The University Archives – Record 2016
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES 2016 Cover image: Hand coloured map of the University, 1957 [G74/1/40] Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®) is a globally recognised certification overseeing all fibre sourcing standards. This provides guarantees for the consumer that products are made of woodchips from well-managed forests, other controlled sources and reclaimed material with strict environmental, economical social standards. Record The University Archives edition2016 The Jacaranda tree in the Quad collapsed on 28 October 2016. This image shows four Jacaranda trees in the Quad in 1952. [G3_224_2751] Contents Contact us [email protected] 2684 2 9351 +61 Archivist’s notes............................... 2 UNESCO Australian Memory of the World ............................................. 3 Explain! The building of the Sydney University Science Fiction Association Dalek and the Formation of the Australian Dr Who Fan Club ............. 4 Records of the Youth Campaign Against Conscription (YCAC), Sydney Office ................................... 9 University Gardens .........................12 Beyond 1914 – The University of Sydney and the Great War ..........16 The Scurvy Treatment of Karl Popper ....................................19 By a window Exhibition at the Verge Gallery .......21 Archives news ................................ 23 Reflections of working at the University Archives ........................ 26 Selected Accession list....................27 General information ....................... 29 Archivist‘s notes Welcome to a fascinating and eclectic edition of Record. I found Anne Picot’s reflections on her thirteen years in I doubt there are many publications that can bring the University Archives instructive, you tend not to notice together Daleks, Karl Popper, University landscaping, changes while they occur. It is appropriate that we now WW1 and anti-conscription in the 1960s in the one volume. announce the most recent upgrade to our control system There are also highs and sadly, lows. that owes so much to Anne in the same issue where she reflects on its origins. Anne made a major and lasting The high is the inclusion of the University’s contribution to many areas of our work and we all wish Anthropological Field Research and Teaching Records, her well in her retirement. 1926-1956 in the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. The importance of the records held in It is with the greatest sadness that I record the death the University Archives and the Macleay Museum has long of friend and colleague Dr Sigrid McCausland. Sigrid was been known by researchers and communities but they now a fixture in my archival career. I first met her when she have the public recognition they deserve. My great thanks spoke to the UNSW archive administration students in go to the many people who worked on the nomination, 1980. Through the Australian Society of Archivists I had but in particular to my colleagues Nyree Morrison, the pleasure and privilege of working with her on a Karin Brennan and Deborah Gibson and to Dr Jude Philp number of projects, including the writing of Keeping and Rebecca Conway from the Macleay Museum. Archives first and second editions and the Editorial Board of Archives and Manuscripts. Sigrid’s positions I found all the articles in this issue of interest and it as University Archivist at the University of Technology, would be invidious to single out any one in particular. Sydney and the Australian National University meant we They reflect the breadth and depth of the Archives, and had much in common. I still find it hard to accept that the uses to which the records can be put. I will say that someone so vital and engaged will not be at the next ASA it is relevant to review the records of the University’s function or at the end of the phone or email. Her legacy grounds at a time when the greatest changes to the will live on in her contributions to the profession through Camperdown and Darlington campus since the 1850s are her many activities, writing, and students. underway. I wish to record my gratitude to Jeremy Steele for ensuring the preservation of the work by David Curtis Tim Robinson showing the 1981 campus plantings. University Archivist Page 2 UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register – Anthropological Field Research and Teaching Records, University of Sydney, 1926-1956. Nyree Morrison, Senior Archivist The Anthropological Field Research and Teaching The University’s holdings comprise the personal archives of Records, 1926-1956 of the University’s Department of prominent anthropologists including AR Radcliffe-Brown, Anthropology have been inscribed onto the Australian AP Elkin, HIP Hogbin and Camilla Wedgwood; records of Memory of the World Register www.amw.org.au/amw- the Anthropology Department; and records of researchers register. The Register is part of UNESCO’s Memory of funded by the Australian National Research Council (ANRC), the World