Front-line heritage in the Hawkesbury

St Andrew’s New Church Hall, West Market St, Richmond

Thursday, 24 October at 7.30 pm

On 24 October, Dr Peter Hobbins will be delivering the 2024 Annual Memorial Lecture to R. Ian Jack, hosted by the Hawkesbury Historical Society.

Peter’s presentation, ‘Front-line heritage in the Hawkesbury’, will consider Ian’s lasting legacies in historical archaeology, especially industrial archaeology. Drawing upon Hawkesbury region examples, Peter will reassess the relics of twentieth-century industrialised warfare in local, regional, national and international contexts.

The presentation will start at 7.30 pm in St Andrew’s New Church Hall on West Market Street, Richmond. For details, see https://www.hawkesburyhistoricalsociety.org/

Dr Peter Hobbins is Head of Content at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour. As a historian, his research focuses on the development – and disasters – surrounding medicine, aviation, maritime and defence technologies.

Prof. Kate Fullagar will present the James Jervis Memorial Lecture on Bennelong and Phillip.

Bennelong and Phillip were leaders of their respective people in the first encounters between Britain and Indigenous Australians. Phillip was the colony’s first governor, and Bennelong was the Yiyura leader. The pair have come to represent the conflict that flared and has never settled.

Kate Fullagar’s new book, Bennelong & Phillip: A History Unravelled, is the first full biography of Bennelong of any kind and it challenges many misconceptions, among them that he became alienated from his people and that Phillip was a paragon of Enlightenment benevolence. It tells the story of the men’s marriages, including Bennelong’s best-known wife, Barangaroo, and Phillip’s unusual domestic arrangements, and places the period in the context of the Aboriginal world and the demands of empire.

To present this history afresh, Kate Fullagar narrated these events in reverse order. In this lecture, she will discuss both her method and her research, asking questions of both conventional ways of writing history and of the role of the past in debates about nations and Indigenous possibility.

When: Monday, 21 October at 7.30 pm.
Where: Burnside Gardens Community Centre, 3 Blackwood Place, Oatlands NSW.
Admission: The lecture is free and is followed by supper. Visitors very welcome.
Enquiries: parramattahist@tpg.com.au.

Peter FitzSimmons will present the 56th Ward and Olive Memorial Lecture

The City of Liverpool and District Historical Society is privileged to host Peter Fitzsimmons, Australia’s bestselling non-fiction author and journalist, as the Keynote Speaker for the 56th Ward and Olive Havard Memorial History Lecture.

Peter will discuss his latest book, The Last Charge of the Australian Light Horse. The 12th Light Horse was formed in Liverpool. The lecture will be followed by a book signing, light lunch, tea and coffee, and a look at the Liverpool Historical Society Centre.

On 31st October 1917, as the day’s light faded, the Australian Light Horse charged against their enemy. Eight hundred men and horses galloped four miles across open country, towards the artillery, rifles and machine guns of the Turks occupying the seemingly unassailable town of Beersheba. What happened in the next hour changed the course of history.

This brave battle and the extraordinary adventures that led to it are brought vividly to life by Peter FitzSimons. It is an epic tale of farm boys, drovers, bank clerks, dentists, poets and scoundrels transported to fight a war half a world away and is full of incredible characters: from Major Banjo Paterson to Lawrence of Arabia; the brilliant writer Trooper Ion Idriess and the humble General Harry Chauvel; the tearaway Test fast bowler ‘Tibby’ Cotter and the infamous warhorse, Bill the Bastard. All have their part to play in the enthralling, sprawling drama of the Australian Light Horse.

When: Saturday, 31 August at 11 am.
Where: Hilda M. Davis Senior Citizens Centre, 185 Bigge St, Liverpool NSW.
RSVP: Gailrobyn54@hotmail.com by Friday, 23 August 2024.

Written by Hall Greenland (President, Friends of Callan Park)

Yes, we have been in action for 25 years protecting Callan Park’s wonderful heritage parklands and buildings, campaigning to locate modern mental health services on the site and ensure community use and appreciation of this unique site. We have had a measure of success – thanks to your support and that of the wider community. 2023 marks a milestone we thought deserved a celebration. – Invitation from Friends of Callan Park.

The Friends of Callan Park commemorated its 25th anniversary on 4 December 2023 at Writing NSW at Callan Park. About a hundred people attended its AGM and the celebration that followed. The current MP for Balmain, Kobi Shetty, and the former MP, Jamie Parker, addressed the crowd.

