20/ years 20/ objects Some twenty years ago, current President of the Brighton Historical Society Jill Golley OAM, showed great foresight when she advocated for the to form a history collection. The Holdfast Bay History Centre, its collection and volunteer program was consequently established in mid-2000.

Starting from very little, today we are thousands and thousands of objects, photographs, paintings and documents strong. The program has grown with great gusto, led by the passion and enthusiasm of hundreds of volunteers through the years. As of April 2020, the City of Holdfast Bay has recorded more than 20,000 hours of service. This does not take into account the hundreds of unrecorded hours we know have been completed.

The Centre’s collection incorporates the collections of Glenelg Council, Brighton Council and Brighton Historical Society. Today, we collect anything and everything of importance that relates to the City of Holdfast Bay.

Dieuwke Jessop, former Curator at the South Australian Maritime Museum, was the Centre’s first Coordinator. With an army of eager volunteers, she worked tirelessly for fourteen years to advocate for the Centre and to promote Holdfast Bay’s history.

Though I have been in this role for a fraction of the time, it has been a privilege to work beside such a strong, capable and enthusiastic group of volunteers. Without them, we would have very little.

I congratulate them on their dedication, some having been in their roles for as long, if not longer than the Centre’s existence. I thank them for the hours they have spent cataloguing objects, researching, talking with community, scanning images, and advocating for our past and our future. It has been with their dedication that we have left for future generations a record of how our City came to be.

It is my pleasure to present you with 20 Years, 20 Objects. A timeline of donations, one from each year, as it was entered into our official Collections Register. A reflection of all that we have achieved.

Julia Garnaut Local History Coordinator May 2020 Our first acquisition in the register

26 October 2000

Accession Number HFB0001

A collection of Councillors robes brought together after the amalgamation of the City of Brighton and the City of Glenelg. It would take us some twenty years to decide what to keep and what to catalogue. This collection was finally pulled together in 2019 by volunteer Noel Leach.

Elaborately decorated this robe was used by the Brighton Town Clerk for ceremonial occasions until 1997 when Brighton and Glenelg Councils amalgamated. It is made from Grosgrain and decorated with velvet. Today the term “Town Clerk” is no longer used, the position is now known as the “Chief Executive Officer” or C.E.O.

OB-BR-0097 23 February 2001

With the current COVID-19 pandemic, we thought this a perfect choice to demonstrate the breadth of our collections and the way in which we were tracing the spread of disease some 60 years ago.

This register, kept by the Local Board of Health contains names for the Glenelg Register of Infectious Diseases. Patients were suffering from notifiable, and infectious diseases, such as anthrax, cholera, leprosy and typhoid. Ages range from 1 through to 84 years.

This register, hand written, ranges from 17 October 1944 to 25 June 1959. It is leather bound, with a suede spine and is decorated with a floral motif.

The Centre is home to hundreds of bound ledgers like this, representing everything from past Council business, folded community organisations and long closed businesses from across the City.

DC-HB-0101 Some time in 2002

Keeping track of donation information can be very tricky. Particularly for photographs, of which we have more than an estimated 30,000 in the collection.

This is an intriguing little photograph album with a red hard cover. It made its way into the collection via the Brighton Historical Society who inherited it via the former Enfield’s and Districts Historical Society.

Inside, photographs were meticulously recorded with descriptions underneath. History has unfortunately claimed many of the names, dates and stories of the people contained with its pages. This mysterious album does however give a few clues as to its owner. Many of the names we can pick are of wealthy, prominent South Australian families likely holidaying in the Brighton area from 1912 to 1914.

After much deliberation and discussion over names, volunteers concluded the names of the families we can identify within the album:

Crossman (Mr and Mrs); Wyatt; Whyte (Kitty); Hammond (Heather and Hazel); Kingsborough (Mr A. W); Bonython; De Reyher? (Helen); Bagot (Lucy nee Ayer); Crowe (Rita); De Lissa (Lillian) and; Parson and Mason (Eileen).

Locations in the album include; Victor Harbor, Mount Breken, Inman Valley, River Torrens, Brighton Road, Brighton Beach and sand dunes, Brighton Railway Station, Hackett Avenue now Ilfracombe Ave, Brighton land (now Minda) and Glenelg Beach.

Do you recognise any of these names?

PH-AL-0067 8 July 2003

In 2003 the History Centre received a generous and extensive donation from decedents of the Voules Brown family. Through the years, the family have continued to grow this donation to now include objects, textiles, photographs and documentation.

