvO3LkdGh9V1skCZ1YgU4pz9tSTwawhzfwS8giYkLdSD40Av3MN5JjDq0kAUTcp/s862/The%20Kurri%20Kurri%20choir%20won%20the%20chief%20choral%20event,%201913%20Taree%20eisteddfod.webp" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="862" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoeJIc3d8wZtcgZOW9kE9Ee7Pfgjoy0FCqYDuwNzqnNC6UPMw7z-JNDZpIoZZc3mpMISgS1eSXvp0RkrBoKgAMYrks2uoybG7ALoXBe9f-KVwZ3htwqSq54onWJsvO3LkdGh9V1skCZ1YgU4pz9tSTwawhzfwS8giYkLdSD40Av3MN5JjDq0kAUTcp/w400-h225/The%20Kurri%20Kurri%20choir%20won%20the%20chief%20choral%20event,%201913%20Taree%20eisteddfod.webp" width="400" /></a></div>The Kurri Kurri choir who won the chief choral contest at the 1913 Taree eisteddfod (Photo <a href="https://midcoaststories.com/" target="_blank">MidCoast Stories</a> via the ABC)<br />Interesting piece by the ABC's Emma Siossian, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-03/taree-first-eisteddfod-1913-researcher-looks-back-historic-event/101494482" target="_blank">Taree's first eisteddfod in 1913 was an impressive feat of logistics and planning</a>.<p></p><p>As Heritage website MidCoast Stories co-founder Penny Teerman noted, music festivals were popular in the early 20th century. In 1912, a limited but successful festival was held in Taree. This provided the impetus the following year for the formation of the Manning River Musical Festival Society - Penny calls it the Taree Musical Society but <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/category/newspapers?keyword=Manning%20River%20Musical%20Festival%20Society" target="_blank">Trove searches</a> suggest that it had a broader title - to put on a larger event with multiple activities. This was a considerable success with multiple performers and a large number of spectators. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyqmV72vZLHAlrYKUsV9aXj27hkgBX8XUsYwsy5PAE9kuUVydLsPN-FGA-cA8qbEu29Us-VLv11-6_s-KgBSNpN_LqvyFGSnyNTSzOZioo-Pa5wvaTr2yOa_IJcarbtTupbcEVukl3OYYe2ZQ44eGD_JqawPB_2WlmAzlGc0IuMTUGhf1cFpxnrXn-/s862/The%20Leichhardt%20Boy's%20Choir%20performed%20in%20Taree%20during%201913%20ABC%20Via%20supplied%20MidCoast%20Stories.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="862" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyqmV72vZLHAlrYKUsV9aXj27hkgBX8XUsYwsy5PAE9kuUVydLsPN-FGA-cA8qbEu29Us-VLv11-6_s-KgBSNpN_LqvyFGSnyNTSzOZioo-Pa5wvaTr2yOa_IJcarbtTupbcEVukl3OYYe2ZQ44eGD_JqawPB_2WlmAzlGc0IuMTUGhf1cFpxnrXn-/w400-h266/The%20Leichhardt%20Boy's%20Choir%20performed%20in%20Taree%20during%201913%20ABC%20Via%20supplied%20MidCoast%20Stories.webp" width="400" /></a></div>The Leichhardt Boy's Choir performed in Taree during 1913..(Photo MidCoast Stories via ABC)<p></p><p>I will leave you to read the story but wanted to make a few comments from my perspective as an historian of the broader New England. </p><p style="text-align: left;"></p>I was not sure about the use of the word eisteddfod. I think that the first named eisteddfod was put on in Ballarat in 1855 by Welsh miners attracted to the new gold fields, but widespread use of the name as opposed to musical festivals came later. I checked Trove, and the name eisteddfod was indeed used<br /><br /><div>Transport difficulties limited the scope of major events. On the North Coast where river transport was possible, events would draw along river routes. As the railways spread, they provided a means of drawing in a broader audience or group of participants. The 1913 Taree eisteddfod followed the opening of the railway. Participation still focused on surrounding areas but broader participation was possible, We can see this in 1913: participants came from regional areas linked by the railway but participation from the more distant Leichardt Boys Choir was also possible if more expensive<br /><br /></div><div>I noted the Kurri Kurri Choir. Music was an important form of shared entertainment on the coal fields. The number of attendees at band performances is a sign of just how popular local band music was. <p></p></div>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-37458384548406984582022-08-30T17:01:00.000+10:002022-08-30T17:01:06.058+10:00New DNA studies provide new light on the mixing of people in the classical world<p> Interesting piece by Andrew Curry in Science, <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/phenomenal-ancient-dna-data-set-provides-clues-origin-farming-early-languages?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyLatestNews&utm_content=alert&et_rid=343532817&et_cid=4371647" target="_blank">"‘Phenomenal’ ancient DNA data set provides clues to origin of farming and early languages: Trio of studies suggests new homeland for earliest Indo-European speakers and traces movements of ancient Greeks, Imperial Romans"</a>. The story includes links to related stories. </p><p>I'm not quite sure how to interpret the material, but it does show (again!) how genomics is throwing new light on evidence revealed via the archaeological record. </p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-3732600387820216202022-01-21T17:41:00.002+11:002022-01-21T17:42:23.997+11:00Callum Clayton-Dixon’s Surviving New England<p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">As my first post for the new year, I am publishing the book review originally published in the <i>Armidale and District Historical Society Journal</i> in October last year. I am publishing it here because the Journal is not on-line. Callum's book deals with the frontier warfare period on the New England Tablelands. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">I think that's it's an important book written from an Aboriginal perspective focused on the Aborigines as people with agency. These stories need to be told at regional level. If we examine Callum's work with other studies such as Mark Dunn's <i>Convict Valley</i> we have a much better chance of building a coherent story that includes inter-regional interactions. I wish someone would do a similar study of the North Coast. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Book Review: Callum Clayton-Dixon’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Surviving New England</i></span></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Callum Clayton-Dixon’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Surviving New England: A history of Aboriginal resistance and
resilience through the first forty years of the colonial apocalypse</i><a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> is
an important book, although some find it discomforting. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Clearly and simply written, the book
discuses<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the impact of European
occupation on the life of the Aboriginal peoples living on Australia’s New
England Tablelands from the 1830s into the 1860s. In doing so, it focuses on
the Aboriginal experience in a particular area at a critical point in time. </span></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">Background: the importance of regional studies</span></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">W<span style="font-family: inherit;">e sometimes talk of the “Australian
Aborigines” as though they were and are a single entity. We know that this is
not true, but the habit lingers, affecting the way we approach both policy
development and historical analysis. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We now know that the Aboriginal and Papuan
ancestors arrived on the mega-continent we now call Sahul perhaps 65,000 years
ago. This was the Pleistocene, a geological epoch marked by recurrent ice ages
during which sea levels fell and rose as the ice advanced and retreated. With
lower sea levels, Papua-New Guinea, the current Australian continent, Tasmania
and much of the continental shelf were joined in a single great continent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By 42,000 to 40,000 years ago, all of Sahul
from the Papuan Islands in the north to Tasmania in the south had been at least
lightly occupied. Around 21,000 years ago a cold and desolate period known as
the Last Glacial Maximum began. Sea levels fell to perhaps 130 metres below
present levels, temperatures fell dramatically on land and in the sea,
rainfalls declined sharply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This forced
the Aboriginal ancestors to retreat and regroup and may have threatened the very
existence of human occupation of Sahul. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Around 15,000 years ago a warmer period
known as the Holocene began, As the glaciers melted, the seas rushed back
separating Papua and Tasmania from the Sahul mainland, submerging large areas
of the continental shelf. This period is recorded in Aboriginal folk lore
referencing great floods. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By 1788, a complex Aboriginal society had
emerged across the new Australian continent. This society was not uniform, but
varied from area to area in culture and relationships with the landscape. This
society would now be torn apart, a process that varied across space and time
depending on the spread of European settlement, local conditions and the
policies of the emerging colonial jurisdictions. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I make these points because a proper
understanding of our history and especially Aboriginal history requires a focus
on local and regional experiences. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As I read Callum’s book, I thought just how
well it fitted into the New England historiography tradition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Both the Armidale Teachers’ College (later
the Armidale College of Advanced Education) and the New England University
College (now the University of New England, UNE) were founded in part to study
and preserve the history and culture of Northern NSW, the North. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When Isabel McBryde came to Armidale in
1960, she was the first tenured Australian university staff member to have the
word prehistory in her title. The students she recruited to study the
ethnography and prehistory of the broader New England would form the first
archaeology and prehistory honours class in Australia, </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From the beginning and under the influence
of her mentor John Mulvaney, Isabel focused on the creation of a regional
historical sequence. She and John believed that the variety in Aboriginal
culture and society meant that you could not understand the history without a
focus on regional studies. In parallel, the English Department’s Bill Hoddinott
began the documentation of Aboriginal languages within Northern NSW. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1962, Robin Walker published an article
discussing the relations between Aborigines and settlers in New England
1818-1910.<a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1966, two years before W E H Stanner
coined the phrase the Great Australian Silence to describe the absence of
Aboriginal history in Australian history, Walker published <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Old New England</i>, a history of the Northern Tablelands from 1818 to
1900.<a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> While
Walker focused on the settler experience, the book begins with an outline of
Aboriginal life prior to European occupation. Later, it explicitly recognises
the existence of frontier warfare including massacres and retaliatory killings
and the damage done to Aboriginal society as a consequence of disease and
disruption. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB">In 1981, Geoff Blomfield published the
first edition of </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Baal Belbora: The End of the Dancing<a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[iv]</span></b></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">a study of warfare,
massacres and frontier violence in the Falls’ country of Southern New England. </span></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">Callum’s Perspective </span></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These few examples suggest the importance
of regional studies, as well as showing early recognition of both frontier
warfare and the impact of European occupation on Aboriginal society. However,
they were all written by non-Aboriginal people.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Callum writes from an Aboriginal
perspective. His focus is more personal, more political. It centres on the
Aborigines as people with agency, people who responded to invasion by fighting
back against overwhelming odds. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a very different perspective from
the sometimes simple minded focus on the Aborigines as victims. To Callum, his
ancestors were warriors who in the end survived. In writing, he seeks to instil
pride in an often oppressed group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Callum’s position is clearly set out the
book’s Introduction. It begins with his discovery of his Aboriginal ancestry,
of his return to the country of his ancestors, of his attempt to discover and
reconnect with country. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Callum writes from a particular
post-colonial mental structure. As Callum discovered his own past, he became
involved with groups such as the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance who were
determined to tear down the mental, social and legal barriers that prevented
proper recognition and reconstruction, the reinstatement of the rights of all
the Aboriginal peoples. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Callum’s position is not limited to
Australia’s Aboriginal peoples, but indigenous peoples everywhere. To his mind,
justice demands the deconstruction of structures created by colonialism and
their replacement by new structures that properly recognise indigenous
ownership and rights. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This approach could leave him open to the
charge that his book is a polemic, a political statement, rather than a piece
of historical research. That would be unjust. This is good history. I say this
for several reasons. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">All historians write from particular
perspectives. This affects the questions they ask and evidence selected. Often,
these positions have to be inferred. By contrast, Callum tells us where he is
coming from. We can therefore make our own judgements on approach and evidence
presented. Here Callum has been careful to document his evidence, allowing us
to follow up, to check his sources and again form our own views. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A mark of good history is the extent to
which it provides insights that allow us to see patterns, to develop new ideas.