Friends of Callan Park 25th anniversary celebration (Courtesy Friends of Callan Park)

Friends of Callan Park – a community-based, heritage-protection organisation – was formed in 1998 as a result of a successful campaign to stymie a plan by the NSW government to gift 2.5 hectares of parkland in front of the original 1880s asylum to a nursing home provider. Designed by James Barnet, Kirkbride is a suite of sandstone Italianate-style buildings covering 4.5 hectares. It was listed by the National Trust in 1976 and later on the State Heritage Register. The gift of public land would have meant the disappearance of the Pleasure Gardens, designed with some input by Charles Moore, and intruded upon view lines from the exceptionally significant Kirkbride complex.

A decade earlier the Save Callan Park group formed to fight the first master plan for Callan Park. In response to reducing inpatient numbers and hope for greater community mental health care, NSW Health planned the sale of part of Callan Park, consolidation of mental health services and relocation of the Conservatorium of Music. Some of those campaigners from 1989 are still members of Friends of Callan Park.

Rally for Callan Park, 1998 (Courtesy Friends of Callan Park)

Soon after the formation of the Friends, the state government announced its intentions to sell 20 per cent of the 61-hectare site for the construction of 1,200 apartments. In response, the Friends launched a public campaign that drew unprecedented public support across the metropolis. Urban environmental campaigners such as Jack Mundey and Tom Uren supported the battle, as did surrounding municipal councils. An independent opinion poll found 84 per cent of residents in the Inner West opposed the sell-off.

This campaign was crowned with success when the government withdrew its plan in October 2002 and announced the immediate introduction of the Callan Park (Special Provisions) Bill. The bill was extensively amended in the Upper House and signed into law on 23 December 2002. The Act bans the sale or privatisation of any of the land at Callan Park and restricts leases and commercial activities. The design of any new buildings on the site must fit with the footprint and envelope of buildings existing in 2002.

Protectors of Public Land Rally, 2003 (Courtesy Friends of Callan Park)

In 2007, the then NSW Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor, and the University of Sydney signed a Memorandum of Understanding to hand over Callan Park to the university for development into a satellite campus and student housing. The MOU and the subsequent detailed master plan envisaged 16 new buildings on Callan Park and an increase in the onsite floor space from 84,000 to 130,000 square metres. The plan drew inevitable community opposition and after its public exhibition the Department of Planning concluded that it represented an over-development. The university then withdrew from the project.

In 2008 the Rozelle Psychiatric Hospital (the name given to the adjacent hospitals – Callan Park and Broughton Hall when they amalgamated in 1976) closed its doors and most of the patients transferred to the new mental health facility at Concord Hospital.

The Friends continue to campaign for the delivery of new models of mental health services at Callan Park, where there continues to be two residential drug and alcohol therapeutic facilities.

Callan Park has had a number of changes of management since 2008 and its ownership and administration is now divided between the Greater Sydney Parklands Trust (through Centennial Park and Moore Park Trust) and NSW Health. The new management structure, announced in 2019, was followed by the first commitment of significant funds for heritage protection and restoration and improvement of the parklands.

Having overcome numerous endeavours by successive governments to deliver master plans and written countless submissions, the Friends celebrated 25 years with a sense of achievement. Major challenges lay ahead for Callan Park: Kirkbride lies empty without a major tenant since 2020 when the Sydney College of the Arts departed and could fall prey to commercial pressures.

Now in its 26th year of community activism, the Friends continue to advocate by presenting heritage tours, historic exhibitions and publications highlighting the history of this remarkable cultural landscape – from landmark Indigenous associations, to landed estate, to asylum, to psychiatric hospital, to valued community asset and iconic historic parkland.

Also joining the celebrations of a quarter century of community activism, advocacy and achievement for the preservation of this remarkable public land were Judy Mundey, former mayors of Leichhardt, representatives from the Australian Garden History Society, the National Trust, and the Balmain Association.

A free public lecture presented by Noel Phelan at the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park

Join the Military History Society of NSW for a free public lecture at the Anzac Memorial at Hyde Park to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

This year, we commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944. Operation Overlord was the greatest amphibious assault in history, a crucial turning point in World War II, and a miracle of planning, logistics, coordination and supply.

In this detailed lecture, Noel Phelan will cover decisions by Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin; strategies by both Eisenhower and Rommel; the complex and detailed planning; the myriad of German defences; the deception and confusion of the Germans involving Patton; the clever design of military equipment, the construction of an artificial harbour; the scuttling of 70 ships to form a breakwater; the towing and sinking of 210 Phoenix caissons to form a breakwater; the aerial support of 1,000 heavy bombers and fighters; the naval support of 28 battleships and 56 destroyers; and the industrial might of America to build 1,700 Liberty ships and masses of other military equipment.

