UMA Bulletin
Brunswick Street hostel was Ian Turner, the returned soldier- turned-student politician, who would later become a well-known labour historian. Turner was by all reports an extremely
charismatic figure, someone who commanded enormous respect on campus far beyond his home in the university branch of the Communist Party. As secretary of the SRC in 1945 (he would be elected president the following year), Turner approached three professors who were sympathetic to questions of student welfare, and convinced them to act as trustees on the board of management for the hostel. Shortly thereafter the hostel became operational, with Turner as its warden, running the 16-tenant establishment on a shoestring budget. It soon acquired a reputation among students as being a place of wild debauchery.
The academic Stephen Murray-Smith, one of its first tenants, recalled many years later:
It was a great day when, presumably in 1945, the S.R.C.-supported, independent hostel started, in a delicensed and decayed pub in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Ian Turner was the first ‘warden’, though the title sat oddly on a man who was no more than MacHeath to a thieves’ kitchen,2who would have been as likely to dun a rum-call for-rent as to appear at a lecture in a tie. The hostel was as drunken in its joists as many of its inmates were after seven at night; it was a great place for riotous parties, the cellar flooding at inexplicable
UMA Bulletin, No. 30, February 2012 1
NEWS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE ARCHIVES
www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/archives No. 30, February 2012
I
n Fitzroy, on the corner of Brunswick Street and King William Street, lies a classic Victorian-era hotel, of three- storeys. These days it is a Spanish restaurant, by the name of‘De Los Santos’. In a suburb famous for its pubs, the building does not especially stand out. Indeed, there is nothing in its current use or appearance that gives any indication of its earlier connection to the University of Melbourne, or the notoriety it developed. Yet in a former life, this building was the source of considerable controversy for the institution.
The association between university and pub was born in the difficult days of World War II, in the context of a housing crisis throughout the city. During the war years, University students along with other renters experienced extreme difficulty in securing accommodation. They found themselves in competition with exceptionally large numbers of workers attracted to Melbourne from other parts of Australia in search of employment in the city’s war industries, as well as with American service personnel stationed in the city. The presence of the American army base Camp Pell on the University’s doorstep at Royal Park meant that officers secured most of the nearby terraces and boarding houses, ordinarily occupied by students. Thus the Argusobserved in 1945 that Parkville, ‘once the haunt of students’, had become ‘inaccessible to them’, ‘with almost every available lodging occupied’.1
To compound the problem, the number of students attending university rose rapidly towards the end of WWII, with
enrolments swollen by the many hundreds of returned service personnel supported by generous Commonwealth
Reconstruction Training Scheme (CRTS) scholarships. Thus by 1945, the student housing question at Melbourne reached a peak of concern and was tinged with patriotic overtones: did not those who had sacrificed so much for the nation deserve to be well-housed as they attempted to rebuild civilian lives? The University Council sought legal advice as to whether under its Act of Incorporation it could become a provider of dedicated student housing; meanwhile, Vice-Chancellor John Medley tried to persuade the affiliated residential colleges to erect temporary structures in their grounds. Neither of these avenues, however, proved immediately fruitful.
Frustrated by the perceived inaction of University leaders, student leaders on the Student Representative Council sought to take matters into their own hands. A sub-committee dedicated to housing was set up, and an advertising blitz for offers of suitable accommodation was launched. This yielded an offer to take over the lease on the de-licensed hotel in Brunswick Street, latterly operated as a hostel. The key instigator in securing the
UMA Bulletin
The Brunswick Street Controversy and the Demise of Independent Student Housing
continued page 2 Farrago, 2 April 1952, p 2.
