Maximising value from local and regional history - the case of mining history

Historical nugget: Jubilee Gold Mining Company, Rocky River, is part of our rich mining history, yet few outside the New England know of the scale of the mining province.This is third in a three part series on the economic, social and cultural value of family, local and regional history within the broader New England.

So far in this series, I have spoken of the growing interest in family, local and regional history. This comes partly from current locals, but far more from those outside the North who have lived there or have family connections to the area.

There are two further groups we need to consider.

The first is visitors who come to a particular location, often for a day or less to visit a particular attraction or just to see a place. This group drops into the local information centre, historical society or museum as part of their visit. They may have an interest in local history, but this is often peripheral to their visit. 

The second group covers those who have a particular interest from architecture to mining to Aboriginal history to bushrangers to Italian POWs. The range is quite enormous.

The first group is actually quite well catered too. The second is not.

Localism is the curse of the North. It is driven by locals who see their town as the centre of the universe, by councils who see their role as promoting and serving the areas covered by their shifting boundaries often in competition with other areas.

The term zero sum game is used to describe the situation where the pie is fixed, where one participant can only gain of someone else loses an equivalent amount. Tourism promotion and history’s role in tourism promotion is often treated as though it were a zero sun game.

This may sound extreme, but consider this case.

A week back, I had dinner with friends to meet his parents. They love mining and told me many fascinating stories about Lightning Ridge.

As part of their love of mining and of ghost towns, they regularly attend the Nundle gold/Chinese festival. They visit Glen Innes to fossick. But they had no idea that the western slopes of the Tablelands had once been the greatest tin province in the world.

They had no idea that Tingha had been a major mining center with a large Chinese population and its own China town. Driving through, they had noticed the Wing Hong Ling Museum, but it didn’t mean anything to them.

This struck me as a failure in information and promotion.

History is about stories. This is where we local and regional historians, amateur and professional, come in.

If we don’t get our mind above the local, if we don’t look for broader linkages and patterns, if we don’t tell a textured story, then those who depend upon us will be less effective.

Note to readers: This post appeared as a column in the Armidale Express Extra on 23 October 2019. I am repeating the columns here with a lag because they are not all on line outside subscription. You can see all the Belshaw World and History Revisited/History Matters columns by clicking here for 2009, here for 2010, here for 2011, here for 2012, here for 2013, here for 2014, here for 2015,  here for 2016, here  2017, here 2018, here 2019