The sewing box, made in China for export in the mid-1850s, belonged to Lucretia Sarah and Harriet Louisa Voules Brown and is thought to have been sent to them by their brother Victor Voules Brown when he lived in Darwin from 1873 to 1910.

William Voules Brown (1809 – 29 January 1893) and Harriet Brown, née Perkins (1812 – 6 July 1897) of Brighton, , emigrated on the Coromandel in 1837. They moved to Brighton from Kangarilla where they had owned a prosperous farm so that their children could attend school. Voules Brown became the owner of the Thatched House Tavern, St Jude’s Cemetery and a member of Brighton’s first Town Council.

The box contains a large collection of original bone tools and implements. Decorated throughout in black and gold gilt lacquer with chinoiserrie scenes of oriental figures in landscapes of pavilions and pagodas. The interior has a lift out top tray with storage compartments and there is a lower draw beautifully fitted for silk painting.

OB-BR-0290 Lucretia Sarah Brown Circa 1900. PH-AH-VS-0092. 7 December 2004

In 1957, the first Metropolitan Marching Girls teams were formed in the Holdfast Bay area including the Bay Royals, Brighton Guardettes, Dolphins, Holdfast Hussars and the Sovereigns.

The Troubadours, originally called the Brighton Juniors, formed in August 1959 with Ann Eastwick as Captain of the girls, whose ages were between 12 and 15 years. They practiced every Saturday afternoon at Brighton Primary School and regularly competed.

Our marching girl’s collection includes uniforms, photographs, a marching banner and documentation. It is part of a larger Holdfast Bay sports and community group collection dating from photographs of Glenelg and Brighton Cricket teams in the late 1800s through to our vary latest acquisition of Bay Tigers 2019 Premiership memorabilia.

OB-BR-0073 12 April 2005

A collection of tools used by the Rose Family in their building and plastering business. Three generations of the Rose Family worked in the building industry in Glenelg.

John Rose arrived from England with his parents in 1859. On leaving school he was apprenticed to the plastering trade, and, after working as a journeyman, entered into business on his own account as a plastering contractor. His son, Victor Rose, took over the family business.

We wonder which buildings across Holdfast Bay the Rose Family worked on?

OB-GL-0226, 227, 228, 229, 230 26 September 2006

This 1940s swimsuit is one of the first accepted by the History Centre. The collection has now grown to include more than 50 swimsuits as part of the Violet Rowe Swimwear Collection.

This women’s yellow and grey check patterned, cotton one piece swimsuit, with a sweetheart neckline and adjustable shoulder straps fastens with two white buttons on the top of the back.

The back and sides are shirred.

Manufactured by “Cole of California”, a popular American swimwear manufacturer famous for producing garments that had a glamorous Hollywood look. The actress Ester Williams was signed in 1950 to promote the brand.

OB-GL-0206

You can view favourites from the Violet Rowe Swimwear Collection here: www.holdfast.sa.gov.au/bathingbelle 30 January 2007

Council remains grateful to John Dowie AM for his generosity in donating his oil painting to the collection.

Dowie is a celebrated South Australian artist and sculptor. Dated Circa 1938, the work was probably painted in his studio at Dulwich after making a sketch on site at Glenelg. The painting has been painted on a wooden panel and is one of the artist’s early works. He was 23 at the time.

John Dowie’s works are found in Galleries across the world, though he is best known for his sculpture which can be seen across every Capital City in Australia, the Mawson Base in Antarctica, Windsor Castle, London and in Kingston Park the Tjilbruke Monument, commemorating the dreaming story.

The Centre has a beautiful collection of Australiana works dating to the formation of Glenelg Town Council. Amongst the works are pieces by noted artists John Michael Skipper, Florence Fitzgerald R.B.C. and James Doveton Stone.

Four Wooden Windmills at Glenelg PI-FR-0124 John Dowie AM Oil painting on wood panel Circa 1938 Aerial view of Dover Olive Oil Mill, 1948. PH-BS-0072. 22 January 2008

In 2008 we started our relationship with Carmel Earl nee Norman. The Norman family ran the Dover Oil Mill and had land holdings between Folkestone Road and The Broadway, South Brighton, as well as property at McLaren Vale. The business operated from 1932 to 1971.

Remnants of the olive grove can still be seen at Dover Square Reserve in South Brighton.

“First Australian olives for export. People in London at Coronation time (Queen Elizabeth, the Second) will be able to eat Australian olives. The first olives ever to be exported from Australia are now being packed at Dover Olive Oil Company at Brighton. Here Miss Zita Norman packs some of the olives which are consigned to the Savoy hotel, London for the Coronation season.” The News, 1953.