intervals, and for various lurid amatory adventures about which, even at this advanced stage, the less said the better. Still, some work got done there, they say: I lasted the course for a few weeks and then set sail for another anchorage.3
It would seem that for several years, the University authorities were none the wiser about some of the extra- curricular activities taking place in the student hostel;4if they were aware, they turned a blind eye. In 1951, however, the alleged activities of the students were brought squarely to the attention of the University, and the public at large. In a court case in March of that year, the owner of the building attempted to have the student tenants evicted, claiming that they had failed to take reasonable care of the building and had sub-let the premises without authorisation. The proceedings contained far more scandalous allegations, eagerly reproduced by the daily Melbourne newspapers: that the building was used as headquarters for the Communist Party; that a visiting female artist from Sydney had stayed for several nights with a male companion; and that the rooms were in a state of filth ‘almost beyond description’. These three claims touched on some of the most powerful fears of the early 1950s: insinuations of
Communist association fed into Cold War-era paranoia and Menzies’ campaign to outlaw the party in Australia; accusations of co-habitation between men and women before marriage touched on moral anxiety about the separation of the sexes;
while suggestions of dirty living quarters spoke to middle-class fear and loathing of then-working-class neighbourhoods like Fitzroy, considered to be depraved and decrepit ‘slums’.
Although the student tenants won the court case, the following year they were again subject to external scrutiny, following the appearance of articles in Farragothat depicted the hostel in a particularly bad light. Then, in June 1952 the elected student warden, one J. James, was sacked by the hostel board on suspicion of having let rooms to non-student tenants, including wharf labourers with suspected Communist sympathies. By the end of August, with pressure mounting on the administration, the University determined to shut down the hostel and evict the remaining students at the end of the academic year. The owner of the building then, somewhat surprisingly (given that he had previously sought to evict student tenants), continued to operate the building as a private ‘University Students Hostel’. In the following years, although some students continued to stay there, the University actively distanced itself from the controversy- prone building. Before long, the connection with this building was to become a distant memory in the life of the institution, left buried only in documentary traces in the University Archives.
If the demise of the Brunswick Street Hostel as a student- operated venture offers us a portal into the politics and collective fears of the period, the episode also represents a significant turning point in the history of student housing at the University. The hostel was a product of a moment of political optimism in the late 1940s, an age of idealism and hope for the
‘reconstruction’ of a more equitable society following the deprivations of Depression and War. It represented a faith in the ability of young people – many of whom had sacrificed several years of their lives in military service – to take responsibility for their own affairs and to look after one another. However, in the changed political climate of the early 1950s, the independent,
student-controlled model of housing was considered too difficult, too risky and too irresponsible. Thereafter, the model of University provision in student housing was favoured: it could be seen in such ventures as International House and Medley Hall (both of which had begun as student-controlled projects, but which were transferred to University-appointed councils).
Students would later find ways of meeting their housing needs independent of University guidance and control – such as in the ‘share houses’ that became widely popular in the 1960s – but these remained small-scale affairs. To my knowledge, no large-scale, student-controlled housing scheme has successfully been established since the end of the Brunswick Street
experiment in 1952. An attempt at setting up a student housing cooperative in 2008, by students squatting then unused University property in Faraday Street, Carlton, was rejected by the University Council on the grounds that the students were occupying the premises illegally. One wonders whether any student-controlled housing ventures might succeed in the future, and under what sorts of conditions. For the moment, the ghosts of Brunswick Street linger still.
Stephen Pascoe
Stephen Pascoe recently submitted an MPhil thesis in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning on the history of student housing at the University.
The thesis, entitled ‘The social and spatial construction of student housing:
The University of Melbourne in an age of expansion’, was based on extensive research of collections in the University of Melbourne Archives.
Notes
1 ‘Where will our university students be housed next year?’, The Argus, 12 July 1945, p. 8.
2 This is a reference to The Beggar’s Opera, John Gay’s bawdy 1728 ballad opera.
3 Stephen Murray-Smith, in Hume Dow (ed.), Memories of Melbourne University: Undergraduate life in the years since 1917, Richmond: Hutchinson Group, 1983, pp. 132–133.
4 The Registrar wrote in 1947 that ‘as far as I know the Brunswick Street experiment is working quite well’. Letter from F.H. Johnston to Mr F.J.D. Syer, 6 March 1947, UM 312, 1947/501.
Letter from R.G. Casey to G.W. Paton, 18 March 1953, UM 312, 1954/505. The letter illustrates that the conditions in the hostel even attracted the attention of the Federal Minister responsible for Colombo Plan students.