Program which honours documentary heritage including WEH Stanner, Olive Pink, Ursula McConnell, and of significance for Australia and the world, and advocates WL Warner. for its preservation. The successful nomination was Included are field notes, genealogies, correspondence, jointly submitted by the University Archives and the photographs, audio-visual material, reports, secondary Macleay Museum. sources, and significant objects such as bark paintings The University of Sydney holds the oldest Australian and pearl shell ornaments. Together, these materials academic anthropology records documenting Indigenous present a unique record of Indigenous life in Australia communities in Australia and the South Pacific region. and the South Pacific region in the 20th century. They are historically and culturally significant and in high demand for Land Title claims, family research, and native language revival activities. They are sought after by national and international academics for research. The University’s Department of Anthropology was the first established at an Australian university. Until the 1950s it was the only department formally teaching anthropology in Australia. Its early professors and their empirical approach dominated the discipline in Australia, influencing government administration regimes and policies regarding Aboriginal and Pacific Islanders from 1926 until the 1950s. Drawing by a child from Forrest River Mission sent to anthropologist AP Elkin in the late 1920s. [P130_01_083_1] Nyree Morrison at the inscription ceremony at the Canberra Museum and Gallery, 9 February 2017 Page 3 Explain! The building of the Sydney University Science Fiction Association Dalek and the Formation of the Australian Dr Who Fan Club. Dr Anthony Howe The Dalek featured on the cover of last year’s Record was built in 1976. Dr Antony Howe, member of the Sydney University Science Fiction Association (SUSFA) describes how it was built and used. Dalek take-over of the University, Main Quad, 1976. [Dr Antony Howe] Forty years later it is amazing to find this University Dalek organisers had announced an invitation to rival campuses is still an item of curiosity on campus. The Dalek was an to enter Daleks for the world’s first ever Dalek Race. Hence idea that SUSFA engineering students kicked off before the hive of activity I encountered up here, although I don’t I joined. I suspect they may have started planning it in know when it started exactly as I was relatively late on the the 1975-76 long vacation, as one of the engineers, Phil scene, not finding the joint SUSFA-Tolkien Society stall in Atcliffe, had transferred to us from Melbourne University Orientation Week. It was weeks later that I first blundered where our sister club had built a Dalek in 1975. Phil’s into the SUSFA on the 19th March 1976, at a Friday friends down there were organising “Unicon II” an inter- lunchtime meeting, in a rather seedy room in the Holme varsity Science Fiction Convention set for Easter. The Building in the rabbit warren above the Refectory. I recall Henry David Thoreau [1817–1862] American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian Page 4 it being dimly lit, with large, faded, crumbling, dark red We were lucky Easter was late that year as much of our leather arm chairs, and other old furniture. There I met invader had to be readied at speed, in terms of the Kerrie Dougherty (also in her first year), and Dallas Jones construction. My diary shows that a lot of work still (Dallas had joined in 1973). had to be done in April when I first helped out making phone calls for them about lights, ball bearings, etc. This meeting was SUSFA’s Annual General Meeting, and Parts of the Dalek were at a fairly advanced stage, such it turned out Alan Sherwood, another engineer, had as the metal working done by Kim Lambert’s father I arranged for Phil to replace him as Secretary Treasurer, suspect, but other parts were barely begun. I was tasked but no one had bothered with candidates for President to try to locate a tricycle for its propulsion, around as the job was not seen as important. I nominated myself which its lower half could be built. The diary I kept (being prodded forward by my companion), and then was mainly perfunctory “to do” lists, with comments another, much older guy nominated against me (“much”- here and there, but even this sparse record tells me he was probably only 4 years older than me.) He had there were 16 phone calls that got me nowhere before been President a few years before, but I got 10 votes, Kerrie’s family accidentally “donated” the tricycle of her to his 3. I think I won being more foolishly enthusiastic younger brother when it was mistakenly taken by the (inexperienced), and getting the support of the many other main builders who should have taken something else. 1st year students. About ten minutes later there was the Alan and Phil made a wooden frame for the gun box and realisation I was not even a member! This being the era of Watergate and Nixon someone called out “Impeach”.