Federation of Australian Historical Societies

The Grants to Voluntary Environment, Sustainability and Heritage Organizations (GVESHO) were announced on 29 February 2012 by the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, the Hon Tony Burke MP.

The program helps eligible community based organizations to value, conserve and protect Australia's natural environment and historic heritage and to promote sustainability by assisting with their administrative costs.

Grants provided through the program may be used to assist with salaries and salary on-costs for executive and administrative staff; office accommodation rental; electricity, gas, phone and other similar charges; essential office supplies and equipment; staff and volunteer training; photocopying and printing costs; and travel costs incurred on behalf of the organization.

A small number of grants have been made to historical societies (17) out of the total of 161grants. Landcare, animal conservation, and miscellaneous groups such as New South Wales irrigators and river catchment groups comprise the majority.

Greens spokesperson for Cultural Heritage, Senator Penny Wright MP (for South Australia), stated that ‘she was very disappointed to see that funding to community heritage organisations has been cut by over 20 per cent this year. As a proportion of total funding under the program, funding to heritage organisations has declined by 40 per cent over five years.’

The link to the list of recipients is:

www.environment.gov.au/about/programs/gvesho/pubs/gvesho-2011-12-grant-recipients.pdf

(Sources: Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities website:

www.environment.gov.au/about/programs/gvesho/index.html;

Senator Penny Wright MP, Senator for South Australia Australian (Greens Party) Press Release 1 March 2012)

2) Kew Court House receives statewide award for revitalisation - Kew Historical Society

A recent success of the Kew Historical Society was in leading a local campaign to prevent the demolition of the former Kew police station and courthouse. Not only were they successful, they were able to raise nearly half a million dollars which, supplemented by the state government and the Boroondara City Council, enabled the buildings to be acquired by the Council and converted into an Arts Precinct. These achievements have now been recognised by the award of the State Planning Minister’s Heritage Award for 2012.

Victorian Planning Minister, Hon Matthew Guy MP, has stated the community driven project had resulted in an outstanding arts and culture centre which would continue to serve the area for decades to come and was a worthy recipient of the award.

The award was presented to the City of Boroondara and Kew Historical Society representing the local community, for their work to restore and reinvigorate the Kew Court House and Police Station as an arts and culture centre by Minister for Corrections and Member for Kew, Hon Andrew McIntosh MP, on behalf of the Planning Minister, on 22 February 2012.

The 1888 building had been vacant for many years when the local community began a campaign for it to be retained. It was purchased by the City of Boroondara and fund raising began in earnest. More than $500,000 was raised in addition to grants from the Commonwealth, state and local governments to enable the restoration of the building.

Mr McIntosh stated the project involved extensive works which began with a Heritage Victoria grant to restore the slate roof. The building now includes a theatre, exhibition and meeting rooms, and facilities for local arts and historical groups. Mr McIntosh said it was vital for heritage buildings to be used to ensure they had a sustainable future.

“We appreciate their past and the important roles they have played in our history, but they cannot be wrapped in cotton wool. If their original use is no longer viable, it is important to find a new purpose for them,” Mr McIntosh said. He also said the combination of tenants using the refurbished building provided a new and exciting future for the landmark building.

(Source: www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/heritage/news-and-events/news/kew-courthouse-receives-statewide-award-for-revitalisation

3) Kew Historical Society Vision 2015 Workshop

The Kew Historical Society, Victoria, held a full-day ‘Vision 2015 Workshop’ on 3 March, to examine the society’s current range of activities and to discuss where it should be in three or more years' time. About thirty people attended.

One of the local councillors generously agreed to act as the facilitator for the day which, through a series of general discussions and small groups, worked through the various matters facing the society and came up with a list of priority actions – and a list of names of people interested in participating in achieving the goals. Broadly speaking, it was recognised that in most ways the Society was operating well, but more could be done to make it relevant and raise its profile in such ways as being active in defending local heritage and in improving communication through such means as an improved website. It was a highly valuable exercise and something that all societies may wish to consider.

(Source: President, FAHS – 14 March 2012)

4) Local Government Heritage Planning & Management Seminar, Western Australia - 3-4 May 2012

The Heritage Council of Western Australia’s successful Local Government Heritage Planning and Management Seminar will be held on 3-4 May 2012 and will be hosted by the Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes.