UMA Bulletin, No. 30, February 2012 3
M
ercantile ironmongers McPherson’s Limited was established in 1860 and made tools and parts for use in trade in Victoria, a rapidly growing colony.McPherson’s became a well-known brand and its products are linked to many Australian icons including the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Holden car.
Initially, McPherson’s focused on the manufacture of tools and equipment for industry, but over time it diversified into making hardware products for farm and home. The breadth of its range can be seen in catalogues held at the University of Melbourne Archives covering the period 1899 to 1978.
Much can be gleaned from the catalogue1about the effect of modern industrial innovation on 20th-century life.
Catalogues featuring tools for the home are an illustrative source that document the period when the modern appliance was gradually freeing up the family from labour intensive chores and making ‘do it-yourself’ home repairs achievable.
1899
Thomas McPherson & Son’s2earliest surviving catalogue from 1899 presents an illustrated world of mechanisation and tools. In the late 19th century, Thomas McPherson & Sons were engineering tool merchants who were contracted to produce machinery for the Victorian Railways Department, Melbourne City Council and Mt Lyell Mining Company to name a few. A meticulously engraved picture of the ‘planing machine’ provides us with an example of 19th-century machine engineering technology originally invented by Englishman, Matthew Murray, and later manufactured by Sir Joseph Whitworth, the famous Victorian mechanical engineer. It was designed to plane the surface of machine parts to an exact degree, providing a level of constancy and reliability; with its whirring cogs and moving bed of chains, machines such as the ‘planing machine’
were instrumental in driving forward the then new concept of mass production.
1912
By 1912 McPherson’s main business was still machine tools for use in industry, however there is evidence that it was starting to expand its range of merchandise to attract potential customers from the domestic and rural markets. Featured in its 1912 catalogue is the ‘Douglas Improved Hydraulic Ram’.
With its long hoses and bulbous body, and looking like a two-legged octopus, it was designed to regulate the supply of
McPherson’s Limited Hardware
water to suburban or country residences.
The catalogue comes complete with a two-page essay containing detailed advice and instructions to assist potential buyers with the information they needed to custom-build a Douglas Hydraulic Ram for their property.
1922
The ‘Success Pattern Spray Pump’ was an early forerunner of the backyard irrigation system, common in homes today. Product attributes such as the
‘bucket foot rest’ and ‘air chamber’ present the ‘spray pump’ as a domestic item that was portable and non-labour intensive.
This catalogue signals a move towards promoting user comfort in addition to speed and precision. The advertisement features a woman effortlessly operating the ‘spray pump’ to water her plants using
the ‘fine spray’ setting.
1929
By the end of the 1920s McPherson’s Limited was locally known as a merchant supplier of tools and hardware for the home, farm and industry. Home appliances and tools were still primarily hand-operated and the company continued its now established practice of providing detailed instructions and advice to buyers on the best application for their purchase. The ‘Hand and Breast Drill No. 5½ B’ was promoted as being easy to operate with its crank handle and the improved design of its clutch mechanism to allow the smooth shift from ‘slow’ to ‘fast’ speed while the drill was in use. The 1929 catalogue is over 260 pages and comes with its
Douglas Improved Hydraulic Ram, McPherson’s For Engineers Founders & Factories,1912, Box 23, ref. code 1987.0098.
Planing Machine, Thomas McPherson & Son Engineers Machine Tools Stock List 1899, Box 23, ref. code 1987.0098.
own index and measuring tables, making domestic repairs and maintenance more accessible to the home ‘handy’ person.
It was during this time the company moved away from the promotion of farrier products and began advertising its automobile accessories and products designed for the motor mechanic.
Construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge had commenced and McPherson’s supplied the six million bolts and rivets that hold the bridge together.
1934
Another Whitworth innovation, the
‘Whitworth Thread Screw’, is presented in the 1934 catalogue, which is
accompanied by an extensive table of measurements and bound with graph paper interleaved for taking notes and making calculations. A wide range of drafting and drawing tools, such as the
‘L 192 Universal High Speed Drafting Machine’ are featured to assist the tradesperson and keen home renovator.
