All National Zeal And Courage

The family contribution to World War I was modest compared to some, so despite celebrating two ANZAC legends and one senselessly lost life, the sacrifice was overlooked in the recent federal ballot for the centenary event. 

Today, on ANZAC Day, these posts serve as the family's memorial. The first post is for Captain Walter William James. 

Walter William James (1867 - 1931)

The second is for Walter's son-in-law, Lieutenant Herbert Frederick Slocombe.

Herbert Frederick Slocombe (1889 - 1979)

The third is for Private Bruce Wilkins Campbell and his brothers.

Bruce Wilkins Campbell (1896 - 1917)

It's possible that rather than baulking at change in their families' lives, these three men were keen to make a patriotic contribution. Their particular skills and interests suggest that this was the case. It is also daunting to imagine their undoubted zeal and courage.

No rush

I have written before about a father, John Henry de Chave, who went missing from Grafton circa 1874, although there is still hope for finding him because all avenues are not yet exhausted. de Chave, if that was his actual name, never met his father-in-law William Joseph Halligan, who also went missing albeit 15 years earlier. It only took 154 years to find out what happened, or 126 years, depending on how the extant "evidence" is approached. This is Halligan's story. 

Last month I wrote about the splitting of collections across political borders. It is not a new phenomenon. In 1948, the State Library of Queensland purchased a 0.03 linear metre-sized document called Tooloom Gold Escort Petition, written in 1859-1860.  At least, I think it was. 

I found it listed in Trove, which also contains a lot of newspaper articles that mention Tooloom and the discovery of gold there, some 200 kms north of Grafton in NSW. Or as SLQ's finding aid says: "Tooloom is located 90 miles from Ipswich".

The discovered gold was sent to both Brisbane and Sydney for sale, amidst concern for its security threatened by bushrangers, thieves and general ne'er-do-wells. So there was legitimacy for either state library in Queensland or New South Wales to hold this item. Why mention Grafton? It was the home for a lot of the miners who walked or rode along the Clarence River to the successful mining areas such as Paddy's Flat and Pretty Gully, near to the Tooloom diggings.

Clarence River, Paddy's Flat, 2014

William Joseph Halligan was one such miner. A convict from Ireland, he left his wife, son and three daughters in 1859 to take advantage of the gold rush. They never saw him again, and in June 1863, placed identical advertisements several times in both the Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser (Grafton, NSW : 1859 - 1889) and the Goulburn Herald (NSW: 1860-1864). It may have been an evidentiary requirement for monetary reasons.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article102851480

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article61892727

Last year, pursuing a land grant which Halligan had been granted in 1856 in Queanbeyan prior to his move north, a document was uncovered which almost but not quite filled the gap left by an unregistered and intestate death. Halligan's son, John Hallagan (1844 - 1935), claimed the Queanbeyan land in 1888. To do so, he and his mother Mary Hines (~1825 -1904) had to fill out an affadavit.

State records NSW NRS 17513/39/40 [PA 7162], 1 May 1888

 

A professional researcher is cognisant of the need to triangulate evidence. In sympathy with the time expended by the family originally, it seemed reasonable to travel again from northern NSW to Brisbane to look at the Tooloom Gold Escort Petition. The finding aid for item OM70-31 gives the box number '10159 o/s' so it can be ordered in advance. All quite helpful, until arrival at the John Oxley Library.

Box 10159 was fetched from the stacks, but a quick assay confirmed that it was not the the right box. 

The internal catalogue showed that the box number had changed. Thinking again of that family, my family, I waited for the next likely box, 8673, to arrive. 

At the same time the librarians checked the internal catalogue and confirmed that the document had been missing since 27 July 1997. Another journey of despair. No explanation was given for not providing this status in the public catalogue, so perhaps there is a possibility it will be found in the collection of the State Library of Queensland one day. Hopefully without waiting another 126 years. 

[Following the link to Trove in paragraph 3 above, it is now possible to read the digitised copy of the document.]

The border switch

There are several towns in Australia which exist in different states and territories but have become glued together over time. Tweed Heads and Coolangatta are two of them.

