Heritage Newsletter Jan-Feb 2009
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HERITAGE NEWSLETTER OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ORGANISATIONS INC. NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2010 ISSUE No. 12 STATE GOVERNOR OPENS NEW WING AT HOBBY’S REACH The Governor of NSW, Professor Marie Bashir, AC, CVO recently officially opened the Sadler Wing at Hobby’s Reach Centre, the home of Blue Mountains Historical Society. Building of the new wing was made possible because of a bequest from the late Geoff Sadler, a former treasurer, membership secretary and public officer with the assistance of ArtsNSW. The new wing contains Geoff’s extensive book collection also gifted to the society. Speaking at the opening, society president, Graham Warmbath, said: “Now we have a lending library as well as a dedicated research collection and interpretation of historical information. “Hobby’s Reach research centre houses local, personal and business histories, books, photographs, maps and provides information for authors, historians, Council’s Heritage Review students and community groups. by Felicity Blaxland - Senior “It is open to the public every week of LEP 1991 Strategic Planner, BMCC of the year and is attended by a Firstly, I would like to introduce LEP 1991 and the investigations research officer and librarian, both myself as a new team member of into the formation of a heritage volunteers,” said Mr Warmbath. the City Planning Branch of Blue advisory committee. Mountains City Council (BMCC) Among the new acquisitions for the to your organisation and other Council staff have been progressing society’s library are three books historical societies in the Blue a heritage review to support a published as part of the celebration Mountains who may read this proposed Amendment to LEP 1991. of 150 years of self-government in newsletter. A number of items and conservation NSW. areas have been recommended to I commenced with council in be listed as having local heritage Pictured is Professor Bashir February this year as a senior significance through heritage unveiling a commemorative strategic planner and have been studies undertaken by Associate plaque with former Mayor, Cr working in local government for Professor Ian Jack and Associates. Adam Searle in the background. the past 10 years in various positions including both Further research on other For contents of this development assessment and significant areas has been strategic planning roles. Since completed this year by Dr Jim edition of HERITAGE joining BMCC I have become Smith. A grant received from the see page 2 more involved with heritage Heritage Office of the Department of related projects such as the Planning has assisted funding of review of heritage items under this work. Continued page 12 HERITAGE 1 November - December 2010 Contents......... From the president’s pen...... HERITAGE November-December We remember those who 2010 were slaughtered in battles *1 State Governor opens new wing at Hobby’s planned by stupid generals Reach *1 Council’s Heritage War is abhorrent to most decent The excavation would later provide a Review human beings. Down through the ages vivid and startling glimpse into the *2 We remember those there has always been and most horror of World War 1 as the bodies who were slaugthered in probably always will be war. had been preserved in the same battles planned by stupid position they were thrown into the generals There should never be any future mass grave. *3 ‘Only in Australia can attempts to glorify war. men read their name on a World War 1 was a military conflict war memorial’ However, we must honour those who centered on Europe that began in the *4 The Light Horse made the supreme sacrifice on the summer of 1914. The fighting ended Interchange battlefields, often in foreign lands. in late 1918. *4 Woodford Academy student survived We must also respect the wishes of More than 70 million military Beersheba charge those loved ones left behind and their personnel, including 60 million *5 ‘The rainy season has descendants who may wish to Europeans, were mobilised in one of begun and the cold cuts recognise these heroes and ordinary the largest wars in history. us through’ soldiers with Remembrance services, *7 Their names are on the marches, wreath laying ceremonies More than 9 million combatants were honour roll at Glenbrook and other activities on special days. killed, due largely to great Primary School technological advances in firepower *8 A Springwood soldier This edition of HERITAGE features without corresponding ones in laid to rest at Fromelles 94 articles about World War 1. years later mobility. *9 One man’s These articles are not so much about A generation of innocent young men, dedication the battlefields, but rather about local *10 Two Woodford their heads full of high abstractions men who served – some came back brothers killed like Honour, Glory and Country, went and others now lay buried in foreign *11 More than just an old off to war to make the world safe for building fields. democracy. *13 The Cambodian These articles are published near to exhibition -- Hurry, Hurry, They were slaughtered in stupid Hurry, No time to lose Remembrance Day observed around battles planned by stupid generals at *15 Welcome to new the world by those nations who the behest of egotistical politicians. member soon to celebrate participated in this horrific conflict. 