1949
In the years after World War II, McPherson’s was publicly listed on the Melbourne stock exchange and started an employee scheme for new migrants at its Ajax Bolt Works in Melbourne.
The second half of the 1930s saw an expansion of business in bolts and rivets.
During this period the bolt works in Alexandria had opened and McPherson’s started a bolt and rivet manufacturing site in Wellington, New Zealand. The 1949 catalogue contains a dazzling array of bolts, nuts and screws for the home and industry. It is evident that McPherson’s was also doing a strong trade in overseas imports such as the Moore & Wright British micrometers, used as measuring devices in mechanical engineering where precise measurements for small machine parts were required.
1960
The year 1960 marked the centenary year for McPherson’s Limited. During the first 100 years the company had moved
on from its early origin as an ironmonger to become an industrial company with an international market. Products such as the
‘Ajax Self-Oiling Piston Pump’ were still being promoted as domestic items that could be used with home water supply systems to provide automatically controlled running water. Portable electric power tools were a feature of the market place, designed to further reduce the labour involved in construction projects. McPherson’s Limited was now stocking and selling Black and Decker drills and sanders, thus rendering items such as the hand-operated drill a thing of the past.
1978
In 1978 the product range was dominated by power tools, gardening tools and machine parts. With growing community awareness about personal safety, McPherson’s Limited now sold safety accessories such as air purifiers and earmuffs for hearing protection. The catalogues still contained McPherson’s index to assist in navigating through the
Clockwise from top left:Success Pattern Spray Pump, McPherson’s Proprietary Limited Garden & Woodwork Tools,1922, Box 23, 1987.0098; Hand and Breast Drill No. 5½ B, McPherson’s Proprietary Limited Tools and Hardware for Farm and Home,1929, Box 31, 1987.0098; Moore & Wright British Micrometers Y1134, Y1135, McPherson’s for Engineers & Industrialists,1949, Box 32, 1987.0098; L192 Universal High Speed Drafting Machine, McPherson’s Proprietary Limited Engineers and Manufacturers Catalogue No. 34,1934, Box 31, 1987.0098.
UMA Bulletin, No. 30, February 2012 5 Notes
1 In 1899 the catalogue was held in high esteem and treated as an item of considerable worth. Much time was spent poring over its pages filled with a wondrous selection of goods and innovation. Now the catalogue is at best considered to have some transitory informational value and advice about sales. At its worst it is a nuisance that has managed to slip into the home past the ‘no junk mail please’ signage.
2 The company is now known as McPherson’s Limited. In 1860 the company was called Thomas McPherson
& Sons, and whilst there have been some minor changes over the time the McPherson’s name has endured.
Above: Ajax Self-Oiling Piston Pump, McPherson’s Limited Centenary Catalogue,1960, Box 15, 1987.0098; Left: Silenta Pop Ear Muff, McPherson’s Industrial Catalogue,1978, Box 16, 1987.0098.
hundreds of hardware items in stock and now included photographs to accompany the product descriptions.
Over 150 years later the company is still in operation and in that time its focus has shifted from the manufacture of hardware to the marketing of consumer goods. UMA has identified McPherson’s Limited as a priority collection and is working to make it more accessible and discoverable by researchers.
Melinda Barrie Senior Archivist, Rio Tinto and Business
Baillieu Library, ground floor, 14 February to 8 April 2012
La Mama, named after the off- Broadway theatre in New York, was established in Carlton, Melbourne by Betty Burstall in 1967. La Mama was established as a venue for avant-garde theatre, music, poetry readings, improvisations and screenings of new films. Liz Jones has been artistic director and administrator of the theatre since 1977.
The display of items from the La Mama Collection, held at UMA, will showcase the unique place La Mama holds in Australian theatre. The vital energy both on stage and behind the scenes is seen in correspondence, play appraisals, and photographs relating to performances by Cate Blanchett and Stelarc, the scripts of David Williamson, and linocut posters by Tim Burstall.
