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Windsor Chair Making in Australia & the Development of a Centre for Rare

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Windsor Chair Making in Australia & the Development of a Centre for Rare WINDSOR CHAIR MAKING IN AUSTRALIA & THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CENTRE FOR RARE ARTS & FORGOTTEN TRADES Engagement and growth in heritage trades for the next century An International Specialised Skills Institute Fellowship. GLEN RUNDELL Sponsored by the Higher Education Skills Group © Copyright May 2019 WINDSOR CHAIR MAKING IN AUSTRALIA TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents Acknowledgements 3 Executive Summary 5 Fellowship Background 6 International Experience and Discovery 9 Considerations and Recommendations 30 Knowledge Transfer, Application and Dissemination. 31 References 32 WINDSOR CHAIR MAKING IN AUSTRALIA I. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i. Acknowledgements The Fellow would like to thank the following individuals and organisations who led to positive change, the adoption of best practice approaches and new ways generously gave their time and their expertise to assist, advise and guide him of working in Australia. throughout his Perpetual Eddy Dunn Fellowship. The Fellowship Programs are led by investment partners and designed in a manner which ensures that the needs and goals desired by the partners are achieved. ISS Awarding Body – International Specialised Skills Institute works closely to develop a Fellowship Program that meets key industry Institute (ISS Institute) priorities, thus ensuring that the investment made will have lasting impact. The ISS Institute plays a pivotal role in creating value and opportunity, encouraging For further information on ISS Institute Fellows, refer to www.issinstitute.org.au new thinking and early adoption of ideas and practice by investing in individuals. Governance and Management The overarching aim of the ISS Institute is to support the development of a “Smarter Australia”. The Institute does this via the provision of Fellowships that provide Patron in Chief: Lady Primrose Potter AC the opportunity for Australians to undertake international skills development and applied research that will have a positive impact on Australian industry and the Patrons: Mr Tony Schiavello AO and Mr James MacKenzie broader community. Founder/Board Member: Sir James Gobbo AC, CVO The International Specialised Skills Institute was founded 28 years ago, by Sir Board Chair: Professor Amalia Di Iorio James Gobbo AC, CVO, QC, and former Governor of Victoria, who had a vision of building a community of industry specialists who would lead the up-skilling of the Board Treasurer: Jack O’Connell AO Australian workforce. The Fellowship Program builds shared learning, leadership and innovation across the broad range of industry sectors worked with. Fellows Board Secretary: Alisia Romanin are supported to disseminate learning’s and ideas, facilitate change and advocate for best practice through the sharing of their Fellowship learning’s with peers, Board Members: John Baker, Camilla Roberts and Mark Kerr colleagues, government, industry and community. CEO: Wendy Draayers Since its establishment 28 years ago, ISS Institute has supported over 450 Fellows to undertake research across a wide range of sectors which in turn has PAGE 3 WINDSOR CHAIR MAKING IN AUSTRALIA I. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Sponsor – Perpetual Foundation: Eddy Dunn Endowment International Fellowship The Fellow sincerely thanks the Perpetual Foundation and Eddy Dunn Endowment. In 1998, the Perpetual Foundation (the ‘Foundation’) was established to provide a way for benefactors to contribute to improving the lives of others. The Foundation is structured in a way that enables specific endowments to be established in their own name. While the Foundation supports a range of charities and causes, a key objective is to direct funds towards projects that focus on preventative measures and education. In addition, to projects that address the root cause of problems, rather than providing short-term remedies. The aim of the Eddy Dunn Endowment International Fellowship is to promote the acquisition of higher-level skills and an appreciation of international best practice in the traditional trade fields, with a particular interest in mechanics. It is intended to examine innovative approaches that demonstrate potential benefits for the Fellow and for Australian industry and enterprises. Personal Acknowledgements The Fellow wishes to acknowledge and thanks the following individuals for their time and assistance. » Mr. Norbert Gutowski, Program Tutor for the Conservation & Restoration of Furniture and Related Objects, West Dean College » Ms. Francine Norris , Dean of Education, West Dean College. » ISSI Fellow Ms. Bronwen Glover » Mr. James Mursell, The Windsor Workshop. PAGE 4 WINDSOR CHAIR MAKING IN AUSTRALIA II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ii. Executive Summary The aim of this fellowship was twofold. Firstly, to visit learning institutions in the CRAFT. To this end the Fellow is now working with various industry stakeholders UK, who have a strong focus on providing education in traditional skills, trades and in the Ballarat City region to form a working party who will