History Matters

Strangely enough, during my first contact with the Parramatta Female Factory Friends I was witness to history in the making.
Having filled out the contact form on the Factory Friends’ website in early August, I received an E-mail from the organisation’s President Gay Hendriksen asking me if I could be at NSW Parliament at 10:30am on Thursday the 19th of August to sign a petition.
I arrived to find a large group of people assembled outside the Parliament, many of whom were wearing ‘Parramatta Female Factory Friends’ badges. Other attendees appeared to be from Unions (the CFMEU and USU), and the North Parramatta Residents’ Action Group. Gay informed me that today the Female Factory Friends, and other groups concerned about residential development in the Parramatta area, were presenting a petition to the Parliament with over 10,000 signatures. This petition aimed to put a stop to proposed developments in the Parramatta historic precinct (where the Female Factory is located) including a 30-storey high-rise apartment building. To achieve this aim, the petition sought recognition for the Female Factory and surrounding area as a National Heritage site.
I was able to sign the petition and talk to some of the people who had been involved in the incredibly arduous process of collecting (with pen and paper, as per NSW legislation) all of the signatures. This was a great opportunity to hear about people’s diverse motivations for involvement in the campaign and the Factory Friends group. Some people were the descendants of factory workers who wanted the site preserved to honour their family members; others believed that the Parramatta precinct was an invaluable insight into Australian colonial heritage, and some people simply wanted the area protected against overdevelopment. These conversations gave me an insight into just how much hard work is required for groups interested in public histories to preserve historical sites and generate interest in their significance. Unlike academic historians who usually have a devoted audience (small as it may be), groups interested in public histories must engage the community before they can convey more detailed histories. Thus, they must not only convince an audience, but create one.
Later, we were received at the Parliament by Greens MPs Jamie Parker and David Shoebridge, as well as Labor MP Penny Sharpe. All three of these parliamentarians spoke of the significance of the Female Factory as a historical site, and the importance of its preservation. They also compared the factory to other similar early-colonial sites in Australia, such as Tasmania’s Port Arthur, which has already received National Heritage listing. I found it interesting that David Shoebridge reflected on 1827 riot at the Female Factory (which was caused by poor conditions and rations for factory-workers) as one of Australia’s earliest industrial actions. This aspect of the Female Factory’s history seemed to resonate with many members of the crowd (and particularly the Union-affiliated attendees) and demonstrated the way in which particular narratives can make historical sites and events resonate in the present.
Following the MPs speeches, we entered NSW Parliament House where the petition was formally tabled. In one of the Parliament reading rooms, we then assembled as a group and people who had been involved in the campaign (including Gay herself) spoke about its importance. Many speakers highlighted the significance of the factory as a historical site which commemorated women’s involvement (and exploitation) in the early Australian colony. One speaker, who had migrated from Greece to Australia in the 1970s, said that he failed to understand how Australians could be so oblivious to the historical importance of the site. “No one would ever be allowed to build an apartment on the Acropolis,” he said. Another speaker also recognised the role of the Female Factory as a point for early contact between British colonists and indigenous Australians on the Parramatta River.
Suffice to say, my first meeting with the Factory Friends was pretty exciting. I witnessed a grassroots movement of people interested in a historical site petitioning democratic representatives for its preservation, and heard many stories about the significance of the site to the group’s members.
For more information about how the petition was compiled and presented to the NSW Parliament, and photos from the day, see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-20/push-to-protect-parramatta-womens-factory-from-development/6711438