Denise Driver
La Mama on Display
Stage set illustration for Stelarc’s performance ‘Event for Obsolete Body,’ 1980, La Mama Collection, File 11, Box 1, 1983.0065 – 1989.0072, University of Melbourne Archives.
AFULE Letter Book
H
ugh McClement Burch spent much of the 26th January 1881 writing to members of the Engine Driver’s and Firemen’s Association:Dear Sir,
On examining accounts I find you were in arrears of one pound, seven shillings and six pence (£ 1- 7- 6) at end of financial year February 1880. Since 1st March the subscriptions have been one shilling (1/-) per month. The amount of one pound nineteen shillings and sixpence would clear you up to end of February 1881. As year is near an end you will oblige by informing me of your intentions.
Burch Secretary He wrote at least 28 similar letters for various amounts that day.
We know a little of his life of that day because copies of his correspondence survive among records of the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen (AFULE) and its predecessor, held by the University of Melbourne Archives.
The oldest document is a letter book. It recorded correspondence to and from the Melbourne secretary of the Association who acted as general secretary. Outward
correspondence left a carbon-like copy. It appears that inwards correspondence was transcribed into the book so that there was a record of both. The book covers the period from July 1880 to September 1882. Burch was secretary until April 1881 when he was killed from a fall from an engine. Edwin Swift took over.
The Union or Association began about 1861 for engine drivers. It expanded to include firemen in 1872 and by 1880 included engine cleaners who had completed one month of firing duties. Up till that time it did not seek publicity and there do not appear to be any surviving documents from that earlier period. In the late 1870s its profile grew.
A circular issued in early 1880 barred members of the Association from taking up positions as foremen in the Victorian Railways. The Minister wanted the Association to become a benefit society or at least alter its rules. Some of this is
documented in contemporary newspaper reports. It is about this time that the letter book begins.
The Association received a memo in July 1880. The Minister of Railways wrote: ‘I am of the opinion that the existence of the association will not prove to be of any public or departmental benefit so long as it retains Rule 3 in its present form.’ This rule does not survive but seems to relate to the process of accepting members. The Association conceded, agreeing to accept a rule change that would be an ‘equitable form of initiation’. The new rule became,
That any driver or fireman desirous of becoming a member shall be proposed and seconded by two members of the association and a show of hands taken on the following monthly meeting and if a majority of said meeting are in favour of him becoming a member he shall be considered elected.
The Secretary prompted the Commissioner of Railways:
‘You will kindly withdraw circular debarring members of the association from promotion.’ For the Association this was progress. The Government would recognise its existence and deal with its representatives in matters relating to workplace issues.
In 2011 the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen celebrated 150 years since its establishment.
In commemoration, the University of Melbourne Archives, with the generous support of the Locomotive Division of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, digitised the union’s journal, The Footplate, for the complete run from 1918 to 1938. These are now available at the University Library’s Digital Repository: http://dtl.unimelb.edu.au.
For Burch this was the beginning of a busy period. All branches had to be contacted.
At this time there were secretaries of the Association at Geelong, Ballarat, Sandhurst (Bendigo) and
Maryborough. All copies of the previous rule book were to be returned and new ones issued. Twenty copies to Geelong, 50 to Ballarat and Sandhurst and 30 to Maryborough give some idea of the strength at these locations. The North East district was not organised. Rule books went to individual members in Seymour, Benalla and Wodonga. (‘You might appoint someone among yourselves to collect contributions and correspondence.’)
Correspondence gives an insight into the life and thinking of enginemen at the time. Grievances and incidents were discussed.
There were requests for advice. If a member fell on hard times a loan might be made to tide him over. What should the
procedure for repayment be? If he made an offer to repay some he might be told it was a gift. He could keep all or a portion of it. If he didn’t make an attempt it was a different matter.
Sometimes advice was unambiguous. Edward Mathews was told to get a solicitor; Mr Gillott was recommended: ‘The association has previously employed him in defending members.’ The Association would pay.
The letter book records growing co-operation with other Enginemen’s organisations. There is correspondence with the representatives of two associations in New South Wales:
Goulburn and Sydney. South Australia was attempting to organise and by August 1881 there was contact with a Mr Jackson in Queensland. This was more than friendship.