create a new business crafts, to investigate the mechanics of these facilities with a view to understanding plan for that city to build a CRAFT type education facility, with a direct focus on how a similar facility could be established in the State of Victoria. providing recognised education in a wide variety of traditional trade and craft skills across a range of mediums. Secondly to gain further understanding of specific methodologies and techniques in the making of English Windsor Chairs, with respect to design, characteristics Finally, the Fellow will directly impart the learning outcomes gained from his time and timber species with a view to ‘reintroducing’ the English form of Windsor learning specific English chair making skills by sharing those skills and techniques Chair to this country in an Australian interpretation of the form. with chairmaking students during classes held in the Fellows Kyneton Workshop. The Fellowship enable the Fellow to travel to the UK to West Dean College and Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex, England. Additionally, the Fellow attended at the home and workshop of respected English Windsor Chair maker and tutor, James Mursell, in West Chillington, West Sussex. The recommendations from the Fellows studies in England are clear. Australia is in desperate need of an institution solely focused on the restoration of Traditional Trades skills and education. The Fellow and his wife created a proposal and business plan for a school of this kind in their home town of Kyneton. As a result of the learnings from this Fellowship, the Fellow has developed a newly designed chair incorporating aspects of an English style Windsor Chair. This chair design will be the focus of a unique Windsor Chair Making Class to be taught at Sovereign Hill living museum. It is hopeful that in the future there will be an opportunity for the Fellows findings regarding the operational mechanics of West Dean College to be continuously utilised in some form in a Traditional Trade School such as the model proposed for PAGE 5 WINDSOR CHAIR MAKING IN AUSTRALIA 1. FELLOWSHIP BACKGROUND 1. Fellowship Background Australian Situation circles that books on trades and crafts can also take the place of one individual passing on skills and instruction to another person, directly. Indirectly, one may “There is a lack of skilled traditional carpenters able to undertake sympathetic believe that because a trade or craft is practised elsewhere in the world, there is repair to historic timber structures.” little risk in that trade or craft ceasing in Australia, as skills can simply be relearnt from practitioners abroad. ISSI report - PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION OF TIMBER HERITAGE STRUCTURES, Amy Chan, SWOT Analysis - Weaknesses - Page 11, Point 3 The Master and Apprentice form of passing on skills and trade knowledge has been in existence for thousands of years, for good reason. It has been practised in “As traditional carpentry is not commonly practised or consistently taught in this country since the first fleet landed some 247 years ago. Indeed, with respect Australia, this knowledge can only be gained by visiting workshops and sites to our European cultural history, it is immensely important. overseas where traditional carpentry techniques are still widely used.” The Master and Apprentice form of learning is not new, nor is it antiquated. As ISSI report - PRESERVATION AND RESTORATION OF TIMBER HERITAGE humans, we learn best through aping or being shown ‘how.’ In almost every stage STRUCTURES, Amy Chan, Page 13, Part 3 paragraph 3. of life we practice this this methodology. We do not place pre-school age children into a room with a video screen and a pile of books and tell them to ‘learn.’ We Artisans and Master Tradespeople such as Bruce Walker, Cooper George provide them with a navigator for that knowledge. A teacher. Smithwick and the like are more than prepared to share the vast breadth of knowledge gained through decades of practicing their various trades. The issue is, Whether a would-be scholar or apprentice plumber, we provide them with there are no facilities in this country to accommodate them or provide a platform a professor or a Master. Those Navigators are there to assist students and for them to pass on these important skills and vital information. apprentices through the many and varied avenues in which they may err or make mistakes and to then steer them in the right direction or provide the requisite There seems also to be a prevailing attitude which has gained both increased tuition for them to flourish. Books and video’s rarely provide this information and momentum and acceptance in the last decade of digital progression. It is an attitude can never provide the depth of understanding, learning from an expert can. that promotes the falsehood that somewhat capable amateur craftspeople, who have uploaded videographies of techniques and aspects of various crafts and With respect to Australia’s continuing demise of traditional trades and skills, we trades can somehow fill a void of learning, if or when a trade ceases to be regularly must consider the following circumstance. practised or taught by professionals or Masters. A similar attitude prevails in some PAGE 6 WINDSOR CHAIR MAKING IN AUSTRALIA 1.
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