Dear friends of HSTY3902,
I am writing my first blog post as part diary entry, part promotional piece, on my work with North Parramatta Residents Action Group (‘NPRAG’). I met with Suzette Meade, President of NPRAG, on Tuesday. Although we have been in contact over the phone and via email for the past couple of months, this was the first time we have met in person. Suzette showed me the grounds of the Parramatta Female Factory site and its surrounds, located at 5 Fleet Street in Parramatta. I was truly taken by the beauty and quiet majesty of the buildings, which although incredibly old (dating back to the early 1800s) remain in mostly good condition. Walking through the old buildings you can still see (and touch) the intricate markings left by individual convicts on the sandstone blocks which form the structures—apparently common practice which identifies which convict cut which stone and was thus entitled to wages for it. This site contains some of the oldest buildings in Australia’s history, and perhaps even more than the few which remain in the Sydney CBD today. It was a remarkable experience to walk through such an old and historically significant site, and particularly poignant that this was my first visit in the 21 years I have lived just a 10-minute drive away.
What is even more poignant is the fact that this wonderful experience—of walking through two-hundred-year-old cottages, of touching convict-carved sandstone, of smelling the sweet perfume of overhanging wisteria vines and of witnessing a colony of endangered bat species make themselves at home in the trees above—could come to an end all to soon. Suzette has been at the vanguard of NPRAG’s protests against current proposals, put forward by developer UrbanGrowth NSW, to develop the site into a residential precinct consisting of between 4000—6000 apartments. When I had spoken to Suzette earlier and had learned of the proposal, my understanding was that it threatened the site because the apartments would sit near the current site, across the road, imposing not just a twenty-plus-storey shadow but various other infrastructural strains that come with housing thousands of new residents. But when I walked through the site and Suzette showed me a sky-view artist’s impression of exactly where the new apartments would sit, and pointed out the proposed plots as we stood amongst the buildings, I was shocked to realise that the proposal includes the placement of apartment blocks within the site itself—some right next to the original convict structures. It is hard to understand why anyone would think it a good idea to place modern apartment blocks in amongst such a quiet and beautiful historical site, and the sprawling green grounds that surround it, but this is precisely what Suzette and NPRAG have been campaigning against since January this year.
But enough lament. It was wonderful to meet Suzette and see her passion and determination to fight this proposal, as well as to nut out exactly how I can help NPRAG in the historical work I do for them over the next few weeks. A lot of my work will be focused on the upcoming symposium that NPRAG is organising as a day for the public, organisations, members of parliament, and other interested groups to have an open discussion about the proposal and how it will compromise a site of so much national historical importance.
Suzette is keen to get more university students and members of the educations sector on board with this discussion, and would like to extend an invitation to you, the class of HSTY3902 (as well as any other interested academics from the university) to attend the symposium. It will be held on Monday 12th October, which does fall on our class day however will run from 9am—4.30pm so might allow those who are interested to come for even just a couple of hours in the morning. Tickets for the general public are $20 each but Suzette has generously given us a discount code to receive 50% off on the price (so it’ll just be $10 a ticket = bargain!). Just enter HISTORYMATTERS at the registration to receive this. The symposium will be held at the Parramatta Leagues Club. To buy tickets and view more details about the symposium visit: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/fleet-street-heritage-precinct-symposium-tickets-18493278895
I know Parramatta is not really near uni but I do encourage you to come along if you’ve got the morning off and are able to make the trip. It’s a short walk from the Leagues Club to the site, where you can have a look at the buildings for yourself and really appreciate how special it is that so much history lies in a relatively little-known and under-appreciated location.

The recent visit by students from the ‘History Beyond the Classroom’ unit of study to the former Quarantine Station on North Head, provided a great opportunity for dynamic discussion surrounding topics of representation, interpretation and the roles played by museums and heritage sites in shaping public perceptions of history.
The group’s visit was hosted by myself and Peter Hobbins from the University of Sydney’s Quarantine Project, a three year collaborative research initiative focused on the rock carvings and other markings made at the site during its period of operation between 1835 and 1984. The students were very interested in the site and had lots of great questions about its history, the historic buildings and our collection of five thousand movable heritage objects. The site’s adaptive reuse by the Mawland Group – a special interest tourism company who work within the fields of nature tourism, ecotourism, cultural tourism and heritage tourism – was also a topic of conversation along with the site’s management as a hotel, conference and events facility.
The Quarantine Station is a diverse and dynamic site which lends itself to an immense variety of projects. Peter and I encourage students to take on research projects that relate to the Quarantine Station or its surrounding heritage sites as part of either this unit’s major assessment or projects developed in the future. Peter provided some great ideas for projects in his recent blog post, though students are welcome to propose other ideas. Feel free to contact Peter or myself with any questions you may have (E: qstationheritage@mawlandgroup.com.au).
It was a pleasure to host the group and we hope to see the University’s history students on site again in the future.