Labels, Dover Olive Oil Mill. PH-BS-0085.

Carmel and Zita Norman packing olives for the Savoy Hotel, 1953. PH-BS-0064. 13 February 2009

This metal-working lathe was hand-built A hardened cutting tool is held at the and possibly hand-operated by George desired height by the tool-post. The Shieles Tilley. He made the lathe from a carriage then moves around the rotating variety of agricultural machine parts in work piece, and the cutting tool order to make a model oil engine. gradually removes material from the work piece. The tailstock can be slid From an early age George Tilley had an along the axis of rotation and then interest in building engines. He operated locked in place as necessary. a Wood Yard on the Broadway, Glenelg from 1918 to 1925. The hand-made oil/kerosene internal combustion engine, was used to drive This collection was beautifully the Tilley wood-sawing plant on the catalogued by volunteers Mara Broadway, Glenelg. It cut about eight Pearson and Jim Blake. They tons of fire wood weekly. Wood was documented its construction and the fuel for both cooking and heating at working parts to ensure those after us the time. George Shieles Tilley built the understand its construction and purpose. engine using second-hand parts. The engine cylinder, for example, was the The lathe has four main components: the barrel of an old pump and the bed, the headstock, the carriage, and piston was a plunger. A file, not a lathe, the tailstock. The bed consists of an was used in its construction. The bore is angle-iron frame. The headstock’s about 3 inches (75mm) and the stroke spindle secures the work piece with a is 5 ¾ inches (145mm). Its capacity is four-jaw chuck. The spindle is possibly approximately 660cc. The engine was hand-operated by turning a solid started by heating the vaporising tube wooden cylinder. It rotates to cut the with a Primus stove. material. It has a set of gears at the end of the headstock to coordinate the speed An elderly George Tilley, pictured left standing in of the carriage and the rotation of the a yard and surrounded by old metal parts, Circa lathe. The work piece extends out of the 1965. PH-GS-0115. spindle along the axis of rotation above the flat bed. The carriage is a platform that can be moved parallel and perpendicular to the axis of rotation. 25 October 2010

Donations come to the History Centre both big and small. In this case, very, very big! We were lucky enough to accept a donation of five sideshow banners supposedly left to age in a garage, like so much of history is. The banners remain some of our most beautiful items in the collection, yet they are also the most difficult to display, store and conserve.

In 2008 we were lucky enough to receive funding from the National Library of Australia and in conjunction with the City of Holdfast Bay we stabilised our ‘Zorita’ banner which currently hangs in the Bay Discovery Centre Museum.

Theme and amusement parks have played a large part in the development of Glenelg’s foreshore space. The various establishments that have inhabited the area hold a strong place in the memory of South Australians. The ‘Zorita’ banner would have hung in the sideshows, located on the Glenelg foreshore from the 1950s onwards as well as travelling to other amusement facilities located at the Royal Adelaide Showgrounds, Semaphore and around Australia. The banner was used by David Plenty and Peter Raven who together performed in a series of magic and illusion shows and ran performances by ‘glamour girls’. One of these girls was Betty Cain who performed as ‘America’s Dancing Sensation’, Zorita.

The banner itself was hand painted by A. E. Lykke. Alfred Edward Lykke (1875-1958) of Lykke’s paperhangers, painters and sign makers was a painter based in Gawler Place, Adelaide. Two other representations of his work are located within the collection of the State Library of South Australia.

You can watch elements of the Zorita banner conservation here: https://bit.ly/SAWZorita

OB-OS-0074 November 2011

Bathing Box #20 was located on Brighton Beach during the 1920s, eventually finding its way into the backyard of a local resident to be used as a tool shed. Some fifty years later, then History Coordinator Diewuke Jessop coordinated its donation. Long-time History Centre volunteer Jim Blake and a team of volunteers dismantled the shed, transported it to the Museum in Glenelg, reassembled it and restored it to be used as an interactive display at the Museum telling the stories of South Australia’s coastline from around the 1920s through to the 1950s.

Bathing boxes are thought to have been constructed and used largely as a response to concepts of Victorian ‘morality’ but were also used as shelter from the sun or wind and for the safe storing of personal belongings.

In Holdfast Bay, beach huts were owned privately and were scattered along our Coastline. They fell out of favour as storms wreaked havoc, gradually damaging or destroying boxes.

