May 22, 2014
Once Upon a Time: Stories of South Australian childhood is the latest travelling exhibition from History SA. It offers a glimpse into the lives of children living in South Australia over successive generations, in both the happy and more challenging times. It is intended to motivate people to share their community’s own unique stories of what […]
Keep readingMay 8, 2014
History SA jumped into its own About Time History Festival events early this year with a popular workshop on 2 May. The very cold and wet weather couldn’t keep 30 keen women away from the chance to learn and talk about costume and textiles. After an overview of the Australian Dress Register (ADR), Mary-Anne Gooden, […]
Keep readingApril 24, 2014
Recently I was tempted by the aroma of baking biscuits and some culinary history to attend another presentation by Allie Reynolds at Adelaide Farmers’ Market, at the Wayville Showgrounds. Timed perfectly for Anzac Day, it was a follow up to her first fascinating talk at the Market about her search for the first Anzac biscuit recipe […]
Keep readingApril 4, 2014
History SA/Veterans SA’s new joint travelling exhibition Gallantry, telling the stories of the brave actions of five South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross and George Cross in the Second World War and the Vietnam War, opened on 1 April at Adelaide’s new City Library. Following a welcome speech by the City of Adelaide’s Lord Mayor, […]
Keep readingApril 4, 2014
History SA/Veterans SA’s travelling exhibition Bravest of the Brave, which tells the moving stories of the eight South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross in the First World War, is on the move again. Affectionately known as BoB, the exhibition has already spent the beginning of the year at Semaphore & Port Adelaide RSL, before heading […]
Keep readingMarch 28, 2014
A new storeroom was officially opened at Axel Stenross Maritime Museum in Port Lincoln on Wednesday 19 March. A small evening reception was held to celebrate the occasion on the museum’s verandah with a pleasant sea view. Guests included those attending the History SA/Artlab Caring for Collections workshop held over two-days in the Port Lincoln […]
Keep readingMarch 28, 2014
Last week Artlab’s Principal Textile Conservator Kristin Phillips and I headed for the airport. We were on our way to Port Lincoln to run a two-day ‘Caring for Collections’ workshop for community museums and history groups. This skills development program is one that we run every two years or so in different regions but this […]
Keep readingMarch 27, 2014
35 eager participants attended our free one-day Digitisation for Preservation and Access workshop at the Hetzel Lecture Theatre in The Institute Building on North Terrace on Wednesday 12 March. Participants were largely from community museums, historical societies, school and university archives, but there were also representatives from a writers’ festival and a car club. Mainly […]
Keep readingFebruary 3, 2014
On a hot evening right at the end of January I headed out to the Old Highercombe Hotel Museum at Tea Tree Gully, where I had the honour of officially opening the Museum’s latest exhibitionVines to Wines. The exhibition looks at the history of grape growing and wine and spirits production in the Tea Tree […]
Keep readingJanuary 30, 2014
Recently I assisted the South Australian Bhutanese Community to install their Forum exhibition in the community gallery at the Migration Museum. There are some lovely objects – various vessels made from copper and brass and some beautiful handmade jewellery. There are also some perhaps unexpected items – soccer balls made from plastic bags and models of […]
Keep readingDecember 20, 2013
This week Amanda and I played Santa for a number of museums in our Community Museums Program (CMP) when we handed out free cabinets from the South Australian Museum (and mince pies!) Earlier in the year we were pleased to be able to offer a number of free shallow-drawer wooden storage cabinets to members of […]
Keep readingDecember 3, 2013
Fifty years ago a team of public servants endured freezing night time temperatures and water rations to accurately survey the southern Simpson Desert. An exhibition on at the Mortlock Library commemorates their journey. In July 1963 an eleven man survey team from the South Australian Department of Lands left Adelaide to undertake the first comprehensive […]
Keep readingNovember 11, 2013
The 2013 Community Heritage Grants have been announced and South Australian organisations have done very well, picking up almost $61,000 of the $425,684 allocated this year. The Community Heritage Grant program is administered through the National Library of Australia and provides grants to assist with the preservation of locally owned, but nationally significant collections that […]
Keep readingNovember 6, 2013
My first stop was Moonta National Trust museum where I met up with Linda, Ursula and Stephen to hear about some projects they’re thinking of and to see the new storage building. Created within a new large shed, so far a smaller shed has been built within it, lined and insulated, to provide a fairly […]
Keep readingOctober 25, 2013
You may wonder what this blog post is all about. But both dental floss and pool noodles are relatively cheap materials possibly lying around your house that could prove very useful when you’re caring for your collections. That’s what I learnt last week when I was in the Clare Valley with Artlab Australia conservators Anne […]
Keep readingOctober 16, 2013
21 community groups and individual authors and researchers have been granted funding through History SA’s annual South Australian History Fund (SAHF). Each year the SAHF supports a wide range of projects on a great diversity of historical topics. Topics included in grants this year include Aboriginal history in Campbelltown, politician Tom Price, mapping tuberculosis mortality […]
Keep readingOctober 9, 2013