Courtesy of Peter Cokley

The proper definition of an Australian border, it is acknowledged, is a fraught science. A physical sense of separation is easily engendered by landscape, such as a powerful symbol of a sweeping, winding river even if the towns are minutes apart by road. 

In the case of Tweed Heads and Coolangatta there is only a dotted line which can't be seen by the human eye, although several symbolic features mark the boundary including the first runway at Coolangatta airport.  

The New South Wales - Queensland border was once a symbol of pride, its reach was reflected in the titles of several newspapers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries such as the Tweed and Brunswick Advocate and the Southern Queensland Record, The Tweed Heads & Coolangatta Star, and The Border Star.    

 

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article152805649

 Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 

14 February 1942

State Records NSW 12951/8549

  
 














The border earned its own fence and gate.

Tweed Heads Historical Society S6-S204

This view shows the border gates and the gatekeeper's office when it was situated on the border across the road from the Tweed Heads Police Station. In the background is the pilot's boatshed situated on Jack Evans' Boat Harbour. In 1957 the gates were moved to South Tweed Heads" [The Changing Valley, p.19]. They no longer stand.

The border was also a celebrated feature of what was called souvenir glassware, or touristware:

 

  

All this has changed. The border gates have been reconstructed. From libraries to museums to sporting facilities, which all encourage healthy and enriched lives, the invisible border is now far more difficult to negotiate:

Challenges of living on the border

"The classic issue is that Tweed taxis cannot pick up passengers in Marine Pde (Coolangatta). It's a safety issue for people who want to get home."

Bad sports over border

"... Gold Coast City Council several years ago had begun charging Tweed residents for the use of its libraries, particularly the Coolangatta library."  

 

This statement was made in 2011, and echoed again recently:

Letters, Tweed Daily News, 18 February 2015, p.12

This was not the case for library patrons in the 1960s, when the border was invisible, but it is clear that it has been turned into an obstacle since. For example, the newspapers which straddle the border have not yet been digitised for Trove. The article shown above discussing the closure of The Border Star was found in a regional digitised newspaper far from the Queensland border, not the paper of the home towns concerned. Perhaps they have no champion in either state? The problem was recognised for the successor newspaper in October 1998: 

A wealth of information is contained in the files of the Daily News - which date back more than 100 years - but most Tweed residents cannot access them as they are located in Sydney or Brisbane. In an effort to improve this situation, the mayor has launched an appeal for funds to have the files recorded on CD Rom [sic] so they can be viewed in the Tweed. Council has opened a Community Heritage Trust Account with the view to raising an estimated $50,000 need to have the files recorded. [Tweed Link, 1996-1999 not available online].

The State Library of New South Wales is currently investigating the locations of those tantalising earlier newspapers, snippets of our history which may never come back. The border is holding its breath.

From top to bottom

Frank Gehry provided a most succinct justification for his design of the latest University of Technology Sydney building in an ABC interview on 27 February. 

He said: “The 19^th  century buildings hold the city together”. So he chose warm-coloured local bricks for much of the exterior, to tie in with that heritage. It is an extraordinary way to acknowledge a gift which is now often spurned by town planners and developers. 

Inexorably the iconic buildings of self-contained small towns are disappearing under the weight of a lack of foresight and the risk of litigation, where the future of our heritage is put at risk instead. The character, the soul, the icons of childhood are wrapped in time. 

The places which stick in memory and convey a sense of lives past provide the rich texture to our current lives. Rip them out, leaving no trace, and we become soulless, less anchored and ignorant.

 
We can rely on our libraries and museums to fill some of the gap, through their virtual offerings. Hesba Brinsmead's Pastures of the Blue Crane continues to bring the rich tropical physicality of Terranora to life, in both book and video form. Colin Friels still swims at the Snapper Rocks swimming pools in The Coolangatta Gold, dolphins still jump with grace at the Jack Evans Pet Porpoise Pool in the photographs held by the Tweed Heads Historical Society, and Larry Corowa still runs in the Sports Days at Tweed River High School.