This year’s themes are “Historic Towns, Heritage Tourism and Community Heritage”.

For further information and to register, download the HCWA Seminar 2012 form.

(Source: Australia ICOMOS Email News No. 524 – 2 March 2012)

5) Australian Heritage Week 2012 - event registrations open

The Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities has advised that a new Australian Heritage Week website and registration system for events to be held over Australian Heritage Week 2012, Saturday 14 April until Sunday 22 April 2012,is now available.

You are invited you to register your Australian Heritage Week event at the Australian Heritage Week website to maximise publicity for the event. The new site has a range of options including: uploading a photo to illustrate your event; selecting the state and region where the event will take place; and the transfer of event dates to a personal calendar. The system also utilizes Google Maps, thus providing more information about the location of your event and assisting visitors to the site when searching for events across the country that they may be interested in attending.

If you have difficulty in listing your event through the registration system please email the Australian Heritage Week staff for assistance.

(Source: Australian Heritage Week web site: http://heritage-week.govspace.gov.au/)

6) ACT and Region Annual Australian Heritage Partnership Symposium 2012

Valuing Heritage: Advocating for community attachment in planning

Date: Saturday 28th July 2012; time: 8.30 to 4.30.

Venue: Sir Roland Wilson Building Theatre, Bldg 120, ANU campus.

Cost: $100 full registration; $50 full time students, concession, unwaged.

Themes:

Community value and social attachment to places
The value of archaeology, it’s not just buried in the ground
40 years of World Heritage – has it helped us?
Recession heritage, the changing economics of attachment to place

Call for Session Ideas, Leaders and Papers:

You are invited to send ideas for session topics, including but not constrained to the above, and offer to lead a session.
Summaries of presentations are also invited; the anticipated time for each presentation is about 20 minutes.
Please send your ideas to sally.brockwell@anu.edu.au or phone on (02) 6125-2217.

Please send this message on to all your networks, colleagues, friends and acquaintances!

(Source: Canberra Archaeological Society)

7) Research on Hume and Hovell's exploration route in Victoria

The operators of the Pavilion Café Bar Gallery at the Hume and Hovell Cricket Ground, Strath Creek, Victoria (90 minutes from Melbourne), are developing a Hume and Hovell Explorer Tour to follow a section of Hume and Hovell’s route through Flowerdale to the Hume and Hovell Cricket Ground, stopping for lunch in the shadow of Mt Disappointment, and then tracing the route to Broadford, Kilmore and a stop off at Beverage.

There will be audio extracts from Hovell’s journal and an overview of their journey throughout the tour.

They are looking for a person with expert knowledge of Hume and Hovell’s journey to read and edit the script.

If you can assist, please contact Chris Adshead - Phone: 03 5784 9221 (w) 03 5784 9210 (ah), or

Email: chris.adshead@optusnet.com.au.

(Source: Chris Adshead, Hume and Hovell Cricket Ground)

INTERNATIONAL HERITAGE NEWS

8) Singapore links heritage sites, parks and cycling paths

A 150 kms green corridor will link heritage sites in the Singapore city with coastal scenic sites around the perimeter of the island. The proposal was launched by the Deputy Prime Minister, Teo Chee Hean, on 25 February 2012 at the opening of the North East Riverine Loop at Sungei Serangoon park connector. National Parks is seeking the public’s views on the route through its online portal (www.nparks.gov.sg/ciag). The idea was first raised in the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s Island Wide Leisure Plan in 2008.

(Source: The Sunday Times (Singapore) 26 February 2012 p.1 and Home page 10)

9) Cornwall heritage tourism project in financial stress

The Eden Project made a loss of GBP £1.8 million in the past year and some of the 492 people employed there will lose their jobs. Eden Project’s visitor numbers have been declining in the past three years. However it is still the region’s premier tourist attraction.

(Source: Cornish Guardian 29 February 2012 p.10 including photo)

10) World Heritage Area in Cornwall - rejection of building application

An application to build a one bedroom holiday cottage in the shape of an upturned boat at Charlestown which is within a World Heritage Area was rejected by the St Austell Bay Parish Council. The reasons given were that it would have a detrimental visual impact on the surrounding heritage area.

