Social change in New England 1950-2000 Introduction

This post began as just a note to myself.

The second half of the twentieth century was a period of great social change in New England, as it was in the rest of Australia. For a long time, I was reluctant to tackle this, partly because I found parts of it so depressing, party because it was hard to get a frame that might allow me to judge objectively. After all, I lived through this period.

In writing the story of social change in New England during this period, one issue is just the nature of the change itself. A second issue is the way that change mirrored, diverged from, or interacted with, the changes taking place elsewhere in Australia. Even if the changes simply mirrored those elsewhere, the story needs to be told. But was the process of change different? Were there specific local elements?

The bullet points that follow are simply notes on key themes. I will not give references, nor past posts. That can come later.

• Don Aitkin's story of the Armidale High Leaving Certificate class of 1953 is a fundamental document because it provides a picture of change through the prism of one group. The themes that Don identifies provide a national and localised framework.
• The fundamental changes in the demography of New England in the last two decades of the century, the rise of the coast and decline of the inland, needs to be scoped through census data. Even in the seventies, these changes and their impacts remained in the future. 
• Economic and associated structural change needs to be scoped. New England is an interesting case study because it combines urban and rural, industrial and farming. The 1997 closure of the BHP steelworks could be used as an entry point just to give drama, the end of an era.
• Changes in social attitudes and values might be illustrated by taking the history of the University of New England. The history of the Armidale School might be used to illustrate how this worked out at a school level. Ken Dempsey's study of the Uralla Methodist Church shows the impact at a purely local level. The history of the counter culture and of Aquarius and Nimbin needs to be spelled out; I am not sure of references here.
• At Aboriginal level, there is actually a very specific New England story, extending well beyond the Sydney University student rides, so often the feature of history discussions of the period. The other elements get lost.

Well, there is an initial stake in the ground. I will now do some more notes focused not on new research, just what I have done to this point.

You cn see this in the following posts:

• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 2: Don Aitkin's What was it all for?
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 3: Church, state and social change in Australia
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 4: Generational Change and the 1970s
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 5: end of local media ownership 
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 6: introducing the writers 
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 7: Judith Wright 
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 8: unlisted public companies
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 9: Grafton Brewing Company Limited
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  Social Change in New England 1950-2000 10: electricity & national competition policy
• Social Change in New England 1950-2000 11: the Aborigines
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
  
  
  

Greece, the Aborigines and New England

Just at the moment, I am writing a series of posts on our Greek trip. I am really enjoying soaking myself in the history of the Greek Islands and the Eastern Mediterranean, although it is a dreadful distraction from the book I am meant to be writing on the history of New England.

Anybody interested in history will know the way in which thought in one area feeds into thought in another. After a while, the histories of apparently different areas becomes point and counterpoint around common themes. This really shouldn't surprise, although I am constantly amazed. After all, history is all about humanity, and the general problems people face have been constant across the eons. It's only the expression that differs.

Inevitably, given my interests, the lessons and ideas drawn from my Greek trip have been playing across into posts on the New England Australia blog about the lessons for New England tourism. I make no apology for this.

When I write as an historian, I try to be objective if interesting. When I write about New England issues or development, I can be as partisan as anyone else.

I accept that not everybody shares my interest in history. Not everybody wants to visit historical sites or see how things fit in with history. Yet, on my experience, a remarkable number of people do.

To my mind, Australia in general and New England in particular are very bad at explaining history, at creating a visitor experience, that will bring the past alive. Does this matter? I think that it does.

On Santorini I got into a dispute with my mother-in-law. It wasn't a bad fight, we are very good friends, but I still reacted strongly. You see, she compared the historical sites that we had seen with the Australian Aborigines, arguing that the Aborigines did not build things. I said that she was wrong, and tried to provide evidence.

Of course, Aboriginal constructions cannot compare with Ancient Thera on Santorini. That's not comparing like with like.

The Aborigines were not a farming community, they did not generate the type of food surpluses necessary to sustain a building workforce. They didn't need too. After all, their average standard of living was probably higher than that holding in many Neolithic farming communities. Why work a ten hour day when you can meet your needs in six?

Yet the Aborigines did build things from fish traps to ceremonial sites. They did so when there was a clear collective purpose.

Just at present, the Australian Government is considering a referendum to enshrine the Aborigines in the constitution as the first Australians. Depending on how it's worded, it will probably pass. It would pass more easily if Australians had better access to our Aboriginal past.

New England, here I am talking about the broader New England, had one of the highest Aboriginal populations on the content.  It was also a diverse population with different languages and life styles. Yet so far as the visitor is concerned, it might not exist. You cannot access it,

I think that's a pity.                    

Round the history blogs 8 - bits and pieces

A bit over two months since my last round-up of history blogs.

Point and counter-point in history has already recorded my reaction to two of Janine Rizzeti's latest posts. This is a very good blog for those interested in Australian history, with references too to Canada,

Hat tip to North Coast Voices for identifying a new history blog for me, Yvonne Perkins' Stumbling Through the Past. There were always people here: a history of Yuraygir National Park reports on a new history of this park on the North Coast written by Johanna Kijas and published by the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change. This is an area I have a particular interest in. Sadly, the link to the history itself is down as I write. Hopefully, it will be back up soon.