Rebecca Anderson, the Quarantine Station’s Curator, speaks to HSTY3902 students 7 September 2015
Image courtesy Peter Hobbins

A wonderful story emerges!
I first came into contact with the Willoughby Girl’s 50 year school reunion when I saw an advert in my local newspaper. My initial idea for the community project was to create a podcast with interviews from the women at the reunion on their favourite school memories. In my mind, this project would be a quaint little audio collection of women reminiscing on happy days at school.
However, after a few weeks the Willoughby Old Girls, very sweetly, approached me with some subjects for enquiry that they had always been curious about but had been too shy to investigate, and wanted to take this perfect opportunity (how often does a willing historian come a knocking?) to get to the bottom of. Dipping my figurative research fishing line into local libraries and internet sites, I did some initial research into each suggested avenue with varying levels of success. But finally the hook snagged on something so substantial that my whole project trajectory has been subsequently completely re-orientated.
As is true of most stubborn curiosities and long-lasting concerns, this area of interest revolved around the people we once knew. One of the Willoughby Old Girls was very interested in Pallister Girls Home, the local corrective institution that housed some Willoughby students, and more importantly, the stories of the girls who once lived there.
The great snag that caught my research line was an unassuming office in the city called the Anglican Deaconess Ministries Office. I presented myself, unannounced and unbooked, to the office and was warmly met by the lovely staff at ADM, Ken and Sarah. Here I was shown files upon files of archived primary sources referring to Pallister Girls Home. I was given access to original photos, girl’s case study evaluations before and after they went through the home, daily routine schedules, admittance criteria, sheets of rules, incidences of ‘moral danger’, the matron’s handbooks and donor lists.
With so much untouched information on Pallister, I intend to change the main thrust of the podcast to be about the stories of the ‘Pallister Girls’ that these women went to school with.
The Willoughby Girls 50 year reunion last Monday was a wonderful opportunity to compliment my archive research with oral descriptions of eye witness memories of the girls from Pallister. But more than that, being with the women themselves (my ‘clients’), raised a question in my own mind; why are school reunions significant? Why do people attend them? And what is the nature of the conversation at such events? Whilst my community project will compile into a podcast my findings (supplemented by the women’s memories) on the Pallister Girl’s Home, my major work will additionally present my findings on these latter questions too.
Here’s to a twisting plot and surprising turns, and a special thank you to the ADM office for letting me into their archives, and the Willoughby Old Girls for letting me into their memories.
(Photo courtesy of ADM archives. One of the girls in the photo was recognised and named by the Old Girls at the Willoughby School reunion)

This blog entry sounds a lot like a project proposal but, to be frank, in essence, that’s precisely what it is ; )
I took the above photo (plus many more) of Australian Nobel Prize-winning author Patrick White’s residence in Castle Hill. White and his partner Manoly Lascaris named the house “Dogwoods” and it was from here White wrote his Nobel prize winning novel, Voss. The residence is privately owned now and is used as office space for a family law firm. Luckily for me, however, the owners are aware of the heritage-listed building’s historical significance and were happy for me to tour the inside and take photos, which I provided as archive material to my historical society.
For my major project I am creating a webpage for Hills District Historical Society’s website on the literary connection of Patrick White to the area and how literary representations of place can help us to shape history. I managed to get hold of some really interesting census information for the Hills District during White’s residence in the area, and have purchased a copy of White’s application on Lascaris’ behalf supporting his naturalisation (which I will donate to the HDHS as further archive material).
I am going to link the anxieties of “otherness” in White’s texts (and society at the time) to Castle Hill. As a place of increasing acceptance of “otherness”, demonstrated through the census and White’s texts, I thought it would be a nice way to “wave the flag”, if you will, for the local history of Castle Hill. The census information, application for Lascaris’ naturalisation, and White’s autobiography about their relationship also helps to link White (through time) to the current environment of immigration through asylum, LGBT rights and marriage equality, etc that I thought would be a proud connection to the area.

