The first locomotive that entered Canberra, the last person to live in the ACT’s oldest building, treasure hunts, and Aboriginal scarred trees are among the subjects of this year’s ACT Heritage Grants, announced this week.
The annual funding program, administered by the ACT Government, helps the community to conserve and promote the Territory’s heritage, which goes as far back as the ice age, heritage minister Rebecca Vassarotti said.
Fifteen community-led projects and three community partnership projects will share in $344,000.
Grants range from nearly $1,000 (an oral history project) to nearly $30,000 (restoring the Reid Park sportsground).
“The range of projects we have is a testament to all of you who seek to preserve and promote and celebrate the heritage of our Territory,” Ms Vassarotti told the recipients at a ceremony at Mulligans Flat’s Wildbark visitor centre on Tuesday.
“As usual, there’s a lot of diversity in our grants… We have community participation, highlighting First Nation cultural heritage, better access to resources and records, and conservation of objects and places. There are fine examples of oral histories to be recorded for posterity – people who are really important to Canberra’s story.”
Locomotive 1210
Capital Heritage Rail Ltd received $24,130 to restore Locomotive 1210, the centrepiece of the Canberra Railway Museum’s collection. In May 1914, it pulled the first train into Canberra, then still under construction.
The Canberra Railway Museum said the locomotive was one of 68 built in Manchester in 1878 for NSW Railways, and is one of only three to have escaped the scrap yard. It operated across NSW, including the Goulburn, Canberra, and Monaro regions.
In 1962, the locomotive again pulled a train into Canberra, then was given to the National Capital Development Commission for preservation. It was placed on a plinth outside Canberra Railway Station until 1984, when it was transferred to the Canberra Railway Museum.
A conservation management plan will restore the locomotive, provide expert guidance on replacement of key components lost in a 2017 burglary, and restore the engine’s paint scheme. It will also examine the significance of the locomotive in the context of Canberra’s history and of Australian railways more generally. The ACT Heritage Register will be updated in accordance with registration decisions resulting from the research.
Women in politics
Forty years ago, ACT Labor Senator Susan Ryan introduced the Sex Discrimination Bill (introduced in 1981, passed in 1984) into Federal Parliament, outlawing discrimination on the basis of sex, marital status, and pregnancy – “an Act that changed women’s lives,” the National Foundation for Australian Women states.
“It is an opportune time to recognise the contribution of ACT women parliamentarians, both federal and local.”
The Foundation has received $12,000 for web-based digital biographies of ACT female politicians. It will research and write new entries for significant ‘missing’ women on the Honour Roll and add them to the ACT entries on the Australian Women’s Register, on the National Library website
“This project will increase public commemoration via a unique, authoritative, freely accessible online resource.”
Treasure hunt
Geocaching, “the world’s largest treasure hunt”, is fast becoming a popular recreational activity. Participants use GPS to locate hide and seek containers (geocaches).
One thousand geocachers will come to Canberra next Easter for Canberra’s first mega-geocaching event, Capital Geobash, in planning since 2021. The Oz Mega Committee has received $5,710 to run the event.
There will be 14 short tours to places such as Hall, Springbank Island (via paddle steamer), Mulligans Flat, Lanyon Homestead, and the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla. The organisers will produce descriptive postcards with a QR code linked to a two-minute video for heritage items or places on the tours.
There will also be more than 4,700 active caches, many power trails, more than 100 adventure labs, and many hikes and challenges for geocachers of all levels of skill and fitness.
Heraldry
The Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra (Family History ACT) celebrates its 60th anniversary next year. To mark that event, it has received $5,600 to publish a book of stories covering 1964 to the present, “a time which has seen the organisation grow and change along with Canberra, from a small public service town to today’s vibrant city”.
The book will cover how the society’s history relates to developments in the field of genealogy, and explore heritage memorabilia and manuscripts collected over the years that mark key milestones in Canberra’s development.
Oral histories
The Canberra Raiders received $15,330 to conduct oral histories of 10 people whose stories are integral to the club’s history. The project follows the Raiders’ 40th anniversary in 2021 and the centenary of rugby league in the ACT region celebrations earlier this year.
Catherine Edlington received $1,000 for an oral historian to interview her aunt, Betty Edlington, the last surviving person who lived at the Duntroon Dairy, the oldest standing building in the ACT. The interview will provide details on Betty Edlington’s daily life at the dairy. Built in 1832, many families lived and worked in now demolished simple stone and timber buildings. The federal government took over the property to make way for Lake Burley Griffin.
“These interviews … can often capture each individual’s unique perspective,” Ms Vassarotti said. “These personal accounts are used by researchers, be they professional historians, ancestry buffs, curators of exhibitions, or heritage groups.”
Well Station
Well Station Homestead, Harrison, will be the subject of another oral history and of a book. The station, one of the earliest rural properties in the north of the ACT, was built in the 1850s, and used for farming until recently.
