100 Stories from the Australian National
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they are a part of this country’s water-based heritage. America’s Cup from the Americans who had held it for 132 The museum holds a significant collection of posters years. that refer to Australia’s beach culture and other aspects What has driven such high levels of achievement in and of life and the environment in coastal and river areas. It on the water? Climate is clearly part of the answer. And so 8 SPORT AND PLAY also has a far-reaching collection of objects that attest to too, in all likelihood, is the perception held elsewhere in the Australia’s love of the outdoor life and its prominence in world and by us in this country that Australians are strong, aquatic sport. healthy people who enjoy their time outdoors in the sun. With striking modernist illustrations and a palette of bright effect. Its imagery of sunshine, open space, good health Australian swimmers have won a total of 58 Olympic Bill Richards colours, the new Australian National Travel Association and physical strength defined Australia and Australians for gold medals, easily securing their status as Australia’s alerted the world in the 1930s to Australia’s wide open people overseas, and generally confirmed in the minds of top athletes. There has been a similar progression in > landscapes, sun-drenched beaches and outdoor lifestyle. Australians the perceptions they were forming of themselves < Gert Sellheim (1901–1970) Narelle Autio (b 1969) and sculling and rowing, from Henry Robert (Bobby) Australia for Sun and Surf, 1936. Trent Parke (b 1971) Untitled #11 The agency’s aim was to capture attention in Europe and life in this country. And it didn’t end there. Pearce’s Olympic gold medals in 1928 and 1932, to the In one of the Australian National from The Seventh Wave, 2000. and elsewhere and tell people in those often depressed areas The themes of that ANTA initiative have reverberated Travel Association’s most famous After travelling the globe as internationally celebrated ‘Oarsome Foursome’, who won posters, artist Gert Sellheim award-winning photojournalists, about the great opportunities for immigration, investment down through the years in successive corporate and govern- three Olympic gold medals and four world titles in the evokes for an international Autio and Parke wanted to and holidays in a young and relatively carefree nation. The ment campaigns that sought to capture an aspect of ‘Aus- audience the exuberance and explore Australia’s underwater 1990s. From the 1960s, our surfers have been carving enduring allure of Australia. world. Here under the pier, campaign succeeded, but it also had another, more enduring tralianness’. The qualities that this early campaign captured their place in world competition. And in sailing, Australia Colour process lithograph, swimmers float in water, in are still considered central to the Australian identity. 105.6 x 61.8 cm, courtesy shadows and light, as much at has always moved well in international company – never A focus on watersports and pastimes is one of the Nik Sellheim and Josef Lebovic home as the fish. Silver gelatin more triumphantly than that breathtaking September Gallery Sydney print, 109.7 x 288.1 cm © ways that this museum has expanded the traditional ambit Narelle Autio and Trent Parke. in 1983 when Australia II snatched the ‘unwinnable’ of maritime history, to give even more people a sense that Image courtesy of the artists and Stills Gallery, Sydney > 196 197 Colonial boating was much more colourful than suggested by the pictures, popular on yacht club walls, of the glorious white-winged yachts of wealthy owners and sailors. In fact, it had more in common with the ramshackle antics of the Northern Territory’s infamous Henley-on-Todd Regatta (held on a dry riverbed) than with races for elite craft off Cowes in the United Kingdom. From the 1830s, colonial leaders assembled whatever boats and crews they could to shape a pageant for sailors, rowers, scullers and spectators alike. of the British colony in New South Wales in 1788. Regattas Picnickers at harbour vantage points watched races between amateur and professional rowers, or between As the fledgling colonies developed, aquatic spectacles working craft and elite sailors in the few large yachts, while became a focus of community celebration and an assertion the cream of colonial society watched from the flagship, of growing mercantile confidence. usually a visiting naval or important merchant vessel. The Australia Day Regatta has been held on The Sydney Gazette described the first regatta in 1837 26 January every year since 1837. Then known as the as ‘entirely devoted to pleasure’, setting the pattern for Anniversary Day Regatta, it celebrated the establishment Australia Days to come. < J Henderson Picnic at Lady Macquarie’s Chair, Sydney N. S. Wales in 1852, 1870s Hand-coloured lithograph after oil painting by unknown artist, 47.5 x 68.5 (image) > Charles Louis Napoléon d’Albert (1809–1886) The