Associate Professor Julia Horne (pictured above) joined us this week in History Beyond the Classroom and drew from her extensive public history experience to talk about sources, selection, and ethical dilemmas. Before Julia became an academic (and did her PhD) she worked as a social history curator at the Powerhouse Museum; as the manager of the Local History Coordination project, a Bicentennial-funded history project at UNSW to liaise with community and public history organisations throughout NSW; and as the co-ordinator of the Oral History Program in the UNSW Archives. She is currently a councillor of the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM), and chairs the ANMM Audience, Programs, Outreach and Education Committee. From 2007 to 2013 she was a councillor of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Australia’s oldest scholarly historical society, and at the University of Sydney, she is a member of the Art Advisory Committee and the Heritage Advisory Group, both established to advise on matters of museum and heritage policies. Julia has also worked on a number of consultancies including the Blue Mountains World Heritage Nomination (as historical respondent for the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Domicelj Consultants), UNSW WomenResearch21, and various historical surveys on overseas students, women and engineers for UNSW.
Julia is also now the University Historian at the University of Sydney and an associate professor in the Department of History, where part of her position involves the management of the university’s oral history collection, working with the University’s heritage environment, and contributing historical advice to university policy development. Her major current public history project is Beyond 1914 (video below; see http://beyond1914.sydney.edu.au/) Her publications are in the field of the history of travel and the history of universities, education and women and include: The Pursuit of Wonder: How Australia’s Landscape was Explore, nature discovered and tourism unleashed (MUP: Miegunyah Press 2005) and Sydney the Making of a Public University (co-authored with Geoffrey Sherington, MUP: Miegunyah Press 2012).
Julia talked to the class about her early experiences with public history at the Powerhouse Museum, and the need to weigh up aesthetic and historic value and the need to draw in the public. The selection of sources to engage a wide audience, to tell stories, and to critique the past was a key component to a successful public history project. She presented the class with some entertaining examples drawn from her own experiences. Julia also exhorted students to experience place as much as possible when thinking about public history, and also to think about public history as something that should influence the present. She also talked about privacy issues, which sparked an interesting discussion in our ensuing tutorial – about our responsibilities as professional historians both toward the past, and our subjects. Finally, Julia mused about the idea of turning to historical fiction to tell stories that are difficult to piece together in more traditional formats. Several students in this class, I know, are keen to follow up on this and experiment with that format themselves. I’m keen to see where that might take us…
In the ensuing discussion, we also viewed some short public history presentations created by other students, including the fabulous ones done at Monash University with Alistair Thomson (see: https://vimeo.com/groups/makinghistory/albums/10825, and noted the many different kinds of primary sources students were using in their community projects. We ended by conducting oral interviews on each other, experiencing some of the uncomfortableness of being both the interviewer and interviewee that Lorina Barker noted in her wonderful essay that we read this week: ‘“Hangin’ Out” and “Yarnin’”: Reflecting on the experience of collecting Oral Histories’ History Australia, Vol. 5. No. 1 (April 2008) .
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In opening up the Quarantine Project to scholars from ‘History Beyond the Classroom’, the response has been impressive!

Both I and the Q Station’s curator, Rebecca Anderson, were delighted that so many students made their way out to North Head for a brief tour and discussion of the site’s many layers of history. If we had known the turn-out would be so strong, we would readily have suggested a longer tour, plus time for individual roaming. However, everyone is welcome to visit again as individuals or groups – for more information, click here.
North Head also offers a vast range of opportunities for projects connecting the past with the community. We’ve had conversations and emails with a number of students since the visit, so don’t be shy if you still want to explore ideas! We can help connect you with groups and the resources to plan your own small-scale research projects such as:
• moments of disease at sea and in Sydney, from personal experiences of suffering to the ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic of 1919
• histories of detention for quarantine, for processing of people and goods, or for ‘illegal immigrants’ held onsite from the 1950s to the 1970s
• humanitarian stories of the ‘Operation Babylift’ evacuation from Vietnam in 1975, or the temporary rehousing of Darwin residents after Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day, 1974
• individual or family lives linked to the historic inscriptions and gravestones spread across the site
• social histories of living and working in the isolated Quarantine Station community
• narratives of voyages to Sydney, whether crew, immigrants, travellers or returning soldiers
• the military history of North Head, including its system of bunkers, coastal artillery and occupation by the army in WWI and WWII
• contemporary histories of local and environmental politics after North Head was handed back to NSW in 1984
• the challenges of public history and interpretation across a large, historically rich site now being adaptively re-used for leisure and commerce.
Do feel free to get in touch to explore some of your ideas; we’ll help if we can!
Peter Hobbins