Brendan O’Keefe received $7,000 to write the history of Well Station from its foundation to its acquisition by the Commonwealth in 1915. The project will identify the founder of the station, the full sequence of the property’s ownership, the portions of land that made up the station at various times, the site of the well after which the station was named, and more accurate dates for the other structures on the station.
Rosanna Burston received $2,950 for an oral history interview of Dennis Rose, who, with his wife Maree, have lived at Well Station Homestead, Harrison, for 35 years, and run education and cultural activities since 1988. The interview will also discuss the homestead’s conservation and recent history.
Another homestead, Rock Valley, in Tidbinbilla, will also be the subject of a heritage grant. The Tidbinbilla Pioneers Association (which turned 40 this year) received $11,130 for a conservation management plan for the homestead and its precinct. The homestead was home to the pioneer Green family from the 1890s to the 1960s.
Suburbs’ heritage
Reid Residents’ Association received $29,620 – the largest grant – for a conservation management plan for Reid Park Sportsground.
“This Sports Ground is rapidly approaching 100 years, and it is to be hoped that the CMP will contribute to both its continued amenity and the upgrading of its amenities for all users,” the Association stated.
The sportsground has been used for sports and community recreation since 1928, and comprises two ovals, with vistas of the Australian War Memorial and Mount Ainslie. However, many of the facilities – change rooms, toilets, and seating – are inadequate or in poor condition, while the trees surrounding the park are at risk from more frequent extreme weather.
The grant will assess the trees, the sports field’s soil profile, and roots to see how best to proceed with management of the ovals in view of the impact of climate change, the Association said.
Canberra’s first aerodrome, at Dickson, was built 100 years ago, in 1923; to celebrate its heritage, the Dickson Residents’ Association has received more than $5,000 to facilitate self-guided walks, a Canberra Tracks sign highlighting the ‘Sixties Classic’ Dickson shops, and to offer a wider understanding of Dickson’s history and heritage. The sign, at the convergence of the old Duntroon Estate and the Campbell and Shumack properties, will be a novel introduction to the Dickson Shops (designed by the National Capital Development Commission) and Dickson Library (designed by Enrico Taglietti AO).
The Deakin Residents’ Association received $14,780 to install two more Canberra Tracks interpretative signs, at the Deakin shops and at Latrobe Park. These signs will document Deakin’s heritage, emphasising its importance in the historical development and legacy of Canberra as the national capital, based on Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin’s designs and Garden City principles. The Canberra Tracks app will link the signs to an online overview of Deakin’s history.
The Hall School Museum and Heritage Centre has received two grants totalling $14,000: $9,800 to train new volunteers and purchase storage materials and shelving for conservation, and $4,200 for block-out blinds to protect the items in two display classrooms. Last year, the museum, once the village’s primary school, received a heritage grant to conserve and curate its bush schools collection.
Cultural trees
Ginninderra Catchment Group will receive more than $11,200 to install more Canberra Tracks signage for Indigenous cultural trees at the ACT border near Hall. The signs will be developed in collaboration with Buru Ngunnawal Aboriginal Corporation, including people who have used the trees during journeys on foot in and out of the ACT.
The ACT Government has allocated $54,500 to heritage assessments for cultural trees (a community heritage partnership project). Representative Aboriginal Organisations (RAOs) will survey the locations of reported scarred trees that need verification, and assess them for cultural significance and modification. They will take part in discussions about the cultural origins of scarring, and provide expert context on the trees’ likely cultural heritage significance. Recorded trees will be added to the ACT Heritage Register.
The project was initially funded in the 2021–22 grants round, but did not eventuate due to COVID-19. There were concerns at the time that the Barton Highway duplication could ruin the culturally significant trees.
Community heritage partnership projects
Finally, the ACT Government has allocated $50,000 to the Heritage Advisory Service, which supports heritage owners and advises on the conservation, maintenance, and sympathetic development of the ACT’s heritage. It also assists the Heritage Council to assess heritage significance and advise on proposed management outcomes.
$80,000 will be used to run the Canberra and Region Heritage Festival, an annual three-week event about Aboriginal, built, and natural heritage, run by ACT Heritage. This year’s Festival, held in April, had 188 events: 92 tours, 16 exhibitions, 43 talks and workshops, 23 open days, and 14 ‘Sharing Stories’ events.
“The Festival’s program included 20 events that stemmed from Heritage Grants,” Ms Vassarotti said. “There was access to heritage-listed buildings, where restoration work had been done, like All Saints Anglican Church in Ainslie, Gungaderra Homestead in nearby Harrison, and the Serbian Orthodox Church in Forrest. Through the Festival, I heard the 90-year-old convent organ play at Albert Hall – a recipient of grant funding – and also unveiled a Canberra track sign at Hackett and at Curtin.”
Five projects awarded Heritage Grants in 2022 were recognised in the 2022 National Trust Heritage Awards.