Callum’s book passes this test. </span></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB">Setting the Scene</span></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Having outlined his personal position,
Callum discusses key questions that set a framework for the following story of
resistance. What was the Aboriginal population of the Tablelands at the time of
British occupation? How rapidly did occupation proceed? What was the impact of
British occupation on the Aboriginal peoples and population?</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
I made the first estimates of the distribution of Aboriginal populations across
Northern NSW, I worked (as Callum does) from settler and official records.<a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> In
doing so, I was unaware of the impact of diseases such as smallpox, influenza,
measles and venereal infections that spread far beyond the moving frontier.
This affected population size directly through deaths and then through reduced
fertility rates within surviving populations. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Taking this into account, Callum estimates
the Tablelands’ population as between 1,100 and 1,200 people. Accepting that
the Tablelands were not as productive in Aboriginal terms as the coast and
western slopes and immediate plains, I suspect that this is an underestimate. I
say this because the number of recorded languages and their supporting
dialects, the number of recorded Aboriginal groups, is quite high. A simple
division of these numbers into the population estimates gives figures too small
to be viable units in demographic terms. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps wisely given the population
uncertainties, Callum does not attempt to scope the number of warriors (men of
fighting age) at the time of European occupation. This is an important issue
because it helps scope the scale of the conflict that followed. If we exclude
women, children and older men, a population of 1,200 suggests perhaps 400
warriors spread across multiple local groups. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Using graphs, Callum charts the rapid
growth of the settler population across the New England Tablelands from 1830 to
1850. European occupation began in the early 1830s with the squatters coming in
two streams, one inland from the Hunter, the second from Port Macquarie where
Archibald Clunes Innes had established his headquarters. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This expansion was driven by demand for the
wool required to feed the growing British textile industry. It was also driven
by a speculative fever as the new settlers sought to build their fortunes. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The New England Tablelands may have been a
relatively poor territory in Aboriginal terms, but it was well suited to wool
growing. The result was a settlement explosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the time Crown Lands Commissioner Macdonald established his
headquarters in 1839 at the place now called Armidale, much of the New England
was at least lightly occupied. By 1841, the European population had reached
1,115, rising to 2,231 in 1846. The Aborigines were now in a minority. The
effect is more pronounced still if we consider the male population, for in this
period there were few women in the European population. This meant that the number
of European men of what we might call military age outnumbered the number of
Aboriginal warriors well before the European population outnumbered the
Aboriginal population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Patterns of Aboriginal Resistance</span></span></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">European expansion had devastating effects
on Aboriginal traditional life. Beyond the effects of disease, beyond losses in
frontier warfare, came the effects associated with destruction of habitat as
the Aboriginal peoples were denied access to the traditional lands, forced to
retreat to marginal areas. Callum calls this process ecocide, the sometimes
deliberate destruction of the economy and environment on which a people depends
for their survival. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Callum explores the Aboriginal response in
a number of chapters plus an appendix that lists all the examples of frontier
violence that he has found from the records as well as Aboriginal memories,
some 41 items in all. Unlike the University of Newcastle’s Colonial massacres
project which focuses on specifically defined massacres<a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>,
Callum’s focus on the Aboriginal response means that he is as interested in all
types of Aboriginal response against the European invasion. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I think that this is very important in
opening new areas of historical analysis, although I think that there are
weaknesses in Callum’s analysis, areas that he does not address. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This may sound like a criticism. It is not.
Callum has proven his basic point, that the Aboriginal peoples were people with
agency who fought back. He has opened new ground for historical research, new
questions and structures that I find interesting. He and we can build on his
research to tell new stories. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To extend my argument, using Callum’s
structure we can think of the Aboriginal response in terms of three phases,
sometimes uneasy co-existence, resistance and then survival. We can also think
of this in terms of the structure of Aboriginal society, the structure of
European colonial society and the way the two played out in the pattern of
frontier life. We can also think of this in regional and local terms. Here we can
learn much from other regional studies such as Mark Dunn’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Convict Valley</i>, the story of early European settlement on the
Hunter<a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">[vii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.These
regional studies allow us to learn much about different patterns over space and
time, but also allow us to see interconnections between different areas.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you look at the patterns of early
Aboriginal resistance, they included attacks on isolated individuals with
attacks on stock. The Aborigines were selective in such attacks, focusing on
individuals who had done them wrong. As resistance gathered strength, you had
large scale attacks on people and stock.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In both the Hunter and on the New England,
the European response forced Aboriginal groups to the more remote and rugged
country where horses could not easily penetrate. There different Aboriginal
groups came together to mount larger scale attacks on people and stock. On the
New England, for example, growing European settlement on the coast seems to
have forced coastal Aborigines to the west where they joined with Tablelands’
groups including traditional enemies to mount large scale attacks. The patterns
created last to this day. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The exact patterns including regional
linkages are poorly understood. As Callum notes, he had to develop his
synthesis from a variety of often fragmented early settler and official
records, records written from the other side of the conflict. </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Reading Callum’s work in conjunction with
other studies such as Mark’s. I thought that there that there is so much more
that we might say. We will never know of course, we have to infer so much, but
Callum’s work gives us another block to build from. </span></span></p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Publication
Details:</span></b></h4>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jim Belshaw, “Book Review: Surviving New
England”, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Armidale and District
Historical Society Journal and Proceedings,</i> No 64, October 2021, pp 102-106</span></span></p>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;"><!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Callum Clayton-Dixson, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Surviving New England</i>, </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Aniawan Language Revival
Program, Armidale 2019. Reprinted NEWARA Aboriginal Corporation, Armidale 2020<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> R B Walker,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘The Relations between Aborigines and
Settlers in New England 1818-1900, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Armidale
and District Historical Society Journal</i>, 4, 1962 pp1-18</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> R B Walker<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old
New England: A history of the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales 1818-1900</i>,
Sydney University Press, 1966</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> Geoff </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Blomfield,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Baal
Belbora: The End of the Dancing</i>, Apcol, 1981<o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> Jim Belshaw, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Economic Basis of Aboriginal Life in
Northern New South Wales in the Nineteenth Century</i>, BA Hons thesis,
University of New England, 1966; J Belshaw, ‘Population distribution and the
pattern of seasonal movement in northern New South Wales’, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Records of Times Past</i>, I McBryde (ed.).
Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra: 1978, pp.65-81</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn6" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Colonial Frontier Massacres in Australia, 1788-1930</i>, University of
Newcastle, <a href="https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/">https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/</a>
</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<p class="MsoEndnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/JIM/Documents/Belshaw%20Writing/History/Review%20Surviving%20New%20England%20with%20endnotes.docx#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU;">[vii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> Mark Dunn The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Convict Valley The bloody struggle on Australia's
early frontier </i>Allen & Unwin June 2020</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div>
</div><br /><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-43914327938683395912021-12-04T15:57:00.001+11:002021-12-26T16:04:57.908+11:00The fall of Archibald Clunes Innes <p>In 1840, Port
Macquarie’s Archibald Clunes Innes was at the height of his wealth and power
with stores, pastoral runs and real estate holdings on the coast and across the
New England. Now he faced economic storms of cyclonic proportions. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Opposition to
transportation had been rising, driven in part by the growing number of free
workers especially in Sydney who saw the convicts as an economic threat, in
part by those who believed that continued transportation was incompatible with
the development of a free colony.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0EQO70qKgZ-bwLK7OpudL9Uvd_R0d_3YE9yGvQKo20M-s3drxJOUx6V04aiDwgmtmzDEdgdrtzsom-fbDHMkh0jAFRDXEvjmgecPoC6PhodnGl1TuKzqeb7IYIj08jjMSawez-gW4ACAa6oyxC31bRjxRBWG1deMHWaeksN7EVv2Av26TDkV281u_=s1280" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0EQO70qKgZ-bwLK7OpudL9Uvd_R0d_3YE9yGvQKo20M-s3drxJOUx6V04aiDwgmtmzDEdgdrtzsom-fbDHMkh0jAFRDXEvjmgecPoC6PhodnGl1TuKzqeb7IYIj08jjMSawez-gW4ACAa6oyxC31bRjxRBWG1deMHWaeksN7EVv2Av26TDkV281u_=w640-h480" width="640" /></a></div><br /><blockquote><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Aberglasslyn House outside Maitland is an example of the rise and falls associated with the crash of the early 1840s. This monumental Georgian pile designed by architect John Verge for George Hobler, remained unfinished following Hoblers insolvency in the crash.</span></b></blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In face of protests,
transportation to NSW was suspended in 1840. Innes had built his wealth in part
on access to convict labour to service his growing empire. Now he and other
squatters faced labour shortages together with rising wage costs, leading to a
search for new workers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Later in the decade,
this would bring the first Chinese and German workers to New England, but the
initial effects were severe. However, these were the least of Innes’s problems.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the 1820s and 1830s
NSW experienced a sustained economic boom.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">High wool prices
fueled pastoral expansion which in turn inflated stock prices. The previously
small European population grew from 7,040 in 1807 to 28,024 in 1820, to over
44,000 in 1830, passing 127,000 in 1847, inflating real estate prices. Land
sales inflated Government revenues that were used in part to fund immigration.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Growth required
capital drawn heavily from English investors and the London capital market,