The History Council of NSW just announced that Meg Foster, a former University of Sydney History student, has won the 2015 Deen De Bortoli Award in Applied History for her essay “Online and Plugged In?: Public History and Historians in the Digital Age.” The judges said that this essay ‘provides important insights into how digital technologies are democratising not only access to research materials but also the dissemination of history. It reflects on what this means for history professionals who can no longer dominate discussion of the past and suggests that ways forward lie in more collaborative approaches’. Meg Foster is currently doing her PhD at the University of New South Wales.
The Deen De Bortoli Award was first awarded in 2015. Generously funded by the De Bortoli family it is named in memory of Deen De Bortoli (1936-2003). The purpose of the Award is to encourage historians writing Australian political, social, cultural and environmental history to approach their subjects in ways that use the past to inform contemporary concerns and issues. The winner will receive a citation and a prize of $5,000 at the Annual History Lecture during History Week.
For 2016 the subject for the Deen De Bortoli Award will be for works in applied and public history that have the potential to inform good public policy. The winning entry will demonstrate a sound, critical knowledge of the relevant historiography, a high level of competence in the use of primary sources, and the capacity to develop complex arguments linking the past to contemporary, contentious issues currently impacting on Australia. Nominations for work undertaken between 1 October 2014 to 31 March 2016 for the 2016 Award close 31 March 2016. See: http://www.historycouncilnsw.org.au/excellence/deen-de-bortoli-award-for-applied-history/
Students of HSTY 3902: History Beyond the Classroom may want to think about entering their projects in this competition, as well as PHA NSW &ACT Public History Prize. The Public History Prize is an annual award offered by the Professional Historians Association of NSW & ACT (PHA NSW&ACT).
The PHA NSW & ACT is now calling for entries for the 2015 Public History Prize for students. Slight changes in the condition of entries have been made for this year’s prize to enable more students to submit their work. The 2015 Public History Prize is open to any students (undergraduate, graduate diploma, master studies) in NSW and ACT whose work engages with the field and practice of professional and public history (both Australian and international).
Entries are now open for the 2015 PHA NSW & ACT Public History Prize, which comes with a $500 prize.
More information, including submission guidelines and deadline can be found here: www.phansw.org.au/pha-nsw-public-history-prize
Entries close on 4 December 2015.