But that is not as sensemaking as the submersive physical experience. Coffs Harbour has recognised this as a significant issue recently by supporting two cultural heritage initiatives. The first is a decision by the Coffs Harbour City Council to “relinquish responsibility for the Bunker Cartoon Gallery [back to a] group of enthusiastic volunteers” who belong to a non-profit organisation. “Animated plans for Bunker” [ref: Coffs Coast Advocate, 28 February 2015, p.3.] It’s expected to save some Council budget, so there are generous intentions on both sides to retain a unique heritage for the future.

The second is the instigation of a study of heritage sites with mostly unacknowledged meaning. Not just those that are on a list of Council-supported heritage assets, but a reassurance that our past can still be studied in situ. The study “has identified about 500 additional locally significant items in the Coffs Harbour area, including banana-packing sheds, dairy buildings, timber houses, timber bridges and even fibro holiday shacks... These places may become part of tourist drives, walks, or even festivals, or they might simply be recorded for posterity” [ref: Opinion sought on heritage study, Coffs Coast Advocate, 25 February 2015, p.17]. This choice illustrates empathy for loss.

Do they all have to be maintained by public funds? While there is a volunteer community prepared to support them, yes, although the sums expended do not need to be burdening. Is the volunteer demographic growing larger? Yes. Bernard Salt reports on this continuously. So why squander the good will of a ‘rusted on’ volunteer workforce? Using the time of people generously donated to preserving a part of their contextual history is a key plank of our community wellbeing. I’ve written before about the CSIRO study in which Australia’s senior heritage curators acknowledged the confluence between a passion for heritage and general wellbeing. 

As an alternative, less expensive investment in health infrastructure, historical societies and their interest in built heritage are an unparalleled opportunity to invest in. In addition, the importance of a cross-section of experience and skills to the cultural heritage sector - such as that offered by any volunteering cohort - was acknowledged in a recent British study by key figures such as the British Library’s Chief Executive, Roly Keating.

Smaller towns struggle with the centralisation of budget decisions, regional politics, and infrastructural vacuums. But to ignore resources at hand, with time and expertise, is the ultimate short-sightedness. There are many agencies which recognise the value of and work extensively with volunteer labour forces, but this is not uniformly the case. Just look around your environment and you will know which ones they are.

Smaller towns should take the time to rethink, and use the knowledge of their residents to better understand and appreciate the significant iconic history available to them, while they can. As the Queensland government “restores” the Southern Gold Coast railway line one train station at a time, it knows that it is far costlier to rip out viable heritage and then, several years down the track, put it all back. 

Day-trippers coming off the train from Brisbane, at Tweed Heads station, c. 1916. http://tweedhistory.org.au

 

 

I can see Port clearly now

For a week in November, I had the privilege of untrammelled access to the Photograph Collection of the Port Macquarie Historical Society. It is extensive - more than 20,000 photographs, albums, artworks and postcards ranging from the 19th to the 21st century - and distinctive, supported by a donation of contemporary images by the Port Macquarie News. 

https://ehive.com/account/3977/object/497126/Postcards_Comboyne_Waterfalls

President of the Society and Museum Director, Debbie Sommers, invited me to examine the collection with a curatorial perspective and advise on a future pathway for this unparalleled documentary record.

"I can see clearly now the rain is gone"

Historical Society volunteers work very hard to collect, preserve and share their photographic collections. Collection management was often established on a shoestring. As Port Macquarie Historical Society recognised, the key is to make small changes by checking larger agencies' best practices and standards, then applying them as resources allow.

"I can see all obstacles in my way"

Metadata could be classed as an obstacle, but standard solutions have been developed by librarians and archivists for decades.The Port Macquarie photographs (printed), art, and images (digital) have some metadata which is mostly accessible only when visiting the Museum. 

https://ehive.com/account/3977/object/387299/William_Macdonnells_Photo_Album

http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/210461006

My first foray into exposing image metadata collaboratively, in the service known as PictureAustralia, was a rigorous training ground for understanding what is needed for people to discover quintessential images of Australiana. The Port Macquarie collection is no exception, the currently modest amount of valuable metadata can be extended to improve its reach.