fueling the growing boom. Fortunes were being made from speculation in stock
and real estate, fortunes invested in further speculation and in the
construction of the first grand homes including Lake Innes House. Now all this
came to a shuddering halt. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>In 1837, a speculation
fueled US boom part fueled by English capital crashed. This led to a financial
crisis in England in 1839, drying up the capital that had been fueling the NSW
boom.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Wool prices dropped
sharply as did live stock prices, a fall accentuated by the ending of the rapid
pastoral expansion that had driven up prices as stock was purchased to stock
the new runs. Government revenues from land sales fell sharply, creating a
Government financial crisis.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The end result was a
rolling series of bankruptcies among those who most exposed to the boom
including that of <span lang="EN-GB">merchant, pastoralist and steamship
owner</span> Joseph Grose in 1844. Grose’s
spread of interests made him a considerable figure in the early colonial history
of Northern NSW’</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Innes could not escape
the turmoil. Initially he seems to have refinanced his operations using family
money. But then, in 1843, the collapse of a large Sydney based pastoral house
led to the collapse of a major local bank that would finally force Innes into
bankruptcy. An era had ended.</p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-5712409223368350712021-11-20T15:16:00.001+11:002021-12-26T15:28:59.812+11:00Archibald Clunes Innes, a major figure in New England's early colonial history, reflects the the rise and fall of Port Macquarie <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfIQOmQkws0eEbEDfIjmDLFFcpmCBvbl6KVdoTdIcxLkHkXIx1aXjI9KEoTVaBJna3B26HCcWt3SDQiFUUkC52spnuV94k_BkTXkNEewKdgP9943zOHm2Exwn7H6pPJp3ADYzsBpIa4VCdlLIltWJIBMk_Cmj5JRsWQtGdgKauDZdRAjPFoHBW9-RQ=s1200" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="1200" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfIQOmQkws0eEbEDfIjmDLFFcpmCBvbl6KVdoTdIcxLkHkXIx1aXjI9KEoTVaBJna3B26HCcWt3SDQiFUUkC52spnuV94k_BkTXkNEewKdgP9943zOHm2Exwn7H6pPJp3ADYzsBpIa4VCdlLIltWJIBMk_Cmj5JRsWQtGdgKauDZdRAjPFoHBW9-RQ=w640-h346" width="640" /></a></div><br /><blockquote><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Lake Innes House, Port Macquarie, 1839, where Archibald Clunes Innes entertained in lavish style.</span></b></blockquote><p></p><p>The rise and subsequent decline of Port Macquarie from the centre of British civilization in the North to quiet backwater is captured in the rise and fall of one man, Archibald Clunes Innes. His story tells us much about New England’s early colonial history. </p><p>Innes (1800-1857) was born at Thrumster, Scotland, the son of Major James Innes, a distinguished soldier. At thirteen, he joined the army as an ensign, serving in the Peninsular War against Napoleon. </p><p>Innes arrived in Sydney in 1822 as captain of the guard in the convict ship Eliza. There he quickly moved up the colonial hierarchy, including six months as commandant of the Port Macquarie penal colony. </p><p>In 1829 at one of the most magnificent weddings that the colony had then seen, Innes married Margaret, daughter of the colonial secretary, Alexander McLeay. </p><p>McLeay, the builder of Sydney icon Elizabeth Bay House, was one of Sydney’s wealthiest and most prominent men. The Macleay River carries his name. </p><p>Having resigned his commission in 1829, Innes became police magistrate at Port Macquarie in 1830 and was granted 2568 acres (1039 ha) of land and contracts to supply the convict population with food.</p><p>By 1840, Innes was one of the wealthiest men in the colony. </p><p>Working from his initial base, he had acquired sheep and cattle stations all over Northern New South Wales, among them Yarrows on the Hastings, Brimbine and Innestown on the Manning, Waterloo, Innes Creek, Kentucky and Beardy Plains on the Tablelands. His acquisition of Furracabad and the creation of the store on that station would provide the base for the development of Glen Innes. </p><p>To support his growing empire he created stores, would build the first convict built road onto the Tablelands and began exporting wool from Port Macquarie to Sydney. In his mind, I think, he saw Port Macquarie developing as a major commercial centre and port servicing the New England. </p><p>As a sign of his growing wealth, Innes used convict labour to build Lake Innes House, a grand new home suitable to his aspirations. There he entertained lavishly supported by staff including a butler, musicians, maids and stable hands. The staff included New England’s first Spanish settlers. </p><p>As Innes’s interests developed, Port Macquarie became an immigration centre bringing in new and especially Scottish settlers who would move onto the Tablelands. Among those who came were his cousin William Tydd Taylor and wife Margaretta Lucy Lind who would take up what became known as Terrible Vale Station. </p><p>Archibald Clunes Innes was now at the peak of wealth and power, but disaster lay ahead. </p><p><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 10px;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-36190396756595150192021-11-06T14:25:00.001+11:002021-12-26T14:36:16.351+11:00Port Macquarie: the centre of British civilization in the north<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjCaThiC6UzPmY8h--Sn9DopEBQlKDOJgCNfaSTsZGLCM9nepp4suCzl8gtxIR3_u18J45HFx0mLbdBJghrr570P_FSqTdVspn7vzkEQVOhVjZ7j2EDYNWws05oUYQf5e1VCncuJOQJjygo5WE8a6nUFqNICAsLIiLb9jr-KjbB1W3NYkuI2kv-fzuJ=s1400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="940" data-original-width="1400" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjCaThiC6UzPmY8h--Sn9DopEBQlKDOJgCNfaSTsZGLCM9nepp4suCzl8gtxIR3_u18J45HFx0mLbdBJghrr570P_FSqTdVspn7vzkEQVOhVjZ7j2EDYNWws05oUYQf5e1VCncuJOQJjygo5WE8a6nUFqNICAsLIiLb9jr-KjbB1W3NYkuI2kv-fzuJ=w640-h430" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;">Port Macquarie, 1832, by convict artist Joseph Backler.</span></div><p></p><p>I wonder how many New Englanders know that for more than a decade Port Macquarie was the centre of British civilization on Northern NSW? </p><p>Maitland (1829) together with its adjoining river port at Morpeth (1831) would develop into the largest urban conglomeration in the North, but this still lay ahead. </p><p>The penal colony at Newcastle had been established in 1804 as a place of secondary punishment for re-offending convicts, but problems soon emerged. </p><p>Newcastle was just too close to the Sydney fleshspots, to accessible by land, providing the incentive and means for absconding. There was also pressure to open up the Hunter for European settlement. </p><p>There were initial land grants under Governor Macquarie, but these were limited to small grants to ex-convicts. However, further south the settlers on the Hawkesbury and in the Sydney Basin were seeking new pastures for their growing flocks and herds. As a consequence, the Hunter was opened up for European settlement in 1822. </p><p>Explorer John Oxley had discovered and named Port Macquarie in 1818. This seemed a suitable site for a new penal colony to replace Newcastle, although Macquarie was initially uncertain. Finally, in 1821 the decision was made to proceed. </p><p>In seeking to discover that far country called the past, we are all bound by current mind-sets in ways that we do not always understand. Port Macquarie is a case in point. </p><p>I had always thought of Port Macquarie as a minor penal settlement founded from and close to Sydney, something equivalent to the establishment of the jail at Grafton many years later. The reality is different.</p><p>To begin with, the number or convicts sent to Port Macquarie was roughly similar in scale to those sent to Port Jackson in the early days. This was not a small settlement.</p><p>Like Port Jackson, convicts were expected to build the necessary infrastructure including barracks required to support the colony. Like Port Jackson, they were expected to grow their own food. And like Port Jackson, the Government was interested in exports from the new colony that might yield economic gain. </p><p>The new colony was expected to be a punishment colony, a feared place of secondary punishment. But to accommodate the needs of the new colony, convicts volunteering to build Port Macquarie were offered special treatment.</p><p>Later, convicts sent to Port Macquarie were also granted special privileges in the treatment of things such as their own gardens. This, too, had happened at Port Jackson, but it created a fundamental problem. This can be put simply.</p><p>Port Macquarie was a place of secondary punishment, a place to be feared. How, then, do your reconcile the special treatment required to establish and then maintain the colony?</p><p>There were no easy answers to this question. It led to fluctuating treatment of the convicts as official balance switched between punishment and remediation. Meantime, a new town had emerged. </p><p><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-85859480245223549412021-10-30T12:08:00.001+11:002021-12-26T14:19:38.470+11:00New England History: Battle of Vinegar Hill led to northern settlement<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8cjZsN1lmOSKxHOkDgZpBczmzf8ZkwOHvvaufyo380RzxfhinXTKgpIwVUurKlSli9zyO0kmJkZz1dLf-64x0QNkGb9ivbeeXEGkhh-HzmkQIFrU9fh5sIyEwSBQ4wEP9Z1e5mPLhDN5MCWyGb8cwJVTNuVjZsLniZVjF4Fqq7l7FQUtFP4dhfEBw=s1020" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="702" data-original-width="1020" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8cjZsN1lmOSKxHOkDgZpBczmzf8ZkwOHvvaufyo380RzxfhinXTKgpIwVUurKlSli9zyO0kmJkZz1dLf-64x0QNkGb9ivbeeXEGkhh-HzmkQIFrU9fh5sIyEwSBQ4wEP9Z1e5mPLhDN5MCWyGb8cwJVTNuVjZsLniZVjF4Fqq7l7FQUtFP4dhfEBw=w400-h275" width="400" /></a></div><br />One difficulty that I
have faced as a regional historian specialising in the broader new state New
England, the Tablelands and surrounding river valleys, is the absence of
regional historical syntheses that allow us to fit our family, local and
regional stories into a context. Everything is dominated by national or state
stories or by very broad thematic studies that have only limited relevance to
our own stories. <p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>This absence has
forced me to develop my own syntheses to provide a framework for my research.
In past columns I have talked about Aboriginal New England to 1788. Over the
next few columns I want to talk about our colonial history, starting with the
penal period. Think of it as a primer into which you can fit your own research!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first fleet
arrived in 1788. In 1801, thirteen years later, a first attempt was made to
establish a penal colony at the mouth of the Hunter. The attractions were the
presence of coal, timber and the large shell middens that might provide lime for
building. This first attempt failed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>In 1804 a second
successful attempt was made.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>On 4 March 1804, 233
Irish convicts launched a rebellion against British authority. The following
day a force consisting of a mixture of military personnel and armed civilians
defeated the rebels in a pitched battle at Castle Hill near Sydney.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This battle is
sometimes called the second battle of Vinegar Hill named after an earlier
uprising in Ireland for some of the prisoners who participated in the NSW
uprising had been exiled as a consequence of their participation in the Irish
uprising.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Fifteen convicts were
killed, nine were later executed, while 23 formed the core of a new penal
colony established at Coal River, now Newcastle. There were no casualties on
the British side.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>From the beginning,
the new penal colony was seen as a place of secondary punishment that would
also reduce the chances of the convicts escaping. This proved to be a forlorn
hope. The fleshpots of Port Jackson were just too close.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>In the end, three
penal colonies were established in Northern New South Wales each initially
intended as a place of secondary punishment: </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span lang="EN-AU" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Newcastle
1801, 1804-1823</span></li><li><span lang="EN-AU" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Port
Macquarie 1821-1830 </span></li><li><span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="text-indent: -18pt;">Moreton
Bay 1824 – 1842.</span></li></ul><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The reference to
Moreton Bay may surprise, but Moreton Bay now Queensland was part of Northern
NSW until Queensland gained self-government in 1859.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These three penal
stations formed part of an integrated network of penal stations that would
include Port Jackson, Van Diemen’s Land and Norfolk Island.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There was a constant
flow of convicts between the different penal colonies, while each had to be
serviced by shipping bringing in supplies while exporting local production.