Regatta Waltzes, 1855 Sheet music, 34.4 x 25.7cm 198 199 The Hobart Regatta was inaugurated one year later, An assortment of trophies from entertainments, including fancy costume parades, bearded ram with silver detailing (below), offered by the John Walker the 19th and 20th centuries under the patronage of Governor John Franklin’s wife, Lady Gifts from the Wright Family ladies, greasy-pole fights and snake charmers. Whisky company to the boat that won the event twice – the Jane. Far more than a yacht race, it was held every year, of Roma, Queensland through The museum’s collections feature many rare and 22-footer Effie, owned by James McMurtrie. usually in early December, to commemorate the anniversary Donna and Ross Fraser & Lesley exciting artefacts, which show these early colonial regattas Competition grew with the various colonies’ development, and Stanley Harrison; Francis of Abel Tasman’s ‘discovery’ of the island in 1642. It hoped Pinel, Judy Gifford, Carol and as public celebrations and assertions of progress. There are with more boats, more races and more opportunities for the to demonstrate the unity and patronage of civil and military Gordon Billett, Faye Magner, Dr also more humble artefacts showing the activities of smaller many clubs supporting aquatic sports. Rowing was especially David Lark, Lady Desolie Hurley, elites, promoted whaling and other free-settler enterprises, Iain and Alex Murray communities, where the regatta played an equally pivotal strong in river communities, large and small. and even aimed to reduce the colony’s convict stain. role as a sporting forum and source of community pride. Today, aquatic spectacles remain a focus for public The program reveals the commercial and leisure activities Illustrated (on p. 199) are a rare piece of English piano celebrations on waterways around Australia – witness the at the time. Professional watermen who carried people and sheet music entitled The Regatta Waltzes, published in annual New Year’s Eve celebrations. Although no longer goods across the waters raced the crews of the many visiting Sydney with vignettes of local scenes in 1855, and (below) the feature event as it was in colonial times, the regatta naval, whaling and trading ships and ketches, in gigs, pulling a variety of cups, trophies and other prizes awarded to remains one of many offerings in a smorgasbord of public boats, skiffs and sculls. The spectators mixed more freely, regatta winners. entertainment. The former Anniversary Day Regatta is representing a broad cross-section of society. A public holiday These prizes varied, and included highly crafted today known as the Australia Day Regatta and, evoking its was declared and free beer and food dispensed to those silver trophies, purses, amounts of money and, for the spirit, local working craft feature on the day – the ubiquitous who took part from the fledgling convict settlement. By the Intercolonial Sailing Carnival held from 1897 to 1899, a Sydney ferries race to huge public interest and enthusiasm. 1900s, the boat races were competing with other novelty most idiosyncratic trophy made from the head of merino Daina Fletcher 200 201 Colonial Maori figurehead from Akarana, William Frederick Hall (working 1888, made into a domestic 1880s–1900s) Akarana (at left) enterprise ornament 1890s Kauri, mahogany, racing Sirocco on Sydney Harbour, paint, glass, 37.5 x 28.7 cm Gift 1889 Glass plate negative 12 x from Arthur and Nancye Goard 16.5 cm Gift from Bruce Stannard In October 1888 a group gathered at Auckland docks to see Scottish boatbuilder Robert Logan’s Yacht Club’s season. new 39-foot yacht loaded on With a six-minute time board the SS Nemesis to sail allowance, they beat St for Melbourne, to take part Kilda’s centre-boarders to the gold medal by 12 in the Intercolonial Regatta minutes, in light airs, to celebrate the centenary without even hoisting of British settlement in the a topsail. colonies. Akarana, the Maori But the Intercolonial name for Auckland, featured a Regatta yielded uneven results. On day one, figurehead of a Maori on its bow 24 November, in still air, and took with it New Zealand’s Akarana (by then the race honour and Logan’s aspirations, with favourite) beat its rivals in the the boatbuilder and his skipper Jack Bell 5–10 tonne class and claimed the on board. Logan returned six months later, £130 prize. On day two, in stronger but it was a century before the plucky gaff cutter winds, Akarana trailed the fleet behind many of the vessels it had beaten the previous day, was back in New Zealand again. providing one of the surprises of the regatta. Among the small yachting fleets of the colonies every Logan took the yacht to Sydney for the Anniversary new yacht was eagerly reported, and especially so an Day Regatta on 26 January 1889, and entered it in the the yacht passed through many owners, whose photographs bicentennial gift from the government and people of intercolonial challenger racing under the burgee of the second class race for yachts under 20 tonnes.