There is no shortcut to augmenting metadata. Socks and brassieres could be recorded as sox and bras, but both sets of spellings often need to be recorded if an image is to have the widest possible chance of discovery. Similarly, abbreviations are an anathema for future discovery.

Once made though, the investment repays over and over, as metadata is able to be shared with online offerings including the Society's own website, social media outlets such as Twitter, and inter/national discovery services such as Flickr and Trove. 

Distinctive, tailored metadata also differentiates curated images from the mass of minimalist descriptions online. And yes, you will want to find yourself in the school photo 30 years down the track.

"Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind"

Metadata choice may restrict the system chosen to support it but the reverse is also true. For example, a bespoke solution for museum artefacts can be expensive, but is it more so than stuffing bras and sox into your sock drawer together and forever having to maintain them that way? This is a dilemma often faced by a conjoined museum/historical society management team: which platform to choose for exposing metadata online as well as for  managing a collection.

The chosen system must take advantage of the metadata for restoration, care, discovery, purchase and publication. Such systems exist now, but did not when photographic collections were first mooted.

"Look all around there's nothing but blue skies"

Christina Fahy PMHS #2057

Under the stewardship of the Port Macquarie Historical Society Collections/Archives/Records Sub-Committee - Tony Dawson, Lorraine Lyne, Clive Smith, and Debbie Sommers - there is the necessary commitment to improving access to and use of this unique collection.

We will all be beneficiaries. 
 




"It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright) Sun-Shiny day"

Acknowledgement: with thanks to Johnny Nash and his song "I Can See Clearly Now"

Remembering Anne

Today, Anne would have celebrated her 70th birthday. She died at the age of 49, in October 1994, as the result of a secondary cancer.

Anne was the consummate public servant. I met her when she joined the Automated Data Processing Branch of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (DIEA). While it was the scene of my first full-time job offer, Anne, and many others who had been ignominously separated from a public service project called Mandata, were distributed to any Department which could fit them in.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110852986

Almost as long-running as a Defence project,  the failure of Mandata was well documented by The Canberra Times between 1973 and 1981, in both prose and poetry form.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110747252

, 1973

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article131710659, 1978

There was a match between Anne's skills with the Mandata system, and the new Burroughs mainframe purchased by DIEA. For a while, Anne and I were the only two female IT programmers at DIEA and she took me under her wing. We ate lunch together almost every day so we could discuss our thoughts about colleagues openly.

She was a striking looking lady, tall with red hair. As a divorcee, she lived alone most of the time and companionship was provided by her beloved dogs. She was an experimental chef and enjoyed cooking for friends and colleagues. One colleague became close. He was a contractor to the IT team, and a skilled pilot. He took us to Moruya one Saturday in a four-seater propellered aircraft. Anne loved it, but it put me off flying in small planes for a while. Anne continued however. She was intrepid in her adventures - taking one of the first hot-air balloon rides over the site of the new Parliament House while it was under construction.

She also reluctantly left her dogs behind to spend three months in Hong Kong for the Department, learning about the new IT system which would take us to the next level of expertise. 

Anne was passionate about gardening, or so it seemed until the conversation changed to the best way to core a lawn, or which outdoor furniture to buy.  I inherited a green thumb for indoor plants from her. She was a curious mix - we once visited the same fortune teller, a first time for me. Anne was told that 'she would die young', but she continued to focus on her work and her pets. She helped me find my next appointment, and after I left the Department, she left too. Alas her career track was once again derailed, with the closure of the Australian Government Publishing Service.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article122269405, 1989

The AGPS tried very hard to stay in the publishing game. In 1990 and again in 1991, it published guidelines which recognised the changes looming in the publishing world.

Webb, Eric & Lovelock, Marjorie & Australian Government Publishing Service 1990,

Looking good : desktop publishing, Australian Govt. Pub. Service, Canberra

http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/45861917

Anne died on the cusp of technological disruption, when the world wide web gained serious traction in the Australian Public Service. What a powerhouse she would have been with web technologies. She was the most professional public servant I ever met. The number of hours she worked seemed irrelevant. Filing was always detailed and up-to-date. Relationships with colleagues were managed with care. She worked from home between cancers, and had time to document her business decisions prior to finally downing tools. 