This laid the base for the coastal shipping network that form such an important
part of New England’s history.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Of the three Northern penal
colonies, Port Macquarie would have the greatest impact on New England’s
history. I will turn to its story in my next column.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-35876515978052090562021-10-23T11:57:00.001+11:002021-12-26T12:05:42.347+11:00Indigenous Australians' right to vote and the 1967 constitutional referendum<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6FN6h0EhmZf3ulMYJjUjOUe7Y7RH2YuwP4N72PCnKU9ZZLjRzq6-2TOcHume95y_kh0-X-Bo4oG9BJTZP59wskd1zMxxwHBvTtHX1zC9x6dU6T1s91sFEBWRvkkWhQuOHzFpND_dc9qLGVZxhjZQ4UtQgXOagXy4PHOsIn6JKyi5G4vgLX0Zm7bpr=s1024" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1021" data-original-width="1024" height="399" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6FN6h0EhmZf3ulMYJjUjOUe7Y7RH2YuwP4N72PCnKU9ZZLjRzq6-2TOcHume95y_kh0-X-Bo4oG9BJTZP59wskd1zMxxwHBvTtHX1zC9x6dU6T1s91sFEBWRvkkWhQuOHzFpND_dc9qLGVZxhjZQ4UtQgXOagXy4PHOsIn6JKyi5G4vgLX0Zm7bpr=w400-h399" width="400" /></a></div><br /><blockquote><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Neville Bonner was the first Aboriginal member of the Australian Parliament, appointed to the Senate for the Liberal Party to fill a Queensland vacancy, in 1971.</b></span></blockquote><p></p><p>There is a common view that Indigenous Australians’ right to vote is somehow connected with the 1967 constitutional referendum. That’s not correct. The story is far longer and more complex than that. </p><p>In the 1850s under the constitutions of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, Aboriginal men had the same right to vote as other male British subjects aged over 21. </p><p>In 1895 South Australia became the first jurisdiction in the world to give women the vote including Aboriginal women. Then in 1896 Tasmania granted Aboriginal men the franchise.</p><p>There were countervailing pressures to these advances. .</p><p>In 1885, a law was passed in Queensland to deny Aboriginal people the right to vote. Similar legislation was later enacted by Western Australia (1893) and the Northern Territory (1922). These were the jurisdictions where the frontier was most recent, the Aboriginal proportion of the population highest. </p><p>With Federation, the 1902 Commonwealth Franchise Act granted men and women of all states the right to vote. Indigenous people were excluded from this right unless they already had the right to vote before 1901. This Act effectively institutionalised discrimination at national level so far as the franchise was concerned. </p><p>As had happened during the First World War, a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders served with the Australian military. In March 1949, the right to vote in federal elections was extended to any Indigenous person who had been a member of the defence forces. </p><p>Within the states and territories, the “Dog Collar Acts” applying in some jurisdictions affected voting. These Acts exempted Indigenous people under strict conditions from the restrictions placed upon them. Effectively, Aboriginal people had to be granted “citizenship” to be able to vote. Again, the restrictions were greatest in WA, Queensland and Northern Territory.</p><p>Finally, in 1962 following report by a House of Representatives Select Committee, legislation was passed giving all Aboriginal people the right to enrol and vote in national elections. Enrolment was not compulsory, but voting was if enrolled.</p><p>Following this, legislation, Western Australia and the Northern Territory granted Aboriginal people the right to vote. Then, in 1965, Queensland finally extended the right to vote to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.</p><p>In 1984, voting at Federal level was made compulsory for all Indigenous Australians, removing the last difference. </p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-14153080992398641382021-09-01T15:28:00.002+10:002021-09-06T16:42:14.624+10:00Historical climate change on the Arabian peninsular, hominin occupation and the pattern of Aboriginal settlement of Sahul <p></p><p>The second lecture in my introductory course on the history of Australia's New England, the Tablelands and surrounding river valleys, traces the journey of the Aboriginal and Papuan ancestors from Africa until their arrival on the mega continent we now call Sahul. </p><p>On 1 September 2021 an article by H S Groucutt et al was published in Nature that bears upon our story. The abstract including link to the paper follows. Comments follow the abstract. </p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #cc0000;">Pleistocene hominin dispersals out of, and back into, Africa necessarily involved traversing the diverse and often challenging environments of Southwest Asia. Archaeological and palaeontological records from the Levantine woodland zone document major biological and cultural shifts, such as alternating occupations by Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. However, Late Quaternary cultural, biological and environmental records from the vast arid zone that constitutes most of Southwest Asia remain scarce, limiting regional-scale insights into changes in hominin demography and behaviour. Here we report a series of dated palaeolake sequences, associated with stone tool assemblages and vertebrate fossils, from the Khall Amayshan 4 and Jubbah basins in the Nefud Desert. These findings, including the oldest dated hominin occupations in Arabia, reveal at least five hominin expansions into the Arabian interior, coinciding with brief ‘green’ windows of reduced aridity approximately 400, 300, 200, 130–75 and 55 thousand years ago. Each occupation phase is characterized by a distinct form of material culture, indicating colonization by diverse hominin groups, and a lack of long-term Southwest Asian population continuity. Within a general pattern of African and Eurasian hominin groups being separated by Pleistocene Saharo-Arabian aridity, our findings reveal the tempo and character of climatically modulated windows for dispersal and admixture.</span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000;">Groucutt, H.S., White, T.S., Scerri, E.M.L. et al. Multiple hominin dispersals into Southwest Asia over the past 400,000 years. Nature (2021).<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03863-y#Sec10" target="_blank"> https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03863-y</a></span></p></blockquote><p></p><p><b>Comment</b></p><p>To the best of our present knowledge, the ancestors of the Aboriginal and Papuan peoples came out of Africa arriving in Sahul perhaps 65,000 years ago. This was during the Pleistocene, a period marked by ice ages separated by warmer periods. </p><p>Today, Saudi Arabia is marked by arid deserts. This study suggests that the Arabian Peninsula experienced wetter green periods approximately 400, 300, 200, 130–75 and 55 thousand years ago. Each period was marked by different hominin occupations, with people withdrawing and reoccupying as the climate changed. </p><p>From our viewpoint, the green period from 130-75,000 years ago would appear to fit with Aboriginal migration patterns given the present earliest indicated occupation date of c65,000 years ago. </p><p><span style="color: #cc0000;">Postscript </span></p><p><span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span>An article in the Conversation provides more commentary. <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-reveals-humans-ventured-out-of-africa-repeatedly-as-early-as-400-000-years-ago-to-visit-the-rolling-grasslands-of-arabia-167050" target="_blank">Research reveals humans ventured out of Africa repeatedly as early as 400,000 years ago, to visit the rolling grasslands of Arabia<span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span></a></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-21136079995319198202021-04-07T15:27:00.001+10:002021-10-15T15:40:16.965+11:00Armidale's buildings mirror the city's history<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg72m6zaqJuOL0yLu1n3AlEfjFIIvzHlTCEHVNFnFHsoexcf4t_j_P02g1BuN3UXkI9hPYKOBTb1tEexZFLLVLITXiMNOfTdS9gsT6FYlRgqKOV4csHriPZSYxP2g0GeSHFEaN05ewJ_3I/s1600/Fuondation+Stone+Armidale+Teachers%2527+College+1929.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="931" data-original-width="1600" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg72m6zaqJuOL0yLu1n3AlEfjFIIvzHlTCEHVNFnFHsoexcf4t_j_P02g1BuN3UXkI9hPYKOBTb1tEexZFLLVLITXiMNOfTdS9gsT6FYlRgqKOV4csHriPZSYxP2g0GeSHFEaN05ewJ_3I/w640-h373/Fuondation+Stone+Armidale+Teachers%2527+College+1929.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><blockquote><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Laying of the foundation stone for the Armidale Teachers' College Building.This is the fifth in a series exploring the rise, fall and slow recovery of the city of Armidale. </b></span></blockquote><p></p><p>The story of Armidale’s rise, fall and slow recovery is mirrored in the city’s built landscape. </p><p>The city’s expansion over the last two decades of the nineteenth century is mirrored in the large generally brick homes and commercial buildings concentrated in the CBD and on South Hill. While little evidence remains of Armidale’s manufacturing base, the generally weatherboard workmen’s cottages built for industrial and railway workers remain, especially in West Armidale. </p><p>By the mid twenties, the still small city was prosperous enough, although growth had stalled. Then in 1927 came the decision to establish the Armidale Teachers’ College. </p><p>I explored the remarkable story of its establishment in an earlier series of columns. For the present, it brought staff and students to Armidale that compensated many times over for the 1926 shift of St John’s Theological College to Morpeth. </p><p>Construction also began on one of Armidale’s most iconic buildings, the Parthenon on the Hill. </p><p>In 1929 the Great Depression struck. Around Australia, a third of the workforce lost their jobs. </p><p>Even as depression struck, construction of the new college building was pushed ahead, pumping money into the local economy. There were fears that the College might close, but the project was too far advanced. </p><p>Staff and student numbers were cut, but then recovered as the depression began to ease. Armidale grew from 4,738 people in 1922 to 6,794 in 1933. </p><p>In terms of the built landscape, the 1920s saw the emergence of the California bungalow that forms such an important part of the Armidale streetscape. Then, in the 1930s, came the art deco period seen in some Beardy Street buildings in particular as increased wealth translated into new or modified buildings. </p><p>We now come to the most important development of all, the establishment of the New England University College (NEUC), opening in 1938. </p><p>Like the Teachers’ College, the establishment of NEUC came about because of a combination of particular events external to Armidale. </p><p>Yes, funding from particular New England families such as the Whites was critical. Yes, the local organising committee played a critical role. Yes, Armidale’s existing educational structure was important. </p><p>But all these things would have failed had it not been for a basic fact: as with the Armidale Teachers’ College, the new university college was seen as a Northern endeavour, one that drew support from across Northern NSW. </p><p>In my next column I will carry the story through into Armidale’s rapid growth period. </p><div><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span></div>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-53489306461599455632021-03-31T16:30:00.001+11:002021-04-08T16:53:57.744+10:00The railway gave but took away - Armidale's manufacturing decline <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1N2jMOZEZUymc8dTB1oj-xzbAEtZrfjsgPqCey1b345XN5dGR6B5zGKoSNygYJSud5z2P4OkriykkPCb5dMRR168m1evibXuwYUXcjwESdAw9CgOlIXKMsAatjvOldO8hOQsq9bzuB5A/s1000/1922%252BArmidale%252BPanorama%252BCathedral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1N2jMOZEZUymc8dTB1oj-xzbAEtZrfjsgPqCey1b345XN5dGR6B5zGKoSNygYJSud5z2P4OkriykkPCb5dMRR168m1evibXuwYUXcjwESdAw9CgOlIXKMsAatjvOldO8hOQsq9bzuB5A/w400-h266/1922%252BArmidale%252BPanorama%252BCathedral.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">In this Armidale panoramic view in 1922 some of Armidale's major buildings can be seen, but the main growth period lies ahead. This is the fourth in a series exploring the rise, fall and slow recovery of the city of Armidale. </span></b></div><p></p><p>Without the coming of
the railway to Armidale in 1883, the city could not have maintained its
developing position as an educational centre. The railway also became a major
local employer. But while the railway gave it also took away.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is hard now to
think of Armidale as a manufacturing centre, but by the coming of the railway
it had developed its own small industrial base spreading to the west near the
junction of Martin’s Gully and Dumaresq Creek and then along Dumaresq Creek towards
the centre of the city. In all cases, access to water was central.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Industries included
tanning, boot manufacturing, soap making, blacksmithing, brewing and flour
milling. To the south and west of Armidale lay a belt of farming territory that
fed grains to the local mills.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The railway gave local
industry the chance to export product to broader markets, but also exposed
local producers to outside competition. One by one, local manufacture shut
down.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In brewing, the railways brought mass
produced beer from Sydney along the railways spreading out from that city,
closing the many locally produced beers across Northern NSW.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The railways also brought milled flour from
as far away as South Australia. Neither local wheat growers nor local millers
could compete. Similar things happened with other locally manufactured
products.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Armidale had been a much bigger centre than
Tamworth where the Australian Agricultural Company’s large land holdings had
prevented growth. As the land opened up and farming grew, so did Tamworth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By 1901, Tamworth’s population exceeded
Armidale’s by 1,550 people. At the 1911 census, that gap had grown to 2,407
people.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Inverell had been growing from the
combination of farming expansion and industrial activities servicing the tin and
other mines on the Western side of the Tablelands. In 1901, its population was
956 less than Armidale’s. At the 1911 census, that gap had closed to 189
people.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Glen Innes, too, had grown quite rapidly.