When: Saturday, 3 August 2024 at 10.30 am.
Where: The Auditorium, Anzac Memorial Hyde Park.
Admission: Free, but a donation is appreciated.
For information: president@militaryhistorynsw.com.au

A presentation by the authors of a new collection of letters from Australian poet Charles Harpur

The Moruya and District Historical Society are hosting a presentation by the authors of a new Sydney University Press publication on the letters of poet Charles Harpur (1813–1868), who had a close association with the Eurobodalla region.

The Letters of Charles Harpur and His Circle, selected and edited by Paul Eggert and Chris Vening, is the first collection in print of the letters of Australian colonial poet Charles Harpur and his circle – including the poet Henry Kendall and future premier of NSW, Henry Parkes.

In his later years, Harpur lived on his farm ‘Euroma’ on the Tuross River while serving as a gold commissioner on the Nerrigundah goldfield. His widow, Mary Harpur, outlived him by thirty years and continued to farm at Euroma while fighting to publish his poems.

When: Saturday, 20 July at 2 pm.
Where: Moruya Golf Course.
Admission: Free, but a donation is appreciated.
RSVP: moruyamuseum@gmail.com.

Presented by Gay Hendriksen (Rowan Tree Heritage and Cultural Services)

Do you have special objects you want to preserve into the future? Whether you are a family historian, private collector or have special objects you want to know how to care for, there is something in this workshop for you. Learn about organising, preserving and sharing to a professional standard so that you can ensure your shoebox of papers or photos or a house or shed filled with your favourite objects will survive. Bring along small objects, photos and documents (or images if they are too large or fragile) for professional advice and clues to help you discover the best ways to identify and care for them.

When: Wednesday, 31 July at 9 am to 12.30 pm.
Where: CMS Conference Centre, 8 Violet St, Katoomba NSW.
Admission: $25. Book online.

Professor Grace Karskens to present the 2024 June Roughley Memorial Lecture

Join the Dural and District Historical Society for the 2024 June Roughley Memorial Lecture in August.

Professor Grace Karskens’ highly acclaimed book, People of the River: Lost Worlds of Early Australia, is a history of both the Aboriginal people and the settlers on Dyarubbin, the Hawkesbury/Nepean River, from deep time to the nineteenth century.

Grace will also speak about her collaborative work with the Dharug and Darkinjung people of the Real Secret River: a Dyarubbin project.

Event Details:

When: Saturday, 10 August at 2 pm.
Where: Galston Uniting Church, 11 School Road, Galston NSW.
Entrance: Free with a gold coin for afternoon tea. Homemade marmalade and jams on sale. A pleasant afternoon in a rural setting. All welcome!
Enquiries: Michael Bell, (02) 9653-1365 or 0466-341-729.

Sydney’s Condemnation and Demolition Books: A talk by Laila Ellmoos, City Historian

Cottage in Francis Street, Darlinghurst, c.1909 (City of Sydney Archives).

In this talk for the City of Sydney Historical Association, City Historian Laila Ellmoos will talk about the history of the City of Sydney’s Condemnation and Demolition Books, a key photographic collection held in the City Archives comprising almost 5,000 photographs and associated glass plate negatives.

The City Building Surveyor’s department used photographs to document the city’s profound transformation in the first two decades of the 20th century. These photographs inadvertently captured the largely working-class neighbourhoods and people being displaced by commercial and government redevelopment.

The Demolition Books collection formed the basis of an exhibition at Customs House called Developing Sydney: Capturing Change 1900–1920. The exhibition, which was on display for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, is available as a virtual exhibition and as a story map. The City Archives is working to digitise the collection and make it available for researchers and casual browsers.

When: Saturday, 11 May 2024 at 2 pm.
Where: Henry Carmichael Theatre, Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, 280 Pitt St.
Admission: Members $5. Visitors $10.

St. George Historical Society’s Historic House and Museum reopens to the public

One of the oldest homes in the St George area has reopened to the public. The NSW State Heritage-listed Lydham Hall is a sandstone villa built in the Victorian era. The home contains a unique collection of heritage items.

After a stroll through the museum, relax on the verandah with freshly baked scones and a pot of Twinings tea in vintage cups and saucers while the kids play old-fashioned games on the lawn.

The museum is open on the first Sunday of the month from 10 am to 4 pm. Lydham Hall is also open for group tours and venue hire.

When: Sunday, 2 June 2024, from 10.00 am to 4.00 pm.
Where: Lydham Hall, 18 Lydham Ave, Rockdale NSW.
Admission: Members and Children under 10 Free. Adults $8. Concession/Seniors $5.

More information: http://stgeorgehistsoc.org.au/lydham-hall/