See the little hut there on the left of this watercolour image?* It is one of the convict huts that, from 1790, lined both sides of High Street, Rose Hill, better known today as George Street, Parramatta. And on Saturday morning, I saw that convict hut with my very own eyes! This is because I was one of a few very lucky Parra locals who scooped up tickets to one of five free tours the Parramatta Park Trust offered the local community. The purpose of these tours was to inform the community about the Park’s multilayered history and showcase the archaeological work currently being carried out for the Trust by GML Heritage. You can see images and read all about the tour and Parramatta’s convict huts here on my blog “The Old Parramattan”: https://theoldparramattan.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/parramattas-convict-huts/
Free community tours like this one have become a regular occurrence at Parramatta Park since the inclusion of Old Government House and Domain on the World Heritage list of Australian Convict sites in 2010, which has enabled a lot of important heritage projects to be undertaken. The Park’s gatehouses, for example, are being restored one by one; the Macquarie Street Gatehouse, The George Street “Tudor” Gatehouse, and Mays Hill Gatehouse have all already been transformed through incredible conservation works and prepared for adaptive reuse. The Dairy Cottage that once housed emancipist George Salter is also about to receive some tender loving care and, with the aid of modern technology, will soon completely immerse visitors in the old convict world. But the Trust hasn’t just set its sights on restoring the historic buildings located within the Governor’s once private domain…
Historic landscapes are also on the Trust’s agenda. A bush regeneration program restoring a remnant of the now-rare Sydney Coastal River-Flat Forest has led to the removal of introduced exotic trees and plants to allow native species to regenerate. Subsequently, visitors can experience part of the landscape as it was for the Darug people for at least 20,000 years on the “Aboriginal Landscape” trail. And, as the Trust’s Principal Program Officer (Cultural Heritage) Stephen Thompson informed us on Saturday, “The Gardens” precinct surrounding the George Street Gatehouse—where the convict hut remains were revealed—is also undergoing its own $2 million-metamorphosis into an “outdoor museum.” In the coming months, the Trust will be restoring and, where necessary, reconstructing features of this section of the park’s historic landscape; namely the early nineteenth-century Macquarie Convict Bridge and pond. Great care is being taken to ensure this work is completed using stonemason techniques and materials authentic to the convict era. Essentially, Thompson noted during our tour, visitors to this area of the park in the near future will be able to look at the colonial watercolour images and see some of those old features of the convict world in reality. Great Scott! It’s like time travel! (Hopefully, dear reader, you are not too young to recognise that Back to the Future reference!)
Broadly speaking, the “outdoor museum” has many benefits. It is, quite literally, “public history” insofar as it is presented in public open spaces; for professional historians, this means it is, along with social media platforms, ebooks, and apps, another option we have available for publishing or presenting our histories to the widest possible audience. After all, as Emeritus Professor John Hirst has told many a History Postgrad in his seminars at USYD, “If you’re going to the trouble of writing history, don’t you want people to READ it?” Some members of the community might be, for a variety of reasons, disinclined to read a history book or visit a museum in the form of an imposing architectural edifice, but that doesn’t mean we should give up on trying to reach them! We just need to tell our histories in a variety of ways.
Successful outdoor museums, such as Parramatta Park or the new Heritage Courtyard at the Parramatta Justice Precinct,** subtly blend in with both natural and public urban environments and, thus, have a greater capacity to gently engage diverse—even the most reluctant—members of the community in stories of the past. This is important work, if only because it can improve an individual’s sense of connection to the place in which they live. Moreover, we all learn better when we are stimulated by a different environment and kinaesthetic learning situations that force us to be outside breathing fresh air and moving around. Outdoor museums take the typically sedentary activity of studying History not just beyond a classroom, but beyond walls entirely.
* View of Governor’s House, Rosehill, Parramatta c1798. A convict hut is on the left. From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales [a928407 / DG SSV1B/3] (Dixson Galleries) via Dictionary of Sydney.
** See my blog post “Parramatta’s Convict Huts” on my blog “The Old Parramattan” to read about and view images of the Heritage Courtyard at the Parramatta Justice Precinct.
Some social media accounts you may wish to follow:
Parramatta Park Trust: @ParraPark on Twitter and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parrapark
GML Heritage: @gmlheritage on Instagram and their website: http://www.gml.com.au/
The Old Parramattan: @oldparramatta on Instagram and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theoldparramattan
Photos below by Michaela Ann Cameron:

For my major project I hope to work with the Ashfield Polish Club in order to produce a small documentary exploring what the club means for both Polish and Australian people in a contemporary setting. I would love to explore the origins of the club and how it has transformed over the years and document this history. I have met some incredibly colourful and vibrant characters during my visits so far, and I am currently waiting on a response from the Board of Directors regarding whether or not my project will go ahead. On my last visit I spent several hours speaking to an old member in the depths of the on-site library. There are hundreds of books in there and I would have uploaded pictures but I am unfortunately not technologically savvy enough for such ventures. I will leave you to imagine the rows of books cramped into an old building behind the club officially dubbed the ‘Polish House’. Hopefully the members will be willing to be interviewed because there is so much history there. If you are ever passing through Ashfield on Sundays then I highly recommend dropping in for a drink and some pierogi in the afternoons!!
http://www.polishclub.net.au/