Victorians campaigning to increase holidays requested information about entitlements in other places. By July 1882 connections reached across the Tasman to a Mr Guthrie of New Zealand.
The new secretary, Edwin Swift, continued to use the letter book. Money for the widow of Burch is recorded, as is a condolence letter on behalf of the Association. Writing in 1881, Swift reviewed recent efforts: ‘We have had a job to hold ourselves with the heads of our department for a long time, and it is only about 12 months ago that they did acknowledge us as an association ... so we are on better terms now and if any of our men can’t get their rights from their foremen the society takes the case up ...’
The Association prospered, forming a Federal Association in 1899, and became the AFULE in 1920. In 1993 it amalgamated with several other rail unions to form the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU). The Locomotive Division continues within this organisation.
Archives at UMA record much of this journey. Photographs, union newspapers and various administration items record the progress of a small craft union whose members included a prime minister and cabinet members. The collections cover both the Federal and Victorian Divisions
Tony Peterson
Tony Peterson joined the Victorian Railways in 1973 and currently drives electric trains on Melbourne’s suburban network. He has been researching the 150 year history of unionism among Victorian locomotive drivers.
UMA News
D
igitised copies of items in the collection of the University of Melbourne Archives will be available to the public via the UMA website during 2012. A project to migrate approximately 7,300 images from UMAIC, UMA’S Images Catalogue, to the EMu database is underway, and this will result in a tangibly greater degree of access to the collection than has previously been possible.Greater access to UMA’s collection is a key strategy over the next few years, and the current image migration project will vastly improve the opportunity for the collection to be accessed by staff,
researchers and the public. Hand-in-hand with this work will be the ability for UMA to contribute some of its collection data to TROVE, the National Library of Australia’s collaborative online discovery service. Researchers will be able to use the TROVE search engine to find summary information about collections held by UMA, and then be able to click through to more detailed information on UMA’s own interface.
In mid-2011, the remaining Malcolm Fraser Collection material was transferred from the National Archives of Australia to University of Melbourne Archives. This material comprises 732 files that had been identified as private correspondence. Material which is essentially Commonwealth records will remain with the National Archives in Canberra.
Visitors to UMA’s website will have noticed the increased social media emphasis, with Twitter and Facebook now providing additional information about UMA and its activities. These forms of communication will continue to provide greater access to the collection, with current examples including the Edna Walling garden design for the 1927 Heidelberg home designed by architects Bates Smart McCutcheon, and the digitised Foy and Gibson catalogues. Social media is but one element of the work which UMA has been doing to expand its outreach and communications efforts.
Susie Shears Acting University Archivist
UMA Bulletin, No. 30, February 2012 7
AMP Ltd
I
n March 2011, AMP and AXA’s Australian business merged to create one of the country’s leadingindependent finance and insurance management companies. AMP and AXA/National Mutual both have long and prominent histories in Australia. To celebrate the companies coming together, the AMP/AXA history wall was opened on 1 December 2011 at the AMP offices in Collins Street, Docklands, Melbourne.
This display documents the histories of T&G Mutual Life Assurance Society, National Mutual Life Association, AXA and AMP using film footage, images and objects including items borrowed from the University of Melbourne Archives collections: National Mutual Life Association of Australasia (2008.0046);
and Australasian Temperance & General Life Assurance Society Limited
(2008.0067).
AMP Ltd has made a generous donation to UMA towards the archival processing of their business papers. This gift will enable UMA to fully appraise, package and create a finding aid for the collection. Fragile items will be conserved and repackaged in accordance with archival standards and the completed finding aid will be made available on UMA’s online database.
The opening of the AMP/AXA history wall was attended by representatives of AMP and the University of Melbourne (from left to right): Suzanne Fairbanks, Senior Archivist, Collection Management, UMA; Melinda Barrie, Senior Archivist, Rio Tinto and Business, UMA; Denise Driver, Co-ordinator Collection Management, UMA; Jock Murphy, Director Collections, University Library; Craig Dunn, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, AMP; Ian Renard, University of Melbourne Archives Advisory Board (Chair).