At the 1901 census, its population was 1,331 less than Armidale’s. At the 1911
census, Glen Innes was only 189 people behind.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Armidale’s problem lay in its small
economic catchment area compared to other regional centres. Effectively, the
city’s only sources of income were as a rural service centre serving the
grazing industries of part of Southern New England combined with its role as a
religious, administrative and educational centre.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By 1922, the city had some of the grand
buildings that would later form part of its visitor attractions but was effectively
in stagnation. Now came events that would put it on a growth path that would
last to the 1980s.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-35525745555160361272021-03-10T16:00:00.001+11:002021-04-08T16:27:31.794+10:00Armidale's education base established<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMqlbLZx5petAO6hbWY2kfqJ7Khz0TiRYdXFc1wkBr3JW81OMGEwuvkt6bnuzkUDeW-YRHfToXO_Aph6DBd9IOM2JvbJHrWv8r9ZxojLHql7EMTm2sP-NE_O5OWFQMrVx5ljgHDcLHPJI/s1600/1913-Dorm-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1123" data-original-width="1600" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMqlbLZx5petAO6hbWY2kfqJ7Khz0TiRYdXFc1wkBr3JW81OMGEwuvkt6bnuzkUDeW-YRHfToXO_Aph6DBd9IOM2JvbJHrWv8r9ZxojLHql7EMTm2sP-NE_O5OWFQMrVx5ljgHDcLHPJI/w400-h281/1913-Dorm-2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Founded in 1894, TAS was part of the education growth of Armidale. The photo shows Dorm 2 in 1913. Conditions were Spartan by today’s standards! This is the third in a series exploring the rise, fall and slow recovery of the city of Armidale </span></b></div><p></p><p>The last decades of
the nineteenth and first decades of the twentieth century saw the establishment
of the educational base that would determine Armidale’s future. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By 1923, Armidale had
established an articulated school structure that was remarkable for its time
and would be familiar to Armidale residents for the next fifty years. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In public education,
there were three primary schools:</p>
<ul style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Armidale Superior Public School (1865) later Armidale Demonstration
School, later still Armidale City Public School <o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">West End (1890), later West Armidale Public School, later still
Drummond Memorial School<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">North Armidale (1900) late Ben Venue (1914).</span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">These primary schools,
along with those in the surrounding districts, fed into the newly established
Armidale High School (from 1920, buildings completed 1923). With time, a number
of Church hostels would be established to provide boarding accommodation for
those attending Armidale High. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Roman Catholic
school system covered what is now St Mary’s Primary School (from 1848), St
Ursula’s College (1882) and De La Salle College (1906). Both St Ursula’s and De
La Salle provided boarding facilities.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two Anglican
boarding schools were the Armidale School (1894) and the New England Girls’
School (1895). In addition, the New England Ladies College had been established
in 1887. Later this would become the Hilton School, later still the
Presbyterian Ladies College.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Armidale also had its
first tertiary institution, St John’s Theological College, established in 1898
to provide training to prospective Anglican clergy. This college would move to
Morpeth in 1926.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">These developments
brought considerable economic and cultural benefits to the still small city.
Boarders and the staff required to teach them brought economic benefits, as did
construction associated with new school buildings.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The growth in the
city’s educated class would feed into cultural and community activities and
later into moves to bring new educational facilities to the city.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The developments could
not have happened without the combination of the city’s role as a religious and
administrative centre with the railway that made it easier for people to get to
Armidale. But what the railway gave, it also took away.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I will look at this in
my next column on the story of the rise, fall and slow recovery of Armidale. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-67499341947670680672021-03-03T15:45:00.001+11:002021-04-08T15:55:46.820+10:00Greater wealth came to Armidale<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3EvvXYY_ghSyJ9c4egIltHoRf0kDIUvDVW6CM-o9x3enFSyVQNQiEme0T-5AojNZY6vWzG6s00iw6hlCAJDhZjzYuLSmq8scjwGlCnvO3AqwplAuM60tGHH8Xm-aIxUn2in18qMQQJhw/s1024/Mallam+House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3EvvXYY_ghSyJ9c4egIltHoRf0kDIUvDVW6CM-o9x3enFSyVQNQiEme0T-5AojNZY6vWzG6s00iw6hlCAJDhZjzYuLSmq8scjwGlCnvO3AqwplAuM60tGHH8Xm-aIxUn2in18qMQQJhw/w400-h300/Mallam+House.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Mallam House is Armidale's best surviving example of a mid-Victorian fashionable house. Built in 1870 for Henry Guy Mallam to service the high end rental market, its first tenant was Bishop Timothy OMahony, Armidale's first Catholic Bishop.This is the second in a series exploring the rise, fall and slow recovery of the city of Armidale </span></b></p>Four things contributed to Armidale’s
growth over the second half of the nineteenth century: mining, agriculture, the
coming of the railway and the city’s role as an administrative, religious and
educational centre.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first gold discovery came in 1851 at
Swamp Oak Creek near Tamworth, followed by multiple rushes across the New
England. Then came tin from 1871-72, diamonds (1875), copper (1876) and silver
(1878)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p>F</o:p></span>rom an Armidale perspective, the most
important rushes were Rocky River (from 1852) and Hillgrove (from 1881),
although there were a series of smaller rushes near Armidale.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br />Mining created demand for beef and other
agricultural products and increased wages. Local demand increased. As it did,
towns grew including Armidale and Uralla. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Fortunes were won and lost in mining, more
lost than won, but the extra capital generated by mining helped fund new
building. Armidale’s Imperial Hotel (1890) was built from Hillgrove profits. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Great Northern Railway reached Armidale
in 1883.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The original plans for the railway had
bypassed Armidale. The town and district (Armidale did not become a city until
1885) had sufficient political influence to redirect the line through Armidale.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was a critical decision. Apart from
direct jobs, the railways became Armidale’s biggest single employer, the
north-south rail connection reinforced the new city’s position as an
educational and administrative centre. Armidale as we know it could not have
developed without the railway.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Construction of the line triggered a
building boom that began in advance of the arrival of the line and continued
for a decade after.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">West End (now West Armidale) had already
emerged as an industrial area, but now expanded near the new line as cottages
were built to house railway and other workers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Elsewhere in the city, greater wealth led
to the construction of new homes, schools and commercial and official
buildings. The Victorian city that still forms the architectural heart of the
old city was in creation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the 1901 census, Armidale’s population
had reached 4,249, rising to 4,736 at the 1911 census. There was great civic
pride in the city’s progress. However, Armidale had begun to fall behind in
relative terms.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Armidale had been the second largest town
outside the Lower Hunter. Grafton as the main Northern port after Morpeth had
then passed it. By 1901, Armidale had fallen to fifth in population rankings,
to sixth in 1911. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Armidale’s greatest growth lay ahead, but
that growth would come not from the city’s local or regional marketplace, but
from the city’s role as an educational centre.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-30223610173358953752021-02-24T15:27:00.001+11:002021-04-08T15:44:43.376+10:00City story: - the rise, fall and slow recovery of Armidale<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9qiyUnW6rKdHMtLEV865Q1tfGgCpyyQZDNkygzsZf8NuuVzKke6PhPPpJbFSqaAiL4XULD7eSFtUcr-A1eAK97vDVe2tGG3VHYJ8nwWUAaDIBDANd2lyK46Fs-f8Jan-TXXBa9-tb2Ug/s640/Macdonald+Park%255B4%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9qiyUnW6rKdHMtLEV865Q1tfGgCpyyQZDNkygzsZf8NuuVzKke6PhPPpJbFSqaAiL4XULD7eSFtUcr-A1eAK97vDVe2tGG3VHYJ8nwWUAaDIBDANd2lyK46Fs-f8Jan-TXXBa9-tb2Ug/w400-h268/Macdonald+Park%255B4%255D.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Armidale owes its existence to the decision by Commissioner Macdonald to establish his headquarters on what we now know as Macdonald Park. This is the first in a series exploring the rise, fall and slow recovery of the city of Armidale </span></b></div><p></p><p>In 1971, the population of the City of
Armidale reached 18,156. The NSW Department of Decentralisation and Development
population projections suggested that the City’s population would reach 47,301
in 2001, passing that of Tamworth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even then, some expressed doubts, but the
prevailing mood was one of confidence, of complacency. There was also growing
concern about the need to control growth to preserve the City’s amenity.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Twenty years later, Armidale was in the
midst of an economic and demographic crisis.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many blamed the City Council, many still do,
for its failure to identify and address the emerging problems in an effective
way. While there is some truth in that, I think that the reality is far more
complex.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To show this, I will tell you the story of
the rise, fall and slow recovery of a city. While I am writing as an historian,
it’s also a personal story for I was involved in some of these events. I do not
pretend to be totally objective. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Our story begins in what is now called Macdonald
Park. Today the Park is small and manicured. It is hard to see it as the centre
of a considerable official complex.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1839 newly appointed Crown Lands Commissioner
for New England, George James Macdonald, established his headquarters on what
is now the Park, chosen for its central location in an extensive plains area.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Macdonald arrived with a party of eleven –
three regular Mounted Police plus eight convict Border Police.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In addition to official duties – and these
were many and varied – Macdonald and his convicts had to construct buildings,
erect fencing and grow food. He was, in fact, expected to act like a squatter
in terms of providing for his party.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You can still see signs of this today in
the names Police Paddock and Commissioner’s Waters.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">To the north west of the Commissioner’s
headquarters, a straggling collection of slab huts emerged along the Great
North Road, really track, across Dumaresq Creek.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Government required order and planning.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1848, surveyor John James Galloway drew
up a north-south-east west grid pattern. This cut across existing tracks and
indeed through buildings including five inns.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">After protests including a public meeting
and a petition to the Governor, the north south grid pattern was rotated to the
east, giving the layout we know today</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Armidale now had structure, but remained
small. The stations had their own stores and supplies, so the little village
really serviced travellers with inns and then stores. With time, trades would
be added and then professionals including clergy men and teachers, but numbers
were initially not large.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Growth would come, but we can already see
two key future features, the relative smallness of the local geographic
catchment combined with Armidale’s importance as an administrative centre.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></p><blockquote><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; font-family: inherit; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: inherit; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" target="_blank">2021</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: inherit; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-68827327685554173782021-01-31T15:57:00.001+11:002021-02-15T16:17:45.781+11:00The remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre 6 -Despair and then rebirth<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYlbNs6OCDeIAyYmngoGp3SvWNitD-FZdLs21K9XV13fWmejF4iY2W7ZkiHNvxNZjkp3-g-AmkonepylBtGLsX1CgkiybalwODtTmf-X23huNrM7tAGbD0zW-rFot_E3_0606cKIEaBuQ/s677/Graham_Wilson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="677" data-original-width="399" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYlbNs6OCDeIAyYmngoGp3SvWNitD-FZdLs21K9XV13fWmejF4iY2W7ZkiHNvxNZjkp3-g-AmkonepylBtGLsX1CgkiybalwODtTmf-X23huNrM7tAGbD0zW-rFot_E3_0606cKIEaBuQ/w236-h400/Graham_Wilson.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><blockquote><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Graham Wilson OAM. Both University Archivist Gerry Purkis and Graham as Director of the New England Historical Resources Centre resigned over the failure of the networked University of New England to properly address the organisation of regional records.</span></b><p></p><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">This is the sixth and final in a short series on the remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre and Regional Archives. </span></b></p></blockquote><p>By 1980 both the
Armidale College of Advanced Education with its Museum of Education and New
England Historical Resources Centre and the University of New England were
providing valuable services to staff, students and the Northern NSW community.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Both institutions had
experienced significant growth over the previous decade. Some problems were
already apparent, but the future still seemed secure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nine years later, both
had vanished into the maws of that mess called the networked University of New
England, an uncomfortable amalgam of the Armidale College of Advanced
Education, the University of New England and the Northern Rivers College of
Education. Orange Agricultural College was added a little later.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I will tell you a little
of those turbulent years in my next series of columns. It’s a story of
Armidale’s rise, fall and then slow recovery. It’s also a story of the way
hubris, loss of vision, political divides and complacency reduced the capacity
of institutions and community to respond to external threats.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For the moment, the merger of the Armidale
College of Advanced Education and University left open the question of what
should be done with the Archives, Historical Resources Centre and Museum of
Education.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In August 1989, Graham Wilson as Director
of the Historical Resources Centre and Gerry Purkis as University Archivist
wrote a joint report on future directions. They proposed that the University
Archives, the Family History Collection and the Historical Resources Centre should
be gathered together at the Mossman Street Campus.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The networked university was already
struggling with the integration of ACAE staff and activities into the new
institution, as well as broader integration questions across the whole network.