Archives Outside continues to provide access to a range of interesting material. Each month they have a link round up post, last month October 2010: Link roundup post, providing links to a range of historical and/or archival material. This includes New England material. Their tag system is not quite as good as it should be, but you can access New England material here and here. Note that their definition of New England is narrower than mine; I use the broader definition of new state New England.

On the new state, a post I wrote here, When was the New England rampant lion first raised?, led to a radio interview on New England North West ABC local radio. This led to a follow up post of mine on another blog, Is the New England lion Finnish?. This includes a link through to the page ABC New England North West created following the interview; an mp3 recording of the interview can be found there.

I suspect that very few, if any, of my history round-up posts have not contained a reference to Helen Webberley's ART and ARCHITECTURE mainly. Seriously, this is a very good blog indeed. Take, as an example, An extraordinary war heroine: Irena Sendler. This is a remarkably inspirational post about a woman I had never heard of.

A Fortean in the Archives is sub-titled Strange stories. But with sources. Strange they are. From Mike Dash's Erotic secrets of Lord Byron’s tomb I learned that embalming fluid expands the size of the penis! More seriously, the post draws out something of a man who continues to occupy a legendary place in history.

The 2010 Cliopatria awards are now open for nominations. There are a number of categories, with the winners to be announced at the American Historical Association Annual Meeting in early January 2011.

The global standard in history blogs in is very high. To see what I mean, have a look at Rachel Leow's Curating the Oceans: The Future of Singapore’s Past, the best individual blog post of 2009. This is very good writing indeed. I was already following Rachel's blog. Sadly, she has not updated it since February of this year. Rachel, I miss you!

I would like to think that some of the Australian blogs might feature in the future. However and speaking just for myself, I have got some distance to go before I would lodge a personal nomination.

Well, I am out of time. More later.

SS Allara torpedoed of Newcastle, 1942

My thanks to Hunternewsfeed for this one.

For much of New England's European history, coastal shipping was very important in getting produce out and goods in. Shipwrecks were common; as one example, see North Coast Memories - SS Fitzroy.

During the Second World War, Japanese submarines provided a new type of danger. Today's Newcastle Herald gives an example. I quote: 

It was July 23, 1942, in the midst of World War II, and Newcastle was still reeling from being shelled by a Japanese submarine. Authorities knew there were more about.

The SS Allara, carrying a load of sugar from Cairns to Sydney, was about 25 nautical miles off the coast when it was hit by a torpedo, one of two fired by the enemy sub I-175.

The explosion, which blew off the ship's propeller and rudder, killed five crew and seriously injured another two. Miraculously, the Allara didn’t sink and tugs raced from Newcastle to tow the damaged vessel to safety.

Linked to the story are a series of photos showing the damage done to the ship. 

Point and counter-point in history

Recently, Janine Rizzeti has had two rather nice book reviews:‘Good Men and True: The Aboriginal Police of the Port Phillip District 1837-1853′ by Marie Hansen Fels and then, a little earlier, ‘A distant field of murder’ by Jan Critchett.

Both reviews were very well written. Both drew out some of the complexities involved in interpreting black-white relations on the moving frontier.

In her review of Jan Critchett's book, Janine paid me a rather nice compliment when she wrote:

There is much to be gained from a close-grained analysis of Aboriginal/White interaction based on a particular geographic region-  I know that Jim Belshaw has adopted this approach.

It would be fairer to say that I try to adopt this type of approach. I make this qualification because in presently writing a general history, I am trying to work with secondary sources as much as possible. To really do cross-grained analysis, you gave to go back to the original records.

A good example of this is James Knight's PhD thesis on Tindale tribes. He took the work of the anthropologist Norman Tindale in mapping Australia's Aboriginal groups and subjected it to detailed forensic analysis for one area of South Australia using the original records. The work provided a powerful rebuttal of certain elements in Tindale's thinking. Since Tindale's work is built into some current aspects of public policy towards the Aborigines, Knight's work is of current, not just historical, interest.

To be really effective, close-grained has to be combined with broader studies. To often, we just have the broader studies. Less often, we have close-grained studies written in isolation or that sit there in isolation.

To my mind, the best history comes from point and counter-point between local or regional close-grained historical analysis and broader analysis. Both deliver ideas, tentative broader conclusions, that can then be tested.

When was the New England rampant lion first raised?

When I did my original research on the history of the new state movement in New England I stopped at the Second World War. I wasn't so much worried about the later period because key elements of that were in my living memory. Now I need to flesh it out.

All political movements use symbols to gather support for their cause or to encapsulate political messages. Those symbols become part of the visual and mental landscape of both supporters and opponents alike.

The Northern or New England New State Movement was no different. It used a variety of symbols to try to gather support. Here the first photo shows the New England rampant lion flag in colour.

This raised the question in my mind in my mind as to the the date at which the rampant lion flag was first raised. It had to be after the early 1930s since this was the date at which the Movement first adopted New England as the name for the whole new state area.