OB-SE-0007 Bathng boxes dotted along the Brighton Coastline, Circa 1914. PH-AH-01486. 15 August 2012

The History Centre cares for a beautiful textile collection, though they remain one of the more challenging items within the collection to care for. Over the past twenty years we have been very fortunate to receive grant funding to conserve many of our pieces.

This full length, figured cream satin wedding dress, with 3/4 length sleeves and full train was worn by Yvonne Allen when she married Keith Tomlinson in the Brighton Methodist church on 15 March 1952. In 2004 it was worn by Yvonne’s daughter, Linda Tomlinson, when she married Russel Noak in Mt. Gambier.

It is one of five wedding gowns currently within the collection.

OB-HO-0002

Linda Tomlinson, nee Allen on her wedding day in 2004. PH-BR-0529. 20 August 2013

The concept drawing for Magic Mountain, Glenelg. Produced in 1981 by architects Keam Milne Holden.

Magic Mountain first opened to the public in December 1982. Following the grand tradition of amusements by the sea, Magic Mountain proved to be popular with locals across Adelaide. The infamous building was designed to look like a mountain, to blend in with the natural dunes of Glenelg. The building’s exterior was divisive with many people having opinions on its final appearance.

‘I will do everything in my power to get rid of that eyesore that is Magic Mountain’ Jay Weatherhill, Minister of Urban Planning and Development, 2002

Magic Mountain closed to the public on the 18th of July 2004 to make way for the Foreshore Redevelopment along Colley Reserve. Today Magic Mountain is remembered fondly by locals. Its replacement, The Beachouse, can still be visited on the Glenelg Foreshore.

The History Centre has many items belonging to Magic Mountain. In 2004 Council acquired a dodgem car, sky cycle, mirrors and part of the water slide. More recently, a donor came forward with bits and pieces they’d collected from the ‘scene of the demolition’. We are now the proud owners of a piece of the exterior! 12 August 2014

Our copy of “The Australian Home Beautiful” magazine, 2 November 1931 addition came to us amongst a pile of magazines covered in oil and dirt after being stored in a garage for many years.

After slowly sorting our way through the collection, we discovered this beautiful edition of the magazine with Lady Paquita Mawson on the cover completing a tapestry of the Discovery, among the Antarctic icebergs. The magazine cost one shilling and includes the article; “Australia’s Greatest Antarctic Explorer at Home, Sir Douglas Mawson and his Treasures” on pages 6 to 9.

The magazine complements a small collection of items we hold belonging to both Sir Douglas and Lady Paquita Mawson, long-time Brighton residents.

DC-GS-0002 8 July 2015

We accepted this donation from the National Railway Museum of two window panels belonging to a carriage from the Glenelg Railway Company. The panels most likely belonged to a carriage similar to the South Australian Railways (SAR) carriage #232. The panel would have been at the top of a window or door and was pulled toward the passenger in order to allow for ventilation. It is decorated with an Art Nouveau inspired floral motif and the letters “GR” interlocked in the centre.

Glenelg Railway Company began in 1881 when Holdfast Bay Railway Company and Adelaide Glenelg and Suburban Railway Company amalgamated. The train service to Glenelg commenced in 1873 and continued until 1929 when the H-type trams (known as the red rattler) were introduced.

These panels compliment other items in the collection related to transport in Holdfast Bay, from photographs, tickets, uniforms and the ornate tram seat we hope to restore in coming years.

OB-GL-0247a/b

A Glenelg Railway Company engine pulls into the station along Jetty Road in 1921. PH-GL-1207.

31 May 2016

The family of Joy Twining OAM, long time Brighton resident donated her scrapbooks to us after her death in 2015.

Joy was born in April 1928 at North Adelaide. She moved to Brighton at the age of 13 with her parents where they took up residence in the Esplanade Hotel. They soon moved to their new home on Jetty Road, Brighton which had two shops as its frontage. Here, Joy opened her dressmaking business, working endlessly at her many creations.

Joy met Ross Twining when they were both teenagers as he lived opposite her family in Jetty Road. They married in 1947 at the Brighton Baptist Church and lived in Glenelg and Hove where they raised two daughters.

Her scrapbooks include photographs, newspaper cuttings, programs, invitations and certificates from her time as a South Australian athlete. She competed in badminton, basketball, netball and tennis and was in national teams from 1959-1966, and a coach until 1986. She attended the Commonwealth Games twice, once as a competitor in 1966, and once as a coach in 1982. In 1980 she was presented with an Order of Australia for her services to sport.