In these circumstances, the future of these historical resources was not seen
as a high priority.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Gerry Purkis resigned as archivist. His
position would remain vacant for three years.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">At the end of 1992, a frustrated Graham
Wilson also resigned as Director of the Historical Resources Centre. He had
been working on a volunteer basis with no relief from teaching load available
to accommodate Centre management. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The entire range of regional archival and
support services that had been provided since the 1940s was now in effective
suspension. One result was a sharp drop in research and publications focused on
regional interests including history. A second was loss of community support
for the university.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The network university was abolished in
1994 leading to re-establishment of a separate if much diminished independent UNE.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As had been recommended in 1989, UNE now finally decided to use C.B Newling Library building as a central site for the
management of U.N.E. Archives, the Historical Resources Centre and the Museum
of Education. The Heritage Centre as we know it today had been born.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here<a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" target="_blank"> <span style="color: blue;">2021</span>.</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""></span></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-55580711225656647922021-01-22T14:00:00.006+11:002021-02-15T16:02:14.154+11:00The remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre 5 - Lionel Gilbert and the foundation of the New England Historical Resources Centre<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1dgEdvIJmvv3e7SH-BmlsIZx7CQBfyj85pMLhzmZdACHiR_96HtmukRTOLGFivcyAyvrjeLl9G4nkTkTqwNygd2kBVFko761-nHVkjQgTBVOWrv8kinCOCwRoo0uTqen6qWH3lE7mJd0/s390/Lionel+Gilbert.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="369" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1dgEdvIJmvv3e7SH-BmlsIZx7CQBfyj85pMLhzmZdACHiR_96HtmukRTOLGFivcyAyvrjeLl9G4nkTkTqwNygd2kBVFko761-nHVkjQgTBVOWrv8kinCOCwRoo0uTqen6qWH3lE7mJd0/w379-h400/Lionel+Gilbert.jpg" width="379" /></a></div><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"></span></b><p></p><blockquote><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Lionel Gilbert played a critical role in the promotion of local and regional history.</span></b></p><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">This is the fifth in a short series on the remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre and Regional Archives. </span></b></p></blockquote><p><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"></span></b></p><p>Both Armidale and the broader North have
been lucky in the people who have fought to build and preserve our
institutions, including those concerned with the preservation of our history
and culture. Lionel Gilbert was one such man.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lionel Gilbert was born at Burwood in
Sydney on 8 December 1924. After graduating from Sydney Teachers” College in
1942, Gilbert served in the Royal Australian Airforce, returning to teaching in
1946.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a teacher, Gilbert taught at Nabiac
Central School, Wauchope Primary School and then Rocky River Primary School. At
Nabiac, he met and married Margaret Roberts. Daughter Anne was born in 1960.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1955, Gilbert enrolled as an external
student in the first class of the University of New England’s new external
studies program, the first of its type in Australia. In 1963 he graduated with
first class honours His honours thesis covered the history of botanical
knowledge of the eastern seaboard of Australia 1788–1815.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1961, Gilbert was appointed by UNE as a Research
and Information Officer in the Department of External Studies. In this
capacity, Gilbert taught weekend classes on the methodology of local history
for the university's adult education department throughout inland New England.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In many ways, the 1960s and 1970s marked
the peak of UNE’s extension efforts across Northern NSW and indeed beyond, a
focus that would later be lost in constant institutional change. The current
NERAM exhibition on the UNE summer schools provides a partial picture of the period.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In July 1963, Gilbert accepted an
appointment as lecturer in applied history and curator with the Armidale
Teachers' College (later College of Advanced Education) Museum of Education.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The focus of the ATC and later from 1971
the Armidale College of Advanced Education was on hands on learning. By 1973,
more than a 1,000 school students each year were visiting the Armidale Folk
Museum to learn about the exhibits and their connection with local history.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The new NSW Junior Secondary History
Syllabus based on ‘enquiry’ and ‘problem solving’ provided an opportunity for
Gilbert to extend outreach because the need for students to match the new
curriculum with primary and secondary resources was not being met by
traditional museums. A new type of hands on repository was required.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In December 1974, Gilbert obtained funding
to establish a new Regional Historical Resources Centre. This involved
collection of new material along with the copying of archival and other
resources to make them accessible to teachers and students.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although the cataloguing and collecting of
material was on-going, sufficient progress had been made to enable an official
opening of the new Centre on 20 February 1976.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Historical Resources Centre was an
immediate success, welcomed by teachers, students and historical societies
across Northern NSW. However, events were now to occur that would threaten the
survival of both the Centre and UNE’s own regional archive.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20Matters%202021" target="_blank">2021</a>.</span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span face=""Trebuchet MS", verdana, sans-serif" style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-size: 13px; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-75594876643540154322020-12-22T15:38:00.007+11:002021-01-07T15:54:48.186+11:00The remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre 4 - UNE only institution interested in preserving the records of the North<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNo89OxRoJsRu8DZowfVEj7IolPgj6wBOLlCHDb-tDfOFSy3mbItEiGLH_RWhf9HbOaKb6TvszpvAC_8BSGeVIKdKDTzRCs_dYQ9NS3O-oYgXNnP3ntGeThIinHsJYyaURIQElvNMXWc/s551/David_Drummond.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="427" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNo89OxRoJsRu8DZowfVEj7IolPgj6wBOLlCHDb-tDfOFSy3mbItEiGLH_RWhf9HbOaKb6TvszpvAC_8BSGeVIKdKDTzRCs_dYQ9NS3O-oYgXNnP3ntGeThIinHsJYyaURIQElvNMXWc/w310-h400/David_Drummond.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><b><span style="color: #990000;">David Drummond in later years. Australian National Librarian Harold White wanted the Drummond papers to come to the National Library as a collection of national importance. To White's annoyance. Drummond insisted that they go to the University of New England Archives.</span></b><p></p><p><span style="color: #990000;"><b>This is the fourth in a short series on the remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre and Regional Archives.</b> </span><br /></p><p>Writing in the <i>Australian Library Journal in March 1963</i>,
University of New England Archivist R J McDonald commented that the distinctive
feature of the UNE case was the absence of any other intuitions interested in
the records of the North.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If "the
University had not begun collecting records in this area they would not have
been collected at all", McDonald wrote.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By now, the holdings
had begun to expand rapidly, a process continued under the second archivist
Alan Wilkes. Wilkes was determined to collect and preserve as many records as
he could and would go to considerable lengths to do so, including collecting
remote records by horse!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The 1960s marked the
start of a period of great change.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many smaller
organizations such as dairy and banana cooperatives were closing. Long standing
pastoral families who held records dating back to the foundation of the first
runs were making hard choices about the retention or destruction of property
and family records. Newspapers were deciding what to do with their records and
past editions.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Under Wilkes’s
vigorous collection policies these records started to flow to the UNE archives
from across Northern NSW, a process aided by the loyalty felt by many to UNE
and the North.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The transfer of the Drummond
papers in the early 1960s is one example.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">National Librarian
Harold White, a good friend of David Drummond, had expected the collection to
go to the National Library as a collection of national importance. He was not
pleased when Drummond chose to pass them to the UNE Archives.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Drummond would not be
budged. To his mind, the papers belonged with the University he had helped
found.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The rapid rise in the
collection saved many records that would have been lost, in so doing creating
an archival collection of national importance. However, Alan’s vigorous
approach also created a difficulty, the need to document the collection and to
create finding aids that would allow easy access. This remains a problem today.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While the UNE archives
were expanding, another move was taking place in a sister institution that
would form the third important leg in the future New England Heritage Centre
and Regional Archives.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">From its foundation in
1928, the Armidale Teachers’ College focused on the practical craft of teaching
as compared to the more academic approach followed at Sydney Teachers’ College.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">One outcome was the work of Eric Dunlop on
building museums including Armidale’s Folk and Education Museums, a second
the creation of the Historical Resources Centre by Lionel Gilbert.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now these moves would come together with the UNE
Archives, creating the Heritage Centre and Regional Archives that we know today. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-89186070439595859262020-12-11T11:05:00.001+11:002021-01-04T11:28:16.354+11:00The remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre 3 - creation of a professional archive <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-aCJDoAaIaqDwNYwDBsb7Evg6LgIJgPVtNBVDVDXlCOk_06vgCdEniZItqZipJ9AVAYSfbJ8Xi1TU_K5m3FKi76aY9tKsjaztHfuIGkZp8rH30pIdpm6PnFTa0diwT6gA4bbbsue5i8/s792/P1659-P-A-Wright-Lane-Poole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="792" height="475" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-aCJDoAaIaqDwNYwDBsb7Evg6LgIJgPVtNBVDVDXlCOk_06vgCdEniZItqZipJ9AVAYSfbJ8Xi1TU_K5m3FKi76aY9tKsjaztHfuIGkZp8rH30pIdpm6PnFTa0diwT6gA4bbbsue5i8/w640-h475/P1659-P-A-Wright-Lane-Poole.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="color: #990000;"><b></b></span><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #990000;"><b>UNE Chancellor P A Wright with Honorary archivist, Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Lane-Poole. Sir Richard began the process of consolidating and documenting the growing regional archival collections, continuing the process of community involvement with UNE and what would become the UNE Heritage Centre. </b></span></p><p><span style="color: #990000;"><b>This is the third in a short series on the remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre and Regional Archives. </b></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #990000;"><b></b></span></p><p>The University of New
England became autonomous in 1954. In that year, Robert Madgwick, now Vice
Chancellor, issued a further call for the public to donate records to the
University to support the University’s research plan.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>“This work”, Madgwick
said, “can only be done with the sympathetic support and encouragement of the
people of the region and I appeal to all those who have family papers and
records of any sort to get in touch with the University.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>The public responded,
but Madgwick faced a problem. How should the new holdings be stored and
accessed?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The University Library
was still in Booloominbah where limited space and poor storage conditions were
damaging book holdings. New facilities were needed, but cash was tight.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In May 1956, Frank
Rogers, was appointed as Librarian, while work began on the construction of a
temporary library on the east of the campus, later the Marshall Building. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Rogers was a training
archivist as well as librarian. In May 1957 space was allocated in the basement