Her dedication and her determination offset family issues. 
After her father's death, she missed him desperately. Close relationships seemed elusive. Anne decided to be buried at the Gungahlin Cemetery in Canberra.  Her gifts to her home city were thoughtful and heartfelt:

"Her passion for her dogs and the companionship they provided was evidenced by her decision to also make a significant bequest to the RSPCA as well as to the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service." 

[From the ceremony to open the Ducrou Pavilion on the Eucalypt Lawn of the Australian National Botanic Gardens, built with a generous bequest from the estate of Anne Ducrou. 
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/131412/20120106-0837/www.anbg.gov.au/biography/ducrou-anne.html]

---

http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/210177508

I am always in her debt. As a mentor, close colleague and exemplar, she was without peer. 

"Not everything that can be counted counts,

and not everything that counts can be counted." [Einstein]

Statistics are bread-and-butter to politicians, and public servants spend a lot of time accumulating them. Many pages in Annual Reports of governments and businesses are devoted to the numbers illustrating that they are still worthy of investment. While they are not that straight-forward to find, they are always dutifully made available as part of accountability and transparency requirements, and frequently updated tallies are always a pleasure to report to keen constituencies. 

nla.gov.au/librariesaustralia

The Libraries Australia service hosted by the National Library has reported its growth, in a very similar format, for more than 30 years.

However, with the advent of Trove, a new approach was developed to put statistics directly into the hands of people contributing to the service.

 

http://trove.nla.gov.au

Statistics are often the last functional component of a new service to be developed, so this outcome was a breakthrough for public accountability. They are generated regularly, they are easy to locate and use, and they keep tabs on the exchange between Trove and an individual or an agency, especially useful for those maximising Trove for their own productivity.

However, this ease also seemed to mean that the statistics could be ignored by those who might derive some value from them. Parliament still prefers a one-size-fits-all model: number of visits to the website, 

www.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/nla-annrep-2013-2014.pdf, p.43

not how a service might make a difference to the lives of Australians.

It was bemusing therefore to read the recent article by Jeff Kennett describing the importance of art: "People will always argue over any money spent on the arts, and insist it would have been better spent on education, health or some other service that already receives billions of dollars in annual recurrent expenditure. But I have always argued that you cannot have a cosmopolitan city without it having a strong cultural heart. That heart includes all forms of art, music, dance, theatre, architecture, sculpture and, importantly, colleges and places of learning." About the new art for Sydney, he went on to say "Sydney will be a better place for these three installations, and if they can encourage just one citizen to pursue an artistic career the sculptures will have done their job." Weekend Australian, August 2-3, 2014, p.8.

$million of dollars = three outstanding works of art = one citizen?

Is that a good return on investment? Do those statistics illustrate a difference has been made? Fortunately it isn't 'an economic measure'. While this expenditure on art is not begrudged at all, what about library services, created in Australia, which reach out to millions every day? Services which provide culture, heritage and learning to metropolitan, rural, regional, remote Australians equally, currently having their government funding reduced so that they need to seek dollars in other ways.

http://trove.nla.gov.au

This year, the government funded an Innovation Study of Australian Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. It made only one mention of the increase in productivity encouraged by the heritage sector. [p.22] A lost opportunity?

Here's a self-measured statistic about Trove: "What five years ago was a month-long project at the State Library (if you could get a microfilm reader before everyone else) is now literally a five-minute exercise from home and an extra hour enables you to find and link information on a scale that could never previously have been imagined." Trove Evaluation Survey. [p.4]

Does it also measure:

• proactive use of the NBN
• reduced stress on transport infrastructure
• saving of funds expended on depreciating government equipment
• redirection of librarianship skills and resources to more meaningful work?

Trove has not yet reached its boundaries for growth. Make sure to keep using it, so its value continues to be counted as part of the rich heritage and productivity of the nation,

even if that value is only measured in the ever growing visits to the National Library's website. 

******** 


This entry marks the day 34 years ago when I became a full-time public servant, but I am no longer counting.