DC-HB-0111a/b 20 April 2017

On a very wintery day, Edwin George Croft wondered into the History Centre with his Naval Rating Uniform from WWII stowed perfectly as he did each day in the Navy, secured by its lanyard. Ted, a former Bay Discovery Centre Volunteer, was a signalman aboard The Coolebar a small old coal burning ship resurrected from a ship’s graveyard at the beginning of the war and used for carrying supplies from Darwin to outlying Army and Air Force stations. He enlisted 19 January 1943.

He left us with the following Oral History about his uniform:

“This uniform is special to me as it brings messages by wireless using morse code back memories of the times. and Coders.

There are several symbolic features on The white cord around the neck is a this uniform. The three white lines on the lanyard to which something may be collar are a reminder of Nelson’s three attached eg a seaman could have a great naval victories – the Battle of the clasp knife which would be hidden in a Nile, the Battle of Copenhagen and the pocket inside his jacket. Battle of Trafalgar, which is also represented by the black silk ribbon During the war a signalman was paid round the neck as a memorial of 5/6 (55 cents) per day during training Nelson’s death in battle. and as an ordinary signalman, and 8/6 (85 cents) per day after passing a The seven horizontal creases in the proficiency test after a further six month trousers are a reference to the seven service. In addition the sum of 7 pence seas. They also facilitate the neat folding per day was paid as a clothing of the trousers for storage and assist in allowance for the purchase of additional making the trouser leg bell shaped. kit after the first issue.

The badge of crossed flags on the right The red badge on the left arm is a Good arm indicates the wearer is a signalman Conduct Badge issue after three years trained in visual signalling using service without misdemeanours. A semaphore flags, morse code using second badge was issued after flashing lights and about 60 different seven years and a third after 11 years. flags. He is also part of the A Good Service Badge meant an extra 2 Communications Branch which also pence per day.” includes Telegraphists who send 12 November 2018

We really do have all sorts in the Collection. Sometimes donations come with little providence, connecting it to its past and therefore proving it significance. Sometimes though, it is the story of how it has survived, the mystery of not knowing whose it was or why it was found that forms the story.

This Fencing Foil with a steel blade was found by George and William Simpson in a wall cavity of Kingston House at Kingston Park during renovation. Built in 1840, Kingston House is one of South Australia’s oldest remaining houses. The Kingston Family were powerful figures in the political landscape of their time and generations lived here until the 1920s.

The modern foil is descended from the training weapon for the small-sword, the common sidearm of 18th century gentleman. Although the foil as a blunted weapon for sword practice goes back to the 16th century, the use as a weapon for sport is more recent.

And so the mystery remains. Who owned the foil and why did they hide it in the walls of Kingston House?

OB-KP-0004

Kingston House, Kingston Park Circa 1919. PH-AH-02000. 4 March 2019

In 2019, the History Centre embarked on one of its biggest exhibitions since the opening of the Bay Discovery Centre some twenty years ago, Tiati Wanganthi Kumangka (Truth-Telling Together). Working together with the Kaurna Nation, we commissioned both the Kaurna Shield (Murlapaka), made of bark and using red and white pigment and a Weaving, made of Emu Feathers and Raffia.

The Shield is made by Kaurna man and artist Corey Turner while the weaving is made by Senior Kaurna Elder, Lynette Crocker.

You can see both items on display at our Bay Discovery Centre Museum in Glenelg.

Holdfast Bay History Collection.

Mayor Amanda Wilson and Senior Kaurna Elder at the opening of Tiati, 2019. Our last acquisition in the register

28 February 2020

The Centre accepted a new donation in early 2020 but unfortunately we still can’t tell you exactly what it is. We did however receive Federal funding to support the purchase. There are two pieces, both textiles, and they once belonged to a Brighton identity.

We look forward to displaying both textiles at our museum, the Bay Discovery Centre, in late 2020. The Holdfast Bay History Centre aims to promote an awareness of our City’s history and heritage. The Centre collects and preserves material relating to the Holdfast Bay area with a strong focus on the people, buildings and events of the area. The majority of the Centre’s objects, photographs and documents have been donated by people who wished to see their precious items preserved for future generations to enjoy.

You can browse items within the collection through the Library Catalogue: http://bit.ly/CHBlibrary

Holdfast Bay History Centre Ringwood House 14 Jetty Road Brighton 08 8229 9916 [email protected] www.holdfast.sa.gov.au/BDC /BayDiscoveryCentre /CityofHoldfastBay