of the new building as a dedicated archives repository, while Rogers also
recruited an able volunteer in retired Vice Admiral Sir Richard Lane-Poole to
be the university archivist under Roger’s guidance.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sir Richard proved an
inspired choice because of his intelligence, energy and local connection, both
building and helping document the collection.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1959 consideration
began on what would become the NSW State Archives Act 1960, Madgwick and Rogers
lobbied the Government asking that UNE be recognized in this legislation as a
regional repository for the State Archives.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In the end, UNE was
satisfied with Rogers being given a seat on the Board created under the Act to
manage the state’s archives. The appointment recognized Roger’s specific
skills, as well as UNE’s growing archival role.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Rogers now appointed
UNE’s first full time archivist, R J McDonald. In now familiar words, he directed
McDonald in now familiar words to: </p><p class="MsoNormal"><i></i></p><blockquote><i>Collect all research material
likely to be of value in throwing light on the historical, economic and social
development of Northern New South Wales from the earliest European settlement
until recent times.</i></blockquote><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The focus on the
period since European settlement reflects the times. The Centre’s relevance to
Aboriginal history emerged later.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>The stage was now set
for the next chapter in the story of the UNE Heritage Centre and Regional
Archives, a period of significant expansion.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-44533001583708393302020-12-05T15:52:00.001+11:002021-01-03T16:33:59.563+11:00The remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre 2 - Cumpston and Madgwick combine to make official records available to regional students<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyVncoHGh94a6BW-eCK_of22LLMJyBzATWAEuI4FwnoLt1i0amA_bAGjlOW15JIb1Bhe0Jv6dM2cwTMy4MNFP42juRpBYwAUavynBiyqQ2p3y_UYFrheGC36lff1KnBuYGmxw3yw-l-o/s751/dr-robert-madgwick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwyVncoHGh94a6BW-eCK_of22LLMJyBzATWAEuI4FwnoLt1i0amA_bAGjlOW15JIb1Bhe0Jv6dM2cwTMy4MNFP42juRpBYwAUavynBiyqQ2p3y_UYFrheGC36lff1KnBuYGmxw3yw-l-o/w320-h400/dr-robert-madgwick.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: inherit;"><b>Working in conjunction with History lecturer Mary Cumpston, Sir Robert Madgwick's actions in 1947 established the principle that official records could be held regionally to facilitate local access. This is the second in a short series on the remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre and Regional Archives. </b></span><div><br /></div><div>1947 marked a critical
stage in the evolution of what we now know as the University of New England
Heritage Centre and Regional Archives.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ina Mary Cumpston,
normally called Mary, had a problem, one that she was determined to solve.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mary was an
interesting woman, a pioneer in an academic environment still dominated by men.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Both her parents were
community activists with a love of learning.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Her father, J H L
Cumpston, was Commonwealth Director General of Health. His pioneering history
of small pox in Australia (1918) is still a basic text. Her mother,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Mother Gladys Maeva Cumpston
nee Walpole, was very interested in gardening, botany and native plants. Later,
she would become actively involved in the braille movement. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>In 1936, Mary won a scholarship to study Arts
at Sydney University. At university she was a member of the Sydney University
ski team.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Upon completion of her
studies, Mary came to the New England University College (NEUC) as a lecturer
in history. There she found that historical records held in the Armidale Court
House could not be accessed locally. Instead, the records would need to be
transferred to the Mitchell Library in Sydney to allow access, requiring
students and staff to travel to Sydney to see them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This made no sense to
Mary. She wrote to NEUC Warden Robert Madgwick in mid 1947seeking his support
to try to fix the problem, </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Madgwick had arrived
as Warden earlier that year, replacing Jim Belshaw who had been acting Warden
as well as Head of History and Economics since Edgar Booth’s departure in 1945.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Madgwick would prove
to be an inspired choice as Warden and later first Vice Chancellor. He was
committed to the development of NEUC and saw adult education and community
engagement as central to that development. He was also a capable negotiator.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Madgwick wrote to the
Under Secretary of Justice of NSW complaining about lack of regional access. “This
(the current position) was all very silly,” Madgwick told the Under Secretary.
In July 1947, the Armidale Court Records were transferred to NEUC custody.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In that same month,
Mary sailed for England to study at Oxford on a postgraduate scholarship and
vanishes from our story. However, the episode had established the principle
that regional archival records could be held locally for better access.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-62261617752807376492020-11-28T14:51:00.005+11:002021-01-03T15:30:26.990+11:00The remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre 1 - beginnings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoWAOK6_JlvSQVBBMbPRkFJk2vFkDY5oMyCBiC3-S1UgaC-DF0ev9IGapFbrSv1vZCfw98Yxu_uQ-Nz2E_DzG0oMpQLb2fVOKis44-eJstJdlcVZs8bNYPceyTnlp-0dNPEVRB9z5s5FY/s1632/J+P+Belshaw+October+1940+3.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1632" data-original-width="1033" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoWAOK6_JlvSQVBBMbPRkFJk2vFkDY5oMyCBiC3-S1UgaC-DF0ev9IGapFbrSv1vZCfw98Yxu_uQ-Nz2E_DzG0oMpQLb2fVOKis44-eJstJdlcVZs8bNYPceyTnlp-0dNPEVRB9z5s5FY/w254-h400/J+P+Belshaw+October+1940+3.jpg" width="254" /></a></div><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>Dr J P Belshaw, October 1940. As head of history and economics at the newly established New England University College, Belshaw needed archival records for student use and to allow the College to fulfil its role in the promotion of economic, social and cultural development across Northern NSW. This is the first in a short series on the remarkable story of the University of New England's Heritage Centre and Regional Archives. </b></span><br /><br /><div>Back in October 1919 I
wrote on the economic, cultural and social benefits of family, local and
regional history:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2019/10/web-of-history-revealed.html" target="_blank">Web of history revealed</a></li><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2019/10/connecting-to-our-past.html" target="_blank">Connecting to our past</a></li><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2019/10/maximising-value-from-local-and.html" target="_blank">Maximising value from local and regional history - the case of mining history</a></li></ul></div><div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Achievement of these
benefits depends upon a network of historical societies, family history groups,
museums and archives spread across Northern NSW. Within that network, the
University of New England’s Heritage Centre occupies a very particular place.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Centre’s history
is a remarkable one. I will share a little of that history with you over the
next few columns</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In 1938, the still
small staff at the newly established New England University College faced
considerable challenges. The College was founded to become the Sydney
University of the North. It was expected to contribute to the economic, social
and cultural development of the North. It was expected to provide a high
quality university education to its new students. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Staff took these
responsibilities seriously, but lacked access to books and other resources
necessary to support teaching, research and extension activities. An effort
began to build local resources that students could use and that would also
support research. This extended from history and economics into other
disciplines including geology and geography.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Initially progress was
slow, but momentum did build. The first Master of Economic on New England’s
history appeared in 1940, followed by Desmond Long’s BA Honours thesis, the
History of New England 1832-1861. With
time, these theses in history and other disciplines would become a critical
resource.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>Long went onto a
Master’s thesis on the history of colonial New England, in so doing building up
descriptions of source resources in various locations. He also wrote on the
professional issues involved in the writing of regional history.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>In 1946, the <i>Northern Daily Leader</i> and other papers
reporting on Long’s work carried an appeal for old records from any area of
Northern NSW to be supplied to the History Department. The appeal noted that
such records were often stacked away in homesteads, often brought out only to
be destroyed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In 1943, Jim Belshaw
(Head History & Economics) and Alan Voisey (Head Geology & Geography)
had attempted to establish a NEUC Research Bureau. This failed because of lack
of money, but with the ending of the war, funding became available to fund a
series of research monographs focused especially on the history of mining.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Writing in 1951 in the
NEUC Regional Research Report, Belshaw described the area of geographic
coverage as the Tablelands, North Coast, Upper Hunter and Western Slopes and
Plains. This remains the formal coverage of the Heritage Centre today.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Belshaw also expressed
the hope that, with time, the NEUC might be able to make some contribution to
the welfare of Northern New South Wales.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p></p></div>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-62236762439169770082020-11-24T16:09:00.006+11:002020-11-24T16:11:32.111+11:00Battles in the bush - David Drummond and the rise of the Progressive Party<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-QrgbjwbifQPBZhgFiGfOdbzVjkcu1bPE9_nS0Uf6ptW6zY_3_Jyz0flqB-SBPS22p0yoTOa0lcvepr73puTX4pd2NNb8NZmokJSBPYdsGGXFP9lUUkjT0OJsI5lcDJHS6rTMc-VAvM/s758/DHD+2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="758" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-QrgbjwbifQPBZhgFiGfOdbzVjkcu1bPE9_nS0Uf6ptW6zY_3_Jyz0flqB-SBPS22p0yoTOa0lcvepr73puTX4pd2NNb8NZmokJSBPYdsGGXFP9lUUkjT0OJsI5lcDJHS6rTMc-VAvM/w400-h263/DHD+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">David Drummond, Inverell, 1910s. The young share farmer was not expected to be elected to Parliament in March 1920, but with what was described as support from a handful of cockies and a newspaper he was.</span></b><p></p><p>Back in May 2020 I began an <i>Armidale Express</i> series on the history of the country press in NSW with a particular focus on New England. It seemed an appropriate time given that the combination of existing trends with the impact of covid-19 was likely to complete destruction of the press that we had known, a press whose role and influence had already declined. </p><p>2020 also marked 100 years since the emergence of the Progressive Party, later Country now National Party, in the NSW Parliament at the March 1920 elections. The Federal Party really began in 1919 with the election of farmer representatives to the National Parliament. In Northern NSW, the history of the Country Party and the country press are inextricably entwined. </p><p>What began as a series on the history of the country press was effectively hijacked by the March 1920 election campaign. There I focused especially on one man, David Drummond, the share farmer from Inverell who was not expected to win but did. </p><p>In this post I am providing links to the posts on Drummond and that first election campaign that saw the emergence of the Progressive Party as a major political force, Later, I will return to the story of the country press.</p><p>The posts are:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/07/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press_22.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 9 - Drummond, Sommerlad and the emergence of the Country Party in New England </a></li><li><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/07/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press_29.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 10 - A country party to serve country interests</a></li><li><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/08/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 11 - Drummond emerges on the political stage</a></li><li><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/08/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press_26.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 12 - Hard Times: the early life of David Drummond</a></li><li><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/09/pearl-goode-around-time-of-her-marriage.