History SA/Veterans SA’s travelling exhibition Bravest of the Brave, which tells the moving stories of the eight South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross in the First World War, is now on the Yorke Peninsula for the first time. Trevor and Lyn Clerke from the Port Vincent RSL collected the display, affectionately known as BoB from […]
Keep readingOctober 9, 2013
City of Charles Sturt’s upgraded Pennington Gardens Reserve was officially launched yesterday (8 October). The park is dedicated to the thousands of migrants who passed through the Finsbury/Pennington Migrant Hostel which occupied 40 acres of land along Grand Junction Road, including this site, for nearly four decades until 1985. Former hostel residents, staff, and their […]
Keep readingOctober 3, 2013
South Australia is ready to get involved with the Australian Dress Register (ADR) following a workshop held at Ayers House Museum. On Friday 20 September an enthusiastic group of people met at Ayers House to find out about the ADR and how to include items from their collections on it. The Powerhouse Museum’s Lindie Ward […]
Keep readingSeptember 20, 2013
The voyage has just begun of the world’s only surviving purpose-built sailing ship and the oldest clipper ship to bring migrants from Europe to Australia, the City of Adelaide. It will end an extraordinary 14-year-campaign by the City of Adelaide Preservation Trust, a committed group of engineers, maritime historians, ship enthusiasts, descendants of the ship’s […]
Keep readingAugust 27, 2013
Recently I headed for the village of Prospect Hill in the Adelaide Hills, for a special plaque unveiling ceremony commemorating a unique historical event, near to the hearts of this small, close-knit community. Sunday 25 August marked the 170th anniversary of the discovery of the remains of young Scottish migrant Sarah McHarg in the dense […]
Keep readingAugust 23, 2013
History SA/Veterans SA’s travelling exhibition Bravest of the Brave, which tells the moving stories of the eight South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross in the First World War, is now at Renmark Paringa Community & Civic Centre in the Riverland until 17 September. It is hosted by Renmark RSL and displayed in the Exhibition Room […]
Keep readingAugust 16, 2013
Last weekend, over a coffee and some welcome winter sun at the historic North Adelaide Lion Hotel, I took part in an informal repatriation of some of the earliest photographic images of named indigenous Australians. Copies of two photographs that have been in a UK collection for well over a century, depicting James Wanganeen, formerly […]
Keep readingJuly 31, 2013
I took a break from enquiries in the last week of the South Australian History Fund grant round and headed up to Port Pirie and Whyalla to visit three museums registered in the Community Museums Program. It’s been a few years since I last visited Port Pirie National Trust Museum in their lovely old railway […]
Keep readingJuly 23, 2013
I have recently been sent some images of the work in progress for Axel Stenross Maritime Museum’s new collection store. With space at a bit of a premium the museum devised an innovative way to make storage space – by creating a room in the walkway space between two buildings. So with lots of planning, […]
Keep readingJuly 5, 2013
It was a great pleasure to return to Port Lincoln recently during the About Time History Festival to attend a very special launch that saw a part solving of the Mission Photo mystery that had begun almost two years ago. To recap, I visited Mill Cottage Museum for the first time in November 2011 and […]
Keep readingJune 7, 2013
History SA/Veterans SA’s travelling exhibition Bravest of the Brave, which tells the moving stories of the eight South Australians awarded the Victoria Cross in the First World War, is now at the City of Salisbury’s John Harvey Gallery until 3 July. Hosted by Salisbury RSL, the display was officially launched on Wednesday by the Mayor of […]
Keep readingJune 6, 2013
The South Australian History Fund (SAHF) is History SA’s annual grant fund supporting community groups to undertake small South Australian history projects. Funding up to $2,000 for projects, $3,000 for publications and $5,000 for research projects is available. In previous years the SAHF has funded oral history, archiving, digitisation, conservation and interpretation projects, along with […]
Keep readingMay 30, 2013
Fifty years ago, the PS Marion became a static museum in the Randell Dry Dock at Mannum cementing the small township as the birthplace of the paddle steamer in Australia. The Governor of South Australia, His Excellency Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce AC CSC RANR, and Mrs Scarce will be attending the 50th anniversary celebrations and […]
Keep readingMay 28, 2013
As part of the About Time South Australia’s History Festival program, Community History Programs hosted an information session on common pests affecting historical collections. What Bug is That? focused on identifying pests and simple ways to keep them at bay. Led by Anne Dineen, Senior Preventive Conservator from Artlab Australia, the information session looked at basic […]
Keep readingMay 28, 2013
Last weekend I attended the official handover ceremony at the South Australian Aviation Museum (SAAM) in Port Adelaide, of a retired F-111 jet bomber aircraft from the Australian Defence Department. It’s not every day that a museum receives such a significant item which literally dominates a collection. The 25 ton jet fighter with its iconic […]
Keep readingMay 27, 2013
The Australian Dress Register (ADR) is a collaborative online project initiated by the Powerhouse Museum to document significant and well provenanced men’s, women’s and children’s garments. The ADR was established in 2007 and was originally restricted to clothing relating to NSW. However, recently it has been opened up to include items of costume (dress) from […]
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