(Source: Cornish Guardian 29 February 2012 p.8)

11) Printed word archive of books following digitisation

Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Brewster Kahle, who made his fortune out of selling a data-mining company to Amazon in 1999, is now creating an archive of printed books after they have been digitized. He has established an archive in case of digital disaster. Twelve metre shipping containers stacked two by two are filled with books. Each week 20,000 new volumes arrive. Kalhe has spent US$3 million to purchase and operate the repository near San Franciso. Kahle also founded and operates the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization devoted to preserving Web pages – 150 billion so far. He cites the fire of Alexandria Library as an example of where, if the library had copied its books and sent copies to India or China then the world would have the other works of Aristotle and Euripides. A modern day model for what Kahle is doing is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault buried in the Norwegian permafrost and holds 740,000 seed samples as a safety net for biodiversity. The Dean of Libraries at Florida University is encouraging libraries undertaking major weeding programs in the United States to utilise Kahle’s archives. One library in Burlington has donated a huge quantity of bound serials including Scientific American. Families downsizing private collections are also using it.

(Source: International Herald Tribune (the Global Edition of the New York Times) 5 March 2012 p.18 including photo)

12) Napoleonic heritage in France

A collection of Napoleon’s personal belongings captured by Prussian troops on the eve of the battle of Waterloo and a carriage he used for sleeping between battles has been put on display at the Musée de la Legion d’Honneur in Paris for four months. The carriage and jewels and imperial war medals and military decorations have never been displayed before.

(Source: The Times 9 March 2012 p.3)

13) The value of rigorous research in heritage work

The obituary of Louise Cochrane, a wartime student activist and writer for BBC featured a valuable point about her intellectual interests in life. When working in West Sussex (UK) for 14 years including medieval ironworking she found that a mistranslation in 1815 of a 1342 tithe record, reading ferri (‘of iron’) instead of feni (‘of hay’) had been used by subsequent historians as evidence of iron working far earlier than actually occurred as evidenced from other sources.

(Source: The Times 8 March 2012 p.54)

14) Nelson's warship, HMS Victory

Responsibility for the Royal Navy’s oldest commissioned warship, HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, has passed from the Ministry of Defence to a charitable trust. HMS Victory Preservation Trust, established as part of the National Museum of the Royal Navy. The warship is located at the Historic Dockyard at Portsmouth. A £25 million capital grant has been made by the Gosling Foundation to support the new trust. The Ministry of Defence has also provided £25 million. HMS Victory will remain a commissioned warship of the Royal Navy.

(Source: The Times 10 March 2012 p.89)

15) Liverpool Docklands - redevelopment of World Heritage Site

A proposal has been approved by Liverpool City Council for the redevelopment of Liverpool Docklands area into 9,000 flats, office blocks, hotels, shops and restaurants. £4 billion has been invested in Liverpool revitalizing it since 2000 but austerity through the global financial crisis has persuaded Liverpool authorities to welcome the redevelopment proposal by private property developer, Peel Holdings a joint venture between billionaire John Whitaker and Sam Wa, a Chinese import company). The proposal is pitched at Chinese investors. It will feature the Shanghai Tower (55 floors) which will dwarf the Royal Liver Building, the city’s symbol. English Heritage is opposed to it and UNESCO (UN cultural agency) has stated that it would remove the World Heritage Site designation in 2004 as a maritime city. English Heritage stated that the proposal was too dense and would eradicate the 19th century docks that revolutionized world trade. The two objections to the proposal mean that there will need to be a government inquiry into it. (The photograph in the Financial Times is reminiscent of the shelved North bank proposal in Brisbane three years ago.)

(Source: Financial Times (London) 12 March 2012 p.3 including photograph)

16) Antarctic expedition connection - Scotland

The cottage where Scott of the Antarctic and the Scottish chief of his scientific team planned their trip to the South Pole is to be opened to the public on 28-30 March 2012, a century after they died.

Burnside Lodge in Glen Prosen, north of Kirriemuir, Angus was a favourite retreat of naturalist, Edward Wilson, chief scientist on the Terra Nova adventure. Wilson used the cottage when employed by the government to conduct studies into grouse. He was joined there by Captain Robert Falcon Scott who persuaded him to join the South Pole expedition.

(Source: Scottish Daily Mail 15 March 1912 p.32)