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 14 - putting farming ideas into practice</a></li><li><a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/09/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 15 - Northern Tableland Progressive Party Electoral Council formed in 1919 but what next?</a></li><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/09/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press_30.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 16 - Drummond points to neglect of country</a></li><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/10/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 17 - How the battle for pre-selection happened in 1920</a></li><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/10/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press_14.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 18 - Candidate pulled no punches in 1920</a></li><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/10/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press_21.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 19 - David Drummond and rivals for election in 1920</a></li><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/10/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press_28.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 20 - Drummond goes to the circus</a></li><li><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2020/11/history-of-new-england-newspaper-press.html" target="_blank">History of the New England newspaper press 21 - How David Drummond won the election</a></li></ul>For those who are interested to find out more,<a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/2010/06/decentralisation-development-and-decent.html" target="_blank"> Decentralisation, Development and Decent Government: the life and times of David Henry Drummond, 1890-1941 - introduction</a>, provides links to my biography on Drummond's life and times. If you are interested, you can follow the story through in more detail up to 1942. <p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-39918247292639164942020-11-04T15:53:00.001+11:002020-11-23T16:05:19.416+11:00History of the New England newspaper press 21 - How David Drummond won the election<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_5Quew6GRBM4vmm7Gq29Vl_9KibanW9kSu-3NRVpyIbonqVgujHiQIN_mC26PivqXM8kfEd-Def0NAMKcUCSAbuurfo7aRcjFQIuOilLHJ6Q74AT2CdQyemNsAMPAIpRYTcR0RPFW-BE/s532/Tattersalls+Hotel+Emmaville.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="332" data-original-width="532" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_5Quew6GRBM4vmm7Gq29Vl_9KibanW9kSu-3NRVpyIbonqVgujHiQIN_mC26PivqXM8kfEd-Def0NAMKcUCSAbuurfo7aRcjFQIuOilLHJ6Q74AT2CdQyemNsAMPAIpRYTcR0RPFW-BE/w640-h400/Tattersalls+Hotel+Emmaville.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />Tattersalls Hotel Emmavillel. Campaigning at Emmaville, Bruxner finally got Drummond into a pub where he drank a soda water! <p></p><p>This is the twenty first in a series on the history of the media and especially the newspaper press in New England, the fourteenth column on the emergence of the NSW Country Party. I am resting the series for a little while to focus on other things. It has become very long! </p><p>As the other candidates
in the March 1920 elections swung to the countryside Drummond turned his
attention to the towns. There he made one major tactical error.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Certain that Bruxner
would have a large surplus vote in his Tenterfield home base, Drummond decided
to campaign heavily in Tenterfield hoping to pick up Bruxner's second
preferences.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although Bruxner did
poll well, he did not secure a quota till the sixth count and Drummond's
Tenterfield campaign was wasted.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The two men seem to
have had considerable contact during the campaign. Bruxner liked Drummond
immediately, but there were considerable differences in outlook between the
polished grazier and the young farmer. At one point Ray Doolin organised a
combined meeting for them at the mining village of Emmaville.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i>“Anxious that our two
colts would work together, I asked the Colonel how he was getting on with Dave.
He replied ‘Oh Dave is coming on, I got him into the Pub and he drank a soda
water.’ After the meeting I asked about the Colonel - Dave replied ‘Ray, he is
a very fine and able man, but I think he is a bit of a lad!’"</i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span>The difference in
temperament between the two men did result in at least one clash, but after
that “temperate but straight speaking episode” the two became firm friends and
allies.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Northern press
played an important role in the Progressive's campaign, as did a resurgent
campaign for Northern self-government. The two were linked, because most
newspapers were supporting the self government cause.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While the separatist
campaign was non-party, it benefited the Progressives most. They supported
self-government and could campaign for it without the entanglements affecting
Labor and Nationalist candidates.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Press support was
particularly important for the lesser known Drummond. Drummond's old friend,
Ernest Sommerlad, campaigned for him strongly through the <i>Glen Innes Examiner</i>. Sommerlad was also able to persuade the
supporters of sitting member F.J. Thomas to grant preferences to Drummond.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Election day, 20 March
1920, saw the Progressives poll well, with 49 per cent of the vote as compared
with Labor's 37.2 per cent and the Nationalists' meagre 13.8 per cent. As
expected, Bruxner, with 23.5 per cent of the vote, was the second candidate
elected after Labor's McClelland.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This left Drummond
with 10 per cent of the vote competing for the third spot against the remaining
candidates. In the end, it was enough.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The result was a
surprise to many. As the <i>The Land</i> put
it some years later:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i>Mr Drummond was a young farmer of Inverell. He
had ideas, and had been active in the Farmers and Settlers' Association. No one
knew much about him, but that was of no consequence. He proceeded to tell them.
There were no widely signed requisitions for him to contest Northern Tablelands.
They were not required. He had made up his mind. He informed the electors he
knew about politics, and would be able to run the country as it ought to be
run. At first he was not taken seriously, but he was quite confident the people
would elect him to Parliament, and they did.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="border-bottom: 1px dashed red; color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"></a></span></span></span></span></span><p></p>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3005668431384229268.post-10244447629604798862020-10-28T15:25:00.002+11:002020-11-23T15:53:10.152+11:00History of the New England newspaper press 20 - Drummond goes to the circus<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnLbeqmF1zjbDy0Uf1zZDWJr4QmXA2nfMRJcvKPon5ExoBpB7gma5wFBJxg44OIj0ur4lLvAb8N39gJNB22jQHPMkgV0J3vhRJX4tvydll3WMRT5qRcfDmRq23Qyl_oulJYJ5e6qLRQY/s720/Wirth%2527s+Circus+1941+photo+State+Library.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="720" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTnLbeqmF1zjbDy0Uf1zZDWJr4QmXA2nfMRJcvKPon5ExoBpB7gma5wFBJxg44OIj0ur4lLvAb8N39gJNB22jQHPMkgV0J3vhRJX4tvydll3WMRT5qRcfDmRq23Qyl_oulJYJ5e6qLRQY/w400-h306/Wirth%2527s+Circus+1941+photo+State+Library.jpg" width="400" /></a> <b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Wirth’s Circus 1941. Photo State Library. The touring circus that Drummond spoke to at half time were a feature of country life.</span></b></p><div><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">This is the twentieth in a series on the history of the media and especially the newspaper press in New England, the thirteenth column on the emergence of the NSW Country Party.</span></b></div><div><br />The offer by Stephen Cosh to drive Drummond around the electorate free of charge “except for petrol and a tyre or two” did prove a Godsend. <p></p><p>They moved from meeting to meeting, up to ten in day. Drummond would usually spoke in the open air (during the whole campaign he only spoke in halls three times including his campaign opening in the Inverell Town Hall) then adjourn to a room with his local committee to sign scrutineer and other forms and lay out the plan of organisation. </p><p>After the meetings were finished, he and Stephen would retire, often as late as 1 am, to a quiet place in the countryside to spend the night. </p><p>The travellers had always to be ready for the unexpected. One night Drummond arrived at Ashford to find the whole village in darkness, for the circus was in town and the whole countryside was at it. </p><p>There was no chance of coming back Drummond therefore asked the manager if he could speak at half-time. He responded dubiously, “that if I could stand it he supposed he could.”</p><p>At half time Drummond bounded into the Ring with a small wooden box:. "Ladies & Gentlemen. My name is David Drummond Progressive Candidate at the forthcoming State Election. Take a good look at me and make up your mind what you think of me. Vote Drummond No. 1". </p><p>Grabbing the box, he made a fast exit before the bottles etc. began to fly. “That was the shortest political speech I ever made”, he later recalled. </p><p>Considering that the other Progressive candidates would concentrate first on the towns, Drummond focused on the country districts. </p><p>In those days, before radio and television, politicians could still attract large public audiences. Since Drummond was the first candidate in the field it was not unusual to find ninety to one hundred people gathered at some agreed cross roads, “really alert and stirred up to break free from being run by ‘City Lawyers’ & nominees of the Nationalist Party Executives”.</p><p>Drummond usually devoted the first half of his speech to an explanation of proportional representation. This always gained a good response and allowed him to preach his political message during the second half of his speech. </p><p>His theme was always 'Decentralization, Development and Decent Government'. He usually finished by saying that “Parties, Platforms and Policies existed for only one reason, the good government of the people. When they ceased to serve this end they should cease.”</p><p>Drummond was now developing campaign guidelines that he generally observed throughout his long political career.</p><p>“I never made the mistake then or later of slanging my opponents. I simply ignored their existence. Never did I make the cardinal blunder of dealing with past incidents in Parliament. ‘You people know all about what has been happening in the past in Parliament. What you are interested in hearing is the Policy of the Progressives’ & I went on to explain my own version of that policy.” </p><p>This approach was “new and held an audience tired of the old political clap.” It also “compelled the opposition to fight on a battle ground of my own choosing.”</p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #d52c1f; text-indent: 10px;">Note to readers: </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; text-indent: 10px;"><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;">This post was prepared as a column</span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang=""> for the on-line edition of the <i>Armidale Express.</i> I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the <i>Belshaw World</i> and <i>History Revisited/History Matters </i>columns by clicking here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2009</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202010" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2010</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202011" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2011</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/search/label/Belshaw%27s%20World%202012" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2012</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202013" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2013</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20revisited%202014" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2014</a>, here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202015" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2015</a>, <span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><span lang="">here for <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Revisited%202016" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>, here <a href="http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202017" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2017</a>, </span><span lang="">here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/search/label/History%20Matters%202018" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2018</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/History%20matters%202019" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2019</a>, here <a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">2020</a></span></span><span lang="" style="line-height: 22px;"><a href="https://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/history%20matters%202020" style="color: purple; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span></span></p><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div></div>Jim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.com0