25 years existence Those who survived were shocked, *15 Obituary - Hugh Traditionally these services are disillusioned and embittered by their th th Bickford conducted on the 11 hour, of the 11 war experiences, and saw that their *16 Doug Knowles elected month of the year, the Armistice as it real enemies were not the Germans, to lead Glenbrook was then known having been signed at but the old men at home who had lied Historical Society that time in 1918. to them. *16 History of Lawson Hall should not be ignored These well researched stories also They rejected the values of the *17 Honorary life member- touch on the anguish of those left society that had sent them to war, and ship for two at Mt Wilson behind – mothers, wives and girl in doing so separated their own *17 Professsor Reynolds friends; the emotions– the pain of generation from the past and from takes leave separation, the grief of loss and the their cultural inheritance. *18 Glen Davis great joy of reunion. *18 Book launched at Irish Unlike many of its Allies, in World War gaol They touch on the discovery of the 1, Australia did not conscript its *19 Elevating the mass grave, pinpointed through the soldiers to fight in the Great War - all empancipist research of a Victorian school teacher, Australian soldiers were volunteers. Lambis Englezos. It was to be the war to end all wars. The work of Englezos an amateur historian, was confirmed in 2008 by a John Leary, OAM team of archaeologists led by Dr Tony President, Blue Mountains Pollard of Glasgow University. Association of Cultural Heritage Organisations Inc. HERITAGE 2 November - December 2010 ‘Only in Australia can men read their name on a war memorial’ This article is an extract from a presentation by, Arthur Delbridge at the 2007 Remembrance Day memorial service held at the war memorial in Mt Wilson. Arthur is a former president of Mt Wilson and Mt Irvine Historical Society and early this year was awarded honorary life membership of that organisation. Professor Delbridge in 1987 was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in recognition of his service to education particularly in the field of linguistics and as editor-in chief of the Macquarie Dictionary. The Mt Wilson, Mt Irvine and Bell returned soldier, a notable classical “Comparatively a smallish number. Soldiers Memorial was erected in scholar who had been gassed in the But it reflects the fact that a high Mt Wilson in 1919 and in 2001 two Great War. proportion of those volunteers came societies the village’s Progress and from the faculties of medicine and Historical, began a series of “He had the most cracked voice, the engineering: they were directed to services of remembrance. most awful fits of coughing, the serve where their special skills were worst temper and the sweetest needed. Mt Wilson resident, Arthur smile at unexpected moments –he Delbridge, AO presented the was a post-war wreck physically, a “When in the early 1920s Sydney addresses for the first years while returned soldier who never got over University began to plan its Alison Halliday is carrying on in his experience of war. memorial it was ‘for those who have Arthur’s tradition. The following is given their lives...as well as for an extract from Mr Delbridge’s “Fred Mann and George Valder both those who have voluntarily engaged address in 2007. came back to Mt Wilson. Both of in active military or naval service’. them could have read their own “I believe it was a response to a names on our memorial, and “What the university finished up with feeling shared around the Australian possibly did. for its WW1 memorial was a carillon community that war and the other of 47 bells fitted into its clock tower faces of terror were necessarily now “But Professor Inglis, in Sacred to be played from a rather special bulking larger and more urgently in Places stated quite firmly that ‘Only sort of keyboard. our consciousness than they had in Australia could most men, home for some time past. from the war, read their own names “I could speak at length about the on its memorials’. Elsewhere, various ways, from that day to this, “As a result the national official especially in Europe memorials that the carillon has kept alive the memorial services in our cities were were exclusively to the dead and memorial function it was intended to becoming ever better attended, and the “missing”.