Ross Trust Digital Finding Aids
G
enerousfinancialsupport from the R.E. Ross Trust has enabled the University of Melbourne Archivesto make comprehensive, hardcopy lists of the contents of our collections available to researchers via UMA’s online
catalogue.
Prior to the advent of personal computer technology during the 1990s, lists of collections that were received into UMA were typed, sometimes even handwritten. They remain an invaluable means by which access to items within collections can be identified and retrieved. Before work on this project commenced, these finding aids were only available to researchers by visiting the Cultural Collections Reading Room. A small team of archivists has worked since February 2011 to locate and review both typed and digital lists, matching their accuracy with the collection holdings, scanning and updating them. To date, over 600 finding aids (i.e. lists) that were not previously available online have been attached to entries in the UMA online catalogue and are now available to researchers as a result of this project.
Care has been taken to retain, wherever possible, original documentation that was created by archivists, sometimes in consultation with the donor, when collections were
transferred to UMA, as these are invariably extremely comprehensive, detailed and reliable lists that contribute to the provenance and context of the collections in themselves. The process of locating and reviewing existing lists has provided us with a rare opportunity to revisit some of the UMA’s oldest and most significant collections. The project reveals
UMA Bulletin
Before and after: a display at the Dawson Street reading room shows original lists, created in 1977 and 1990, alongside versions that have been made available online with some objects from these collections. Protectograph cheque writer from J.C. Taylor & Sons Aust. Pty Ltd, 1990.0106;
and Printers’ plates illustrating the Header Harvester from Gaston Bros Pty Ltd, 1977.0088.
the breadth and diversity of UMA’s collections and highlights the principles that have guided its development over the past 50 years. Now anyone with internet access can explore in detail the contents of some of UMA’s diverse and interesting collections, such as the Royal Victorian College of Nursing, the Lady Northcote Permanent Orchestra Trust Fund, Australian Foremen Stevedores’
Association Victorian Branch, Stock Exchange of Melbourne, Clements Langford Pty Ltd, as well as University records relating to faculties, clubs and societies, individuals and administration.
Feedback from researchers has been very positive. There is no doubt that the outcome of the project will improve access to our collections as well as enabling us to retrieve specific items efficiently. UMA also believes that the
invaluable support of the R.E. Ross Trust is already helping to expose our
collections to a broader audience of researchers via the internet who, in turn, are able to explore the depth of the University of Melbourne Archives’
collections in greater detail.
The R.E. Ross Trust Finding Aids Project has benefitted from the participation of a dedicated team that includes Georgina Ward and Tarek Sharef, Shirin Heinrich, Stephen Richardson, Susan Millard who established the project and set it on its path, and Sue Fairbanks who has ensured that it has not wavered.
Kim Burrell Project Archivist A version of this article appeared in Collections, issue 9, December 2011.
Ned Kelly goes online
A
new collection item at University of Melbourne Archives, a letter bySuperintendant Francis Augusts Hare, reflects on the demise of the Kelly gang. The letter was penned by Hare on 21 July 1880 from Rupertswood, Sunbury where he recuperated from a shot to the arm inflicted less than a month earlier during the capture of Ned Kelly and the destruction of the Kelly gang at Glenrowan. This letter joins the remarkable correspondence associated with Hare
which is now available online, along with other digital collections from the UMA:
http://library.unimelb.edu.au/digitalcollections/cultural_and_special_collections.
This acquisition was made possible by the University Library Endowment Fund.
Editors: Helen McLaughlin & Stephanie Jaehrling Design & Layout: Jacqui Barnett
Produced by: Publications, University of Melbourne Library ISSN 1320 5838
The University of Melbourne Archives University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia Opening Hours:
Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri: 9.30 am–5.30 pm Wed: 9.30 am–7.30 pm
Sat: 1.00 pm–5.00 pm by appointment Phone: +61 (03) 8344 6848 Fax: +61 (03) 9347 8627
Email: archives@archives.unimelb.edu.au Website: www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/archives