The next photo shows the flag being raised in 1962 at the Movement's new campaign offices in Armidale's Minto Building. By then, the flag was well recognised.

Part of the answer lies in a Sydney Morning Herald story of 18 October 1954 that I reported on in a A 1954 Sydney view of the New England New State Movement.

By this date, the golden rampant lion symbol was clearly established. However, the story also said that the Movement soon hoped to fly its own flag. Clearly the flag was not yet ready

So, on the evidence, we now have a possible date range of late 1954 to early 1955 for the first raising of the flag. 

Blog performance September 2010

I'm sorry for the long delay in posting. It's hard to believe that I just got back from Greece Sunday. Greece already seems so remote!

The attached graphic shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) for the year to end September.

The top ten posts over September were:

• Geography of New England - Introduction 365 page views
• Hunter Valley Aboriginal Groups 140 page views
• NSW Aboriginal Languages Map 69 page views
• Sunderland Flying Boats, Clarence River 45 page views
• Introduction to New England's Aboriginal languages... 36 page views
• Geography of New England - Impact of Great Dividing Range 35 page views
• New England's Aboriginal Languages 33 page views
• Drummond's life 10 - bibliography 30 page views
• Resumed posting on New England's history 30 page views
• New England Australia - Clarence River catchment map 27 page views.

Greek sojourn

In Greece, mainly in the Greek islands. Lots of things to write on, but will have to largely wait until I get back.

Blog Performance August 2010

This is not a high traffic blog. Not only does it deal with a specialist subject, but my posting is also somewhat irregular! Still, I was fascinated by the apparent spike in traffic in August.

The graphic shows visits (yellow) plus page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over the year ending August 2010. That is a very big increase. As I recorded in Blog visits take off, something of the same thing happened on the New England Australia blog. I think that its connected with the present increase in issues New England.

Looking now at reader interests, the top ten posts on this blog over the last month were:

• Hunter Valley Aboriginal Groups  144 page views
• Drummond's life 10 - bibliography 110 page views
• Geography of New England - Introduction  77 page views
• Drummond's life 9 - the growing shadows: public life 1936-1942 60 page views
• New England Australia - Hunter River catchment map 56 page views
• Anaiwan or Nganyaywana entry page 50 page views
• NSW Aboriginal Languages Map 46 page views
• New England Australia - Clarence River catchment map 35 page views
• Drummond's life 5 - The Minister: 1927-1929 27 page views
• Impact of State Boundaries on Aboriginal Language Groups 25 page views

I know that I need to update some of the earlier but still popular posts. I have been hesitating simply because its such a large job!

Round the history blogs 7 - a bit of everything

In the limited work I have done on New England's Aboriginal languages, I find that I have to continually and consciously avoid the trap of thinking of languages as though they were a single identity, English is English, German is German, Anaiwan is Anaiwan. This way of thinking is a modern construct.

A review in the Economist of Ruth H Sanders' German: Biography of a Language (Oxford University Press) is a good reminder. German as German is quite recent. The language was in fact something of a soup, a container of very different languages.

In Melbourne Day? 30 August, the Resident Judge of Port Philip looks at various attempts by Melbournians to establish a a day to celebrate the city. Now, apparently, they have settled on 30 August as Melbourne Day. Apparently Separation Day on 1 July to celebrate the separation of Victoria from New South Wales in 1851 was Victoria’s first day of commemoration, but it faded away quickly in the face of the gold rushes.

If and when New England gets self-government, I imagine that this day would be more popular as a state celebration. After all, we have been trying for so long. It is now over 150 years since the first attempt to carve out part of Northern NSW into a new colony, 95 years since the first twentieth century outbreak of separatist agitation at Grafton, 43 years since the defeat of the New England new state plebiscite. And here we are still trying!

I guess that this makes us the oldest political movement in Australia! Sure boundaries have changed, as has the concept of the North. The name New England to describe the whole area is quite recent, only 79 years! I am not sure what I make of all this, but it is interesting.

CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog remains an useful and indeed entertaining source of information on things historical. It posts daily links to matters of interest. As one example, Brett Holman's Elsewhere: Post-blogging 1940 looks at various attempts to live blog aspects of the second world war.

On Gordon Smith's Old news from Armidale and New England, Horrible murder at Hillgrove Mines restarts the presses on a pretty gruesome 1888 murder case. It's interesting watching the trivia, and sometimes not so trivia, of past local news roll across the screen. It's actually not a bad way of getting a feel for the past.  I quote:

While a party of men were out opossum shooting on Thursday night (26th January) they discovered the dead body of a man. The corpse was found in a very peculiar place. The man’s throat was cut from ear to ear, and his skull battered in. The sight was a most ghastly one. The body had on blucher boots, half worn out; colonial tweed trousers; regatta, or print, shirt; flannel drawers and under-shirt ; diagonal coat. He was apparently an aged man – over 50 years old.

I suppose the thing that struck me most here was the fact that he was an aged man - over 50! Made me feel ancient. Then, too, I wondered about the description of the clothing. I don't actually know what blucher boots are. I must look it up. 

Finally, Australian Policy and History has some interesting new articles. I am not going to comment on them here, however, because I want to pick up several in another context.